There are a few minutes of laughing and bantering back and forth in the truck before Lily turns to ask if we're headed to my cabin.
"You said you didn't want to be seen in public with me."
"I did not say it like that," she protests, shaking her head. "Not exactly."
"It's alright. I'm not offended in the least that you want to keep me your dirty little secret." Lily punches me playfully in the arm. "Your boy toy."
"Stop," she says, laughing.
"Your sex slave."
"You wish you were my sex slave."
"Yes, ma'am, I do."
"You know, this is like the beginning of every bad thriller ever," she notes as we turn down Burnt Pine Road and begin the winding climb up the mountain.
"Bad thriller?" I ask. "I was hoping it was more like awesome porno."
"Very romantic," she says. "This is the part of the thriller where the girl goes to the remote mountain cabin with the questionable man and you scream at the screen, 'No, don't do it!'"
"Who are you calling questionable?"
She laughs, but she doesn't answer.
"I'm kidding. This isn't the start of a porno," I say, pausing. "Unless you want it to be, I mean."
"We'll see how the date goes."
"That sounds promising," I admit. "Just so you know, I do put out on dates."
She laughs. "Just the words I wanted to hear."
I cover her thigh with my palm, keeping myself from not sliding it further until it's between her legs the way I want to do. She shifts at my touch, squirming the way I know she does when she's turned on. It's all I can do to keep my eyes on the road and refrain from pulling over to the side to debauch her. But I'm determined to have a real date, the kind I think she wants. Something respectable, that shows her I'm not just trying to land her in bed.
I'm definitely trying to land her in bed, though. It's just that – and this is a surprise to me — I think I want more from her.
"We're almost there." I put my hand back on the steering wheel and clear my throat.
"What made you pick a cabin way up here?" she asks.
I shrug. "I wanted to be alone, I guess. Didn't want to be bothered with people."
She nods. "Yet you decided to keep coming down to the bakery and bugging me."
"You didn't annoy me."
She laughs. "I definitely couldn't say the same thing about you."
"I only annoyed you because you were so hot for me. Just admit it."
"Fine. I was a little bit hot for you."
"I knew it."
"Don't let that knowledge go to your head." I snort, and she laughs. "Don't even say it."
"I said nothing."
"You were going to ask which head I meant."
"You have a dirty mind." I make my voice as innocent-sounding as possible, when in reality my mind is as far from innocent as it can be. I force my eyes back onto the road, and definitely not on Lily and the way her long legs look in that little floral dress. Or the way her light blue button-down sweater should make her look more conservative but somehow fails to do so, making her look sultry and sexy instead and failing to disguise the way the fitted top drops low on her breasts. Her hair falls down her shoulders, one lock across the front of her chest, the tip disappearing just inside the top of her dress. I want to follow it with my fingers, then slip that cardigan off her shoulders. . .
I clear my throat, shifting in the seat to disguise the fact that I'm getting a hard-on just thinking about undressing her. I'm trying to behave myself, to show her that I'm not a complete and total Neanderthal.
I'm completely screwed.
We pull into the driveway. "Your cabin looks really nice."
I spent yesterday finishing up all my of unfinished projects and cleaning up the cabin so it would be suitable for a date -- at least, the kind of date I think a woman like Lily should have. I lined the driveway with solar lights and strung lighting over the back deck.
Luke helped me create a dinner menu today and prep all of the ingredients. That's right. A fucking dinner menu. One that doesn't include something I hunted. All right, but it does include fish I caught from the river early this morning.
Can't take the mountain out of the man entirely.
Opening the passenger side of the truck, I take Lily's hand as she steps out, my heart suddenly starting to thump faster. Shit, I'm nervous more nervous than when I showed up at her house. I'm definitely more nervous than when I was fucking her.
Why the hell am I so nervous all of a sudden?
She pauses in the middle of the driveway, looking up. "The sky is just so. . . big out here."
"Yep. I like to sit on the deck at night." Standing behind her, I draw her against me, my hand sliding to her abdomen, and she shivers. My cock twitches and I try to focus on anything except the way she smells when I breathe her in something just barely floral, lilac I think.
"I bet the view of the stars out here is just fantastic at night."