Where It All Began (Phoenix Falls Series)

By the time that we’re parked up outside the garage the interior of the Wrangler is hotter than hell. Kitty has taken the journey to simmer in her rage, so she should be reaching her boiling point any minute now. I, albeit unjustly, have been doing the exact same thing.

I don’t un-strap myself from the seatbelt. God knows I can’t be let loose right now.

Sensing the extent of my insanity Kitty kicks off her cowgirl boots, props her feet up on the dash, and begins drilling her nails on the window ledge. Even in the darkness of the cab I can see that they’re sparkling red.

I keep my eyes on the cabin up ahead so that I don’t have to watch her reaction. Probably a cocktail of disappointment, irritation, and justified feminine rage.

I can’t help but notice that she’s relented though, snuggling her little body inside of my construction hoodie, so maybe all isn’t lost quite yet.

“I’m sorry,” I rasp. My voice comes out low and hoarse. Hopefully she’ll take it as a sign of remorse rather than what it actually is: my fucking sex voice. “That was… that was out of order.”

“Mm.”

Definitely disappointed. I swallow hard.

“When Kaleb told me about you dropping out of college, and that you were gonna be here on your own for a while I-”

“Kaleb told you that?” She spins around in the seat so that she can face me directly, winging her bare legs down from the front of the car and curling them up underneath her shorts. The toes of her pop-socks stick out from beneath her butt.

Now it’s my turn to hold my tongue.

“Mm,” I say, choking the truth back down my throat. Yeah, Kaleb told me. I’m the numbers guy, the person who organises everything that our band does. Any guesses as to why there was a sudden availability in our schedule coinciding so perfectly with Home Alone: Kitty Edition?

I redirect the conversation as far away from the truth as possible. “I’m just here to help Kaleb ensure that you don’t get…” I wave a hand vaguely in the direction of the pastures. “Eaten.”

“Eaten?” she laughs. God, her laugh is pretty.

“Coyotes, bears – don’t act like you don’t know what’s out here. You’re the one who’s lived on this ranch for your whole life, you know how high risk this is.”

“Eaten,” she muses again, this time whispering it like a magic spell.

My mind goes straight down to the gutter, thinking about all of the other ways that she could get eaten.

“I didn’t expect anyone to be watching over me whilst my mom and dad are away,” she says, eyes glazed over as she looks at the ranch in front of us. “And I don’t need protecting.”

She arches her neck, tilting her head back against the seat.

“It’s kind that Kaleb came by, but I think that you being here is going to cause problems.”

A knife twists in my chest as I take in how sincere she sounds.

“For me and for you,” she amends. “I don’t want you to lose Kaleb over, like, a summer fling. If he catches us… having a moment or something-”

That grabs my attention. I lock my eyes in with hers and her lips part as she nervously tries to backtrack.

Too fucking late.

“So it’s on the cards?” I ask. Give a dog a bone and all. “Me and you, this summer. If we’re careful-”

“That’s like the opposite of what I just said. Kaleb – your best friend, my brother – will cut you off like this” – she snaps her fingers to emphasise her point – “if he thinks that something’s going on between us.” She runs a hand through her hair and it spills like silk through her fingers. “Years of friendship, gone. Bye bye band.”

Bye bye balls is more like it.

“It’s worth it to me – you’re worth it to me.” I un-strap my seatbelt and twist my abdomen so that I can face her, hooking my bicep around the back of my headrest.

Her eyes drop to my chest and her lashes flutter light-headedly.

Ah Jesus, this is not a good time for her to start waning on me – if I catch a whiff that she’s even slightly tempted right now I’m about to become the worst best friend of all time.

“Eyes up here, princess,” I tease, trying not to enjoy her perusal so damn much.

She looks shyly up at me, her brow pinched with embarrassment. Then she looks down at her lacquered nails, pretending to study them.

“This isn’t supposed to happen,” she whispers, her voice nervous. “You’re my brother’s best friend. I’m supposed to be, like, your arch nemesis.”

I take a deep inhale as my eyes trail down her little body.

And what will you be arching exactly? my brain interjects. Your back?

I steel my jaw, forcing my mouth to stay shut.

“And you’re only going to be here for a couple of weeks, right?” she asks, now twiddling with the lace trim on her socks.

“Three weeks.” I blurt it out too fast, my voice way too deep for a conversation outside of the bedroom.

She nods, still avoiding my eyes. “So it couldn’t be a real thing anyway, because you’ll be back on tour soon.”

I scan my eyes all over her, trying to accurately determine what it is that she’s feeling. Does she sound… disappointed right now? Is she disappointed that I’ll be leaving again?

I can’t let myself believe that.

But I’ll take whatever I can get with her.

“It can be anything that you want it to be,” I say, shifting a little closer to her and trying to ignore how edible she smells. “I’ll do anything you want me to,” I promise, gently tucking two fingers underneath her chin.

She looks up at me, those unbelievable eyes of hers twinkling with uncertainty and need and hope. “But Kaleb can’t know,” she whispers. Then she twists her lips to the side and adds, “And we’ll have to be really freaking sneaky.”

I bite back my smile. This is going to be the best summer of my life.

“Of course,” I say, ducking down a little further towards her perfect parted lips. “Anything you want.”

Her hands move down to my abs but then she surprises me because instead of pulling me closer she gives me a hard shove. I look down to where her nails are digging into the cotton of my shirt and my muscles flex with arousal.

When I glance up at her confused, she says, “Not here. Cameras.”

What? As if that explains anything.

“Cameras?” I ask, looking out of the window behind her to see if I can get a glimpse at what she’s talking about.

“Because of the land, and the animals,” she explains, but I’m only half hearing her because her fingers are still exploring the muscles of my lower abdomen. I’m losing my breath and she’s not even touching my bare skin.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a woman but fuck if this isn’t the horniest that I’ve ever felt in my whole damned life.

“Okay,” I say thickly, swallowing like I’m parched. I can’t even remember what she just said.

When I hear the musical chime of her laughter my attention is drawn back inside the car. She’s giggling, probably because she can tell that she’s got a six-four ranch-hand buckling at her mercy, and I can’t help but smile back at her.

I look down at her hands again, sliding dangerously close to my belt.

“You teasing me?” I ask, mouth lifted up at the corners.

She grins back at me. “Yeah,” she whispers, cheeks flushed with mischief.

“Maybe I should return the fav-”

Before I can finish my sentence we hear the whiz of a car flash by.

She instantly pulls away from me, scrambling to the far edge of her seat in fear that it’s Kaleb. Not gonna lie, that stings.

I look out at the back of the car, scoping it to see if it’s Chase bringing Kaleb back, but I know in reality that it’s way too early for that.

But the damage is already done. Kitty’s so spooked she’s sitting on her hands.

“Rules,” she says suddenly. She sounds a little out of breath after her tentative exploration and my shaft grows heavier, aching in my boxers. “We need to make some ground rules for whilst you’re here.”

I nod. Anything to keep her talking. Anything to keep her in this car with me.

“If we’re gonna… if there’s the potential that we might…” Her sentences hang in the air as she chews on her bottom lip, trying to find the right words. Then she flashes me a pained look. “No girls.”

I blink at her. Huh?

“Like, no other girls,” she says, as if that’s clarifying anything for me.

“Other girls?” I repeat, feeling clueless.

Then it clicks.

“Kitty,” I sigh. I want to scoop my arms around her back, pull her into my lap, and show her how serious I am right now, but I also don’t want to scare her with too much contact too soon. Instead I opt for clutching the sides of the seat around her, keeping her safely inside the confines of my arms, and she bites at her lip as my body heat envelops her. I try not to notice how fast her chest is heaving, her small curves trying to send my rationality into shut-down. “I’m not interested in any other girls. Look at me. I don’t want anyone else.”

She mutters something that sounds an awful lot like “for now” and her little lip juts out miserably.

“Kitty.” Her eyes flash up to mine and they hit me like a bolt of lightning. “Only you, okay? It’s always only you.”

She considers my words for a couple of seconds and then I see a baby dimple appear in her cheek, her lips lifting at the corners. “’Kay,” she mutters, the smile in her voice letting me know that she’s sated.

I’m psyching myself to lean down and kiss her when a thought pops into my head. A thought that makes my triceps twitch.

“And will you do the same for me?” I ask, my shoulders swelling with envy at the thought of her seeing other guys. Yeah, I’m still thinking about Tyler’s bottle in her mouth, and I have every intention of obliterating every last trace of him.

Her smile widens. Devil woman. “No girls?” she asks coyly. “I can’t make any promises.”

I groan, leaning further forward. I swear that this car has shrunk by fifty inches. “No guys or girls,” I reply, stipulating the fine print because I am one jealous motherfucker, and I’m not giving Little Miss Bisexual a get-out clause.

“Fine,” she sighs, rolling her eyes, but I can tell that she’s joking from the way that she’s nibbling back a smile again. “No guys, no girls… and we have to be really careful. Like, nothing over the friendship line if Kaleb’s in the vicinity. No touching, no… no kissing.” She glances up at me as if she’s nervous to voice her thoughts, not knowing that me hearing her talk about us kissing is music to my ears.

Then she shatters the illusion real quick.

“So maybe we should start off as friends, to see if there’s anything to build on anyway.”

My heart misses a beat. Then another.

I’m almost a cadaver by the time I choke out the word, “Friends?”

I officially have a least favourite word.

She nods eagerly and another dagger works its way into my flesh. “If we keep it as friends to start with then maybe it won’t be so weird for Kaleb if we seem a little closer, or if we decide to… if maybe it isn’t just for…” She trails off, not allowing me to hear where she was going.

I submit anyway. “Yeah, okay, of course. Whatever you want. Just friends.” For now.

“I know you aren’t staying for long but I think that we should take it slow, especially because it’s a secret and all.”

She’s twiddling with her socks again so I wrap my hands around her fingers, stilling them from their agitated work. I dip my head down to hers so that our foreheads can gently touch. She giggles a bit when my fringe tickles over her.

“Two friends with a secret,” I whisper, so very aware of how close we are to kissing right now. So very tempted to suggest the option of friends who make out. A lot.

“A secret,” she whispers back, her eyes shutting serenely. The curled tips of her lashes brush against the apples of her cheeks.

I rub my thumbs up the backs of her wrists and a happy shudder ripples through her.

Yeah. This is definitely not going to be just another summer fling.