BUCKED Box Set: A Bull Rider Western Romance (19 page)

She closed
her eyes and flipped upside down to dive under the water, again showing me her
ass, which I realized was much paler than the rest of her body—she must have
sunbathed topless at some point that I didn’t know about. After about a minute,
she emerged again, blowing out a deep breath and panting slightly. “Damn, this
lake’s deeper than I thought. I didn’t even get to the bottom.”

“I’m just
surprised that you made it that long without air,” I pointed out.

“I’ve been
singing ever since I could talk. I’ve got lungs of steel!” she exclaimed,
raising out of the water slightly and thumping a fist against her chest. My
eyes darted down and lingered there, apparently longer than I had meant for
them
to
because she snapped her fingers
in my face before allowing herself to sink back to her neck in the water.
“Yoohoo, eyes up here, bub.”

“You’re
going gonna flash your boobs in my face and expect me not to look?” I whined.

“Exactly,”
she declared. With a devious grin, she pushed up out of the water just enough
for me to catch a glimpse, then ducked her head back under again. It was a good
thing she couldn’t see below my
waist
because Noah Jr. instantly stood at attention. I dipped down into the water and
mussed
my hair to push it out of my face.
I always feel the most like a jungle cat when I’m soaking wet, and this
situation called for full-on jungle cat Noah. I
emerged
before she did. A hot flash of panic swept through me because, when I did come
back up, the bubbles that should have been present over her head were not
there.

“Shit!” I
yelled, lunging forward to where I had seen her last. When it dawned on me that
she wasn’t there, I was just about to turn around so I could look
behind
me when she popped up directly in my
face and stuck her tongue out like some kind of stupid whack-a-mole. “Don’t do
that to me!” I
panted
. “I thought you had
drowned or something! Damn!” I told her, splashing a wall of water toward her.
She returned the favor, then lay back on her back and began to kick away from
me, stretching her arms far above her head in an exaggerated backstroke. “Are
you purposely trying to show me your boobs?” I demanded.

“Why?” She
turned and swam back to me so our faces were just about touching. “Does it turn
you on?” she asked, planting a quick kiss on my nose and turned to swim away
again.

“Oh, no
you don’t,” I said, grabbing her around the waist and treading water up to meet
her. I pressed my chest against her
back,
but did my best to keep my pelvis away from her body. I wasn’t about to do
something if I wasn’t two hundred percent sure she was ready for it. I kissed
down her neck and along the top of her shoulders as she twisted to face me. I
gave her a small kiss on the lips before suggesting we swim to where it was
shallower and we could touch the ground so we didn’t have to tread water anymore.
I would never tell her this, but my legs were already starting to get a little
bit fatigued; I didn’t want to think of how difficult it would’ve been to
continue treading water when we really started making
out
like I was fairly certain we were bound to do.

She agreed
and tugged me toward the low bank of the lake. When she came to a stop and
firmly planted her feet, she yanked me close to her again and kissed me deeply.
“You don’t waste any time, do you?” I asked between breathless kisses.

“Shut up,”
she whispered, biting gently on my bottom lip. She wrapped her arms around my
neck, then her legs around my torso. My breath caught in my throat; I was
dangerously close to her in a way that felt wrong.

“Lace,” I
started, pulling away a little bit. “Don’t tease me.”

“I’m not,”
she said, frowning.

“Do you
realize what is right below you right now?”

Keeping
one arm wrapped around my neck, she dropped back down to her feet and grabbed
me. “This?” she said with a sly smile.

I froze.
“Yes, that.” She snickered, then pressed her lips to mine again as she started
to slowly move her hand. I snatched her hand away from my nether region and
threw it around my neck so I could pull her close. Again and again, we kissed,
hot and hungry, allowing the water to swirl around us.

Something
told me she wanted more just as much as I did, but my brain screamed
at m
e to slow things down and not to even try
it. If it were Jaime, I probably would’ve disregarded that little voice in the
back of my head, but I just couldn’t ignore it with Laci. Maybe it was the
level of respect I had for her—I don’t exactly know—but I knew sex would
complicate things even more. We’d already had plenty of complicated by way of
conflict and drama at the start of our relationship. Now that things were going
smoothly, we didn’t need to throw something as heavy as sex into the mix …yet.

Don’t get
me wrong, our hands definitely wandered, but I stopped short of anything rated
R. She clearly noticed my hesitation because when we had both had our fill and had
begun to swim around together, she took a deep breath and asked, “Am I not sexy
enough for you or something?”

I couldn’t
believe what I’d just heard. “What?”

“You heard
me.” She came to a stop and started treading water. I did the same, and she
swam a little closer to me so she could search my eyes. “Am I not sexy?”

“No,
you’re extremely sexy; what the hell would make you think you’re not?”

“It’s just
that I would’ve thought that, during all of that, it would’ve turned into our
first time together. I mean, we’re already naked, for Christ’s sake!”

“Baby,” I
whispered, running my hand through her hair and settling it against the back of
her neck. I kissed her and took her hand. “Come on, let’s talk out there,” I
suggested. After we had waded out of the water and trudged up the hill, I
spread out one of the blankets, laid down on it, then covered up with the other
one. Tucking one arm underneath my head, I patted my chest with the other one.
She lay down
with
me and pulled the
blanket over herself before placing her head on my chest and reaching around to
wrap her arm around my waist. For a few minutes, we just laid there in silence
and stared up at the branches of the tree, where the moonlight was filtering in
through the leaves. When everything felt settled and peaceful, I broke the
silence.

“You wanna
know I didn’t attack you like so much of me wanted to?”

“That’s
why I asked.”

“Because,”
I said, kissing her softly on the forehead, “you deserve better than that.”

“Better
than you?” she countered before kissing my chest and laying her head heavily
back down.

“Better
than our first time being in a dirty lake in a lust-driven stupor.”

“Those are
some fancy words for a cowboy,” she snickered.

“I’m
serious,” I scolded. “I mean that you deserve better than that. I want our
first time to be at the right moment, with candles and rose petals and all of
that cheesy stuff.”

“I didn’t
take you for such a romantic, Noah Tucker.”

“I’m
normally not, but you bring out my inner poet. Things are different with you,
Lace. Unlike they’ve ever been with anyone else. I just can’t bring myself to
allow it to be purely physical with you with no meaning. It’s got to be
perfect.”

“I see,”
she all but whispered. “I’m not sure I understand why, but…”

I laid
there for a minute, holding her, quietly thinking about what I wanted to say
next. Finally, I landed on the exact words that would sum it all up. “I love
you, Laci Daniels.”

She sat up
and looked at me, covering her chest with the blanket as if she suddenly had
some modesty to protect that she didn’t when we were swimming. “What did you
just say?”

For a
split second, I considered rescinding my statement, telling her that I cared
about her or something like that instead, but the look in her eyes wouldn’t let
me be anything but honest with her. So, I repeated myself. “I love you, Laci
Daniels.”

As she lay
back down and curled up closer to me, she responded. “I love you, too,” she
said softly.

I kissed
the top of her head again and wrapped my arms around her. “I know it’s only
been a matter of weeks that we’ve been together, but you bring out something in
me that I didn’t know existed. You’re beautiful, funny, smart, caring, and just
amazing. I didn’t know what I wanted until I met you, but it didn’t take long
to recognize it once it was in front of me. You’re what I want.”

“You know,
I turned
Mark down
just after my
graduation because I thought I didn’t want any kind of relationship at the
moment, but you changed my mind. All of the little things about you add up to
be exactly what I want and honestly, what I need.”

“I love
you,” I repeated. Saying it felt like a weight had been lifted and I just
wanted to tell her a thousand times over.

“Yeah, you
said that,” she said with a light chuckle. “And, for the record, I love you,
too, Noah Tucker. Also, a month isn’t too soon to say you love someone. My mom
always told me when you know, you just know. There’s no set timeframe you have
to wait. As far as I’m concerned, waiting to say it only strains things. It
makes you both wonder what the other one is thinking. I like this much better.
Did I ever tell you my parents were married after dating for two months
?
And, they were inseparable until the
end.
That was twenty-three years ago.”

“What are
you trying to say?” I teased.

“Oh, shut
up. If you’re implying that I think we should get married, you need to slow
your roll.”

“Just
checking,” I sighed. “You have no idea how much courage it took me to tell you
that I love you.”

“I think I
might have an idea.”

We laid
there for another hour or so, just enjoying each other’s company and the
afterglow of saying the “L” word for the first time. Just as I started to drift
off, she sat up. “I’m getting a little chilly,” she said.

“Well,
it’s no wonder,” I murmured. “Considering we’re both naked and laying between
two wet blankets.”

“You add a
little bit of warmth, but still, I think I’m going to put my clothes back on.”

“Fair
enough,” I shrugged and rolled over onto my stomach as she stood up. With a
long stretch, I glanced up to watch her shimmying into her shorts before
hooking her bra in front of her stomach and spinning it around to put on the
proper way. I army crawled for a few inches until I could reach her, then I
grabbed her ankle. “Come back! Come back, I’m lonely!”

“Oh, shut
up,” she said, throwing my shorts so they landed on my face. “Get dressed. I
want to go lay somewhere more comfortable.”

“You
expect me to go commando?” I balked. “My skin is far too sensitive for that.
Gimme my boxers first.”

“And, you
call me the princess. You’re so dramatic,” she said as the whipped them at my
chest.

“Says the
actress,” I responded, wiggling into them while still lying on the blanket.

When we’d
both finished putting our clothes back on, I spread the blankets out
on
the bed of my truck to dry while Laci climbed
into the cab. I joined her, started the engine, and began to drive. Combing her
hair out with her fingers, she was weirdly quiet, even for her.

I reached
out and took her hand. “What’s the matter, babe?”

“What’s
going to happen?”

“We’re
going to go back to my house and cuddle in bed?” I offered.

“I mean in
two weeks. That’s all that’s left before I have to go back home to start
filming. And, don’t you go back out on the circuit?”

“Yeah, but
let’s not think about
th
at.”

“Don’t
tell me not to think about it, Noah. We
have
to think about it. I don’t want to have just told you that I love you and
continue things just to have them fade away when I have to leave.”

“We’ll
talk about it later, babe. For now, let’s just enjoy the moment. Please? I
promise we’ll talk about it; just not tonight.”

She looked
as if she was going to disagree, but decided against it. She
nodded
and turned on the radio. A love song
started to play through the speakers, and instead of changing the station like
I expected her to, she started to sing along, making a few meaningful sideways
glances at me while she did. Her voice was gorgeous; it was obvious that she’d
been singing all her life. Each note that floated from her mouth made it sound
as though it were the only way it was ever meant to be heard. When the last
note had ended, she stared at me as I drove.

“I’ve
never appreciated that song as much as I do now,” she said. “It’s one of those
songs you like and just sing along with mindlessly until you feel the same way
she does.”

Strangely
enough, I knew exactly what she meant. “As cheesy as it sounds, I’ve noticed
that, too. Love songs have had a different meaning to them lately.”