Change of Hart (Wells Ranch, #3)(41)
Squeezing me tight enough I groaned, he spoke into my hair. “Put the CD in your backpack, we can listen to it in my room after school.”
Then he kissed me, pulling me onto his lap on top of my bed. My pajama shorts rode up my thighs, and his callused hands gripped my bare skin, rocketing electricity up to my groin. We hadn’t done more than some kissing and over-the-clothes touching, but after months of that, I was hungry for more. So I rolled my hips, eliciting a strangled groan from deep in his chest.
“Bear,” he mumbled into my mouth. “We can’t. I need to go or I’ll be grounded for life.”
I glanced past him to the small wall clock above my desk. He was right—already cutting it real close to the time his grandpa typically woke up.
“Soon?” I kissed him desperately.
“As soon as the time is right, baby.”
Within seconds he had slipped out of my window into the still-dark early morning. And I lay spread out on my bed, counting down the minutes until we were holding hands in the school hallway, kissing between classes, and snuggling up on the bus ride to Wells Ranch.
* * *
—
Stalls mucked and various chores done for the day, Denny and I sank to his bedroom floor, backs propped against his bed. I pulled the homemade CD from my backpack and watched as he crawled across the floor to the boombox a few feet away. The muscles in his arms flexed, and I was powerless against the way his butt looked in taut, faded denim. When he settled back in next to me as the first few chords of a familiar country song played, I breathed him in and took a million mental snapshots of the moment.
His thumb circled my knee, and if it weren’t for his parents’ open door rule, I would be jumping his bones.
“This is the perfect playlist.” I let my eyes drift closed, smelling his body wash and feeling the warmth of his arm around me.
Nuzzled into my hair, he whispered, “Dance with me.”
Then he was tugging me to my feet and pulling me tight to his chest. We stumbled for a moment, entirely unable to find the beat.
“You know what we should do?” I ran my hands down his solid arms. “Learn how to dance properly. Like we see people do when there’s live music at the rodeos.”
A smile lit his face, and it wasn’t long before he was searching for how-to videos online. We pulled up a promising-looking tutorial and sat with our eyes glued to the screen for three full run-throughs. Then with a confident nod, Denny stood and held out a hand.
It was horrific. I stepped on his foot, he tripped and hip-checked the dresser. But we laughed. Hysterically. Until tears streamed down our cheeks, and Denver’s face scrunched up with a mixture of frustration and determination. He repeated the words “we’re going to get this” with each screwup. And, for some reason, I believed him. So we kept trying.
Finally figuring out the basic footwork of a two-step, we danced around the small room. Wearing a pattern into the old floorboards, grinning at each other, we didn’t stop until Lucy yelled at us to head downstairs for dinner.
Denny didn’t let me go, though. He pressed his hand to the small of my back, despite the way my shirt had become damp with sweat, and he kissed me deeply.
“Happy birthday, Bear,” he said against my lips.
I held my hands on either side of his square jaw, feeling the sharp bristle of new-to-him facial hair on my palms. “Thank you for the best birthday ever.”
His deep brown gaze met mine, and he relaxed into my touch. “I love you.”
Some would’ve said it was too soon to say those words. Sixteen, dating for approximately four months, and had only told our parents a month prior—when I no longer had rodeo-related reasons to come to the ranch, so we needed to explain why I was still there every day.
But I’d loved Denny Wells since the day he sat with me by the railroad tracks, only cemented by his sweet words and caring gestures since then. So it honestly felt like a long time coming.
“I love you, too, Denver.”
He kissed my nose, cocking a brow. “Denver? You never call me by my full name.”
“One time I read in a CosmoGirl issue that calling a guy by his full name—not a nickname—means you’re in love with him.”
By that measure, I should’ve called him Denver since day one. But when I read the article, I made a mental note to stop calling him Denny once we’d exchanged “I love you’s.”
He chuckled. “I’m not sure that makes sense, but you can call me anything you like.”
I tapped a finger against my chin, faking deep thoughts. “Even Capybara?”
“The hell is that?”
“The largest living rodent,” I stated, and was met by his fingers pinching my sides. I shrieked. “What? They’re cute!”
“Okay, anything but that. I’m not a rodent. How did you—never mind, I know how your mind works. I don’t need to ask where Capybara came from.”
“I just have a constant list—”
“Of random crap running through your mind.”
“Exactly.” I kissed him just as Lucy yelled for us once again, so our arms fell to our sides and he followed me out of the room. “My brain is a bizarre place. Random thoughts freewheeling through my synapses, leaving no room for practical information.”
He kissed me at the top of the stairs. “But that’s why I love you.”