It occurs to me that I don’t want to hurt Pippa—no matter the simple yet complicated past between us when I know I’ve done just that—hurt her—with the words I’ve said while lashing out.
Her horse lets out an annoyed sigh, bringing me back to reality. Pippa stares down at me with anger—and hurt—in her eyes. I’m used to the anger. I’m not used to the hurt. It makes my chest feel heavy to see the disappointment. If only she knew how badly I wanted to kiss her. That the reason I stopped wasn’t anything to do with her and everything to do with me—as cliché as that sounds.
“Stop staring at me,” she insists, not looking me in the eye. “Get on,” she adds at the last minute, her tone full of exhaustion.
I don’t blame her. She wasn’t wrong when she’d called me hot and cold. I’m all over the place when it comes to her—something I’m not used to in the slightest.
My eyes travel the length of the horse. I know little to nothing about horses and the gear you use to ride one, but the saddle perched on the horse’s back doesn’t look like it’s made for two. “Where do I go?”
Pippa inches forward in the saddle, her strong thighs squeezing the sides of the horse. I’d love to feel those same thighs wrapped around me, squeezing my hips as she writhed in pleasure.
The last thing I should want on this planet is to have her body molded to mine. Maybe this was all part of her plan. If she really did hate me, the number one way to torture me would be to have her pressed up against me, her soft, warm body grinding against mine with every move of the horse, her usual smell of strawberries and vanilla taunting me.
Pippa’s hand reaches down, her small fingers with lilac-purple fingernails wiggling in the air. I focus on the color of her nails, shocked that something about her isn’t pink. Everything I know of her is pink. Her coffee shop. Her work van. The lids of the coffee cups. The T-shirts at work. The neon sign on the wall of Wake and Bake. It seems different for her to choose any other color for her nails.
“Are you going to take my hand and get on, or are we just going to stand here all day?” She doesn’t bother hiding her annoyed tone, not that I blame her. I’d be annoyed with me, too. In fact, I am annoyed with myself. But only because it will take an act of God to have my body molded to hers and not touch her in all the ways I’d fantasized about.
“I hate this,” I mutter, taking a step closer. Completely ignoring her outstretched hand, I grab the back of the saddle to heave myself up. She pulls her leg from the stirrup, allowing me to put the toe of the boot in and mount the horse.
“I hate you,” she snaps, attempting to scoot further up the saddle. My thighs straddle hers, my cock pressing up against her perfect, round ass.
“Let’s just not talk,” I demand. My jaw hurts from clenching it so hard. The sound of my teeth grinding is the thing I’m focusing on to keep myself from moving at all. If I move, my cock brushes her ass. If my cock brushes her ass, I’ll get even harder than I already am. If I get even harder than I already am, I might pull her off the horse and fuck her just to see if that’ll get rid of the bubbling sexual tension between us.
“You’re awfully angry for someone who put us in this situation in the first place.” She clicks her tongue, guiding the horse forward.
Fuck me. Every time the horse moves, it shuffles her body into mine. I’m so horny that even the brush of her against me has me sucking in air, trying to focus on breathing instead of envisioning all the filthy things I want to do to her.
“I said no talking.”
She laughs, arching her back way more than necessary. Is she fucking with me?
She rolls her hips again, confirming that she’s doing it on purpose.
What the actual fuck.
I sigh, trying not to feed into her little game. I can’t even spar with her right now. My focus is on mastering the willpower to not act on every dirty thought running through my mind.
What is wrong with me? I don’t even like her. I tolerate her at best because although I hate to admit it, she did show me some redeeming qualities about the town. Yet, all I can think about is threading my fingers through the long hair that falls down her back. I’d tug on it, forcing her to arch her back as far as it could go as I railed into her from behind.
“Hey, Camden?”
“Hm?”
“You don’t tell me what to do.” Her tone is sweet and innocent. Her hips are anything but. There’s no way they need to rock against me in the way that they are. Surely she’s doing it on purpose to get back at me. “You’re stuck with me. What a perfect time to talk about what the hell just happened earlier. Are you this hot and cold with everyone?”