So does my father.
“I’ll go get Tucker,” Wyatt says to Monica.
“Oh, we’ll bring him home,” my mom says quickly. “He’s having so much fun.”
He’s drinking root beer and completely missing all of his dart throws, which is about the cutest thing I’ve seen all day.
“Out! Out!” somebody suddenly crows. One of the wandering goats has wandered into the bar.
“Goats a normal part of the festival?” Wyatt asks.
Grady Rock pauses on his way to the animal and shakes his head. “Never. Don’t know where the damn—darn things came from.”
“They’re homeless goats?” Dad asks.
Grady leans down and gets it by its horns. “Or somebody over in Sarcasm sent them,” he mutters.
“Wouldn’t they have unicorn horns if Sarcasm sent them?” I ask.
He glares at me. “You’re lucky you’re cute, or you’d be really annoying.”
“They could be wild goats,” Wyatt points out. “Nomadic mountain goats. Psychic nomadic mountain goats come down to make sure you don’t call very nice women annoying.”
Mom coughs to cover a laugh when Grady pins him with a look. “So let’s move the goats to your bedroom and see how you feel.”
“Aren’t they the cutest, Chris? We should take one home,” Mom says to Dad.
“Nomadic mountain goats wouldn’t take well to domestication,” he replies.
“Dad! Dad! Can we keep a goat?” Tucker barrels over, wedding cake frosting on his cheek. I wipe it off while Wyatt shakes his head.
“Your mother would kill me. You ready to go, or do you want to stay a while? I have to take Miss Ellie home.”
Tucker frowns at me. “Does your leg hurt, Miss Captain Ellie?”
“Just a little,” I tell him.
“I got a cut on my finger.” He shoves the digit an inch from my nose, and I draw back to peer at the pinprick-size dot of red on his middle finger.
“Did you get in a sword fight with toothpicks?” I ask.
His eyes go wide. “How did you know?”
“That’s how I get all my best cuts.”
“Tucker?” Wyatt asks.
“I wanna stay. Me and Sophia’s gonna play darts some more and pet the goats.”
Grady groans as he wrestles one goat out, but two more come in.
“You be good for Mr. and Mrs. Ryder, understand?”
“Yeah, Dad!”
He catches the little boy by the hips before he can dart away. “And when they say it’s time to go, it’s time to go. Yes, sir?”
“Yes, sir. Can I go play darts now?”
“Hug first.”
Tucker launches himself at Wyatt and squeezes. “Love you, Dad.”
“Love you too, bud.”
He scampers off, and Wyatt shoots a look at my parents. “He’s a little sugared up.”
“Psh. I raised Beck. I can handle Tucker on a little sugar.” She and Wyatt trade keys so we don’t have to swap Tucker’s booster seat.
“I’m becoming displeased,” Monica says.
“Want me to toss them, babe?” Jason asks.
“Yes.”
“We’re going,” Wyatt tells them, pulling me to my feet. He frowns, and shakes his head as he looks at me. “Nope. Not that way.”
“What—” I start, but before I can finish, he’s hefted me over his shoulder again like a sack of potatoes.
“Leg okay?” he asks.
“This is really annoying.”
“I’m so tempted to slap your ass, but that would be a bad example for my kid.”
“And my parents are watching.”
“I know. Your dad’s glaring at me.”
I manage to shuffle around until I can see my dad’s upside-down face.
And Dad’s not glaring.
Nope.
If anything, he’s watching me like he’s realized his baby girl is all grown up. “Drive careful,” he says gruffly to Wyatt.
“Always,” Wyatt replies.
And despite that lingering fear that something terrible is waiting around the corner, because holy hell, that was quite the orgasm Wyatt gave me before the reception, I’m not the least bit concerned about making it back up to the house safe and sound.
It’s Wyatt.
Dependable, reliable, smokin’ hot, likes me Wyatt.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call you back,” I tell him as we leave The Grog.
He doesn’t ask when.
Nope.
“You needed your energy to kick recovery’s ass,” he replies.
I could argue that I owed him an hour of my time. That it wasn’t nice of me to let him worry. Or any other argument in the world.
Instead, I murmur, “Speaking of asses….” and take advantage of being carried over his shoulder, which puts me in a great spot to not only ogle his, but also squeeze it.
His pace speeds up, and there I go again, laughing.
I haven’t laughed this much in ages.
And all it took was learning not to hate Wyatt.
Who knew?
Twenty-Five
Ellie
We ride in companionable silence up to the house.
Holding hands.
While my heart pounds in my throat.
Everything’s different, but it’s also right.
Wyatt knows my cranky sides. My stubborn sides. My ugly sides. He knows what he’s in for.
And he wants it anyway.
Despite who I am at my worst.
And he’s not pretending to be anyone he’s not either. I know this side of Wyatt. I’ve seen him with my brother. With the other guys we grew up with. With their sisters.
With Tucker.
Even with Lydia.
The difference is, he doesn’t hold back with me.
He lets me see his ugly sides too.
He’s barely turned the car off in the garage before I lean across and grab him by the shirt and pull him in for a kiss.
I’ve always hated that Wyatt always seems to know exactly how to do everything.
That hatred does not extend to how well he kisses.
No, I’m seriously enjoying that right now. From my roots to my toes. Every bit of me is lit up, turned on, and ready.
“Ellie,” he gasps, pulling back. “Inside.”
“Race you.”
“Okay, gimpy.”
“Oooh, you—”
I cut myself off, because he’s flinging open the car door, and there is no way I’m not even putting up a fight.
Or maybe I’ll fight dirty.
“Wyatt? I don’t think I can walk by myself.”
I bat my eyelashes.
He snorts with laughter.
I grin.
And he circles the car to pull me out. We stand toe-to-toe, belly-to—huh.
“That’s not your belly,” I whisper.
He looks down between us. “No, it’s not.”
“So it’s not some kind of intestinal protrusion either?”
“You are a pain in the ass,” he says with a laugh, and then I’m up in his arms—not over his shoulder, but cradled close to his chest while I loop my fingers together behind his neck.
I press a kiss to the pulsing vein under his rugged jawline.
“You don’t suck at that,” he says huskily, so I kiss him again. Except this time I graze my teeth over the throbbing vein and follow it with a quick swipe of my tongue.
He stumbles through the door and puts me on the ground. “Do you know what I need?” he growls.
I arch my belly into his hard length. “I have an idea.”
He nods. “That’s right. Strip darts.”
My eyes jerk wide, and he grins. “C’mon, Ellie. You’ve gotta earn this body.”
“Oh, those are fighting words,” I say, my own smile growing in direct proportion to the arousal pinging through my veins.
Strip darts.
This is going to be fun.
I take the lead, ignoring the twinge and fatigue in my leg to pull him down the hall and around the corner into the game room. I hit the lights, and he instantly turns the knob to dim them.
“Ah, a real challenge,” I say softly, drawing my fingertips down the corded muscles on his forearms. “Throwing pointy objects in the dark.”
“Guess you’ll have to trust me not to miss.”
I let him grab the darts out of the board while I lean against the pool table, and when he returns, he hands me the set. “Ladies first.”
“Oh, no, I’m much more motivated at seeing what I’m working toward. Gentlemen first.”
The challenge in his smile is pure Wyatt, but it’s also…more.
“Rules?” I ask.
“One of us gets a bullseye, the other takes something off.”
“And one of us misses, we take something off.”
“In a hurry?”
“With the way you play darts, I’d never get my shoes off if I had to wait for you to hit a bullseye.”
“Prepare to lose your socks, Ellie Ryder.”
He throws his first dart, and it impales the wall six inches to the left of the board. “Bullseye,” he declares.
I shriek with surprised laughter. He grins, and pulls off one shoe. “So close,” he declares, and now I’m almost bent double.
His second dart gets closer to the board. “You’re gonna be handing me those pantaloons next,” he says while he kicks off his second shoe.
“Pantaloons?”
He gasps a mock gasp. “You’re not wearing pantaloons? Ellie, did you go to your friend’s wedding commando?”
“You know I didn’t.” But the idea of being commando, of being able to push him to the ground, straddle him, and take him inside me in an instant, is doing exactly what he wants it to do, and my panties are getting soaked again.
He grins like he knows it, and takes aim again.
This time, his dart doesn’t even stick. It bounces off the Dogs Playing Poker poster two feet to the left of the board.
“Damn,” he says, but he doesn’t sound the least bit unhappy.