“Nope. Not at all.” They shared a look that must have required a vagina to understand as I hooked a hand under Dixie’s elbow and gave her a tug towards the road.

“We need to hit the road early if we’re gonna make it to Lowry with enough time for me to swing by the hospital and see Elma Mae before they release her.” What I needed to do was get her somewhere alone and private so I could get my head around all the ways the dynamic between us had just shifted. I was starting to settle into the idea of having her as a friend, a friend I wanted to fuck but still a friend. None of what happened inside or outside of that honky-tonk felt very friendly. It felt like the start of something that was going to kill me when I had to finish it.

Dixie gave a sloppy nod and waved at the still-smiling cocktail server. She let me wrap an arm around her shoulders and hold her to my side as we made our way back towards the cabin-like motel.

“She’s used to it. Before Rome put up cameras in the bar I can’t tell you how many times I would walk out the back door and stumble onto something that should be on cable late at night.” She gave a little giggle that made me think the tequila was still thick in her blood. “Rome can’t ever fire me because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked in on him and Cora doing stuff that leads to all those babies they have.”

I grunted and hauled her even closer to my side. “You deserve more than a quick fuck in a back office or up against the side of the bar.” She deserved a guy that would be careful with her and give her back all the goodness she handed out so freely.

She dug an elbow into my side and pushed until I let her go. She stumbled closer to the edge of the street than I was comfortable with, so I pulled her back but she immediately shook my hand off her arm.

“Sometimes it isn’t about who deserves what. Sometimes it’s simply about what makes you happy. Sometimes it’s okay to take what you can get and be satisfied with that because you know more will eventually come along.” She cut me a look out of the corner of her eye and then let out a deep sigh. “Let’s just call it too much temptation and too much tequila.”

What had just happened between the two of us was the most selfless I’d ever had any woman be with me. Sure, I’d had other mouths attached to pretty girls wrapped around my cock, but it had never felt as personal and as important as it felt with Dixie. And none of them had looked at me like I was doing them some kind of courtesy by allowing them to suck me off. I sighed, louder and much more exasperatedly than she had. “You make me feel like you getting me off with the best blow job I’ve ever had was me doing you some kind of favor. Believe me, the pleasure was all mine.”

She gave her head a little shake, which sent her captured curls bouncing, and I wanted to punch myself in the nuts for the way her eyes filled with shadows of sadness. “Fair warning before we fall into that bed together, if you put your hands and your mouth on me, Church, I’m going to want more. My stupid heart is going to spin big dreams that lock you and me together forever even though my head knows better. You gave me the little bit you just did and I can already feel every single piece of me is wanting to gobble it up and demand more. I’m happy right now, but if you take me to bed and make me feel special I won’t be happy when I realize that isn’t true. I’d rather stay happy and if I had to guess I would bet you want to stay happy, too.” Her lips twitched and she leaned into me. “Well, as happy as a big, broody former soldier and prodigal son can get.”

Her words stabbed at me with the unvarnished and unsheathed truth. “Everything inside of me is screaming that I need to give you what you gave me, pretty girl.”

She gave me a smile that nearly broke my heart in half. “I’m not looking for you to balance the scales by giving me as many orgasms as I give you. I put your cock in my mouth because I wanted it there. I’ve been thinking about how you would taste on my tongue and getting myself off imagining everything that is you for fucking forever. I didn’t go down on you because I wanted you to owe me anything, I went down on you because I saw my shot to live out a fantasy and I took it.”

I let her pull away from me and when we got into the cabin she silently disappeared into the bathroom. When she came out much later she was freshly showered and smelled like orange and honey. Her curls hung down to the middle of her back with the weight of the water still stuck in them and all she had on was her tank top and a pair of black boy-short panties that covered more than a bikini bottom would but made my cock jolt nonetheless.

“You want me to crash on the floor?” It was the least I could do since she wanted me to keep my hands to myself. Chivalry sucked and I really wanted to be less than gentlemanly at the moment. But she told me she wanted to stay happy and I couldn’t bring myself to do anything to mess with that even if she looked delectable and sweet enough to eat.

She shook her head in the negative. “Nope, but don’t take it personally when I build a pillow fortress around myself. I’m a middle-of-the-night cuddler.”

I wanted her to cuddle me … naked. She crawled under the covers and surrounded herself with all the extra pillows on the bed. There wasn’t a chance that we would accidentally roll into one another in the night and that fact made me grind my back teeth together and curse my inability to be the kind of guy that truly appreciated having a woman like her in the same bed.

It was a restless night for both of us. She tossed and turned while I laid as still as possible eyes locked on the ceiling. She let out a tragic-sounding sigh every hour or so and when the sun filtered through the curtains on the window we were both ready to keep pretending we were asleep and silently agreed that being on the road was better than being in the bed, so close yet so far apart.