Live for You by Marquita Valentine

beans.
Something very boring and not innuendo filled.”
    He makes a little grunting
sound. “Whatever. Guess I’m too boring for someone from
Cali.”
    Oh great. Now I’ve gone
from bitch to snobby bitch. “That’s not what I mean.”
    “ Then say what you mean.”
He crossed his muscular arms over his equally muscular chest, which
does not help my thought process at all. “Or are you scared of a
good ole boy from the south and how he makes you feel?”
    “ How you make me feel?” I
toss my head. “You don’t even know me.”
    “ Then sit your cute ass
down and enlighten me,” he challenges and turns away, sitting on
the edge of the grass bank.
    For the next few
heartbeats, I stare at the back of him. What’s the harm? Why can’t
I sit and talk to a cute boy while I’m here? I’m an adult for God’s
sake. Still, I stand there, torn. Then…I walk to him and
sit.
    *** *** ***
    Cole
    Please don’t let me screw
this up.
    I’ve never met a girl more
confusing. Timid one minute, bold the next. Tastes salty sweet. I
can’t believe she didn’t knee me in the balls when I licked her the
first time. I made myself stop after the second. That little gasp
made me hard as a rock.
    But I want to do it again.
I want to taste her everywhere. To lick her nipples and between her
thighs. I want to know if she’s wet for me.
    What I want, I’m pretty
damn sure I won’t get. And since I’m not pressing my luck again,
I’ll keep my damn tongue to myself. For now, anyway.
    “ So…” I say, keeping my
eyes on Kelly as she splashes and not the gorgeous girl sitting
inches away from me, wearing nothing but a sports bra and running
shorts.
    “ Nice weather.”
    Weather talk? “Anything
like California?”
    “ It’s cooler there,” she
says after a brief hesitation.
    Cooler in California? I’m
pretty sure they have great weather year round. But since I’ve
never been out there…“Do you go to college?”
    “ No, I—I deferred
acceptance to concentrate on my career.”
    “ Career?” I can’t help but
look at Rae. Her blonde hair is mostly plastered to her head with
sweat. Little tips of purple sticking out everywhere. I let my gaze
travel down her body. The little top and shorts she’s wearing
doesn’t hide a damn thing from me. Her tanned belly is flat and
there is a faint jagged line cutting across the middle.
    What. The. Hell.
    She begins to turn and I
force my gaze away, focusing on her face. All delicate features,
with a little pink mouth made for kissing me. “Yeah, I’m a
singer.”
    “ Anyone I
know?”
    “ Do you listen to country
music?”
    “ Hell, no.” I squint one
eye against the sun, pick up a rock and hurl it in the opposite
direction of Kelly. It hits the water twice before
sinking.
    “ A good ole boy from the
south that doesn’t listen to country, huh? Isn’t that against the
law?”
    I shrug. “Just call me an
outlaw.” No way in hell I’d ever listen to country music. My sperm
donor had seen to that. He’s a big shot producer out in Nashville.
Most likely Rae knows him, but I’d bet everything I own that she’s
never heard about me from him.
    She laughs, the sound doing
funny things to my heart. “Then I guess you wouldn’t have heard of
me.” She picks up a rock, turning it over and over in her
hand.
    I raise my brows. “So
you’re pretty famous?” Was she pulling my leg? I mean, when I heard
her singing, she blew me away, but did that translate into country
music star?
    “ Yeah,” she says, then
tips her head back and looks up at the sky for a minute. She
exhales. “Oh God, I can’t believe I’m even contemplating this, but
it would be… nice to not have to lie or keep more secrets. I’m so damn sick of
keeping secrets.”
    While I wished everyone in
this town knew a lot less about me. “Then don’t.”
    She keeps messing with the
rock, her knuckles turning white when she makes a fist. “If I tell
you, will you promise not to Google me?”
    Googling her is