I’m more excited than I’ve ever been about seeing a woman. My heart is racing and other parts are equally enamored by the prospect of being close, intimately close, to Caila. Not that I’m planning on being a cock tonight. I just want Caila to have a good time in my company. To know that I’m not some dumb jock laborer even if that’s my daily existence now. I’m educated, I can talk and give her an opinion on whatever she likes. She’ll see the real me. And then I’ll give her the rest.

I’m such a doofus about seeing her and wanting it all to go perfectly, I even put on a jacket and tie. In the mirror, I look like I’m going to a funeral. So I strip down and go as who I am. In low slung jeans, a tight tee and boots. If I want her to see me as me, better not put on some costume that disguises that. I can’t pretend to be other than I am and she’s got to want that.

I stop off to pick up a cute flower bouquet for her and drive to her house feeling like a prom king or some shit. What the hell do I say to her father if he comes to the door? What’s he going to think about a dirty older guy in a truck coming for his perfect little princess?

It doesn’t come to that in the end.

I turn the corner onto the street where Caila lives, lined with the biggest houses in town, all in row like a wall of resistance against the rest of us. Or that’s probably my projection, as Caila would say. I’m crawling along, looking for a number on one of the homes to show me where I’m at, when a white apparition appears out of the darkness running towards me. It’s Caila, making a dash for the truck, manically waving her arms.

My blood flares and my heart lurches for my throat. My skin prickles in a heated rash.

No.

For a second I think she’s in trouble, someone’s hurt or she’s being chased. My hackles go up, my fists grip the wheel until the knuckles turn white. I throw open my door but she’s beside the truck before I can stop and get out. I pull it back shut and lean across to open the passenger door for her. She climbs in panting like she’s been running hard.

“What happened babe. Are you okay?” My heart still pounding at the chest wall.

“Nothing, I’m fine,” she huffs. “I just wanted to get to you before you came to the door.”

“Ah,” I grunt. The adrenaline starts to recede. I have this under control.

“Can you reverse back. I don’t want my father to see us drive past.”

Irritation mixed with disappointment rises in my craw. So she is ashamed of me.

“It’s not that I don’t want daddy to see you,” she says as I back up the truck around a corner to turn back the other way. “He forbade me from going out tonight.”

“Why? Did that brat say something?” I bark.

“I don’t exactly know. When I said I was going out he forbade it, saying something about it not being safe.”

Suddenly my heart leaps right back into my throat.

“How old are you Caila?”

“Twenty three,” she says.

My heart relaxes again. She’s still fifteen years younger than me but for a moment there I thought maybe she was barely legal. Or not at all.

“I know, I should be standing up to my father and telling him I can make my own choices,” she adds, running on breathlessly.

I’m happy to listen to her talk. I want to know everything she thinks and does. Who she is beyond the perfect body and lovely face.

“It’s complicated though,” she continues. “My mom died when I was nine and I’m all he’s got. He never really got over losing her. He can get a little over-protective.”

“It makes sense,” I nod. I look over at her, looking perfect in a white dress, swirly from the waist down but tight at the top. It molds her gorgeous tits perfectly. “I’d be over protective of you too.”

She smiles at that, takes a deep breath and relaxes

“Hi,” she says, then leans over and plants a quick sweet kiss on my stubble, already growing back in even though I shaved less than an hour ago.

I feel like we’ve known each other for more than two days. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world for me to be picking her up for a date. I want to do this forever – be with her. Have her beside me every day. To talk to, to look at, to touch. Especially that. To touch any way I want, as soon as she belongs to me. But I have to not rush myself. Us.

I could pull her right onto me in the truck, have her climb into my lap so I could cover her mouth with mine and cover her flesh with my hands to squeeze those luscious round tits.

But I also want to restrain myself. To know her better, or maybe more important, to have her know me. Waiting to enjoy her naked body will make finally claiming her all the sweeter.

“I mean, he’s being completely irrational, right?” she continues. “What, who, could be a danger to me in a small town like ours? Where everyone knows everything about every one.”

Shit.

“What is it, Rand?” she asks, an adorable look of concern passes over her pretty features. I know I can never pull the wool over those shining fresh acorn eyes. She deserves to be able to trust the man she’s with. If she found out down the road, after giving herself to me, it would tear us apart.

“Nothing, babe,” I say and take her hand in mine, to rest it on my thick thigh.

I’m not avoiding the issue but I’ll pick it up when the time’s right. Right now I just want to enjoy Caila a little while longer.

“You look amazing,” I tell her, squeezing her hand briefly. The simple white cotton dress makes her look like an angel. Paired with her red cowboys boots, she’s a fallen angel, or will be soon.

I decided after the suit disaster, not to try too hard to impress her on our first date. I take her to a nice Italian place. I’ve worked on the owner’s car and all the cars belonging to his extensive family so we’re greeted like old relatives ourselves. Even Caila gets a kiss on both cheeks from the nonna that comes out of the kitchen to hug me tight. This is the closest thing to family I’ve got now.

“You weren’t worried about getting that white dress dirty tonight, with me?” I joke, loosening up the start of our conversation once I’ve installed her in her chair and the wine is poured from the carafe.

“I was counting on it,” she purrs, her eyes alight with fire, catching my gaze and holding it.

Instinctively I reach for her hands, resting on the table, the only part of her I can touch at the moment.

We gaze at each other for an age, the heat rising and rising through every cell until I feel I might explode with the urgent desire to strip her naked and feel her skin pressing into mine.

We might have sat there like that, reeling from the onslaught of chemistry exploding between us, except Maria, the family granddaughter, needs space to set down the basket of bread and some appetizers.

“I love this place,” Caila says happily “How come I’ve never been here before?”

“I imagine you’re used to something fancier? The country club?”

“I’m not like that, Rand.” She shakes her head with a little frown. “Honest I’m not. I like genuine people, good people, not snobs.”

“You just date them?” I joke.

“Not now,” she comes right back.

“I get that about you. It draws me to you even more. And did I forget to tell you how stunning you look tonight?”

“Thank you, I think you have mentioned it once or twice but I like it,” she says. “And I didn’t thank you for the flowers.”

She brought them inside with her, saying she was afraid they’d die in the truck. So sweet and thoughtful. They’re between us now in a jam jar vase, our fingers entwined on either side of it. I pick up her hands every opportunity, needing to feel her in my palms, how the lively blood rushes through her body. My hands look so enormous, like a bear palming her small ones. She’s so delicate yet with a strong heart I know could take on anything she wanted.

I hope she wants me.

We eat an enormous meal. Caila likes to eat and I like that about her. Then we linger over a chocolate creamy dessert, unwilling to get up and leave. I don’t want to take her home. Not now, not ever. But I can hardly haul her back to my man cave. A one room studio where the kitchen is right beside the sagging bed.

The heat sitting on the table between us puts the candle to shame. When she twines her bare foot around the back of my leg I almost lose it. When we get back to my truck, there’s no telling what will happen.

Eventually we need to leave, the last ones to do so. Caila wraps her hands around my bicep and presses her side into my arm. The flesh of her breast crushes against me and I can tell she’s not wearing a bra. Idiot, of course she isn’t. The deceptively simple white dress is backless, as I discovered sliding my hand up her spine. My blood rushes around my body. Having her soft curves pressed into my hard ones, she seems made to line my body.

I want nothing more than to wrap her into the fold of my arms and crush her to me. All the walk to the truck, parked on a side street, I’m dealing with the blistering heat mangling at my skin, the blood pushing at my edges. I cannot take her back to her father’s house but I can’t take her to mine either.

We reach the car and I open the door for her. Turning to her with a flourish, like a gentleman, I’m slammed with a tornado force.

Caila’s hands claw at my shoulders and she scrambles up my body to reach my mouth. Her lips crash into mine with a hunger I’ve never felt in a woman. She opens her mouth to let me in and after a second’s hesitation I go over the edge into the dream.

I cup her head in my palm to hold her closer while my tongue delves into her mouth, swirling and tangling in a furious dance of possession. My other hand slides down her back to cup her other perfect orb and help her elevate so I can take her deeper between my lips. I want to suck her in and drink her up and take her completely. Her breasts pressed into my hard muscular chest make my head spin into a vortex of lusty need. She makes a space between our aligned torsos, scratching at my belt buckle, wanting me freed. Her hand palms at my bulge and she gasps as she tugs more urgently at the metal.

With a massive exertion of self control, I clasp her hips and unsuction my mouth from hers. Her eyes mist at the sudden halt to her hungry passion. They quiz me with confusion.