“A girl could get used to this.” I sigh, putting my chocolate covered fork on my plate.
Bronn wipes his mouth with a napkin and then tosses it on the table. “Fried fish and chocolate cake?”
“Mmhmm.” I nod. “That’s the stuff dreams are made of.”
He shakes his head. “If you say so. You ready to get out of here?”
Not really.
“Sure.”
It may have started off rocky, but our date had ended on a high note. The food was simple but amazing. Despite what Bronn had assumed, I didn’t need, or even want a fancy restaurant. All I needed was good food and good company. And he had delivered on both.
And while it had stung, Bronn assuming he had me figured out, it was good that we had gotten it out in the open and cleared the air.
Even though I had been raised to be a proper southern lady, that wasn’t who I was.
Inside, I was still just the poor little girl that wanted nothing more than to enjoy the smell of the salt air and feel the sun on my face.
“I’d say we could go get a drink, but…” Bronn’s voice cuts into my thoughts, and I turn my attention back to the man in front of me.
I lift a shoulder. “It’s okay. I’ve gotta get some stuff done early tomorrow morning before my first shift at the hospital, so I should probably get going anyway.”
He nods and stands, and I do the same, pushing away from the table and grabbing my purse.
As we walk to the door, he asks, “You got a reason you don’t drink?”
“Yeah,” I tell him over my shoulder. “It’s just a sad story though. I’ll tell you about it sometime.”
I stop in front of my car and catch him studying me, but he doesn’t press and I breathe a sigh of relief. Parked beside my car is a truck that’s got to be twice as old as I am and looks like it should have been buried long ago.
Bronn hooks a thumb in the rust bucket’s direction and tells me, “Bessie’s seen better days, but I just can’t bring myself to put her out to pasture.”
I pull my door open and toss my purse inside before turning to face Bronn. “Bessie, huh?”
He props a hip on her front fender. “Belonged to my dad. When he died, Dani’s mom kept her. Gave her to me.”
His face is relaxed, but the pain of his loss is still in his eyes, and I’ve come to notice that it’s a look that’s always there. Even when he’s laughing, it doesn’t erase the perpetual sadness that he carries with him. It’s a sadness that I carry with me as well.
“When I was a kid, my dad took me to the beach once.”
Bronn’s brows knit and I hurry to continue my story. “It was cold that morning, early spring, the breeze causing goose bumps to take up permanent residence on my arms. I remember Daddy taking his sweatshirt off and putting it on me. The thing swamped me.” I pause and laugh, remembering how the arms of the hoodie had drug the ground and how Daddy had belly laughed at the sight before rolling them up. “Anyway, we searched for sharks’ teeth that morning. It was too cold to swim, too cold to play in the sand. But I’d had a fascination with the predators of the sea, a newfound one, and Daddy had been determined that we were going to find a great white’s full jaw, I think.” I’d been staring up at the sky, but I glance at Bronn to see his face rapt with attention, his expression intense. “We looked and looked until my eyes went cross. But, we didn’t have any luck.”
I can’t tear my gaze away from Bronn’s, even though the way he’s studying me is unnerving.
“We found all kinds of amazing shells, rocks that were smooth from being tumbled by the waves, crab shells that must have been eaten by gulls. But nothing that came from Jaws’s mouth.” I shrug and smile. Bronn smiles back. His face finally relaxes, but his eyes are still full of emotion.
“I remember Daddy was so disappointed. But I wasn’t. I’d spent the morning with my favorite person in the world. I may have been freezing the whole time, my face chapped from wind and sand whipping in it, my hair a tangled mess that took Mama an hour to brush, but it was the best day.”
The half-smile that I’d been sporting while lost in the memory fades. “That was my last happy memory with him. He died not long after that.” I swallow hard, determined not to cry.
The memory is bittersweet, but it’s still sweet. That’s the thing about memories. The same exact memory can be happy or sad, depending on how you choose to remember it. And I choose to remember the sheer joy I’d felt that day, not the crushing sadness that it was the last time I’d felt that happy.
I clear the emotion from my throat. “Anyway, I don’t know why I shared that. Just maybe to tell you that I understand holding onto something because it has sentimental value.” I nod at his truck. “Bessie may not be worth any money, but she’s worth her weight in gold if she makes you happy.”
My lips quiver as I offer a smile. Bronn may think that we come from different worlds, and maybe we do. Nana would have killed me dead if I had ever come home from a date in a truck like his. But there’s sadness and loss everywhere, no matter how much money you have. And that common thread binds us together, whether Bronn realizes it or not.
From nowhere, my desire to kiss this broken man overwhelms me. My stomach somersaulting, I take a step forward and cross the small distance between us.
Raising up to my toes, I run one hand along the side of Bronn’s thick neck and wrap it around the back of his head, feeling his hair between my fingers. It’s thick and soft and everything I imagined it would be. And I’d done plenty of daydreaming about his hair in the last two days. Plenty of daydreaming about his everything.
With no time to talk myself out of it, I press my lips to his. His mouth is firm, his stubble tickling my face. For a split second, Bronn does nothing and I fear that I’ve made an embarrassing mistake. Just as I move to pull away, his strong arms wrap around my waist, anchoring me in place.
His lips part, his tongue licking against my own, and I waste no time opening for him. He tastes of chocolate, the richness of our dessert still lingering on his mouth. I moan softly and press my body against his, wanting to get impossibly closer. Every inch of my skin tingles at the contact, the buzzing spreading throughout my body.
Bronn deepens the kiss, his tongue gliding gloriously against my own, and I’m thankful that his arms are holding me in place when he spins us, pinning me against his truck.
With one arm still holding my hips flush with his, his free hand sifts through my hair before he grabs a fistful and holds my head firmly in place.
I’m lost in the sensations of his kiss, the way his tongue plunges in my mouth, taking exactly what it wants, not allowing me a moment to catch my breath as it continues its delicious assault on my mouth.
Our hips pressed together, I can feel his arousal growing against me and it causes an ache in the pit of my belly. I’m desperate to feel more of him, to rip his clothes from his body and run my hands over every inch of what is sure to be a work of art.
But, all too soon, he pulls away, breaking our seal and leaving me breathless and panting. He rests his forehead against mine, his ragged breathing matching my own.
My eyes closed, I’m still trying to catch my breath when his warm breath tickles my face.
His voice gravelly and low, he asks, “You sure you have to go home?”
I want to tell him no, that I don’t have to go anywhere except to bed with him. But it’s too soon for that, so I press my lips together and nod.
Bronn steps away, giving me the space that I don’t want, and pulls my car door open for me. I slowly trudge to the car, not ready to say goodnight, and slide inside. He shuts the door once I’m fully inside and bends at the waist, leaning into the window that I’ve just rolled down.
“Good luck tomorrow.”
His simple well wishes warm me. “Thanks. The first day in a new place is always nerve-wracking.”
He nods, his soft eyes roaming my face. “I’m sure everyone will love you.”
For a man that’s rough around the edges, he can be surprisingly tender.
I nod, my heart melting, and he leans into the car, his large torso barely fitting, and kisses me softly on the lips.
“Call me when your shift’s over?” he asks, his face still directly in front of mine, the smell of him filling my car.
“It’ll be seven a.m.”
“I’ll answer,” he assures me.
“’Kay.”
I watch as he stands and saunters to his truck. The door creaks loudly, sounding like a dying cat, and he climbs inside, slamming it behind him. When he notices me still sitting here, he motions for me to go, so I put the car in reverse and back out, my eyes still glued to him.
As I drive home, I replay our kiss, committing every sensation to memory, and try to convince myself that I’m not already in too deep.