Quarterback's Secret Baby(22)

Tasha agreed to go camping because of me. She didn't say it, but I just knew it. She wouldn't have gone camping with anyone else. I still didn't know everything there was to know about her but I did know she wasn't naturally outdoorsy. It made me feel proud that I'd managed to convince her so easily.

"Ha ha, look at you," she said, smiling. "All proud of yourself."

She wasn't naturally outdoorsy, that was true. But she was already almost freakishly good at reading my thoughts - better than I was, most of the time.





Chapter 10: Natasha


Reinhardt High's prom was held in late May. Other than my mom, who spent her afternoons resting in bed in those days, I had the house to myself on the actual day. The first thing I did was prepare dinner for everyone and put it in the fridge so they would have something to eat that night. Butterflies fluttered in my belly as I mixed the dough for biscuits and I tried in vain to ignore them. Why was I nervous? It was just a school dance, right? I'd been to a lot of school dances over the years.

My nerves weren't about prom, though. I was just telling myself they were, pretending that there wasn't something else, some other milestone, hanging in front of me like a tantalizing but somewhat scary exotic fruit.

Kaden messaged me at 1:30 in the afternoon: "I'm bored."

I messaged back: "Don't you have to get ready?"

"Already did. Haircut, suit fitted. Bored. Want to go for a drive?"

My reply was a single word: "Yes."

By that time, I knew very well what 'going for a drive' meant. It meant what it always meant when Kaden and I managed to spend any time alone. That's why I said yes. Because even though I still wasn't anywhere close to being ready and even though I was tight with a fizzy, unknown kind of anticipation, I wanted to be with Kaden. I always wanted to be with him. It was obvious he thought he was the only one holding back, being patient, but he wasn't. I felt the same way. It was like there was a war going on inside me between the rational part of my brain: "He's leaving, you're already too into him, what if an accident happens?" and the irrational part of my brain, which was basically unable to think about anything outside of how sweet and perfect his hands felt when he put them on my body...and how pliant and willing his kisses made me feel.

In the SUV, Kaden clamped his hand to my thigh as soon as I was inside and we were heading out along the old main road, towards the hills. I felt my legs opening slightly, automatically.

"I love the way you do that," Kaden said, although I hadn't seen him take his eyes off the road.

"Do what?" I asked, because I wanted to hear him say it even if I was pretty sure I knew what it was.

"That thing when I touch you. I can feel your muscles relax when I put my hands on you."

I looked out the window, because if I hadn't looked out of the window I would have unbuckled my seatbelt, crawled across the center console onto Kaden's lap and started kissing him. I thought he'd been talking about the way my legs opened, just a little. But the other thing? The way my body just went all limp and warm when he touched me? He'd noticed that? I could hardly breathe the tension between us was so thick.

He sped up a little as we sat next to each other, more aware of each other's bodies than either of us had ever been aware of anything before. And when we got up into the hills Kaden took a narrow, washed-out dirt road he hadn't taken before and pulled to a stop on a rocky bluff overlooking Little Falls.

I got out and stood beside the Suburban looking at the view as an intimation of inevitability floated past on the warm summer breeze.

"Your hair looks good like that."

"Huh?" I turned towards Kaden, snapping out of my own thoughts. His own hair was freshly shorn and damn if it didn't make his broad, square-jawed face look even hotter than usual. "My hair?"

"Yeah," he said, pulling a blanket out of the back seat. "You always have it up - I like it all flying around like that."

'Flying around.' Ha, that was cute. The truth was, I hadn't even remembered to do anything with my hair after washing it - it was down and not styled and I don't think Kaden had ever seen it like that before. I eyed the blanket in his arms and couldn't help making a jokey comment.

"Am I that much of a sure thing?"

"What?" He asked.

"The blanket - just how confident are you, Kaden Barlow? What if I'm not done torturing you yet?"

He turned around suddenly and put his arm around my waist, pulling me, hard, against his body. Then he leaned down and kissed my neck, just below my earlobe.

"And what if I'm not done torturing you yet, Natasha Greeley? I brought the blanket because the ground is wet up here sometimes. But-" Kaden turned his head towards me and kissed the corner of my mouth - "I'm open to other ideas if you have any."