SunnyWithAChanceofTrueLove (11 page)

“No, I’m alone, and I’m
working,
Pike Sherman,” Tulsi said, losing the last of her cool. “I have a job that has nothing to do with you, your sister, your family, or baseball. I am a
person
, and I have my own dreams, my own interests, and my own life!”

“Okay, okay.” Pike blinked in obvious surprise. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you.”

“Well, you did,” she said, still so angry she couldn’t seem to control her mouth. “You’ve been insulting me for years.”

His eyebrows lifted. “What? When have I ever—”

The black car behind him on the two-lane country road blared its horn, but instead of driving away, Pike pulled over on the gravel shoulder in front of her and got out of the truck.

Tulsi watched his long, lean form emerge from the driver’s side, refusing to notice how amazing he looked fresh out of the shower, with his brown hair hanging in thick chunks against his forehead and a gray tee shirt molding to his impressive chest. Instead, she focused on the fact that Pike was an entire foot taller than her five foot three inches, and how stupid she was to have spent years crushing on a boy who would have put a terrible crick in her neck if she’d ever actually kissed him.

“Have I done something wrong?” he asked, waiting for her response with a lost expression on his face.

Tulsi rolled her eyes, wondering how a boy smart enough to graduate with a three point five from college could be so stupid. It wasn’t like her crush had been particularly subtle. Even her big sister knew Tulsi had it bad for Pike, and Reece rarely paid attention to anything that wasn’t about Reece, still considered Tulsi a baby, and hadn’t been home to Lonesome Point in three years.

“Because if I have, I’m sorry. You know I love you,” Pike continued, his words sending an arrow slicing through her already suffering heart. “You’re like the sweet, less irritating little sister I never had. I really… I care about you.”

Tulsi sucked in a shaky breath, pain and frustration warring in her chest, making her brave enough to step closer, and pin him with a hard look. “I care about you, too, Pike, but I’m sick and tired of being treated like your little sister.” His eyes went wide with surprise, but there was something else there, too, a flicker of interest that made her bold enough to take another step toward him and add in a softer voice, “And maybe I’m not as sweet as everybody thinks I am.”

“Is that right?” he asked, brow arching.

“That’s right.” Something wild and brave inside of Tulsi raised its head, insisting it was time to make her stand, to grab for what she wanted before Pike was forever out of her reach. “So, as far as I’m concerned, you have two options.”

He nodded slowly, holding her gaze with an intensity that made her shiver. “I’m listening.”

“Either get out of my way and let me forget you,” she said, adrenaline making her pulse pound in her throat, “or shut up and kiss me.”

Oh, boy. That did it…

Tulsi watched the spark in Pike’s eyes kindle into a flame with equal parts fear and excitement. There was no doubt she’d captured his attention, but when he reached for her, the moment still felt surreal. She’d been fantasizing about Pike taking her in his arms for so long, that when he finally did it, it felt like a dream, a scene from a movie she’d watched too many times to believe she would ever play the starring role.

But then Pike’s lips dropped to hers, the soap and grass smell of him swirled through her head, and things got very real, very fast.

Tulsi had never exchanged more than a few experimental kisses with boys during seven minutes in heaven back in junior high and was, for all practical purposes, a kiss virgin. But her response to Pike’s tongue slipping between her lips was anything but timid. She welcomed his invasion with a moan, parting her lips and pressing up on tiptoe to deepen the kiss, mating her tongue with his, tasting mint and something intoxicating that was all Pike.

He tasted like dessert for dinner and midnight on New Year’s Eve, like sinful indulgences, bright new beginnings, and impossible dreams coming true. By the time he palmed her bottom in his hands, drawing her up his body so they could kiss without Tulsi standing on tiptoe, she was thoroughly addicted. Kissing Pike was even better than she’d imagined it would be. Her body felt like a hot air balloon, soaring into the sky on the heat they generated together, and she never, ever wanted to come down to Earth.

Mercifully, it seemed he felt the same way.

“Shit, Tulsi,” he said, breath coming fast against her lips. “Where did you learn to kiss like that?”

“Hours of imagining what it would be like when you finally kissed me,” she confessed, tightening her arms around his neck. “I’ve been crazy about you since I was a kid, you big dummy.”

Pike laughed, his hazel eyes sparkling as he gazed into her face, studying her like an unexpected gift discovered beneath the Christmas tree. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

She rolled her eyes but couldn’t keep a smile from her face. “I did! I said it a thousand times, in a thousand different ways. You just weren’t listening.”

“Well, I’m listening now.” He hugged her closer, sending a thrill of awareness racing across her skin. “Can I take you out tonight? We have training early tomorrow, so I can’t stay out too late, but we could get dinner and talk, or…whatever.”

Tulsi sighed dreamily. “I would love to get dinner and talk. And definitely whatever. I want lots and lots of whatever. As much of it as I can get.”

Pike shook his head, that wonder-full glow still lighting his face. “I really am an idiot, aren’t I?”

“Yes.” She laughed. “But I still like you.”

“I like you, too,” he said. “I more than like you. I just thought…”

“What?” she asked, heart still floating even when he set her back on her feet.

“I thought there was something wrong with me, thinking about you the way I did,” he confessed, his gaze shifting to the ground. “You’re Mia’s friend, and I’ve known you since you were this tiny little thing. I felt like I should be protecting you, not noticing how good you looked in your swimsuit.”

“God, Pike,” she said, her head spinning. “You don’t know how much I wanted you to notice me. Seriously, I’ve been crushing on you since I was practically a fetus.”

“That’s a long time.”

“You’re telling me,” she said, loving the way his eyes sparkled when he laughed.

“I wish I’d gotten the hint sooner,” he said, smile fading. “I’ve wasted so much time fighting the way I feel, when I could have been kissing you, instead.”

“It’s okay.” Tulsi fought the urge to weep with relief, not wanting to ruin this perfect moment with a runny nose and red eyes. “We’ll just have to kiss more often to make up for it.”

He nodded as he drew her into his arms. “As often as you’ll let me.”

He leaned down, sealing the promise—and Tulsi’s fate—with a kiss.

While Tulsi was busy kissing him back, her heart was busy falling into Pike’s hands, where it vowed to stay until the day it stopped beating. Her most impossible dream had become a reality, proving there was no wish too big or outrageous to come true. It was like discovering the unicorns she’d loved as a kid were real. Realizing Pike Sherman cared about her as more than a friend was
that
miraculous, that magical, and from that moment on she was helpless to do anything but fall deeply and profoundly in love with him.

They spent the entire week together, grabbing lunch at the drive through down the street, taking picnics out to the nearby lake for dinner, and spending hours lying on the quilt they’d spread on the hay in her aunt’s back pasture, talking, laughing, and kissing until their lips were numb. By Friday night, Tulsi was ready for more than kisses, but Pike insisted they wait. He didn’t want Tulsi to have any regrets about going too far, too fast. He wanted their first time together—her first time with anyone—to be perfect.

They parted on Sunday afternoon with promises to see each other as much as they could before Pike’s season started in June. Tulsi cried all the way back to Lonesome Point, not knowing how she was going to make it through the three weeks until his next planned visit. Now that she knew what it was like to be with Pike, living without him felt like trying to live without oxygen.

She was still in a state of deep despair when Pike surprised her the next weekend. She walked into the barn Friday afternoon after school to find him waiting with a fistful of flowers, and a plan for them to be alone. Tulsi told her parents she was going camping with friends and she and Pike took sleeping bags, the camp stove, supplies, and a bottle of sweet white wine out to the old cabin at the edge of the Hearst family’s sprawling ranch. They cooked spaghetti with meatballs, drank wine while watching the stars come out, and made love for the first time in front of the campfire with orange and yellow flames dancing across their bare skin.

Tulsi had never seen anything as beautiful as Pike without his clothes on, or felt anything as earth-shattering as the way he made her feel. He touched her in all the places she’d been dying for him to touch her, kissed her until there was no place his lips hadn’t explored, and when he knelt between her legs and pushed inside her with aching slowness, the emotion in his eyes was enough to banish the brief flash of pain.

“I love you,” she whispered as he held still inside her, knowing she would never feel this close to another person in her whole life.

“I love you, too,” Pike said, his hands skimming gently up and down her ribs. “Is this okay?”

“It’s amazing.” She wrapped her legs tentatively around his hips as the soreness inside began to fade, replaced by more of the hunger he’d awakened inside of her. “So perfect.”

“You’re perfect,” he said, gliding in and out of her with a shaky breath. “God, Tulsi, it’s never felt like this before. Not even close.”

“Like what?” she asked, pulse leaping.

“So right.” He kissed her neck, her jaw, the hollow beneath her ear, before whispering against her skin, “Like you’re the one I should have been doing this with all along.”

She sighed as her fingertips trailed down his muscled back. “I’m so glad you’re my first.”

“I wish you’d been mine,” he said, staring deep into her eyes. “Promise me we’ll make this work. I don’t want to lose you when I go on the road this summer.”

“You won’t, I promise,” she said, tears of happiness filling her eyes. “All I want is you, Pike. All I’ve ever wanted is you.”

He captured her lips, kissing her until she was breathless as he continued to move inside her, binding her heart closer to his with every sensual shift of his hips. Within a few minutes, the last of Tulsi’s discomfort faded and things low in her body pulled tight, tighter, until she was lifting desperately into his thrusts.

“Come, baby,” he said, sounding as breathless as she felt. “I want to hear you call my name before I come. I want to feel you—”

She cut him off, crying his name loud enough to send the birds nesting in the nearby trees fluttering into the night sky. The bliss coursing through her body was so much more powerful than when Pike had brought her over with his hands or his mouth. She felt like she was drowning in pleasure, suffocating on euphoria, dying and being reborn as Pike joined her for the long fall, his body jerking inside of her as he found release.

She was so happy, so dizzy with joy, that when Pike pulled out with a curse and began to talk in a low, urgent tone, she couldn’t make sense of what he was saying until he’d repeated himself.

“The condom, Tuls,” he said, holding it up between them with one trembling hand. “It broke.”

Tulsi sat up on the thick blankets they’d spread before the fire, her heart racing as she realized what that could mean. “Okay, so…what do we do?”

He shook his head as he tossed the condom into the paper bag along with their trash from dinner. “I don’t know. I’ve never had one break before. But I think there’s a pill or something you can take. We’d have to go into town and talk to the pharmacist. Or maybe your doctor?”

“Oh God,” Tulsi said, running a hand through her blond curls. “I can’t, Pike. Dr. Brown’s been our family doctor since my mom was a baby. If I go to him, my parents will find out, and my dad will kill me. Reece is the one who gets into trouble, I’m supposed to be the good one.”

“You’re still the good one.” Pike reached out, drawing her into his lap. “You didn’t do anything wrong. We were trying to be responsible, but…accidents happen.”

Tulsi shook her head. “My dad won’t see it that way. And I don’t know what he’ll do. He said he’d pay for college, but if he finds out about this…”

Pike hugged her closer with a sigh. “I get it. Your dad’s not as much of an asshole as mine, but…I understand why you’re worried. Still, we should be more worried about what happens if our timing is off. Do you remember when you had your period?”

Tulsi’s tongue slipped out to dampen her lips as she thought back over the past few weeks. “It’s been almost…three weeks. I had it the week before spring break.”

His arms relaxed around her. “Then we should be fine.”

“Really?” she asked, gazing up at him, unable to keep from noticing how handsome he looked in the firelight, even when she was scared to death.

“Really,” he said with a smile as he smoothed her hair from her face. “We’re at least a week too late for a baby. It’s fine. No worries.”