Zero danger of that.
As she pulls at me, trying to stretch up to meet me, angling for a deeper kiss, I decide caution is overrated. Words are overrated. I’ll let my kiss do the talking.
I smooth my hands over her hips and around to the back of her thighs, giving them an insistent squeeze, and she understands the assignment, helping me lift her so her legs can twine around me. Our mouths are even, neither of us breaking the kiss.
It goes on, me tearing my mouth away to drag kisses along her jaw before she greedily redirects me to her mouth. It’s like she can’t get enough of me any more than I can of her, and I give her what we both want, the kiss growing half-wild until the honk of a passing car penetrates the haze we’re lost in.
She rests her forehead against mine with a soft laugh, her finger outlining the edges of my lips.
“No complaints here,” I say. “But what was that for?”
She presses against my shoulders to be let down but hooks her fingers into the front pocket of my jeans to keep me close as she looks up at me.
“I love you, Levi Taft. You taste like cinnamon, cocoa, and forever, and I’m addicted.”
I hold her against my chest, hoping she can hear how fast she’s making my heart beat. “Thank Santa and all his reindeer. I was afraid I was going to have to beg our moms to let me join their next plotting session.”
Laughing, she hops up, and I catch her, and I lose count of how many more car horns we hear, but none of them break us up, not for a long, cocoa-flavored time.
Chapter Sixteen
Taylor
LevipassesMr.Earl’sinspection. We spend the day practicing attaching the traces to the sleigh, harnessing the reindeer, and walking them around the nearest fallow field. It’s a far more involved process than I realized, especially for eight reindeer with all of the individual straps and buckles. Rusty Earl is quiet but polite, efficient with the reindeer, and thankful for the extra holiday money he’ll be earning for the trip down to Creekville.
The day is also spent trading lingering glances with Levi and stealing kisses every time Rusty is out of sight. Poor kid starts finding more and more tasks in the barn and anywhere that isn’t by us. I don’t know if he’s sick of watching us act lovesick, or if he’s trying to help us out, but either way, I’m thankful.
Levi tells me at least a dozen times he loves me before dinner. I love hearing it as much the twelfth time as the first. I say it back just as often.
That night, Mrs. Earl feeds us beef stew and Levi plays footsie with me under the table, causing me to blush at least twice. This in turn causes Mrs. Earl to frown and ask if the stew is too spicy and fuss at her husband about seasoning behind her back.
I’d like to save Mr. Earl, but I’m not going to confess Levi is making me want to lose my mind by tracing his foot along the contours of my calf.
She puts us in small guest bedrooms, each plain with a small dresser and a twin bed. And if she hears Levi sneak over after lights-out to deliver on his promised makeout, she doesn’t let on at breakfast.
Levi rides with Rusty early Friday morning while I drive my car back. It seems insane to me that a seventeen-year-old is allowed to haul a livestock trailer with three thousand pounds of reindeer in it, but apparently, that’s fine because the total weight with the trailer is still okay. I can’t argue that Rusty looks comfortable behind the wheel.
They’d sent me off to fill up my car while they loaded the trailer so we can get on the road and drive straight to Creekville. The truck, a Ford F-350 Super Duty, is already gassed up, and Mr. Earl explains that Rusty will refuel it in Creekvillebeforehe hitches the livestock trailer back up to return. Much easier that way.
Then we’re on the road.
After all the delays—from the flu to the blizzard—it hardly seems real. It takes six hours to get back—Rusty has to go slower to accommodate longer braking times with all that weight hitched behind him—but we drive it straight through, and by midafternoon, we’re pulling into Leland Whipple’s farm. He’s been nice enough to let us stage and then stable the reindeer here. On Sunday morning, we’ll all help load them back up with lots of pats and chin scratches and sweet hay so Rusty gets home in plenty of time for Christmas with extra spending cash for his trouble.
Levi jumps down from his side of the truck and jogs over to me. I roll the window down, and he leans in for a long and hungry kiss.
“I missed you,” he says.
“Even though I was fifty yards behind you all day?”
“Especially because you were so close but out of reach. I’d love to show you how much I missed you, but you have to get over to town. Go.”
I look at the livestock truck and back to Levi.
“We’ve got it covered,” he promises. “Go make everyone’s favorite tradition happen.”
“It’s not that. I want to stay with you.”
“But you can’t.” His eyes are soft, like he gets how I’m feeling.
