“Hey, you,” he said with his face buried in my neck.
My arms were thrown over his shoulders as I pressed up on my toes and replied, “Hey.”
Riggs gave me a tight squeeze before letting me go.
“I’m so happy you made it,” he shared.
Nodding, I looked around and noted, “This festival is huge. And you have a great turnout.”
“Yeah, we’ve been doing it for a couple years now, and our community of families love it. It seems like it grows just a little bit more every year,” he offered.
“So, it’s just you, your sisters, and your brothers that manage this whole farm all on your own?” I asked.
He took me by the hand, started walking, and admitted, “Mainly. Mom and Dad are still around, but they’re mostly retired. For an event like this, they’re here helping out. If it’s just a regular day on the farm, though, they’ll be off enjoying their retirement. I think that’s why they had so many kids. They wanted to make sure they’d have enough people on hand to take over the operation.”
Riggs continued to lead me through the crowds of people. I didn’t know where we were heading, but I had an idea.
“Eden said you were going to take me and introduce me to the rest of your family,” I told him.
“If we see them on the way, I’ll stop and introduce you. But you see what it’s like here. I don’t have a boatload of hours to spend with you.”
“On the way?” I asked, looking up at him.
Riggs looked down at me with a devious grin on his face and clarified, “On the way to a spot that’s not too far away in case I’m needed but still has a lot more privacy.”
“Oh,” I murmured.
We reached a greenhouse tunnel, and Riggs took me inside and out of view. I didn’t suspect any of the patrons would be looking here, but I wasn’t so sure about Riggs’ family. If Eden managed to communicate the news of my arrival here to the rest of the siblings, I wasn’t convinced they’d not seek us out considering they might have felt responsible for our pairing to begin with.
Once inside the tunnel, Riggs pulled me toward him. Our bodies were pressed together, my front to his, as he lowered his mouth to mine and kissed me.
The moment his lips touched mine I was gone. I’d missed this. It was odd that I hadn’t realized it until this moment, but kissing Riggs was what I’d been craving since he took me back to my car after we’d gone out for coffee earlier in the week.
Of course, as magnificent as the kissing was, that wasn’t all that I got. Riggs did a lot of touching. A lot.
As his tongue plunged inside my mouth, his hands dropped from around my waist to my ass. As soon as he squeezed me there, I pressed my hips into him and moaned. It was like I’d learned nothing from the photo shoot. For whatever reason, I couldn’t seem to control myself when it came to Riggs.
Following a long make-out session, he pulled back just a touch and rasped, “Will you come here tomorrow?”
“What?”
Riggs pressed another soft kiss to my lips before he explained, “I know you have your volunteer work at the soup kitchen tomorrow, but I’d really love it if you came by here afterward.”
My eyes held his gaze, but I didn’t respond.
After several moments of silence, Riggs offered, “I want to have dinner with you.”
A real date.
Even though I’d convinced myself that our trip to the coffee shop was a date, it was questionable. There was no doubt that dinner together would definitely be considered a date. I had to admit I liked where this was heading.
For that reason, I didn’t make Riggs wait any longer. At the same time I felt his fingers press in a little deeper, I grinned and replied, “I think I can make that happen.”
I felt Riggs’ body relax against mine.
Then, he got back to kissing and touching me. My hands had taken the liberty to do some exploration of their own.
It was the most fun I’d had in a really long time.
Adele
“Thank you for your help today, ladies. We’d love to have you back.”
“You’re welcome, Marybeth,” I replied.
“We’ll look at our schedules and find a time that works to come back again,” Kacey promised.
With that, my best friend and I walked out of the soup kitchen where we’d spent our morning and early afternoon volunteering. We had arrived hours ago to help with the preparation before lunch was served. For an hour and a half, we provided lunch to people in need. When lunch was finished, we helped Marybeth and the rest of the staff and volunteers clean up.
And now that we’d put in a full day, Kacey and I were heading home. We’d both volunteered at soup kitchens before, and it always amazed me how much I was moved by working a day like this. Everything from the kindness and compassion shown by the people who helped to make the day a possibility all the way to the appreciation and gratitude that came from the individuals and families being served always reinforced my dedication to causes like this.
It was just good people helping good people.
I loved that years after the very first time I ever volunteered I was still able to walk away feeling so rewarded simply because I got to witness the positivity on both sides.
Once Kacey and I were in the car and I’d pulled out of the lot, she advised, “So, with our discussion on the way here this morning limited to our work life, I need the love life talk on the way home.”
“Love life?” I repeated through a chuckle.
“If I said personal life, you’d have started talking about volunteering or the nonprofit,” she noted. “I said love life so there was no confusion about what I was interested in discussing with you. Tell me about Riggs. How was the trip to his farm yesterday?”
I smiled just thinking about it.
“It was nice,” I told her.
“Nice?” she questioned me. It was clear by her tone that she wasn’t amused by my lack of details.
“We snuck off to a part of the farm that was off-limits to the public,” I began. “Riggs wanted some privacy.”
“Oooh. That sounds like fun,” she said.
I sighed remembering just how worked up I’d gotten. “It was,” I confirmed. “In fact, it was so much fun that he invited me back there today. He knew I was volunteering, so I told him I wouldn’t be able to get there until much later in the day. He said it’ll be perfect since things will be winding down for him.”
“And?” she pressed.
“And what?” I asked.
“And just how much fun did you have?”
I cocked an eyebrow and gave her a quick glance before turning my attention back to the road and admitting, “Just enough to make it impossible to decline his invitation to go back today. There was too much promise there.”
“You should pack an overnight bag,” she advised.
Pulling my brows together, I asked, “You really think so?”
“Definitely. Keep it in the car, but you should have it just in case.”
It probably wasn’t a bad idea. While I didn’t want to be presumptuous, I thought it was wise to be prepared.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I agreed.