Pinkie Promise (Carter Ridge Book 1)

“You coming to my away game at the end of the month?” I ask my brother Colton as he slides out from under the body of the car. He wipes the sweat from under his fringe with the back of his forearm, leaving a big black grease stain there in its wake.

I smirk and throw a hand cloth down at him.

He tosses it back as I shut the hood of the truck that we’re working on.

“Got my own,” he says, heaving himself into a sitting position before pulling a cloth out of the back pocket of his jeans. He swipes it roughly over his sullen face, then he picks up his phone, resting horizontally on the stool, and he selects a different song from his playlist.

I tap a finger against the spacebar on my dad’s work computer, making it whir back to life, and then I open a spreadsheet to mark down which fixtures we just used.

“Mom and Dad ain’t letting me,” Colt finally grumbles, sitting in a hunched position while straddling the crawler board. He picks up his water bottle and drains the last few drops.

“Why ain’t they letting you? Is it a money thing?” I ask as I finish my type-up.

“It’s a me-being-in-high-school thing, and they’re too busy to chaperone,” he replies, reddening a little before tossing the bottle across the room into the trash.

“Good throw,” I grunt.

He drops his head to hide his smile. “Thanks.”

This is another reason why I’ve decided to go pro. If I’m playing NHL games that are aired on the regular then maybe my family will be able to finally watch one of them.

“Sorry,” he says, his eyes on his beat-up sneakers.

“It’s fine. When I get the date for our next home game, I’ll save you a ticket.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Why not? Hey, I could get you a plus one,” I add with a grin, and his eyes fly up to mine.

He chokes before he can get the words out. “Why would you do that?” he croaks.

I smirk at him and he hides his face in his hands.

“What? Am I not supposed to know about the fact that you climb through the window of the chick next door’s bedroom at night?”

His jaw drops as he stares up at me. “How the hell d’you know about that?” he rasps.

“Because mom has fucking ears, Colt,” I say, laughing at his expression.

“Mom knows?” he asks despairingly. “We ain’t doing anything in her room, I swear. We just, you know…” He trails off his sentence, looking away from me and swiping his tongue over his lower lip.

I could confidently bet my last five pay cheques on what Colt’s been doing, or at least what he wants to be doing, but it’s good to hear that he isn’t doing the type of ‘anything’ that I know he would definitely tell me about.

“You being nice to her?” I ask him, folding my arms over my chest.

“What kinda question’s that?” he says, looking up at me with a horrified expression. “Of course I’m being nice to her. Why wouldn’t I be nice to her?” He thinks for a moment and then shoots up to his feet. “Did someone say I wasn’t being nice? Tell me who said it.”

Such a good kid. “No one’s said anything,” I reassure him. “Just wanted to make sure.”

He gives me a cautious prolonged frown before letting out a deep breath and nodding to himself. “What about you?” he asks, kicking at a rogue piece of gravel from one of the tires. “You got anyone?”

Colton hardly ever asks me stuff like this and it makes me want to rough up his hair like he’s seven years old. It’s also the first time in my life that I can finally answer him with a, “Maybe.”

He glances up at me with big bright eyes. “For real?” he asks. “You’ve got a chick?”

I snicker at his phrasing and then drop the eye contact, because now it’s my turn to feel a little nervous. I haul one of the car’s replacement tires off the far work bench and bring it over to the vehicle, just for something to do with my hands.

“There’s, uh… there’s someone I like,” I say gruffly, keeping it vague. As if she didn’t come over to our party last night and end up in my bedroom on her back. The memory of her opening up for me like she did, trusting me with what she’s been going through, makes the tire in my hands feel fucking weightless.

“What’s she look like?” he asks.

I smile, then try to scrub the happiness off of my cheeks. “Uh, blonde hair, big eyes.” I rake a hand through my fringe and say, “She’s kinda small.”

Colton mulls that over and then asks, “How small are we talking here?”

Now I’m really laughing. I shove him in a headlock to diffuse the growing fuzzy feelings.

“Show me a picture,” he grunts, his voice muffled against my forearms.

“Hell no,” I reply as he rams his elbows into the meat of my abs. “I ain’t sharing.”

“You aren’t sharing what?” A girlish voice sounds from behind us and we both whip around.

“Who the–”

I shove my hand over Colt’s mouth as Fallon gives me a shy smile from the doorway.

“Sorry,” she says, shaking her head and making her curls bounce. “It was weird of me to stop by without texting. I, uh, I brought you a coffee though?” She raises a paper to-go cup and I feel a painful constriction in my chest.

I give Colton a warning glance before I remove my hand from his face.

I walk over to Fallon while simultaneously jerking my chin, telling her to get her ass in here instead of waiting out there in the doorway. She takes a couple of tentative steps into the shop, eyeing Colton curiously around the swell of my bicep.

I hook my thumb over my shoulder towards him and say, “My brother, Colton. Want me to introduce you?”

She looks up at me with surprised wide eyes, shaking her head. “Oh no, I wouldn’t ask you to do that, I’m not your girlfr–”

“Colton, this is Fallon. Fallon, that’s Colton,” I growl.

I hear Colton mumble a deep hello behind me.

“What aren’t you sharing?” Fallon repeats, an amused sparkle in her eyes. I set down the coffee that she brought and then begin furiously wiping the grease off of my fingers.

“Uh, Colt wanted to see a photo of you,” I admit when I hear the backdoor quietly click shut. I twist my head over my shoulder to see that Colton has given us some privacy. Fucking angel child. I turn back to Fallon and scrub at my brow as I say, “My hands are too dirty to touch you right now, baby.”

She blushes and says, “Why’d you think I wore dark colours today, Hunter?”

I drop my hand and look down at her, awestruck by her foresight. She’s wearing dark jeans and a deep purple knit sweater, her hands retreating up the sleeves so that I can’t watch her fingers twiddle.

“You serious?” I ask her, damn near twitching with need.

She nods and tentatively reaches one hand towards my belt buckle. My jaw turns slack as I watch her trace the ridge, my chest rising in quick pumps as her fingers slide up my dirty white vest.

“This looks really good on you,” she whispers, smiling as her fingers explore my abdomen. “So this is what you do when you aren’t playing hockey.”

I swallow thickly. “This is actually a first,” I rasp as she strokes her fingertips up over my pecs. Colton’s music is still blasting from his cell and I take a deep breath to try and subdue my sudden testosterone overload.

“I came to apologise for last night – for unloading on you like that, and for the whole Connell thing. I feel like I come across as hot and cold sometimes and it’s probably because I, uh… I don’t have a lot of experience mixing with other people.” She drops her hand and laughs nervously. “Which is probably obvious, seeing as I’m basically molesting you right now.”

I grab her hips and pull her flush against me. She looks up at me with an anxious expression, gnawing on her sexy bottom lip.

“You hear me complaining?” I ask her.

She shakes her head at me.

“Then don’t stop.”

I find her hand and press it firmly back on my chest, loving the way that her body relaxes as soon as she’s touching me.

“You don’t need to apologise for last night. My only complaint is that I couldn’t keep you for longer.”

Fallon scrunches up her nose and tries to hide her pretty smile.

“How’d you know where to find me today?” I ask her. “Did Tanner tell you?”

She gives me a guilty little look and I breathe out a laugh.

“Baby, why’re you always looking so guilty for? I’m grateful that you’re here.”

The giant muscle that I’ve got pressing up against her belly is making that pretty fucking obvious.

“If you’d told me last night that you wanted to come by, I’d have picked you up this morning and given you a ride.” I rub my thumb over her hand on my chest and say, “I like having you around.”

I know that Fallon being here doesn’t count as a date, but having her in front of me right now is making me wanna do things that I have no control over.

I walk her backwards a few steps until we reach the office desk, and then I press my groin into her slightly, encouraging her to sit back up on the counter. The song on Colton’s phone finishes playing so our heavy breathing is now the only sound in the room.

I hear rustling from outside and squint briefly out of the window, taking stock of the thick grey clouds that haven’t yet began their winter unloading.

“It’s gonna storm soon,” I murmur, swiping my tongue over my bottom lip. I turn to look down at her and I press my palms into the tops of her thighs. “You used to that kinda thing?”

She nods vehemently. “I’m from Colorado,” she says, her voice light and breathless. “Did I never mention that? I’m not too far from here really.”

I raise my eyebrows because I didn’t know that. “I fucking love Colorado,” I tell her. “You know the winters here are just as heavy right?”

“Yeah, the past few that I spent here have been pretty solid. I haven’t been snowed-in here yet though,” she laughs.

Growing up we got snowed-in plenty, and I don’t know how to feel about Fallon being in that situation over in Colorado. Winter at Carter Ridge technically should have started by now and, if the past years are anything to go by, the delay is only going to make it come harder.

“What’d you do during the other winters that you spent here?” I ask, gently easing her thighs open and pressing myself against her lap.

She looks a little embarrassed when she says, “I stayed in the condo with Ash when the weather got really bad. Or, if she was over at her boyfriend’s, I’d just wait it out alone.” She shrugs. “Some of our classes were online for like a month.”

I make a low sound in the back of my throat, not exactly loving the idea of her trapped in the condo on her own for weeks on end. Before I can hone in on that too heavy she suddenly asks, “What did you do after I left last night?”

After Fallon left the apartment last night I locked myself in my bedroom and beat my meat while I could still feel her on my sheets. But I decide to bypass that part and just tell her, “Ended up watching a couple of games with the guys. Then some of the team hit up a club.”

“You didn’t go with them?”

“No,” I say, tangling my fingers into her hair.

“Why not?” she asks.

“Because I knew that you weren’t going to be there.”

She looks deep into my eyes. She’s so pretty that I look away.

“Did you mean what you said last night?” she asks, her voice nervous. “About training with me so that I can get back into cheer?”

“Baby, of course I meant it. I’d do anything you wanted me to.”

She lets out a shaky breath and my eyes drop hungrily to her lips.

“Have you ever seen any of my performances before?” she asks.

“No,” I say gruffly. Guessing that my dreams don’t count.

“Okay,” she says, nodding to herself. “We can still make it work. The solo bits before you pick me up might be a bit boring for you to watch, so thank you for agreeing to it,” she adds.

I scrub roughly at my forehead. “It’s, uh, definitely not going to be boring for me,” I assure her.

She lets out a cute laugh and says, “When I train I have to do the same positions so many times, you might honestly want to bring your coursework with you.”

“Fallon, I’m not going to be able to focus on coursework, rest fucking assured.”

She suddenly realises that I’m practically panting and she leans slightly farther backwards on the desk, biting at her smile because she can sense how hot I am for her. I lean right over her and pull her chest up to meet mine.

“You got some essays that you’re gonna leave me for in about three minutes?” I ask her, knowing that, with her schedule being so tight, there’s no way that I’ll be able to keep her here with me for the rest of my shift.

I can physically feel her stressing about the grant that she’s been telling me about, so I dip my face to her jaw to try and kiss the tension away.

“I can give you five minutes,” she says breathlessly, and when I lean up to look down at her I see that she’s smiling. I stroke my hand through her hair and she wraps her arms tighter around my neck.

I need to get her on another date so that I can have her for a longer period of time, but I choose to stow that agenda away for the moment, grateful that I’m seeing her at all in the first place.

“Can I kiss you?” I ask, moving the coffee cup out of the spill zone.

“The way you did last night?” she replies, gripping her fingers into my hair.

My hands slide right up the hem of her sweater and I’m immediately met with two soft handfuls of naked flesh. I roam my palms a little higher, until I’m massaging my fingers into her waist, confused as hell over whether or not she’s actually got anything on underneath her jumper. I’m dying to shove my hands just a little higher, to confirm whether or not she’s totally bare.

“Yeah. You liked that?” I ask, thinking about how last night was the first time that I’d slid my tongue inside her mouth.

She squeezes her thighs around my hips and murmurs a little, “Yeah.”

She doesn’t need to tell me twice. I pull her body to the edge of the counter and hunch down so that I can take her mouth with mine, this time slanting her open immediately and slipping my tongue deep inside. She lets out a quiet moan and I stroke her harder, grunting. I roam my palms up her ribcage, drinking in her shallow whimpers, and when I get my hands on those soft full breasts I growl like a motherfucker.

Bare. She’s fucking bare.

“Knew it,” I say gruffly, pushing my tongue back inside her mouth and rubbing her nice and hard. She whimpers, loving it, making me smirk as I palm her tits.

I give her a couple more strokes of tongue before pulling back to look at her on the counter. Her jumper is covering my hands, so I can’t see myself as I work her, and I press my face into her neck when I realise that she’s going to have car grease all over her breasts.

“I wanted you to touch me like this last night,” she whispers shyly, making my damn temples throb. I lick a thick hot stripe up the sweet curve of her throat.

“Wanted me to touch your tits, like this, in my bed?” I laugh in disbelief, shaking my head. “Wouldn’t have been able to stop.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t have wanted you to.”

“Don’t have any condoms,” I remind her.

“Maybe I wouldn’t have w–”

I crash my mouth back down on hers, claiming her lips on a possessive grunt. I give her breasts a domineering squeeze before rasping, “You on the pill?”

The red-cheeked look that she gives me tells me no without any damn words.

“Fuck.” I drop my hands from under her jumper so that I can cup her delicate jaw and start giving her some kisses that aren’t fucking unhinged.

I kiss her gentle and sweet, groaning when she rubs her chest up against mine.

“That’s real nice,” I murmur, shifting my belt buckle a good few inches to the side. Then I inhale a chest-swelling breath and tear my eyes away from her, steadying her by the hips so that we can cool off before she leaves.

I look unseeingly out at the front of the shop, grateful for the miserable weather because it means that no-one’s on the streets. Although we’re obscured in the office nook I feel guilty as shit that anyone could have walked in here right now and seen Fallon in this position.

I swallow hard and say, “Sorry, I lose my mind when I’m with you. I… I’ve never been like this before.”

Fallon’s fingertip traces a pattern over the swell of my pecs and I look down to watch her. “Me neither,” she says on a frown. She doesn’t seem too pleased by her emotions and the thought that she might want to fight this scares the hell out of me.

We both hear the door at the back click quietly open and I turn around to see Colton enter the shop. His eyes are boring holes into the ground because he can sense that there’s still a pretty chick in the room.

He glances up for half a second, just to make sure, and when he sees Fallon’s knees hitched tight around my hips his tan face turns bright red, and he pretends to do something over on the far bench.

“He looks like you,” Fallon whispers, making me smile as I look down at her. “Is that why he’s your favourite?”

Now I’m really grinning. “You think I’m that shallow?”

In a moment of playful confidence Fallon fluffs up her hair and says, “Well, you are seeing me aren’t you?”

I smirk and press a hard kiss to her lips. Having her acknowledge that what we’re doing here is actually happening is the confirmation that I’ve been needing. I might actually be able to get some sleep tonight.

“Damn right I am,” I murmur as I help her down from the desk, and then I turn her around so that her back is to my front. She leads the way to the front of the garage and tugs my arms tightly around her waist.

It’s not quite blowing a gale but the weather isn’t pretty so I grab my jacket from the wall and shove it over her shoulders when we reach the entrance.

She laughs and tries to shrug it off. I end up zipping her into it without even getting her arms into the sleeves. I pull the hood up over her head and the wind knocks it straight off.

She manages to wiggle her arms into place and I bite my lip as I take in the sight of her. If Colton wasn’t already scarred for life on the other side of the garage I would have tugged her into me again so that I could give her a couple more kisses.

“Looks good,” I grunt. “Can I give you a lift back to the condo?”

“You’re busy, it’s fine.”

“Colton can hold the fort,” I tell her but she’s already back-stepping so quickly that I have to grab her and pull her back to me. I give her hips a squeeze and she shudders lightly. “Text me when you’re home?”

She pauses briefly on the word ‘home’ but then she relaxes and finally nods. I grip her jaw in one of my hands and press a kiss against her lips.

“I’ll call you tonight and we can work out a training schedule, okay?”

She does a cute shrug. “Sure. Maybe I should send you a video of one of my past training sessions so that you’ll have some idea of what I’ll want you to be doing with me.”

I shove my tongue in my cheek and nod.

She’s going to send me videos of her cheer training sessions? Sweet baby Jesus.

“I should head now,” she says, blinking quickly as she glances behind herself. I don’t know what’s going on in her brain but that tiny crease on her brow is making me really not want to let her go.

I hate watching her leave me.

After a lot of squirming on her part I finally release her waist, and she flashes me a soul-warming smile, as if I’ve actually put her in a good mood.

“Bye Hunter,” she says. I press another hard kiss to her cheek, making her squeal happily before she turns to go.

“Bye Fallon.”