Wildfire (Maple Hills, #2)

by Hannah Grace

“You should tell him you don’t like it when he touches you.”

“Jesus Christ, I feel like I’m working out. Why are you so big?”

Jenna says I should feel honored to be the chosen one, and I do. I haven’t ever been anyone’s first choice, so I’m grabbing on to it with both hands. Even if they are dogs.

“Will you wait until I fall asleep, please? It won’t take long.” I’m still stunned she thinks I hate her, even though it’s probably drunk babble. “Sure, why?” “Because it’s easier to wake up and you’re not here than it is to watch you leave me.”

and I’m instantly jealous, because I know I’m going to be up all night wondering if it would have been easier to watch her leave after we hooked up. Or was it easier to find her gone?

“It’s always the quiet ones.”

“Stay strong, brother,” Xander whispers beside me.

Small hands dig into the base of my spine, but the force is only enough to move me an inch. I can hear Aurora huffing and puffing behind me as she tries to push me, which is why it’s so easy to grab her hands and pull her in with me as I jump from the dock.

“If it’s a bull shark, we’re both screwed because I’m dragging you with me. You’re bigger, you’ll taste better.” “Trust me, you taste incredible.”

“You know her so well,” Emilia jokes, turning her back to us to watch the kids dancing around again. Russ smiles, the dimples of his cheeks making me lose my train of thought until he speaks again. “Maybe that’s my talent.”

Cool and calm. Don’t get distracted by how pretty he is.

The way he says fucking random women makes me feel strange; it sounds alien coming from his mouth.

“I’m not there yet, but you’ll be the first to know if I feel like getting into trouble.”

“What’re you doing?” “I’m watching you go in so you don’t have to watch me leave.” My heart is in my throat as I close the door gently behind me, and when I finally get into bed, I decide that it was definitely flirting.

“You have a big, fat crush on Rory,” Michael, a ten-year-old who apparently doesn’t know how to read the room, says. “You keep watching her.” “That’s inappropriate,” I reply, suddenly very focused on my origami. “Rory is my friend. I’m watching the game.” “You didn’t say you don’t have a crush on her.” “I also didn’t say I did.”

“No, like you’re a jigsaw puzzle and I have all the outside pieces but I haven’t worked out how all the inside ones fit together yet.”

“I’m so bad. I’m literally a goalie’s dream.” “You are.”

But as the sponge hits me square in the chest, green paint spraying out from the impact, I realize my certainty was misplaced. Aurora’s expression is victorious as she shakes the excess green paint from her hand. The girl has an arm on her, which is fucking hot. I’m not ready to explore how her ability to beat me turns me on.

“Just ask me, sweetheart. I promise I’m not going anywhere.”

Russ.” “He makes me feel like I don’t deserve the good things in my life.”

We fit together perfectly like this, with her arms wrapped around me, my head buried in her hair.

“If we get caught in the rain, we’ll just enjoy the rainbow.”

“Well, green is my favorite color.” “What type of green? Ogre green?” “Whatever shade your eyes are.”

“I don’t mind. It isn’t a burden. You just carried my actual baggage and me up a hill. I can take whatever you throw at me, Callaghan.”

“I want your baggage.” “Aurora,” he says more firmly this time. “I promise you, you don’t.”

“Nice things don’t make the bad stuff acceptable, though,” Russ says.

“The bed

“Leon says you two look at each other all day and you always stand next to each other.”

You are confident. You’re a tall, hot, well-educated hockey player. Women will look past every red flag for a man over six two. So stop waiting for something bad to happen and go have fun.”

“Like a wildfire.”

“It’s really hard admitting you’re the person standing in the way of your own happiness, but I realized I was the problem a while ago. I just didn’t know where to start. You ever feel like you’ve made something your entire personality? So much so you don’t know how to disconnect yourself from it?”

“You are wanted, Aurora. You’re incredible and you can be your own person.”

Her touch makes me feel settled, a feeling I can’t say I’m used to.

know it’s not going to undo the other stuff, but I’m choosing to be here, and nothing you say to me is going to make me change my mind.”

God, I wish I’d brought my vibrator. “You look like you’re thinking hard about something,” Russ laughs, filling the empty spot beside me. “What’s up?”

sexy billionaires with a theme park are enough to distract me.

he said with words, so I move toward him, he moves toward me, and I’m so mesmerized by him that I don’t even flinch when lightning lights up the skies over Honey Acres, because he finally closes those last few inches and kisses me.

I NOW UNDERSTAND WHY THERE are so many songs about being kissed in the rain.

Our damp stomachs stick together, heat spreading across my skin like wildfire.

“Do you know how big my ego gets when you look at me like that?”

Russ Callaghan can call me a good girl anytime.

“You’re worth any risk, Ror.” The sound of our bodies slapping

“Will you still be here when I wake up?” “Yes, I promise.”

I want to correct him and say she’s not my girl, but I like how it sounds. “Pretty much.”

“I’d wait forever for you, Aurora.”

“Not butterflies, the butterfly effect. If I change one thing in my past, it’d cause a ripple effect, and I wouldn’t chance not meeting you.” Make that two hundred butterflies,

“It’s always the ones you least suspect.”

“I have a friend in my major called Halle. She runs the book club at The Next Chapter bookstore in Maple Hills and she’s super sweet, but she does wholeheartedly believe my indifference to Jane Austen should get me kicked out.”

One Birthday Wish Coupon Eligible for redemption by Russ Callaghan at any time From Aurora Roberts

“But you deserve to have nice things.”