Week number three!  We’re on a roll now, even though I’m a bit out of range of normal conversation.  This Tuesday is a particularly hard day – my father is having surgery this afternoon, so I’m a wreck.

Good thing this is in early, huh?

So… we’re back visiting with Anna and Wes and their awkward post-one-night-stand situation.  With the prompt of “NIGHT”, let’s see what they’re up to, shall we?

***

The sun hung low in the sky – low enough that it could no longer be seen above the tree line along the edge of the ranch.   Anna’s rear end ached, but not in an unpleasant way.  The muscles in her hips and thighs received a great workout over the course of the afternoon, and still burned with residual movement even though they were stopped.  The camera still hung limply around her neck.  Anna and Wes had ridden for hours, and like a fool she hadn’t taken the first photo.  There had been opportunities, yes, but taking those opportunities would’ve meant breaking the moments.

She’d seen the entire ranch from horseback, and now understood completely the love Wes felt for the land.  The passion shown in his eyes every time he looked at her.  This ranch was magical, at least to the city girl who had never seen so much grass before.

As the sky dimmed, she began to notice tiny sparkles around them – small specks of light that barely appeared before they were gone.  That, coupled with the smooth plane of water before her now only intensified the dream world feeling.

“Fireflies,” Wes said distantly as he dismounted from Buckwheat’s back and tied his reins to the small hitching post by the dock.  His lips held a soft smile.  “I hoped they’d be out tonight.”

“Did you plan some sort of grand seduction?” Anna asked.  She couldn’t help it – she had to bait him.  They’d exchanged tense small talk and cheap shots all day.  And now this – this perfectly romantic setup seemed a little too good to be true.  Or a little too bad.

“Not exactly,” he said, though the sheepish look in his eyes told her he’d definitely planned parts of it.  “I was planning to spring this on you later in the week, after you were already settled in and more open to my advances.”

Anna paused, dumbfounded, then turned a blank stare on him.  “Did you really just say that?”

Wes laughed and ran his fingers through his hair.  “Yeah, I guess I did.”

“You do remember that we’ve already spent one night together, right?”

“Yeah, I remember.” The way his eyes glazed over as he said it told her he remembered it much more fondly than he was willing to admit.  “But I’m trying to be a gentleman.”

“Gentleman or not, you have two choices:  you can either pack up and take me back to the house before it gets too late so we can still be friends, or you can bring your well-wrapped ass over here and kiss me, because this place is too romantic and there’s entirely too much tension between us.”

Wes swallowed hard enough that she heard it.  She also heard the soft chirp of crickets and the susurrus of the grass in the breeze.  The air hanging between them, while heavy with anticipation, was also cool and moist, and smelled of grass and water.  Overhead, stars began to wink down at them and a wide, happy moon began to make its journey across the sky.

Wes turned and strode toward her, closing the space between them in four long strides.  Without hesitation he reached up and pulled her from the saddle, threaded his fingers through her hair, and devoured her mouth.

***

Thanks for reading… and please check out the rest of the wonderful stories on the Tuesday Tales blog!