The blow of these words knocks me off balance. I stop walking, and she turns soft, apologetic eyes on me.
If she’d told me she didn’t feel anything for me, it wouldn’t have hurt because I’d know she was lying. But hearing her say she’s been avoiding the kind of intensity we had? “You’d rather live a life without passion?” I ask. She didn’t want what she felt with me. She didn’t want to be reckless like she’d been with me. Reckless like she’d been the night her sister died. She still blames herself.
She turns her palms up. “I thought so, but look at me. I’m here.”
Yes. She is. “And what do you want now?”
She searches my face. “I want the water and the desert, the night and the day. I want things that can’t exist together.” She grimaces. “Rich-bitch problems, right?”
I stare at her for a long beat. “I’ve never thought your problems were trivial, Brinley.” Leaning forward, I brush my lips against hers. “And if you want things you’re not allowed to have, then we change the rules.”
* * *
Brinley
Slowly, he lowers his mouth to mine and flicks his tongue across my lips. I open to him instinctively. I know we’re in the middle of the sidewalk and everyone who walks by is looking at us, but I want his kiss more than I want to avoid their notice.
I slide one hand into his hair and clutch his forearm with the other. It’s not like starting over. It’s like picking up where we left off in the foyer Friday night, and I’m as turned on as I was when he let himself out the door. Tonight, I don’t want him to walk away. If I’m honest, I didn’t want him to before, either. It’s everything I crave in his kisses—warmth, affection, hunger, lust, and emotion shaken together in a cocktail I’ve never found with anyone else.
He breaks away before I want him to, and I instinctively cling to his arm. “Ready to go?” he asks, and there are so many more questions tucked inside that innocuous one that my nod feels like a promise.
We hold hands on the walk back to the car and the whole drive home. It takes every bit of my restraint not to lean over the console and kiss his neck, rub my tight nipples against his arm. Maybe this is going too fast, or maybe he’s my husband and I don’t have to worry about slowing down. The truth is, I’m no closer to guessing what tomorrow will bring than I was before he asked me on this date.
“Then we change the rules.”
It sounds too good to be true, and I’m not sure I even want to see if it’s possible. The only thing I’m sure of is what I want tonight—those big hands on my thighs, those dark, greedy eyes all over me.
“Fuck me, Brinley, but I can practically smell your thoughts over here.”
I shift in my seat, the pulsing ache between my legs growing more insistent.
The second he pulls off the interstate, I can’t resist anymore. I pull my hand from his and press it against his thigh, stretching across the console until I’m palming his dick through his jeans.
A little moan escapes my mouth when I feel how hard he is. He lifts his hips off the seat, pressing into my touch. “Not yet, baby,” he murmurs. “Just give me another minute.”
“I need to feel you.” I lean toward him, frustrated when my seatbelt stops me short. “I’m dying over here.”
“I’ve got you.” He takes my hand off his crotch and moves it back to my side of the console. I push my head back against the headrest. “Shh.” He inches the hem of my skirt higher and higher, and I shift forward on the seat, desperate to get that hand where I need it. When he finally cups me between my legs, he curses. “You’re so fucking wet. Goddamn, I want to feel this all over me.”
He strokes me through my underwear, the gentle friction of the lace against my clit making me writhe in the seat. I need him inside me—if not his cock, then his fingers—and I’m about to beg when Marston takes a sudden turn into the parking lot at Lake Blackledge. He pulls the brake on the car, and I don’t waste any time getting unbuckled and climbing over the console to straddle him.
“I’ve never felt like this with anyone but you,” he says, his words husky and a little shaky. He’s as desperate for this as I am.
His hands are on my thighs, sliding up and under my skirt, and mine are on his belt, clumsy and fumbling as I try to free him from his pants. He helps me, lifting his hips and helping me slide his jeans down just enough to free his cock.