20. Molly
“Who was that?”Natasha asks coyly.
Alex is right outside my door. He can’t hear my friends, but he can definitely hear me. I decide to tease. “That was my friend,” I say. “He brought me dinner.” I bat my eyelashes at my book club.
Natasha, Misty, and Chrissy watch me from my computer screen. Misty is a friend from back home, while Natasha and Chrissy are fellow vanlifers I met this year. We all have the same tastes in books, so we read a book once a month together.
There’s a chorus of oooooooooos.
“A friend, as in Alex? Your boss? The one you kissed?” Natasha clarifies.
“Yes, that friend.”
They know pretty much everything that’s been going on here in Fork Lick. We don’t talk about the book we”re reading until our call, but we have a group text where I’ve spilled all the beans.
Unfortunately for Alex, we’re still talking about the sex scenes in the book, so when we get back to the subject at hand, the next thing I say to my friends is, “Of course the elf king is going to be dynamite in bed; he’s over a thousand years old. If you don’t know how to properly eat a woman out by then, you’re doing something wrong.”
Outside the van, Alex clears his throat. I cover my mouth and giggle.
“You know,” I say, leaning forward and comically stroking my chin. “Something I didn’t love about this book was the mutual pining.”
“Oh, can Alex hear you right now?” Chrissy asks, and I nod.
“Mutual pining can be so tedious. You like each other, we get it. Talk it out. Or better yet, bang it out. I love a hero who tells the heroine exactly what he wants. It’s so sexy.”
My friends are snickering. I’m serious, of course, mutual pining is one of my least favorite set ups because so often I just want to grab the characters and say “kiss” while smooshing their faces together like I used to do with Ken and Barbie.
What’s hilarious is that the book we discussed tonight is totally an insta-love, super-fast burn book. There is absolutely zero mutual pining in sight.
Our chat is pretty much over at that point, and I’m very aware that Alex is waiting for me outside, so it’s time to go. I say goodbye and blow my friends kisses.
Closing my laptop, I unplug it and push the power cord out the window so I can properly shut the screen. I stand up, stretch, and wonder whether Alex left to give me some privacy or if he’s still outside.
My question gets answered real quick when I open the door and step out of Vaniel. Alex is right there, looming over me in the darkness. His hand finds my waist, and he gently pushes me against the side of my van. My heart goes wild looking up into the intensity in his eyes.
He bends down, and I close my eyes. Instead of a kiss, though, there’s a slight brush of my cheek with his nose, his breath against my mouth, Alex’s desires right up against the line, waiting for me to invite him over.
I grab his shirt—a soft flannel—and pull him to me.
Our lips meet in a scorching kiss.
Alex surrounds me, big and warm yet gentle. Our tongues meet, and I cling to him, weak in the knees with the full brunt of his focus. His arms come around me, gathering and stretching me up to my tiptoes to meet him. I slide my hands up from his chest to his shoulders, gripping those hard, hay-bale-tossing muscles underneath my hands before circling his neck.
I moan into his mouth, and he answers with a groan. One of his hands wanders down to my ass and picks me up. The other hand is in my hair, which I wore down tonight, and braces us against the side of Vaniel.
Between my legs, Alex is hard.
My vibrator, which I’ve been using more and more frequently, really hasn’t been cutting it. I blame that for my urgency.
I’m just craving someone else’s touch, someone else’s warmth. That’s why I need it so badly.
That’s why I drag my hand down Alex’s body and grip his cock through his jeans.
Alex growls. It’s low and feral, and my whole body clenches. God, I want him.
But a noise breaks through my foggy brain—voices. Alex hears it the same time I do; in one smooth move, my feet are back on the ground. He wipes his face and adjusts himself in his jeans. I straighten my shirt and fix my hair.
The voices are Ethan and Lia walking back to their cabin. One of them shushes the other, and I distinctly hear Alex’s name.
“I should go.”
I look up at Alex. His voice is rough and gravelly.
“Okay,” I agree. Dinner’s waiting for me, and nearly getting busted by Alex’s family is a wake-up call. I’m mixing family dynamics I don’t understand and putting both my jobs on the line. I’m glad that Alex came to dinner without me having to ask him, and I don’t want to get between him and his family’s delicate relationship, even if it does seem to be improving.
“See you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow,” I echo, and Alex walks off into the night.