Chapter 18 #2
The light turns green, and his focus shifts back to the road. Meanwhile, I’m a woman on a very horny mission.
Reaching across the center console, I rest my hand on his thigh. His quad tightens beneath my palm, even as his eyes stay locked on the road ahead.
“Sorry,” he mutters, clearly flustered. “Ignore that …”
“I don’t want to ignore it,” I breathe, letting my hand slide higher, cupping him through the fabric of his pants. “I want to do something about it.”
I watch him like a science experiment, observing cause and effect.
My hand starts to move, slow and deliberate.
His shoulders bunch with anticipation. When my pinky brushes the outline of his length, his jaw ticks, the tips of his ears turn red.
Squeezing him gently, he thrusts into my palm, already chasing more.
We’re long past the point of pretending this is a bad idea. The last time we did this, we nearly got caught. But here, in the safety of his car, blending into a sea of hundreds of other vehicles? It feels like our own bubble where we can exist without repercussions of the real world.
I slide my hand along him, faster, more deliberate. Suddenly, he makes a sharp right onto a quieter street and pulls into an empty parking stall, the car thumping to a stop like he can’t wait another second.
“Everything okay?” I smirk, already knowing I’m the reason his hands were slipping on the wheel.
“I didn’t trust myself to keep driving. Not with you touching me like that.” He hesitates. “You don’t have to do this, by the way. The last thing I want is for you to feel obligated.”
“I know,” I whisper, tightening my hold around him, letting him see exactly how sure I am. “I like seeing what I do to you.”
I stroke him with more purpose, beginning to pick up my pace, watching him slowly unravel. His breath stutters, a sharp exhale through his teeth, head falling back against the seat. His jaw clenches like he’s fighting for composure and losing fast. One hand shoots out, stilling my wrist.
“Fuck. Marley,” he groans. “I’m already close. Too close.”
Maybe it wasn’t on his bingo card to almost come inside his expensive dress pants on a Friday evening. I just want him to feel how badly I want him. To show him this has nothing to do with obligation, and everything to do with the fact that I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want him.
Unbuckling my seatbelt, I move across the center console, straddling him in the driver’s seat. “Do you know how many times I’ve touched myself thinking about you, Theo?”
He stares, jaw tight, fists clenched, like he’s barely holding himself together.
I reach for his wrist and guide his hands to my ribcage, a wordless invitation to touch me. Whenever. However.
I kiss him, soft at first. A question, a promise, and maybe a warning, all pressed into one slow drag of my lips.
That’s all it takes to snap his careful restraint. His hands are suddenly everywhere, gripping like he’s trying to memorize every inch of me. I grind down against him, desperate for more. For all of him.
We’re frantic. Starved. This car isn’t enough, but we don’t care. We’re taking any crumb we can of each other.
“So fucking gorgeous,” he breathes against my neck.
Whatever he’s doing, it’s working. My thoughts scatter. All I know is him. My hand slips between us, fingers working the button of his pants from between my thighs. I dip my hand beneath his waistband, frantic to touch him again, skin-to-skin.
His eyes flick between my face and the tight grip of my hand around him, torn between watching the contact and watching me. I stroke him with purpose, not caring if someone walks past the tinted windows. Right now, it’s only us. This moment. This electricity thrumming through every breath.
Each pass of my hand pulls him closer, until suddenly, he grabs my face and kisses me.
Messy. Reckless. Groaning into my mouth as he comes in my hand.
We pull back, breathless, and for a moment, it all makes sense. How badly we’ve wanted this, how good it feels to stop pretending we didn’t.
His thumb drags along my cheekbone, slow and reverent, like he’s trying to memorize me. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to drive this car again without getting hard.”
I drop my head to his chest and burst out laughing. He kisses the crown of my head, and I feel his smile against my hair. For a few seconds, we just breathe. My body draped over his, windows fogged, the rest of the world on mute.
Then, beneath my cheek, his chest rises. A deeper breath. Like he’s gearing up to say something that might change everything.
“We should probably talk about what just happened,” he says. Then after a beat, quieter, more cautious, “Or, what keeps happening.”
I lift my head to meet his eyes. “You mean the part where I climbed on top of you and wrecked your pants, or the part where I can’t stop thinking about doing it again?”
He huffs a breath, half laugh, half in pain. “All of it.”
I don’t have an answer for him because I don’t have a fucking clue what this is between us. All I know is that it feels good. It feels right and inevitable.
My chest goes tight, the words stuck somewhere between truth and fear.
“I don’t know,” I finally reply. “I’ve been trying to convince myself it’s nothing.”
“Is that what you want it to be?” he asks, voice low.
“No,” I breathe. “Not when you look at me like that. Not when you touch me like I matter. Then it all feels too big to ignore.”
His fingers find a loose strand of hair, tucking it behind my ear with a softness that nearly undoes me. “I can’t stay away from you, and I don’t think I want to even try.”
“So, what do we do then?”
“We figure it out,” he says. “Your pace, your terms. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Okay,” I whisper. “We figure it out.”
We don’t say anything else for a while. We just sit there, tucked into each other, the rest of the world on hold.
Am I scared? Of course. This has every chance of ending badly. What scares me more is losing what we have.
For so long, I thought I wasn’t capable of loving someone like this. It’s a depth I’ve never experienced.
Now I know the truth.
It was never me. It was never that I couldn’t feel it.
It was just never him.