Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
WYATT
I let Owen pull me through the bar, my hand tucked into his. I have no idea what’s going to happen next. If he were any other guy I had picked up in a bar, I’d think we were going to go fuck in his truck in the parking lot. But surely that can’t be what’s about to happen. I mean, this is Owen McBride. If he’s had sex anywhere other than a sensibly firm mattress with memory foam pillows and freshly laundered sheets, I’ll eat my boot. And if he’s acting out because of me, he’s going to wake up tomorrow with nothing but regret.
And the thought of Owen McBride regretting me feels like an anvil to the chest.
I’m three steps from talking myself out of this whole thing when my back hits the driver’s side door of his truck, a shiny, dark gray beauty, hulking and tall, just like him. His hands grasp my jaw, and then his lips are on mine.
And Owen McBride does not kiss like a boyfriend guy.
Owen McBride kisses like he’s left a trail of broken hearts from here to the Canadian border and back again. He kisses like he’s looking for the secret to eternal life in my mouth. He kisses like a starving man who can be sustained only by me.
Oh, this is the best kind of bad idea.
Owen’s tongue slides along the seam of my lips, and I part them for him, swallowing the greedy sound he makes when I lick him back, letting my teeth scrape over his full bottom lip. He presses me against the cold steel of his truck, but he mitigates the chill with his warm body. His feet part, his boots framing mine, and the evidence of his desire presses into my belly. God, he feels incredible, and I give my hips a roll of appreciation.
In answer, his hands slide to the nape of my neck, his fingers tangling in my curls. Never taking his lips off mine, he grips and pulls.
Owen McBride pulls my hair .
And oh my god, I did not think my scalp was an erogenous zone, but the moan I let out says otherwise.
“Get in the truck, Wyatt,” he growls.
God, I want to. But this isn’t just some random hookup. This is Owen. Grace’s brother. I see him all the time. If this goes bad, there’s no escaping him. Fuck, if this goes well , there’s no escaping him. This is why I drive nearly an hour out of town when I need to get laid. I don’t want to get tangled up in anyone , least of all my best friend’s older brother.
Owen pulls back slightly, but it’s only to capture my earlobe between his teeth. My pussy clenches at the sensation.
“I can feel you thinking, Wyatt,” he says, his tongue tracing a line from my ear down to my collarbone, where he laps at the sensitive skin. “This is not a moment for thinking.” His hand snakes me behind me, giving my ass a squeeze before reaching for the door handle. “It can just be fun. What do you say?”
Can it?
Fun is my specialty, but my head is spinning, and so is my control. But Owen’s got me in the palm of his hand. It feels like I may be losing it, but he’s found me.
And that… that scares me.
As if he can see every thought scrolling across my forehead like a Times Square stock ticker, he captures my mouth with a deep kiss that burns every fear and hesitation right out of my mind. My hands rake down his chest and slide around his hips, my thumb pressing into that little valley that leads to an impressive erection. I tug him closer, wanting to feel him like a relief map, not wanting to miss a single sensation.
“More,” I groan, ignoring my second thoughts, sprinting away from them without a backward glance.
Owen grasps my hips and lifts me, shifting me so he can pull the driver’s side door open. The leather seat is wide and pushed back to accommodate its very tall driver.
If you had told me this morning that I’d end my day dripping wet and about to crawl into Owen McBride’s truck for a one-timer, I would have said you were writing some pretty fantastical fanfic about the world’s sweetest man.
But then the world’s sweetest man yanks me toward him by my belt loops, covering my lips with his once again. And while he works over my mouth, he grasps my wrist and pulls my hand to his cock, hard and straining against his jeans.
“Fuck,” he mutters against my lips, and it’s the sexiest combination of sound and feeling of my life. His lips move to my neck, then nip at my collarbone.
“Do you have a condom?” I ask, leaning my head back against the cold metal.
“In the truck,” he says, tipping my head back down so he can capture my gaze again. “Get in the fucking truck, Wyatt.”
His phone buzzes first, a gentle vibration in his pocket that I instinctively thrust toward. But then mine goes off, an air horn of an alert that sends my heart into my throat.
“What the fuck,” I say, reaching for my phone in my back pocket. My intention is to silence the damn thing and then get to work on the button of Owen’s jeans. I’m anxious to see what I’ve been feeling against me. I’m already thinking about dropping to my knees right here in the gravel, imagining what it would feel like to hold that impressive control in my hand, to take it from him, to watch him fall apart.
But Owen gets his phone out first, and his brow furrows. A matching alert is on my own screen: a weather warning. The temperature is dropping faster than anticipated, a fact I hadn’t noticed because Owen has me so hot I’m practically sweating. I watch my breath fog up my screen as I realize that the ice storm is coming sooner than the forecast said.
“Shit,” Owen mutters into the glow of his phone.
“Yeah,” I reply. My first thought is Hazel and Eden, alone in our house. We don’t have a generator, and if the electricity goes out it’ll get cold fast. “I should get back.”
“Yeah. I need to make sure the generator kicks on at the practice if we lose power,” he says. He scrubs a hand down his face.
“So much for the moment,” I quip, trying to mask the misery I feel. If blue balls were a real phenomenon, I’d have it right now.
“It doesn’t have to be,” he says, somehow both sweet and filthy.
“It does,” I say gently. This was always going to be a one-time thing. And frankly, it probably shouldn’t even have been that. Now that the frigid air is cooling me down, I can see how carried away I was getting. I was seriously ready to suck Owen McBride’s cock in a parking lot. Jesus Christ, what was I thinking?
And while he doesn’t know about all the dirty thoughts I had, it was obvious from the feel of him that he had plenty of his own. Thoughts I’ll never know, because I’m watching them fade right in front of me.
“Yeah,” he says, half groan, half sigh.
“Well, you did convince me,” I tell him.
“What?” Goddammit, his face looks almost hopeful.
“I was wrong about you,” I say. “You are a little bit of trouble.”
And at that, he blushes. He blushes , and I damn near dive into his truck, ice storm be damned. I can still feel the ghost of his firm grip, those hands that surely know all kinds of ways to make me scream. My lips feel swollen and achy from his attention.
I want him.
Which is the surest sign that I should not— cannot —have him.
“Give me your phone,” he says.
I look up at him, and there’s a ghost of that commanding stare on his face. “What?”
“Give me your phone,” he repeats, and he’s still got that heated tone, the one that would have ordered me to do all manner of delightful things. And so I slip my phone out of my back pocket and pass it to him. He taps the screen, then holds it up to my face until it unlocks. He taps furiously, then passes it back. On the screen is an open text message from me to a number I don’t recognize.
Owen, I’m going to text you when I’m home safe. And if I need anything during the storm, you’ll be my first call.
I swallow a groan. This man is a test from the devil; now I know for sure. The devil is absolutely tempting me to make a fat stack of bad decisions. But then another text pops up on my screen.
Hazel
You okay out there? I just got the weather alert
I sigh. “Party’s over,” I mutter.
“I’m serious, Wyatt. You need to text me when you’re home safe,” he says, his voice stern.
I roll my eyes, the spell broken. “Yes, Dad ,” I say, but Owen captures my chin between his thumb and forefinger, leveling me with a look.
“Not my kink,” he says, and the flame of desire in my belly lights anew.
He grabs my hand and pulls me across the parking lot to my truck. He reaches into my back pocket with one of his big hands, extracts my car keys, and unlocks the door. It creaks open under his tug, and he stands there until I’m settled in the driver’s seat. Then he shuts the door firmly and leans toward the window.
“Drive safe,” he says, and this isn’t a platitude, it’s a command .
I did not take Owen McBride for bossy, but I like it.
It’ll be a nice memory for when I’m home and picking a toy from the drawer in my bedside table.
Because that’s all this can be.
A memory.
Owen’s headlights are in my rearview mirror for most of the drive back to Cardinal Springs. Just as we reach the town line, he flashes his brights before turning to head to his office. And that’s when I’m finally able to take a full, deep breath.
For the last thirty miles, I’ve been on pins and needles, replaying that kiss. The feel of the cold metal of his truck against my back, the warmth of his body covering me. The feel of his lips and tongue and teeth, his hands as they explored my body. The way my skin heated every place he touched and the way it still burns with desire now.
I hope that the longer I drive, the more that heat will fade, but it doesn’t. When I pull into my driveway, stopping beside Hazel’s battered Subaru, I’m still vibrating from our encounter.
The air is frigid, and it smells like snow. Any minute now the ice will start to fall. I should go inside. But instead I sit there, holding my phone.
“I’m not going to text him,” I mutter, flipping it over in my hands. Ghosting Owen seems like the quickest way to exorcise our encounter from my mind.
But of course there’s no ghosting Owen McBride. He’s part of my life whether I acknowledge what happened between us or not.
And the worried way his brow creased when he shut my truck door…I don’t want him worrying about me. That’ll just prolong the misery, right?
So I unlock my phone, navigate to the text message he sent, and type.
Made it home
There. That’s all. I did what I promised I’d do.
But I don’t stop typing.
Everything okay at the office?
The little bouncing dots appear almost instantly, accompanied by a fizzy feeling in my stomach.
Owen
Yup. Just wanted to double-check that the generator had fuel. Need to be ready to do X-rays when a kid I won’t name because of HIPAA regulations inevitably tries to snowboard down the icy hill behind his house on a sheet pan
Wyatt
Gotta make sure the lights are on for when someone eats yellow snow
Owen
You laugh, but someone’s mom is going to call me about that first thing tomorrow
Wyatt
What do you do for yellow snow?
Owen
Drink plenty of water and watch for nausea and vomiting
Don’t eat yellow snow, Wyatt
Wyatt
Thanks Doc
Owen
You’re welcome
Let me know if you need anything else
I tell myself he means medical information or help deicing my driveway, not a string of explosive orgasms.
I think after what I witnessed Owen McBride doing tonight, I’m lying to myself. But I’m just going to have to keep lying until it becomes true.
Wyatt
Good night Doc
I’m still smiling down at my phone when I hear a car pull up to the curb behind me. It’s a white taxi, dinged and rusty and in serious need of some engine work and a new muffler. The rear passenger door creaks when it opens, and I blink at the figure stepping out. Her hair is longer and grayer, no longer dyed her signature cherry-cola red. She’s missing her uniform of winged eyeliner and deep red lipstick, and her brows aren’t tweezed within an inch of their lives.
But when she smiles, the crinkles at the corners of her eyes are as familiar to me as my own face. I remember how she’d smile like that when she told me we were having ramen noodles for dinner for the fourth night in a row, or that she’d forgotten to move the laundry from the washer to the dryer so I should just turn my underpants inside out, or that we were being evicted again . Always trying to make her personal disasters seem like fun adventures. It’s the same smile she gave me as she was being led out of the courtroom, when she told me to take good care of Hazel, that everything would be fine.
It’s just ten years, Wyatt. It won’t last forever .
No, ten years didn’t last forever. It didn’t even last ten years, apparently.
“Hey, honey bun,” Libby Hart says, heaving the small duffel over her shoulder. “Aren’t you gonna welcome your mama home?”