Chapter Thirteen #2
A shower of sparks goes up behind us as another telephone pole crashes into the road, uncomfortably close. “C’mon,” Wes mutters, the engine revving as he stomps on the gas. “There was another paved road heading east about a mile south.”
“Yeah, but it’s three miles after that to the next southbound road.” I glance anxiously behind us. The tornado appears smaller, but not by much. We haven’t put nearly enough distance between it and ourselves. “Not a lot of room to run if that thing turns.”
“I think it’s moving north.” Wes flashes me a nervous grin, jabbing the button to lower the window before he sticks his head out to look back at the tornado furiously eating up farmland. “We’re good!”
He’s staring back at the tornado so intently that he doesn’t see the power lines stretched across the road until I shout his name.
We skid to a stop inches in front of the sparking wires. “Put your window up,” I snap, my heart in my throat as I use the mirror to check the tornado’s progress. “We need to get out of here.”
“I can get under them if we go onto the shoulder a little.” Wes points to an opening that might be big enough for us to squeeze through as another shower of sparks erupts from the tangled wires. “Don’t touch anything metal.”
“No shit.” I take a deep breath as he slowly backs up and angles the car to slip under the lines. He’s not entirely calm either, his jaw granite and his knuckles white on the steering wheel, but we manage to clear the debris without incident.
Wes lets out a long sigh as we pick up speed again. “Nothing like a close call to get the heart pumping.” My temper flares, but before I can snap back at him that if he’d kept his eyes on the damn road we would have seen it earlier, he reaches for me with a visible tremble in his hand. “You okay?”
I swallow hard, my heart rate not yet back to normal. “That was close. Too close.” It’s exactly why I didn’t want to get sucked into his vortex.
He nods, his hand squeezing around mine. “I know. I’m sorry. I…I let myself get distracted. You’re right. I should be more careful with you.”
With you. I peer at Wes, wondering why it’s only my safety that seems to be affecting him at all. But there’s no time to wonder with a tornado still devouring dirt behind us.
I refresh the radar, studying the movement on loop and the defined hook that’s powering the storm. The road that Wes mentioned is coming up, and while there’s no guarantee, running parallel to the tornado is a risk I’m willing to take based on the data. “That left is coming up.”
“Yeah?” His eyes flick up to the rearview, checking on the tornado, and then to me. “You sure you’re okay with that?”
I settle with the realization he’s willing to skip it if I’m uncomfortable. Maybe Wes really does mean it when he says he’s sorry for getting distracted. “Let’s do it. Just don’t lie down in the road again, okay?”
“Got it. No more playing roadkill.”
“Wes!”
He flashes me a mischief-filled grin, lifts my hand to his mouth, and presses a kiss to my skin. “Just playin’,” he says, though there’s a wobble in the words that makes me wonder how much of his blasé attitude is faked. “I’ll be careful, promise.”
“Better be,” I tell him with a sharp look right before he lets my hand go and turns east.
Three seconds later, his window is down again and he’s holding his phone out, right hand gripping the steering wheel as he lets out whoops of excitement.
I shake my head, fighting a smile. Maybe I should be more concerned, but filming out the window while driving is standard-issue reckless.
I can’t be mad about something I’ve done hundreds of times myself.
The lingering unease over everything else that just went down is less easily dismissed.
It’s another late night when we finally pull into the hotel parking lot. I’m mid–adrenaline crash, my body so heavy I briefly consider going to sleep in the passenger seat.
Wes isn’t doing much better. He lets out a jaw-cracking yawn after shutting the car off, his head lolling back on the seat while we both sit in the sudden silence. “We gotta go inside.” He turns toward me and yawns again. “Bed is right there.”
“So far.” I rub my eyes with a moan and swallow my own yawn. “At least we can sleep in a little. Okay. We can do this.”
I sleepwalk my way through check-in, and then we’re in another elevator, facing another set of hotel rooms—and another choice about how our evening ends.
“Almost there,” Wes says softly, holding his arm in front of the elevator door so I can step out first. We shuffle onto our floor wrapped up in each other, which doesn’t make it any easier to navigate the space with our camera bags and duffels.
Both of our rooms are toward the end of the hall—I’m in 325 and Wes is across from me in 328.
“It’s been a long day,” he says at the same moment I blurt out, “I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open.”
The tension drains out of me as we share a relieved laugh.
There’s a faint wash of color in his cheeks, his expression soft as he steps into my space and drops his bags at his feet.
Cupping my jaw in his palms, Wes leans in and brushes a kiss against my mouth.
“We’re both exhausted,” he says quietly, rubbing his thumb along my cheekbone when he breaks the kiss. “Go get some sleep.”
Except he doesn’t let go, and I don’t make any move to step away. Maybe it’s the adrenaline or the day, or maybe it’s just that my body has been desperate for the weight of his again, but I’m the one who presses onto my toes and wraps my arms around his neck.
Wes responds instantly, backing me up against the door and kissing me like he’s been dying of thirst all day.
There’s nothing sweet about this kiss, just hunger and need in the plunge of his tongue and the nip of his teeth.
I forget we’re in the hallway where anyone could see us and roll my hips against his, moaning at the feral sound that rumbles out of him.
One hand fists his shirt, dragging him closer, while the other dips under the soft cotton to trace his abdomen, hot, soft skin over rigid muscle.
The ding of the elevator jerks us back to our senses.
We break apart, breathing heavily. Wes rests his forehead against mine for a long moment.
“Wouldn’t be mad if you wanted to invade my dreams tonight,” he says in a rough voice before pushing off the door.
Eyes still burning with want, he bends to grab his bags. “Good night, Sloane.”
The raspy way he says my name sends tingles racing down my spine. I shove my key into the door, but before I go in, I pause long enough to catch his eye over my shoulder and say, “I’ll definitely be thinking of you when I get in bed.”
Ten minutes later, when my hand is between my legs, I shiver at the memory—and promise—of the low groan Wes lets out just before the door shuts.