CHAPTER ONE #2
“I guess it’s a good thing I’m not interested in anyone else ... anyone. Just anyone,” I blurt and babble, face scorching with embarrassment.
Thankfully, Dad doesn’t notice my slip. He’s mumbling about getting too old for this shit and snatching his coat off the hook.
Shawn ... Shawn isn’t moving. I’m not even sure he’s breathing. He’s all but turned into a statue in the middle of the foyer with my coat bunched between his fingers.
With the most painful slowness, his arms lift and he holds the dark folds open for me. It’s a gesture he’s never done before and it takes me a second to find feeling in my kneecaps when I turn to give him my back.
It’s dragged up my arms. His chest presses into my back, a brief brush I feel to my toes as he drapes the fabric on my shoulders.
Then, for the first time ever, he hooks his fingers through my pale strands. He frees them from the collar. Grazes my neck with calloused fingertips. Sends a million tingles through my body that make me shiver.
I swear ... I swear his fingers tighten in the chunk of hair he holds. Just a fraction, but I feel the prickle across my scalp.
“Good,” he breathes into my ear, I think.
It’s so soft, so quick, in mid-inhale and I may have made it up in my head, but he’s already gone, heat and weight vanishing, leaving me contemplating my sanity.
He’s at the door, face still tight with darkness as he wrenches the door open and holds it for me.
“Let’s go, birthday girl.”
I always thought I would be prepared for this, the moment Shawn finally saw me and looks at me the way he is right now, like he’s dying to know what my mouth would taste like.
But I’ve never been so ill prepared. The emotions, the pounding need in places only I’ve ever touched.
It’s all a hot wave rolling over me, making me feel clumsy as I force my legs to move forward on my heels.
The unforgiving snap of January claws at my exposed calves and nips at my cheeks. I wince before I hit the porch. My fingers clutch the collar of my coat while trying not to slip on the slick wood.
Shawn shoveled and salted the path. I heard him while I was getting ready, but my black pumps are no match for winter.
But I make it unsteadily off the front porch, fingers tight around the railing when Shawn is next to me. His elbow extended.
I peer up at him in the soft kiss of dusk lining that beautiful face with deep shadows. His gray eyes shine in the porch lights, heavy with a cavern of emotions that fill my insides with liquid honey.
“Thank you,” I murmur, curling my fingers into the soft wool of his coat.
The heat of his body immediately envelopes me in a cocoon of warmth that urges me to press closer.
Not too close.
Dad is ambling after us with the jingle of his keys filling the night. No one in Jefferson locks their doors, and we never did either, but after what happened to Jasper Sutton, Shawn insists we should.
Shawn isn’t a homegrown Jeffersonian like Dad and I.
He only moved here two years before Dad met him.
He still doesn’t understand a lot of what the people of this town believe in, but he’s made a home and name for himself, and the townspeople seem to accept him.
Other than my dad, he doesn’t have friends and he’s fine with that, even though Dad is nearly twenty years older than him.
We pile into Shawn’s truck. Dad settles in the back, claiming the birthday girl deserves the front.
I don’t argue. Neither does Shawn when he pulls my door open and helps me in.
To my surprise, he ducks in after me. His enormous frame fills the cramped space.
Drowns me in the rich scent of wood polish, sawdust and soap.
His face hovers inches ... inches from mine.
Gray clashing with dark blue as he drags my belt across my lap.
Snaps me in.
Steals my air.
My mental stability.
He searches my eyes before dropping his attention to my lips. They part willingly and his expression becomes a storm cloud of hunger.
“Stop it,” he hisses under his breath, and I don’t know if he’s talking to me or himself.
But he’s pulling out and the door, despite the tremor of resistance coursing through him, closes gently.
Then it’s just me and my hammering heart watching him stalk around the hood. The truck shudders with him climbing behind the wheel. Then we’re off without an actual word spoken, but the coiling tension screams. It’s a howling demon raging through the cabin.
Sweet, cheery gloss coats my tongue with every gnaw of my teeth nibbling on my bottom lip. I pick at the hem of my dress. Anxious in a way I’ve never been in my life. Maybe a part of my brain realizes that this could be the night, the pivotal moment when he finally picks me.
Eighteen and nineteen may have still been too young, I get that, but twenty is a good number, isn’t it?
It’s not like he watched me grow up. He and my dad didn’t even know each other before that day he came by to drop off the chair as an early birthday present.
They became friends when I was two years shy of adulthood. Practically grown up.
Well, now I am.
Fully and completely.
The faint creak of leather captures my attention.
My gaze flicks off the snow-covered highway to the crushing force of Shawn’s fingers around the wheel.
The sheer aggression is so unexpected, I turn my glance up to his face to find him glowering out at the road like it’s personally responsible for his suffering.
If I had any doubt that I am to blame, it’s quashed with the hard side-eye he shoots ... my legs. My exposed thighs where my skirt has ridden up.
A bold voice in my head, a delusional whisper tempts me to hike the covering higher. Maybe relax my knees. Nothing crazy, but my cheeks prickle hot enough to make my ears burn. I can only bite down harder on my lip and pretend I don’t notice.
The four hour drive to Mayfield is done in that same brittle silence equivalent to a stray bubble floating over a mountain of soaking dishes.
It sort of lingers, delicate and beautiful, but precarious in its trajectory.
Every part of me teases the idea of opening the conversation, saying something cute and witty, but I can’t flirt on a good day without an audience.
Having Dad in the backseat, scrolling through his phone, only weakens my resolve, encouraging me to keep my mouth shut.
We arrive behind the familiar squat, brick building. Snow has begun to fall lightly, catching on the rich aroma of roasted tomatoes and spices. The parking area is an ocean of metal lightly dusted in a fine layer of frost.
Shawn is out of his seat before I have my belt off. He’s at my door, yanking it open, filling the warm cabin with a frigid breeze.
I shiver, but accept the splayed palm he offers me. Skin on skin. The first time ever. We’ve never touched beyond an accidental brush in passing. Our knees bumped once while we were watching a movie and I nearly stopped breathing.
But this?
I have to swallow and pray my fingers aren’t clammy when I slip them across his roughened skin.
Long, agile digits stiff with calluses and lined with scars twist around my hand. Practically swallow the entire thing. His grip is strong and steady when guiding me out of my chair and down onto the footrest.
At this height, we’re eye level. His face is inches from mine. Inches. His every uneven exhale tangles with every unsteady pant from me, creating a wall of white. But even through the plumes, his eyes burn. Chips of frost as cool and all consuming as the ice beneath his feet.
“Careful,” he murmurs.
I can only nod as he gingerly brings me down the rest of the way to the concrete.
His grip around my fingers is unwavering, but he adds the weight of his palm against my lower back, inadvertently enclosing me in his arms. So close.
Practically tucked into his chest as he reaches past me and shuts the door behind me.
Reality urges me to step back. To put the polite amount of space between us. Instead, my chin is lifting, and my gaze is tangling with his in the soft, glittery dusk.
I gulp.
I’m sure he hears it. The silence hides nothing, not even his sharp inhale. His fingers tighten. His head dips. I think. Or maybe he’s always been so close I can practically taste the mint on his breath...
“My ass is asleep.”
The entire car frame rattles with the sharp slam of the truck door. Dad’s shuffling shatters the moment, a pebble in a still pond. The disruption shatters Shawn’s momentary lapse of judgment and he withdraws into the shadows. His hold loosens. Slips. I’m released and he’s pulling back.
Suddenly, there is a chasm between us.