1. Dean #2
But I can't help it. She's got this gravitational pull that I don't think she's even aware of—this warmth that draws you in, makes you want to get closer. Her leg bumps mine under the bar, and neither of us moves away.
Her shampoo smells tropical and sweet and I’ll remember it later whether I want to or not.
"Can I ask you something?" she says, and her voice has gone a little softer, a little more careful.
The bartender sets down her third whiskey sour and my third beer. The bar has filled up around us and I hadn't noticed, which until now has not been something that happens to me.
"Go for it."
"You said you're passing through. Do you always pass through, or do you ever—" She swirls the ice in her drink. "Land?"
The question hits somewhere I wasn't expecting. "I haven't found the right place to land yet."
She studies me. For a second I think she's going to ask the follow-up, and try to dig into why a thirty-five-year-old man is still drifting like a tumbleweed with a truck payment.
But she doesn't. She just nods, slowly, and says, "You will."
Like she believes it. As if it's obvious.
Something in my chest aches.
She glances up at the elk head, then back at me, and her expression shifts to mock-serious. "Is it just me, or is that elk looking at us?"
"Yeah, he is," I say.
"Why is he looking at us?"
"Um, can’t you see he’s jealous of how much fun we’re having?”
She grins at me, and rests her hand on my forearm, casually, like she doesn't realize she's doing it. And her skin on mine is scorching.
We're closer than before. When did we get this close? I can count the freckles across the bridge of her nose. There aren't many—just a scatter. I want to press my lips to each one.
You don't get to want that, buddy. You're a liar in a small town bar, just wasting the time of a pretty young woman.
I should leave. I should close my tab and go back to the motel and be smart about this.
"So, Tom." She leans in close enough that her lips almost brush my ear, and every nerve ending in my body stands at attention. "You drive a truck?"
"I do."
"The backseat of your cab big enough for two?"
I pull back to look at her, just to make sure I heard her right. She's biting her bottom lip, and her cheeks are pink. She knows exactly what she's asking.
She’s bold. I like bold. "What's a nice girl like you asking to get in the back seat of an old man’s truck for?”
"First of all, you're not old." She pokes me in the chest. "Second, I’m not a girl.
And third, we've both been drinking and nobody's driving anywhere for a while.” She straightens up on her stool, chin lifted.
"Also, for the record, I'm a black belt in karate. I can handle myself. Even after a few drinks.”
"Is that right?"
"Mm-hm. So if you try anything I don't want, I'll break your nose."
"Fair enough." I drop my voice. "You're welcome to tie my hands if it'll make you feel safer. So I behave."
Something hot and wild flashes in her eyes. "I'm not asking to go to your truck so you'll behave."
The sound that comes out of my throat when I swallow is rough and cracked.
"Tab," I say to the bartender without looking away from her. "Close me out."
The parking lot is cool and smells of wood and gravel dust, and Kaylee walks beside me hands on my arm.
Every point of contact feels like a lit match. Her heels crunch on the gravel and she stumbles slightly on a loose stone, and my hand finds the small of her back to steady her. She leans into it, my palm burning where I'm touching her through the thin fabric of that dress.
I unlock the truck and open the door for her. She steps up and slides in first and I follow, pulling the door shut behind me.
The world shrinks to the size of this cab and us. The distant thump of country music comes from the bar, the parking lot light throwing a dim amber glow through the windows.
I can see her pulse fluttering in her throat as her hand comes up to my jaw…fingertips light, almost tentative, tracing the stubble there. She searches my face as if she's looking for a reason to stop, but when she doesn't find one she closes the distance.
Her sweet mouth presses against mine, and it's so fucking soft.
I let her lead. Her lips are warm and taste like those whiskey sours. She kisses me slowly, exploring, her fingers stroking along my neck. It's the gentlest thing anyone's done to me in years, and it almost breaks me.
Then she makes this sound—this tiny, wanting little hum against my mouth—and my restraint snaps like a dry branch.
I fist my hand in the back of her hair, tilting her head to change the angle, and I kiss her the way I've been thinking about kissing her for the last two hours. Deeply. Thoroughly.
My other hand finds her waist and pulls her closer, and she gasps into my mouth, grabbing the front of my shirt with both hands.
"Fuck, yes," she breathes against my lips.
I pull back just enough to look at her. She's breathing hard. So am I. And her lips are swollen and her eyes are huge and she's looking at me as if—
She sees something others don’t.
No. Don't think like that. This is one night. That's all it can be.
She pulls me back in before I can spiral—smarter than me, this woman, one step ahead—and this time she kisses me the same as she talks—boldly and a little surprising. Her hands fist tighter in my shirt and she climbs further into my lap with a confidence that makes my cock strain against my jeans.
Jesus.
She grinds down against me once, and my head falls back against the seat. "You sure you want to do this?" My voice is wrecked already.
“Yes. I don’t—this isn’t typical for me—it’s been a long time since I’ve been this attracted to someone, Tom.”
I bury the sting of the fake name. Okay then. “You asked for it, honey.”
I kiss her again, harder this time, one hand sliding into that blonde hair and tilting her head back so I can get at her neck.
She gasps when my teeth graze her flesh, and her hips rock forward, making me groan against her skin.
The dress rides further up her thighs and I can feel the heat of her through my jeans. I grip her ass hard enough that she bites her bottom lip.
"You have no idea how you look right now," I say.
In the dim glow from the parking lot lights, her skin is golden and her hair's falling around her face and she's looking down at me with this expression that's half want and half dare.
"Tell me," she whispers.
"Like an angel." I drag my thumbs over her hipbones. "A very naughty angel."
She smiles and grinds down on me, and we both inhale sharply. My hands tighten on her, and she does it again, a rough sound escaping my throat.
"Do that again," I say against her throat. "Slower."
She does. And as I watch her eyelids flutter, I think, this woman is going to ruin me.
My hands slide up her thighs, pushing the dress higher, fingertips tracing the edge of her panties. She shivers.
I slip my fingers under the fabric and find her wet, hot pussy, and groan. She grabs my shoulders, nails digging in through my shirt, and when I circle her throbbing clit, her head falls back and the sound she makes is something I will remember for the rest of my goddamn life.
"Is that the spot, baby?"
"Fuck yes."
I work her slowly, then faster, then slowly again when she tries to rush it, and she whimpers in frustration.
"You're a tease," she pants, and she's wriggling against my hand now, chasing it.
"Says the woman who wore this dress to a bar on a Saturday night." I tease that aching nub again, and she cries out. "You had to know what you were doing."
"I didn't—oh, shit—I didn't know you'd be there."
"Well, lucky me."
I kiss her while I rub that sweet little spot, bringing her over the edge, swallowing the sounds she makes.
She comes apart in my lap, jerking and convulsing, with her hands tugging at my shirt. Her breath comes in jagged bursts against my lips, and I hold her through it, my free hand spread wide against her lower back, keeping her steady.
She's beautiful. She's so fucking beautiful it hurts to look at her.
When she slowly comes back down to herself, she's flushed and dazed and grinning. "How do you know my body so well?" she asks, reaching for my belt.
“I watch and listen, honey.” I catch her wrist. "Condom," I manage. "Wallet. Back pocket."
There's an awkward, laughing scramble to get it—her shifting in my lap, me trying to reach my back pocket while she's on top of me, both of us cracking up at the logistics. This isn't how it usually goes. Usually it's quick and anonymous and I'm already halfway out the door in my head.
I'm not out the door now.
I'm right here for as long as she’ll have me.
She takes the condom from my hand and tears the wrapper with her teeth, and the look she gives me is pure need.
We shove my jeans down, and she peels her panties off, both of us breathing as if we've been sprinting—and when she sinks down onto me, inch by inch, my hands tremble on her sexy ass cheeks.
"Kaylee." It comes out broken, and she stills as she looks down at me.
And for one perfect second, she’s mine and I’m hers.
Then she starts moving, and I stop thinking completely.
She rides me slowly at first, figuring out the angle, her hands braced on my chest. I let her set the pace, watching her face, watching the way her expression shifts when she finds what works. When she does she rolls her hips making us both groan, and I grab her waist and guide her into it, harder.
"Fuck," she breathes. "Right there…"
"Yeah." My voice is like gravel. "You’re so tight, Kaylee, Jesus."
I thrust up to meet her and she gasps, her nails scoring my shoulders, and we find a rhythm that's rough and urgent and somehow still utterly connected—her eyes on mine, my hand coming up to grip her throat, both of us right here. Present. I’m not going through the motions.
I’m losing myself in this woman in the back seat of my truck in a parking lot in Montana, and it’s spectacular.
She moans, clenching around my cock so hard my breath catches.
"You gonna come for me, baby?" I ask, stroking her neck, my lips grazing her ear.
She nods. "Yes, you feel amazing. Filling me up so deep, stroking me from the inside."
"Yeah, I’m in heaven, sweetheart. Your pussy is driving me crazy."
"Yes…oh god, yes…fuck me.”
She breaks with a cry as she leans forward, trying to muffle it against my neck.
Feeling her come around me pulls me over the edge so fast and intensely I see white. I crush her against me, face buried in her hair, pumping into her like mad.
“Fucking hell,” I groan.
I will remember this. God help me, I will.
She stirs, lifting her head, and gives me a smile that's drowsy and satisfied and real in a way that makes my chest crack down the middle.
"Hey," she says.
"Hey."
She traces a finger along my jaw. "Wow. You're not a bad Saturday night, Tom."
There it is again. The wrong name. I sigh on the inside.
"You're not bad yourself, honey."
We untangle carefully, laughing again at the cramped setup, and she fixes her dress while I deal with the condom and button my jeans.
She pulls down the visor mirror to check her hair and catches me watching her in the reflection.
Our eyes meet in the tiny rectangle of glass, and she smiles, and I think: You could tell her. Right now. Your real name, the job, all of it. Look at her—she'd understand.
But I don't. Because what if she doesn't? What if she tells someone? What if by Monday morning, the whole town knows the Timber Run camp hired a man who did eighteen months for assault, and the fragile new beginning I'm clinging to collapses before it starts?
I'm not willing to risk it. Not even for her. Not even for this.
Neither of us is driving anywhere tonight, so I pull up a rideshare for her on my phone while she flips the visor mirror shut. She gives me her address and I type it in, and the app says seven minutes, and I hate that I'm already counting them.
She gives me her number.
“I’ll call you,” I lie.
“You better,” she says, kissing my cheek and I want to crawl under a damn rock.
We sit in the cab and wait, her tucked against my side. The silence isn't awkward, it makes me want to say things I have no right to say.
Soon, headlights sweep across the parking lot.
I walk her to the car. She turns to face me, and in the light spilling from the bar's neon sign, she looks up at me and I capture the image in my head—the pale gold hair, the dimple, and the warm brown eyes.
She rises on her toes and kisses me one more time…softly and sweetly…a goodnight kiss that's so different from the frantic heat earlier in the truck.
“Call me, Tom,” she says again.
“I will.”
She smiles as if she believes me and gets in the car. I watch the taillights until they disappear around the bend, and then I stand there in the gravel lot for a while longer, since my legs don't seem interested in moving.
Eventually, I walk back to my truck and climb into the front seat. It still smells like her in here…that sweet, tropical shampoo. I crack the window to let the mountain air in and lean my head against the seat and close my eyes.
Once the beers work their way through my system and the road stops feeling like a bad idea, I’ll drive back to the motel.
For now I sit in the dark and listen to the bar empty out around me—doors slamming, engines starting, someone laughing too loud. The quiet settles after that. Just crickets and the occasional car on the highway and the sound of my own breathing.
I fall asleep, then wake up around three with a stiff neck and a dry mouth and the weird clarity that only hits in the dead hours. I drive back to the motel, and sit on the edge of the bed, staring at my phone.
I want to call. I want to hear her voice and tell her I wasn't pretending. That everything was real—the way we laughed, the way I held her, the way I said her name as if she was the only good thing in my entire bullshit life.
But if I call, I'll want to see her again. And if I see her again, I'll want to keep seeing her. And I can't offer her anything…not with a felony on my record, not when I'm one bad day away from being exactly who the state of Montana says I am.
She deserves better. She deserves a man who can be honest with her.
I close the phone and set it on the nightstand. Then I roll over in the motel bed and stare at the crack in the wall until it blurs.