Chapter 17
Somehow managing to avoid any curious, prying eyes, Grace and Crew sneak out of the tent and pile into the truck.
Whether because everyone is graciously giving them an out or they’re just lucky, she doesn’t know.
Doesn’t particularly care. Especially not now, sitting in the passenger seat with the windows rolled down and Crew’s hand on her knee.
“Folsom Prison Blues” plays on a spotty radio station, Johnny Cash’s deep croon tuning in and out, accompanied by dull static.
Though Grace knows Crew is driving toward something, his route feels aimless and unpredictable.
He veers off between trees and brush, wholly trusting in the four-wheel drive of the truck to get them over the uneven, rocky terrain.
“Are you gonna tell me where we’re going?” she calls out, voice rising over the radio, the wind, and the thrumming engine.
Crew just smiles, looks over at her, and winks.
It makes her stomach swoop, that cocky little action.
That mix of playfulness and self-assured ease that she’s beginning to understand is the real Crew Caldwell.
She used to think he was a man of opposing forces—able to be split clean down the middle.
One side, the grumpy, chilly, ever-scowling foreman.
And the other, a devoted big brother and a loyal, hardworking elder son.
A warm, protective, and understanding man of whom she only ever saw sporadic glimpses.
Those rare, quiet moments she’d hoarded into her memory for safekeeping.
She understands now that he’s somewhere in between. Not quite as clear-cut, but a swirling mix of beautiful, frustrating attributes, the sum of their parts coming together to form this magnetic man she can’t seem to look away from.
So distracted by the enigma that is Crew, Grace doesn’t even notice that the truck has started to slow down. When she looks out the windshield, what’s spread out before them is…somewhat anticlimactic. Her brow furrows. “It’s a field.”
Crew nods, also staring out at the clearing.
“You took us from a field…to…another field?”
He chuckles. “Notice anything different about this particular field?”
Grace squints, trying to understand, playing a spot the difference game she isn’t quite grasping. But then it dawns on her, and when she pokes her head out the window to confirm her suspicions, she plops back down, her eyes beginning to sparkle with excitement. “Mud.”
Crew winks at her again, and then, without warning, he slams his foot onto the accelerator and takes off, sending mud in every direction with the force of the tires.
The slap of it hitting the truck’s exterior is loud, and Grace barely has enough time to roll up her window before she’s covered in it.
She’s laughing, screaming, yelling at him to be careful as he starts to pull maneuvers that have the truck nearly tipping over.
But it never does, even as he does a series of figure eights, each growing wider than the last.
Grace’s stomach hurts from how hard she’s laughing, especially when he gets pelted in the face by a rogue splash of mud flying in through the crack in his window.
Crew brakes and puts the truck in park, assesses himself, and then blows a raspberry to get the residue off his lips.
Grace is practically snorting in hysterics now, which attracts his narrow-eyed attention, and then he’s launching into action—leaning over without ceremony and rubbing his face against hers, leaving mud on her cheeks, forehead, and chin.
She squeals as he begins to also tickle her in retribution, and it’s futile to try to push him off.
No matter how hard she shoves, he’s impervious to her efforts.
So easily, like she’s made of putty, he molds her to his liking until he’s hovering over her as much as he can with the center console between them.
When Grace’s laughter eventually dies down, they both begin to still, breathing heavily.
A moment that had, seconds ago, been full of mirth and silliness quickly shifts into something else entirely.
The air between them grows thick with a charge so powerful it hums right along with the idling engine.
Crew’s eyes search her face until they find her lips.
Unfazed by the mud and grime, he stares at them for a long moment, studying them.
Maybe trying to decide his best plan of attack.
Whatever the case, Grace is growing increasingly impatient, so she takes her bottom lip into her mouth, catching it between her teeth.
A signal—a message for him she hopes is loud and clear: I want you to kiss me.
I want it so badly I can’t see straight.
Crew lets out a shuddering breath, and then he obliges.
Inexplicably, through some miracle within the fabric of the universe, the second kiss Crew Caldwell gives her is better than the first. Before, when they had yet to know the shape of each other’s mouths, there was apprehension and gentleness, shifting hesitantly into hunger and heat.
There had been a clandestine quality to it, given their surroundings—doomed from the start to be dampened or interrupted.
But here, now, they aren’t hiding. They don’t have to be quiet, and they don’t have to be delicate.
Because if the way Crew’s mouth slants over hers is any indication, there are no longer any questions of intent lingering between them. They’ve all been definitively answered.
With a hand at her neck and the pad of his thumb tracing her jaw, Crew opens her up, physically and emotionally.
He strips her bare of all doubt with his tongue, rolling it against her own, and—surely—there must be sparks igniting in her mouth, because electricity is humming throughout her body.
The damp, heated spot between her legs—the power source of it all—begins to throb with his ministrations.
Crew groans into her mouth, and the sound has her hips rocking on instinct, a begging motion, a need unmet, desperate for the friction of his body against hers.
But it’s awkward in the cab of the truck—the space is too small, and Crew is far too big to do anything comfortably besides kiss her.
And even that won’t be a sustainable practice if they keep going like this, because with each brush of his tongue against hers, the growing need within Grace’s belly to touch, to feel, to be held by him is becoming overwhelming.
She wonders if he’s thinking the same thing, because his fervent kisses begin to slow, his grip on her neck loosening.
A longing she’s never known spreads in her chest when he pulls back, separating himself from her.
He’s breathing hard, his lips parted and swollen.
His eyes are heavy lidded, nearly concealing the way his pupils are blown black and wide.
Grace leans forward reflexively, the rope between them growing taut with the wreckage written all over his face.
A sudden need, starving and urgent, takes over—she wants him to always look like this; she wants to put her mouth on him and hear him groan her name.
She’s about a half second away from climbing over the console and settling onto his lap when Crew manages to utter a string of raspy, rumbling words. “Wait. Hang on.”
Still in a bit of a trance, Grace murmurs, “What?”
Crew exhales roughly, staring down at her contemplatively.
He leans up on his arm, looks out the windshield, then starts chewing on the inside of his cheek.
Grace is about to ask him what he could possibly be thinking about when he looks back at her and says, “I want to strip you of these clothes and kiss every single inch of you.”
A wave of heat crashes through her and she’s nodding before she even realizes it—suddenly needing that more than she’s ever needed anything.
Crew smiles, his expression shifting into a mix of amusement and adoration. “But I also haven’t had a real shower in days and I—” A minute slip of his confidence, a softening of his eyes into something more vulnerable. “I want to make this good for you. Every part of it.”
Reaching up a hand, Grace traces her thumb over Crew’s bottom lip. “It already is.”
He presses a kiss there, then sighs. “Come back to the house with me,” he says quietly. He nips at her thumb, and his eyes darken slightly when he adds, “Come shower with me.”
There’s no logical reason why Grace should be nervous about this, but something about the idea of standing beneath a showerhead next to a very naked Crew while they bathe feels frighteningly intimate.
He’s already washed her hair, massaged knots from her muscles, literally reset her bones, but this—the nakedness, proximity, the steamy, low-lit shower—it makes her almost shiver in a wild combination of nerves and anticipation.
And maybe because she doesn’t answer him right away, or maybe because he’s got a habit of being his most honest self during these heated exchanges, Crew seems to need to reinforce his request, to solidify and vocalize his intentions.
He leans down and says, deep and rough in her ear, “And then I want to fuck you in my bed.” He bites the lobe, dragging it upward for a beat before releasing it, and Grace is temporarily blinded by stars bursting in her vision. Hot, needy, exploding stars.
“How does that sound, baby?” he asks, teasing, already knowing the answer. It sounds perfect.
It sounds like everything she’s ever wanted. And still, he toys with her, dialing up her arousal until it’s edging close to a fever pitch.
“Will you let me fuck you?”
Grace nods, unable to say—scream—the only word that can possibly follow that question.
She nods and nods and nods until Crew is finally up, lifting himself off her and putting the truck into gear.
She’s dazed, barely aware they’re moving until they’ve reversed out of the clearing entirely and are swinging around to catapult forward in the direction of the house.