Chapter 20
“I was about to ask if you had your seatbelt on,” Nick says once we’re in the car. “Force of habit.”
“You’re so…” I search for the right word. “Responsible?”
“I was hoping you were going to say handsome. Charming. Irresistible, att—”
“Okay, okay. I did not have the perfect word available in this moment at”—I check my phone—“two fifteen? Fuck.”
“Yeah, it’s late.” The rain has slowed to a drizzle. “And I know your alarms go off pretty early. Six fourteen. Six forty-nine…” I look at him. “Doesn’t seem like you actually get out of bed, though.”
“You don’t need to worry about what time I get out of bed,” I reply.
“I mean, I do if your alarm is going off at nine-minute increments for three hours every morning and it wakes me up, too.”
“I’m very active in the morning. How do you know I’m not doing productivity sprints and that’s why you hear alarms every nine minutes?”
I think this is a very valid point until he says, “I have a pretty good idea of how productive you are every day around nine fifteen.”
I freeze. I’m sure the blood drains from my face, leaving me even more Lydia Deetz–like than usual. The walls can’t be that thin.
And then, in one fluid motion, Nick puts the car in reverse, places his right arm behind my seat, and backs out of the parking space. His left hand turns the wheel, palm flat, not even gripping it.
It’s just so effortless. Confident. It hits me like a shot of espresso to my core.
Look, some women are into six-pack abs or Scottish accents. For me? It’s the one-handed backup.
Any lingering inebriation? Gone. Composure? None. I feel completely sober and laser-focused on that left hand and the comment about what he can hear through our shared wall.
“Actually, can you park again for a second?” I ask. Without giving it a second—or first—thought, I jam my fingers against the buckle of my seatbelt. It releases with a pleasing click. “I just want to see—”
“Did you forget someth—”
I push my right foot into the floor mat and twist to the left, leaning all the way over the center console. The gear shift pokes into my ribs, but I don’t care. And yes, my kissing technique is a little messy because I’m contorted and off-balance, but he’s not complaining. Far from it.
I’m extending myself farther and farther over the console, needy as fuck. Pushing for more and getting it right back from him. Suddenly my mouth is running over his cheek, his beard, sucking on his earlobe.
God.
God.
Even with the windows rolled up, there’s a flurry of sound. Skin and fabric sliding across the upholstery, the chunky rubber heel of my Doc Marten banging up against the bottom of the passenger door. Heavy breathing evolving into panting. My nails scratching down his scalp.
I angle myself back, toward the gap between the driver and passenger seats, trying to say “Back seat?” It comes out as “bbbehhkmmett?”
But Nick definitely gets it, because he grabs my waist and tries to help me over the center console, which would be a challenging maneuver even for a sober person with excellent limb coordination.
I land clumsily on the rear bench seat, getting my feet caught on just about every piece of protruding equipment—the gear shift, the steering wheel, the seatbelt buckle. I crush at least three of the stuffed animals with my ass.
Nick wisely uses the doors.
His hands are all over me, underneath my T-shirt, sliding over the curve of my waist and along my rib cage, fingers edging back to unclasp my bra. I breathe a ragged sigh into his mouth and tug up on his shirt. Again.
He pulls it over his head, bumping his hand against the roof. My T-shirt comes off, too.
Under normal circumstances, I’m easily psyched out. More often than not, when I’m with another person, I’ve had to swallow internal questions like “Really? This guy?” and “Why are you doing this again?” or “Do you actually want to put your face there? Your mouth there? Are you sure?”
I’m never sure. I’m never, ever sure.
Except that right now, I am.
I’m so used to settling for tiny pieces of people. Little fragments of attention while they’re preoccupied with something else. And right now he’s literally holding me with both hands.
I actually want this man to tear into what’s remaining of my clothes. Rip my stupid lacy underwear off my body as a fuck you to the dirtbag I wore them for because I’m delusional.
“You’re just so…” His voice trails off into my collarbone.
He doesn’t bother completing the thought. He doesn’t need to because I feel so…everything.
“God, I just—I want to suck your cock.”
I know. I’m shocked, too. Shocked to hear the words leave my mouth, let alone actually mean them. It’s temporary mania. It’s what all those creepy Victorian doctors diagnosed women with. Hysteria.
We’re both fumbling with his belt and I think his hands are shaking a little bit, which only makes me more certain. It’s this intense urge to make this very responsible man lose all control in his car parked in front of his workplace.
He’s leaning back on the seat, reaching for me, but I swat his hand away. I can’t have distractions. I tear into the buckle, whipping the leather through his belt loops.
“You don’t have to—”
“I think it was on my mind when you put on those gloves,” I say, breathless.
I can tell he wants to laugh, but it comes out more as a raspy exhale, because my hands are already working their way under the elastic waistband of his boxers. We’re moving so fast there’s no time to feel self-conscious.
I run my fingers down his cock, my face so close I think I’m tickling him with my breath. “Is this okay?” I murmur.
There’s a response, but it’s not in any form of language I’m familiar with. It sounds like a vowel-heavy keyboard smash.
We know each other the perfect amount for this—not so well that it’s awkward, just enough so there’s some trust.
I take him in my hand, stroking. His entire torso rises and falls in a quick rhythm. I’m breathing fast, too. My heartbeat feels like it’s in my throat.
“That—that’s good. Really very…very good. Shit.” He’s death-gripping the headrest with his left hand and reaching for my face with the right, tucking an errant lock of hair behind my ear.
In a different environment, I’d take my time with this. I could push him to the breaking point just with my hand. But I don’t know how long my back can handle being hunched over, and this is a goddamn Chili’s parking lot, so I lean forward, running my tongue up his length.
At moments like this, I’m usually berating myself for not better cataloging all the blow job tips I’ve encountered over the last ten years. Right now, my head is empty. I’m running on instinct, adrenaline, and the sounds Nick makes as I focus on the underside of the tip.
“F-fuck. Ahhh, fuck.” His hips jerk upward. I press on, taking him into my mouth, sucking gently. He groans in response, raw and almost feral.
It’s so satisfying I feel this prickling sensation down my spine that distracts me from the probable rug burn on my knees.
Why are so many men stoically silent during sex?
His noises spur me on. I find myself automatically taking him deeper into my mouth, sucking a tiny bit harder. He wants me, yes, but I need him to want me a little bit more.
Nick makes a low, guttural sound every time he hits the back of my throat, and it’s so encouraging. I feel like I’m jogging the last hundred feet of a marathon, with thousands of cheering supporters urging me toward the finish line.
His fingers are tangled in my hair and he’s just barely moving my head: light pressure, forward and back, slow and then faster. Glancing up at him and the helpless look on his face, I’m oscillating between feeling hot-debased and hot-powerful-sex-witch.
“Sam.” He breathes my name. “Y-you…Fuckfuck…” The rest is gibberish and groaning.
Honestly, I’m pretty damn pleased with myself. Finally, a sense of accomplishment!
Nick pulls me up to the seat next to him and we kiss again.
I take the time to notice sensory things: the softness of his lips next to the bristly texture of his beard, the gentle way he touches my face and my bare shoulders.
I’m sure he can taste his own cum in my mouth, but he doesn’t care and I like that.
“Here, lean back,” he says, tossing two of the stuffed animals on the seat behind me into the trunk area. My back hits the arm rest as I try to recline.
My eyes follow the path of Nick’s fingers slowly tracing my collarbone, down my sternum, over my belly, pausing to feel my stomach rising and falling with each breath.
He moves his hand back up, unhooking my bra, his fingers finding their way over my left breast. He grazes the nipple and I tip my chin up toward the roof, making a little keening sound.
How does something so minor feel like so much?
He places his other hand at the back of my head and angles my chin back down, so I have no choice but to watch the way his fingers move deliberately over my skin.
The rain picks up a bit against the windows.
He undoes the button and zipper of my skirt, peeling it down, yanking it over my boots, leaving my underwear hanging around my left ankle.
He kisses me and then moves his mouth lower, lower, and I feel drunk again in a way that has nothing to do with alcohol.
My abs clench from the way his nose tickles the skin around my belly button.
His hands find the backs of my thighs, spreading them open on either side of his shoulders, and my heart feels like it’s beating in five different places in my body.
But at some point in the last thirty seconds, my brain booted up again. The thoughts are loud.
I’m too naked, way too vulnerable. Paranoia starts to seep in: Does he actually want to do this or is it some sense of obligation? Should I explain that I was overcome by one-handed-backing-up-induced delirium?
I want it but I also…can’t? Not right now. I’m hyperventilating and also barely breathing.
I’m about to do the tap on the shoulder when he raises his head and asks if I’m okay.
“You got really quiet,” he says. He sensed me, without me even saying anything.
“Yeah, I tend to do that when I’m disassociating,” I say, sitting up. “I’m not in the right headspace. I’m feeling kind of…overwhelmed, or something? But I do want to. At some point.”
He nods, handing me my clothes. “I’m pretty overwhelmed, too.”
Then we’re just sitting in the back seat, listening to the rain.
“So…” he says. And why is so the most anxiety-provoking word when followed by an ellipsis? “What now?”