13. Diesel
DIESEL
The truck rolls to a stop outside her place, gravel crunching under the tires, and I cut the engine before either of us says anything.
The porch light’s on, same as before, throwing that soft yellow glow across her lawn.
Thunder’s silhouette moves behind the front window, pacing, probably wondering where his person’s been all night.
I’m out of the truck and around to her side before she’s even got her seatbelt off.
“I’ll walk you to the door,” I say, already reaching for the handle.
“You don’t have to—”
“I know.”
She doesn’t argue past that, just lets me help her down, her palm warm against mine for the half-second it takes her boots to find the ground.
We walk up the path together, close enough that our arms brush with every other step, and I’m having a hard time keeping my hands to myself.
Cicadas going off somewhere in the dark.
Her porch light buzzing faintly overhead.
Neither one of us says a word the whole way, because I’m waiting for her to turn toward me.
She stops at her door, keys already out, and turns to face me instead of putting them in the lock.
“Thank you,” she says. “Tonight was...”
She doesn’t finish it. Doesn’t need to. I can see the rest of that sentence sitting right there in her eyes, blue-gray and wide open in the porch light.
“You want to come in?” she asks. “For a drink or something?”
My whole body says yes before my mouth catches up.
I follow her through the door, and she flips the hall light on, drops her keys in a bowl by the entryway, Thunder shoving his big head against her leg and sniffing me before he decides I’m not a threat and wanders off toward the kitchen like he’s got better things to do.
“I’ve got wine, or—”
I don’t let her finish that sentence either.
I close the distance in two steps, get a hand in her hair the same way I imagined two weeks ago lying in my bunk with the whole club still partying on the other side of the wall, and I kiss her like I’ve got seventeen years of catching up to do. Because I do.
She makes a sound against my mouth, surprised for half a second, and then her hands are fisting in the front of my shirt, pulling me closer instead of pushing me away, and that’s all the answer I need.
I walk her back until her shoulders hit the wall, and the little framed photos rattle against the plaster, and neither of us cares.
“Evan,” she breathes, my name whispered against my mouth.
“Say it again.”
“Evan.”
I groan into her neck, drag my mouth along her jaw, her throat, the same spot I used to mark up when we were kids too stupid to hide it from our parents.
She smells exactly the same. Tastes different, wine and something warmer underneath, but she presses into my hands just as eagerly, and God, I missed this.
Missed her. All these years of pretending some blonde in a bar could stand in for what I actually wanted, and none of them ever came close, not once, not for a second.
Her nails scrape down the back of my neck, and I hiss, rock my hips into hers, let her feel exactly what she’s doing to me through my jeans and her dress.
“We’re not doing this against a wall,” I mutter against her skin.
“Says who?”
“Says me. I’ve waited seventeen years. I’m taking my time.”
She laughs, breathless, and the sound of it does something to my chest that no amount of whiskey ever managed.
I get my hands under her thighs and lift, and she wraps her legs around my waist without hesitation, arms locking around my neck, and I carry her that way through the living room, past Thunder sprawled out and watching us, until my shins hit her couch.
I lower her onto the cushions slowly, cover her body with mine, and for a second we just look at each other.
Her hair’s spread out across the throw pillow, that dress riding up her thighs, and she’s watching me with an expression I haven’t seen on her face since we were teenagers, unguarded and a little scared of how much she wants this.
“You still with me?” I ask.
“Don’t stop.”
That’s all the permission I need.
I find the zipper at the side of her dress, drag it down slow enough to feel her shiver under my knuckles, and she helps me get the rest of it over her head, until she’s laid out beneath me in nothing but her underwear, her skin warm under my hands.
I take a second just to look. Almost twenty years, and I’ve imagined this a thousand different ways, and none of them come close to actually having her here, breathing hard, watching me watch her.
“You’re staring,” she says.
“Earned it.”
I kiss down her body, over her collarbone, the curve of her breast, her stomach, and she arches under my mouth, fingers tangling in my hair, tugging hard enough to sting.
I peel her underwear down her legs and toss it somewhere behind me, and when I settle between her thighs, she goes rigid for a second like she forgot this was coming.
“Evan—”
“Let me.”
I put my mouth on her before she can argue, and the sound she makes echoes off the walls of a house I’ve never been in before tonight, loud enough that Thunder lifts his head from across the room before deciding this isn’t his problem.
I work her slow at first, relearning the shape of her, the way her thighs tremble against my ears, the exact rhythm that used to make her fall apart when we were kids who thought this was the most illegal thing we’d ever do.
She’s not the same. Grown, sure of herself, telling me exactly what she wants instead of letting me guess.
“There,” she gasps, hips rolling up into my mouth. “Right there, don’t stop.”
I don’t stop. I chase that sound until she’s shaking, until her hand fists in my hair hard enough to hurt, until she comes apart on my tongue with a cry she tries to muffle against her own forearm and fails.
I don’t give her long to catch her breath.
I strip out of my shirt, my jeans, everything, and she watches me do it with her chest still heaving, eyes dark, hungry in a way that matches exactly what’s been sitting in my gut all night.
“Condom,” she manages. “Drawer, bathroom—”
“Got one.” I dig it out of my wallet before she finishes the sentence, and she laughs, short and disbelieving.
“You brought one like you knew this was happening.”
“Hoped.” I roll it on, settle myself over her, and any humor left in her face melts into something else when I line myself up and push in slow, giving her time to adjust, watching her face.
“Evan,” she breathes, nails digging into my shoulders.
“Right here.”
I move slow at first, deliberate, savoring every inch of this because some stupid part of my brain’s still waiting for her to wake up and remember all the reasons this is a bad idea.
She doesn’t. She just pulls me deeper, hooks her ankle behind my thigh, meets me thrust for thrust until slow stops being an option for either of us.
“Harder,” she says against my ear, voice wrecked already. “I’m not made of glass, Evan.”
“Never said you were.”
I give her what she’s asking for, drive into her deep enough that the couch frame knocks against the wall, and she cries out, loud, unashamed, nothing like the composed cop who spent two hours across a restaurant table pretending this wasn’t inevitable.
I like this version of her. The one who claws at my back, who says my name like a curse word, who forgets every ounce of that careful control she wears like a uniform.
“You feel exactly the same,” I growl against her throat. “Better. Christ, Penny.”
“Don’t stop talking.”
“Yeah?” I pull back just enough to watch her face. “You like hearing it?”
“I like—” She loses the sentence when I shift my angle and hit something that makes her whole body arch off the couch. “That. Right there, don’t you dare stop doing that.”
I don’t. I chase that reaction until her orgasm has her shaking under me, walls clenching tight enough that I have to grit my teeth and think about anything except how close I am to following her over that edge.
I pull out before I lose the fight entirely, flip her onto her stomach, and she goes willingly, propping herself up on her forearms, glancing back at me over her shoulder with an expression that’s pure challenge.
“Well?”
I grip her hips and drive back into her from behind, and the sound she makes is somewhere between a moan and a laugh, breathless and delighted, like she forgot how good this could be.
I set a punishing rhythm, one hand fisting in her hair, the other splayed against the small of her back, and she meets every thrust, pushing back into me like she can’t get enough.
“Seventeen years,” I grind out, “and you still fit me exactly right.”
“Shut up and keep going.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I let a laugh slip out, breathless, and she echoes it, and for a second, even buried inside her, moving hard enough to shake the whole couch, it’s the easiest thing in the world between us. No badge. No cut. Just two people who never should’ve spent this long apart.
I feel her getting close again, feel it in the way her spine bows, the way her breathing turns ragged, and I slow just enough to draw it out, dragging every second of it until she’s begging, actually begging, my name and please tangled together in a way I’m going to remember for the rest of my life.
“Evan, please, I’m so close—”
“I know.” I press deeper, slower now, deliberate. “Want to feel you go first.”
She does. Hard enough that her whole body locks up around me, and the sound she makes when it finally breaks is enough to break what little control I have left.
I follow her over a few strokes later, buried deep, her name breaking out of me rough and unguarded, nothing like the VP who expects a room to quiet when he speaks.
Just Evan. Just the eighteen-year-old kid who never stopped wanting this exact woman, finally getting what he should’ve fought harder for the first time.
We collapse together onto the couch cushions after, tangled up, her back against my chest, both of us breathing hard enough that talking feels like too much effort.
Thunder’s given up on watching us entirely, gone quiet in his corner, one ear still twitching every few seconds like he’s keeping tabs anyway.
I press my lips against her shoulder, feel her shiver under the touch, and something settles in my chest that hasn’t been quiet in seventeen years.
“Stay,” she says, quiet, almost like she’s testing whether the word’s allowed out loud.
“Wasn’t planning on going anywhere.”
She turns in my arms to face me. In the lamplight, her expression softens, and she reaches up to brush her fingers along my jaw. I turn my face into her hand. We still have a lot to say. For once, I’m not dreading it.