Chapter 22. Lenore
Lenore
We stumble breathless and laughing through the darkened parking lot.
I shed my giant snake plush like a second skin, tossing it into the bed of the truck.
As soon as I’m done, Cal flips me around and presses my back against the door of the truck, his body pinning mine in place.
Rough hands snag on the soft knit of my cardigan as he grasps me by the waist. Behind him, the fairgrounds glow on the horizon like a Technicolor sunrise.
He bends toward me until all I can see is shadow, but that only heightens my other senses.
The steady thrum of my heartbeat in my ears.
Cold air kisses the sliver of my stomach where my sweater has ridden up, and I let out a barely audible gasp.
His breath hits my lips, mint mingling with sugar, and I part them in anticipation, my hands skating up the back of his neck.
At last, his mouth settles against mine.
It’s hot and hungry but unhurried, like he’s savoring a meal he never wants to end. Our tongues slide together and I moan, rolling my body against his, desperate to get closer. My fingers knock his baseball cap askew as they slide up to thread into his hair.
He breaks the kiss enough for a husky laugh that warms the air between us. “Maybe we should take this inside the truck.” In a flash, we’re breaking apart, keys clinking, and then we’re tumbling backward through the open door.
I bite my lip and scoot backward along the bench seat until my ass hits the hard frame of the painting, covered in a sheet. It knocks against the opposite door. Cal crawls in after me, his thigh slotting between my knees, easing them apart as he leans over me for another kiss.
“There’s no room in here,” I mutter, my fingers curling around his jaw, but I don’t stop him.
His mouth sinks against mine, his thumb skirting that sliver of skin above my waistband.
His touch is featherlight but heavy with intent.
Everything about the way he kisses is the subtlest contradiction. I can’t tell whether he’s holding back.
Bright light skewers the windshield and we practically spring apart, but it’s only the headlights of someone else leaving the fairgrounds.
Our wide eyes find each other in the dark, and we break into guilty laughter, like we’ve simultaneously come to our senses that this is not an appropriate setting for a make-out session.
I’m willing to bet there are teenagers doing the same thing a few cars away, but we’re not teenagers.
We have no excuse to be acting like this.
“I should get you back to the house,” he says.
It’s a statement, and beneath that, a suggestion: The farmhouse is the most obvious place for us to go, with next to no risk that we’ll be interrupted.
I also have mixed feelings about going back there.
The house has started to feel a little like a ghost in its own right, a stand-in for everything that I’ve been grappling with these past six months.
I swallow around the lump in my throat, so at odds with everything I’m feeling toward him. I wonder whether it’s possible for one person to hold this many different emotions inside at once. Whether they won’t find a way to spill over somewhere. “All right,” I say.
It’s dark on the drive back. The truck’s headlights feel like the only light for miles on a stretch of dense woodland road. We don’t exchange more than a few nervous words, the air around us practically vibrating with anticipation.
At some point, Cal takes one hand off the steering wheel and folds his fingers into mine, lifting them to his mouth for a kiss. It’s such a tender gesture that my insides go all warm and soupy. We hold hands the rest of the way back.
The windows of the farmhouse glow yellow, surrounded by velvety night. As the truck begins the lumbering climb up the dirt driveway, I’m struck by another idea.
“Switch places with me,” I say.
Cal shoots me a bemused look “Why?”
“Just … trust me, please.”
After a beat of hesitation, he throws the truck into park.
It’s like an awkward game of Twister in a cab that’s already too crowded.
I carefully avoid the painting as I attempt to shift over across his lap.
The wooden duck clatters from the dash onto the floor.
Callan plants a hand on the small of my back to ease me past him, and even that purposeful touch is charged with anticipation.
Sighing, I plunk down behind the steering wheel and rake staticky hair out of my eyes to reassess the situation. “Actually,” I say, “wait here for a minute.”
I climb out of the truck, dragging the clutter with me in an almost comical juggling act. I even grab the plush snake out of the bed of the truck.
From the passenger side, Cal ducks his head to peer out at me. “What are you—”
“Two minutes,” I promise, and bump the door shut with my hip.
It’s a struggle hauling everything up to my bedroom on the winding central staircase. I toss the snake and the flamingo pincher on my bed, lean the portrait against the dresser, and then hurry downstairs.
I fly across the porch, the motion-sensor light kicking on and the storm door clattering shut behind me.
I feel like I’m in high school, sneaking out for the night—something I never actually did.
I’m winded as I climb back into the driver’s seat and turn the key in the ignition.
My pulse patters like the wings of a hummingbird.
“Hey,” Cal says.
I’m turning toward him when he catches my mouth in a rough kiss. It’s careless in its familiarity, at once new and yet somehow it feels like we could’ve done this a thousand times before. I take his bottom lip between my teeth and he makes a growly sound of approval somewhere in his throat.
“All right,” I breathe, smiling against his mouth, and shove him back into the passenger seat. His pupils are blown wide, reflecting the porch light. “Buckle your seat belt.”
“Why?” he asks again on a winded laugh.
I pull away from the dooryard, onto the grass, and the whole truck rocks over uneven ground. Cal braces a hand against the dash. I take it slow as we turn up an alley between apple trees, pushing deeper into the orchard. Fallen fruit bursts beneath the tires.
“You should know that this thing isn’t really rigged for all-terrain,” he says jokingly.
I drive until the house disappears behind the hill, until we reach the boundary of the property, where the neat rows of apple trees stop short of ragged woods.
I kill the engine, and the headlights go with it. We’re surrounded on all sides by the silhouettes of trees. Through the windshield, a cloudy band of the Milky Way is visible overhead.
“I never appreciated how many stars you can see out here.” My voice is hoarse, scraping against the silence in the cab. I clear my throat.
Cal leans forward to peer up at them. “It’s easy to take something for granted, when it’s all you’ve ever known.”
For a long moment, we’re quiet, looking at the stars. I’m too aware of my own breathing, too audible in the space between us.
By the time I work up the courage to let my gaze fall back to him, he’s already watching me.
His dark hair is disheveled, baseball cap long since abandoned on the dash.
I drink him in: his broad shoulders, one arm resting along the back of the bench seat, and the cowlick in his left eyebrow—all the things about him that are the same as they’ve always been, but somehow completely different in this lighting.
My stomach dips perilously. It’s that lurching feeling when you’re standing at a great height, looking toward the ground—your body warning you what it would feel like to fall.
I crawl across the seat and hook a knee across his lap, draping my hands around the back of his neck. I suck my lower lip between my teeth. “I figure we should pick up where we left off.”
His eyes skitter back and forth between mine before dipping to my mouth. “Only if you’re sure.”
I’m so certain it doesn’t need saying. I kiss him instead.
His lips part for me without hesitation and our tongues slide together. I thread my fingers into his hair, and then, impatient, down the slope of his neck to his shoulders.
I pull clumsily at the fabric. He takes the hint, straightening and sliding his hand from the back of the seat to grab his sweatshirt by the neck and tug it over his head, revealing a T-shirt underneath.
When he resurfaces, his hair stands on end. I bury my hands in it again and kiss him harder. My lips will be bruised tomorrow, but I don’t care. His hand moves to grip my waist above my hip bone, like he’s steadying me, stopping me from floating away.
I roll my hips over him and he lets out a soft groan, his head falling back. “Slow down,” he says, his voice hoarse.
I draw back enough to look at him. “Is everything okay?”
Cal nods with his head resting against the seat.
My sweater has bunched around my waist, and his rough palms scrub over my hips in a back and forth motion.
“I want to take my time with you.” He lifts his head and presses an open kiss to my throat.
A small, strangled noise escapes me and his hips buck once beneath me in reply.
His mouth wanders over me until my cardigan gets in the way.
He unfasten the buttons, one at a time, and he trails kisses on my newly bared skin in their wake.
At last, he pushes the cardigan open. His pupils are inkblots as they fasten on my black bralette, skin peering through thin lace. He swallows, throat working, and shakes his head. “You’re beautiful,” he mumbles. “So fucking beautiful.”
Slowly, he leans and presses a kiss to my collarbone, forehead crinkling as he looks up to watch my reaction in the dark. His mouth moves down, dropping kisses along the way, and closes over sensitive skin through the lace.
I gasp at the sudden warmth and sensation, his tongue flicking over me. Need drips down my center like candle wax, so hot it almost hurts. My hips grind against him, seeking release. A tortured sound rumbles in his throat.
Without urgency, he slides my cardigan past my shoulders, peeling it away one arm at a time. His thumb hooks beneath a bra strap and slides that down, as well.
“Other side now,” I whisper.
“So impatient,” he chides, but does as I command.
I push the elastic band down until the bra is bunched somewhere around my middle. His head tips back against the seat, his eyes devouring every exposed inch. Goose bumps scrub over my skin, my nipples tightening beneath his heated gaze.
“Well,” I say, sounding like I’ve run a marathon, “are you going to do something, or do you plan to stare at me all night?”