Chapter 23. Lenore
Lenore
His eyes climb up my body to my face, and his hand skims around my back. In a blink, he flips me around, lying me down across the seat. The old leather sticks to my exposed skin, fog forming on the windshield, but I don’t mind.
I let my legs fall open and his hips settle between them. The evidence of his arousal presses against his sweatpants, sending a pulse of awareness through me. It’s crowded in the truck, our bodies folded around each other, but it’s still not close enough.
His hands chase the outline of my waist, my ribs, and then his coarse palms cup my breasts. My body arches into his touch until our chests are flush against each other, his heart slamming into me through his T-shirt.
“Fuck, Lenore,” he whispers between kisses along my collarbone. “Why do you have to be so perfect?”
“I’m not,” I say softly.
Cal lifts his head enough to look into my eyes, breaths tangling between us. “To me, you are,” he mumbles, using his thumb to sweep a strand of hair from my cheek before kissing me tenderly. “You always have been.”
My heart squeezes tight. “Your turn,” I whisper.
Cal straightens onto his knees, head bent at an awkward angle beneath the ceiling, and tugs his T-shirt over his head.
Faint tan lines trace his body, which is broad and strong in a practical way.
Not built in the gym, but around the farm.
Dark hair shadows his chest and stomach, disappearing into his waistband.
He folds his body over mine, kissing me hard, and this time, my breasts brush against warm skin. A desperate, pathetic sound escapes me. Everything about him feels so good.
His head moves down my body, mouth closing around a nipple. I suck a sharp breath at the soft scrape of his teeth, the swirl of his tongue. My hands scrabble overhead for something to steady me, bracing against the door.
I feel him smile against me. “I could do this all night,” he mutters.
I laugh breathlessly. “You better not.”
He moves to the other side and catches sensitive flesh between his teeth. I reach between us and fumble with the drawstring on his joggers. Cal shoves them down around his knees. I slide a hand between us, grasping him through his boxer briefs. His hips rock into my hand.
“Are we really doing this?” I ask against his mouth.
“Yeah,” he says, panting. “I think so.”
His fingers free the button on my jeans with a pop. I lift my hips to shimmy them down my thighs and he straightens again, catching me by the ankle. I rest back on my elbows and watch as he removes my sneakers and then peels my jeans away, one leg at a time. “Any second thoughts?”
“None,” I whisper. “You?”
His darkened gaze slicks over my body like an oil spill, flames licking in its wake. When it climbs back to my face, he shakes his head. “I could never regret you.”
At long last, we stop taking our time with each other. His mouth crashes into mine. My thighs tighten against the sides of his body, holding him close. I bury my hands into his hair and kiss him like we’re running out of time.
A hand slides between my legs, fingers hooking my underwear aside, and we both groan the first time he touches me.
One finger slips inside, then another, the heel of his palm applying steady pressure against the most sensitive part of me as he slides in and out. “You feel so fucking good,” he groans.
My need for him builds. I let my head fall back against the seat, my eyes fluttering closed at the mounting pleasure. I grind against his hand, but my sluggish brain takes a moment to catch up with my body. “Condom,” I breathe.
His movements still. I blink out of a sort of trance, eyes finding his in the dark. His lips are swollen and slightly parted, bare chest heaving. Slowly, he shakes his head.
“Okay,” I say, out of breath. I drag my hands down the sides of my face. “Okay, fuck. I thought you had them in your glove box or something.”
“You’ve seen the inside of my glove box,” he says with a throaty laugh, devoid of any actual humor. “Did it look like there were condoms in there?”
“I don’t know!”
He pushes back onto his heels and knocks his head against the low ceiling. “Shit,” he hisses, hunching over and ruffling a hand through his hair.
I press my hand to my forehead, trying to think.
I’m on the pill, more to help with my periods than anything, considering my recent sex life …
but pressing ahead is not the rational decision to make here, so I bite my tongue.
Regardless of how long we’ve known each other, and whatever trust there is between us, this isn’t a relationship.
There’s nowhere to go past the end of next week.
“I’m sorry,” I say in a small voice, wrestling with the bralette around my waist in an attempt to get dressed. “This was a stupid idea.”
“It’s not stupid,” he says, leaning over me again and stilling my hands. His touch is gentle as he reaches to cup my cheek, forcing me to look at him. After a beat of hesitation, he adds, “There are other things we could do together.”
I nod, regrouping. “Yeah,” I say, “no, you’re right.”
I lift to kiss him and he meets me in the middle, both needy with our want for each other.
His mouth slides over my body, lavishing each breast with attention in turn, and I savor every sensation.
The rasp of his stubble against sensitive skin.
My fingers knotting in soft dark hair, desperate for something to cling to.
I push him back and we reposition. I slide onto my knees on the floor mat on the passenger side. It’s cramped, almost awkward, but then he raises his hips and shoves his boxers down his legs, and I can’t remember how to care about anything except making the most of our current situation.
I rest one hand on his thigh, stroking the other hand over him.
His head falls back against the seat, breath exiting his lungs in a rush.
I put my mouth on him and it wrings a quiet groan from his throat, which morphs into a scratchy laugh.
“I probably shouldn’t admit to how many times I’ve pictured you like this. ”
“What,” I say coyly. “On my knees?”
“Sometimes,” he admits.
I feel a pressing awareness between my thighs, knowing that we’ve both been thinking about each other like this. I want to make him feel good.
So, we stop talking, except for his quiet praise and whispered swear words. I swirl my tongue around him, bringing him as close to the edge as I can, until he grabs my arms and drags my mouth back up to meet his.
This time, when he flattens me backward against the seat, he doesn’t stay there. He slides down the length of my body, pausing to press a kiss between my breasts, and pops the door open behind him.
“Where are you—”
I don’t finish the question because he steps down and hooks a hand behind each of my knees, yanking my hips to the edge of the seat. My stomach swoops low. The night air is shockingly cool in contrast with the steamy cab.
I’ve never really enjoyed it when men go down on me because it feels like a performance—trying to convince them that it’s worth their time, because they’re treating it like a chore, and somehow it ends with us both deeply unsatisfied.
“You don’t need to do that,” I say hurriedly, pushing up onto my elbows to look at him. “I’m already—”
“If we’re only doing this once,” he says roughly, “then we’re going to do it right. I want to remember how you taste.”
Awareness zings through me. I swallow. “Okay.”
His fingers hook beneath my underwear to tug it down my legs. I can’t take my eyes from him as he lowers his head between my thighs, pressing a kiss to the inside of each in turn. With a hand, he scoops my knee from underneath and hooks it over his shoulder.
Warm breath feathers over me as he slides a thumb down my center.
His eyes drink me in at my most vulnerable, and with anyone else, I might feel shy or self-conscious right now, but not with him.
My pulse runs wild beneath the heat of his stare, the way he kisses between my legs first, then strokes his tongue over me.
I forget how to breathe.
My head falls back against the seat. His approving hum rumbles through me, and my thighs clench around his ears on reflex. It’s so good. Within minutes, he starts to learn my body, how to pull different sounds from me, sighs and bitten-off moans.
Soon, pressure mounts between my thighs.
My breath comes in fits and starts until my whole body ratchets tight, legs squeezing around his head.
I’m dimly aware that I might be suffocating him, but he doesn’t relent.
My hands search for something to brace against on either side of me, raking the leather seats, slipping clumsily from the dash.
“Holy—” I choke, but can’t seem to finish the thought. Fireworks explode behind my eyelids. His fingers burrow into the creases of my hips, holding me steady as I fall apart. Pleasure tumbles through me in waves.
It’s not until my body slackens, while I’m still catching my breath, that he crawls over me and kisses me slow, the taste of everything we just did lingering on our tongues. “How was that?” he asks, burying his face into the crook of my neck, pressing a kiss to my collarbone.
I’m almost speechless that he needs to ask. I nod, my cheek brushing against his hair. “Good,” I manage. Understatement of the century.
Cal draws back far enough to look at me, unsticking a strand of hair from my sweat-sheened forehead, brushing it aside. “Did you want me to take you back to the house now?”
It’s a tentative, probing question, his eyes scanning my face.
An unfamiliar warmth floods my chest—shy and wistful and altogether strange, like I’m missing this moment before it’s over.
“No,” I admit softly. I don’t dare elaborate for fear of what might come out of my mouth, my brain flooded with hormones.
Slowly, he nods. I scoot over to make room for him, my damp skin peeling away from the leather seat, and he slots his body next to mine, one arm hooked around my waist, tugging my back to his chest. His heart hammers against my ribs.
Minutes pass. Crickets sing in the ensuing silence, and a soft wind mutters through the trees, cooling our tangled limbs. Gradually, our breathing evens out.
“I want to take you somewhere tomorrow,” he mumbles into my hair.
“Where?”
“On a hike. I figure it’s something you don’t get to do much of, in the city.”
I watch the stars turn through the windshield, brighter now that my eyes have adjusted to the dark. At some point, his breathing slows, warm breath fanning over the back of my neck.
“Cal,” I whisper.
“Hm?” His sleepy voice rumbles through me, like a fist clenching around my heart.
“Do you think you’d ever visit New York?”
I wait for his answer with bated breath, but it doesn’t come. Maybe he’s slipped to sleep. Stars wink at me through the windshield, like we’re sharing a secret—like they know exactly where my thoughts have wandered, against sounder judgment.
“I don’t know, Nore,” he mutters at long last. “I don’t think the city is for me.”
A pit settles in my stomach. For now—that’s what we promised. It wouldn’t be fair to turn around and ask for more than that. So instead of asking, I nod, my throat tight.
We let the night stretch long, both fading in and out of sleep.