Chapter Fourteen
Caitlin
I slept like garbage.
It turns out that the bunk was too short, too narrow, and the mattress was too hard. I guess I was just older, maybe bigger, definitely more spoiled by having a fancy ten-inch pillow-top mattress. And half a dozen pillows. A fan blowing on me all the time.
I tossed and turned for hours while Gav slept peacefully a few feet below me, despite also being in too cramped a space for his long legs.
Eventually, I drifted off, only to wake when I felt something tickling my face.
Half-asleep, I figured it was my hair, and I reached to brush it away.
But it wasn’t a hair.
It was definitely not a hair.
I shrieked and rolled, too disoriented to remember where I was.
So I rolled right off the bunk.
And crashed down onto Gav, who let out a grunt at the impact, his arm going automatically around me.
“What…”
“He’s back. For revenge.”
There was the briefest of pauses before understanding dawned on him.
“Spider? There’s a spider in the bunk?”
“He was on my face. He was going to crawl up my nose.”
An airy laugh escaped Gav as I rested my head on his shoulder. His bare shoulder. His bare shoulder that smelled like that cologne that was always begging me to lean closer, to breathe it in.
So I, you know, breathed him in.
Just a little.
Not even enough for him to notice.
I hoped.
“I’ll get it,” he said. But he didn’t move to do so. Probably because I was still sprawled all over him. And I couldn’t seem to force my body to move.
God, it felt so good to be close to a man. Close to this particular man, as crazy as that was.
Maybe it wasn’t so nuts.
Not after the night before in the shower.
Him half-naked.
Me, mostly naked.
Bodies close enough to brush.
Breaths mingling.
Hearts pounding.
That heavy-lidded look of desire in our eyes.
If we hadn’t been interrupted.
But we had.
What’s more, it was for the best. The absolute last thing I needed to happen when I was on a road trip, trapped in a small tractor day and night, was to get involved with my copilot.
First, because of the bone-shaking awkwardness that could happen after something physical happened and one (or both) parties decided that once was enough.
Second, because I wasn’t sure I could search for my father all by myself.
Third…
I was trying really hard to come up with a third reason. Because he felt so good, and I needed to find a compelling excuse to get off of him.
I took a deep breath, but the movement only pressed my breasts more firmly against him, the sensation making my legs shift.
And that was when I realized that the ache inside me wasn’t a one-sided desire. His hard length pressed against me, making my belly twist and my heart flip-flop.
Gav’s hand shifted from my hip, sliding down over my ass, then thigh, making a shiver rack my system. Then he was grabbing me behind the knee, yanking my leg up, spreading it outward so that when I shifted ever so slightly, he was pressed against the core of me.
A sharp moan escaped me as tension wound tightly in my stomach, as my pulse went hard and thick.
Gav’s hand trailed back up, sinking into my ass, pressing down, grinding me against him.
My moan was muffled by his shoulder as sensation raced across my nerve endings, as desire pooled.
His other hand rose, pressing to the back of my neck, the pressure possessive and also somehow reassuring as his hips rocked up against me.
Desire sparked, caught, burned through me, making my hips rock instinctually as his kept rocking slowly up against me.
For once, I didn’t think, didn’t try to talk myself out of what I was feeling, what I wanted.
I just sank into it all.
The intoxicating weight of him beneath me.
The rise and fall of his breathing.
The involuntary tightening of his grip.
The heat and friction between us.
The tractor filled with my whimpers and moans as our bodies rushed closer and closer toward fulfillment.
Low groans escaped Gav as he rocked harder and harder against me.
“It’s okay,” he murmured, his voice low and thick, his breath tickling my ear. “You can let go.”
As if my body had been seeking his permission, the orgasm shot through me, making me cry out against his neck.
A rumbling sound moved through Gav as his arms tightened around me. But when I could suck in a breath and think clearly again, I could still feel him hard against me.
I don’t know if I stiffened or what, but Gav’s shoulder shrugged. “Don’t worry about it,” he murmured as his hand shifted to start sifting through my hair.
I don’t know where the boldness came from, but I shifted slightly, pressing a kiss to his neck, feeling the flutter of his heartbeat below my lips.
His fingers flexed on my hip, and that tiny reaction gave me all the encouragement I needed.
I kissed down his neck, over his collarbone, then down the center of his chest.
“Caitlin…”
His voice was tight, his body tensed.
I knew how much he wanted this but that little whispered word was his way of saying it was okay if I didn’t.
Which, well, only made me want to more.
My tongue traced the indent down the center of his stomach, delighting me as the muscles on each side twitched and tightened at the sensation.
I could feel how quick and shallow his breath had gotten, how much harder he felt against my body as I kept moving downward.
I reached downward, cupping him through his pants, dragging a groan out of Gav.
I stroked him through the material for a moment before I shifted all the way back, my legs cramped against the side of the tractor, but I barely noticed as I pulled down the front of his pants and his hard length appeared, thick and straining.
A strange, desperate sound escaped me, making Gav suck in his breath. When my gaze shifted up to his, I found his eyes molten with desire, his need coiled so tight that a muscle ticked in his jaw.
Watching him, I closed my hand around his length, loving the way his lips parted, how his eyes went hazy.
When I stroked him down to the base and started to lower down, I could feel the anticipation inside hum, the way he was trying to hold himself back from grabbing me, from guiding me.
But before I took him into my mouth, I took a second to circle my tongue around the tip, making his hips buck upward and a curse explode from between his lips.
Spurred on by his reaction, I sucked him into my mouth, working him slowly at first as he gathered my hair and held it at the nape of my neck, his other hand on the back of it, not pressuring me, just holding on as I worked him.
It wasn’t long before his need took over, making him rock his hips up into my mouth—faster, deeper.
So that was how I moved, too, giving him exactly what his body was craving as his ragged breaths and low groans filled the small tractor, making want press low in my belly again.
“Baby,” he called, voice holding a warning.
One I didn’t want.
I took him deeper, feeling him pulse as he came, his body tense, his groan meeting my ears.
He pulled me up afterward, pressing my head to his chest, and draping his arms around me.
“Sleep,” he demanded, seemingly perfectly comfortable with me using him as a mattress in the small bed.
I didn’t think I would when my body was still thrumming with a heady combination of pleasure and desire.
But with his body beneath me, his arms around me, and his heartbeat in my ear, I found myself drifting back to sleep within minutes.
The spider momentarily forgotten.
The next time I woke, it was to the sounds of doors slamming and engines firing up.
“You sleep like the dead,” Gav told me as his hand slid up and down my spine.
“I’ve been told,” I agreed. “It’s kind of necessary in truck stops and motels. What time is it?”
I knew I should probably get up, slide away. Things were feeling a little awkward in the light of day. But I couldn’t seem to find the motivation to move.
“Almost nine.”
“Nine?” I asked, popping up to look down at him. But my face fell forward to curtain us, making Gav reach to gently tuck it behind my ears. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“It seemed like you needed the rest. After Spidergate 2.0.”
“Oh, God!” I yelped, jerking away from him, slamming myself into the back of the passenger seat. “The spider.”
“I’ll look now that it’s bright out,” he said, folding up as he reached down to yank his pants back into place, making my cheeks flame as my gaze went to the floor.
Gav stood, shoulders hunched, to start inspecting my bed, shaking out blankets, moving around pillows.
“I think I found him. Scary fucker,” he said, coming back with a dried leaf and a smile.
“Oh. Wow. That’s embarrassing.”
“I’m not complaining,” he said, dropping down to sit.
“I’m just going to grab my phone. Then we can head to the bathhouse, so we can get moving.”
I had to climb back up into the bed to do that, all the while very aware that he was likely looking at my ass in the process.
I needed to get all the way in to find my phone half-lodged between the wall and mattress. But before I could move back down, I felt hands grabbing my legs and pulling.
“What…” I yelped as I looked over to find Gav leaning into the space again.
This time, though, there was something a lot more heated than curious on his face.
My belly twisted.
Need ricocheted off every nerve ending.
“Just one little thing I need to handle first,” he told me as his hands slid up my thighs to snag the material of my shorts and panties, dragging them downward.
“Gav!” I yelped as he pulled them free and set them on the mattress beside me.
“Mmm?” he asked, his hands moving to my knees, starting to spread.
I needed to snap them back closed again, but I couldn’t seem to find the desire to.
“Someone will—”
“No one knows you’re up here,” he told me, leaning down to kiss my thigh. “So long as you keep your legs spread wide for me up here.”
My sex twisted hard at that.
Then he was between my legs, his tongue teasing up my cleft to circle my clit.
Any objections dissipated as everything but his hands on my hips and his tongue on the core of me fell away.
My thighs shook. My belly flipped.
Then he shifted just slightly and his tongue was on my clit, making my thighs clamp around his head as my hands gripped the back of his head, holding him against me as he worked me with his tongue.
My soft whimpers immediately grew to loud, throaty moans that had Gav releasing one of my thighs to reach up and close his hand over my mouth, quieting the sounds as the world kept moving on around the tractor.
His other hand slipped between us, his fingers teasing at the entrance of my body before slipping inside.
Even with his hand muffling it, my moan was loud and desperate.
I felt the groan moving through him as his fingers began to thrust. Slowly at first. Then harder and faster as I got closer and closer.
His fingers turned, crooked, and rocked against my top wall.
And that was it.
The orgasm coursed through me and I shattered with it, overwhelmed by the impossible relief of release.
But Gav kept working me with his tongue and fingers until my body went lax and I gasped for a breath.
His head shifted, pressing a kiss to my inner thigh and slipping his fingers out of me as he moved back.
He pulled my feet to his chest, then reached for my underwear, sliding each foot in, then slipping the material into place. The same went for my shorts. Then, finally, he rested his hands on my hips.
“Come on. Let’s go get some breakfast.”
I couldn’t even think yet.
Didn’t think I would be able to move.
But then Gav was reaching for me and pulling me down into the cab.
We both fished for toiletries and clothes before making our way to the bathhouse.
I tried not to get weird about it, to wonder what it meant (if anything), to keep looking at him to see if I caught him looking at me.
I failed at all of this.
But after we got dressed for the day, he drove us to a breakfast place where we ordered takeout to eat as we got back on the road.
And in my experience, French toast and crispy breakfast potatoes worked as a balm for all kinds of uncertainty and insecurity.
By the time the carb comfort wore off, there was no time to start worrying.
Because we finally made it.
“You’re sure?” Gav asked as he parked on the side of the road.
“Yeah. Yeah, this is the exact spot.”
I glanced over into the woods at the side of the road, feeling my pulse jump and my belly sink to my feet.
“Hey,” Gav said, grabbing my knee. “Whatever happens, at least we will have answers.”
A strange whimper escaped me.
“I’m here,” he reminded me.
“Yeah,” I agreed, exhaling hard. “Let’s do this.”