Chapter 9
“Is this a convertible?” I asked when we’d cleared the town of Schoolport.
“Yes,” he answered, the only word he’d spoken since he’d driven away from my dorm.
“But it’s February.”
He looked at me like I was an idiot. “It won’t always be.”
Well, yeah, that was true.
“And aren’t Corvettes the cars that men buy during their mid-life crises? Isn’t this basically a ‘I still have a penis and know how to use it’ car?”
“I don’t know about a penis, but you sure have a set of balls on you, so does that count?”
I looked to the side window, not wanting Stick to see the small smile his comment produced. “No, it doesn’t count.”
“The Corvette is an American classic. It’s about power, but with style and class.”
“But certainly not understatement.” Smile gone from my face, I once again was facing the front, able to see him from the corner of my eye if I wanted to. Not that I did.
“Yeah, and you’re such a master of understatement.”
The corner of my mouth quirked up again, but I let that smile slide.
“Well I’m not all about style and class either. Or power, for that matter.”
“You don’t think whatever you did to get Spaulding to take the leash off Lily took power?”
I shrugged. “I had something he wanted.”
“Isn’t that what power basically is?”
“Now you sound like one of them.”
I saw his hand tighten on the gear shift next to me. “I am nothing like them.”
I looked over at him, waited until he sensed it and took his eyes from the road to meet my eyes. “Neither am I,” I said calmly but firmly.
He nodded, went back to not crashing my new car, and said, “Fair enough.”
We were driving through downtown Chesney now. I hadn’t been back through since the wedding. We passed the Marriott and neither of us said a word. I wondered if he was thinking about dancing with me. Or…the other part of that.
A turn later and we drove past the club that Stick had dragged me out of months ago when Lily had been worried about me.
“Bang that prof yet?” he asked, speaking of Montrose, who I’d been trying to snag when Stick took my hand and literally pulled me out of the club.
“What’s it to you if I have or haven’t?”
He shrugged, and downshifted (is that what it was called? That was why I was on this lesson, I suppose). “Nothin’ to me.” He put the car in neutral as we came to a red light. He looked over at me. “And I’m guessing it’d be nothing to you, either.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
His eyes were brown and held a glint of…was that judgment? “Nothing,” he said, turning away from me and revving the engine.
Okay, the low, deep—and yes, powerful—engine-revving of a Corvette was kind of cool. Not that I would admit that to Stick.
“No, really. What did you mean by that?” My tone was not one of confrontation, but more of friendly curiosity, though I felt differently inside.
“I’m guessing he’d just be another notch on your bedpost. An important notch, because of him being a prof and, you know, you were the pursuer.”
My face began to burn, but I wasn’t the type to blush. Too much had happened to me when I was a kid to have any blush ability left by now.
“How do you know I wasn’t the pursuer with all the guys I’ve slept with?”
We’d cleared the Chesney city limits and were now entering the neighboring countryside. Having bare, open road in front of us, Stick quickly picked up speed, the vista racing by. A part of me really responded to this—the feeling of speed and power in this car—as we sped away from everything.
“I don’t know, but I’m guessing you weren’t.
Oh sure, the important ones, like a prof, or, I don’t know, the fucking prom king or whatever.
Sure, they were worth dogging after. But you let the others do the work the rest of the time.
” He glanced over at me; his face was blank and I couldn’t read it—which pissed me off.
“Am I right?” he asked with genuine curiosity in his voice.
“Are you slut-shaming me?” I asked, not really sure.
“Hell no. I’m all for slutty behavior. Bring it on, I say.”
I snorted. “I’m sure you do. There are male sluts, too, you know.”
“I do know. As there should be. Equal opportunity slutting. I’m all for it.”
I couldn’t hold back the smile that time, or even hide it. And damn if a little laugh didn’t sneak out too.
He returned my smile, the engine roaring around us, and I thought of how his shoulders and arms had felt under the expensive wool of the tux he’d worn to Betsy’s wedding. How warm the back of his neck had been, bared because of his short ponytail.
Today he wore his hair as I’d always seen it—loose and completely unkempt. Scraggly, even. But the waves were natural and untamed, and the rare February sunshine was picking up all the auburn-y highlights in the brown mass.
“So here we are,” I said. “Just a couple of sluts driving through the Chesney countryside.”
“I never called you a slut, Jane,” he said softly.
He hadn’t, I knew that.
“I just wanted to know if you slept with that guy. Just that one guy.”
I don’t know why I felt compelled to even answer him, let alone with the truth. “No,” I said. “I didn’t sleep with him.”
“Is there a ‘yet’ at the end of that sentence?”
“No,” I said softly, perhaps admitting it to myself as much as to Stick. I saw him make a small nod, almost to himself. “Why do you care, anyway?” I asked, but I knew. I knew it with the sick knowledge that you got when you were about to do something you shouldn’t…but did it anyway.
“No reason,” he said. But I heard in his voice that he knew too.
We drove for another ten minutes, taking a couple of turns that took us deeper into the countryside, but still on nicely maintained roads. I knew Stick wouldn’t take my new car on any rutted dirt roads…he had too much respect for it.
Which I kind of liked. And I kind of respected him for it.
There were some gorgeous, mansion-type homes set deeply back from the road, with long, winding drives and gates at the front. But not many, and they were miles apart from each other.
“I’m assuming you’ve been watching, right?
Are you ready to try it yourself?” Stick asked, slowing the Vette down and pulling to the side of the road.
“There’s no traffic on this road, and yet it’s in good shape, so it’s a great place to practice.
There are some hills coming up, and you’ll want to try those, downshifting and everything. ”
It sounded like a lot, but I nodded that I was ready to drive my own car, and reached to unbuckle my seatbelt.
“Atta girl,” Stick said, seemingly genuinely pleased with me.
Which, I was pissed at myself to admit, made me pleased too.
I looked around. Something about the area seemed so familiar to me. “I think I’ve been here before.”
“Oh yeah? Lately?”
I shook my head as Stick cut the engine and undid his own seatbelt. “No. Not lately. Maybe never. It’s just I—”
“What?”
My head shook, more strongly now. “Nothing,” I lied. I remembered now, and wished I hadn’t.
I got out of the car, liking how I had to pull myself up and out of the snug, perfectly ass-fitting seat.
Almost lamenting leaving it, even for the short time to get to the driver’s side.
I walked in front of the car, my hand gliding across the metal, which was both cold from the February air, and warm from the powerful engine underneath.
I liked the pale of my hand against the deep black paint.
Hmmm, maybe I would get black nail polish.
Stick stepped out of the car and held the door open for me. I slid in to the seat he’d just vacated, still warm from his body.
“You’ll want to…good,” he said as I found the seat adjuster myself and brought the seat forward. I was tall, but Stick was taller, both of us having long legs.
“Is that why you’re called Stick? Because you were as skinny as a stick when you were a kid?”
He rolled his eyes at me and closed the door, careful not to slam it. I knew my baby was in good hands with Stick, that he would treat her with kid gloves.
Oh, so now the Vette was my baby? And a she?
Stick got in the passenger seat and made a big show of snuggling into the seat. “I always said you had a smoking ass,” he said in reference to the seat being warmed for him.
“My old man couldn’t have splurged for seat warmers? In February?”
“Actually, she does have seat warmers. I was just pissed at you when we left Bribury so I thought I’d let you warm yourself up.” He rocked in the seat. “Which you did very well.”
Apparently Stick thought of my car as a “she” also. “Wait. What? Why were you pissed at me?”
He leaned over, stretching his arm to the back of my seat, just above my head. His face was very close to mine. “Because. Here you are given this amazing car…a gift. And all you can do is bitch about the type of car it is.”
“Just to be clear, this car is not a gift. It is a bribe, or more accurately, an opening offer.”
“To what?”
“More negotiations.”
“Again…to what? Or for what?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. It doesn’t matter.” Not wanting to get into it with him, and still not fully understanding what role he was playing that he’d be at my sister’s wedding and delivering me my new car, I changed the subject to something I knew would absorb him.
“So, seven-speed. What exactly does that mean?”
It worked. He spent the next twenty minutes explaining it all to me. He could tell I was itching to drive her (“her” slowly becoming “Yvette” in my mind), and finally waved for me to start her up. I put it in neutral like he’d explained and then turned the ignition.
The roar of her coming to life was powerful, and I placed both hands on the wheel to feel her vibrations run through me.
Stick smiled at my movements. “She’s something, isn’t she?”
In an odd way, I didn’t trust my voice to answer him, so I just nodded.
“Okay. So we talked about the mechanics of it, but you can’t really pick up the rhythm of her until you drive her yourself. And every car is different with their…needs.”
I looked over at him, raising a brow. “Needs? Really?”
“Definitely. What this baby—”
“Yvette.”
“What?”
“Her name is Yvette.”
He studied me for a second, and then that grin, the one he’d had at the wedding just before he’d kissed me, came over his stern face. “God damn, but you might be a car person yet,” he said, clearly pleased.
“Hardly.”
But the grin stayed on. “Not very original,” he said.
I shrugged. “She’s my first car. What do I know about naming cars?”
“You’re right. You’ll learn.”
I smiled at that, at him. His eyes dropped to my mouth, and suddenly the car got very small. “Right,” he said, breaking eye contact and looking down at my feet. “So, yeah, finding the rhythm Yvette needs. Be gentle with her at first, but firm—she needs to know you’re the boss.”
“Oh Jesus, what are you, the Corvette Whisperer?”
“Why yes, yes I am.” He motioned for me to get moving, and I did as he’d instructed me, easing my foot off the clutch while applying the gas and also putting it into first gear.
And we lurched forward and then conked out.
“Again,” I said, before he could say a word. He just nodded as I went through the motions again, to the same result.
I expected him to jump in with some car-expert talk, or even just some guy-like tell-me-what-I’m-doing-wrong speak, but he stayed silent.
I almost liked Stick in that moment. Almost.
The third time, I got Yvette on the road in first, and drove at that speed for what felt like way too long.
“Listen to her,” Stick said softly. He was very close to me, and I could feel his breath on my cheek. “She’ll tell you when you need to shift. You’ll feel it.”
And I did. The movement wasn’t fluid, but it wasn’t as jerky as it had been, and I got her into second, increasing my speed.
“Yes, that’s it.” He moved his arm across the back of my seat and scooted a bit closer, leaning into the console. He rested a hand on top of mine, wrapped around the gearshift head.
“It’s like sex. Or good sex, anyway. Listening to her, feeling when she’s ready for more. Being gentle when you make your move, but also being sure.”
He squeezed my hand as I eased my foot onto the clutch and shifted to third. “Exactly,” he whispered.
The country road where we were driving was completely deserted and mostly straight, yet I didn’t dare take my eyes from the road. And not because I was scared to crash.
I was scared to see the look I knew Stick was giving me.
I could feel my pulse picking up, and my heart racing in time with Yvette’s. And I totally got what Stick was saying, totally felt her, felt Yvette.
The shift to fourth was seamless, and we sped down the country road, and I desperately wished that it was warm enough to put the top down. The next shifts also went well.
“Sixth? Seventh?” I asked Stick, not entirely sure what my baby needed. First-time mother, and all.
“Not yet. Let her get used to this first. It really is like sex. The early gears are foreplay. In fourth and fifth gear you’re trying to maintain, to make it last, make it build. Sixth and seventh, she…you know.”
His hand left mine and moved to my knee.
I could feel the heat of him through my jeans.
His big hand covered my knee, his fingers dangling down between my legs.
His other hand moved from the back of the seat to my neck, gently resting beneath my hair.
He moved aside the collar of the great peacoat I’d found at a navy surplus store, and put his fingers around the back of my neck.
His thumb began to slowly stroke my sensitive skin.
And I couldn’t wait to go further.