Chapter 10 #2
It wouldn’t be with Flynn. Because after her candidacy, it would be over. And what would that be like? To not be with Flynn anymore. To not see him all the time.
That didn’t feel right, and yet …
Maybe this was the problem. Flynn had always been something. He made her feel things, in spite of herself. She wanted to be hostile to him, but could never quite pull it off.
Maybe this was part of her journey. Maybe Flynn really was a mountain that she had to climb.
That made her throat dry, made her body feel warm.
Flynn.
He had always been there. This man who inspired feelings inside her that no other man ever had.
And after this, maybe she would be mayor.
Maybe she would go to upscale restaurants, and maybe she wouldn’t spend all her time at The Watering Hole.
Maybe she would want a real relationship, because maybe she would be closer to being the real person she had wanted to be so badly when she was younger.
But she would still be a virgin. She would still have to have a first. She would still have to admit that she was afraid, and that intimacy had always frightened her.
She realized then with stunning clarity that she could never admit that, not to anybody but Flynn.
He was the man who was meant to be the first. She knew it with as much clarity as she’d ever had in her entire life.
She only knew one way to go about things like this. She took a bite of her pasta. “I’ll share with you.”
“Thanks,” he said, reaching over and starting to take a bite from her plate.
“And after dinner, maybe we should fuck.”
His fork scratched against the plate, and he looked up at her as if she had grown an extra head. He didn’t say anything. He just stared at her. Her heart began to pound hard. She had said it. Oh, she had really said it.
“Just, you know, I think it’s actually starting to get a little bit undignified, the way we’re avoiding it.”
She said that like she wasn’t about to come apart at the seams. Like it didn’t terrify her. It did. God damn, it did.
But this was the only way. The only way forward. Not just to deal with the ridiculous hold Flynn Wilder had had on her for all these years, but with living on the outskirts. Living behind a mask.
“I can’t talk to you about this here,” he said, his voice low and rough.
“Well, damn. Now I suspect I’m not going to get dessert.”
Those green eyes went hard, like cut emeralds. “You’ll get it.”
He was actually going to do it. She had known that he would.
And now her brain was tripping over itself trying to plan it all out.
She could grab him. Kiss him in the truck, maybe they could just do it there.
He was the kind of guy who would have condoms in his wallet, probably.
The kind of guy who would be prepared, so that she didn’t have to be.
Maybe he wouldn’t even notice. She rode horses, after all.
The likelihood of her having a hymen was very low.
Maybe if she brazened her way through this the way she did everything, he would never know that she was a fraud.
And then it would be done. Well, probably they would do it a few times.
But he had already seen her house. He had already seen her.
She had told him more about her experiences growing up than she had even told her own family.
She could do this.
“Well. Good.” She took a big bite of pasta. “Do you have breath mints?”
He looked at her and shook his head. “I do. But I’m not sure that either of us is going to care.”
Excitement shot through her veins, all the way down her limbs. Collected at the apex of her thighs.
She had always thought of sex as a terrifying, exposing thing. But maybe she should think of it as an adrenaline-fueled ride. After all, everything with Flynn was like that.
Kissing him had left her buzzing. It had been one of the most incredible experiences of her life. Sex with him would probably be like that too. It didn’t have to be ponderous or sweet.
She thought about the way he had put his hand over hers on the table. How that gesture had, to an extent, spurred these thoughts.
She dismissed them.
It could be the thing that she had turned away from in the bathroom at The Watering Hole.
It could be all those sparks and electric currents.
Maybe it would be like a final metamorphosis, not because she thought he was a man with the power to make her a woman, but because this was like scaling a cliffside. Doing the terrifying thing.
Though it wasn’t only terrifying.
Suddenly, she wasn’t hungry, which really was a shame, because it was a beautiful meal. Flynn, for his part, powered through the rest of his pasta, and half of hers. As if he was determined not to let her totally derail this moment.
He was so stubborn. And so beautiful. Maybe after this she would finally unpack the way she had always felt about him.
Maybe once the damage was done, she would go over all the moments in her life when Flynn Wilder had made her heart leap in her chest. All the moments when he had made her feel breathless.
When bantering with him had left her with rosy cheeks and bright eyes.
All the things she avoided, and wow, did she avoid them.
“Can I get you anything else?” their waiter asked as he began to clear their plates away.
“Just the check,” Flynn said.
There was a finality to his voice that made her shiver.
The look on his face was a warning, and she felt she’d been given notice.
She glanced outside and saw that it had started to rain. She felt as if God was making fun of her. Because she had told Flynn that she wasn’t attracted to him, and she had also told him that it wasn’t going to rain. Here she was, wrong on all counts.
And a liar on at least one.
Every step seemed to last forever. Waiting for the check, Flynn paying the check, signing the receipt. Wasted time. Anticipation. She didn’t like anticipation. She preferred to tear the Band-Aid off.
Tear the Band-Aid off.
That would be her motto.
She could imagine it. As soon as they got to the front door of her trailer, she would kiss him. He wouldn’t have time to look around. She would get him naked as quickly as possible. Her pulse picked up, her heart hammering hard.
Yes. That was exactly what she would do. Like learning a new trick routine. She was agile, and she was fearless. Just because she hadn’t done something before didn’t mean she didn’t have the necessary skills to do it well.
Finally, finally, he was finished with all the things he needed to do to wrap this date thing up, and when they stood, he took her hand.
It was for show. This sweet gesture had nothing to do with what she had said to him a few minutes ago.
His fingers twined in hers, and the way he held her made her feel steady, stable. That was not what she was looking for right now.
They walked out of the restaurant and into the pouring rain.
And then he wrapped his arm around her waist, turned her around, and backed her up against the side of the truck, his mouth crashing down on hers.
He kissed her, and it was nothing like the kiss he’d given her at the library that day.
Tonight, he kissed her as if he was starving and they hadn’t just eaten dinner.
And he was right. She didn’t think for one moment about breath mints.
All she thought about was him. The rain cascaded over them, and she didn’t care. The truck was wet against her back, and she didn’t care.
This was the fierce, hot kiss that she had always wanted with him. That she had always known was possible.
This was everything. His hands were on her face, large and rough and hot, skimming over her skin, which was slick with raindrops.
His tongue swept against her lips, and she parted them for him, hoping that she was doing it right. He didn’t seem to have any complaints.
His hold was strong, his body hot and firm in front of her.
When they parted, he pressed his forehead to hers, his breathing ragged, just like hers.
“Is that what you had in mind?” he asked.
“Well. I was thinking maybe it would go further than that.”
He chuckled. He raised his hand and slid his thumb along her lower lip. “Not on the street.”
“Oh. We are on the street.”
She hadn’t really given any thought to that.
She supposed if there were any rumors floating around that they weren’t actually together, they would be cleared up by the sight of them making out against his truck.
But this wasn’t about the election. It wasn’t about convincing anyone of anything. It was about her.
She couldn’t remember how long it had been since something was just about her.
“You a little dizzy?” he asked.
She looked up into his green eyes and lied. “No.”
“We’ll drive back up to your place.”
She didn’t argue. It made sense. They would go back up there, and then he could leave afterward. There would be no awkward morning after; there would be no spending the night. He wouldn’t have to drive her home after they dressed.
And her family wouldn’t care. If they were even home to notice.
They already thought she and Flynn were together, so it wouldn’t even signify.
“Okay.”
He pulled her away from the truck, opened the door for her, and deposited her inside.
When he closed the door, she shivered just slightly. But she wouldn’t let him see her nervousness.
No. She wasn’t going to be nervous. She wasn’t going to be like that.
This was going to be great.
And she was going to be good at it.
She knew that he would be good at it. She wasn’t worried about that at all.
When he got in the truck, she could hear that he was breathing hard, and she was gratified by the fact that she had affected him in the way he had affected her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, because just as she realized that, she realized what lying to him had done.
“About what?”
“Saying that I didn’t want you. Making you feel you were alone in this.”
He chuckled as he pulled the truck away from the curb. “Jessie Jane, I always knew I wasn’t alone in it. You’re not that good a liar.”