TWENTY-EIGHT Julian
TWENTY-EIGHT
Julian
She’s so easy to be around.
That’s probably the problem. Or one of them, anyway.
Willow drives with one hand on the wheel and the other pulling fries out of the bag between us.
The windows are cracked just enough to let cool air move through the car, and late afternoon sunlight keeps catching in the loose strands of hair that escaped whatever battle she fought with it this morning.
I’ve spent most of my adult life around people trying very hard to be something interesting or important.
Willow is the exact opposite of that, and that makes her impossible to look away from.
She pulls up outside another delivery stop and glances at the receipt. “Okay, last delivery. One turkey club, one salad, and apparently a milkshake with no whipped cream because joy is dead.”
“That feels boring.”
“It feels suspicious,” she corrects. “What kind of person orders a milkshake and rejects whimsy?”
“I admire how invested you are in dairy.”
I grin and climb out after her.
Outside smells of cut grass and warm pavement. Somewhere down the block somebody’s mowing their lawn with the kind of commitment only small-town dads possess.
Willow balances the tray against her hip while trying to shove the car door closed with her foot.
I reach past her and do it for her before she can lose the fight.
“Thank you,” she says.
“You looked seconds away from declaring war on a Honda.”
“It started it.”
I laugh softly and take the drinks carrier from her before she can object.
We drop off the food to a woman who spends a full two minutes staring at me before finally blurting, “You’re prettier in person.”
Willow is wheezing beside me by the time we make it back to the car. “She assaulted you with compliments,” she says, still laughing.
“I feel objectified.”
“You should. That was intense.”
I slide back into the passenger seat and look over at her.
Her cheeks are pink from laughing. Her eyes brighter than they were earlier, and I know I’m in trouble. Because the chemistry between us has shifted sometime in the last few hours from flirtation, becoming heavier.
Closer.
Every time her hand brushes mine reaching for fries, I notice it. Every time she looks at me too long before looking away again, I notice that, too.
We park behind the diner now, the lot mostly empty except for Lara’s truck and a beat-up sedan that looks held together by spite.
Willow leans back in her seat with a groan. “I smell like fries.”
“I think you smell nice.”
“You flirt a lot for a man emotionally avoiding his entire household,” she says.
I smile faintly. “Deflection’s a survival skill.”
“Mm.”
She doesn’t look away.
Neither do I.
I can hear traffic somewhere farther down Main Street. Music drifting faintly from Tommy Bennett’s bar. The buzz of the diner’s neon sign overhead.
And underneath all of it…
Her breathing.
Mine.
“Willow,” I say softly.
Her breath catches.
There it is. That shift.
The exact moment both of us realize this stopped being harmless a while ago.
She moves first.
My hand comes up, fingers sliding along her jaw, and the second my thumb brushes her cheek she leans into it.
Fuck.
I kiss her before I can talk myself out of it.
Her mouth is warm and surprised and immediately kissing me back hard enough to knock the air out of my lungs.
The sound she makes when I pull her closer nearly ruins me.
She’s climbing into my lap before I can even blink, and she kisses me with a hunger that’s been festering in both of us since I climbed into this car to help her.
We’re all teeth and lips, frantic. But we don’t stop. I grip her waist, breathe her in, and let the world fall away.
Her hands are everywhere: sliding up my shirt, threading through my hair, scraping her nails against the nape of my neck. I groan into her mouth because it feels less polite than screaming.
She tastes of sugar and salt, of the last fry in the bag, and I want to eat her alive.
The van is filling up with heat, sweat, static. My heart’s rattling so loud in my chest I’m convinced she can hear it.
Willow’s laugh breaks between kisses, hot and shaky, and when she grinds against me, fuck, damn, holy hell, my cock is throbbing against my zipper.
She presses down against me again, making a triumphant noise. “Oh shit, is this a gun in your pocket, or are you just displacing your feelings?”
“Both,” I say, and it comes out strangled.
Outside, someone starts up a leaf blower, and it sounds distant, muffled by the condensation clouding on every window.
Willow’s hands have pushed up under my shirt, knuckles grazing the edge of my ribs.
I try to get her closer, to pull her into every hollow in my body, but the center console gets in the way, her knee banging into it with a thunk.
She laughs, breathless, and slides a hand down. “You wanna, uh, move this to the back seat, or are you about to have an aneurysm?”
“I can’t feel my legs,” I admit. “I think I might need medical intervention.”
She grins, more predatory than amused, and her eyes flick to the back seat.
Neither of us moves, tension stretching taut enough to snap, but then she’s climbing over the console, boots scrambling gracelessly, ass arched in the air.
I follow, nearly upending myself, tumbling after her into the cramped shadowed space behind.
We land in a tangle, breathless and laughing. She’s on top of me, hair wild, pupils blown wide.
“We’re about to do the logistical world’s worst,” she says, “but I want you so bad right now. Is that deranged?”
“If it is,” I whisper, “lock me up.”
She kisses me again, and I lose any hope of dignity.
My hands settle on her hips. She’s so fucking soft and curvy, and I’m desperate to taste more skin.
She must feel the shake in my grip because she pulls my hands up, pinning my wrists to the glass as if she’s arresting me right here in the back seat. She leans in, nosing a line from my jaw to the hinge of my neck, then bites hard enough to mean it.
The pain is a lightning bolt. The pleasure underneath is an aftershock.
I drag in a breath. “Jeez, Willow.”
She’s already undoing my jeans. The zipper’s halfway down before it even registers, her hands warm and practiced, unembarrassed by the space or the fact that we’re out of sight, but not completely away from risk.
The risk makes it hotter, somehow.
I reach down and anchor my fingers in her hair, half to steady myself, half to see if she’ll let me. She tilts her head into my palm, the world’s wildest animal, and resumes her feverish exploration of my throat, collarbone, every patch of skin she can reach.
Her hand slips under my waistband, and I shudder, nearly biting through my tongue.
I want to say her name again but my jaw won’t cooperate, all the blood in my body pooling south in a way that’s both humiliating and holy.
She lets go of my wrists, and I clutch at her waist.
There’s nothing pretty about how I touch her, how I pull her down, how I mumble desperate curses while she laughs and wriggles her hand into my boxers.
The first brush of her palm is electric. My cock twitches under her touch, and I’m not sure my nervous system can keep up.
Willow works me with just enough pressure to make me see stars, her other hand braced on my chest, pinning me back against the seat.
For a fleeting, perfect second, I imagine this is every morning for the rest of my life. Willow’s hair falling in my face, her hands greedy, the whole world reduced to the damp ozone of her breath and the static surge of her skin on mine.
I try to talk, and my voice comes out a needy rasp. “Fuck, you’re going to kill me.”
“That’s the dream, sweetheart,” she says, and nips my earlobe to prove she means it.
She’s beautiful when she’s mean. Beautiful when she’s anything.
My pants are open, my boxers yanked down, and my cock is hard and leaking against her fist. I squeeze my eyes shut, just to feel everything at once, her knuckles tight, my body even tighter.
Then Willow’s mouth is on mine again, wild and biting. She’s not content to just make out with me; she’s devouring me, leaving a constellation of bruises and wet, shivering skin in her wake.
Every grind of her hips is a revelation. She rides down into my lap, using the leverage of the narrow seat, and I’m aware of hands, heat, the overwhelming Willowness of her. Her laughter, her teeth, her unapologetic greed.
My cock aches for her, exposed and dripping. I’m desperate enough that when she strips her own shorts down, squirming until she’s bare assed in my lap, I nearly lose it right there.
She pins me with her hands at my shoulders and sinks down.
She’s hot and slick already. Fuck, I want to bite into her, memorize her from the inside out, and I’m not sure if it’s too much or not enough.
Her pussy takes me in, inch by inch, tight and obscene, so fucking good I grip the seat below us, desperate for anything to ground me.
She rolls her hips and the friction is so intense it’s a burn, a pleasure pain heat that short circuits my brain.
She moans, and it’s the hottest thing I’ve ever heard.
Her hands stay clamped on my shoulders. I watch her mouth, the flush creeping up her neck, how her eyes go unfocused every time she slides down and I bottom out inside her.
I want to worship her, tell her how fucking perfect she is, but all I can do is hang on, let her use me until my vision whites out.
“Jeez, you feel so good…” I manage, and she shudders hard.
She’s so fucking wet. I’m delirious.
I buck up into her out of pure desperation, and she takes it, meeting me pulse for pulse. Every time our hips connect, her tits bounce against my chest and she bites her lip, trying not to make a sound.
But it slips out. A whimper, orphaned and desperate, and I know she’s as fucked as I am. Maybe more.
I want to kiss it off her lips, eat every sound she makes, so I pull her down and catch her mouth with mine.
It’s messy, more crashing than kissing, but she doesn’t care. She ruts greedily down, fingers fisting in my shirt, her body frantic. She wants to burn the memory of this into both of us.
I reach between us, thumb circling her clit, and the reaction is immediate.
She cries out, back arching, clamping down hard around my cock. I lose my goddamn mind.
Every part of me tenses, white noise filling up every sense, and I’m coming for her, into her, shaking with the force of it.
She sinks onto me, clinging, head buried against my shoulder, and shatters there. Her body trembles as she rides out every aftershock, grinding into me.
I hold her through it, even though my limbs feel watery and my heart is punching at the inside of my chest.
But I don’t want out.
I know I don’t.