Chapter Seventeen #2
Me losing my balance in my driveway. His arm catching me around the waist. My hands fisted in his shirt while he looked down at me like he already knew exactly how badly I wanted to kiss him.
Then I did.
First.
Hard enough that I spent days afterward pretending it never happened.
Ay, qué vergüenza.
My boots hit the pavement, but Revel’s hand lingers at my waist for a beat, his thumb pressing into my side while his gaze drops to my mouth.
Heat rolls low through my stomach.
Apparently, getting off a motorcycle with this man is never going to be normal.
I lift my chin. “You planning on letting me go?”
“I was considering my options.”
“Well, hurry up and choose wisely.”
His grin turns slow. “Mm, that almost sounded like a threat.”
“It was.”
“Good. I missed those.” His teeth catch his bottom lip for a second as his eyes drag down me, slow and filthy, before he shifts his hips and adjusts himself like there’s absolutely no reason to be subtle about what I’m doing to him.
This man has no fucking shame.
And the worst part?
Fuck if that doesn’t do something to me.
Once the bill is handled and my keys are finally back in my hand, I slide behind the wheel and start the car.
The engine turns over clean, and I sit there for a second with both hands on the wheel, listening to it idle like I’m waiting for the Honda to betray me one more time.
Revel watches me from the passenger side, then jerks his chin toward the steering wheel. “Why don’t you let me drive?”
I look over. “Why?”
“So I can get a feel for how she’s running. Make sure everything feels right before we get too far.”
I narrow my eyes. “You just want to drive my car.”
“That too.” His mouth pulls into a grin. “Plus, I kinda like you as my passenger princess.”
I stare at him. “Absolutely fucking not.”
“Oh, come on, Mama. Feet up, snacks in your lap, talking shit from the passenger seat while I do all the work?” His eyes drag over me. “That role was made for you.”
“Qué cabrón.”
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
Annoyingly, I can’t.
I hesitate for maybe two seconds before killing the engine again and opening my door. “Fine. But if you drive her like one of your bikes, I’m throwing you out on the highway.”
His grin gets wider as he climbs out to switch sides with me. “Passenger princess already making demands. Knew I’d like this.”
I slide into the passenger seat and buckle in. “Drive the fucking car, Papi.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
A few minutes later, Revel is driving, one hand loose on the wheel while I’m sunk into the passenger seat with my iced coffee between my thighs, but apparently giving up control of the car does not mean giving up my right to criticize everyone else on the road.
Some asshole in a white Mercedes drifts halfway into our lane while staring down at his phone, and I’m leaning forward before I even realize it.
“Ay, pendejo, pick a fucking lane.”
Revel glances over, amused. “You know he can’t hear you, right?”
“He can feel my hatred.”
“Pretty sure that’s not how cars work.”
The Mercedes wanders again.
“See? Mira esta mierda.” I throw a hand toward the windshield. “This is why people shouldn’t have licenses.”
Revel laughs as he eases back enough to put some distance between us. “You’ve been my passenger princess for like twelve minutes and you’re already trying to drive from over there.”
“I’m supervising.”
“Ah. My mistake.”
“You’re welcome.”
His hand comes off the wheel long enough to land on my bare thigh, giving it a quick squeeze before settling there like it belongs.
“Sit back and enjoy your coffee, supervisor. I got you.”
The words are casual, but something about them makes me shut up for a whole three seconds.
A personal record.
Once we finally clear the worst of the city, I take over the music because if I’m, apparently, committing to this passenger-princess bullshit, there should at least be benefits.
I turn it up, kick my sandals off and tuck one leg beneath me while Revel drives.
He lasts maybe two songs before reaching toward the screen.
I slap his hand away.
“The fuck are you doing?”
“Skipping this.”
“No.”
“Mama, this is terrible.”
“It’s my playlist, Papi.”
“Yeah, and I’m the one being forced to listen to it.”
I turn toward him. “You were the one who volunteered to drive and made me the passenger princess.”
“You controlled the radio even when I was the passenger princess.”
“Because it’s my car.”
He glances over at me while I turn the volume up another notch just to piss him off. He shakes his head, laughing under his breath, but leaves the music alone.
Smart man.
The farther Miami falls behind us, the more the car settles into this comfortable little rhythm I don’t remember us having on the way down. Revel drives, I control the music and occasionally feed him something from the bag of snacks between my feet.
We talk when we feel like it, shut up when we don’t, and somewhere along the way his hand finds my thigh again.
It stays there.
His thumb keeps moving over my thigh, slow little strokes that should be nothing and somehow are very much fucking not nothing.
I shift in the seat, crossing one leg over the other like that’ll help, then uncrossing them two seconds later because, apparently, my body has completely abandoned subtlety.
Revel notices, but he doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t grin or say some smart-ass thing that’ll make me want to smack him. He just keeps his eyes on the road and lets his fingers drift a little higher.
Bastard.
My stomach tightens immediately because he knows exactly what he’s doing.
That’s what pisses me off. Okay, also turns me on.
One second I’m perfectly capable of sitting there, listening to music and minding my business, and the next I’m staring out the window thinking about how easy it would be for him to take the next exit, find somewhere quiet and do something about the heat building between my thighs.
About how fucking long it’s been since I felt him inside me.
Since I watched that look take over his face when he had me falling apart for him, like seeing me lose control was his favorite fucking thing in the world.
Puta madre.
Now I really want him to pull over.
I reposition again and his fingers slide higher.
I bite the inside of my cheek and refuse to look at him, because the second I do, I already know I’m going to see that smug little look telling me he’s enjoying every fucking second of this.
And honestly?
At this point, I’m about three minutes away from threatening him with so much violence he has no choice but to—
A silver SUV cuts hard into our lane.
“AY, CAbróN!”
Every filthy thought in my head disappears instantly.
I shoot forward in my seat, hand flying toward the dash as Revel brakes and swerves just enough to avoid the asshole.
“?MIRA POR DóNDE VAS, PENDEJO!”
The SUV jerks back into its lane.
I’m still glaring through the windshield like I can personally set the driver on fire with eye contact.
Beside me, Revel starts laughing.
I snap my head toward him. “What the fuck is funny?”
“Nothing, Mama.”
His hand settles right back on my thigh.
Asshole.
We stop for gas and food a couple hours later.
I come back out with a bag tucked under one arm and my iced coffee in hand, expecting Revel to be done already.
He isn’t.
He’s still beside the pump, one hand on the nozzle, the other braced against the roof of my Honda while the numbers climb.
Black muscle shirt. Tattoos out. Sunglasses pushed up. Looking stupidly good doing something as boring as putting gas in my car.
Annoying.
Very fucking annoying.
I walk up beside him and duck under the arm he has planted against the roof.
His brows lift as I set my coffee on top of the car, lean my back against the door and hook both arms around his waist.
“Hi.”
His mouth curves. “Hi, Mama.”
Then I pull him into me and kiss him.
No warning. No smart comment first. I just want his mouth, so I take it.
He makes this low sound against my lips and shifts closer immediately, his free hand sliding from the roof to brace above my head, boxing me in against the car while the other stays on the pump.
My hands flatten against his back, dragging him tighter between my thighs as the kiss turns slower and deeper.
Yep. See, this is exactly the problem.
He can be doing something completely normal, standing at a gas station in the middle of nowhere, and somehow I still want to climb him.
His teeth catch my bottom lip before he pulls back just enough to look at me.
“That for pumping your gas?”
I keep my arms around his waist. “Maybe.”
His grin turns filthy. “Shit, I’m filling your tank every time now.”
I snort and drag him back down by the front of his shirt.
“Cállate and kiss me.”
He does.
By the time the pump clicks off, I’m smiling into his mouth like an idiot and Revel looks entirely too pleased with himself.
He tops the tank, grabs the receipt, then opens my door for me with this ridiculous little flourish like he didn’t just have me pinned against the side of my own car at a gas station.
“Your chariot, princess.”
“Qué estúpido.”
“Get that sweet ass in the car.”
I do, mostly because my coffee is waiting and partly because I’m starting to enjoy letting him fuss over me way more than I should.
Once we’re back on the highway, Revel settles behind the wheel again and I make myself comfortable on the passenger side. Really comfortable.
My sandals come off first.
Then I turn sideways in the seat, lean my shoulder against the window and stretch my legs across his lap.
He glances down at them, then over at me.
“Comfortable?”
“Very.”
“Glad one of us is.”
I wiggle my toes against his thigh. “You made me the passenger princess. This feels like a you problem.”
His hand closes around my ankle, thumb rubbing slowly over the bone. “Nah. I can work with this.”
“Of course you can.”
Instead of letting go, he lifts my foot toward his mouth.
I watch him press a soft kiss across my toes, then another along the top of my foot, taking his sweet fucking time as his lips trail toward my ankle.
Oh.
My whole body practically melts into the seat.