9. The Drive Home
THE DRIVE HOME
Hunter
Idrive fast. Not reckless, just decisive, eating up the two-lane stretches of city road with the hunger of a man who never learned to savor.
My car—black, of course, with the kind of extra tint that suggests either a sense of privacy or something to hide—glides through the Minneapolis streets like a knife through butter.
Next to me, Stella is an echo of the last hour: dress still clinging damp to her skin, hair matted into a corona of gold static from the way I fisted it.
There’s a smear of lipstick at the corner of her mouth, half her face flush, half fading, and fuck it, but it makes her hotter.
It makes her look just-fucked, even if she sits with her knees together, arms folded over her lap in a way that could read as demure if you didn’t know the context. I know. I smell it on her.
The car is quiet except for the faint hum of the heater (she’s always cold) and the occasional deep inhale as she tries to will her pulse down.
In another context, we could have been returning from a rave, or a wild party, or a day at the rodeo.
But we’re returning from a far weirder, stickier kind of service.
For a solid minute, neither of us says anything.
It’s not the comforting, old-married silence you read about in lifestyle magazines, where words are unnecessary because the shared history is enough.
No. This is a silence that crackles, brittle as black ice, each of us waiting for the other to break.
It’s not going to be her. Stella stares ahead, her face a marble relief illuminated by the instrument panel’s blue.
She’s gorgeous with that delicate profile, and I take a second to watch the way her chest rises and falls too quick, the way her eyes never quite rest. If I took a hand off the wheel and slid it between her thighs, I’d bet a year’s revenue I’d find her soaked.
In fact, I want to, but I like the tension more.
I watch the road, and the road watches back. Five blocks go by. A red light, a green. Then, finally, I give in:
“That was fucking hot.”
Her head snaps toward me so fast I expect to see her vertebrae fly through the air. The whiplash of blue eyes, raw and wide, is almost funny if you ignore the slight panic embedded in them.
She doesn’t say anything right away, but her mouth opens, closes, then opens again. “I—” She stops. “Was that supposed to happen?”
I let the car roll to a stop at the next red, the idle thrum matching my own. “Which part?” I ask, lazy as a wolf with a bone.
She stares me down. “The part where you bend me over the pastor’s chair, or the part where he gets down on his knees and, and—” her voice gets thin, “and licks your semen out of me.”
Now I laugh. Not loud, but real. I glance over, take in the way her hands are balled into fists in her lap. She looks so composed, so museum-perfect, but I know the nerves are stretched near snapping.
“Honestly?” I say. “No idea. This is new territory, even for me.”
She looks away, then back. “You said you’ve done things like this before.”
I nod, drifting the car through the light. “Sure, I’ve had threesomes. But always with other women. Two women, to be exact, or even three. Never another man.” I drum my fingers on the wheel, the sound dull and percussive. “Never watched another man touch what’s mine.”
Stella sucks in a breath, and I watch her tongue flick out to wet her plush pout—reflexive, nervous, and slutty as hell. She wants me to say it: that I hated it. That it was degrading, or disgusting, or a test of masculinity.
But the truth is, I didn’t. Not at all because it was fucking hot.
“I liked watching you,” I say. “I liked watching him on his knees, cleaning your sloppy pussy. Liked the way you looked at me the whole time, like you loved having his tongue on your pussy but wasn’t sure what to do about it.” I shoot her a look, and she flushes even deeper.
She tugs at the seatbelt, a nervous tic, but doesn’t let go. “You’re not mad?”
I shrug, rolling my shoulders under the tailored cut of my shirt. “Why would I be mad?” The question hangs, a challenge.
She stares out the window, then back at me. “I don’t know. It just seems wrong.”
“What does?” I prompt.
She sputters, exasperated. “All of it! This—” her hands slice through the air, “—this is not what people do when they go to therapy. I thought it was going to be, you know, talking. Some empathy. Maybe a few deep-breathing exercises. Instead I end up getting fucked by my step-uncle in front of a priest while he gives us notes.”
Her voice is sharp, but there’s an undercurrent. She’s not angry, not really. More like destabilized, or worse—turned on by the way her own boundaries are melting.
I take my time. Shift lanes, accelerate past a Volvo, then merge onto the ramp. “First, he’s not a priest, he’s a pastor. Second, do you want to stop?”
She doesn’t answer, and the silence says enough.
I look over. Her cheeks are burning, her jaw set stubborn. She’s pressing her knees together like she’s trying to fuse her bones.
“You could have said no,” I say, slow. “You can always say no, Stella. You know that. We’re pushing boundaries, but if you’re uncomfortable, one word and it’ll end.”
She meets my eyes, and for a second, I see a flicker of something wild. “You’d listen?”
“In a heartbeat,” I say. “But that’s not what you want.” I keep my gaze on the road, but I can feel her looking at me. I can almost see the way her pupils go big, the way her chest tightens under the dress.
She laughs, brittle and bright. “You sound so sure.”
“I am sure.” I let the car coast, hands easy on the wheel. “You like being watched. You like being ruined. You want to see how far this can go.”
She goes quiet again, and the car fills with the wet, animal tension of a hunting blind. I let the silence ride.
After a minute, she says, “Do you think he’ll tell anyone?”
“O’Toole?” I grin. “Not a chance. Men like him build their entire existence on secrets. He’ll take it to the grave, unless you want him to confess it first.”
Stella looks away, stares out at the blurred city lights. “Honestly, everything about that man has taken me by surprise. I didn’t expect the pastor to look like a male model. And he seemed into it too.”
I can’t help but agree. “He was hard as a fucking rock. Didn’t even try to hide it.” I glance over, and she’s biting her lower lip now, the same way she did when I first opened her up last night. “Do you want him? His dick in your pussy, I mean? Is that something that sounds good to you?”
Her head snaps around again. “What? No! I mean—” she flounders, “he’s attractive, but I don’t want—” She cuts off, sees the look I’m giving her, and blushes. “Maybe a little.”
I smile, broad and easy. “You can have whatever you want, star girl. I’m not afraid of competition.”
She rolls her eyes, but the edges are softer. “Don’t call me that.”
I do, anyway. “You’re a star. Burn bright, burn light. But you’re mine, at least for now.”
The next few miles are quiet, the kind of quiet you can almost taste. The heater hums, the city peels away behind us, the only sign of life the occasional set of headlights cutting through the dark.
I shift gears, letting the car stretch its legs on the empty highway. “You really want to keep going?”
She hesitates, then nods. “Yes.”
“Even if it gets weirder?”
She shivers, but not from cold. “I guess so. I mean, I don’t know! I’m confused, Hunter, and that’s what therapy was supposed to figure out, but instead, we’re up to our necks in quicksand.”
“But it’s good quicksand, right?” I ask, one brow raised. “The kind you want to suck you in.”
She bites her lip. “Yes,” she says in a small voice.
I let the silence return, but this time, it’s comfortable. I watch the horizon, the pale amber of the sky smudged by a thin fog, and I think about how quickly things escalate when you stop pretending.
My hand finds hers, still clenched in her lap. I squeeze, once, hard. She lets out a breath I didn’t realize she was holding.
“You’re not doomed, Stella,” I say, eyes never leaving the road. “You’re just waking up to what your body wants, and what you want.”
She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t need to. The way she leans back into the seat, eyes closed, throat working, is answer enough.
For a minute, the car is just motion and hunger, the twin tides of want and shame blurring at the edges. Then the city vanishes in the rearview, and all that’s left is the road, the white lines, and the memory of her moans echoing in my head.
I drive fast, but this time I take the long way home.
At the next intersection, I catch the blush climbing her neck, the way her pulse beats in the hollow of her throat, and I know we’re only just getting started.
The streetlights flicker, the world blurs, and I accelerate into the day. I don’t know what comes next, but with my sexy niece and a depraved pastor in the picture, anything can happen… and I can’t wait.