"I LOVE IT when you speak French and reference your unmentionables in the same breath."
I rolled my eyes and scooted a safer distance away when he folded his compelling frame down onto the couch directly beside me. "Your sister," I reminded him and myself to get us both on track. "Then the logistics...of the itinerary.” Recognizing the gleam in his eyes, I rushed to be more specific. “Not our sleeping arrangements. Focus, frontman."
"Oh I'm focused, mind you." He glided his half lidded gaze slowly over my form. All the important feminine parts perked up and took notice. "But there’s nothing wrong with a bit of anticipation." He slid closer. The springs dipped with his weight. I stiffened my spine to keep from listing toward him. "Sky is...well... I guess you could say I'm more than her younger brother. I’m also her guardian now that my dad's gone."
"Go on," I encouraged. "I’m listening."
"I've been looking out for her my whole life really." His visage darkened. "I don't much care for people making light of her or treating her differently because she processes the world in her own unique way."
He blew out a breath, his legs bouncing a bit. I found myself very conscious of how hard his thigh felt against mine. How close his hand lay. How decadent he smelled.
"Is she mentally challenged?" I ventured carefully.
"Not exactly. It's not as easy to explain as all that. That's part of the reason I let people assume what they want to assume about us. It keeps them from asking difficult questions. If they think she’s my girlfriend it keeps other guys from coming on to her, and...
"Keeps you from having to defend her when they don’t understand and accept her," I filled in.
"Yeah." He gave me a long look, one that meant significantly more than I was prepared for and yet less than I wanted. "The bottom line is that the doctors don’t really have a diagnosis. There’s no treatment plan. No medication. No quote unquote fix. Not that she needs any. I think people are too eager to put a label on someone rather than just accept them the way they are. She's perfect the way she is in my eyes. And our relationship works just fine for us."
That strong tug that had pulled me toward him since the beginning became a seismic shift. I wasn't ready for it. For him. He had told me once that he wouldn't hurt me. I was afraid that might not be true. At least not the way he had meant it.
"I agree. She's got a kind heart, a rarity in this world.”
"Maybe not so rare." His fingers brushed mine and the tentative look on his face made me wonder if maybe he harbored similar thoughts about me.
"I’m not kind." I slid my hand away.
"You’re sensitive. You loved your boyfriend, and he betrayed your trust. Part of the reason I think that video rant of yours went viral was because that endearing heart of yours shines so brightly in it. You saw what happened to you as an injustice that needed to be rectified so you took on the cause. That is sweet. So is the fact that you wouldn’t step over the line between us because of Sky even though you know very well there is something undeniable drawing us together."
I gulped as he shifted, recaptured my hand and brought it to his chest. Warmth beneath my fingers. Heat licking my skin. A major melting of my reservations. He was dangerous. Like Icarus and his wax wings. An opportunity to soar higher than I ever dreamed or to potentially crash even harder than I had with Ivan.
But maybe my brand of safe sex wasn't as safe as I had imagined.
Maybe if I was very careful and I decided to take things further with him, things wouldn't get too emotionally complicated between us.
Maybe Lucky was worth the risk.
"So..." I licked my lips, and he tracked every minutia of the movement. "The itinerary."
"Yeah." He glided his hot hands with their cold silver up my arms, grasped me firmly near my shoulders and pulled me toward him. I went willingly into the sun, the last of my resolve burning away. "I’m going to kiss you."
"Ok," I agreed, a foregone conclusion, my heart racing in anticipation as he lowered his head inch by inch until all that filled my vision was blue.
"Raven," he made my name a puff of air before he pressed his lips to mine and set my entire fucking world on fire. Cold to combustible. Ice to Inferno. A blaze that he stoked as he moved his mouth persuasively over mine. Clinging to him, my hands over his, I decided that all the kisses I'd had before had been executed by amateurs. My skin sizzled. My nerve endings crackled. And then his wet tongue slipped into my mouth between the lips he had coaxed apart. The friction of the first stroke of his tongue to mine was like lightning. The bolt drew my nipples tight and delivered a direct strike to my clit. And then he repeated that insanity.
Again.
And again.
And again.
"No." I managed to disengage my mouth from his. "Enough," I panted for air. "No more." We separated. Eyes wide. Staring at each other in disbelief.
Never had a kiss rocked me like that.
The bus shuddered to a halt, the air brakes hissing beneath us bringing me back from paradise to purgatory.
"What's going on?" I asked, dazed, confused, turned on as hell but scared by how much I felt from just that one kiss.
"We've stopped at your hotel to pick up your luggage before we head up the coast to Boston." His gaze and the possibilities it seemed to hold were a conundrum, a pivotal decision point.
With Lucky it wouldn’t be just fucking.
"The choice is yours, Angel. We’re going to detour back to the truck stop where you left your car after the concert in Boston. You can get off now and go back home or you can stay, take a chance and see where the road might lead you."