Chapter Thirty-Two
Brooklyn
My nerves stretched tighter as I scrambled around the apartment, and it wasn’t helping that everything kept taking twice as long as usual. I didn’t know what to expect, and the last time I’d been this anxious was when the gallery had called to interview me about the internship.
I’d attempted to make a pasta salad—wasn’t that what you were supposed to do when you went to a cookout with your boyfriend’s friends? I hoped not, because my idea to do just that totally flopped.
The globby, soggy noodles stuck to the pan and the spoon, so after swearing and ceremoniously dumping the mess in the trash, I raided Finn’s cupboards.
Hi, nice to meet you. I brought… I pushed aside the boxes of brown rice, hoping for treasure in the back. Protein bars.
Um, how about no. I opened the pantry door. No, no, no… Bingo! I squatted down and grabbed the case of beer. Much better than pasta salad, globby or not. I was a few steps from the door when I paused. Did I finish putting on my makeup?
The timer had gone off on the noodles and…nope. I rushed back to the bathroom, applied eyeliner to my left eye so that it matched the right, swiped mascara on both sets of lashes, and then renewed my rush out the door.
Halfway down the stairs I wondered if my flirty summer dress was too dressy. Then I glanced at the time and decided it was too late to change my outfit, over-the-top or not.
My car started with a growl, and I revved my engine to remind myself I was a badass. I pulled onto the street and headed for the freeway.
It’s not a big deal. No matter how many times I’d tried to tell myself that, I couldn’t trick myself into believing it. Shane and I already had so much against us. When I reminded myself that in a little over three weeks I wouldn’t even live here anymore, so it didn’t really matter how much his friends liked me, it didn’t provide any comfort. It opened a hollow pit in my chest that sucked away at my surplus of happiness.
Oh, great. Now I’m getting carried away. That’s going to make this night so much easier.
Within fifteen minutes—I might’ve sped a wee bit—I was pulling into Shane’s apartment complex. I called him and told him I’d arrived, and he said he’d be right out.
The tap on the window made me jump, and it didn’t help that Shane laughed at me, the sound infiltrating the car when I unrolled the window.
“Yes, can I help you?” I asked, as if he were a complete stranger.
“Yeah. I need a date for tonight, and she’s gotta be smoking hot.” He leaned through the window and kissed me, lingering for long enough that the world blurred into swirls of color and sparks of light. “Looks like it’s your lucky night.”
“So fucking cocky.”
He grinned like I’d given him a huge compliment. “Do I have to pull you out of the car, or what? Let’s get going.”
“As much as I love riding on the back of your motorcycle, I put effort into my hairdo”—I circled my head with a finger, lest he needed the proof—“and I also brought a case of beer, so we need to take my car.”
He opened the door, and I wondered if he was hard of hearing. “Scoot over, then,” he said. “I’m driving.”
“Oh, you think you can demand I scoot over and I’ll just—”
He ducked inside and kissed me, the perfect amount of scruff, soft lips, and tongue. He ended the kiss with a nip on my lower lip. “I’m driving, and if you’re good, I promise I’ll find creative uses for my hands while I’m doing it.”
My stubborn pride wanted to put up a fight and argue that I didn’t respond to demands, but then he slid his hand up my inner thigh and stroked me over my panties. Divine shocks of electricity danced across my skin, every other emotion fading as desire took over. I rubbed my thighs together. “Won’t that just be really frustrating?”
He nodded. “For both of us. But the build-up will make it that much hotter when we get back to my place and I focus every ounce of my attention on getting you off as many times, and in as many ways, as possible.” He punctuated his vow with another exquisite drag of his fingers.
The juncture between my thighs throbbed, aching for more as lust turned the blood in my veins into liquid fire. “You’re impossible,” I said on a shaky breath.
“You love me.”
The air shifted, heavy and tense, the oxygen whooshing out into the ether and leaving me without any. There was no way I could… Now’s so not the time to dive into that.
I needed to fix this before everything spun out of control. I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Relax, I totally know that you were only joking. Guys always freak out at the mere mention of love.”
“You’re freaking out more than I am. You look the same way you do when you think your dad or your brothers are on to us.”
I hitched my chin. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Instead of bothering to wait for me to climb over the console, Shane slid into the seat and pulled me onto his lap. “Hey,” he said, his fingers rubbing soothing circles on my thighs. “We allow ourselves to want this a day at a time, remember?”
I nodded, but my heart tripped over its quickening beats. Ever since the ugly end of my relationship with Conrad, I’d held back in my relationships in an attempt to keep myself safe—even with Trey, and he’d been pretty much the definition of risk-free. The temptation to do so now whispered to me, but something about Shane’s reassuring yet intense gaze made it spill on out. “I try, but sometimes my brain won’t shut up about all the complications, and how the odds are stacked against us, and then it won’t stop telling me it’s a bad idea to get so close to you.”
“I’ve never been one to give a shit about the odds. According to them I should be in jail or working some dead-end job, or an alcoholic at the least, and definitely not sitting here with a girl like you, a big fight that could change everything on the horizon.”
“So basically you’re saying you eat odds for breakfast?”
A slow smile spread across his face, and affection and warmth coursed through me. I loved the way he made me feel sexy and strong, yet completely reassured that if I needed lifting up, he’d help pull me up. He nuzzled my neck, dropping a kiss on the sensitive spot underneath my ear. “God, I’m crazy about you.”
“Good. Because I’m kinda crazy about you, with an extra side of crazy.”
“Always having to one-up me.” His circling fingertips drifted closer to the top of my thighs, his touch going from soothing to arousing.
Two could play at that game—hey, if I was going to get accused of one-upping him, I might as well be guilty. I sunk farther onto him, dragging myself over the sizeable bulge in his pants, and he groaned. “Just building that anticipation,” I said, deciding the dress was the best choice I’d made all day.
His fingers dug into my hips, holding me in place as he arched against me. “Fuck that. I’m about to take you in the backseat of the car.”
My breaths sawed in and out of my mouth, so quickly it left me dizzy. “The windows are barely tinted.”
He wound his fingers through my hair and tipped my head aside, his lips going to my neck. “Then whoever happens to walk by and get a show will be one lucky bastard.”
I laughed and then reluctantly lifted myself off him and forced myself into the passenger seat before we got arrested for indecent exposure.
He readjusted himself, backed out of the parking spot, and then curled his hand around my thigh. And I accidentally wondered what would happen if I wanted more than a day at a time.