by Cindi Madsen
She reached down and fumbled with her shoes, and when her lips stuck out in a pout and she added a grunt, I dropped down to get them for her. Who knew it could be so hard to get sandals off?
Too tired to remove shoes, but her innuendo generator is working just fine. I bit back a smile when I recalled the “Oh, I plan to,” response to enjoying her stay. My already pounding heart had hammered even harder at all the ways I wanted to take her statement—pretty soon, I’d be the one who would need a trip to the ER.
As I started to stand, Gwen caught a fistful of my shirt, tugged me toward her, and touched her lips to mine. I cut the kiss short and earned another pout.
I swept her hair off her face and cupped her cheek. “Babe, you need sleep.”
“I can sleep later.”
“You can’t even fully open your eyes.”
She worked on it, her eyes going wide for a couple of seconds before she lost the battle. “That’s probably for the best. I can’t stop worrying you’ll be disappointed. And that’s when I’m in full possession of my faculties.”
Only Gwen would use a phrase like “full possession of my faculties” while under the influence.
There would be no disappointment on my end, I already knew that. And if it was up to me, I wouldn’t let her walk away until she was satisfied in every sense of the word.
My gaze dipped to her cleavage. Then I was thinking of stripping her clothes off and getting my hands and mouth on those amazing curves, and every ounce of my blood rushed south. And I need to shut down the dirty image reel or I’m going to have a permanent case of blue balls.
I couldn’t go there. I hated that I couldn’t. Not only because sex was awesome and it’d undoubtedly be extra amazing with Gwen, but also because I’d never be as close to her as I wanted to be. And while I wanted to blame my brother, I had no one to blame but myself. I could’ve walked away that morning at the coffee shop. In theory, anyway. But once I’d met her, I wanted to spend more time with her, my main reason for coming along for the ride shifting to entirely selfish reasons.
My ethical line was way past where it should be, but I hadn’t abandoned it completely, and that was at least something. I hoped, anyway.
I peeled back the covers and sheet and helped her into bed. Her red hair splayed out on the pillow, a stark contrast to the white. Man, she was pretty. Considering she’d told the hotel clerk that she was taking advantage of me, she was also slightly delusional.
“Evan?”
It stung every time she used my brother’s name. But again, no one to blame but myself. “Yeah?”
“Come cuddle with me. My eyes don’t need to be open for that, and it’ll help me fall asleep. Right now I’m in that weird in-between phase.” Her words came out slurred and sluggish. “Like I can’t fully relax even as the medication is trying to pull me under, so I’m just in limbo. I hate limbo.”
The oxygen drained from my lungs. I didn’t know if I could be as strong as I needed to be if I crawled into that bed.
Her arm swung out, sweeping the air until she made contact with my wrist. I could’ve easily resisted the tug, but I didn’t want to.
“Just a sec,” I said.
“Did you say sex?”
I bit back a groan—she wasn’t going to make this easy. I kicked off my shoes, considered taking off my jeans and then decided that’d only ensure my failure to behave, and climbed in next to her.
Rustling came from her side, and the next thing I knew, she’d thrown her bra and shorts out of the bed, leaving her in only her shirt and… I resisted looking, even though it was all I could think about.
I wasn’t Superman; I was a fucking saint.
My sainthood was tested when she snuggled up to me, resting her head on my shoulder and hooking her leg over both of mine. Having her next to me was the sweetest kind of torture. Her warm breath hit my neck a mere moment before her soft lips.
She was definitely initiating, and I was definitely turned on. But I was also definitely shutting it down. Since I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, especially after that ridiculous comment about being disappointed, I gently shifted, pulling her back against my front. I couldn’t do much about the hard-on. Her ass was right there. A choked noise escaped my mouth as she wiggled against me.
Taking shallow, tempered sips of air, I dragged my fingertips over her arm and back up. Over her shoulder and down her spine.
Her breathing slowed; mine quickened.
Her body relaxed; mine tensed.
She let go and let sleep take her; I clung on to consciousness, soaking in the way she felt in my arms.
Hadn’t I already accepted the fact that I was going to hell for this? Paving my way with every stolen look, kiss, and touch?
I settled my hand on her hip and kissed the back of her head.
If so, let me burn.
14 Gwen
“You got your wish,” Evan said in a quiet voice as my eyes fluttered open. He stood across the room, and when he reached up and tugged on a cord, the curtains split, flooding the room with light.
I lowered my eyebrows, trying to remember my wish, but the last wish I remember having was that he’d kiss me and we’d make better use of the bed than a mere cuddling session. Although that was hardly fair—it’d been a spectacular cuddling session. “Not unless we had sex and I missed it.”
Oops. That wasn’t supposed to come out of my mouth. Inside thoughts, inside thoughts.
Evan chuckled and flashed me a cocky grin. “Trust me, if that’d happened, you wouldn’t have missed it. You’d remember every single minute, I’d make sure of that.”
Heat twisted deep in my core, and I contemplated telling him to put his money where his mouth was. Or to just put his mouth on me—yeah, we should definitely take out the middle man and get right to it.
“I meant your brain taking a vacation,” he said before my sloggy mind could come up with the perfect flirty line.
“Right. That wish.” I reached up and pressed my fingertips to my temple. “Unfortunately, this stupid brain of mine is still trying to spin. I might need a distraction to ensure the not-thinking thing.” I pushed to my knees, planning on kissing him.
Then I realized my breath might not be the best, and from the feel of it, my hair was a tangled mess.
“No slamming your big, beautiful brain on my watch. It’s one of my favorite things about you.”
Was that his way of saying he was more attracted to my brain than my body? Thanks, insecurities. Why don’t you go away for a few minutes and take my thoughts with you?
Evan’s demeanor morphed into serious mode as he squared off in front of me and crossed his arms. “But I do want to talk to you about something I don’t think is the smartest of choices.”
I frowned. This was going downhill quickly. Maybe I should throw the covers over my head, reset, and try again. I’d roll onto my side, flash him a coquettish smile, and say in a smoky, sultry voice, “My wish is for you to come over here and join me. After I brush my teeth and comb my hair, that is.”
Yeah, real spontaneous.
An idea about asking him to join me in the shower flickered through my head, but then I noticed his hair was damp and he was all dressed and ready to go, and a pang of disappointment went through me. Apparently he’d gone and showered without me.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “We’re going to talk about this whether you like it or not.”
I flopped down on my heels. “I feel like I need coffee before this conversation.”
The bed dipped with Evan’s weight. “And I feel like it’s better if I get this out before you start talking one-hundred miles an hour and distract me with that pretty mouth of yours.” He reached up and brushed his thumb across my lower lip, and butterflies fluttered, helping blow some of the rising apprehension away.
A hungry look entered his eyes as they skimmed down me, and he swallowed hard. Then he seemed to shake himself out of it, his hand dropping to his side. “This savin
g your EpiPen thing? I don’t like it. I need you to keep breathing.”
Oh. That wasn’t nearly as bad as I was imagining. “Okay, but I did keep breathing. Not sure about the walking and talking, but I breathed all night.” I spread my arms to demonstrate how fine I was. “Obviously.”
Amusement danced across the curve of his mouth. “You talked some, too.”
My stomach bottomed out and I dropped my head in my hands. “Of course I did.”
“Do you remember telling the hotel clerk that you were basically taking advantage of me.”
I groaned as the hazy memory came back to me.
Evan peeled my hands from my face and wrapped them in his. “In the middle of the night, you also told me that grooming was all booked, but you could slot me in for my rabies shots.”
My cheeks burned. “I did not,” I automatically said, although I didn’t truly doubt it. I often dreamed about work, and on any given day, people came in without an appointment and couldn’t believe I wouldn’t simply bump other animals for their pookie-poo.
He slipped his fingers into mine. “Where else would I get that from? It’s a very particular thing to make up—my imagination’s not that good.”
Not that denial would help my embarrassment, but I clung to it anyway. “Unless you’re just a liar, liar, pants on fire, thinking you can take advantage of your gullible girlfriend thanks to her drug-induced coma.”
Every ounce of humor evaporated from his features and then he was pulling away.
“Evan, it was a joke.” That only seemed to cause him more pain. “Would now be a bad time to ask if you’ve had your rabies shots?” My attempt to lighten the mood dive-bombed, crashing to the ground in a puff of smoke.
“Breakfast is almost over, so I’ll go grab us what I can while you shower, and then we better push off so we can make all of today’s stops.”
Never before had he cared about schedules, and while he’d acted more psyched about our sight-seeing than expected, something still didn’t add up. Maybe my hair and breath were even worse than I’d imagined.
The quiet hung heavy as soon as the door closed behind him. Since I didn’t know what to do about that, I rushed through a shower, dressed, and braided my wet hair. Since we were already thirty-minutes behind my original scheduled departure time, I kept my makeup minimal and rushed through packing up.
Evan came back with a handful of pastries and fruit. “I made sure there’s nothing with peanuts—as in I asked until the manager looked like she was going to strangle me, but you might want to read the labels to be doubly safe. Also, where is your EpiPen?”
“In my purse. But like I said, the side effects of having to use it suck, and if it’s only a mild attack, it’s much too expens—”
The stern look he shot me cut off the rest of my sentence. Then he gathered our suitcases and started for the door.
Confusion set in. One minute he would be flirty, and then he was distant, but then he was also worried about my allergies and overall health, and I could tell it was more than worrying he’d have to cart me to the hospital.
Maybe we just weren’t in the same place, though.
Here I’d gone all in, and he was still holding back.
The first hundred miles passed in relative silence, save the radio—his choice—and it wasn’t the comfortable silence. Not that I ever really found not-talking comfortable, but this was on a whole new level.
“Did you need me to drive?” I asked.
Evan glanced at me, almost as if he’d forgotten I was there. Obviously I’d interrupted some intense thinking.
My throat tightened. “Are you okay?”
“Worried I’m going to turn rabid since I haven’t had my shots?” he asked, and then he cracked a smile that appeared a bit on the forced side, but he was clearly trying.
“Totally. But in my defense, you’re foaming at the mouth a little.”
A laugh burst free and the sound sent hope rushing in. Tomorrow was going to be hard enough with the wedding, and beyond that, my attachment to the guy next to me had grown by leaps and bounds over the past couple of days. Funny how scared I was to lose something I’d nearly ended myself.
“Guess I could use a soda.” He peered over the top of his sunglasses. “You?”
“Sounds good. My coffee was… special.”
“And by special you mean?”
“Gross, oddly thick, and disappointingly short on caffeine.”
“Well, that simply won’t do. I need your hyped-up chatter to keep me going.”
“So you do…” I almost chickened out, but I couldn’t simply stifle myself in hopes he’d realize he liked me as much as I liked him. “You do want me to talk?”
Two creases showed up between his eyebrows. “Of course. I thought… I was… I’m sorry.”
The seatbelt cut into my neck as I twisted toward him and I tugged it away from me. “Sorry for what?”
He sighed and then muttered, “Where to begin?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I feel like you’re suddenly a brick house that’s talking in code.”
“That’s… a statement that’s hard to take the wrong way. First I’d have to figure out the meaning.”
I gave his arm a light shove, and he readjusted his grip on the steering wheel and lowered a hand to my knee. Immediately, I placed my hand over his, wanting to keep it there. Wanting it to mean we were good, in spite of sensing something was still off.
Evan took the exit after the sign that bragged about its attractions, and I wasn’t sure how to take the fact that 7-11 was listed alongside Stonewall Jackson’s house. Unless the 7-11 had a fossil of something besides ancient nachos inside, “attraction” seemed like a stretch.
As he pulled up in front of the lackluster convenience store with its signature orange, green, and red, I quickly unbuckled, my thoughts already on caffeinated beverages, king-sized candy bars, and possibly a donut if they didn’t look too old—everyone knew that calories didn’t count on road trips.
“Hey, Gwen?” His voice came out nice and deep, and the way he said my name sent a pleasant shiver across my skin.
I glanced at Evan. “Yeah?”
“Please don’t stop talking because I’m an idiot. I love listening to you talk. You could read a takeout menu for all I care, and I’d be hanging on every word.”
“Well, sure. I’m like that when it comes to talking about food, too.”
He laughed, then took my hand in his and held it to his chest. “In all seriousness, though. If we were in a church or at a funeral, I’d understand why you couldn’t talk, but I’d also be counting down the minutes until I could hear your voice again. This has already been my favorite road trip ever—was from the minute you climbed into the car. And I just… I want you to know that.”
I leaned toward him, testing where we were at, since we hadn’t kissed all morning.
He closed the few inches of space between us, and I fell into the kiss, my entire body relaxing. The pads of my fingertips brushed his jaw, the scrape of his whiskers comforting and revving at the same time. “Stick around, because when it comes to this road trip, the fun’s just getting started.”
15 Ethan
“Oh, holy crappers,” Gwen said, which wasn’t a saying I’d heard before. I’d held the door open for an elderly couple who’d been going into the 7-11 as we’d been coming out, and in the five seconds I’d taken my eyes off her, something must’ve gone wrong.
A giant fountain drink and a slew of other snacks filled her hands, enough sugar and caffeine to give me diabetes and shift her chatter into turbo mode, and admittedly, I couldn’t wait for it to kick in. Her gaze was fixed on a spot on the ground, and a closer look revealed the sunglasses she’d had on earlier, now on the ground and twisted at a funny angle, the lenses in pieces on the sidewalk.
She gave me this half grimace, half sheepish smile. “I chose to save the food.”
I placed my hand on her back. “Well, you did warn me food w
as your priority.”
“I’d forgotten that I’d pushed my sunglasses onto the top of my head and when I looked down so I wouldn’t trip, they slipped off and crumpled like they were made of glass.”
“They are made of glass.”
She cocked her head. “The frames aren’t, and they broke, too.” She shifted the snacks in her arms and frowned down at the ground again. “I’m going to need a pair of shades for the next few hours, though, so maybe I chose wrong.”
I took the assorted goodies out of her hands, put them in the car, and then reached for her soda.
She took a long pull and then handed it over. As soon as I settled it in the cup holder, I
grabbed her hand and tugged her back toward the double doors of the convenience store. “Looks like we’re going back in.”
She glanced around and lowered her voice. “We’ll get made for sure.”
I played along, leaning in conspiratorially. “Not if we find the right pair of shades.”
The air-conditioned breeze hit us as we walked back inside, and goosebumps broke out across Gwen’s arms. I rubbed my hands up and down them, attempting to warm her up. “Need me to run back and get my hoodie?”
“I can make it. I’ll just grab the first pair of shades I see and then we’ll be back on the road.” She slowed before the tower of eyewear. “Whoa, check these out. These are like the-nursing-home-special sunglasses.” She slipped them on and turned to me.
They were huge and ugly, and yet, she still looked cute in them. “You said you were getting the first pair you grabbed, so I hope you enjoy your choice.” I teasingly tugged her toward the cash register.
“No, wait! I changed my mind. A girl’s allowed to change her mind now and then.”
She plopped the discarded glasses on my face and then reached for another pair—old school Terminator shades. “Do I look like a badass now?”
I lifted the sunglasses off my head, taking in her huge, dimpled smile without the obscuring dark lenses. “Not with that grin. You need to work on your intimidation skills to pull off badass.”
