B swallowed, her eyes heating for a moment before she played it off with a smile. “You know I hate clichés.”
I shrugged. “I also know you’ll make an exception for me.”
“Oh? Do you now?” B shot a brow up into her hairline, an amused smile playing on her lips.
I tucked my hands into my pockets again, confident. “I do.”
B watched me for a long moment, debating, and when she bit down slightly on her bottom lip, I sucked in a hot breath I knew I couldn’t let go of or I’d take her right there for everyone to see.
“Oh, for God’s sake, go,” Jenna said. “Go before he gets me pregnant with that fucking look of his.”
B covered her laugh with her hand, and I didn’t hide my smirk as she grabbed her purse and apologized to her other friend at the table.
Then, her eyes were on me again.
“Lead the way.”
• • •
“I can’t believe you traded in ScarJo,” B said after we’d driven around town for a while, her hand running down the length of the leather seat she sat in.
Even though it wasn’t the old Jeep, she somehow made the new one feel just the same — like it was home. She had her heels kicked off and her feet on my dash, her long hair blowing in the wind, that same young, carefree smile on her face.
Except now, that smile was tinged with something a little dark, a little sad, a little all-encompassing. It was the kind of smile you earned from living for a while, the kind that came from having gone through hard-enough times that you truly understood how few and far between the good ones were. You knew to appreciate them.
And you also knew they couldn’t last.
I chuckled. “Yeah, well, ScarJo started getting cranky in her old age. I held onto her until about two months ago before giving in and upgrading.”
“Oh, I’m sure it was so hard to do,” B teased.
She was making a joke about how nice the new Jeep was, but for some reason, the way she said it made me defensive — like she should have known how hard it would be for me to give up the old Jeep, knowing everything that had happened inside it.
I sniffed. “Yeah, well, there were a lot of memories in that Jeep. I didn’t want to let her go, not until I had to.”
She quieted at that, and all the fun from the evening was sucked out the window, riding away on a breeze. I was done catching up and talking about the surf.
I needed answers.
“You never came back,” I whispered.
She grimaced, pulling her feet off the dash and tucking them under her legs, instead. “I know.”
“And you never answered my calls. You never called me back. You never…”
I grit my teeth, gripping the steering wheel hard as I worked to gain my composure. It was an effort not to punch something, not to want to scream at her and kiss her breathless at the same time.
“I know,” was all she said.
We pulled up to a red light, and B let her head fall back against the headrest, turning to look at me as the red light reflected on her skin.
“Nothing I say is going to make you feel better, Jamie. I have excuses, I have reasons why I pushed you away, but none of them will make up for the fact that it was shitty of me to do. I was young, I was hurting, and I didn’t know how to handle my new reality. I ran away from you, from California, because I thought it was the right thing to do. And in a way, I’m glad I did, because I needed to heal. But in a way, I hate myself for how I left you.”
I clenched my jaw hearing those words off her lips — that she left me. Maybe I hadn’t admitted that to myself yet.
“My dad’s death changed me, Jamie,” she croaked, covering my hand with hers. I sucked in a breath at that warmth. “And what I did to Ethan, it was against every moral code I had, and I hated myself for losing control, for loving you when I was supposed to be loving him. It was just…”
She closed her eyes, and I realized then how hard that time of her life had been — not just because of her dad, but because of us, too. I sighed, turning my hand so I could take hers in my grasp.
“I was fucked up,” she whispered after a moment. “And I needed time.”
The light turned green, and I moved my eyes to the road once more, but B kept her hand over mine as I shifted gears.
“And now?” I asked.
B was silent a moment more.
“Now, I’m sitting in your Jeep, and nothing has changed, yet everything has.”
I nodded, frowning, not knowing what that meant. Everything had changed. Three years had turned both of us into entirely new people.
And yet…
B sucked in a breath before continuing. “And I’m wondering how much longer you’ll fight the urge to kiss me before you finally give in.
My eyes snapped to hers then, not sure I heard her correctly.
“Because I leave in less than forty-eight hours, Jamie,” she whispered, her shoulders deflating with desperation and longing. “And I need you to kiss me before I board that plane.”
I didn’t expect it.
I didn’t expect her to tell me out right, without playing games or making me read into what she wasn’t saying.
She wanted me.
She needed me.
I took a sharp turn, cracking my neck as my heart thudded hard in my ribcage.
“I’m taking you to my place. Now,” I said. “If you didn’t mean even a word of what you just said, you have roughly seven minutes to take it back. After that, you’re not allowed to say another word, not even my name, because I’m going to fuck you speechless.”
I turned, waiting for her to argue, for her to tell me we shouldn’t. I was testing her, challenging her, daring her to fight. Because that was the last warning I would give before I took her.
And this time, I would take a bigger piece of her when I did, and I wouldn’t give it back — no matter what happened after tonight.
B only licked her lips and uttered two words that were my undoing.
“Drive faster.”
• • •
Warning bells sounded loud in my ears as I slammed my front door closed behind B, immediately pinning her against it and tossing my keys when I did. She wrapped her legs around me, her high heels digging into my ass as I crushed my mouth to hers.
That first kiss, that first taste of her after so long was enough to make me come right then and there. Just her lips on mine, her tongue, her whimper at the touch set my soul on fire.
Someone could have pushed me off her in that moment and told me the heartbreak that would come later, and I still would have shoved them aside and taken her, anyway.
There was no walking away. Not then, not ever.
I stripped her top off like the scrap of fabric it was, groaning when I realized she didn’t have a bra on underneath. Her dark nipples pebbled, peaks rising, and I would have sucked each one between my teeth had she not moaned my name next.
“Jamie,” she begged.
“Shh,” I warned, meaning what I said in the Jeep.
I didn’t want her to say a fucking word — not until she was coming and screaming my name.
There was a little hate flowing between us as I carried her into my kitchen, but it was the kind of hate that was just across the thin line between it and all-consuming love. I hated her for what she’d done to me, for how she’d left me, for the time she’d denied us. But I also loved her so fiercely that it didn’t matter what she did to me — I’d still want her.