“Just so you know, I don’t even kiss on the first date,” I said, finishing my scratcher. I won two dollars and held the card up to show him with a smirk.
“And here I am, getting the upgraded car wash for nothing.”
I laughed.
I couldn’t believe what a good time I was having. I always figured my first date after Brandon would be a painful milestone. A Band-Aid to tear off. But it wasn’t. Jason made it easy.
Jason made it a lot of things.
“Can I see you tomorrow?” he asked.
I smiled. “You want to see me again?”
“I don’t even want to drop you off at home tonight.”
I blushed. Again.
But then I remembered what day tomorrow was. It was the two-year anniversary of Brandon’s death. The day we’d taken him off life support. I had an agenda for tomorrow, a list of positive things I’d decided to do in his memory.
“I can’t. I have plans tomorrow. How about the day after?”
He looked slightly disappointed, but he nodded. “Okay, the day after, then. It’s a date.”
I didn’t object to him calling it a date, and he looked triumphantly back at the scratchers in his lap. He won five dollars.
“So what do we do with the money?” he asked.
I bit my lip, thinking. His eyes moved to my mouth again, and I smiled. “With seven dollars? How about we buy a chew toy for Tucker?”
“Great idea. We could take him to PetSmart on our next date.” He put the scratchers into the drink holder.
A guitar intro I recognized came through the speakers. “Oh, I love this song,” I said. “‘Name’ by the Goo Goo Dolls, right?”
He picked up my raspberry sorbet. “Yup. Can I try this?” he asked.
I nodded at his carton. “Give me yours.”
We sat listening to the music and eating each other’s ice cream. His was mint chocolate chip. We used each other’s spoons. Something about knowing that the little plastic utensil had been in his mouth made my heart pound.
I couldn’t believe this day.
We stared at each other unapologetically as we sat there. My eyes traveled from his sharp blue irises to his lips. I wondered if his beard would tickle if he kissed me. I’d never kissed anyone with a beard before. I moved down to his throat and watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. I saw the pulse of his neck and the dip of his collarbone, the way his chest strained against his shirt, the rhythmic rise and fall of his breathing.
By the time I looked back up, neither of us was moving. I sat with my spoon upside down on my tongue, all the ice cream in my mouth long gone. He held his carton in his lap and just stared at me.
Jason had this way of looking at me. It reminded me of how people used to look at my paintings, back before the astronaut cats. A focused fascination that leaned in and searched the brushstrokes. He didn’t even blink. It made me feel self-conscious, except I was pretty sure it meant he liked what he saw, which was good. Because I liked what I saw too. A lot.
And then suddenly he was moving.
Without breaking eye contact, he put his sorbet onto the dash. He took my spoon and my ice cream out of my hands and his fingers brushed mine in a split second of electricity before he set the carton down somewhere. Then he slid across the seat and slipped my cheeks into his warm palms, his fingers raked through the back of my hair, and he kissed me.
He barely touched me. Just a light brushing of his lips against mine, the slightest feel of his breath on my face.
It shot through me in milliseconds. The static crackling between us ignited, and I did exactly what Kristen said I should.
I climbed him like a tree.
Chapter 12
Jason
♪ Electric Love | Børns
Get a room!”
A hand thumped on the hood of my truck and Sloan scrambled off my lap and pressed her back to the passenger door with wide eyes. We sat there and stared at each other, panting.
Holy shit.
“Jason, I think you need to take me home,” she breathed, biting her lip.
I wanted to take her home all right. I wanted to take her home and carry her into her bedroom. But unfortunately that wasn’t what she meant. “Are you sure?”
She nodded.
I dragged my eyes to the windshield and got the truck started.
The tension between us on the drive home was like the arrow of a compass, turning to true north, the same way it had felt in the car wash, like it was work to not look at her. I kept glancing over at her, and every time I did, I caught her looking back at me.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to walk me to the door,” she said when I pulled into her driveway. “Seriously. Don’t get out. Like, at all.”
I put the truck in park. “What about your sink?”
Her cheeks were red. “You can fix it later or something. Stay here while I get Tucker.” She let herself out of the truck in such a hurry that her sweater snagged on the lock. She spun to unhook herself and I reached out and put a hand on her wrist. “Sloan—”
“I don’t trust myself around you right now,” she said quickly.
I smiled for a long moment at her wide eyes and pulled her sweater free. She hurried to the house. She dropped her keys twice before she got the door open.
When she came back outside, I waited until she was almost to the truck and I got out. She stopped dead in her tracks and let go of Tucker’s collar. He ran up to me and I pointed. “Get in the car, buddy.” He jumped into the front seat and I closed the door, not taking my eyes off her.
Her motion sensor lights weren’t working. She looked like an angel in the dim streetlight. The sky was dark and cloudless. No stars. Just her, her hair like a halo. The freeway breathed somewhere off in the distance and a breeze carried the faint scent of dirty, hot pavement.
I didn’t want to smell pavement. I wanted to smell her.
I wanted to get close enough to breathe her in again. I walked toward her and for every step I took, she took a step backward.
“I had a really good time tonight,” she said, biting her lip. Her back bumped into the garage and she looked up at me like a rabbit frozen in the grass near a fox, trying to decide if it should stay still or bolt.
I stopped two feet short, not wanting to corner her. “I’d like to kiss you good night, Sloan.”
She didn’t move, but her eyes dropped to my mouth.
The air between us felt charged.
The imprint of her still lingered on my skin. I could feel the press of her thighs, the weight of her soft body. Her perfume clung to me like fingers twisted into my shirt, drawing me toward her again.
“Come here,” I said, my voice low.
The command activated her. She flew at me.
I caught her in a swirl of her floral scent, and she practically climbed me. My lips were on hers in a second. Warm and wet, mint and raspberries on her tongue. The smell of her skin drove me fucking insane. Sweet honeysuckle drifted up around me and ensconced us.
I hooked a hand under the leg she had hiked up against me and lifted her so she straddled my waist. She dragged her hands through my hair and when she gasped, I let her come up for air and trailed my mouth along her jaw and down her neck.
She tilted her head back and let out a soft moan and I almost lost it.