My head spins, trying to account for the darkness in his eyes and the calmness in his tone. Then the blue lights time out and go dark, the hum of the engine making the space turn warm.
Lincoln grins. “That was my easy question, Kerosene.” He rubs his thumb along my bottom lip, the touch equal parts casual and intimate.
“If I stay at the house, every line will be blurred.”
“That happened when we crossed the Rubicon.”
“What about the other girls? Football? Pax? This is easy now, but me being there complicates everything.”
“Maybe, but right now, I lose my fucking mind wondering where you are. And, football is football—if anyone understands what that entails, it’s you. And if you’d pay attention,” his gives me a pointed look, “you’d realize there haven’t been any other girls.”
“One did your laundry the other day.”
He winces. “I know this won’t make it sound better, but I didn’t ask her to. Sometimes girls just come and do that kind of shit.”
I wipe a hand down my face. He catches it as my fingers splay across my eyes. Pulling my fingers free in his rough, warm hand, he dips his mouth, kissing the still chilled skin over my knuckles.
“I need to watch you come again.”
His words sling my heart so far outside of my body, I’m left staring at him, my breath caught in my throat.
That darkness in his eyes spreads to his lips, curving into a smile before reaching for me, tangling his fingers into my hair before he steals my breath.
34
Lincoln
My ego might have undermined her independence as her words confirmed what I’d hoped but had been too afraid to believe. I spent an hour confirming I still have self-control as I locked Rae and me up in the back of my truck. My ego inflated and my dick hard and throbbing as I finger fucked her until I watched her come on my fingers. I hit the pause button again, knowing her second time shouldn’t be in the back of a vehicle. Thoughts and questions were being stitched together as she followed me out into the cold mist to her car, but after hearing the reason she runs her thoughts through extra filters, I struggled to force the words out.
“Breakfast,” I say. “Let’s get something to eat.”
Her eyebrows rise with question. “Is something… Is there a reason you only focus on me?” Concern is etched across her forehead. I press a kiss to the creased skin, and then another to the corner of her lips, then the other corner.
“I’m still waiting for you to change your mind,” I tell her.
She shakes her head in short, confused twists. “What?”
“You waited for nineteen years before you had sex. Obviously, there was a reason.”
Rae’s cheeks flare pink. “It’s called having a family of stop signs. My mom was our principal. My aunt’s a police chief. Pax was a legacy. The only guys who wanted to have sex with me were looking to place a notch in their belts. It was never about me.”
This theory seems as plausible as Kennedy being hit by a stray bullet. Raegan’s sexy as hell and smart as a whip. She’s funny, she’s kind, and those figures in her life would only make the journey greater. “I don’t believe you.”
She scoffs. “Well, it’s true.”
I shake my head. “It can’t be. I’ve been trying to ignore you for almost two years.”
“I’ve been trying to ignore you for longer.”
That new spark hits my chest. “So, you’ve been wanting me for three years?”
She rolls her eyes, the movement exaggerated and pronounced before placing a hand on my chest and trying to shove me. It causes her to stumble, but I grab her before too much space can build between us. “I’m not changing my mind,” she says, confidence rounding her eyes as I follow the curve of her body with my hand, stopping on her ass.
“I don’t want you to feel pressured.”
“You sound like such a girl. Next, I’m going to start thinking you have feelings for me.” Her smile is a fragile curve, and for a second, I’m suspended in time, memorizing every detail I can absorb like it’s an order from a higher power, telling me I will want to remember this moment years from now.
“There’s a breakfast place over on Second. I checked out their menu while I was waiting for you, and they have, like, forty drinks available at breakfast.”
“You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”
I grin. “Not anytime soon, no.”
She only argues twice when I suggest we drive my truck, but I kiss her and remind her it’s only a couple of miles away, and she complies, following me to the passenger side, where I prop open the door, the scent of her orgasm mixing with the leather scent of my truck. It’s euphoric.
“Is this weird?” she asks, brushing either side of the laminated menu with her thumbs.
“What?”
“This. Us, being here so casually. I feel like we just skipped twelve steps.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I think we hit all the stages, but they were all in a weird order.” She slouches in her seat, folding her lips against her bottom teeth and diverting her attention to her menu as our waitress stops at the table. I take the few seconds to study her, recognizing the pull of her lips in a southern turn as a similar expression to the one Paxton makes when he’s frustrated, hers is just so much milder it’s easy to miss.
“What can I get you kids this morning?” the waitress asks, flipping to an empty page in her small pad of paper.
“Could we actually get a few minutes?” I ask.
“Do you want me to start with drinks?” she asks.
“Sure. Could we get two coffees, a hot chocolate with whipped cream, and an orange juice? No straws.”
She jots our drink order with a smile. “Sure thing.”
I focus my attention back on Raegan, waiting until she looks up at me. “What are you thinking over there, Kerosene?”
Blonde hairs tangle in her eyelashes before she swipes them away. “I just…” she pulls in a deep breath. “I don’t know. I had an entire list of rules why I should avoid you…”
“Rules?”
She nods. “Rules. I just never thought I’d need to actually apply them because you have a line of girls who follow you around, doing your laundry and painting your jersey number on their faces…”
“Rae,” I say when she doesn’t continue.
Her eyes slowly meet mine, bluer with the light blue fabric stretched across the booth behind her.
“I won’t do what your dad did.” The moment I say the words, her eyes shine with emotions I know she won’t recite, regardless of how much time I allow because that’s the fucked-up thing about the relationship we have between our parents: we want them to be gods among men, we expect that and provide the platform for them to live out that lie. We feed that image lies, excuses, and dreams, and some parents abuse that, taking advantage of the unconditional love while others strive to meet it, and some fuck it up so royally, it’s difficult to remember the moments when we saw them as anything except regrets.