He nodded while unfastening his jeans.
Ryn swallowed hard, her body stiff. “M-My period.”
Sucking her bottom lip into his mouth, he bit it with a chilling intensity as he stroked himself. “Don’t worry. That’s not where I’m going to put it.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Day
Luke pulled into his parents’ drive after taking the slower, nothing over thirty-five, less driven roads to ensure his precious cargo had a safe trip—in the trunk. To his surprise, she stayed quiet for the entire ride. Even when he got out, she didn’t make a single noise. He considered opening the trunk to check on her, but his instincts told him to just stay away. It was nothing more than the silence before the storm.
“Hey, Luke. You two have a nice drive?” Tom asked, helping Felicity fold sheets in the living room.
“We did. It was a perfect day.”
“Did you find a nice little place to buy and settle into when you move back here to get married and have lots of grandbabies for me?”
Tom rolled his eyes at his wife’s question.
“We did not.”
Felicity frowned.
“While I fully intend to marry Jessica and have a manageable number of children with her, I want it to be when the time is right.”
“Not everyone can be like your mother and I were. Perfect timing on everything.” Tom winked at Felicity.
“I’m in your wedding photos, sitting in the front row next to Aunt Beth. Brilliant timing, folks.”
His parents shared their usual we-wouldn’t-change-a-thing grins. If Luke were honest, he admired their decision to wait until they were ready to get married. They conceived him on their first date.
“Speaking of fate … where is Jessica? Did she go upstairs?”
Luke smiled at his mom. “I think she’s still in the car going through a few things she picked up on our outing.”
“Oh, that reminds me. Did you remember my printer ink?”
“We did.” He handed her the car keys. “They’re in the trunk.”
Felicity frowned as she snatched the keys while shaking her head. “Was it just too much for you to haul them inside?”
“Something like that.”
As she brushed past him, Tom gave Luke a suspicious look.
Luke grimaced. “There’s a pretty good chance I won’t live to see the sunrise.”
“You forgot her ink?”
“No. It’s in the trunk—with Jessica.”
*
It broke Jessica’s heart that her beloved would die soon, but there were certain acts of complete disrespect that were punishable only by death. Locking someone in a trunk was one of them. They’d had some good times together and for that, she was not only grateful but sympathetic enough to make sure his death would be quick with minimal suffering.
Had she been able to predict such an act of sheer evilness, she would have purchased batteries for her electric pillar candles. Instead, she waited in the dark, knees bent to one side, hands laced behind her head. She wore a dragonfly shower cap, blue nitrile gloves, and a mustache molded from Sticky Tac. On the inside of the trunk lid was a sticky note with sloppy I-wrote-it-in-the-dark handwriting that read:
I’m going to let Jones hump your $300 pillow and play tug of war w your socks when U R DEAD!
“Ahhh! Oh my gosh!” A woman’s voice screeched.
Jessica felt like a vampire with the bright light frying her cornea—a deaf vampire thanks to the shrill pierce of Felicity’s scream. Everything came into focus a little at a time. The note still stuck to the inside of the lid, the horrified, yet confused look on Felicity’s face as she seemed to be reading it, and then the Holy Grail.
Jessica smiled as she sat up, pulling the mustache from her lip. “Hel-lo, Thelma.” She snatched the dangling keys from Felicity’s hand and hopped out. “Get in.” She slammed the trunk and slid in the driver’s seat. Yep. Just as she imagined: better than sex.
“Thelma?” Felicity questioned as she hesitantly got in the other side.
“Thelma and Louise. But don’t worry, we won’t drive it off a cliff or anything … at least not today.” Jessica tossed the gloves and shower cap in the backseat. “Buckle up. Once I start the engine we’ll need to be spinning the tires out of here. Oh … and keep an eye out the back window to say goodbye to Luke. In less than ten seconds he’ll be on your porch having a heart attack or possibly a stroke.”
“What’s going on?”
Jessica loved that without knowing a single detail, Felicity buckled up. Of course the skinny-dipping mom would be all in. It was wrong for Jessica to have doubted her for a single moment. She moved the seat up, stomped on the clutch, and turned the key. The seductive rumble of the engine, finally under her control, made it hard to focus, but she needed to get out of there because the timer had started.
She backed out of the drive, shoved it into first, and waited, one hand white knuckled on the steering wheel, the other fisting the round black ball of the gear shift.
“There they are. Blow your boys a kiss, Felicity.”
And she did because Felicity Jones was one. Cool. Chick.
Jessica tattooed the concrete with the back tires as she squealed out of the drive. She took a mental picture of Luke’s reflection in the rearview mirror: slumped shoulders, hand over his chest, slightly bent at the waist, mouth agape.
Priceless.
“I think the joke is supposed to be on Luke, but then again, he sent me out to get the ink, knowing you were in the trunk. And you were wearing a shower cap, gloves, and a mustache so … I’m confused.”
“Let’s just say your son would rather me ride in the trunk than sit in the driver’s seat. No offense to you of course, but he may have control issues, and I’m usually not all judgmental that way because I like control too but—”
“So you didn’t voluntarily get in the trunk? He drove home with you in there?”
“Correct. I’m not going to lie and when I say this I’m speaking to my partner in crime, Thelma, not Luke’s mom.” Jessica grinned. “When he first shoved me in the trunk I didn’t try to fight him. It caught me off guard, but I honestly thought he was trying to do something kinky with me.”
Felicity laughed to the point of a girlish giggle. “So what did you do when you realized he was locking you inside?”
“Started plotting his death.”
“Oh my goodness, he’s his father through and through.”
“Tom? No way.” She shook her head.
Felicity nodded. “Yes, he is. Tom used to be a control freak when we first started dating. It didn’t help that I was pregnant.”
“Wait, you were pregnant when you started dating.”
“Basically. Has Luke not told you that we conceived him on our first date?”
Jessica’s jaw dropped then closed into a grin, eyes wide. “No.”
“Yes. And now what I’m going to say is being said to Louise, not Luke’s girlfriend.”
“God, I love you. Go on.” Louise laughed.
“Luke doesn’t know this and I’m quite certain he wouldn’t be treating this car like his most prized possession if he knew that his conception took place in this very back seat.”