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.
That guy at the gas station had been right, we did need a room.
I staggered us toward her front door. Then suddenly she was wiggling away from me, her feet back on the ground. She put her hand to my chest, making space between us. She panted and her wide eyes flickered back down to my lips, and it looked for a second like she might reconsider, but instead she launched herself off me, turned, and tore full speed into the house.
The door slammed, the bolt lock clicked behind her, followed by the rake of the chain, and I stood alone in her walkway for a whiplashed moment in my rumpled shirt, my hair a mess, catching my breath.
Jesus Christ. What the fuck just happened?
It was like I’d been sucked into a tornado made of animal magnetism, tossed around, and then spit out alone in front of her house.
I had to adjust the front of my pants.
Goddamn, this woman had me. It was more than just physical. She fucking had me. I didn’t even want to leave. I felt like scratching on her door like a dog wanting to be let in.
Tucker whined at the house through the open window of my truck.
“Yeah, I know, buddy,” I breathed. “I wish I were in there too.”
I drove home and poured myself a bourbon.
Sloan.
She liked my music. It hadn’t even occurred to me how much that mattered until it came out. I wanted her to like it. Her opinion meant something. I wanted her to like everything about me.
This wasn’t just some woman. I’d suspected it when we’d been talking on the phone, but now I knew it. This was big, different from anything I’d ever felt. It was like the first time I’d picked up a guitar, that same sense of certainty.
I stripped down for bed, climbed under the covers, and sat up against my headboard, my cell in my hand. Tucker was always the safest topic. I started typing.
Jason: Tucker misses you.
She didn’t make me wait.
Sloan: He’s just claustrophobic in that lunch box. Let him out.
I laughed.
Jason: I really enjoyed our date.
Sloan: Me too.
Then I decided to take a risk.
Jason: You’re not mad I kissed you? I know you have rules about first dates.
A long pause ensued before she replied. When the dots started to jump, I sat up to wait for her text to come through, throwing back the rest of my whiskey.
Sloan: I’m beginning to think the rules don’t apply to you. Good night, Jason.