Chapter 22
Darkness had fully fallen by the time Gwyn turned her truck down a familiar dirt road. It snaked between the hills, gnarled tree roots arching up from embankments around them. The windows were still open, and Gwyn could hear the faint trickle of water as it dripped from rocky outcrops overhead, the soft hoot of an owl, the rustle of the breeze through the trees.
“You aren’t taking me out somewhere to murder me now that I’ve served my purpose in your plan, are you?” Wells asked, and Gwyn winked at him.
“Don’t give me any ideas.”
The road curved slightly as they headed uphill, and Gwyn nodded off to the left. “If you go that way, you’ll end up at the Johnsons’ apple orchard. Just a heads-up, they’re nice people, but the war between the Apple People and the Spooky People is an ancient one in any town that goes hard for Halloween.”
“Noted,” Wells said with faux solemnity, and Gwyn smiled, shifting gears as the truck began to climb higher.
“Normally, we let them have pretty much all of September, but if they end up doing the Autumn Apple Hayride on Halloween night like they’ve been threatening, all bets are off.”
The truck rose over one last rise, and Gwyn put it in reverse, maneuvering around until she was parked exactly where she wanted. She’d been up here enough times that she could practically do it with her eyes closed, but Wells was looking around, a little wary.
“I was joking about the murder earlier, but I truly have no idea where we are right now.”
Turning the truck off, Gwyn opened her door. “Hold on to your waistcoat, Esquire.”
“I’m not even wearing one,” he grumbled as he got out, but then any other complaints died on his lips as he looked out at the view spread before them.
Gwyn had parked so that the bed of the truck faced a steep cliff, the land suddenly dropping away to reveal the valley below. Graves Glen was a collection of lights glimmering in the darkness, homey and warm but far away, shadowy hills rising all around it.
Just beyond the town, the moonlight picked up the silvery ribbon of a train chugging through the valley, and the sound of its horn carried across the air to them faintly.
Reaching into the back seat, Gwyn pulled out the quilt she always kept in the truck for whenever she wanted to come up here and tossed it into the bed, climbing up after it.
Wells was still standing beside the truck, taking in the view, and as Gwyn got the quilt situated, she said, “Vivi actually found this spot first. Back when we were teenagers. She liked to drive around in the mountains, and she said this was the prettiest view for miles.”
“It’s hard to imagine anything topping it, yes,” Wells said, his voice soft, his eyes drinking it all in.
Settling herself on the quilt, Gwyn gestured for him to climb into the bed. “Come on, Esquire,” she said. “If you’re going to be a Georgia boy, you need some experience sitting around in the back of trucks.”
“You’re rather imperious, you know that?” he replied, but he hoisted himself up into the truck with surprising grace, sitting next to her with his long legs stretched out in front of him.
For a while, they were quiet, and if it occurred to Gwyn that she’d never brought anyone up here before, she didn’t let herself overthink it.
Too much.
Instead, she tilted her head back, looking up. Stars twinkled through the trees overhead, and the moon was a perfect crescent just to the right of the tallest hill.
Next to her, Wells leaned back on his hands. “It’s so clear here. The air, the sky.”
Gwyn leaned back, too, her hand brushing his. She wanted to pretend she wasn’t aware of it at all, that the warmth of his body didn’t make her want to curl up against him, breathe him in.
But it was getting harder and harder to pretend that kind of thing when it came to Wells, so she let herself scoot closer to him, close enough that their hips touched as they looked at the stars.
“I’m pretty sure Wales does okay for itself in terms of natural beauty,” she said, and he huffed out a soft laugh.
“More than okay, yes,” he acknowledged, and Gwyn glanced over at him even though it was so dark, he was little more than a shadow. “But it’s different here. It’s very . . . American,” he finally said.
For once, he didn’t say that like it was a bad word, and when he turned and looked at her, Gwyn thought there was something a little wistful in his expression. “Did you miss it?” she asked. “Graves Glen. When you went back to Wales.”
Wells rubbed at his beard as he thought it over. “I didn’t think I did, not at first. I’d only been here a few months, and most of that time was spent at school. But once I got back, I found myself thinking about it at the strangest times. I’d be walking down the sidewalk in Dweniniaid and remember the way the leaves blew across campus, how pretty all that green grass looked with the red brick. Or—and mind you, this was fairly rare—a group of blokes would come into the pub who were clearly mates from their uni days, and I’d wonder about the people I might have met had I stayed longer. The people who might have still been in my life.”
Shaking his head, he gave a self-conscious laugh. “I suppose that makes me sound like quite the sad bastard.”
“I already thought that about you, so no harm, no foul,” she replied, but her hand was still next to his, and he only smiled at the words.
“Anyway, yes, I did miss it. Or rather, regretted all I’d missed out on by leaving so soon.”
Wells’s gaze slid back to her, lingering for a moment before he turned his attention back to the view. “For example, I had no idea drunken Ostara party hookups were on offer.”
Gwyn laughed, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. “It was a make-out, not a hookup,” she corrected him. “Very different things.”
Bumping her shoulder with his, she added, “And I’m sure you had at least one drunken hookup or make-out of your own. Girls at Penhaven were practically putting pictures of you up on their walls.”
Another one of those huffed laughs as Wells reached up to scrub a hand over his hair. “As we’ve established, I was something of a git back then, so no, I never seemed to make time for any of that while I was here.”
“Seriously? Not once?”
He was still looking at the view, his profile in shadow, and Gwyn thought back to that arrogant boy coming into Dr. Arbuthnot’s classroom, how she’d been so annoyed with him, how she’d assumed everything must be so easy for him because of his last name.
And that whole time, he’d actually just been . . . lonely.
“Not once,” he confirmed, then flashed her one of those wry smiles. “If it’s any consolation, I did have very good grades.”
There were a million jokes she could make right now. Probably a million and five.
But Gwyn really didn’t want to make any of them.
Instead, she turned to face Wells, coming up on her knees as she did and laying her hands on either side of his face.
His beard was soft against her palms, and when she swung a leg over his, coming to settle in his lap, he sucked in a quick breath even as his hands came up, resting just there below her waist.
For a second, Gwyn wondered if he was going to stop her, or list all the reasons this was a bad idea, or maybe launch into a soliloquy about it.
But he only pulled her closer.
Gwyn felt a slow smile curve her lips as she lowered her face to his, their mouths just a breath apart. “Feel like making up for lost time, Esquire?” she murmured.
“We’re not drunk, so I’m not sure this counts,” he replied, but his hands were still on her, and he tilted his head just the littlest bit, skimming his nose along her jaw in a way that had Gwyn’s eyes fluttering shut.
“Oh,” Gwyn promised, rolling her hips and hearing his breath catch again, “trust me. It’s going to count.”
There was no pretense when she kissed him this time. No spell, no one to fool. No one out here at all except for the two of them in the darkness, Graves Glen glittering in the distance, but a million miles away in her mind.
In a way, it felt like a first kiss, and that made something in Gwyn’s chest tighten even as she opened her mouth against his, her hand fisted in the front of his shirt, his fingers digging into her hip.
When she pulled back, his lips went to her neck, his beard abrading the skin there in a way she knew she’d wince at in the morning, but for now, it just felt good. Everything felt good. His mouth, his hands, the softness of his hair as it brushed against her cheek, the slow and steady ache building between her legs as she moved restlessly against his lap.
Despite the coolness of the night, she reached up to peel off her cardigan just as Wells lifted his head to kiss her again, and then she was distracted, kissing him back even as her sweater pinned her arms to her sides.
And when his tongue did a particularly lovely thing against hers, she gave a needy whimper, moving to clutch at his shoulders only to be brought up short by her traitorous cardigan.
Chuckling against her mouth, Wells raised his hands, helping her to push the rest of the offending garment off, and with a frustrated sound, he broke the kiss just long enough to fling the cardigan over the side of the truck and into the night.
“You are a beautiful woman, but that was a hideous piece of clothing,” Wells said, breathless as she kissed his jaw. “So I can’t regret its sacrifice tonight.”
“It was my favorite,” she lied, “and I’m going to make you buy me another one.”
He laughed again, and Gwyn chased that sound with her mouth, the night air cold against her flushed skin. Wells had one palm resting against her ribs, a heavy, warm weight through her thin T-shirt, and she wondered if he could feel just how fast her heart was beating.
She could feel him, hard underneath her despite the layers of fabric between them, and she pressed even closer, her hips rocking, the friction sending shivery sparks through her veins, her thighs clenching, and the kiss suddenly got wilder.
One of Wells’s hands, those beautiful, elegant hands she’d been having dirty thoughts about for way longer than she wanted to admit, was on the back of her head, tangled in her hair. The other rested just above her ass, holding her tight against him as she moved, their bodies locked together, and Gwyn wondered how something as simple as kissing while fully clothed could feel this filthy.
The man was still wearing a suit, for fuck’s sake.
But maybe that was part of it. Serious, formal Wells Penhallow in his black suit, kissing her in the back of a pickup truck like they really were a pair of horny college students who’d sneaked away from campus.
For just a moment, something like longing pierced through her, a wish to go back in time so that they could be that Wells, that Gwyn, without all the other stuff, all these other complications.
“You know,” Gwyn panted, lifting her lips from his, “you’re awfully good at this for someone who claimed never to do this kind of thing.”
“I claimed never to do this kind of thing here,” Wells corrected her, his hand brushing her hair back from her face, finger briefly tugging at that stripe of faded pink laying against her cheek even as the hand on her backside urged her to keep moving. “I wasn’t a monk, Jones.”
“Ah, so there are Welsh girls you seduced in the back of trucks. Sorry, lorries.”
“I believe you were the one who got into my lap,” he reminded her, moving in to press another hot, biting kiss against her neck.
Gwyn’s brain was feeling decidedly scrambled, her eyes closing as she managed to say, “I may have made the first move, but you’re the one who really ran with this, Esquire. I’m beginning to think your whole Waistcoat Guy thing is an act.”
His hand falling from her ass, Wells leaned back a little, studying her even as his chest still heaved up and down. “Do you always talk this much during sex?”
Gwyn licked her lips, taking a few deep breaths of her own. “Is that what we’re doing?” she asked. “Having sex?”
Wells reached up with one hand, ruffling his hair before leaning back on both hands, Gwyn still perched in his lap. “It certainly felt like the prelude to it.”
“Is that what you want?” Gwyn asked, suddenly a little cold now that his body wasn’t tight up against hers.
That was good, though.
She needed the space, needed the breather, because what had started out as something fun, something she’d felt very in control of, had started to feel like something bigger than that, and that was frankly terrifying.
“We can,” Gwyn went on. “Have sex. Or we can just keep doing this, maybe take it up a few notches. I mean, you haven’t even felt me up yet, and multiple sources would tell you my tits are not to be missed. So.” Gwyn shrugged. “Whatever you want.”
Wells was so quiet for so long that Gwyn wondered if maybe he actually was an android and she’d just short-circuited his system. Or maybe all the blood suddenly having to return to his brain took time.
The wind was still blowing through the trees, a soft rustle overhead, and the truck creaked slightly on its wheels as Wells slowly sat back up, his chest against hers, one of his hands coming up to cup her cheek.
There was enough moonlight for Gwyn to make out his expression as he looked into her eyes, and if she’d hoped to put a little distance between them, that mix of warmth, annoyance, and lust shot any chance of that straight to hell.
“What I want,” Wells said, his voice low, “you infuriating.”
His lips brushed hers, the barest hint of a kiss, and Gwyn shivered.
“Completely terrifying.”
Another brush, slightly firmer this time.
“Bloody gorgeous madwoman, is to watch you come.”
A real kiss now, quick, over too soon, but dirty enough that when he pulled back, Gwyn’s hands were once again clutching his shirt, and he was breathing hard again, his gaze hot on her face.
“Oh,” was all Gwyn managed to say, her mouth dry, but every other part of her was liquid and on fire all at once.
One corner of Wells’s mouth kicked up as he once again brushed her hair back from her face, his touch gentle enough to raise goose bumps. “If that means you want me to fuck you, then I will,” he went on, his thumb skating over her lower lip, a light touch she felt everywhere. “But I’m just as happy to touch you. Or taste you.”
Gwyn blew out a shaky breath. All of her was shaking, she realized, and she wanted him to keep talking like this forever, his voice warm and low, rough, but sliding over her like something silken and smooth; wanted him to keep filling her mind with images of the two of them, of the things he could do to her, the things he’d do with her.
“If you want us to keep on every item of clothing we’re currently wearing and grind against my cock until you come, I’d enjoy nothing more. If you want to touch yourself while I watch, I . . . well.”
Wells shifted underneath her, hands holding her hips and pressing her down into his lap just in case Gwyn wasn’t sure how much that particular idea appealed to him, and she swallowed hard, her hands resting on his shoulders, digging into his suit jacket.
“So that’s what I want, Gwynnevere Jones,” he said. “You. Coming for me. In whichever manner you choose.”
Gwyn stared almost wonderingly down into his face. “Who are you, and what have you done with Llewellyn Penhallow, Esquire?” she muttered, and Wells smiled, leaning forward to kiss the hollow of her throat.
“But if what you want is for us to stop this here and go back down the mountain and pretend this never happened, I’m amenable to that as well,” he murmured against her skin.
“Ah, there he is,” Gwyn said, and Wells gave a rumbling chuckle that she felt rather than heard.
He looked up at her again, lifting her hand from his shoulder and pressing a kiss into her palm. “So what do you choose, Jones?”