A muscle jumped in his jaw. His eyes searched mine, and for a terrifying second, I thought he might refuse, that he might finally call me on the reckless, selfish game I was playing.
Instead, his hand came up to cup the back of my neck, his thumb stroking the sensitive skin below my ear. The simple touch was an anchor.
“Never,” he growled, the word a solemn vow.
He pulled me toward him, his mouth crashing down on hers. This was what I needed. Not Marcus’s gentle nostalgia, but Rhys’s raw, consuming present.
His kiss tasted of coffee and rain and something wild that belonged only to him. I scrambled over the console, half-falling into his lap, my skirt riding up my thighs. The gearshift dug into my hip, but I didn’t care. Nothing mattered but this.
His hands were everywhere, skimming up my back, tangling in my hair, pulling me impossibly closer.
The rain began to fall in earnest, a furious drumming on the truck’s roof that cocooned them in a world of their own. She tore at the buttons of his worn flannel shirt, needing to feel his skin against hers.
“You’re shaking,” he murmured against her lips, his breath hot.
“Just you,” I breathed back, a half-truth that was truer than anything else. He was the cause and the cure.
He hooked his fingers into the waistband of my panties and pulled them down, his touch deft and sure. There was no hesitation. This wasn’t a seduction; it was a surrender.
I was giving myself over to the oblivion only he could provide. He shifted me, his thighs bracketing my hips, and then he was inside me, a single, perfect thrust that stole the air from my lungs.
I cried out, my head falling back against the headrest. Inside the truck, everything was sharp and vivid. The scent of worn leather and damp earth. The rough texture of his five-o’clock shadow against my neck. The solid, grounding weight of him moving inside me.
He set a rhythm that was both punishing and perfect, each movement designed to strip away another layer of my anxiety. He watched my face, his gray eyes blazing with an intensity that saw straight through me. He wasn’t just fucking me; he was unmaking me.
“Look at me,” he commanded, his voice strained.
My gaze locked with his. I saw possession there, and a fierce, protective tenderness that shattered me. This was the connection I couldn’t name. It was more than sex, more than an escape.
My climax ripped through me, a violent, shuddering wave that left me gasping his name like a prayer. He followed a moment later, his body going rigid as he buried his face in the crook of my neck, his guttural groan vibrating through my entire being.
For a long time, we stayed tangled together while the storm raged. The frantic energy had dissipated, replaced by a heavy, languid peace. The windows were completely fogged over. He held me, his arms wrapped around him, his breathing slowly returning to normal. He didn’t push me away. He just held me.
“Better?” he finally asked, his voice rough.
I nodded, my cheek rubbing against the damp skin of his shoulder. “For now. ”
He knew what I meant. The peace was temporary. The high would fade, and the guilt would come rushing back in. This wasn’t a solution; it was a postponement of the inevitable crash.
He sighed, a deep, weary sound. With one finger, he wiped a small circle of condensation from the driver’s side window, creating a porthole to the real world. Through it, we could see the rain slowing to a drizzle.
As we watched, a car—a sensible sedan I vaguely recognized as belonging to Chloe’s father—drove slowly down the main vineyard road at the bottom of the hill. We were too far away to be seen, hidden by the trees, but the sight of it was a jolt of ice water.
A reminder. This world we had created in his truck wasn’t real. It was a bubble, and bubbles always burst.
He must have felt me tense, because his arm tightened around me. “Hey,” he said softly, tipping my chin up so I had to look at him. “We’re okay. ”
But we weren’t.
And as I looked into his stormy gray eyes, the eyes of the man who had become my secret, my addiction, my only escape, I knew with a terrifying certainty that I was going to destroy everything.