Page 95 of Sterling Stone

“What about pausing?”

She licks her lips and glances to the left again before looking back at me. “Maybe I just want something for myself, too. Someone just for me, for a little while.”

For a little while.

I don’t let the words dissuade me from the rest of her statement.

I point at my chest, the jab forceful and direct, arching an eyebrow to suggest, Me?

“Yeah,” she whispers. “I choose you.”

She has no idea what those words do to me. How much I want them to mean something deeper than I’m certain she playfully means.

She picks me.

For now.

34

[Stone]

The next night, Taxi greets me in the driveway, rushing to kiss me. I don’t need to take, she gives.

“Fuck, I want to touch you,” I say, grinding up against her as I have her back pinned to the driver’s side door of my truck, which blocks us from view of the house.

Trudy lives outside of town, so her closest neighbor isn’t close enough to see what I want to do to this woman against the side of my vehicle.

“I need to taste you again,” I murmur against her mouth as I bend at the knees to line us up and thrust at her covered center.

“Same,” she whimpers against my mouth as we make out like randy teens, hiding from parents possibly spying through the front window.

The thought makes me chuckle.

“What?” she smiles, her lips swollen and wide as she pulls back. “What’s so funny?”

“I was just thinking how I feel like a teenager about to get caught making out with my girl. Any minute I expect a front porch light to flip on and off, like a warning for you to come inside before breaking curfew.”

“And you were thinking all that while kissing me?” she chides with giggles, especially when I angle for her neck and run my nose against her soft skin, the scent of citrus and honeysuckle invading my senses.

“I mean, besides the whole wanting to put my face between your thighs . . .”

Taxi hums with those three short mms and melts against me.

“How often did you do that?” she asks.

Abruptly, I pull back and focus on her eyes as best I can under the dark sky. “Put my face between thighs?”

She swats at my chest. “Kiss girls beside cars and watch for porch lights?”

“Oh.” I chuckle and swipe my hand through my hair. “Maybe only a handful of times. Small town, remember? There were only so many girls, and when half of them dated half of your friends, it wasn’t like I wanted to be second choice.”

“First pick,” she says, poking at my chest and tipping up on her toes, kissing me once again.

Eventually, I pull back. “We better get inside before I open this truck and lay us both down on the bench.”

Her eyes flare like she likes that idea. “Promises, promises,” she teases, before giving me one more quick kiss and then turning for the house.

“Wait.” I tug at the crisscross backing of her overalls. “Come to Sylver Sunday again this weekend.”