Page 21 of Diesel’s Desire

13

DIESEL

The truck rolls to a stop outside her place, gravel crunching under the tires, and I cut the engine before either of us says anything. The porch light’s on, same as before, throwing that soft yellow glow across her lawn. Thunder’s silhouette moves behind the front window, pacing, probably wondering where his person’s been all night.

I’m out of the truck and around to her side before she’s even got her seatbelt off.

“I’ll walk you to the door,” I say, already reaching for the handle.

“You don’t have to⁠—”

“I know.”

She doesn’t argue past that, just lets me help her down, her palm warm against mine for the half-second it takes her boots to find the ground. We walk up the path together, close enough that our arms brush with every other step, and I’m having a hard time keeping my hands to myself. Cicadas going off somewhere in the dark. Her porch light buzzing faintly overhead. Neither one of us says a word the whole way, because I’m waiting for her to turn toward me.

She stops at her door, keys already out, and turns to face me instead of putting them in the lock.

“Thank you,” she says. “Tonight was...”

She doesn’t finish it. Doesn’t need to. I can see the rest of that sentence sitting right there in her eyes, blue-gray and wide open in the porch light.

“You want to come in?” she asks. “For a drink or something?”

My whole body says yes before my mouth catches up. I follow her through the door, and she flips the hall light on, drops her keys in a bowl by the entryway, Thunder shoving his big head against her leg and sniffing me before he decides I’m not a threat and wanders off toward the kitchen like he’s got better things to do.

“I’ve got wine, or⁠—”

I don’t let her finish that sentence either.

I close the distance in two steps, get a hand in her hair the same way I imagined two weeks ago lying in my bunk with the whole club still partying on the other side of the wall, and I kiss her like I’ve got seventeen years of catching up to do. Because I do.

She makes a sound against my mouth, surprised for half a second, and then her hands are fisting in the front of my shirt, pulling me closer instead of pushing me away, and that’s all the answer I need.

I walk her back until her shoulders hit the wall, and the little framed photos rattle against the plaster, and neither of us cares.

“Evan,” she breathes, my name whispered against my mouth.

“Say it again.”

“Evan.”

I groan into her neck, drag my mouth along her jaw, her throat, the same spot I used to mark up when we were kids too stupid to hide it from our parents. She smells exactly the same. Tastes different, wine and something warmer underneath, but she presses into my hands just as eagerly, and God, I missed this. Missed her. All these years of pretending some blonde in a bar could stand in for what I actually wanted, and none of them ever came close, not once, not for a second.

Her nails scrape down the back of my neck, and I hiss, rock my hips into hers, let her feel exactly what she’s doing to me through my jeans and her dress.

“We’re not doing this against a wall,” I mutter against her skin.

“Says who?”

“Says me. I’ve waited seventeen years. I’m taking my time.”

She laughs, breathless, and the sound of it does something to my chest that no amount of whiskey ever managed. I get my hands under her thighs and lift, and she wraps her legs around my waist without hesitation, arms locking around my neck, and I carry her that way through the living room, past Thunder sprawled out and watching us, until my shins hit her couch.

I lower her onto the cushions slowly, cover her body with mine, and for a second we just look at each other. Her hair’s spread out across the throw pillow, that dress riding up her thighs, and she’s watching me with an expression I haven’t seen on her face since we were teenagers, unguarded and a little scared of how much she wants this.

“You still with me?” I ask.

“Don’t stop.”