Joy Ride

And if I had any questions, she’s answered most of them.

“It can be real,” I say, and my voice is hoarse, rough with need.

As we cruise along the highway, I want nothing more than to watch the woman come. I want to hear her breath hitch, and I want to watch her fingers fly faster along the wet panel of her panties. I’m dying to see her get herself off, right here in my car. Legs spread. Feet on the dash. Head thrown back. I want to witness her orgasm wracking her body, see how she shudders, then I want to stop the car, climb over her, and fuck her through her afterglow to another, and another. I want to do everything with her and to her.

The first drop of rain splatters against the windshield, breaking my filthy fantasies.

I signal, slow, and pull onto the shoulder to raise the top. Once it’s up, I turn to her. Her eyes are a pure chocolate brown. Vulnerable.

“Hey,” I say. “You forgot one place where my mouth would be.”

“I did?”

I grab her face in one hand and crush her lips, kissing her like I would have if we’d stumbled out of the bar together last night, drunk on each other, high on the flirting, ready to go to her place or mine. To tear off clothes, map each other’s skin, drive each other wild.

I kiss her like I would have if I’d undressed her, worshipped her body with my tongue and lips, then moved her beneath me and lowered the full weight of my body onto hers. I haven’t had her like that. Under me on a bed. I want her on her back, her hair fanned out on a pillow, her beautiful body revealed to me. She trembles as I kiss her, and the uncertainty I felt this morning melts away. She ropes her arms around my neck and pulls me closer.

Goddamn, I want her now. I want her deeper and closer. But as the rain lashes the windshield, I’m acutely aware we have a deadline to meet. The supplier closes shop soon.

Not to mention the other little issue. As I separate, I flash her a lopsided grin. “I’m all for car sex, but side of the road on I-95 feels like the textbook definition of a bad idea.”

She laughs warmly. “I’m with you on that one.” She runs the back of her fingers along my cheek. Softly, she says, “Max.”

“Yeah?”

“The same.”

I furrow a brow. “What’s the same?”

“Everything you said last night. It’s the same for me. I’ve been attracted to you since I met you. I feel it everywhere.”

The world shifts on its axis. It’s like my entire body is plugged in. I’m crackling and electric and so turned on. But there’s more to it than that. Something stirs inside me again—something that feels foreign and strange but is completely welcome, too. “Is that so?”

She nods. “When I said I’ve tried hard not to get involved with anyone in the business, and the only time I’ve been involved is now,” she says, reminding me of her words from the night on my couch, “I also meant the only time was with you before. Even though we weren’t a thing. But I was so into you, it pretty much felt like we were involved.”

“Same here.” I press a final kiss to her lips, partly so I won’t ask the next thing on my mind—how involved are we now?

I don’t want to ruin the moment, and I don’t want to miss our deadline. And I’m glad I’m saying sayonara to the goblin and the insidious thoughts he planted in my head of her and John Smith.

When I merge back onto the highway, I ask her if she wants to listen to music. She tells me she has a playlist, and I say I do, too.

“You have a playlist?” she asks, surprised.

As she shoots me a challenging stare, I pick up where she left off last night. “She wanted me then. She still wants me now,” I say, singing for her.

She laughs, then takes my hand and threads her fingers through mine. Like that, we drive through the rain. The tension in me unwinds. The worry about what’s happening between us fades away. I don’t entirely know what we are, but I know something is happening and it’s not stopping, and somehow we’ll figure it out.

Until I realize near Milford that her fingers are sliding out of mine. They’re slipping into her purse, and she’s checking her phone.

My chest tightens. I don’t know why this bothers me so much.

But it does.

It really fucking does, especially since she can’t stop checking her phone. The goblin rears its head again, roaring back to life. Only this time I’m jealous of something else.

I’m jealous of whoever it is that knows this woman better than I do. I want to know her. I want to understand her. I want to be the one she tells why she’s nervous, why she nearly nibbled on her nail, and what she’s waiting for.

But I’m not that guy.

We are mostly business as we stop at the supplier and pick up the emblem for the Lambo. The rain splashes in thick streams from the sky, and Henley pops open a white umbrella with lavender polka dots as we head into the supplier’s shop.

Small talk about the car and the show occupies us for several minutes. Then we say good-bye and return to my Triumph with the special-order emblem. As I back out of the lot, silence fills the small space between us again. It’s thick, like smoke you can barely see through.

As I shift the car in first, I glance at her, and she locks eyes with me. I swallow past the dryness in my throat. Someone needs to speak. Someone needs to fucking figure out what’s happening between us.

For a moment, as I plug Creswell’s address into the GPS on my phone, Patrick’s comment rings in my ears.

Tell Henley you want more than just sex.

With my hand on the knob of the shifter, that reality forces its way front and center. That’s the issue. That’s the rub. I want to be that guy for her. I want to know what’s going on in her life. I want to be more than her one-night, two-night, three-night stand. I want to be the guy she gets off to and the guy she goes out with.

I’ve got it bad for this girl.

As I signal onto the road to our client’s house, slowing my speed on the rain-slicked concrete, I noodle on what to say, and how the fuck to navigate being something more with her when she’s the competition. How I can make heads or tails of all the reasons why I shouldn’t spend one more night with her. We’d have to confront the prospect of trade secrets, shared clients, and more every day. We’d constantly be pursuing the same deals. We’d bump elbows and heads, and knock into each other all the time. Those phone calls and stolen moments away would only intensify. It’s a small world, maybe too small to be involved with my rival. To top it off, she distracts me to no end.

She makes me lose focus.

She makes me want to be with her.

She makes me fucking feel.

And that’s the problem. I feel something for her.

But I want her more than I don’t want all the fucking complications.

I curse out loud as I turn the corner.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

Shit.

That was supposed to be said in my head.

And she reminds me of me now. She reminds me of when I asked earlier on the ride if she was okay. Her comment makes me wonder if she feels the same pull. The same intensity. The same whatever this is.

The same.

I try to shake off the tempest of questions rattling my brain and dragging down my heart. The GPS lady tells us Creswell’s house is one mile away. Dusk is falling.

“Yeah. I’m fine,” I mutter, then the words tied up inside me unknot. “What’s going on in your life?” I ask at the same time as she blurts out, “What’s happening here?”