Joy Ride
The front end of Blue Betty is wrapped around a tree.
“Guess that’s what we call a tree hugger,” I say as I inspect my prized possession, now crumpled into the trunk of an oak. Thank Christ I took the time and spent the money to install these airbags. Complete pain in the ass and completely worth it.
“I’m so sorry this happened to your baby,” Henley says, running her hand down my arm. The car’s the only one damaged. I’m fine, Henley’s fine, and so is the monkey. Come to think of it, the deer is probably enjoying a nice serving of grass somewhere not far from here. We stand in the bank on the side of the road, while Roger clings to Henley’s side again.
I pat the battered hood. “It’s okay. She took one for the team.”
“But Max,” Henley says, sadness coloring her tone. “This is Blue Betty. She’s a—”
“She’s a wreck.”
But I’m not. And as I assess the devastation to the car I’ve wanted since I was a kid, the one I painstakingly restored with my own hands, I don’t feel that crushing fear, that rush of nerves.
Blue Betty is just a car, and I’ve got Triple A, as well as the wherewithal to fix it. “Let me call a tow. Why don’t you take your new boyfriend to Cynthia and Creswell,” I say, nodding at the monkey. Cynthia’s house is a few hundred feet away.
Henley gives me a knowing look, her brown eyes clear as day as she gazes straight at me. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
“I know someone else then who’ll apply for the job.”
“Tell him he already has it,” she says, stroking the primate’s head.
I grin like a man who just bought a beautiful vintage Triumph, not a man who’s standing by the wreckage of one. I retrieve the emblem, the champagne, and the wine from the floor of the car as Henley walks along the driveway in her purple dress, with Roger in her arms. My prized car has been butchered, and all I can think is how outrageously happy I am.
I guess this is what it feels like to fall in love.
42
Henley’s To-Do List
* * *
—Max.
43
Despite her bandaged finger, Cynthia insists we stay and eat. The Vicodin the ER doc gave her may have something to do with her mood. Or maybe the monkey does. Over the next three hours, I learn that Cynthia runs a network of wild animal rescues around the northeast. She and Creswell met at a charity function and immediately bonded over their shared passion for saving wild creatures.
“I fell in love with him when he told me how he adopted Roger,” Cynthia says over the wine, while we dine on a gourmet pizza they ordered from a nearby brick-oven pizzeria.
Turns out the little dude was injured in the wilds of Bolivia. While he was en route to a zoo in the U.S. to make a new home in captivity, the rescue group escorting him noticed he was quite sociable with people, and recommended he live with humans rather than in a zoo.
Creswell also cares for an injured fox named Susanne, who uses the dog door to let herself in and out of the house, as well as a hawk named Fred whose damaged wing prevents him from flying well. I yank up my sleeve and show them my hawk tattoo.
“Very cool,” Cynthia says. “Any special meaning to it?”
“Besides hawks being badass, powerful, and wildly intelligent?”
Henley laughs, along with our hosts. “And that right there is your meaning,” she says.
When dinner is over, the couple walks us to the door. Creswell pulls me aside for a moment. “We’ll connect this week. Call me and we’ll set up a time,” he says.
“Absolutely.”
As we head down the steps to our waiting Uber, Henley asks me what the conversation was about. “He was just—” I stop. We’re about to get in a car with a stranger. Now’s not the time to dive into a conversation about business deals and why I’m getting more from a client and she’s not. “He was thanking us for getting Roger,” I say, and then I do my best to forget I just lied to her.
I’ll have time to sort out how to manage business and her. We splintered in the past because I failed badly at managing business and emotions. I need time to figure out how to do it right. This is a whole new road to travel down, and I don’t want to crash and burn again. Tonight, though, I want to focus on whatever is happening between Henley and me, and nothing more.
Preferably, I want to focus on what’ll happen at the B&B a few miles away, where we’re spending the night. Creswell booked us a room after Triple A towed my car. I guess the cat’s out of the bag about the two of us, but judging from the way Henley held my hand at Cynthia’s house, she doesn’t care, and neither do I.
When we reach the quiet inn, a kindly woman with gray streaks in her blond hair hands us an old-fashioned room key and tells us room eight is at the top of the stairs and down the hall.
The second the door to our room creaks closed, I push Henley against the wall. My hands are on her face, in her hair, yanking down the straps of her dress. My mouth seals to hers, and I kiss her like it’s the only thing I’ve been thinking about for the last three hours.
Because it is.
The kiss is as rough and hungry as our kisses have ever been, but it’s different, too. It’s layered with a new urgency. Wet and deep, it’s punctuated by moans and groans. Our kiss sparks with hot, fevered tension.
I don’t think either one of us has held back physically since we hurtled down this path, yet it’s as if a dam has burst tonight. Whatever need we had for each other has ratcheted up a hundredfold. Her hands tug at my shirt, grab at my jeans, push at my clothes.
Soon, her fast and eager fingers have stripped me to nothing, and I’ve got her down to my favorite clothing style. Bare.
I stop for a second to stare at her. “Look at you,” I say, as I run my hands down her sides, clasping her trim waist in my grip. “You’re so fucking stunning. And you’re mine.”
She grabs at my hair and yanks me closer. It’s a reminder of how hard she pulled my hair the first night I fucked her. It’s a reminder of how we fit together. “And you’re mine,” she says, dragging her nails down my chest, over the planes of my abs, and straight to my cock.
Dear Lord. This woman is my perfect match. She’s fire. She’s heat. She’s rough and tumble. She takes my dick in her hand and strokes, but I’m not letting her pleasure me first.
I swat her hand away. “Get on the bed. Now. Spread your legs for me.”
She heads over to the quaint four-poster canopy. I wrap a hand around the post and give it a shake. The bed squeaks. “Good thing I’m prepared to pay whatever it costs to replace this if we break it,” I say, as she lies back on the mattress.
A groan rips from my throat as I stare at her, spread out on the inn’s Holly Hobbie quilt. Her brown hair is like a fan around her face.
“Goddess. Yes. I was right. That’s exactly how you look,” I say roughly, as I get on the bed, set my hands on her legs, and spread them apart.
She lets out a needy gasp.
But before I can spend some much-needed time worshipping her pussy, she sits up, clasps my face, and looks me in the eyes. “Say it again. How much you want me.”
My lips quirk in a grin as she reminds me of me. Of how I talk to her in these moments. Without letting go of my grip on her, I push her knees up to her chest, as I bring my face closer to hers. “You want to know how much I want you? You sure?” I ask in a taunting tone, since I’ve got her pinned. Literally.