#chapter Thirteen
The night is hot enough that we’re both sweating. Sticking to the leather. The radio’s on low, and the air conditioning hasn’t kicked on yet. We’ve just finished dinner. It’s getting late, but I don’t have to be home. Chad is on a business trip, so there’s nobody there waiting for me, but Ian doesn’t know that because I haven’t told him.
I’m going to end this tonight, but Ian doesn’t know that, either.
He tempted me into his car, or at least he thought he did. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be, no matter what he offered. This time it’s an excuse to get out of the heat and still steal a few more minutes together with a little privacy, an excuse to continue for just a little longer with the flirting we’d been doing all through dinner.
Lingering glances. The brush of my foot along his calf. Sharing a dessert, eating from his fork. The touch to the corner of his mouth to catch a bit of whipped cream I sucked clean from my fingertip. Lover’s gestures, each one of them the last I think we will ever have.
Ian fiddles with the CD player, and a familiar song comes on. I gave him this song to listen to, a long time ago. In the beginning, before things became more than they were supposed to. If I’d known then what I know now, I never would have added it to the CD, but at the time it was just a song I happened to like. Now the lyrics and meaning have become something of a touchstone between us, the words he sometimes whispers in the dark when it’s easier for him to pretend it’s not real.
I want to turn off the song, even though there could be no more perfect soundtrack to the end of us. “I have to go.”
“I know.”
Neither of us moves at first, and then…mouths open. Tongues sliding. My hand anchors at the back of his neck. His finds my breast and cups it, thumbing the nipple through the thin material of my summer-weight dress.
I am kissing Ian. He is touching me. I’m the one who leaned toward him, one hand on the center console to support myself since there isn’t enough room for me to slide onto his lap. That’s where I want to be. On Ian’s lap, straddling him, his belt and button and zipper undone. His cock in my fist, or better yet, inside me.
“I have to go,” I whisper. “It’s late.”
“Not yet.” It’s exactly what I want him to say.
My kiss lingers, my mouth moving on his when I speak. “Just one more.”
“Always.” That little growl, the way he slips a hand between my legs, his fingers on my bare thighs…I’m undone.
I am always undone.
“I love your mouth.” I nibble him. Suck and stroke and love him with my tongue and teeth and lips until we are both gasping for breath. I taste salt when I lick my lips, because even with the air conditioning on, the car is getting hot. “I love the way you taste. I love the way you touch me. I love you, Ian.”
“I love you, too.”
I sit back from him a little, stunned at what I’ve said. More stunned at how he’s responded. I don’t know what to do or what to say. I hadn’t meant to tell him. I wasn’t sure it was true.
“You don’t have to say that.” I’m hugging him awkwardly over the center console, my mouth near his ear. “Shhh, Ian. Don’t.”
He holds me. One hand in the center of my shoulder blades. My skin is bare there, too.
I am not crying. I am not crying. I am not crying.
“I am so lucky,” Ian says as his fingertips stroke my skin. “So lucky that you ever bothered to give me any of your time at all.”
And there it is. The perfect way for this to end. But it doesn’t, because although I’d arranged to meet him tonight, fully prepared to tell him this had to be the last time, the very last time, I am unable to do it. Because I love him.
“Take me somewhere, Ian,” I say into his ear. “Just take me somewhere.”
And he does.