He reaches across the center console, but instead of tracing teasing circles against my thigh like he did before I made him pull over, he simply takes my hand. He holds it tightly, and when I glance over at him, he smiles. It touches his cheeks and lights his eyes—an unguarded happiness that makes me giggle in his passenger seat. He smiles even wider, and I blush fiercely as I turn my gaze out the window.
The full moon is still high in the sky, but it’s moved since we were back at the pond. The time on Mike’s dash reads 4:27 a.m., which means nine hours has now become less than eight. My chest tightens, knowing that goodbye is coming, and I reach forward with my free hand to turn on the radio, hoping to drown out my thoughts.
“This next one is an oldie but a goodie,” the radio DJ says. “These guys recorded a video for their upcoming single ‘Ghost’ over in Mayfield tonight, and I hear it was epic. Fans were invited to be a part of the shoot, but if you weren’t one of the estimated two thousand people that were there tonight, I hear the party’s still going. Check out our website for details, and in the meantime, here’s one of my personal favorites. You’re listening to ‘Mayhem’ by The Last Ones to Know, on 101 The Heat.”
Mike glances over at me again as the tapping of his drumsticks sounds through his speakers, and one of the songs that his band played the first night I met him fills his truck. And it hits me with renewed force then—that he’s driving me back to his place while radio stations across the country are playing his songs. That he’s here holding my hand while the rest of his band celebrates the night away with over two thousand fans back in the woods.
I know I’m not pretty enough or special enough or just enough for him at all—not after seeing the crowd he drew out tonight, not after feeling how much passion, how much devotion, how much love he has to offer—but he slides his thumb across my hand reassuringly, like he’s reading my thoughts and promising me I am.
When we pull into his driveway, my nerves are a wreck. I don’t know how to talk to him after what we just did. Everything is different now, and I have a sinking feeling that I just messed us all up. I won’t be able to laugh with him like we’re just friends if we ever play Deadzone again—not with the memory of how my breasts felt beneath his tongue, how expertly that tongue flicked out to tease them.
Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that sex with Mike would be like that—that sex in general could ever be like that. I can’t even remember it without heat pooling in my core, without my knees squeezing together. My heart is pounding against my ribs when Mike looks over at me and says, “Don’t move.”
The interior light flashes on when he opens his door, and then his feet drop to his gravel driveway. He closes me inside the truck alone, and I watch as he walks in front of his still-lit headlights and circles around to open my door for me. I spin toward him to let him help me down, but Mike’s hands immediately slide up my bare thighs—my leggings discarded somewhere in the backseat from when he tore them off me earlier. His rough fingers push my dress up high as he parts my thighs, stepping firmly between them.
“You don’t think I’ve forgotten my promise, do you?”
His words replay in my head, in that same heated tone he used while he was deep inside me: I’m going to come inside you, and then I’m going to take you home and lick your tight pussy until you melt in my mouth. And then I’m going to bury myself inside you until I have to leave tomorrow.
I’m biting my lip when Mike leans in and steals it from me, his tongue coaxing it from my teeth so he can pin it between his own. I moan against his mouth, and Mike reaches behind me, his big hands sliding beneath my ass and tugging me forward. I’m teetering on the edge of the seat, his body the only thing keeping me from falling onto my knees.
“I want you in my bed,” his rough voice demands against my mouth, and my still-damp panties warm with renewed heat. I scratch my fingers up through the soft hair at the nape of his neck, and Mike deepens the kiss, teasing my tongue until my eyes are rolling back and it’s a struggle to find my voice.
“I thought you said you want me in your bed,” I manage to say, reluctantly breaking the kiss when he makes no attempt to help me from the truck. A fire is growing around us, and if we don’t leave now, there will be no hope of walking away from the inferno.
“I do,” he says as his fingers lift my dress over my head, exposing my body to the chilly night air. It hardens my already pert nipples and makes my flesh goose bump as Mike lies Dee’s creation gently in the backseat and rakes his eyes over me. “I also want you in my truck,” he says, planting a kiss beneath my ear. “And on my kitchen counter.” His lips glide lower, dipping into the hollow of my collarbone until my fingertips are sinking desperately into his shoulders. “And in my shower.” He leans me back until my trembling elbows are propped on the center console, and then he captures a pebbled nipple between his lips, warming it with his tongue before lavishing the other with soft, torturous kisses. My head falls back on a moan, but Mike takes his time with me, nipping and kissing until my body demands I lift my hooded eyes again to watch him. “And on my couch,” he says with a smirk just before his breath skates down my body. His tongue dips into my navel, making my toes curl before he traces a trail to the hem of my panties. “And on my lawn.” He kisses the moist cotton covering the apex of my thighs, and I whimper as his tongue soaks it through. He teases me through the fabric before nibbling at my clit. And then he hooks a finger inside my panties and tugs them to the side. “And my drums,” he says, just before his warm tongue strokes a firm path through my heat. He circles my clit, lighting my nerves on fire, until his lips part and he sucks it gently into his mouth.