His expression falters.
“It’s okay,” I sigh. “It is, I swear. It’s fine.” It’s not fine, my body screams.
Craig seems to be mulling over what to say next, his hands pressed hard against the back of his neck as he lets out a long, steadying breath. He must choose to respond with silence because he turns the key in the ignition and shoves the shifter into drive.
Without a word. Without another glance in my direction.
It hurts to think that’s how this night is going to end—with a passionate kiss that leads to awkwardness and undoubtedly a ruined friendship before it even had time to start.
Craig drives past Alder Street, the street we would turn onto to go to Aunt Nancy’s. “Hey...” I turn to watch the street pass me by in the window, then wrench around to stare at him. “You missed the turn.”
But he knows that. He’s lived here almost his whole life. He would know these streets with his eyes closed.
He remains silent as he turns the pickup truck onto Main Street and takes the corner recklessly when he pulls the truck into the repair shop’s parking lot. He reaches over to the visor above the passenger seat and pulls it down, pressing the button on the square device clipped to it. The huge garage door screeches and rumbles as it opens. He drives ahead, parking the truck in the empty bay, beside my own rusty car.
“Craig?”
He press
es the button on the visor again and the door begins its loud, slow descent to close behind us. By the time the door touches the floor, shrouding us in darkness and blocking out the dim light of the streetlights, Craig’s mouth is on mine again, and this time he doesn’t pull away until we’re both gasping for air, our chests heaving with the weight of our need.
“What are we doing here?” I manage to choke out, seeing the dashboard dials reflect in his eyes just before they go out.
His thumb runs across my bottom lip, sending every nerve ending within me straight into overdrive. “You hesitated,” he replies simply, breathless. “When I said it was a bad idea. If you’re up for a bad decision, Meg, so am I.”
“You think this is a bad decision?” I can’t breathe, can’t do anything but search his eyes for something, anything, that will give me a clue as to what’s going on in that sexy head of his.
“To be honest, I’m not really interested in thinking at all,” he whispers, pressing his lips softly against mine as he reaches across my body and unbuckles my seatbelt. “The only thing I am interested in is you, and how you kissed me back.”
For a split second, everything stops. No movement, no sound, just a void as we watch and wait for each other to pull away, to stop things before—
I dive towards him, giving in to every ounce of bubbling arousal I can feel invading my mind and body. My lips crash against his, and Craig kisses me back, hard, pulling me across the bench seat and up onto his lap as I scramble to get as close to him as possible.
My legs straddle his thighs in the driver’s seat, and Craig fumbles with the buttons on the side of his seat, never once breaking our kiss. His tongue tangles with mine as the seat slides backwards, and he reclines it back as far as it will go.
We pull at the clothes that are barriers between us. I tug his shirt up and past his shoulders first, helping him to pull mine away from my body, too. In the darkness, I’m desperate to feel the heat of his skin against mine, to feel his muscles bunch with the exertion of showing me how badly he wants me.
Because I want him just as irrevocably.
“Megan, you’re so beautiful.” His voice is raspy as his eyes skim over my bare abdomen and the pale pink lace bra I’m still wearing.
Beautiful, he’d called me. Not hot, not some derogatory adjective a man would use if he was just giving into his most primal desires and taking me to get what he physically needed.
Craig Connelly wants more than that from me. At least, that’s how I construe the meaning of his breathless comment. That’s what I hope. Because I’m not a woman who takes giving myself to a man lightly. But I will give myself to this man, purely because I don’t remember a time when someone has so completely taken over my mind and body the way he has. Every breath, every feverish gasp and goosebump that rises on my flesh from his touch—it’s because of him. For him.
I want Craig, too. And to hell with whatever consequences come from it.
Chapter Eight
Craig
I’d given her the chance to tell me this was a bad idea. I’d paused and hesitated as much as I could, allowing her every opportunity I could muster to pull away from me and turn me down.
But Megan has given in to the same game we’ve been playing since the day I met her, and she’s doing the same thing I am—ignoring the rules completely. She’s got the same unrelenting desire coursing through her veins, and the same incessant need for actions that might result in something making sense. Anything.
Megan came to Cardon Springs looking for a fresh start, for a way to pick herself up from the cruelty and unfairness that life has cast upon her.
Instead, she found me—someone who’s just looking for the same thing.