Driving Stick (Bride of the Billionaire)

Caleb nods. “They do. But they’re all guys, not beauties like you.”

More heat rushes to my cheeks. “I’m not a…beauty…”

“Oh, yes you are,” he tells me. “You just don’t know it because you live up here in the middle of nowhere. Gorgeous, if a modeling agency got a look at you, you’d be world famous.”

He has to stop this. My cheeks are burning like the eternal flames of hell and I’m melting like a stick of butter placed five feet from the sun. There’s also that funny feeling going on in my stomach – like the feeling I had when Craig Aster asked me to the homecoming dance – only amplified a hundred times…at least.

“I…I think I’ll pass.”

“Don’t need the money?” he replies. “Not a lot of opportunity where you’re from. No offense.”

“Oh, I need money,” I laugh. “Gotta pay that rent, you know?”

“Take this job then, and you’ll be able to do a lot more than that.”

I glance over at him and then back to the road. If he’s not lying to me, it’s an attractive offer. I mean, of course it is. But there’s something about him that scares me. Not like I think he might do something bad to me…but I do think things would get…complicated.

Just keep driving. Make small talk, get him to Manhattan and go home. In the end, this will all make for a good story to tell Ma.

I don’t say anything else. I figure it’s better not to. I don’t even know what to say. I’m sure he’s going to press me – keep up with these insane compliments he’s been giving me – but he doesn’t. He doesn’t even make small talk. Instead, he sits silently, keeping his eyes on me, all the way into the city.

When we’re one block away from his destination, I check my GPS just to make sure nothing’s wrong. The Upper West Side? This is where the richest of the rich live…

I slow to a stop in front of his building and

he finally speaks.

“I’ll give you a tip,” he says, as he uses his phone. “Even if you almost killed me.”

I assume he means a tip – like money. But he has something else in mind. He leans right in with such confidence that I don’t move back.

He kisses me like he owns me. His strong lips embrace mine and a flood of warmth takes hold of my body. My nipples go hard beneath my shirt and a tingling sensation starts between my legs.

What happens next happens almost on its own, as though I have no control whatsoever.

I kiss back.

My first real kiss with a man, a man I barely know, a man so confident in himself that he knew what would happen if he just went for it.

I open my mouth to accept his tongue. I go on fire as we French kiss and begin to lose myself in the moment, but when his hand finds my breast, the reality of what’s happening hits me like a bucket of ice water from an ALS challenge video and I snap out of it.

“I—I can’t do this!” I stammer, pulling so far away from him that I’m leaning against the glass of the driver’s side window. “I shouldn’t.”

“Shouldn’t or can’t?” Caleb asks, unfazed. I see hungry desire in his eyes that makes me feel incredible, but also incredibly uncomfortable. No guy has ever shown me this kind of attention before.

My blush returns with a vengeance. “I’m so sorry, but I have to go.”

For a second, I think he’s going to kiss me again. Instead, he just smiles. “Think about my offer.”

He steps out of the car, and I feel a sudden sense of relief wash over me, but it’s quickly hammered away by a feeling of intense loss.

I don’t even wait to watch him go inside. I quickly pull away from his building. I glance in my rear view and watch as he goes inside. A few minutes later as I’m driving, I feel a strange sinking feeling in my stomach. I just met him, and I’m missing him already?

3

Desiree

The drive home is the longest drive of my life. My brain literally won’t stop jumping from one thought to the next like a frog skipping across lily pads.