“Okay.”
As soon as the door closed, Rory was in a potent combination of heaven and hell. He was near enough to Olive in the back seat that their thighs brushed, but he wasn’t sure if she wanted to be touched yet. So he just waited. Waited, breathed and stayed as still as possible so he wouldn’t lunge for the girl staring up at him with the most incredible eyes on the planet. The girl he loved so much, he was half-delirious just sharing the same oxygen with her.
Olive’s inhale was stuttered. “The morning I asked you to leave, I woke up to a text from my mother. They’d turned my old bedroom into a toy unboxing space. For the channel.” Her audible swallow mingled with the rain pelting the rear window. “It was like being abandoned all over again and then I c-couldn’t think of anything but the time you left. And how bad it would hurt if you did it again. And I just got so scared.” Her fingers twisted in the damp hemline of her dress. “I invented reasons you probably like me, because I was so positive you would stop a-and leave again. Maybe you liked me because you needed to rescue someone, because of the time you couldn’t.” She gave him a meaningful look. “I just needed a reason—any reason—to push you away so I could avoid being…dropped. So maybe I am a naïve girl, Rory. Maybe I am. Because being without you is terrible no matter how it happens and I’ve sped it along.” A sob pushed out of her mouth, her body beginning to shake. “And I’m in love with you and you won’t even hold me now. I’ve ruined everything. I’ve—”
Rory’s arms were around her in a split second, gathering her tightly against his chest and dragging her back across the seat into his lap. She straddled him as natural as could be, their bodies locking together like two halves of a whole. His heart lurched repeatedly, shocked over going from broken to complete so fast, and he pressed a hoarse sound into her hair, running his hands over every inch of her he could reach. Her head, her back, her hips, her face. “Did you just say you’re in love with me?”
“Yes,” she whispered, nodding. “Yes. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean what I said. About needing only people from school in my life. I was lying. D-did I ruin this—”
“Olive.” Every ounce of feeling inside of him—disbelief, honor, relief—went into that single use of her name. His mind raced between every word she’d said, no idea where to land first, returning over and over again to the last part. This girl loved him. She loved him back. Was he dreaming? No. No, the weight of her in his lap was real. She was there. Craving eye contact, he clasped her face in his hands, bringing their heads together. “I love you. I fucking love you. I always will. Always. Let’s get that straight first.”
A shudder passed through her and she sagged against his chest.
“Don’t you dare be relieved by that. You think I could stop loving you?”
Looking into his eyes, she shook her head. “No.”
“I didn’t hold you at first because I would have broken if you were just here to keep a promise. And not because you needed me.”
“I’m here because I need you,” she said against his mouth, scooting closer on his lap. “I’m here because I need you so bad.”
Olive’s pussy pressed down, so hot and sweet on his cock and the flesh filled with pressure. That horrible, wonderful weight only she could satisfy. While they breathed against each other’s mouths, faster and faster, her hips starting to roll, the rain began coming down hard, turning the back seat into its own private world where they were the only two people who existed. “Look at me.” Never taking his attention off of her, Rory dug his wallet out of his pocket and tossed it on the seat, his fingers searching for the square foil packet he kept tucked in the billfold. “Olive, baby. Do you honestly think I rescued you? I’m the one who was drowning before you pulled me to shore. Look at me, sitting outside my mother’s birthday party, someplace I wasn’t sure I’d ever find myself. All because you believed in me.”
Her eyes were soft and damp, running over his face. “I’m sorry I doubted how you feel.”
“No. Don’t apologize,” he said gruffly, peeling the wet hem of her dress up, up her thighs, bunching the sodden material around her hips. “I just wish you’d told me about the text message, baby. About what they’d done. I’m so sorry. It’s hard for me to understand how someone could know you…and not want to keep you close as possible. It makes me feel so fucking helpless because I can’t fix it.”