“I just don’t like this tin can,” he says, then kisses me again. “I feel like I’m driving a Hot Wheels down the interstate.”
His hand moves down my side, finds its way under my clothes, onto my hip.
“And it’s way too small,” he says. “That’s the good thing about my truck. You could put a mattress in the back.”
I catch his lip between my teeth and Levi grunts, a low, rumbling sound laced with need.
“You’ve never once put a mattress in the back of your truck,” I tease, my voice coming out rougher than I meant.
Levi just laughs, then reaches past me, unlatches my door and pushes it open.
“Come on,” he says. “Take me to bed already.”
The mid-October chill of the Motel 6 parking lot feels like it’s already winter, and for a moment, I remember where I am, what my day was before Levi showed up, and then I banish those thoughts completely because I have twelve more hours before I have to go back there and I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend them thinking about the Herald-Trumpet.
“That’s all you brought?” I ask, as Levi lifts a duffel and laptop bag out of the trunk, then slams it shut, slings them over his shoulders, and walks toward me.
“This whole endeavor was poorly planned out and poorly executed,” he says. “I decided on this late last night, left my house at four in the morning, got into a fistfight at five, and still made my nine o’clock flight.”
I can’t help but look at his face again, the bridge of his nose purpled, deep shadows spreading to under his left eye.
“I still wish you’d let me—”
Levi stops me with his mouth on mine, the kiss fierce, insistent, quick.
“I didn’t,” he says, one hand holding his duffel bag, the other under my chin. “I’m the one who’s beholden to him, not you. Telling him was my task, so I did it. I’d do it again. Simple as that.”
“I know, bu—"
He puts one finger over my lips, and a shiver runs through my whole body that has nothing to do with the cold.
“Stop talking about your brother and take. Me. To. Bed,” he says, his face inches from mine, his eyes the color of dark copper, sparking and blazing.
I kiss him again, his finger sliding from my lips, and then I pull back, find my motel room key in my pocket, pull him along until we’re at the right door.
I unlock the door, go inside. His bags hit the floor and then his coat, and his lips are on mine again before I’ve got my own jacket unzipped.
Four hands take it off, and it falls to the floor and I’m already on my tiptoes, hands around Levi’s neck, one in his hair. Without missing a beat, he reaches back, pulls the knot out and it falls messily to his shoulders.
I put my hands in, let it sift through my fingers. He pushes me back five steps, six, and then my butt hits the dresser with the TV on the other end and I can hear the thing shake. Levi pays it no mind, just grabs me, lifts me onto the dresser so our faces are nearly even.
Then he pulls back, his hands on my thighs, his forehead against mine. He’s already hard as a rock, his length pressing against me.
I hook one finger under the top button of his flannel shirt and undo it, his skin warm below it as his breathing hitches, evens out again.
“I’m about to be very honest with you,” he says.
“I don’t usually get a warning,” I tell him, opening another button.
“I need you,” he says, his voice dropping. “I feel like I’m faded and frayed around the edges, and what I want more than anything in the world is to be inside you hitting that spot that makes your eyes roll.”
I flush despite myself, pull at his buttons as his fingers curl under the waistband of my black work pants and he smiles.
“Are you blushing?” he murmurs, teasing.
“No,” I lie, pushing his shirt off his shoulders.
“What if I tell you that this is going to be fast and hard because I don’t just need you now, I needed you five minutes ago in the parking lot and ten minutes ago in the car?”
“Not blushing,” I say, pulling his belt from its loops as he unbuttons my blouse, his big hands surprisingly nimble.
“What if I tell you how tempted I was to pull into an empty parking lot and beg you to ride me in the driver’s seat?” he asks.
I pull my shirt off. My bra follows a second later and then his hands are on my breasts and his lips are on mine again as he pinches my nipples, rolls them between his fingers and I moan into his mouth.