He walked in front of Liner, who backed up to let him pass, and snatched the keys from Liner’s hand—who’d been holding them out to me for a full five minutes now—and then grabbed my hand. Moments later he was dragging me outside, and nobody was following.
“Isa…”
“Is with Hoax. Who she seems to absolutely adore. Don’t make excuses. We’re going to see your truck,” he pushed.
I swallowed hard. “Bayou…”
“Baby, you drive my kid around with you. You’ve done so much more for me than you ever can realize. Please, just let me have this,” he said, coming to a stop right next to the shiny blue door handle.
A blue that I’d had on my Pinterest board for years.
“When I was sixteen, this was the truck that I always dreamed I’d have,” I whispered. “I wanted a new Dodge with a Cummins Turbo Diesel in it. I wanted black leather seats and bright shiny lights all over the place. A big bumper that screamed ‘get out of my way’ and four-wheel drive that I’d never use but was handy to have anyway.” I swallowed hard. “I wanted a man that would love me for me. I wanted a job that I’d love, too. I wanted a baby that preferred me over her daddy.”
I burst into tears.
“Baby, why are you crying?” He sounded ravaged.
“Because you gave me all of those things, and I didn’t even have to say please!” I cried.
He clicked the locks on the truck and then opened the back door wide. Moments later, I found myself in his arms, in the back seat of my truck, hugging the crap out of him.
Then he was kissing me, and I forgot why I was upset.
Bayou had a way of doing that, though. Changing my life. Making me forget.
Doing things that I never thought I’d be doing, ever.
And soon, when the kissing progressed to other things, like touching and fondling, I let it happen, too.
Why? Because I was impossibly in love with the man, and my brain turned to scrambled eggs any time he was around.
What had started out as him comforting me as I’d cried had turned into a full-on ‘we’re about to do it in my brand-new truck’ session.
It wasn’t but a few seconds later that I was sprawled out on the buttery leather seats of my new truck with Bayou on top of me, pressing the tip of his cock into me. Things went fast from there. One second, he was fucking me softly, and the next we were rocking the entire truck with our lovemaking.
And when he came, I followed, unable to stop myself.
“You need to pray that we don’t get anything nefarious on the brand-new seats of this truck,” I whispered through labored breaths.
Bayou looked up and took stock of what was in the truck. “They gave me a new t-shirt. We can use that.”
He reached forward to the front seat and snagged it with his fingers, and that was when I saw that the entire cab was fogged up.
“Wow,” I said softly. “That’s not obvious or anything.”
He snorted and tossed the t-shirt my way.
“Wow, this is nice and soft,” I said as I reached for the fabric between us and tried to minimize the effects of his retreat.
I managed, but only barely.
When he sat up, I did my best to clean up and then folded the shirt in on itself.
Once I had my panties back on, he pulled me out of the truck, then settled me right back in it, this time in the front seat. “Put your foot on the brake and start it back up.”
I did and felt my soul sing. “Jesus Christ. You put a supercharger on it.”
He grinned. “I put a supercharger on it.”
That was when I threw myself at him a second time. “God, Bayou. Why did you do this for me? It had to cost an arm and a leg.”
“Look in the glovebox,” he ordered, patting my ass.
I reluctantly let him go, then turned in my seat.
I could feel him hot at my back as I leaned over the center console to the glovebox. Popping the door open, I stopped when I saw one lone thing in it—a little black box covered in velvet.
With shaking hands, I reached for it and pulled it into my lap.
My head turned to where Bayou had once been standing, only to find him gone.
I frowned and turned my hips in the seat to look for him, only to find him down on one knee beside the truck.
I blindly reached forward and shut the truck off. The moment that I did, the silence became so thick that I could’ve cut it with a knife.
“When you were fifteen, I bet you didn’t have any idea in the world that you’d changed my life,” he said softly. “I bet you really didn’t think about the consequences of treating a young man like me like a normal, down to earth human being. But, whether you knew it or not, you changed my life. You made me think.” He licked his lips. “I kept telling myself over the next year, if she thinks I’m normal…if she thinks I’m worth saving…if she thinks that I can do it…then I can do it. I am normal. I am worth saving.”