“Not here,” I said quickly. “Too many people. We need to get out of the open. Where are you staying?”
“I’ve got a place rented on the west side of the city,” Lia said. “It’s not great, but it’s affordable. It’s close to Rehm Park, so I have a good place to walk Odin.”
“Where’s your car?”
“I don’t have one.”
Shit.
“How did you get here?”
“The train.”
The one time I wanted to avoid public transportation, there wasn’t another option. Fucking Murphy’s Law.
That did explain what took her so long. Without many choices available, I grabbed her hand and led her over to the nearest Blue Line entrance.
“Shit,” I grumbled as we approached the station.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t have my wallet or anything,” I said. “My transit pass is in there.”
“I’ve got it.”
We had to go to the convenience store next to the station to get a one-day pass for me, then headed back toward the trains. We waited for only a minute or two before the next train stopped, and I pulled Lia behind me as we slipped through the doors before they closed.
The car was crowded but not completely full. There were two available seats facing the center of the car. Riding sideways wasn’t my favorite position on a train, but it was better than facing backwards, which made me nauseated.
As soon as we sat, I could feel the tension in my body begin to rise again.
I noticed the similarities between this time and when Lia had first lain beside me in the cabin. My heart was pounding in my chest, and even my skin felt tight around my muscles. I tensed the muscles in my thighs as my brain was flooded with memories of her soft skin and the way she smelled in the morning—a combination of something sweet-tasting, laced with my own scent over her skin. Back then, I had attributed the feelings I had toward her to just wanting to fuck because it had been a while, but I couldn’t think of it the same way now. This time, it hadn’t been months since I had been with someone—only a couple of weeks.
“Yeah, and you killed her.”
“What was that?”
Shit.
“Nothing,” I muttered. I silently thanked no one in particular for train noise. Lia looked a little confused but didn’t press, so she must not have heard the words I said.
I looked from her eyes to her mouth and tried to remember exactly what she had tasted like when I kissed her. The memory was there but not as vivid as some of the others. I wanted to remind myself how it felt to press my mouth against hers and how her hair felt in my hands.
I wanted to relive every cum-covered moment—that’s what I wanted.
The train screeched, stopped, and the doors opened up. People got off and others got on. With a lurch, we were headed back down the tracks again only to go through the whole stop-start scenario over and over. Each time, there were more people getting on than off, and the car quickly became standing room only.
“What stop again?” I asked her.
“Oak Park.”
Seven stops away. I wasn’t going to be able to wait that long.
“Come on,” I said as the train slowed to a crawl and the doors slid open once more.
“Where are we going?” Lia asked as I dragged her from the train and through the station.
My eyes darted from left to right, trying to find any place even remotely suitable. There wasn’t anything inside the station, so I led her out onto the street and toward a nearby office park. Slipping between two buildings, I turned abruptly, grabbed her, and shoved her against the red brick.