The ride over to the rental lot was twenty bumpy minutes.
Maxence laid his arm on the back of the bench seat of the pickup truck during the ride, so Dree was essentially snuggled under Max’s arm. She held onto the seat beside her thighs as they bumped over the rutted road. Maxence had a firm grip on the door handle with his other hand, probably so he wouldn’t flop on top of her as the truck bounced over the road.
That cinnamon and smoke new aftershave of his was the sexiest thing she’d ever smelled, like it was both something she wanted to eat and to take to bed. Dree refrained from grabbing his face and biting his neck only because her fingernails were digging into the fabric of the truck seat.
The truck lumbered down the rutted road for what seemed like hours but was probably closer to twenty minutes, and then it pulled into a dusty lot surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with a coil of barbed wire. The shack standing in one corner had an open window in front like the clapboard booth out in the desert where Dree and her cousins used to rent ATVs by the hour for boonie bouncing.
Maxence stepped out of the truck, and he turned and held out his hand as she prepared to climb out.
Dree hesitated.
She’d almost instinctively reached out and grabbed his fingers to steady herself as she climbed out of the rickety pickup truck, but she had not touched him, like their skin actually touching each other, since the last time they had screwed in Paris. When he’d held out his hand when she’d arrived at the rectory, she’d barely slid her palm over his and shaken him off.
He was turned away from her, surveying the empty parking lot and their driver talking to somebody over at the shack. He twitched his fingers impatiently and then looked back at her. One brow lowered as if he were confused about why she hadn’t grabbed his hand and climbed out of the truck.
Because if she grabbed his hand, she might leap into his arms.
Neither of them wanted that.
Right?
Maxence frowned a bit more and didn’t drop his hand. “Come on.”
Dree reached. Her fingers trembled as they neared his palm, and then their hands clasped.
The skin-to-skin contact was like silk sliding against itself and sparking an electrostatic current that almost made her let go. Her arm twitched, and her nervous system lit up with wanting more of him.
Maxence didn’t seem to feel it. He raised their joined hands to steady her as she stretched her toes toward the gravel and dust of the parking lot, her foot dangling in the air as she reached. He glanced back over at the shack, still holding her hand and steadying her. She jumped the last foot and landed on the dirt, wobbling a little, but she was fine.
Okay, she was down.
He hadn’t let go of her hand yet.
If anything, his fingers firmed around hers.
Batsa climbed carefully over the tailgate of the pickup truck, steadying himself by standing on the bumper while holding onto the back.
Isaak and Alfonso vaulted over the sides and landed on the ground.
Father Booker unlatched the tailgate and let it crash down, then gingerly extended his legs over the side and lowered himself to the dirt.
Batsa walked over to where the two Nepali guys were talking, and then the three of them pointed to the mountains. Their argument became louder. Amid the hand-waving, Batsa saw them standing by the truck and waved them over.
Maxence was still holding Dree’s hand.
The contact of his flesh on hers drew all her attention to her palm, her fingers, and the way that his thumb rubbed across the top of her knuckles just once.
Batsa yelled, “Hey! You guys! Come over here and talk. We have a real problem.”
Maxence grumbled, “Yeah, there’s a problem. There aren’t any jeeps here. There were supposed to be three jeeps.”
He loosened his grip on her fingers.
Dree tried to do the same, peeling her fingers back to open her hand.
Maxence’s fingers slipped away.
She balled her hand into a fist to hold onto the warmth of his skin for just a minute longer, but the chilly breeze stole it away.
