The game lasted all of five rounds before it got weird. I blamed the cold. And the fact that I could no longer feel my toes.
I rubbed my hands together. “I’m calling it. This game sucks. My joints are staging a coup.”
Ethan checked the dashboard like he could will the battery into cooperating. “Heat goes back on in… three minutes.”
“Three minutes is a war crime,” I said.
“We don’t have a choice.” He sounded maddeningly reasonable. “Unless you’ve got a shovel hidden in your coat that you haven’t mentioned, we have to wait it out.”
I slumped deeper into my seat, nudging Maren’s knee again. “Explain to him that my suffering matters.”
Her voice cut through the dark between the seats. “I can think of something to keep us warm.”
Ethan glanced at her in the rearview mirror. Then at me. Then back to her. I caught only the curve of her mouth, picked out by the faint cabin lights, but it knocked something loose in my chest.
She pushed up on her knees, leaning between the seats. My brain tried to catch up. My body was already way ahead. Shetouched a finger under my chin, and guided me toward her like she’d been waiting all night for an excuse to do this.
Her mouth was warm compared to the icy air, and she kissed me with a kind of certainty that rewired the entire car. She caught my lower lip before I could even think, and the way she pulled at it made heat punch down my spine in one clean line. I’d been shivering from the cold, but that disappeared fast. My hands went to her waist on instinct, trying to draw her closer even though there wasn’t really anywhere to go.
But she didn’t care about angles or the cramped space. She cupped my jaw and tilted my face exactly where she wanted it, and I swear my knees almost hit the glove compartment. Her mouth opened against mine, slow but deliberate, like she intended to taste every part of me she could reach.
I kissed her back harder, greedier, because something about her made every nerve in my body forget the storm, the ice, the fact that we were stuck in the middle of nowhere. Her tongue swept against mine, and my head went blank. My fingers dug into her coat, hunting for skin under all the layers and cursing every button and zipper in her wardrobe. She gave this deep, delicious sound in her throat that landed squarely in my crotch, and I had to bite back the urge to climb into the backseat right then and there.
By the time she pulled away, I was breathing hard. My whole body felt wired, like she’d thrown a match on dry tinder and stepped back to watch what happened next.
She didn’t give me long to recover. Her hand left my jaw and found Ethan’s collar. He jerked a little, startled, then let her pull him in. Watching them hit me harder than the crash had.
When she released him, she sat back in the rear seat, knees apart, breath unsteady, watching both of us like she’d issued a challenge.
She curled her finger at us in a come-here motion.
Ethan and I just sat there for a beat like idiots caught between survival instincts and a fantasy we hadn’t let ourselves name. The storm rattled against the SUV, wind shoving at the frame, but inside it was all warmth and breath and the lingering taste of her on my tongue.
I shifted first. The center console suddenly felt like the only path to oxygen. “Guess we’re going back there,” I said, trying to sound casual and missing by a mile.
Ethan’s jaw flexed. He reached down and dragged his jacket off, then his shirt. I followed suit. The front seats turned into a discarded pile of fabric and the heater kicked on just long enough to remind me how freezing it would be once it went off again.
I caught a glimpse of her through the gap. Maren had already peeled out of half her layers, knees tucked under her, bare skin catching the faint overhead light. She looked like she’d been waiting for us to catch up.
“After you,” Ethan said.
I moved first, sliding between the seats, shoulders scraping the edges. The car groaned from the wind outside, but the warmth rising off her made the air inside feel thick. By the time I made it into the back, Ethan was right behind me, one hand braced on the headrest as he climbed through.
The windows were already hazing from our combined heat. Every breath drew another cloud across the glass until the storm outside turned into nothing but shadow and noise.
When Ethan and I finally settled on either side of her, the whole car felt smaller, like we’d pulled the night in with us.
She reached for Ethan first, drawing him in until their mouths met. His moan vibrated against her lips and straight into me, and I leaned in without thinking. We shifted until she was bracketed between us, her back pressed to my chest, her breasts pressed to him.
The heater clicked off again. Warmth had to come from bodies now.
I kissed her shoulder, then her neck, tasting the heat rising off her skin. She tilted back into me while keeping Ethan close, one hand slipping down to trace the line of his abdomen. He swallowed hard against her mouth, fingers flexing at her waist like he was holding on just to keep his balance.
Her other hand reached behind and found me. She gripped my cock firmly with this confident, slow sweep that nearly made my knees go out. I had to brace a hand on the window to keep from sinking.
“Jesus, Maren,” I murmured against her throat.
Ethan dragged his lips along her jaw while she worked him with her hand, and I could feel the shift in her body when he finally kissed her again. She arched between us, caught at two different angles, giving as much as she took.
