Until today. Being inside her. All that energy—anger, fear, but also determination. She was just…fierce. I didn’t doubt for one minute that if she ever harnessed it all, she could rule the world.
And she wouldn’t be able to do that with an ex-car-thief by her side.
She knew it. Knew it from the beginning, even before I grasped it, before I’d even really thought about her and me. And it had royally pissed me off.
Not that I was looking for a life partner at twenty-one or anything. Shit no. I loved the freedom I had—needed it in my line of work.
Mypreviousline of work.
I had a couple of very loose, very casual “friends with benefits” situations here and there, mostly with women in my “network” who were just as happy as I to keep it no strings attached.
But even that, casual as it was, I put an end to after that first day I’d kissed Jane. I’d known even then something was going to happen with Jane, something I didn’t want or deserve. Something I fought every time since that day I’d brought her Yvette.
Yvette. Christ, Jane was the most original girl I’d met, and she couldn’t have come up with something better for a Corvette than Yvette?
I must have grunted my amusement, because Jane turned out of her fog and softly said, “What?”
I liked the fierce Jane. The Jane that gave as good as she got. Hell, gave atonbetter than she got. The Jane who took none of my shit and called me on it every time.
But this Jane? Highlighted by the glow of the dash, leaning back, her hair tousled and eyes still just a tiny bit dazed.
This Jane made me forget that it was a very bad idea for us to be anything more than fuck buddies.
Because…I wanted so much more.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just thinking.”
She smiled at me, and my memory raced to just a while ago when she’d smiled at me before taking me in that sweet (and yet tart) mouth.
“First time for everything,” she said, with no real bite. The smile stayed with her as she turned her head back to the road.
I would have to move very slowly with Jane. Not that eight weeks from first kiss (realkiss; I didn’t count that bullshit on the dance floor) to falling into bed wasn’t excruciatingly slow.
Not that I hadn’t gone home and jerked off thinking about what might have been every time I drove away from her in Lot H.
A parking lot I was now pulling into. Funny, most days with Jane I couldn’t wait to get to Lot H, knowing that even though I told myself I wasn’t going to reach for her, I would. And even though she’d probably told herself over and over not to do it, she’d reach for me, too.
I fucking loved driving into Lot H with Jane. Except tonight, there was no way it could get any better in Lot H than it had for the past five or six hours in Caro’s guesthouse.
And though I was willing to give Yvette’s console another workout, Jane looked beat. Well, yeah, having a major sexfest your first time out would do that to you.
“Wait here,” I said to her when I pulled the Vette alongside my car. “I’ll heat mine up and then drive you back to the dorm.”
I thought she’d probably balk at that, saying she could walk, not wanting to be seen being dropped off in front of her dorm at nearly one in the morning by a thug in an old Dodge Charger. A supremely restored, mint, cherry-red Charger, but still.
“Thanks,” she said, and I had a glimmer of hope that maybe if I kept Jane well satisfied that I had a chance of keeping her close.
It was time to come clean with myself at least, and admit that that was exactly what I wanted. Jane. Close. For a long time.
Even though the days were getting warmer, it was still cold as shit when I got out and went to my car. I turned the heater on full blast and looked out my window to Jane right next to me in the passenger side of Yvette.
She turned and just stared at me, her face stark, no emotion showing, as she studied me.
Shit, it was the exact look she had on her face that first day. One that I had correctly read as her realizing she was too good for me and there could never be anything between us.
It had pissed me off that day.
Today, it would kill me.
