“All clear,” I called back.
She emerged a moment later, pulling her jacket tighter around her shoulders. The temperature had dropped while we were inside, and her breath came out in small white puffs.
“Which one’s yours?” I asked.
She pointed to a beat-up sedan at the far end of the lot. We walked toward it in silence, our footsteps crunching on the gravel. The roadhouse sign flickered off behind us, plunging the lot into deeper shadow.
“Thank you,” she said quietly when we reached her car. “For everything tonight. You didn’t have to do any of this.”
“Told you already. I wanted to.”
She turned to face me, her back against the driver’s side door. In the dim light, her eyes looked huge. Vulnerable. But there was something else there too—something that made my pulse kick up a notch.
“Why?” she asked. “You’ve barely said two words to me in a month, and now suddenly you’re my personal bodyguard?”
“I explained that. I was working up the nerve.”
“To what?”
I stepped closer. Close enough to smell that vanilla-citrus scent again, to see the way her chest rose and fell with each breath.
“To do this,” I said.
And then I kissed her.
3
ELSA
I’d been kissed before. Plenty of times, actually. Preston had kissed me on our first date, our second, every date after that. Polite kisses. Respectful kisses. The kind that felt more like a handshake.
This was nothing like that.
Briggs kissed me like he was starving and I was the only thing that could save him. His hand came up to cup the back of my neck, tilting my head so he could deepen the angle, and I melted into him without a second thought. My back pressed against the cold metal of my car door, but I barely felt it. All I could feel was him—the heat of his body, the roughness of his beard against my chin, the way his other hand gripped my hip like he was afraid I might disappear.
When he finally pulled back, we were both breathing hard.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for weeks,” he said, his voice rough.
I couldn’t find words. My brain had short-circuited somewhere between his lips touching mine and his tongue sliding against my own. All I could do was stare up at him, myfingers clutching the front of his jacket like it was the only thing keeping me upright.
“Come home with me.”
His words hit me like a splash of cold water. Not because I didn’t want to—god, I wanted to—but because of what it would mean. What I’d have to tell him.
“Briggs…”
“You don’t have to,” he said quickly, reading the hesitation on my face. “I’m not expecting anything. I just…” He let out a breath, his forehead dropping to rest against mine. “I don’t want to say goodnight yet. And I don’t love the idea of you going home alone when that guy might still be around.”
“It’s not that.” I bit my lip, trying to figure out how to say what I needed to say. “There’s something you should know first.”
He pulled back just enough to look at me, his brow furrowed. “Okay.”
“I’ve never…” The words stuck in my throat. This was ridiculous. I was twenty-three years old, and I couldn’t even say it out loud. “I haven’t done this before. Any of it.”
Understanding dawned slowly across his features. “You mean you’re…”
“A virgin. Yes.” I forced myself to hold his gaze even though my cheeks were burning. “I dated Preston for eight months, and I never wanted to. I’ve never wanted to with anyone. And I know that probably sounds crazy, but?—”
