“I kind of started to hate my job.” She takes a sip. “I know it’s cliché and probably kind of entitled to say, but I just think I’m too young to be spending my life doing something I don’t even like.”
I consider this a minute. She’s not wrong. It’s not pretty, and I don’t make a fortune, hell I even complain about it, but at the end of the day, I love what I do. I love fixing cars and helping people appreciate them again. I spent more than the first half of my existence living a life I hated. I don’t think I could do it again. Especially, if I had a say in the matter this time.
“And what do you like?”
She sets her can down and wraps her arms around the pillow.
“I like to write.” I nod, remembering our conversation about hobbies, as she loses herself in thought for just a second. Reaching for her beer, she snaps back into focus. “I'd actually like to do that for real, but as my dad would say, writing doesn’t pay the bills, so…”
“I used to steal cars when I was younger.”
She chokes on the sip she just took and places her can back on the table. “Okay, so we’re spilling all of our secrets. Got it.” She’s kidding but all I can think is,you don’t know the half of it.
“Not my best moment, I know. But I would hot-wire cars I could tell needed work and then fix them up behind an abandoned warehouse.” I pause to take a sip of my beer.
“Wait, you would steal cars, just to work on them?”
“Yep. Sometimes I’d be in a tight spot and had to sell them,”for food or cigarettes or money for rent,“but most of the time I would just leave them somewhere I knew they’d be found.”
She’s lookingat me intensely. I can’t tell what she’s thinking, but the fact that her reaction isn’t instant judgment or disgust encourages me to keep going.
“I was fifteen and in foster care. I couldn’t hold a job because I was always moving, and I couldn’t afford my own car because I didn’t have any money. But cars made me happy, still do, and all I wanted to do was get my hands in them.” I wish I could blame the alcohol for putting all of this out there, but I’m not even halfway done my damn beer.
“I guess my point is, that doing something you love doesn’t always have to pay the bills too. Sometimes you can do something just because it makes you happy.” It doesn’t seem like a hard concept to grasp but nowadays everything comes back to making money. But, having come from a place where I lost everything except for my passion, I know how priceless it can be to just hold onto something you love.
Claire smiles with her eyes. I love that her face isn’t full of pity. If anything, it looks like…pride? There are a lot of feelings I have around everything in my past — regret, anger, shame, hate — but feeling sorry for myself, isn’t one of them, and Claire seems to get that. She just seems to get everything about me.Everything she knows.
Claire extends her hand across the couch. I set my can down, place my palm on hers and our fingers intertwine. Two perfect interlocking pieces.
“Thanks for that,” is all she says.
I brush my thumb along hers and she sucks in a slow breath. Between the sound she makes, her smooth skin, and our raw communication, I suddenly need her close to me.
I tug her arm gently, pulling her to me. She crawls across the couch until her knees touch my hip. Still, it isn’t close enough.
I grab her by the waist and guide her to my lap, slowly releasing her so she’s straddling my legs. I’m instantly hard and by the way she sits deeper onto me, I know she can feel it under my jeans. I reach up and tuck a stray wave behind her ear so I can see her whole face. Her eyelids hang heavy and that mouth I’ve fantasized about for days sits right infront of me — lips parted, panting, asking to be kissed. When she bites her lip, I fucking lose it.
Grabbing her face with both hands, I pull her in and kiss her like I’ve wanted to since the first time it happened. Our tongues brush, and Claire whimpers the most delicious sound. It feels eager and greedy. Like we’ve been deprived of each other for too long.
And we have been.
She wraps her arms around my neck and pulls our bodies closer as if any space between us is too much. I drag my fingertips down her back and she arches it in response. Skimming the exposed skin above the waistband of her shorts, she grinds her hips under my touch, and I pull them down harder to increase the pressure.
Claire removes her arms from around my neck and glides her hands along the bottom of my shirt. She pulls it over my head and throws it to the ground in one fell swoop. I catch her taking in all of me as she runs her fingers over the rise and fall of several scars. She leans forward and kisses the one below my collarbone. A rough circle where Foster Dad number five decided to use me as an ashtray because I stepped in front of the TV. Her kiss is so soft and gentle, so delicate in contrast to the burn she places it on — to what we’re feeling now.
I reach up and gather her hair to one shoulder. I wrap it around my fist like I’ve thought about so many times before and gently pull it so the other side of her neck is completely exposed. I kiss behind her ear and then again, lower, and lower, until I reach the lace of her shirt, stopping at the same spot she did on me.
Her flawless chest heaves under my lips and I suck, leaving my mark on her in the same location. Claire hums, her cleavage vibrating beneath my touch. I move my hand to one curve, grazing my thumb across the middle, taking everything in me not to completely fucking bury myself between the two.
Catching me by surprise, she grabs my wrist and pulls it away.
For a second, I think I did something wrong — that she wants me to stop. That is until she places one foot on the ground and then the other,pulling me up with her. I instantly miss the weight of her on me. I want to beg for the pressure back, but she turns towards her bedroom, and I follow her instead.
This is not what I came here for. I mean, of course I want her, need her even, but the last thing I want, is for her to think I came here for a booty call. She, I hope, is becoming so much more than that.
Claire sits back on the bed and reaches for the hem of her shirt. Pulling it over her head, I wince at how beautiful she is. She is making what I’m about to do so much harder.
“Claire.” I step forward, leaving space between us.
