The click is soft, intimate. His knuckles brush my hip, just barely, and my breath catches despite my best effort to control it. His scent surrounds me, dark, clean, dangerous, filling the cab until it feels like I’m breathing him in with every inhale.
He lingers a second too long.
Not touching. Not pulling away.
I want him to kiss me. Want it so badly it aches, my lips parting before I can stop myself. My gaze drops to his mouth, then snaps back to his eyes when I realise what I’ve done.
He notices.
Of course he does.
Something dark and knowing flickers there, but he still doesn’t cross the line. Instead, he straightens slowly, deliberately, like restraint costs him something real.
“Comfortable?” he asks quietly.
I nod, throat tight, heart racing.
He closes the door and circles the truck, leaving me strapped into the seat, skin buzzing, pulse skidding wildly beneath my ribs. I grip the edge of my dress, grounding myself as he climbs in beside me, the cab filling again with his presence.
The engine turns over.
And as we pull away from the curb, one truth settles deep and undeniable inside me:
I didn’t just want his touch. I wanted everything from him.
Khai
The door closes with a solid thud.
She’s strapped into the passenger seat now, red fabric pooling around her thighs, the seatbelt cutting a deliberate line across her body. I force myself to straighten, to step back, to put space between us before I do something I won’t take back.
It takes effort.
I circle the front of the truck and climb in, the cab sealing around us, smaller than it should feel. Too contained. Too intimate. The engine turns over beneath my hands, a low growl vibrating through the frame as we pull away from the curb.
I keep my eyes on the road.
I don’t need to look to know exactly where her dress has shifted, how the slit has opened just enough with the angle of the seat. I see it anyway, burned into my peripheral vision, bare skin catching the dash lights, smooth and unguarded.
Mine.
The thought lands heavy and instinctive, and I tighten my grip on the wheel until my knuckles pale.
Control.
Streetlights pass in slow intervals, painting her in flashes of red and shadow. Every time we stop, every time the truck slows, my attention drifts back to her thigh. To the place where my knuckles brushed her when I buckled her in. To how her breath hitched, not fear, not resistance.
Want.
I could reach out. Just rest my hand there. Nothing more. It would take half a second. No one would see. No one would know.
She would.
That’s the problem.
I shift gears instead, jaw set, forcing my focus back to the road as the city zooms around us. The cab smells like leather and her, warm, faintly sweet, threaded with something sharper that pulls at the base of my spine.
She moves slightly beside me. Just enough.
