Page 26

“You look really good,” he says finally.

“So do you,” I retort. “Asshole.”

He smiles, reaching for my bag. “That’s more like it.”

“What does that mean?”

He moves ahead, and I scurry after him, stepping onto the curb. He tosses my beautiful pink bag into the back of his truck and pulls open the passenger door. I pause, clutching my iced coffee, and give him a look. He jerks his head at the truck.

“Just get in,” he says.

It’s very hard to be angry right now because he has one of the sexiest voices I’ve ever heard. It’s part of the reason it took about a minute for him to convince me to let him into my bed. I love how deep and gravelly it is, sitting in his chest. He’s never raised it, either. He doesn’t need to; people listen when he speaks.

Except for me. Maybe that’s why I keep pushing his buttons.

“Serena,” he says.

I narrow my eyes. He gives me a long-suffering stare.

“Fine,” I say, climbing in. “But I’m doing it because I want to, not because—”

He shuts the door in my face and circles the truck. It takes him a second with all the traffic, but he slides behind the wheel and hits the key fob. We sit in silence as we pull out of the parking lot and get on the road. Every nerve in my body tingles as if I touched a live wire. The fog that’s sat at the base of my skull for months is gone. Just like that, just like fucking that. He smells good, and it’s everywhere, cool and clean. The smell I turned over in my head until I couldn’t remember it anymore while I held the little thread from his shirt that he left on my pillow until it fell apart.

I take a sip of coffee. He adjusts his hand on the wheel.

“Why didn’t you text me?” I whisper.

The highway drags on, further and further from the town. We’re in some of the most breathtaking landscape I’ve ever seen. It’s very different from both New York State and Wyoming, far more coastal. I think I smell the sea, faintly through the closed windows.

He clears his throat.

“That should be obvious,” he says.

I swallow hard. “Why?”

“Because you’re twenty-three and you have your whole fucking life ahead of you,” he says roughly.

“Yeah, well, I never asked you to marry me.”

“Good, I wasn’t going to.”

“Fine,” I snap, slamming my coffee into the console. “Glad we cleared that up.”

Silence. Inside, I’m burning. My body doesn’t care if my head is angry. Between my legs, I remember him, and I want him all over again. In every known position until he fucks himself out of my system. I’ve been a zombie for an entire year, remembering him, and this is my chance. Maybe I’ll go back in a couple days. Maybe I’ll let him fuck me until we’re both so sick of each other that we know for sure it’s over and done with.

He taps his thumb on the wheel. I glance over, and his jaw is clenched.

“So why did you bring me here?” I ask.

“Because you said yes.”

“Yes to what?”

“To being brought here.”

“But why?” My voice cracks.

He flicks his gaze around briefly. Fire bursts through my veins as our eyes connect.