Sweet

But I’d forgotten—this was Boyce. He didn’t need a roadmap.

He raised me to my toes, pressed my elbows to the table with one arm angled across my chest to keep me just above the flat surface, and guided himself into me. His growl of satisfaction, the way he held me and filled me and the fact that he was leaning me over a kitchen table all joined forces to pitch me over the edge. I was convulsing around him by the second thrust.

“That’s my girl,” he rasped, following me.

After that moment, we were like a couple of unsupervised sixteen-year-olds who had just discovered sex. We rushed through dates to give ourselves more time at his place after. No surface was off-limits, no position too contorted to try, even if we ended up laughing like idiots and abandoned two or three attempts as failed experiments, happily finishing in more familiar positions.

Last night, we hadn’t actually made it into the trailer first. We pulled onto the gravel driveway and were kissing before our seat belts were off.

Boyce’s eyes burned when I slid onto the center console and then backward into the back seat. He crawled over after me and with some maneuvering we ended with me astride his lap, my flouncy skirt barely covering my thighs, shirt unbuttoned, front-closure bra open, his hands beneath the skirt, opening his fly and guiding my hips, his mouth alternately kissing and sucking until I came so hard my toes numbed.

As he caught his breath, head resting back against the seat top, he chuckled. “What in the world made you do that? And for the record that is not a complaint.”

I cuddled against his chest. “I’ve never done it in a car before,” I admitted.

He tipped my face up, caressing my cheek. “Well, sweetheart, you just earned the award for best backseat fuck I’ve ever had.” He kissed me. “I can’t clearly remember having done it before, in fact.”

“Good,” I said, my tone prim, as if I’d harrumphed the word.

He laughed and I scowled.

“Let’s go inside and I’ll make up for being a tactless jackass. I’m making you dessert tonight.” He fastened my bra, buttoned my shirt, mostly, and stuffed my underwear into his front pocket. “I bought ice cream. And chocolate syrup. And whipped cream. And cherries. Wait till you see what I got planned for those cherries.”

I blinked, my brain filling in the blanks.

He grinned, fingers stroking up and down my thighs on either side of his. “Um-hmm—that’s right. When I said I’m making you dessert? I meant I’m making you into dessert. And I’m going to enjoy devouring every fucking delicious bit of you.”

I got home late and studied into the wee hours of the night, not caring one whit that I was missing sleep for every extra minute I spent with him. Retraining myself to concentrate in class was difficult but doable. Wiping the smile off my face when I thought about him was impossible. In days, I would be moving away for nine months. I had time enough then to learn to endure long weeks without him.

• • • • • • • • • •

Thursday afternoon the doorbell rang. I was expecting a box of textbooks I’d ordered for fall, and our mail carrier always came in the afternoon, so I didn’t check before opening the door—an action I instantly regretted.

“Mitchell? What are you doing here?”

“I texted you and you didn’t answer. I called you and didn’t get your voice mail. Which means you blocked me. You blocked me.”

I’d seen Mitchell angry, but there was more to this than anger. His eyes were bloodshot, and bulging like overinflated balloons. He filled the doorway, hands braced on the frame.

Mitchell was usually put-together—laundry-pressed shirts, hair styled. But his blue button-down had a visible stain on the pocket and was beyond rumpled—so creased it looked as if he’d slept in it. His hair was lank, hanging over his forehead.

He should have been immersed in medical school coursework and studying and team-building—not driving fifteen hours, one way, to confront an ex-girlfriend who’d broken up with him seven months ago. There was no reason—no reason—for him to be here. A spear of dread cut through me, and despite the heat, I battled the urge to wrap my arms around my chest. I tried not to cower visibly.

“I wasn’t trying to hurt you.” I swallowed and took a deep breath, striving for calm. “I asked you not to contact me again. If you’d complied with that request, you wouldn’t have known you were blocked.”

“What if I needed you? What if I had an emergency and I needed you?”

I shook my head. “You don’t need me,” I said, attempting to soothe his agitation. “You have your family. You have friends—”

“I don’t have anything thanks to you.”

“What—what does that even mean? We broke up. I said I wished you well and I meant that, but I don’t owe you my time, I don’t owe you my emotional support, and I don’t owe you any further explanations.” Annoyance doused my desire to pacify his baseless fury. “It’s over. Please leave.”

I moved to shut the door and he blocked it with a shoulder and shoved it open. It bounced into the wall from the impact, and I flinched and stepped back. Tux shot up the staircase behind me and I found myself wishing he knew how to dial 911. No one else was home.

I backed across the foyer, judging my options. I had three. My first instinct was to try to get around him, make it out the wide-open front door and scream for neighbors instead of retreating deeper into the house, but I’d have to practically go through him. He wasn’t big, but he was a man. Nope.