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“You can’t. My bag’s at your house, and my keys are in my bag. Plus, we didn’t eat our cake.”
Wrapping my arms around her, I liked more than I maybe should’ve how familiar we were with each other already. She didn’t mind my hands on her. In fact, she seemed to like it, and when I eventually did take her home, I already knew I’d miss the loss of her fingers on my skin and her warmth beside me in my truck.
I teased, “Cake’s just sugar.”
She tsked, maybe a little offended, but she was smiling. “Whatever, Mr. Organic Veggies Only. It’s a special occasion. I made it for you from scratch. Okay, fine, technically from a box, but still.”
“How do you know that? Did you sneak into my fridge?”
Her cheeks turned red, and the guilty smile taking over her face made me laugh. “I may have. Just for a second, but I was impressed. It’s so clean in there. Please don’t ever look in my fridge.” She winced, and I laughed more.
“Well then,” I said, kissing her chin, thanking my lucky stars she was denying my attempt at chivalry and was even providing an excuse for us to stay together, “s’pose we better head on back to my place.”
Although, I’d been dead set before when I told her she needed to know why she wanted me. I wasn’t some young buck who just wanted to dip his wick and move on. Better she knew that now.
Better I knew it too.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SAMANTHA
We made it back to Frank’s cabin, but it took thirty minutes when it should’ve taken ten, and it wasn’t without a few harrowing moments. The snow had stopped, but the roads were wet, and then the temperature began to drop. We slid for what felt like half a mile when he turned onto Route 20 and almost landed in a ditch, and it was only Frank’s smooth maneuvering that steered us right. You were supposed to turn into a swerve, not the opposite, which is totally what I would’ve done.
He threw our winter gear into his dryer when we got to his house. Our coats and snow pants were soaked, and I was cold to the bone, standing there watching him walk away from me. He was kind of a good ol’ boy, possibly a little bit sexist, and definitely macho, but I’d never been more attracted to anyone.
The way he spoke to me, the patience he had with me, and the calmness about him was… sexy. I kept using the word to describe him, but that was because it was just true. I’d never met anyone more grounded or more confident and at home in their own skin.
All this time, I’d been convinced he was this shy, quiet, closed-off guy.
But he wasn’t. And that was sexy too!
He still wasn’t much of a talker, but I was coming to learn that his silences were just as sexy as the rest of him, because when he was quiet, it was usually because he was looking at me like he wanted to kiss me. Or bed me.
Before he returned from the laundry room somewhere in the back of his house, I grabbed my bag quickly, took out my stupid contacts, and put my glasses back on. The damn things dried my eyes out and made my eyeballs feel like they were made out of sand from the Sahara.
When he got back, he was dressed the same as me, only in long johns and a T-shirt. “Have a seat at the table. I’ll get some forks.”
When I sat, Grum snuggled up by my bare feet, and I was thankful for the heat coming off his body. Tucking my toes beneath his chest, I unlatched the Tupperware lid and removed it, and Frank handed me a fork and pulled a chair beside me, but he angled it so he could watch me.
“You don’t have a candle, do you?”
Leaning on a fist with his elbow on the table, he shook his head and nudged my glasses up the bridge of my nose with a soft push from the pad of his index finger, smiling softly at their reappearance. “No, I ain’t one of those guys who keeps a junk drawer full of weird stuff you only use once a year. Maybe when I have kids.”
That one small sentence—“Maybe when I have kids”—was a bigger issue between us than the age-gap thing, but how was I supposed to bring it up now?
Taking the fork from my hand, he dug it into a corner of the cake. The pink sprinkles I’d stuck to the edges dropped onto the table as he fed me a bite and watched my lips as I began to chew. I watched him, too, letting the rush of flavor fill my mouth and the sugar liven and warm my blood, but then the look in his eyes changed.
His smile disappeared and was replaced with a look so intense that my stomach was suddenly doing flips. He dropped the fork. It fell from his fingers, making a loud clattering noise when it hit the tabletop, and then he was reaching for me with his strong arms, lifting me out of my chair and onto his lap, facing him.
He was hard—clarification: his penis was hard—and he held me still, his hands holding my face, forcing me to feel him, to feel our bodies touching.
“What are you doing? I thought you didn’t want…”
“Didn’t want what?”
I closed my eyes, trying to hide from him, trying not to let him see the immature little girl I’d originally come to his house to convince him I wasn’t. “Me.”
“Look at me, please.” When I opened my eyes, his hand rose to the back of my head, and he held it in his palm. He didn’t push or pull. It was just there, like a claiming. “You think I don’t want you?”
