My phone lights up.
Buttercup: Walking out now.
I pull around the corner. She’s standing on the sidewalk in her scrubs and that big cream cardigan. Her bag is over one shoulder. She looks both ways, then spots me and walks fast to the passenger side.
She climbs in. The cold air comes with her. She shuts the door and turns to look at me.
“Hi,” she says. Her voice is soft. Her eyes are a little red. She’s trying to smile anyway.
Hell. She shouldn’t have had to fight that hard just to spend an hour with me.
“Hey.” I reach over and touch her cheek, just my thumb brushing there. She leans into my hand a little. That small movement makes something in my chest loosen and tighten at the same time.
I don’t rush. I just look at her for a long second. “C’mere.”
She slides across the seat. I pull her into my arms and wrap her up tight. She melts against me, face tucked into my neck, and for a while we just stay like that. No words. Just her breathing against me and my hand rubbing slow circles on her back. She feels small and tired and so damn brave.
“You sure you’re okay?” I finally murmur into her hair.
She nods against my shoulder. “I am now.”
We stay like that until her breathing evens out a little. Only then do I pull back enough to look at her. I cup her face gently. “Can I kiss you, Buttercup?”
She nods. I lean in slow, giving her every chance to pull away. The first kiss is soft, careful. Her lips are warm and slightly parted, still tasting faintly of mint from work. She sighs against me, the sound so quiet and needy it shoots straight through me. I kiss her again, still gentle at first, but she leans in harder this time, her fingers curling tight into my jacket like she’s been waiting for this as long as I have.
We stay like that for a long moment, foreheads pressed together, sharing the same heated breath, until the pull between us becomes too strong. I kiss her deeper, slower, savoring the way her mouth opens for me. Her tongue brushes mine shyly and then with growing confidence, sending heat pooling low in my gut. One of my hands slides to her waist, gripping the soft fabric of her cardigan, while the other cups the back of her neck, thumb stroking the sensitive skin just below her ear. She shivers against me, a full-body tremble that makes my grip tighten instinctively.
She doesn’t pull away. If anything, she presses closer, her chest brushing mine with every quick breath. I can feel the rapid beat of her heart through her scrubs. I want more. I want to pull her fully into my lap, slide my hands under that cardigan and map every inch of warm skin, hear what other sounds she makes when she really lets go. But I don’t. I let her set the pace, pouring everything I’m feeling into every kiss instead: the relief, the hunger, the fierce protectiveness that’s been building since the day she steadied me in that clinic.
She sighs again when I kiss the corner of her mouth, then the line of her jaw, and her fingers slide up to fist in my shirt, tugging me closer like she can’t get enough. The windows are fogging fast around us, turning the truck into a private little world that smells like her, faint soap, coffee from her shift, and something sweeter that’s just Lucy. Every small sound she makes, every hesitant roll of her hips against the seat, has me fighting to stay in control.
I rest my forehead against hers again. “I was worried about you.”
“I know,” she whispers. “I’m sorry I didn’t text sooner. I was at work and then… I didn’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to. But if you need to talk about what happened with your dad, I’m here.”
She’s quiet for a minute. Her fingers trace a line on my jacket. “He told me I couldn’t see you anymore. He said I was throwing my life away and that men like you ruin girls like me.” She swallows. “I told him he could ground me, but he couldn’t change the way I felt. Then I left before he could say anything else.”
I hold her while she talks. I just listen. She tells me about her mom standing there silently, about the ultimatum, about how exhausted she feels trying to be perfect all the time. I tighten my arm around her and let her get it all out.
“I don’t want to be like that,” she says quietly. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life nodding and smiling and letting someone else decide everything for me.”
“You won’t,” I tell her. “You’re already not like that.”
She lifts her head and looks at me. “You really think so?”
“I know so.”
I hesitate, then decide she deserves to know a piece of me too.
“My family… they’ve got money. Old money. Big house, board seats, the whole thing. Jacob Wellington the Third. That’s me on paper.” I let out a rough laugh. “Doesn’t fit me though, does it? They never really knew what to do with me. I was too loud, too rough around the edges. When I found the club, when Cole brought me home the first time, it was the first place that felt like I belonged. The club became my real family. They showed up with soup when I was sick. They ride beside me when shitgets ugly. Blood doesn’t always mean family. Sometimes it’s the people who choose you.”
She listens quietly, her hand resting on my chest.
“I get it,” I say softer. “The pressure. The feeling like you’re disappointing everyone just by being who you are. But you’re not disappointing me, Buttercup. Not even a little.”
I kiss her forehead, then her temple, then her mouth again. She melts into it. Her hands slide up to my shoulders. I can feel how small she is against me. How careful she is with every movement. It makes me want to be careful with her too.
