Page 55 of Diesel’s Desire

Her eyes glisten, and she pulls me down into a kiss that tastes like everything I’ve been chasing since that traffic light weeks ago. I lift her against the wall, her legs wrapping around my hips, and she gasps against my mouth when her back meets solid wood.

“Evan,” she breathes, and hearing my real name in her mouth still undoes something in my chest every single time.

I kiss down her throat while my hands work at her belt, at the button of her jeans, and she’s helping me, shoving denim down her thighs with an urgency that matches mine. This isn’t like the other times, frantic and desperate in doorways or on the back of a bike. This feels like something slower even as my hands shake with wanting her.

“I need you,” I tell her, working my own jeans open. “I’ve needed you since we were kids.”

“I’m here.” Her hands find my face, holding me still so she can look at me. “I’m not running this time.”

I push inside her slow, giving us both a moment to feel it, to feel everything we lost and everything we’re finally getting back. She makes a sound against my ear that sends heat straight through me, her nails digging into my shoulders as I start to move.

“God, you feel—” I can’t finish the sentence, can’t find words good enough for what she feels like wrapped around me, warm and slick and mine.

I keep moving inside her, slow and deep, savoring every gasp and every roll of her hips against mine. The barn creaks around us, dust swirling in that shaft of light, and somewhere in the distance a bird calls out, but none of it matters. Just her. Just this.

Her orgasm builds slow, her breath catching higher and faster until she’s shaking against me, crying out my name into the curve of my neck. I follow right behind her, spilling deep inside her without a second thought, without any barrier between us at all.

We stay like that for a long moment, foreheads pressed together, breathing hard, before reality creeps back in.

“Wait,” Penny says, blinking like she’s just now processing what happened. “We didn’t… Evan, we weren’t safe. Again.”

“I know.”

“That’s the fourth time.” She pulls back slightly to study my face. “You keep doing that, and you never even mention it.”

“Because I don’t want to.”

“Evan.” Her voice sharpens with something between worry and disbelief. “I could get pregnant. Have you thought about that?”

“Every single time.” I brush a strand of hair off her face, tucking it behind her ear. “Penny, I’ve never gone without a condom with anyone else. Not once. Not in seventeen years, not with any of them.”

That stops her. “What?”

“I always used protection. Every time, every woman, no exceptions.” I hold her gaze so she understands I’m not exaggerating for effect. “You’re the only person I’ve ever been inside without one. I’ve told myself I wasn’t putting you at risk. The truth is, some part of me has wanted this since I was eighteen years old, standing outside a clubhouse with a ring in my pocket.”

Her breath catches. “Evan, that’s not… we’re not eighteen anymore. If I got pregnant⁠—”

“I know how old we are.” I press my hand flat against her stomach, feeling the warmth of her skin even through her shirt. “And yeah, I know what that means. I’m not stupid, Penny. I know exactly what happens if we keep doing this without protection.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

“Okay with it?” I laugh, low and rough. “I want it. I want to put a baby in you so bad I can barely think straight some days. We’re not kids anymore, waiting around for the right time or the right circumstances. We wasted seventeen years already. I don’t want to waste one more minute pretending I don’t want everything with you. The ring. The house. The kids. All of it.”

Her eyes fill, tears spilling over before she can stop them, but she’s smiling even as they fall.

“You’re insane,” she whispers.

“Maybe.”

“We just started this. Really started it. A few weeks ago.”

“Doesn’t feel like a few weeks to me. Feels like two decades and a few weeks.” I kiss the tears off her cheek, one and then the other. “I’m not asking you to decide anything right now. I’m just telling you the truth. If you end up pregnant, Penny, there’s no part of me that’s gonna panic. There’s no part of me that’s gonna run. I’ve been ready for a family with you since before I had any idea what that even meant.”

She laughs through the tears, shaking her head like she can’t quite believe what she’s hearing but wants to anyway.

“I quit my job today,” she says. “Told my boss where to stick his procedure manual. Slept with my high school sweetheart for the fourth time without protection. And now I’m having this conversation in a barn.”

“Welcome to the club,” I say, and she laughs harder, burying her face against my shoulder.