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“I will.”
“That’s my princess.”
She laid her head back on his chest, and neither of them spoke again for a very long time.
Chapter 13
A bump jolted her from a warm and hazy sleep. The sun was heating the SUV, and she kept dozing off without meaning to. The last thing she wanted to do was waste the last of her time with Luke having a sunny catnap, but between the hiking and the sex it had been several physically demanding days. And she was maybe a little hungover.
“Where are we?” Ophelia asked, frowning.
“I think we’re about three hours out yet.”
She blinked around at all the trees. “Can we pull over somewhere? I have to pee.”
“I’m not sure where the next rest stop is. Do you want to check the road trip app?”
She’s been avoiding using her phone. Considering the fact that the thing usually lived in her hand, it was weird she’d spent the past few days rarely glancing at it for more than a minute or two. Between wanting to avoid her mother’s pushy demands for her to sell the business, and not being able to tell Priya and Chloe much about Luke, she had nothing to say to anyone. And who needed to play Solitaire when there was a hot guy who was fun to talk to paying attention to her?
“Anywhere is fine,” she said, grinning. “You’ve helped me perfect the art of free-range urination.”
“That was all you, baby.” He winked at her, and she noticed again how handsome he was. He was so smart and funny that sometimes she forgot the man could be a fitness model. Hell, she turned into a puddle every time he flashed those dimples at her. How did a guy this hot and naughty—and yet such a gentleman—not have a girlfriend? Or several?
Then again, maybe he did. What the hell did she know?
Part of her kept trying to point out that if he really was a car thief, there was no saying he was telling the truth about anything. A man who wouldn’t hesitate to steal a car wouldn’t hesitate to lie to get into a girl’s pants, right? She wasn’t naive or an idiot.
Even so, as she watched him turn them off the highway and onto a thickly treed side road, she wondered if she should ask. Eventually, she decided against it, afraid he’d tell her the truth, and that it would hurt. Their trip was nearing an end anyway. It was almost over.
About a half mile in, he pulled over in a clear spot.
“I’ll just be a minute.” Damned coffee.
“I need to stretch my legs anyway. Don’t rush.”
It only took a few minutes. When she was on her way back to him, she realized how strange it was that she’d trusted him not only with her SUV, but with her own safety for days. There were law-abiding men she’d known for years that she wouldn’t say the same about. Luke was Luke—exciting, but not the kind of exciting that would make her sleep with one eye open in terror. She trusted him not to steal or wreck her car. She trusted him to torture her but obey her safeword. Just yesterday she’d insisted on paying for lunch and hadn’t even tried to hide her PIN number.
So damn weird.
When she got back to the SUV, Luke was nowhere to be seen. They’d both downed a lot of coffee this morning, after last night’s big drunken discussion about the universe.
He had some interesting ideas about life, the kind that came from introspection and intelligent deduction. Between that and Glacier, she felt like they’d shared some sort of transcendent experience. Even if they didn’t see each other again after today, she’d never forget him.
As she reached for the handle of the passenger door, the heaviness of regret was banished by the feel of someone’s breath stirring the hair on the back of her neck. Luke, the creepy bastard, had her heart racing and extra blood circulating to her nether regions.
“Do you have a girlfriend?” she asked, frozen in place, staring at the car. Jeez, maybe she should have turned around to make sure she wasn’t starting a conversation with a serial killer.
“I don’t know,” he murmured so close to her ear that she got goose bumps and her nipples immediately hardened. “I assume I don’t, since you don’t want to see me again after today.”
Between his proximity and his words, her belly fluttered. He liked her enough to think of her as a potential girlfriend? She allowed herself the momentary fantasy where she didn’t have the infamous last name and could just be an ordinary girl and no one would care if she had a car thief for a boyfriend.
She put her hands on the car door to steady herself.
“Move your hands higher on the door.”
She slid her hands up the smooth green paint, over the window to the roof. Luke caught her wrists in one of his big, rough hands, and pinned her there. His other hand shoved her bra up over her breasts. He caught her nipple between his fingers, squeezing hard, harder, until she screeched. Teeth bit down on her neck, and through the glorious haze of sensual pain, she could feel her ass shoving back against him, offering whatever he wanted to take. Everything sexual with Luke was wild and dirty and animalistic. No polite lovemaking from this man—at least, not yet. She assumed that if he ever did that sort of thing, there would be nothing fake about it.
“Now that I’ve caught you, what should I do with you?”
