No. Ransom is too impatient for that.
Instead, he lifts both legs up setting them on his right shoulder, ankles crossed, and leans forward, crushing my knees to my chest. The toes of my Keds scrape the fabric of the car’s ceiling as he gets into position.
Like this, our faces are only inches apart and with the way the light from the parking lot shines through the back window, all I see is him.
He’s all I ever see.
His cockhead presses into me, and I struggle for breath as I look into his eyes. “You feel it too don’t you, Joe? You feel that tightness in your chest. The kind that steals your breath and makes you feel like you might die even as everything in your world feels like it’s finally fallen into place.” His voice is thick and raspy, causing tendrils of heat to coil between my legs where his cock threatens to split me wide open.
“This is where I belong, Josephine. Between your silky thighs, buried so deep that you feel me inside your chest. That’s where I live, Joe, right here.” His hot palm covers the space between my breasts, directly over my pounding heart. “Don’t try to send me away again, because I’m not leaving.”
Hot tears leak from the corners of my eyes and spill into the hair at my temples. My reply is simple. “I won’t.” Two words, and it’s done. We’re together again. Sometimes that’s all it takes.
My lungs constrict as his hips surge forward. My eyes burn as he stretches me, making good on his promise—I feel him, all the way to my heart.
***
Sometime later, I rouse from the light sleep I’ve fallen into. The windows are fogged up and the air inside the car is cold but heavy. My skin prickles with goosebumps, the fine hairs on my arms standing on end. I burrow deeper into Ransom’s arms, trying to soak up as much of his heat as I can. Like all men, he’s a furnace, almost too hot to touch, but too tempting to stay away. My fingers travel across his chest, playing with the fine hairs that dust it.
“Why did you stick around?” The question spills from my mouth before it’s a conscious thought.
His answer is a long time coming. Covering my hand with his, he says, “How could I not? You’re special to me, Joesphine. You give me something I haven’t had in a long time. Hell, I’m not sure I’ve ever had it, but it feels right.”
“What’s that?” I ask, angling my head back to look at him.
He tilts his head down and kisses my mouth. “Feelings, Joe. You make me feel things I know I shouldn’t, but that I can’t stop. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
I know what he means. Although, I don’t think either of us has really tried all that hard. Lust—it’s one of the deadliest sins. “Feelings don’t always make sense.”
“I don’t think they’re supposed to.” He pauses, his hand tightening around mine. “I want you to come back to my place, spend the night.”
“I thought…” Surprised, my words trail off. It feels like we’re in a bubble right now. A bubble that’s in danger of bursting if I don’t choose my words carefully.
“That I didn’t want you there,” Ransom finishes for me, and I nod. Easing me off of him, he sits up and rakes a hand through his damp hair. Drawing my knees up to my chest, I huddle into myself as I wait for him to continue.
Sex looks good on him. His skin is flushed, his lips a deeper shade of red and plumped from my kisses, and his clothes are rumpled and twisted in a way that makes me want to ravage him all over again.
Turning his head, Ransom pins me with a look. “It’s not that I didn’t want you there. I just didn’t think it was a good idea.”
“And now you do? Ransom, nothing’s changed. I’ll still be your student in the morning.”
Lying back against the seat, he drops his head back and stares up at the stars through the foggy glass. The position highlights the corded muscles lining the sides of his neck and the Adam’s apple that moves up and down enticingly with each swallow.
“I thought about what you said. Being together presents some risks, but being apart?” His head rolls to the side and his dark eyes find mine. “I can find a job anywhere, Joe, but there’s never going to be another you.”
My lungs constrict, making it difficult to breathe properly. I don’t think anyone has ever spoken anything as beautiful as that to me before.
“I don’t know what this is between us is or where it’s headed,” he continues, his gaze focused overhead. “There’s already a black mark on our record, and for all I know, we’ll change our mind again in the morning, or maybe a week from now or a month. What I do know is that I like this”—he gestures between us—“I like how I feel when we’re together. Life is too short to miss out on the things that make us feel good, make us feel alive, and I feel so alive with you.”
“And if someone does find out that we’re together, what then? Are you going to be okay if you lose your job over me?”
“We’ll cross that bridge if we have to.” He reaches out and takes my hand, pulling me over to cover his body with mine. Cupping the back of my head, he holds me against his chest, and when he speaks, I feel the warmth of his breath in my hair. “The only thing that matters right now is this, right here, right now.”
I wiggle closer, listening to the steady beat of his heart beneath my ear. This is one of those rare, perfect moments in time that life occasionally hands out. It would be so easy to just give into it and enjoy it for what it is, but I’ve experienced them a couple times before. I know not to trust them. There is such a thing as something being too perfect, too right. When all the pieces of the puzzle seem to be in place, that’s the time to sit up and pay attention.
I can feel it in the air, like the kind of calm that comes before a tornado touches down and destroys everything. I don’t know what form it’s going to take, but I know one thing for sure.
A storm is coming.
TWENTY-TWO
After a couple more rounds of lovemaking, Ransom is out. He snores. Soft, whispers of sound that rumbles subtly in his chest. I’m in his bed, in his apartment, folded up in his arms, and I can’t fall asleep. It should be the simplest thing to do, but every time I try, my eyes flip open as if they’re spring loaded.
It could be because I am used to keeping late hours at the club, or because my mind is churning over everything that happened tonight and the inability to predict what lies ahead of us tomorrow. But my money is on what’s going on beyond the bedroom because, about an hour ago, I heard someone enter the apartment.
They came in through the front door, their keys clanking against a hard surface, suggesting to me that whoever it is isn’t an intruder. But who is it? A roommate? Ransom never mentioned having one, but then again, there are still a lot of things I don’t know about the man whose bed I’m sharing.
Curiosity picks away at my patience. I want to go investigate, but I don’t dare. Do I? It’s not my place. How will Ransom and this other person respond to my snooping around? Besides, Ransom’s arms around my waist are tethering me to him and the bed and there’s no way in hell I’ll be able to slip free without waking him.
I don’t know how much time I spend lying there, listening to this mystery person move around the apartment. I track their footsteps from the front of the apartment, where they spend some time in the kitchen making all kinds of muffled racket that I’d probably never notice if I had already been asleep.
The television plays on low for a time, and then the footsteps carry down the hall, past the bedroom door, and into the bathroom. I tense as I listen to every minute sound—running water in the sink, the hiss of the shower, the flushing of a toilet. All normal things people do to get ready for bed. I listen until my eyelids grow heavy—the constant rush of the water serving as a lullaby.
I finally fall asleep after everything goes quiet and the footsteps disappear down the end of the hall where a door, that had been closed when we arrived, opens and shuts again.