Page 8 of Jack

On that jarring thought, I quickly hustled her to my black BMW M6 and buckled her in myself.

“Jack, why did you buckle my seat belt? Did you think I couldn’t do it?” she asked after I got in the car and started driving, giving me a look that was a cross between a pout and an exaggerated frown. She was at that in between stage of being drunk—still buzzed, but because she wasn’t falling down drunk anymore she thought she was sober.

“I think we’d be sitting here until tomorrow morning if I let you try to buckle your seatbelt,” I said dryly, expecting her to become angry at my assessment of her hand-eye coordination, but instead she just burst out laughing.

“Yeah, that’s fair, that’s fair. I’m kind of buzzed right now,” she replied, patting me haphazardly on the shoulder, as if consoling me for having to give her such harsh criticism. I wanted to be irritated with her, but there was something charming about her in this condition. Of course, I had discovered, to my dismay, that I found her charming in all conditions.

I was about to ask her where she lived when she rolled down the window, undid her seatbelt, got on her knees, and stuck her upper body out the window and started whooping.

What the fuck?

“Ava, get in here! What the fuck are you doing?” I jerked the car over to the shoulder, threw it in park, and reached for Ava’s waist to pull her back in the car.

She sat back in her seat, breathing heavily. She grinned at me, her eyes looking luminous and almost manic in the light of my dashboard.

“Ava, what the hell were you thinking? You’ve been drinking, you could have fallen out of the window, for Christ’s sake,” I lectured as I reached across and once again fastened her seat belt.

She shot me another dopey grin. “I’m sorry, Jack, really, but I just couldn’t resist. I feel so happy! So free!”

“Free? Free from what?”

Ava sighed and tipped her head back against the headrest. “It’s such a long story…”

Here was a dilemma I had never faced. A woman was hesitating to pull me into a conversation about herself, and I was…bothered. Girls had done this to me innumerable times. Drop some hint of a story in order to see if I’ll ask them more questions and create intimacy between us. I never did. I always discouraged personal conversations as much as possible, and it had thus far worked for me.

I watched Ava’s conflicted expression as she bit her lip, and it took all my self-discipline not to insist she tell me.

“I just – at my last school – When I moved –” Ava stopped again and leaned her head against the window. In order to take the pressure off, I put the car in drive and pulled off the shoulder. I was just driving at this point—I still didn’t know where she lived.

The car’s movement seemed to correlate with her thoughts. “When I left my old school, before we moved here, my life had gotten so miserable. I didn’t think I’d ever have fun again.”

That seemed like a very simplified version of her history, but I didn’t pry. But again, I wanted to. I drove for a while, but it looked like story time was over, so I asked where she lived.

Other than telling me where she lived, she didn’t say anything for the rest of the fifteen-minute drive to her house. She looked lost in thought, like talking about her past had brought her back in time. By the periodic frowns that crossed her face, it didn’t look like a happy trip.

I pulled up to her house. It was not far from my own, so I had actually been telling Nikolai the truth when I insisted on dropping her off. She lived in a white, two-story colonial with black shutters and attached garage.

I pulled into her driveway and waited for her to get out, eager for this night and all the unsettling thoughts about her to be over. But she didn’t get out; she just sat there looking out my windshield, in some sort of trance. Was she drunker than I realized?

I put the car in park and turned to her. “Ava, are you–”

Then she jumped me. There were no other words for it. She turned, wrapped her arms around my neck and started kissing me. Again, this was not the first time a girl had made the first move. It had happened countless times. However, I had never been so taken off guard with any other girl.

Even though it was killing me not to take advantage of her hot mouth on mine, I gripped her shoulders and pushed her back. I couldn’t believe I was resisting, considering how much I wanted her. “Ava, what the fuck is going on with you?”

Her green eyes looked wild as they roved all over my face. She lifted her hands to my face and blew out a deep breath. “I wanted to kiss you. I’ve wanted to kiss you all night. Is that so wrong? To kiss you?” she asked softly.

My head was spinning as I tried to keep up with her. “No, there’s nothing wrong with it,” I assured her, still baffled by her aggression. “It just seemed…sudden.”

Ava tilted her head and sighed. “You’re right. I just wanted to do it, and instead of talking myself out of it, like I normally would have, I just did it. Like screaming out the window of your car—I want to feel free. In my old town, I– I wasn’t able to do what I wanted without checking in with, like, fifty people. I’m so sick of it.” Her solemn look turned mischievous. “I wanted to kiss you, so I did. You got a problem with that?” she challenged flirtatiously.

I was mesmerized by her open expression. I wasn’t necessarily suspicious of women, I was just well aware that girls targeted me because of my unattainability. It was a challenge, so when I would tell them all I was offering was sex, they didn’t see it as honesty. They saw it as an intriguing obstacle to overcome. It made a lot of my encounters feel shrouded in calculation and unachievable agendas, even when I always made it clear that all I was offering was sex.

But there was no guile in Ava’s expression. I don’t think she was even thinking beyond this moment, and I was captivated by that. “Not at all.”

She let out a relieved smile. “Good.” She wrapped her arms around my neck and leaned toward me again. A part of me wanted to question her further, ask her about her old life, but soon, the only thing I could think about was her inquisitive, little tongue brushing up against my lips. I quickly took over, wrapping my hand in the hair at the base of her neck, pulling her body more tightly against mine, my tongue ravenously exploring her mouth.

Ava groaned at my aggressive response, and I felt my dick harden to stone in my pants. I pulled her poncho over her head, then pulled the straps of her camisole off her shoulders and tugged the entire thing, along with her bra, to her waist. I felt her breath catch as I was kissing her, as my hands started to explore her smooth skin.

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