Page 97 of The Thought of You

I make my way toward the front door, and my cautious confusion comes to a screeching halt as I swing it open.

Shoulders grazing her ears, Addie steps off the top step when I join her on the porch. “Where are you sneaking off to?” I lean against the doorframe.

She spins on her heel to face me, chewing on the inside of her cheek. “I thought you might be busy. There are a lot of cars in your driveway. Or are they all yours? Do you like cars? I didn’t know this about you.”

A pair of headlights flash us as my father pulls into the spot behind Lottie. “I have no real attachment to cars, no.”

“Interesting,” she chirps, but it sounds forced. She’s nervous, and it makes me so deliriously fucking happy that I affect her so much.

“Those are my family’s cars. They’re all here for dinner.”

She blanches underneath the porch lights. “Oh my God. I knew this was a mistake, but I was trying to be spontaneous and fun. And I’m even wearing slutty lingerie. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

My cock twitches at the image of the kind of lingerie she might be referring to, and I’ll be damned if I don’t find out for myself. “Stay,” I urge as Dad saunters up the path toward us.

Addie’s eyes bug out of her head. “I can’t meet your family,” she hisses.

“Hey, son.” Dad climbs the steps and claps my back. “Who’s this?”

“I’m his co-worker,” Addie sputters. “I just came by to… to… let him know I had a change in my schedule and will need him to take his classes outside tomorrow.”

“Forecast says it’s going to rain, though.” I fold my arms over my chest.

“Is it? I didn’t, um, see that.” She fumbles down the porch steps. “I’ll go back to my original plan, then. Okay. Take care.”

As Addie marches back toward the driveway, I squeeze my dad’s shoulder and say, “We’ll meet you inside.”

Addie’s short strides are no match for my long ones, no matter how quickly and purposefully she makes them, and I catch up to her before she reaches her car at the end of my driveway.

I lurch in front of her and cut off her path. “You’re not naked under there, are you?” I point to her peacoat. It’s buttoned down all the way to her upper thighs, which are bare. Her lean muscles blink as she shifts from one boot to the other.

“No!” she hisses, but her outrage is instantly replaced with hesitation. “Why? Would that have been sexier?”

I hook my finger under her chin and tip her head back. “Everything you do is sexy.” My growl is mixed with a raspy chuckle. “I’m just happy you’re here. How did you know where I live?”

“Same way you got my address.”

“Austin,” I muse, but something hits me. “What did you tell him you needed it for?”

“He didn’t actually ask, and I don’t suspect he cares at all about why I needed it.” She shrugs. “But I told him you left your hat at school, and I just wanted to drop it off in your mailbox.”

“Sounds about right.” I slide my fingers up her cheek and into her short wavy strands, untucking the locks she had hidden behind one ear. “Hey, Lockhart?”

“Hmm?” She bites her sinfully red lip and peers up at me, her eyes sparkling like the stars in the evening sky.

“Can I kiss you already?”

“You better.”

She barely completes her smartass response before I crush my lips to hers. She tastes extra sweet tonight.

Maybe it’s because she’s been torturing me from afar all week, showing up to work in heeled boots and leggings. She always looks professional, but I’ve suddenly been distracted by all the ways her outfits are sexy.

Mainly, I imagine it’s midnight, and I fling each article of clothing across the gym floor, then have me a taste with her sprawled across the free-throw line.

We’ve survived four days of classes and secret glances from across the gym.

It’s obvious she’s been tortured too. Why else would she surprise me at my house tonight? God, this fucking woman will be the end of me.

---