Page 49 of Plunge

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Fletcher

I HURRY BACK to my seat as quickly as I can so Thistle doesn’t catch a glimpse of my crotch. Once I knew she wasn’t choking to death, I couldn’t escape the intoxicating scent of her. It was everywhere, in her hair and her clothes. And I stood there touching her back and rubbing her skin in that slinky fucking t-shirt.

I’m like a damn teenager, sporting wood during dinner when I should be just having a conversation with this woman. I try to change the subject and ask her about boring shit, hoping that my dick will calm down while she talks about taxes. But she’s so damn interested in the policy and application of the tax rules that it’s turning me on to watch her talk animatedly about all she’s learning about the poker machines in old man bars.

“Should we watch a movie?” Thistle is looking at me across the table, cheek resting on her fist, her plate empty. I look at the clock behind her and see that we’ve been sitting here talking for over an hour.

I shrug and stand up to clear up the dinner stuff. Thistle suggests we watch 127 Hours. I make a face at her. “Isn’t that the movie where the guy chops off his own arm?”

She grins. “Yes and I’ve never seen it. Don’t you want to see how they do the CGI?”

I shake my head. She always had a sick sense of humor when it came to movies. “Sure,” I say. “You want to cue it up and I’ll clean this stuff up?”

She squeezes beside me at the sink, where I’m rinsing the bowls. “I’ll help with this part.” I can feel the warmth of her body next to mine as she closes up the containers. I look over at her ass in those tight jeans as she bends to put the leftovers in the fridge. Something tells me I’m going to make a series of bad decisions this evening.

Thistle sits right up against me on the couch while I get the movie started, and she grips my leg a few times when the movie gets intense. When we get to the money shot, she’s not even able to look at the screen. She burrows into my shirt and demands that I narrate. I can’t bear to watch, either, but I feel like fucking with her.

“He’s using his teeth to chew it off,” I tell her. “They’re showing everything.”

Thistle squeaks, but opens her eyes to look not at the screen but at my face, where I’m smiling down at her. She hits my arm. “God, you’re disgusting,” she says.

“You’re the one who picked this movie, Thiss.” I reach for the remote and turn off the movie, turning to look at her. “What did you think was going to happen?”

She doesn’t pull back from touching me, keeps her hand on my chest instead. Her fingers flex and bend along my pec and my breath is ragged as I inhale. I close my eyes and lick my lips, trying to decide the right thing to do here.

I’m going to leave here any day now, back into my fast-paced life where I don’t have an address, let alone the time to dedicate to a relationship. Thistle’s never going to be a girl who settles for me calling her up once a year when I’m in town.

We had our fun, got our closure. I should focus on repairing what was broken between us and leave here in a good place. That’s the right thing to do, I’m sure of it.

But Thistle’s licking her lips and increasing the circles she’s making on my chest. She rubs my nipple with one finger tip and I feel her other hand snaking around my neck.

“Fuck it,” I growl, and I dip my head to claim her mouth. Shit, she tastes good. I catch the faint taste of her dinner, but mostly I’m just overcome by her. She tastes like I remember, like I tried to forget. She tastes like the standard I’ve compared every woman to for the past decade.

Her tongue slides into my mouth, probing and dancing with mine. I groan as Thistle climbs onto my lap, one leg on either side of my hips. I move my hands so one is playing with the blond strands sneaking out of her messy bun, and one is massaging the swell of her ass.

“Thistle,” I whisper into her mouth at the same time she breathes my name into mine.

We both laugh and she rocks against my length, so hard in my pants I feel like I’m going to burst right through the denim. “Fuck, baby,” I say, because this keeps happening and we haven’t talked about what it all means. “Are you sure we should do this?”

Thistle stiffens. She flattens her hands chastely on my shoulders and leans back. “No, actually,” she says. “You’re right. This is a bad idea.”

She moves to climb off my lap, and I put a hand on hers. “Yeah,” I say. “We should think about this. I’m leaving.”

Thistle nods. “We just started tolerating each other again.”

“Exactly.” I rest my forehead against hers. Both of us are breathing heavy. “And you’re leaving.”

“A fling would be a terrible idea,” she says, and I nod. She’s right. There’s too much history between us.

She sinks against me and wraps her arms around my neck. I hug her back and just sit with her like that for awhile. Eventually, Thistle climbs up from the couch and starts fixing her hair. She looks around and says, “Thanks for dinner. And the movie. Even if it was a terrible choice.”

“I’ll pick us a better one next time,” I tell her. “Why don’t you let me walk you out to that fine looking car, baby.”

And she does. I stand on the porch and watch her drive off, wondering if I just made things better or worse.

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