Page 21 of Back in the Bay

"What happens now?" I ask because I'm a lawyer, and I need to know the terms.

He smiles, that crooked grin that used to make me skip chemistry class. "Now we stop letting the past dictate our future."

cole

. . .

I've spentthirteen years trying to forget the taste of Mabel Maxwell's lips, and now I'm drowning in them again.

The truck cab is filled with the scent of her—expensive perfume mixed with something that's just her—as she straddles me in the driver's seat. My hands are everywhere at once, relearning curves I've dreamed about since I was eighteen. Her dress—that damn blue dress that's been torturing me all night—is hiked up around her thighs, revealing a stretch of skin that's driving me insane.

"Cole," she breathes against my mouth, and my name has never sounded so good. Her fingers are in my hair, tugging just hard enough to make me groan.

Ten minutes ago, I parked on the side of some back road between the wedding venue and my place. I don't even remember pulling over. One minute, we were driving, Mabel's hand on my thigh creeping higher with each mile, and the next, I was yanking the wheel, gravel crunching under tires as I brought us to a stop.

"I thought we were going to talk," she says, but her hips roll against mine in a way that makes it clear talking is the last thing on her mind.

"Is that what we're calling this now?" I manage to get out, my voice rough as I slide my hands up her thighs.

She laughs, the sound hitting me right in the chest. "I've forgotten how much of a smartass you are."

"And I've forgotten nothing about you," I tell her, which is the god's honest truth. Thirteen years, a career built from the ground up, and more first dates than I care to count, and none of them erased a single detail of Mabel Maxwell.

When she grinds down against me again, I nearly lose it like a teenager. My hands find her hips, stilling her. "Wait."

Her eyes, those killer blue eyes, narrow. "Seriously? Now you want to stop?"

I shake my head, fighting for control. "Not stop. Just..." I glance around the cramped cab of my truck, at the steering wheel digging into her back, at the gearshift probably bruising her leg. "Not here. Not like this."

"Since when are you picky about location?" Her eyebrow arches, reminding me of all the places we christened back in high school—the back of this very truck, the boathouse at her parent's lake house, the equipment shed behind the football field.

"Since I've spent thirteen years thinking about getting my hands on you again." I brush my thumb across her bottom lip, swollen from my kisses. "I need room to have my way with you properly, counselor. And as much as I love this truck, it's not going to cut it."

A flush spreads across her cheeks, down her neck. "Your place is still ten minutes away."

"Then it'll be the longest ten minutes of my life." I lean forward, nipping at her ear. "But I promise it'll be worth the wait."

She shivers against me, and I can feel her heartbeat racing where her chest presses against mine. "I've never known you to make promises you can't keep, Bennett."

"And I don't plan to start now."

Getting her back into the passenger seat requires more willpower than I've ever had to summon. Her hair is mussed from my hands, her lips swollen, and that dress is still hiked up in a way that makes focusing on the road nearly impossible. I start the engine with unsteady hands.

"Eyes on the road, Cole," she teases, but then her fingers land on my thigh again, tracing idle patterns that inch higher with each sweep.

"You're not making this easy." I grip the steering wheel so tight my knuckles turn white.

"I never have, have I?" There's something vulnerable in her voice beneath the playfulness, a reminder of all the complications between us, all the years and choices that led us away from each other.

But right now, with Cedar Bay's familiar roads stretching before us and Mabel's touch burning through my jeans, the past doesn't seem to matter. Only the present. Only her.

I take a turn faster than I should, and she laughs—that full-throated laugh I've missed so damn much. "Still drive like you've got something to prove?"

"Only when I've got somewhere important to be." I catch her eye, and the heat there nearly makes me drive off the road again.

My house comes into view—nothing fancy, just a renovated craftsman on three acres outside town. I built the wraparound porch myself and installed the picture windows that overlook the bay. It's more home than a house, and as I pull into the gravel driveway, I suddenly see it through her eyes—wonder if she's comparing it to her sleek Portland condo and if she's regretting leaving the reception with the hometown contractor.

But when I kill the engine, she's already unbuckling her seatbelt, eyes fixed on mine with an intensity that burns away any doubt.

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