No one had held her hand to walk down a street in two years.
Dammit, she hated to admit how good it felt, her fingers snugly in his. Proprietary. Wanted. Special.
Bethany liked it, too, skin tingling, heart racing. Yeah, that was Bethany.
“I can walk by myself, thank you very much.” Perversely she pulled her hand away.
Witt merely shrugged. She knew the creep was only waiting to get back to her car to explode. Well, she’d beat him to it. She widened her stride and quickened her pace, already digging in her pocket for her car keys.
Within sight of her Miata, Witt’s voice rumbled close to her ear, “Don’t even think about leaving until we have a little talk, Max.”
Damn the man. He was getting as bad as Cameron, reading her every thought and move. “Don’t you have to get up early for work in the morning? I wouldn’t want to get in the way of your beauty sleep.”
“You already have. Even when I’m not with you.” He groaned softly. “Jesus, especially when I’m not with you.”
God, she wished he’d quit saying those pseudo-sexual things. They started her pulse racing. At least she wasn’t cold anymore. Well, only a little.
They came abreast of her car; it was then she saw his big truck parked behind the tiny Miata with only an inch to spare between the two vehicles. With a white Honda in front of hers, to which she’d parked a scosh too close, she couldn’t have gotten out of the spot if she wanted to. She did want to get out. Badly.
Witt pulled his own set of keys out of his pocket, unlocked the passenger side of his truck, and stood beside it with the door open, his hand out graciously. “We’ll talk inside.”
She stared. First at him, then the inside of the cab. No way. Absolutely no flipping way. The devious man knew about her fondness for Dodge Ram trucks, specifically the black and red Sport model like his. He knew her penchant for a Dodge Ram kind of guy. Especially him, especially while he was wearing that black and red plaid shirt. She was a goner. Climbing into that truck with him for a “talk” was like giving an alcoholic that first drink. She’d sworn off relationships. She’d even sworn off sex. She’d particularly sworn off DeWitt Quentin Long.
“Too conspicuous out here,” he offered, by way of explanation since they stood beneath a bright streetlight. Still, it smacked of something close to coaxing a prom date into the back seat of the car by promising you wouldn’t try to coax her out of her dress, too.
Max wasn’t falling for it. She simply stared him down.
“Don’t worry, won’t try to have my wicked way with you once I get you inside.”
She narrowed her eyes. That was exactly what she wanted. Not that she’d tell him that. Despite the horrible taint of that phone call, sexual tension still thrummed through her body.
He sighed. “I swear.”
She stared at the arm behind his back.
He pulled it out, drew an X with all seriousness across his chest. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
He was too damn cute to deny. She was a big girl. She could control herself. Totally. She could control Bethany, too. She slipped beneath his arm, catching a whiff of his musky aftershave, and climbed in. One whiff was too much. Yet nowhere near enough.
He stood there a moment, barring her exit. “Unless, of course, you beg me.”
She smiled thinly. “Dream on, Long.”
He stepped back. “Always do, Max, always do. My dreams are getting sweeter, hotter and wetter all the time.”
“I don’t think wetter is proper English.” Though it did describe her state perfectly.
He winked. “Not proper at all.” Then he shut the door, trapping her inside.
It had gotten too damn cold out there anyway, the night air cutting through the material of her sweatshirt. She turned to watch as he rounded the tail of the truck, waited as he climbed up beside her, and noticed as he pushed the seat back and settled his long legs.
God, there was a lot of room. Enough that she could have straddled his lap with ease and still had plenty of room between the steering wheel and her butt. Plenty of room for ...
Well, that really was Bethany getting carried away. Like a shot, Bethany had taken the Dodge Ram fantasy and made it her own. Max fanned herself ferociously and only managed to fill the cab with Witt’s potent male scent.
Bethany breathed it in, luxuriated in it. Max crowded up against the door as far from him as she could get. Thank God the console separated them.
“What are you doing, Max?”
Playing Squirmin’ Herman and feeling like a fool. “What was it you wanted to talk about?”
He shifted, leaned against the door, and hiked one leg across his knee until she could see his booted foot. He watched her a full ten seconds, light through the windshield reflecting in his eyes. “Still don’t get how you do that.”