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Chapter twelve

Drive

P oppy set her arm in the open window, fingers tapping at the frame in time with the music on the radio, and tried to pay attention to the road.

It was hard. Forget about babies—she needed a yellow diamond sticker saying Himbo on Board so the other drivers knew to steer clear for their own safety.

Thank fuck it was well past rush hour and too early in the year for snowbirds to be fouling up the roads.

Or fowling up the roads, for that matter.

They weren’t going to cut her off like they were playing Geriatric Theft Auto and then go ten miles an hour under the speed limit tonight; that was what mattered.

When she’d pulled out of her carport—after a judicious wait to make sure they hadn’t awakened her mother—she’d asked Rai where he wanted to go.

“Anywhere,” he’d said, smiling for all the world as if a drive with Poppy were a fantastical dream experience more exciting than Disneyland, Cats , San Diego Comic Con, a BTS concert, and the next season of Bridgerton all rolled into one.

And so she’d let her heart lead her and driven west, past the interstate and out toward Saguaro National Park.

It wasn’t necessarily the safest choice, as she didn’t trust her Kia not to crap out on her again just as soon as they were past the more heavily trafficked areas, but she expected Rai hadn’t gotten to enjoy any of the wilderness, and with the storm clouds mostly gone, the sky would be amazing.

And both she and apparently Rai were used to walking, if they had to.

Rai hadn’t asked why she’d put the windows down, just settled in his seat and fastened his seatbelt, albeit after she’d reminded him again and patted her own buckle.

That had saved her explaining just why she wanted the windows open and adding another layer of pathetic to her impoverished image.

Though maybe he had the magic touch for air conditioning, too.

Or maybe for her. She could really, really use some magic touching.

It had just been so long—not just since she’d had sex, though that had been long enough, but since she’d had this specific feeling, the tingly stomach-butterflies attraction for someone new.

She’d been exclusive with Brendan for…nine years?

Ten? Way longer than she should have, in retrospect, and while she’d thought things were fine and enjoyed the comfort of first a serious boyfriend and then a husband, having those butterflies again, the way every kiss brought something new, the anticipation of more new discoveries to come—it felt like coming alive.

Like she was busting out with flowers all over.

She would have happily stayed married forever, if the marriage had been good, if Brendan had been the one-true-love hero she’d believed him to be.

But since it hadn’t been, and he really hadn’t been, she was ready to explore new ground.

Specifically, the new ground under Rai’s Hawaiian shirt and maybe even his deliciously tight jeans.

Assuming he was interested…and from the way he’d kissed her and wished for her presence and simply looked at her, he was.

Even now, he was watching her almost as much as he was watching the scenery, his intensity palpable no matter how carefully she focused on the road.

She didn’t even have to try and remember how long it had been since someone had looked at her like that.

It was never long ago. Nobody had ever in her entire life looked at her like she was an oasis in the desert and he was about to die of thirst, and at this point she didn’t care if he left town tomorrow and they never saw each other again ( though she did care, she cared a lot ) she was so ready to let him drink from her fountain. Every single drop.

On a whim, Poppy took a road that wound out through the Tucson Mountains and turned off at one of the trailheads. She pulled into the empty lot and parked across several spaces so that her Kia was facing more pavement, instead of off into the wilderness .

“Where are we?” Rai asked as she put the car into park and set the emergency brake as hard as she could.

“Hiking trails,” she said. She managed to keep from turning off the car on autopilot—she couldn’t very well expect Rai’s wire-jiggling to work a second time—though she did put the volume all the way down on the radio and switched off the headlights.

“They’re closed now until sunrise, but the lot’s open, and this is about as far as I want to go. We can head back in a minute.”

“We are out in the desert,” Rai said. His voice had an odd note in it.

“We can see the stars out here,” she said, suddenly worried that she’d made the wrong choice. “But we can drive some more, if you want.”

He took a deep breath and let it out, brow furrowing thoughtfully. “No,” he said after a moment. “No, it will be well.”

“Okay, cool.” Poppy got out and walked around to the trunk, then heaved herself up.

Rai joined her a moment later. The car was wide enough for them both to sit comfortably—she’d picked it because of all the compacts in her pitiful price range, it was the one with the least narrow and cramped interior—but he still sat close enough that his thigh brushed hers. It made her shiver.

“You are cold?”

“No,” she said, though there was a cool, damp breeze.

She carefully lay back on the rear window to look at the sky.

It wasn’t entirely clear; a few patches of clouds were faintly visible due to the waning moon and the lights of the city.

Still, it was a better view than she ever got in town.

The sounds of the city were distant, though occasionally a car zoomed past on the road.

Rai went back on his elbows, but he was looking at her. “Should your car still be loud?”

She laughed. It came out less bitter than most of her car-related laughs had of late.

“I doubt it’s charged enough to turn it off yet.

Anyhow, I parked it so if the brake fails, we won’t go off a cliff.

At worst, we’ll land on our asses.” She glanced at him, but he was gazing at her as if he were hypnotized, eyes wide and entranced, a foolish grin on his face.

She smiled shyly and looked away again. “Do they look different from Brazil?”

“The stars?” Rai lay back the rest of the way, tucking a hand behind his head. “Yes, very much so. You do not have the same…shapes.”

“Constellations?” She could see Rai’s nod out of the corner of her eye. “I’m not sure if I’d be able to tell. I mean, I know the Big Dipper, but that’s about it. ”

“You would see,” Rai said. “I also do not know any constellations, but it still is a different sky, just as rivers and lakes each appear as themselves.”

Poppy smiled. “Not many rivers out here, but I know what you mean.”

He rolled on his side to face her, head propped on his elbow. “You have seen rivers? Not just these”—he made a vaguely dismissive gesture with his free hand—“dry washes?” His knee was poking the side of her leg now, and there went the shivers again.

“Yeah. Back where I used to live, there were lots of rivers, lakes. Actually, I got lost once when I first got here because I thought the blue on the map meant water and not maybe a little water once in a while. And so I kept on driving way past my turn because I was looking for the river.”

Rai nodded vigorously. “It is frustrating.”

“Well, I could have solved it by letting my phone guide me. But as you may have noticed, planning ahead is not my forte.”

“Nor mine.” His gaze flickered to her lips. “Though sometimes I try.”

“Do you?” Poppy shifted closer to him, so that he was looking more down at her than over. “Are you planning something devious right now?”

He smiled, slow and wicked, and Poppy licked her lips. “Perhaps,” he said in a silky, low voice.

“A bank heist?” She traced one of the waves on his shirt with her fingertip. The design was growing on her. It was just so…touchable. Perfect for plausibly deniable caresses.

He shook his head. “I have no need of money.”

That gave Poppy a little twinge of discomfort, but she ignored it.

“Well then… Selling stolen toilet paper on the black market?” He laughed in response, and she giggled and wracked her brain for another suggestion, something to bring out more of that rich laughter.

“That’s right, you don’t need the money.

Um… I got it! You’re going to rearrange all the books on my shelves by color. ”

Another head shake, another laugh. “I am going to kiss you,” he murmured, lowering his eyelids. “But very deviously.”

“Oh,” she whispered, trembling as he leaned closer. “I mean, I’d…I’d figured that’s where we were headed, with the banter and the looks and the flirty stuff but I didn’t expect you to just say—”

He stopped her babbling with his lips, and oh god, they were devious, cool and firm, gently coaxing and begging her to surrender, and she didn’t need to be asked twice.

She slid her hand over his shoulder and into his perfect waves of hair—dizzily thinking how it wasn’t fair that it was still silky and untangled even after driving with an open window, except no, it was fair, it was fair to her , getting to have her fingers in it—and opened her mouth to him, eagerly seeking out his tongue.

He rumbled in his throat and shifted over her, his free hand stroking along her body as they kissed and kissed, the cool breeze rippling across them.

It was lazy and delicious, and it wasn’t enough.

Not with Poppy’s brain still twitching from the disaster of an evening.

She wanted to lose herself, or maybe find herself, and so she grabbed his politely stroking hand and moved it somewhere less polite—up under her shirt to her breast. They gasped together and he drew back, looking at the lump of their hands beneath the fabric as he traced along the edges of her bra, cool fingertips leaving heat in their wake.

“What is this?” he whispered.

Poppy giggled. “It’s a breast.”