Page 24

CHAPTER 23

JILL

I didn’t even know drive-in theaters still existed, but someone had revamped the old one that had been across from a water park in Saco. Grady was practically buzzing as he backed us into a spot and tuned the radio to the right station for us to hear the movie.

I looked around, giving him a questioning look. “I think the screen’s back there,” I said, pointing over my shoulder.

“Oh, really?” He looked back where I was pointing and then at all the cars facing the opposite direction parked beside us. “Shit.” Flipping down the visors on both sides he pointed at the mirrors. “I guess we can watch in those.”

“Grady!”

He laughed, pinching my thigh. “Hop out, smarty pants.”

Following him to the back of the truck he popped the tailgate down and unhooked the bed cover I hadn’t noticed before. Rolling the black cover back toward the cab he revealed a mattress and blankets and pillows. He had an entire bed in the back of his truck and by the time he looked back at me my jaw was hanging open. I’d never seen anything like it.

“Wow.”

He rounded the tailgate, bumping me with his shoulder. “Wow, huh?”

The way his expression was lit up, like a kid in a candy store, made it hard to breathe. “This is…” It felt like too much. Way too much for something that was really just a summer fling. But Grady was shaking his head, anticipating the words I hadn’t gotten out.

“This is the kind of thing everyone should do at least once.”

I dropped my eyes to the ground. “Well, twice for you, I guess.”

He tapped the tailgate, a wordless invitation for me to climb up into the bed he’d made for us. “Not exactly.”

“Oh?” I pushed up on my hands, rolling onto my side into the soft, cozy bedding.

Grady was watching me roll around like a beached seal, his eyes crinkling as he shook his head. “I’ve never brought a woman to one on a date.”

Somehow I found that hard to believe. But I didn’t particularly want to imagine Grady doing this with anyone else, so I let it drop. We’d snuggled into our little nest by the time a concession worker walked by with a cooler of ice creams to choose from. Grady got a red, white, and blue Turbo Rocket and I went for the Strawberry Sunday Crunch.

“So,” he said between bites, his lips red and glistening from the ice cream. My eyes were glued to them as he spoke. “How are you with scary movies?”

My hand froze in mid-air, because we both knew what my answer was going to be. “Not my fave,” I said, feeling bad for poking a hole in the fun night he’d planned.

I hated scary movies, even though everyone else in my family loved them. They used to hold an annual watch party at my parents’ house for the whole neighborhood each fall and I never made it past the opening credits before I’d sneak out and hide in my room.

“Okay. Do you consider Jaws a scary movie?”

All the air sagged out of me. “No, god, that’s a classic. I thought you meant one of those slasher films.”

His cheek dimpled as he looked at me sideways. “Jilly, did you really think I’d bring you to one of those?”

Taking in the bedding piled up under me, the bottles of water he’d tossed in the middle of the mattress, and the perfect view we had of the screen over the tops of the cars in front of us, I felt a little foolish. “Sorry. Of course not.”

He finished his popsicle and held out a hand for my stick before tucking both in a bag beside him. “No need to apologize. Now get over here.” Grady shifted, patting the spot between his legs as he leaned into the pillows stacked against the cab. The credits were starting and through the window behind us we could make out the sounds of the opening bonfire scene from the truck’s radio.

I’d been perfectly comfortable next to him, but as soon as I settled inside Grady’s legs and leaned back against his chest I felt more safe and secure than I could ever remember. Not even the sight of the young girl getting eaten by a terrifyingly huge shark could upset me with his body wrapped around mine.

“You okay?” he whispered after the gruesome scene was over, his lips brushing the shell of my ear.

“Mmmhmm.” I sighed, letting my arm rest on his thigh. Closing my eyes I could feel his heart beating against my back. It was strong, and going faster than mine. “Are you?” I asked, twisting to look at him over my shoulder.

“How could I not be, Jilly?” he asked, his profile lit up by the screen as he licked his lips, his eyes on my mouth.

I suddenly understood why his heart was racing, and mine sped up at the realization. I crossed my legs, trying to stifle the fresh pulse point hammering between them. But when I adjusted myself I unknowingly grazed him and he groaned, low and guttural in my ear.

“Easy, beautiful, or neither of us will be okay for long.”

The strain in his voice had my pussy clenching, and I swear to god he must have felt me shift again because his hands took hold of my waist and pinned me still in front of him.

“I meant what I said about not just wanting to fuck you, Jill. But making you come right here, right now, is very much on the table. Especially if you keep pushing that perfect fucking ass into my cock.”

His voice was so low, I knew no one else could have heard him, but I felt scandalized just the same.

And I liked it.

I was still for a second, just long enough for his grip on me to loosen, and then I did it again, harder this time. I tilted my hips, rotating them back into him until I felt where he was pressed against the zipper of his shorts so hard it had to be painful.

He tsked, but there was humor in his voice when he said, “My smarty pants wants to play, huh?”

I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted, but everything about Grady was turning me on. His thighs bunching when I moved and the thick solid muscle pressing my legs closer together. His voice, dark and low and yet still so careful. Even the heat of his breath as it skittered across my neck.

I was so engulfed by him, my senses so keyed up, I almost jumped when I felt his hands trailing over my hips, and dipping between my thighs to pry them apart.

“Do you trust me?”

It was a stupid question, because he had to have known I already did. But I nodded, letting him slowly force my thighs against his, giving him room to slip one hand between my legs while the other gathered the lightweight fabric of my dress and moved it out of his way.

“How quiet do you think you can be, beautiful? Cause we can’t have another outburst like we did at the pool.”

Just the mention of that night had me squirming, and Grady’s husky laugh filled my ears.

“I’ve thought about it too,” he admitted, his fingertip tracing a delicate line up my slit and back down again, coasting over the fabric of my thong with torturous lightness. “Even when I knew I shouldn’t, I’ve played that scene out.” He fisted the fabric in his hand, tugging it to the side as he pressed me back into him. The low growl that rumbled through his chest shook me, and I gripped his thighs with both hands.

“Did you think about it too?” he asked. His voice was barely more than a whisper, but I still heard it—how much he wanted to hear me say I had.

“Of course I did,” I hissed, keeping my voice as low as I could while he sped up his movements.

“ Fuck, Jill ,” he sighed, shifting to press himself into my back again, rubbing himself against me as if the friction would be enough to get him off.

When I went to reach behind me, desperate to touch him just like I was that night, he growled. Grabbing my wrist and putting my hand back on his thigh.

“Not tonight. Tonight I want you to come apart for me, just like this. I want you to come without this whole drive-in knowing I’ve got my fingers inside you.”

I whimpered, squirming as he pulled the fabric of my thong out of the way and his fingertip finally grazed my clit. The touch jolted through me, rocking me back into his now steel erection, and sending his breath gusting out of him.

As he moved his hand, fingers revolving in circles around my clit, but not touching it, his breathing steadied. “You didn’t believe me before when I said I’d never brought a woman on a date like this.”

He slipped a finger between my folds, curling it up inside me. The invasion stole my breath, and I shivered when he rubbed my clit with the slickness now covering his hand. I hoped he wasn’t expecting me to carry on this conversation. He’d given me one thing to focus on, and the more he touched me the more I doubted I’d be able to meet his demand. Speaking was entirely out of the question.

“But it’s true.” He panted, his breath quickening the same as his movements. “This is a first for both of us.” He paused, rotating his hips so I could feel the tip of his cock brush up against my back. I pushed back into him, pressing his erection between us, and he froze, a moan catching in his throat.

“You like having one of my firsts, too, beautiful?” I was losing track of how many times he’d called me that, but it did something to me every time he did. It wound through me like the orgasm he was stoking with every thrust of his fingers, every circle of his thumb. The man had expert hands and he was using them to unravel me in the same short order he had the first time in the pool.

“ Yes ,” I admitted, even though I couldn’t really think about what that really meant with him knuckles deep inside me. “I want to touch you,” I gasped, my nails digging into his thighs as I fought the urge to grab onto what I really wanted.

He sank his teeth into the flesh of my shoulder, biting down as he thrust into my pussy with gaining speed. “Me too, baby,” he whispered, sucking a line up my neck, and panting into my ear. “I want every part of you, Jill. Your hands, your mouth, this fucking tight pussy,” he nipped at my ear right as he pressed against my clit and my body bent, the orgasm so close my vision was going dark. “You want that?”

I mumbled incoherently, blinded by the need to come, the orgasm barreling toward me as he kept rubbing my clit in the same spot over and over. His hand never stopped moving, even as I felt Grady rocking behind me. His breath was coming out in choppy broken grunts and I could feel him starting to shake.

“Are you . . .” I couldn’t get the rest out, but I didn’t need to.

“Yes, come with me,” he hissed, his face buried in the crook of my neck as I shot over the edge.

I slammed my eyes shut, forcing my lips closed as the orgasm ripped through me. Grady ground into me from behind, his free arm banding around me as he pumped his hips once, twice, and then a deep aching groan shook through him as he came. Wet heat shot up my back as I fought to regain my breath, utterly convinced I’d never experienced anything so hot in my entire life.