Long Shot

Chapter 21

Jen stayed at the games until Chris struck his last fiddle note and the applause died. The music tent had long since been cleared of families, and all that remained were drunken, happy adults. The buses fired up in the parking lot, ready to take the last people back to Westbury, and locals were stumbling home, shouting “See you tomorrow” across the fields.

“Look at that smile,” Leith said, taking her hand and turning her toward him.

She hadn’t been aware of what her face was doing, but now that he said it, she could feel the stretch of her cheeks and the satisfaction in her heart. “It was a good night. Now I think I’m ready for bed.” Her free hand fumbled for her phone as she checked the time. She whistled. “A few hours of sleep before I have to be back here at six.”

The fingers twining with hers tightened, pulling her closer. Shoving her phone back into her purse, she looked up at Leith. Heat sparked in his dark eyes. She knew that look. She knew it, and loved it.

“No sleep yet,” he said. “Come with me.”

As if she had a choice, or desire, not to.

She willingly let him lead her to the parking lot, where the remaining cars were humming to life and pulling away.

“Where’s your truck?”

He looked sidelong at her with a shit-eating grin, eyebrows disappearing beneath the shag of hair. “No truck tonight.”

Jen blinked, finally recognizing what vehicle sat directly in front of her.

“Wow, you still have it?”

“Yep. It’s been sitting in Mildred’s garage, the one at the Old Lady Museum. I couldn’t let it stay down at Da’s. Until the other day, it was the only thing I’d taken away from there.”

Leith exhaled and reached out to run a hand over the gorgeous, low tail fin of Mr. MacDougall’s 1969 Cadillac DeVille convertible. The robin’s-egg blue was exactly as she remembered, as well as the gleam of the white leather seats. The car was as long as a boat and could easily fit three bodies in the trunk. Leith touched it with reverence. Unlike the day he’d dropped her off to look for his father’s scrapbooks, there was no pain, no loss on his face. Only wistfulness. Only love.

Come to think of it, that’s exactly what she’d sensed in him all night.

He walked slowly toward the driver’s side door, hand trailing along the blue, those heated eyes lingering on Jen. She could feel them as strongly as she could feel the cool metal of the car beneath her fingertips.

He glanced pointedly at the backseat. “I want to have sex with you in my car.”

Her first instinct was to laugh, but since he looked so serious, she didn’t. Instead, she studied him. “Trying to relive the past?” Because if he was, this thing between them, whatever it was, wouldn’t last.

He shook his head. “No, not trying to relive anything. You are you, and I am me, and I want us to make new memories. Tonight. Before we both leave Gleann for good. Look, I don’t have a house of my own and the thought of spending our last night here with Mildred’s ghost really doesn’t appeal to me. I’m sure as hell not taking you back to Da’s, and the Thistle is booked up. So can we please have sex in my car? Please?”

She licked her lips to keep from smiling. “Not behind the produce stand.”

Finally he grinned. “Now that would be trying to relive the past. No, I’ve got a better place in mind.”

While he drove he held her hand, and even though it could be labeled as a childish form of affection, right then it felt wonderfully adult and intimate. And, oddly, a little sad.

He brought her to the gravel ramp where day-trippers could back their boats into the lake. Trees and tall grass bent over them and the crescent moon dangled crookedly over the water. The stars were out again, Jen thought as he shut off the engine and turned his whole huge torso toward her, just as he’d done their first night together, here in this very car. New memories, she told herself. New memories.

You are you, and I am me.

Leith had one leg bent on the seat, the other thrust under the dashboard, his kilt draped between his knees. He looked like he wanted to devour her.

She pushed herself up and slipped through the opening between the front seats, plopping down in the familiar back. The smell of the leather chucked her into the past, but the sight of Leith, with his longer hair and more powerful body and incredibly masculine confidence, grounded her firmly in the present.

The backseat was wide and deep, and the leather creaked under his weight as he joined her. Expectant, she came to her knees beside him. A slow grin widened his mouth, and he reached around to grab the back of her neck and pull her into him. She took that smile, kissed it right off his face, and licked at the lust dripping off his tongue.

He groaned, his fingers tightening, pressing her mouth harder against his. Then he was grabbing her around her hips, lifting her like a toy, and settling her to straddle his lap like she’d done at the Amber Lounge. Subtle pressure on her hips told her how he wanted her to move, and she gave him a long, slow undulation. It shoved the kilt higher up his thighs. It rubbed her clit against him. She felt herself swell, tingle, go wet. Beneath her, he shuddered.

His abs contracted as he pushed up against her, hard-as-stone thighs flexing. His kiss was made of iron and silk, and it went on and on and on, until he finally broke it. She loved the sound of his ragged breath; she drank it like water.

“I don’t want to lose this,” he whispered in her ear. “I can’t lose you again.”

Pushing back, feeling the air struggle in her chest, she stared into his eyes. A powerful bolt, made of desire and dreams, ripped through her.

“You think I’m going to let you go? Sir, you don’t know how wrong you are.”

“Then show me.” A flash of white teeth. “And I’ll show you.”

She rose up, reached between her legs and tugged up his kilt. She’d already had him, already knew what he tasted and looked and felt like, but for some reason, at that moment, it all seemed brand new. She stroked him over his underwear. “Show me what?”

“New things,” he stuttered.

“Oh, reallllly?”

Then she was falling, tilting back and to the side under no power of her own. But she didn’t worry, not in the slightest, because she was in the arms of a man who had pretty much carried an entire town, and cared for a dying father, and thrown giant tree trunks all over a field.

The white leather sighed against her back. It cradled her and gave her up to Leith, whose body blocked out the stars above, but whose face was half lit by the moon. He tugged on the underside of her knees, tucking them around his hips. Why wasn’t he taking off her jeans? Her body was screaming for him, and it seemed like he just barely had his own under control. He settled himself between her legs, his kilt bunching up between them, his boots making hollow sounds as they struck the side of the interior.

Coming down to his elbows he took her in a tender cradle, his thumbs finding her face, his fingers wrapping around her scalp. Their eyes met, and she knew at that moment she’d never get enough of him, that she’d spoken the truth before. No way in hell was she letting this go. This—he—was hers. She’d earned it and he’d earned her. They’d met in a time of their lives when emotions were new and forming, and they’d barely known themselves. They’d had to separate and go make their own lives before finding each other again. She couldn’t look at it as ten years wasted without him, but instead ten years of growth, ten years of learning.

But now he’d put her under siege. There was no hope but to throw up her hands and declare herself conquered.

By the shift in his expression—a sudden clearing of his eyes, the smoothing of the skin around them and his mouth—she dared to think he might have come to a similar conclusion.

“Take off my jeans,” she said, toeing off one boot, but not being able to get enough leverage for both.

He kissed her, then pushed back with a mighty exhale. He yanked off her boots, tossed them into the front seat, and went to work on her jeans. With a rip of the snap and a furious yank on the zipper, his determination might have been comedic if her desperation didn’t echo his. She lifted her hips and he shimmied down the denim, stripping it off her legs, then stared, openmouthed, at the stretch of thin lace between her hip bones.

“Those, too,” she said stupidly, as if he needed direction.

He ran a slow finger just underneath the top edge of lace, back and forth, back and forth, teasing the hell out of her.

“Here’s my new thing for tonight.” His eyes flipped up to hers, and they looked gloriously depraved. “I would really love to try to make you come. Inside here.”

In one motion, his hand dove beneath her underwear and two fingers slipped inside her. So fast, so incredibly easy. The way was slick and welcoming, and she cried out at the pressure, then asked for more when he didn’t move at all. He just watched her, his fingers deep inside.

“You’re asking for more because you know it’s going to happen.” Damn cocksure man with the evil villain grin.

“Give it up, Leith.” She was having a hard time finding words that were true, because she sure as hell didn’t want him to give up. “It won’t. Or it’ll take way too long. I know myself.”

Hand still touching her intimately, he leaned down and kissed her.

“I love everything about you,” he murmured. “There’s no such thing as too long. You can take forever and I won’t mind.”

She snaked a hand underneath his kilt, this time not stopping at the barrier of his underwear. She dove inside it, sighing at the feel of steel and soft skin as it filled her palm.

Suddenly he froze, grimacing. “You’ve got something, right? I should’ve asked. Or I should’ve brought them myself.”

She had to smile. “I wouldn’t have gotten in the backseat if I didn’t. My purse.”

He delicately extricated himself from her grip, reached over the front seat, and rummaged around until he found the inner side pocket with the condoms. Shoving down his underwear, but keeping on his boots and kilt, he hurriedly put the thing on. The rush didn’t bother her. She didn’t care. She didn’t want time; she just wanted him.

The moon gave her only one half of his lust-twisted face. The rest of his body was in dim outline, and she tugged at his T-shirt, pulling it free so that she could run her hands up his chest and feel all that power captured inside him.

Curling his fingers around her underwear, he pulled the lace down and snapped it off her leg, letting her go as wide as she needed to be for him. The feel of the kilt wool rasping against her inner thighs was exquisite . . . but not nearly as good as the feel of him inside her.

The entrance was slow and steady, a push that had them both gasping, their eyes locked on where they were joined. He started to move with deep, long motions that rocked the car. She clamped around him. She couldn’t watch anymore, her head falling back to the seat. But he was so deep inside her, moving so well and so smoothly, that she couldn’t stay blind for long. When she opened her eyes, he was staring into her face. There was such severity on his, a deep concentration.

And there was such deliberation with his body, that huge thing that he could use so gently. He was strong but also giving. He was two beings at once, and everything in between, and he was taking her completely out of her mind.

This wasn’t fucking. It wasn’t even sex. Somewhere, between blow jobs in the parking lot and here in the backseat, this whole act had transformed into—oh boy, she never thought she’d be able to even think the term without giggling—making love.

Thinking that, even though the term was antiquated and silly, sent a surge of emotion through her, enhancing the gift of his physical sensations. Something about his movement, his strokes, was different that night. Special. They were powerful and focused, and they were doing things to her she instinctively knew were right.

Still, she needed . . . she needed a hand between them, rubbing where she wanted, giving her that extra push, throwing her over the edge. She needed it now, now, now. But there was no space, and he wasn’t giving her any time to think.

Leith touched his forehead to hers, his hair brushing her skin. He gave a mighty thrust, curling upward. It dragged something out from deep inside her, and she let out a ragged cry. He did it over and over, for more minutes than she could ever count. On and on, for forever and a day. Her hands scrabbled at the leather, looking for . . . what? Purchase? Something to hold on to and ride out this wave? Him?

His voice rumbled low. “I found it, didn’t I?”

“Leith . . . oh, God . . .”

He pulled out again, thrust back in in that upward motion. There.

“Stop fighting it. Let go.” Then against her ear: “Be mine.”

This was her last stand, the last measure of control she had over herself when she was around him. But why was she clinging to it? Why wasn’t she letting go? Was she every bit the control freak Aimee and Leith and so many others had made her out to be? If she was fighting it, it wasn’t deliberate.

He pushed in again and again, finding and stroking that invisible spot inside, despite the fact she’d convinced her body it didn’t exist or that it had somehow died or gone numb over the years. The rhythm changed, ramping up, his accompanying grunts turning to music in her ears. The motion pressed the top of her head against the side of the car, and she put her palms to the wall, pushing off. The resistance drove Leith in even deeper.

His knees were wedged under her legs, lifting up her body, crunching her into the tiny space, completely at his mercy. No room to twist away or do what she wanted. No room to be anything but his.

You are you, and I am me.

And I am yours, she thought.

Tremors started inside her vagina, and slowly, achingly radiated out through her body. She wanted to speak, to tell him what he was doing was magic, but she couldn’t find her voice. It had flown straight up into the stars.

“Don’t . . . stop,” she finally got out.

“That’s my girl.”

“Don’t stop,” she said again. And again, and again.

He obeyed, timing his thrusts to her words, until a brand new kind of orgasm, born of a secret place, stole her body and replaced it with a quivering, hot mass of skin and bone. She could feel sweat break out all over her skin, the warm night air sweeping over it, and Leith touching her everywhere. She was flying, her body weightless and sensitive. When she came down, he was still holding her, still moving urgently inside her, and it created a new fear—that this night, what he’d made her feel, had splintered her veins with cracks, and any move away from him would make her shatter.

She was still pulsing when she opened her eyes. Leith was still looking at her, but he wasn’t smiling. There was a beautiful animal inside him, a man of such strength whom she’d reduced to this driving need. Forget throwing giant weights around a field; this was power.

“Oh, my God.” He shuddered, grinding out her name between his teeth. Then he, too, disappeared into orgasm. She could feel him through the condom, and then his whole body turned shaky and unstable. She watched it all in a strange kind of wonder.

As he pulled out, wedged his arms underneath her back, and collapsed on top of her, she welcomed the weight. They clung so tightly to one another, she didn’t know if she’d ever be able to unhook her legs from around his hips, or her arms from around his neck. He crushed her, combined with her, and it was the most sacred feeling.

She felt blindsided by her emotions. She’d driven up to Gleann two weeks ago to put on a good party to help her sister and to honor the memory of her aunt, and instead she’d found . . . him. Leith. Never in a million years had she expected this. It certainly wasn’t something she’d been looking for. As Leith had put it, she had that “crazy job” that had long prevented her from even considering a relationship with serious undertones. Or maybe that had been her just making excuses.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized that how she felt now had everything to do with him. This never would have happened with another man, at any other time in her life. The timing, his presence, who they both were now—everything had aligned. It had nothing to do with orgasms and everything to do with her heart.

Ten years ago—or three years ago, or five and a half years ago—they might have tried to fit back together and found that the teeth and grooves in their respective gears didn’t quite match up. But somehow, being the people they were today, and finding each other again under these specific circumstances, the machine snapped together and ran way too smoothly.

Leith drew a deep breath as if to say something, but Jen cut him off. “If you want to live, do not say ‘I told you so.’”

As he lifted his head, the moonlight showed his feline grin. “I told you so.”

“Argh!” She futilely pressed at his shoulders. “Get off.”

“No.” He kissed away her protest, and she tried to hate that it worked. “I believe you were the one who got off. With me inside you. Just like I said you would.”

Involuntarily, her arms went around him again, the low rumble of his laugh against her chest.

He helped her dress in silence, passing her articles of clothing. All he had to do was pull up his underwear and smooth down his kilt. But she loved how it had gotten wrinkled, that his T-shirt was now crooked and untucked.

As he drove her back to Maple Avenue, she worried he might veer off the road, he kept looking over at her so much. He pulled the car into Mildred’s garage and as they got out, the sound of the Cadillac’s car door slamming brought back a forceful memory. Her, getting out of the Cadillac in front of the Thistle, then running around back to the garage apartment before Aunt Bev would wake up.

Jen turned to Leith, only to find he was already watching her from where he stood on the other side of the car, arms folded across his chest.

She knew full well what she’d told him back in New York, that they would try to make this work again, but was that a fantasy? A delusion? Had they been swept up by something way too quickly? They were two adults, standing in the small town in which they’d formed their friendship twenty years ago, so very far away from their current realities. The second they left this valley for good, would the glistening, sparkling bubble pop?

“Come on.” He walked to the trunk of the big, beautiful car, holding out his hand to her. “Now you’re allowed to sleep.”

She went to him willingly, because that’s what her heart demanded. As he folded her into his body in an embrace she could only describe as loving, she thought: I am in deep, deep shit.