Page 53 of Long Road Home

It was the final hint I needed to slam away all the runaway thoughts I’d had, all the additional ones Rebecca and Allison had given me.

This was dinner. Two people catching up. Hell, he probably only wanted to take me into town so if anyone was a jerk to me, he could handle it. It was something a friend would do. I should have been thankful. But as he followed me to the truck, holding the door open and barely saying anything, it still felt like I’d stepped in a pile of cow manure. So far, this wasn’t exactly the night I’d hoped for.

Eighteen

Jordan

Wantto know what hell is? Stepping up to the house of the only woman you’ve ever loved, picking her up for a date like it was high school all over again. Sweaty palms and a racing heart included, only to have her open the door looking like a siren and it was her job to steal my soul, suck me into her web and never let me up for breath.

Destiny was in my truck. The sweet hint of her perfume invaded my brain and every time she shifted her legs, I caught a glimpse of her trim, tanned thighs. I was almost rock hard and ready to say screw the date.

Fuck me sideways, I could barely say anything when I first caught sight of Destiny, wearing a bright green short, short dress, a halter top where the front dipped down giving me more than a passing glance at her cleavage, and the back was open, only a tie at the neck keeping her breasts hidden from me. I feared I’d grunt something caveman-like along the lines of “Bed. Woman. Fuck. Mine.” Then we’d never make it to dinner.

But the awkward levels were growing exponentially as I weaved through town, roads I knew better than the back of my hands, and the music was quiet enough I could still hear her breathing next to me.

Destiny. Alone with me in my Escalade that was a definite step up from Grandpa’s rusty truck I used to drive. A vortex of memories I thought I’d banished long ago assaulted me, along with the desperate need to know if she still tasted the same.

“So. Everything go okay at Rebecca’s?” I asked and cringed out the side window. God, I’d barked it like an animal.

She huffed. “Did you have a bad day? If something happened, we don’t have to do dinner.”

I was apparently transparent as glass. I was also ruining the first date I’d had with Destiny in a decade, and the first time I’d been able to spend a decent amount of time alone with her since she returned. I had to pull my shit together.

Once I was sure I would sound marginally normal, I replied, “No. Just things on my mind. Nothing bad though.”

Like tugging at the tie of her dress so her breasts would spill into my hands…my mouth.

Nope. No bad thoughts here.

I adjusted my legs and willed my hard dick to settle.

“If you’ve got something on your mind, we don’t have to go out. We can go eat at my place.”

My hand moved before I could stop it, settled right on the heat of her thigh, singeing me. Arrows tipped with a pleasurable pain shot straight to my already hardening dick. Then I did something dumber. I curled my fingers around her, felt her muscles tighten beneath me, heard the hitch in her breath, saw the way she licked her lips as if me touching her was thebest fucking thingto ever happen to her.

“I’ll be good.” I was better just having my hand on her. Strange when a week ago I wanted to throttle her. “I was thrown earlier. I’m good now.”

“Thrown by what?” She was staring at my hand. Eyes wide. Muscles taut. Barely breathing.

She was feeling the same damn thing coursing through my system. Could this really be happening? Us? Again? She’d already made the first move by asking me out tonight. If there was a chance in hell we could make something good again, we had to be in this together.

I threw down the gauntlet. “I was thrown by how beautiful you were. Prettier than you ever were when I used to walk up to that door excited to see you. It all just hit me, and you were there, looking like you look.”

I turned the corner while keeping my hand on her thigh and pulled into Down Home’s parking lot. It was busy for a Friday night, not packed at barely after seven considering most of the old people came for the senior special that ended at five-thirty, but there was a decent crowd.

“Des?” I asked when she hadn’t responded at all. I shifted in my seat and turned to face her. “Hey. You okay?”

“You said—”

“I know what I said. I know what I felt. But what I’m asking is if you’re really okay going in there?”

Her eyes slowly lifted from my hand to the front windshield to the row of windows along the side of Down Home. All the booths along the side we could see were taken which meant we’d be at a table in the middle, front and center, for all to see. “We can go somewhere else.”

“No. I need to do this. And you’re here. Who’d be dumb enough to mess with me?”

Lots of people. I didn’t tell her the truth. “I’m here.” I squeezed her thigh again and forced myself to pull away from her. “And we’ll be good. Promise.”

She grabbed her purse, turned to me, and plastered on the bravest and yet fakest smile I’d ever seen. It was so bad I was laughing as I climbed out to get her door. “Let’s do this.”

---