Page 77 of Stirring Up Love
Halfway to Tulsa, it started to rain.
Finn slapped the rain-slick trunk with frostbitten fingers. They’d pulled over on a side road to put up the roof, but the roof had other ideas.
Ten at night and they were stranded in middle-of-nowhere Oklahoma with a waterlogged rental car. His plan to win Simone over thwarted once again, this time by the double whammy of natural causes and shoddy technology.
“The tow truck will be here in half an hour.” Hunched next to him in the icy rain, Simone fumbled to get her phone back in her pocket.
“Half an hour?” He dragged a hand through his soaking hair. “Hopefully the insurance covers water damage.”
“Water damage,” Simone deadpanned, and then they were both bent double on the side of the feeder road, cracking up.
When he managed to get his breath back, Simone peered at him through the rainy darkness. “Darn it, Finn, can’t you manage to stay dry for once?” And then they were laughing all over again as she tugged him over to the car.
She climbed in and scooted over, and he vaulted over the side and landed next to her.
“Have you always wanted to do that?”
He nodded.
“Was it worth it?”
He nodded again.
“Good. Now get under here.” She opened her coat over their heads, and he grasped one side to create a canopy. “Can’t have you catching pneumonia.”
“I’m not that fragile,” he said through chattering teeth.
“Better safe than sorry.”
They huddled in the darkness, rain pelting the coat, the seats, everything around them. “Why are you taking this so well?” he asked after a few minutes of shivering.
She grinned, a flash of teeth in the gloom. “Channeling Finn.”
That caught him off guard. “Me?”
“Yeah, you seem really good at waiting. Among other things.”
“Referring of course to my cooking skills.”
“Those too.” She kept her face forward, but a soft smile tugged at the edge of her mouth.
He couldn’t get enough of her. The tiny freckles on her cheeks, the way her curls had expanded, grown into a dark cloud around her delicate face.
She angled a sideways look, bumped his shoulder with hers. “That was a hint.”
“I’m taking my time,” he said, and she gave one of those small, impatient huffs, and that’s when he bent and captured her parted lips in a kiss. His heart pinched tight in his chest when her lashes fluttered closed. He kept his own eyes open; they were on stolen time, and he didn’t want to miss a moment of Simone.
Their hands created an arbor with the coat while all around, rain pattered down. A curtain of sound, like they were kissing in a cave behind a waterfall.
He clasped her knee, and she hummed against his mouth and fisted her free hand in the front of his shirt. Gosh, did she know how crazy that made him? He lost his grip on the coat, and it fell on top of them, a tent blown over in the wind.
Laughing, they battled their way out from under the weighty fabric, and then she was on his lap, above him, and yeah, he’d stay under Simone’s sway any day. Their tongues slid against one another, a relentless, rushing stream. The wind kicked up and sent icy rain pummeling into them.
“We should probably—” She pulled back, resting her forehead against his.
“Yeah, probably.” But he tilted his chin up and sucked on her lower lip until she breathed out a moan and dodged her mouth down to his. The heady rush of heat from Simone’s mouth, her hands, her body, swept away the last of his reservations.
Stranded in the elements with Simone, he’d found his place. On Monday she might take everything and leave him stranded, but for now she was in his arms. His shelter from the storm.
