Page 89 of Bountiful
Some sort of self-preservation instinct kicked in, because I finally stepped away from him and fumbled my way intothecar.
Not well enough, though. By the time we were rolling down the road, I realized I was sitting in the passenger seat of my own car, while he drove. Dave’s kisses were obviously more mind-bending than strongliquor.
My temporary incapacitation must have been pretty obvious, because he drove me to the Gin Mill building instead of to his cottage. When he pulled into a parking spot outside the bar and shut the engine off, I had to finally look him intheeye.
“Beautiful,” he said in that smoky voice. “Let’s go upstairs and have a whole lotofsex.”
What?
I blinked at him for a long moment. “Who says that? It was just akiss,” I managedeventually.
“No.” He shook his head. “With you and me, it’s never justakiss.”
“What does that even mean?” I asked in a quietvoice.
He sighed, then broke our gaze to look out the window. “I know you think everything is complicated. But when you look at me with those big, hungry eyes, it all seems prettysimple.”
I didn’t want to have big hungry eyes, damn it. “We can’t. And the kiss was amistake.”
“You started it.” He turned to me again andsmiled.
Ungh. That smile was probably the reason I was a mother. This man’s sex appeal had probably been studied in a laboratory. And if it hadn’t been, itshouldbe.
“You keep that wolfish grin zipped up,” I said, scrambling for the door handle. “My mother is upstairs. You can’t just walk in with me, like, ‘Hey, Grandma! Just here for some morecasualsex!’”
He snorted and thenlaughed.
“Go home, Dave.” With that as my parting shot, I hastily opened my car door to make myescape.
ChapterTwenty-Six
Dave
Iwas smilingup at her, a big old grin on my face. I was going toargue.
But I lost my train of thought as Zara was suddenly illuminated. Her pale dress was brightly lit from the back, and her hair shone.Beautifulwas my only thought just before my synapses fired rapidly enough to clue me in on what washappening.
Those were headlights. And they weremovingfast.
I think I lunged even before I heard the squeal of tires. I thrust my body sideways, jamming the gearshift into my ribcage as I grabbed Zara’s body with both arms, yanking hard on her hips with all the torque I couldmuster.
Pulled off kilter, she tumbled back toward the seat. Her head and neck got caught on the car’s roof, and there was a sickening split-second when I wasn’t sure if I’ddoneit.
But then all of Zara came crashing into my arms. Her shriek was deafening as a pickup truck barreled alongside the car, snapping off Zara’s open passenger-side door as itzoomedby.
I heard the sound of skidding tires as the driver tried to stop and then a sickening crunch as the back corner of the truck’s bed swung into atelephonepole.
The truck finally stopped. But a moment later it leapt forward again, fishtailing in the gravel, thenacceleratingaway.
“He…!” Zara said. Another beat went by. She wriggled free of me, mouth open, one hand at her jaw. A big red mark was forming where it had hit the door frame as I’d yanked her back inside. “I…” She tried again to speak. But then she gazed outside again, trying to make sense of the gaping hole where her car doorhadbeen.
All I could see now was the mark on her jaw. And I realized I was still clenching one of her hands in a death grip. I made myself let go, and raised my hands to gently cup her head. “Areyou—”
“Yeah,it’sjust—”
“Is your…” I brushed a thumb across her jaw as gently as Icould.
“You… Youreally—”
