Page 71 of Ablaze

Dean pulls up a traffic app on his phone to see if we can get any more information. “The highway is just highlighted in red for miles ahead.” He glances at me. “It might take us through the night to get there.”

I groan, watching our wipers push snow this way and that. “We’ll need to stop for food soon. I need to pee, too.”

Dean sighs. “Can you hold out another hour or so? If I see an exit, I’ll pull off and we can look for food.”

I smile at him, that same warmth I usually feel around him settling over. “Thanks for being here with me. This would have been a lot scarier and more frustrating if you weren’t here.”

He purses his lips. “So, you’re saying there’s something more frustrating than me?”

“Marginally,” I deadpan. “You’ve been beaten by pelting snow and bumper-to-bumper traffic, but believe me, you’re still number two on my list of most frustrating things.”

He chuckles softly and, as usual, I store the sound away somewhere for me to retrieve later. A tightness pulls at my chest, knowing I won’t hear it as readily as I did over the past eight years and now, it’ll mainly be through the phone when I do.

I try to shove away the gloom by pressing another smile on my face. “Want to play a game?” At his raised brow, I continue, “We’re just sitting here; might as well use the time to get to know each other even better.”

Dean puts my car into park with the engine still running, spreading out his long jean-clad thighs. God, why do I find his thighs so sexy? Actually, it’s his whole frame that I find irresistible. All six-feet-three of him.

“Alright. What do you have in mind?” His blue eyes, reminiscent of beautiful sunny days unlike today, twinkle back at me.

I tap my lip, pretending to think. Truth is, I’d already settled on the game minutes ago. “What’s something I don’t know about you? Something you’ve never shared with me.”

I see his eyes snag on my lips before he licks his own. It’s such a small movement, the barest of gestures, but it has my breath catching on an exhale.

I amend my previous question, clearing my throat. “And don’t give me something dull, like you weren’t fully potty-trained until you were six or that you’ve spit your gum into a church donation box twice–once by accident and the second because you were feeling naughty. I want something juicy. Something embarrassing.”

Dean's bewildered and judgmental glance has me lifting my shoulders. “What? It took me a while to get out of my Pull-Ups. Apparently, Aristotle and Einstein didn’t get out of their Pull-Ups well into their teens. It’s a sign of extremely high intellect.”

“Clearly,” Dean deadpans. “Think a lot about Aristotle in his Pull-Ups, do you? Is that what does it for you?”

I turn my nose up. “Na-uh. You don’t get to turn the tables on me just yet. If you want to ask me my most embarrassing secret, then you’ll have to wait your turn. I’ll throw you a bone, though.” I wink at him. “Thinking about Aristotle in Pull-Ups from time to time isn’t the worst one of them.”

Dean shakes his head disgustedly at me, as if he’s seeing me in a completely new light. “What the hell kinda shit goes on in that head of yours? You’ve gotta get it checked.”

I stab my index into his bicep. “Stop deflecting.”

The cars ahead of us inch forward a few feet, and Dean pulls forward to follow before stopping once again, but I can tell he’s taking the time to think.

Meanwhile, I take the time to stroll my eyes over the smooth skin of his neck, the broad stretch of his chest, and what I know are rows upon rows of delectable abs underneath his sweater. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing them on more than one occasion in the summer when we’ve gone to the lake and a few times when he didn’t know I was being a Peeping Tom while he changed inside his bedroom as I sat on the couch in the living room. The way I see it, if he really didn’t want me to see, then he should have closed his door.

I smile thinking about the very first time I went to his house with the treats he demanded as ransom for keeping my secret of burning down someone’s oven on my first weekend here. He was bare-chested then too, and subsequently the star of several of my fantasies where he was Tarzan and I was Jane.

He’d pull me up against a tree–bare chest heaving and wet, shoulder-length hair tousled to perfection, cut biceps quivering–before pulling my thighs up around his waist. He’d enter me in one go and pound his fist on his chest like the warrior-beast he was before growling, “You’re mine, Jane! Just mine.”

Things get weird inside my head from time to time, and I hadn’t been laid in a while back then.

Okay, so maybe I do need to make that appointment to get my head checked.

“The first time I jacked off was to the vision of a nun.”

I’m just taking a sip of water from my bottle when Dean answers, and I have to quickly put my hand over my mouth so I don’t spray it all over my dashboard.

My mouth is hanging on the floor, post-sip, before I quickly make the sign of the cross in front of my chest. “Jesus!” I wince and then look up at the gray sky in apology. “No pun intended. But seriously, Dean, what the fuck? Did finding porn online not do it for you like the rest of the pimple-faced teen population?”

His smile turns mischievous. “This was online. I had a little fetish for nuns at that age. I think it was after Grams made us watch The Sound of Music one Christmas.” He tilts his head, giving me a oh-stop-being-so-judgmental look. “Didn’t you just say you spit your gum into a church donation box on purpose?”

“It was merely an example of something one might do,” I reply haughtily.

“Uh huh,” he replies. “It seemed more detailed than a might-do. More like a did-do. And you must realize I wasn’t the only kid in history to jack off to Julie Andrews.”

---