Page 41 of No Judgements

And he wasn’t exactly urging me not to. His tongue had launched a pretty thorough exploration of the inside of my mouth while both his big, calloused hands cupped mybreasts through my soaked T-shirt and bra. With the rain pouring down in torrents around us, we were steaming up the windows of the truck. But I didn’t care, because who was going to walk by to see us?

It was only when he started leaning me back against the pickup’s bench seat and was skillfully peeling off my shirt while murmuring, “Let’s go to my place,” that I suddenly remembered where we were... in Drew Hartwell’s truck.

That’s when I sat up... so abruptly that I almost head-butted him. “What?”

He sat up, too, after tugging on his cargo shorts to better accommodate his burgeoning erection—which I’d felt, long and rock hard against my thigh. “I said let’s go to my place. I hate making love in cars. I’m too tall. And your place is about to flood—”

“Your place on thebeach?Are you insane?”

“I already told you, it’s built to withstand hurricane force—”

What was I doing? This was so not part of how I was supposed to be living my life right now. I was not supposed to be making out with guys—even insanely hot ones—in trucks. I was supposed to be getting my shit together, not doing... well, whatever this was.

I yanked my shirt back into place. “I’m not spending the hurricane with you on the beach, Drew. All of my stuff is at your aunt’s house. My cat is—”

“I like your cat. We can go get your cat.”

“So he can die, too? No, thank you.”

“No one is going to die.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Of course I don’t know that. But you could just as easily die crossing the street and being hit by a bus any day of the week—”

“Can we just agree that one’s chances of dying in a hurricane are statistically higher if you stay in a house on the beach than if you stay in a house farther inland?”

“I’ll agree that it depends on the house.”

“Oh my God.” I turned to wipe away some of the steam on the passenger-side window so I could look out at the rain. The crotch of my panties, the only part of me that had been dry, was now just as soaked as the rest of me. “Just drop me back off at your aunt’s.”

“Okay, fine. But I’m not staying there. You are a very attractive woman and I want to be with you in the worst way, but not if it means spending this hurricane at my auntie’s house eating her lemon pudding cake.”

I sent him a withering glance. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. It was only a kiss.”

“Only a kiss?” He leaned forward to turn on the engine. “I think we both know that was a little more than a kiss, Fresh Water.”

“Where I come from, that was a standard greeting,” I said, glad that the cold air blowing on me from the air-conditioning in the dashboard could be my excuse if he noticed that my nipples were rock hard.

“Oh, so you put your tongue in the mouths of all the guys who help you with your seat belt?”

“Basically.”

“Fresh Water, I lived in New York for three years and I never saw anyone kiss their cabbie for helping them with their seat belt.”

“Well, you probably didn’t travel in the right circles.”

“Oh, okay. Whatever you say.”

We drove the rest of the way in silence, which was a mercy, since I didn’t feel like talking. What had I been thinking, kissing him like that? Now I’d started something I really didn’t need, much less want or have time for. He was Drew Hartwell, the last guy on the island any girl who’d sworn off men should be messing with.

And he wasn’t even my type... if I had a type, which I wasn’t sure I did. But if I did, it wouldn’t be him. He was too sarcastic, and he often seemed to struggle to wear an actual shirt, and he drove a pickup truck—worse, a pickup truck that stank of wet dog fur and that he seemed often to have left parked overnight in front of multiple women’s homes.

There were signs of Drew’s beloved four-legged pack everywhere, from abandoned leashes to chew toys littering the truck’s floor to dog hair carpeting just about every available surface. Since I was so damp, a lot of the fur was sticking to me.

But I figured most of it would wash off in the rain once we got back to Drew’s aunt and uncle’s house and I helped him haul my scooter off the truck bed.

Except that when we started to pull into the driveway, I saw a figure waiting for us on the front porch. He wasbarely recognizable due to all the rain and the fact that he was dressed in full all-weather gear.