Page 41 of Drilled

We drove on in silence until the truck finally rolled to a stop in his usual parking spot in the alley beside my house. The second the ignition cut, I rummaged around in my bag and pulled out a credit card.

“Here, take this,” I said, handing it over to him. “Nance and I are working on getting my mom off my back and the hold on my account reversed. Until then, feel free.”

He took it from me and I smiled, still embarrassed from my disgraceful attempts at flirting earlier, then tried to escape. But just as I touched the latch, the heavy plastic lock pins near the window glass snapped down flush into the door panel with a mechanical clack-thud.

He’d locked the doors. I looked at Bear in confusion.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t done. There’s something I need to tell you before you get out of this truck,” he said. When I looked at him more closely, I was surprised at the contrast between his calm, typical-Bear voice and the softness of his dark eyes. The command and authority wasn’t there anymore.

He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

“Lane, I’m sure you’ve noticed already but I have…I have certain feelings for you. I’m not sure you understand just how deep they run. It’s because of what I feel for you that I got into it with Dax. I’ve tried ignoring it, I swear I did. And I know that this isn’t professional, and it’s honestly pretty damn childish too, but I just can’t help myself.”

It felt like I stopped breathing.

His eyes flicked to the side, almost like he was looking for an out but then he dragged them back to me and instead kept eye contact. I loved that about him. “That’s why I’ve been acting like a jerk lately. I’m sorry. It’s unforgivable and I—”

“You talk too much, Barrett Wade,” I said, leaning forward and pressing a kiss to his cheek.

He instantly stopped, his whole body seizing up. I raised a hand to cup the other cheek, then brushed a finger down his jaw. His skin was hot and flushed beneath my touch, and I trailed my hand down his neck and the front of his shirt before placing it on his cock.

His mouth popped open silently in shock and I kissed his cheek again, then his neck. I may have been absolute shit at flirting but knew how to get a point across loud and clear. I started stroking him through his pants and could feel him harden instantly.

He exhaled sharply, a tortured sound strangling his throat. I pressed a kiss there.

“Lane,” he rasped. “Lane, this isn’t a good idea.”

“You want me to stop?” I asked, stilling my hand on his dick. Bear’s hand flew instantly over mine, applying pressure that forced him to squeeze his eyes shut.

“No,” he whispered, then groaned. “No, I don’t want you to stop touching me, Lane.”

“Good because I don’t want to stop,” I said, dragging my nose along his neck. I could feel the delicious tension in his strong body, the way he was holding himself back from fully letting go even though it was so obvious that he wanted to. That he needed this just as much as I did. “I want to fuck you, Bear. I want to forget about everything for a while and just feel you.”

Those words were the final stripping away of the last boundary wall.

Bear turned his head and kissed me, and at first I was startled by the sheer hunger behind it. It held the force of a dam breaking under pressure, the relief so sharp and sweet I moaned against him. There was adrenaline, the same type you might feel during a free fall. But the difference between Dax and Bear was stark. Kissing Dax felt like a spark to dry tinder, or loading up a canon. It felt almost destructive, consuming in its intensity.

But with Bear, it felt like being grounded, eclipsed by a strength and power that until now I’d only ever witnessed in the hands that had led the renovation of my home. But now those same, strong, big hands were slowly roaming over my wet body, his palms warm against the cold damp of my clothed skin.

I shuddered, already starting to feel overwhelmed by the sensation.

In the distant, temporarily deactivated part of my brain, I knew that we were technically in public right now. The rain’s steady rhythm droned on, but there was also the low hiss of passing cars and squelching tracks of wet shoes on pavement passing not too far from where Bear’s hands were starting to slip under my clothes.

But I didn’t care. No, that wasn’t quite true.

I liked the calculated risk. We had nothing but a veil of rain and the assumption of innocuousness to protect us from catching a public indecency case but why the hell did that make it even hotter?

And even if part of me might’ve protested, the second Bear’s hands unclipped my bra and covered my bare breasts, the final whispers of logic were snuffed out like a candle.

I gasped his name out loud and he moaned, pressing his mouth to my neck and trailing kisses all over my chest. The combination of it all was intoxicating—the heavy rain outside, the danger of getting caught, the cold exposure of my now naked upper body all contrasted by his warmth and focus.

So much warmth.

His mouth on my skin and on my nipples. His warm, calloused palms dragging down my skin and leaving goosebumps where they trailed. I was dissolving in the feeling, drowning in his focus.

“You feel so fucking good,” he whispered and I bit my lip, determined not to let out any more embarrassing sounds. But Bear was relentless. He read my body with the same concentrated intensity he utilized to read blueprints, and seemed determined to execute this goal the same way he did his renovation timeline.

I ran a hand through his dark curls, closing my eyes as he moved from one nipple to the other. I pulled him closer to me and he groaned low and deep into my chest. I was sure he could hear my heart beating out of control. It certainly felt like it.