My Sweetest Escape (30 page)

caught up to me and I struggled. I wasn’t

going to yell because then I’d wake up the

entire street and I didn’t need Stephen King

coming out of his house and seeing me and

Dusty fighting. I would probably die of

embarrassment.

“Will you just stop for a second?” He

held my shoulders so I couldn’t go.

“Let go of me!” He let me go

immediately, as if he was appalled that he’d

grabbed me. I turned my back on him,

expecting him to try to physically stop me

again, but he didn’t.

“Joscelyn. Please. Just give me five

minutes. Then you can hate me for the rest

of your life. But just give me five min utes.

And please, get in the car. It’s cold out here

and you don’t have a proper coat on.

Please.”

Oh, if he hadn’t said
please.
And if his

voice hadn’t had that begging tone in it.

When I spun back around I found that he

was desperate. His stunning eyes begged

me.

“Five. Minutes.”

We got back in his car, but I kept my

hand on the door so I could make my

escape if I had to.

“That’s what it was. At first. It was me

looking after you because Hunter asked me

to. He thought you could use a friend who

had been where you’d been, and I kind of

owed him. He helped me out a lot, and he

was there for me when I needed someone. I

saw it as a chance to pay it forward. That’s

all it was at first.”

He took a deep breath, and I waited for

him to say something that would make

everything he’d said before okay.

Because it definitely wasn’t, right now.

“And then I met you and from that first

second I knew that it could never just be

that. Some sort of charity mission.

You were…you. So beautiful and funny

and smart and I just wanted to be around

you all the time. You’re…addicting, Jos.

I can’t seem to get enough of you. You

can see how this complicates things. I’m

pretty sure that wasn’t in the plan when I

told your sister I wouldn’t let anything

happen to you. That ‘anything’ probably

included kissing you and almost doing

several other things that she would

probably kill me for even thinking about.”

He did have a point there. Renee would

skin him alive if she knew about what we’d

done, and almost done, on the couch in the

man cave. And then she would have given

me a very long and potentially very graphic

lecture about sexually transmitted diseases,

complete with a condom demonstration.

I’d already been through it several

times, and I didn’t want to relive the

experience. When it came to “the talk,” I’d

gotten more than I ever wanted to know

from Renee. That was probably why I was

so willing to hold on to my virginity.

“I swear, Jos, I never meant to fall for

you. I tried to stop it, but I didn’t have a

whole lot of choice. You’re impossible not

to fall for.” I stifled a laugh.

“What’s so funny about that?”

“You, saying I’m impossible not to fall

for. Have you met me? Do you not see what

I’m wearing right now? I’m not exactly

supermodel material. I’m also not very nice,

either.

I’ve been mean to you on more than one

occasion. I’m not that girl. The girl all the

boys fantasize about when they jack off. I

might have been, before, but I’m definitely

not now.”

“And that, my lovely Red, is exactly why

you’re impossible not to fall for. Not caring

is pretty damn sexy. You don’t care what

people think of you.” Oh, how wrong he

was.

He had no idea how much I still cared. It

was why I didn’t want anyone to know

about the blog, or about my new job at the

paper. In my other life, I’d spent my entire

existence caring what people thought of

me. You couldn’t turn that off so easily.

“I care, Dusty. I care way more than I

should.” Why did I feel like I was going to

cry again?

“Oh, Red.” He reached out to touch my

face and I flinched back.

“No. Just because you say all those nice

things, doesn’t make it right. Why didn’t

you tell me?”

Sighing, he dropped his hand into his

lap. “Because, at first, I wasn’t supposed to,

and then, after meeting you, I didn’t want

to. I thought I could just go along and carry

an unrequited hard-on for you forever. I

had it all planned out.”

“Sounds like it.” I wasn’t convinced.

“It drove me crazy, Jos. You drive me

crazy. You’re driving me crazy right now. All

I can think about is that you’re mad at me,

and I should feel worse about lying to you,

but all I can fucking think about is kissing

you again and finding out what’s under all

that material you’re wearing.” He had his

hands covering… Oh.

“That bad, huh?” Not going to lie, I was

having the same issues. I just didn’t show it

as much as he did, but I was affected, too.

“You have no idea.”

“I think I have
some
idea.” My “ideas”

were making themselves known. Loudly. I

was going to have to finish what we’d

started earlier. The question was, would we

finish it together, or would I have to go it

solo?

“I’ve told you, Jos, I don’t have the

cleanest past.”

“I don’t care. I’m not all that pure

anymore, either. Screw purity. I’m still mad

at you, but can I just put that on hold and

be mad at you tomorrow so you’ll kiss me?”

He leaned just a fraction closer to me.

“If that’s what you want. Hell, I know it’s

what I want, but we’ll only do it if you

want.”

Oh, that was it.

“Dusty?”

“Yes?”

“Can you stop being a gentleman for,

like, a little while?”

A sexy smile spread across his lips.

“I think I can manage.”

* * *

Kissing in the car wasn’t as nice as kissing

on the couch.

There were too many things in the way

and pointy objects, like the shifter, that

seemed out to get us.

“Backseat,” I said as I tried to climb on

top of him and failed for the third time. We

both got out of the car and met on the

passenger side as he shoved me up against

the car, pressing against me and attacking

my mouth with everything he had. Maybe

we wouldn’t even make it to the backseat. I

was aware that it was freezing out, but my

body was on fire.

Dusty reached around me and opened

the back door.

“Oh, shit. Give me a second.” His

backseat was a mess, littered with

textbooks and clothes and other guy crap.

He swept it all on the floor and tried to

clean it up as much as he could while I

waited.

“Good enough,” I said, pushing him

aside and diving onto the seat, grabbing his

sweatshirt and pulling him down with me.

“Shit! Did I hurt you?” Just a little, but I

didn’t care. He straddled me and reached to

close the door.

“I’m good. Come here.”

Sweatshirts were very good for yanking

on, I’d discovered. His mouth returned to

mine; his hands went back to roaming my

body, dipping under my clothes and

wiggling into new spaces they hadn’t been

before. This…this was living. Pure,

passionate living.

He paused and pulled back to look at my

face in the dark.

The streetlights cast everything in an

orange glow. “You’re so beautiful. How are

you so beautiful?”

“You’re not so bad yourself.” I didn’t

want to make his head too big, but the

more I looked at him, the more I realized

how gorgeous he was. I’d been in some

serious denial early on.

“Jos, I really, really want to continue

this,” he said, pulling my sweatshirt aside so

he could kiss where my neck met my chest,

“but I don’t think the backseat of my car is

the place for it. You’re not a backseat fling.”

“I should hope not,” I said as he kept

kissing lower. Despite saying he wanted to

hit the pause button, he was doing anything

but. He was right, though. I didn’t want to

have my first sexual experience in the

backseat of a car with what felt like a pen,

or something else sharp, poking into my ass

the whole time.

“You’re right, you’re right.” I was

panting a little, and he definitely had

another hard-on.

“I don’t think my dick is ever going to

recover from being around you,” he said,

holding himself up on his elbows.

“Well, you could always get one of those

things they used in the Middle Ages. It was

like a harness that had these sharp metal

points, so every time you’d—”

He kissed my mouth so I couldn’t finish.

“I’m begging you. Please stop talking about

it, Red.”

“I was only trying to help. If you want, I

could help in other ways.” I reached for his

pants, and he tried to leap away from me

and ended up banging his head on the roof

of the car.

“Shit!” I should have been more worried

about his skull, but I laughed.

“You just…keep your hands to yourself.

I’ll take care of it.” He rubbed his head.

“Poor baby,” I said, getting up on my

elbows and feeling the top of his head

gently. Yup, he was definitely going to have

a bump. I kissed the tips of my fingers and

touched them to his head.

“It’s late. You should get to bed.” I

wished I could ask him to come with me,

and then he could sneak out of the house

before dawn, but the chances of that were

so freaking slim, with Hannah asleep in the

next room. Besides, we couldn’t really do

what I would want to do with someone in

the next room without making a little bit of

noise. Those walls were pretty damn thin.

There was always the shower, though…

“Good night, Red.” I got one more

chaste kiss on the lips before he got out and

pulled me up after him.

“Good night, Dusty.” Well, that was

pretty normal for a goodbye. Finally, I’d

gotten the hang of it. I walked back toward

the house, as slow as I could.

“Jos?” I’d been waiting to hear my

name.

“Yeah?” I turned and started walking

backward.

“Would you like to come over

tomorrow? To my place?”

“You mean your shit shack?”

“Yeah. I’ll make it as unshitty as possible

for you. But I thought it was one of the only

places we could be…without anyone

watching us. I want to spend time with you

without worrying that someone is going to

walk in.” Oh.
Oh.

He must have seen the realization dawn

on my face.

“That is definitely not what I’m asking

you over for.”

“Uh-huh.”

He gave me a look. “Jos.”

“Okay, okay. Yes, I would love to come

over. Do you mind if I tell Hannah? Then she

can be my alibi. I’m guessing we should

keep this on the down low?”

“She seems like the kind of girl who can

keep a secret.

Plus, I think she wants us to have some

time alone almost as much as I do.” That

was definitely true.

“So, tomorrow?” he said. “I’ll text you.”

“Tomorrow.”

I’d reached the steps, so I was going to

have to turn away from him.

“I’m counting the minutes,” he said

quietly, his eyes never leaving my face.

“Me, too.”

Sneaking back into the house turned out

to be easy, and I got back in bed without

anyone the wiser.

Despite only getting a few hours of

restless sleep, I woke the next morning as

excited as I used to get on the first day of

school. Yes, I was that kid who couldn’t wait

for summer to be over so I could go back to

school. In some ways, school was my safe

haven from the chaos in my numerous

homes. School made sense. It had order

and structure at a time when I needed it.

I was up even before Hannah, but when

I came out of the bathroom from brushing

my teeth she was moving.