Exes and O's (The Influencer, #2)(45)

“I doubt it. And even if it did, I can guarantee she wouldn’t have had it any other way.” I pause, turning toward him. “That must have been really hard. Losing your mom and your grandma.”

“It was,” he admits. “Anyway, was that personal enough for you?”

“I don’t want you to feel pressured to talk about things like that. Especially if it upsets you,” I tell him. I let a few beats of silence go by before speaking again. “Congratulations, by the way, on your promotion. Scotty told me.”

“Thank you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Just didn’t think it was that big a deal,” he says.

“It is to me,” I assure him. I rest my head back against the seat, cursing myself for the shit timing of my fatigue.

“You get one more question, and then no more talking, okay?”

This perks me up momentarily. I rack my brain for a juicy one. “Okay. If you could picture any woman to break your non-relationship spell, what would she be like? Hypothetically.”

He goes stiff as a board. “I dunno, Tara. What do you think she’d be like?”

My lids close as I visualize. “Hmm . . . Beautiful. Probably the type who would watch sports with you. Eat a burger. Drink beer. One of the not-like-the-other-girls.”

“What’s that?”

“Exactly how it sounds. The girl who doesn’t care what anyone thinks. Isn’t needy or anything like a stereotypical girl. Like Seth’s girlfriend, Ingrid.”

He chuckles. “So . . . the opposite of you.”

“Basically. You know how in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, supercool Kate Hudson pretends to be a clingy, emotional, fern-obsessed girl to make Matt McConaughey dump her?”

He clears his throat. “No, but go on.”

“I always hated that movie because that girl was me. I was the annoying one that no guy would ever want to date. Anyway, I think that’s the kind of girl you’d be with. The cool one.”

He watches me for a moment. “You’re tired. You should take a nap. Save your voice before you talk my ear off,” he instructs, giving me an unexpected yet gentle squeeze on the forearm.

I can barely even register the delicious scorch of his touch. His eyes ensnare mine unexpectedly, and for some reason, I can’t look away. His small smile is the last thing I see before my lids flutter to a close.



* * *



? ? ?

ALL I SEE is beige. The fabric of the interior ceiling of Trevor’s car. There’s a hot sensation pooling in between my thighs, countering the coolness of the car window soothing the side of my head.

My skin is a live wire. Tingly, pulsing, and sensitive to the tiniest gust of air. Soft lips dance past my chest, making a trail down the valley of my stomach. I can’t see his face, but I know it’s Trevor. The tiniest scrape of his stubble sends a ripple through me. I’m counting my breaths, because if I don’t, I’ll surely pass out. And with each inhale, his spicy scent overpowers everything else. It’s all around me and I want to bask in it like a load of warm, freshly dried laundry.

My breath quickens as his lips move past the curve of my belly button, over the groove of my hipbone, and down. One hand gently palms my breasts while smoothing over my thigh, parting my legs.

Somehow, I’m already undressed from the waist down, sweater bunched up around my stomach, and for some odd reason, I’m not surprised about it. There’s pressure in my thighs as rough fingers dig into the softness of my flesh.

I angle myself upward to run my fingers through his hair, pulling in a light tug. He teases the patch of skin above where I desperately want him. Like the pain in the ass he is, he takes his lips off my skin and meets my eyes in a seductive challenge.

“Keep going,” I whisper, arching my back to push against his compliant mouth.

My vision is a blur of stars as the pressure crescendos higher and higher and—

Click, click. Ding.

My eyes fly open. A harsh flood of fluorescent-yellow light hits me straight in the eyeballs, rendering me near blind. The sweet, chemical aroma of gasoline floods my senses as I force-blink my spotty vision away.

I let out a muffled cry. For the briefest of seconds, I think I’ve been kidnapped—until I take in the finger-drawn lopsided heart in the fog on the windshield I drew earlier in the firehouse parking lot. Past the window, there’s a painted number 35 on the concrete wall that tells me I’m in the apartment parking garage.

Trevor grunts as he hauls himself out of the driver’s seat.

A brief glance downward tells me I’m still in my clothes too, bundled in my coat. Layered leggings, wool socks, and boots laced tight.

Trevor is certainly not in between my legs. And his mouth certainly isn’t down there, despite the warm, tingly sensation I feel, as if he really were.

Reality settles around me, like pixels slowly but surely filling a screen.

Hello, bleak reality.

It was a dream.

I should be grateful that I haven’t been taken by some psycho who plans to hold me captive as one of three wives in his secret torture dungeon to birth an army of offspring, but I’m pissed. Frustrated. Like a kid reaching for a decadent piece of chocolate cake on the counter, only to have it snatched away by a health-conscious parent at the very last second.