Warrior (First to Fight #1)(5)
“You all right back there?”
A groan answers and I snicker when I see him sprawled out, his head leaned against the window.
She eases out of the driveway and carefully maneuvers around the other parked cars. “Who said I was good?”
I catch my bottom lip beneath my teeth in order to swallow the urge to test her rebellious nature. Her cheeks pink when she catches my intent stare. I gesture with my fingers. “My lips are sealed.”
I change the subject until we reach Logan’s house a ways across town—for her own sake, really. My restraint can only last so long.
Logan lives in a little apartment complex, a far cry from the two-story brick house he and his wife bought after they married. I wrestle him to the front door and take a risky dip inside his pants pocket for his house keys.
We manage to stumble into his living room and I shoulder him onto the couch, where he falls face-first into the cushions mumbling something about wanting Captain Crunch. I ignore him and stick to making sure he won’t suffocate and head out, locking the front door behind me.
I step outside to get a little air and hopefully a good dose of reality. I feel like I’m on a ledge and the only thing keeping me from falling over the edge is my own good sense—and I’m running terribly low on that.
Olivia eyes me from where she stands by the truck. She sends me a hesitant smile. “Do you mind if we go for a drive? Sofie just texted me. She’s going home. Jack’s probably grabbing a shower. I’m not ready to go home to an empty house and it’s my last Friday before school starts.”
From the sly look she gives me as she climbs back into the cab of the truck, I know she’s interested in more than just a drive.
I know I shouldn’t go there. Jack would have my ass, or other more sensitive parts of my anatomy, to say the least. Regardless, I find myself reaching for the door handle, my jeans now uncomfortably tight. A song comes on the radio, and from the corner of my eye, I can see her singing along with the music, though I can’t hear her over the rush of blood in my ears.
We reach a stoplight, just as the song ends. We both lock eyes and I watch her throat bob as she swallows. I don’t know if it’s the fact that I’m leaving soon, or just something that’s been building since the day we met, but when it comes to Olivia, my self-control has reached a breaking point.
I watch her shift in the seat, smooth thighs sliding on the summer-slick leather, and I wonder how different she’ll be when I get back. Will she still bite her lip when she gets nervous? Will she still look at me with that expectant gleam in her eye, like she’s waiting for me to make a move?
Or will she move on without me?
The thought makes my heart race and my blood heats.
Fuck it.
I REACH AN arm around her and press a kiss to her lips. I inhale her sound of surprise, holding it deep inside my chest, tucked under my goddamned heart where I keep all the memories of her that I know I’ll never be able to forget.
Absence may make the heart grow fonder, but it doesn’t make the leaving any easier.
“Ben?” her voice catches when I run the tip of my tongue over her collarbone. “W-what are you doing?”
“Pull over somewhere, Liv.”
“Are you sure?” She bites her lip and blinks at me.
I cup her cheek, turning her to face me. “I’m done playing f*cking games. I want you,” I tell her and watch as she smiles, ducking her head. I rub a finger over her lower lip. “I want to kiss you without having to worry about someone walking in. I want to do a whole helluva lot more, but right now I can settle for at least that.”
She doesn’t answer, and for a moment I think she’s rejected me. The possibility leaves a bad taste in my mouth. She pulls away from me and straightens up in the seat, her hands coming up around the steering wheel. She drives a short distance, her eyes scanning the road, for what I don’t know. I’m just about to apologize when she pulls off the road into a break of trees. I watch as she puts the truck in park and takes a deep breath.
“Liv?”
“Do you know what it was like for me when I first moved in with the Walkers?” she asks out of nowhere.
I let out a slow breath. “Jack told me some,” I admit. When her head turns sharply, I hurry to add, “Not much. Just that you had a hard time adjusting.”
She nods. “I did. The foster home I was in was pretty bad. I—I had nightmares about it for a long time…”
I pull her close to me and tuck her head beneath my chin. “I’m sorry, Liv.”
“No, it’s okay. Anyway, my point is that when I finally stopped waiting for them to get tired of me, I met you. You swaggered, seriously, it was a swagger, into their living room and told Jack that I was hot.”
I bark out a laugh. “Uh…I did not.” I totally did.
She pulls back only to knock me in the shoulder. “Yeah, you did. I was thirteen. That’s not something impressionable young girls forget. I’m pretty sure you just said it to piss Jack off, but I think I fell a little bit in love with you all the same. When I met your parents, and saw that the whole idea of a normal family wasn’t a dream, I realized that maybe wishes did come true.”
I rubbed at the spot where she hit my shoulder absentmindedly. “Kinda makes me sound like a jerk. I don’t even remember saying that.”