Minutes later, I pull in next to her car in her driveway. I lock my truck behind me and stride to her driver side door before she has a chance to open it, seeing through the window that she’s gripping her steering wheel with both hands, her car still running, as if she’s trying to decide if she wants to punch it in reverse and speed away from what’s about to happen.
I can’t let that happen. Not when I’m the closest I’ve ever been to figuring out things I’ve wanted to know about myself for years. So I grip her door handle and pull.
Locked.
My nostrils flare, and I bend to peer at her face through the window. When she turns her head to look at me, it’s the terror I see in her eyes that keeps me from growling at her like I want to. Instead, I keep my voice low and even. “Come on, little mouse. Time to go inside.”
It takes her a moment, as her eyes take in my whole face, and I soften my features, tamping back some of the anxiousness I feel to get her inside so we can finally talk. I give her a smile, one I hope comes across as friendly and soothing instead of the kind I usually give her that makes her squirm. It must work, because she finally nods, and when she turns off her car, the doors automatically unlock. I yank the handle quickly before she can have a chance to change her mind.
She unbuckles her seat belt then pushes a button, and her trunk pops open. I stand back, allowing her to get out and close the door herself before she walks to the back of her car. But I stay on her heels, ready to defend myself if I see she’s reaching for some sort of weapon. Yet, she only pulls out her purse she’d locked inside while she was at the club.
I brace when she reaches inside it, my muscles tense and ready to strike if she pulls out pepper spray, or even a gun. But again, it’s something harmless, just her keyring, seeing as her car’s key fob had been separate when I handed it to her out of her pocket outside the club.
I pull the trunk closed for her, and she murmurs a quiet thanks before she starts up the walkway to her front door. Lights come on as we pass the sensor, illuminating the porch. My hands in my pockets, I stand behind her as she tries to ring the lock, but her hands are trembling so badly she drops her keys.
“Shit!” she hisses, and she glances behind her quickly, seeing how close I’m standing to her before facing the door once again. If she were to bend to get her keys, she’d have no choice but to press her ass against the front of my thighs, and she must realize this, because she seems to collapse forward, her forehead coming to rest on her front door as her shoulders sag—defeated.
I hear one soft sniffle, and it brings me to my knees, literally. I kneel behind her, reaching between her feet and grabbing the keys that landed on the welcome mat she’s standing on, and I can’t help but linger a moment, trailing a finger along the delicate bone of her ankle above the black leather of her sexy shoe.
She sucks in an audible breath, her back straightening above me, and then she turns around slowly, looking down at me. Her eyes are swimming with tears. She’d taken her mask off in the car, and it’s the first time I’ve ever seen her without glasses on. She was intriguing and beautiful before, but as I look up into her face now from where I kneel at her feet, she looks like a broken angel. With our eyes locked, she stops crying, and I watch as hers bounce back and forth between my own. I feel at peace inside for the first time in my life, looking up at this woman as she stands above me.
When she holds out her hand for me to give her the keys, I unhurriedly stand instead so as not to spook her, taking the one that’s shaped like a house and sticking it in the lock with a steady hand. I take a step back and gesture for her to continue, and she blushes and turns away to face the door once more with another quiet “thank you” before turning the key, twisting the knob, and pushing the door open.
She takes the key out and drops them into her purse and then hangs it on a hook on the wall of the small foyer. When she flips on the light, I shut and lock the door behind me and look ahead of her into the house.