“Where are we going?” I asked, a bit nervous.
“My Cessna leaves in four hours from a hangar that’s only ninety minutes’ drive. That gives us some time.”
Zephyr drove too fast in the best of times. Now he was careering through unlit gravel roads, climbing ever higher on the mountain. He was doing this because he knew I liked it. His recklessness was the sexiest part about him.
I hated how being dragged along with his dangerous posturing turned me on. But it did. Even as we skidded up the nighttime peak, I found myself pressing my palm just firmly enough into my lap. That bit of pressure combined with the humming under my seat to make me dizzily aroused.
Suddenly, the car screeched to a halt near a scenic lookout point. And lord, what a view it was!
The night sky was cloudless and freckled with stars. It felt, at that harrowing height, like we were floating above the world.
For just a second, we sat silently observing the dancing of twinkling galaxies and shooting stars. Then I felt Zephyr’s hand slide over my bare thigh and under the skirt of my indigo Lela Rose cocktail dress.
I heard myself moaning as his digits traced the lace fringe of my panties, and then he leaned over and kissed me deeply. I could still taste the Hungarian wine on his tongue. My senses filled with that spicy, musky aftershave he used. As his left hand slid nimbly under the satin covering my breast, my hand fumbled with my seatbelt.
His hunger was evident. He wanted to devour my mouth with his, to inhale my essence, to caress all my secret places at once—and my desire fed off his. No sooner was I relieved of my seatbelt than I climbed over his gear shift and straddled my lover. Zephyr accommodated me by sliding back his seat and easing the backrest into a recline.
I was on top. I leaned down to drape myself over him. We were moving, both of us, in slow gyrations, savoring the sensation of our bodies pressed tightly together. It was divine, delicious, delirious.
I wanted him inside me. I wanted him to pull off my dress and have his way. To fuck me so hard, I would still feel it weeks after he left. But first, I wanted more of this, the gentle, pulsing sensation of two people who fit together perfectly.
Suddenly, I felt Zephyr’s hands close around my hair. I tensed, ready for him to wrench my head back and force me into whatever position he wanted. But that didn’t happen. Instead, he lifted my head slowly back so he could look me dead in the eyes.
“How are things different?” he asked quietly but intently.
“What?”
“At dinner, you said things were different when we were apart over the summer. How are they different now?”
“I mean, it’s obvious, right?”
“Not to me.”
I stopped myself from responding right away. Zephyr hadn’t blinked. He had something on his mind, an answer to the question he posed to me. I didn’t want to make any assumptions about what he meant.
“I can think,” I said, “of about a hundred ways that right now is different. I nearly got arrested by the police. I’m no longer working ten hours a day for Amelia. The campus is full of—”
“Brant,” he replied simply.
“Is that what this is about?”
“Theo Brant is here now, and I’m leaving you alone at Stormcloud with him. That takes a lot of trust.”
“I don’t hear much trust in your voice.”
“Believe me, Biba. If I thought you were fucking around on me, this conversation would be much less pleasant.”
Was he threatening me? I hadn’t seen Zephyr this intense in some time. He and I had developed a lowkey, almost domestic arrangement in the last month. I knew it couldn’t last, but I hadn’t thought some petty jealousy would set him off. It was so fucking high school; it was almost laughable.
I kind of wanted to shout in his face, Guess what, Zeph! Fucking Theo Brant was on campus over a week before you arrived. Just him and me, and we never did a thing!
Granted, if I were being radically honest, I’d probably admit that every time Theo and I hung out this summer, I ran back to my room to pleasure myself thinking about him. Nevertheless, I never acted on my attraction, which was what mattered in the end. Right?
“You don’t have to worry about me,” was what I said, but he didn’t buy it.
“No one says that unless they’re hiding something,” he sighed. “I have too many people in my life assuring me they are trustworthy.”
He’s talking about Sol, I thought. He has to be.