Ah geez. Safe to say she was in trouble.
“Where are we going?”
He glanced down at Olive, seeming to choose his words. “You were drinking tonight.”
She made a sound of agreement. “A little.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
“Kind of. I don’t feel like I’ve found my alcohol soul mate yet, though.” She made a face. “It’s definitely not beer.”
“You’d like a white Russian. It tastes like a milkshake.”
“Are you taking me to get one?”
“No, underage drinker. I’m not.” He tickled her ribs and she half laughed, half gasped at the contact. “I’m not drinking, either. I rode my bike here tonight.” His fingertips brushed up the side of her arm, then stroked back down. “Normally that wouldn’t keep me from having a beer, but not tonight. Not when I’m driving you home.”
Her stomach flipped. “I get to ride on it?”
Rory pulled her to a stop at the boardwalk railing and they faced each other, slow, sticky heat meandering down her breasts and belly. They gravitated closer as if unable to help it and Olive’s head tipped back until the ends of her hair tickled her shoulder blades. He wanted to kiss her, she could see it. Her mouth softened at a moment’s notice, but the kiss never came, despite their obvious need of it.
“Does the idea of riding on my bike make you nervous?”
With anyone else? Absolutely. With this man? She couldn’t imagine a scenario where he’d allow a hair on her head to be harmed. “No. I’m not nervous.” Still not ready to let him off the hook for the last two weeks, she tried to pull off a casual shrug. “I saw you on the bike today. At a stoplight. You seemed to handle it proficiently, I guess.”
He reared back a touch. “You saw me. Where?”
“Outside that coffee shop on East Park Avenue.” She rolled her lips inward to wet them. “I was on the fence about whether to come out tonight, but when I saw you just going about your business, I said yes. I was finished waiting for a call that would never come.” She shook her head. “Why am I telling you this?”
“Because you want to torture me,” he rasped. True to his words, his expression was pained as he pressed his lips to her forehead, brushing a kiss there. “I’m sorry.”
Olive hummed, digging her fingernails into her palms to keep from tracing every inch of his body with her hands. Tugging him closer and anchoring herself with his heat, like she yearned to do.
“The kids you were with tonight…” He caught her hair where it flew around in the wind, holding it in a light fist. “You go to school with those guys?”
“Stop calling them kids. Most of them are older than me.”
A single eyebrow went up. “Want to know what I’d prefer to call them?”
“No,” she said quickly, battling a smile. “Yes, we go to school together—and once again for the cheap seats, you don’t have the right to be jealous.”
His eyelids fell to half-mast. “Oh no?”
“Nope.”
Rory’s mouth dropped to hers without warning, pushing, his upper lip curling against hers. Their breath collided and hastened, his fingers slipping into her hair and gripping. “It’s not like this with anyone else. For either of us. Is it?”
Olive shook her head once, quickly, in a hurry to get back to their almost kiss. “No.”
“I want the right to be jealous, Olive. I’m working on it. While I get there, let’s not pretend this thing between us follows the usual rules. It doesn’t.” He kissed her hard. No tongue. Just an unrelenting suction of lips desperate for contact from which he pulled back way too soon, his breathing labored. “I don’t notice girls anymore. Not for weeks. There’s only one.”
“Good,” she heard herself say, the word emerging from some deep, earthy part of her.
“Exactly. Good. That’s what you want, whether or not it’s supposed to be too soon.”
Kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss me. “Yes.”
“Because there are no fucking rules for us. So I’m going to wake up in a cold sweat tonight thinking of that kid’s arm around you.”
“His name is Zed and I couldn’t stand him.”
Rory puffed a laugh and rolled their foreheads together. “Good girl.”
They stayed that way for long moments, swaying side to side, their mouths hovering so close she could taste the mint on his breath. His thumbs massaged her scalp. It was exactly where she wanted to be, even though every second with Rory seemed to hold a fine edge of uncertainty. He was so unpredictable. Every action, every word, his thoughts. She couldn’t even predict herself around him. Yet at the same time, she wouldn’t budge from that spot on the boardwalk if a meteor was hurtling toward earth.
“Even though I couldn’t stand him, I’m glad you didn’t fight tonight,” she whispered. “I’m proud of you for stopping.”