“It’s Petra,” she breathed.
He’d never heard that name before. “Is that, like, Russian?”
That question was a dumb one for sure. The moment cooled—it didn’t end, but she tipped her head back a little, to focus on his eyes again. Her fingers unwound from the strands she’d been pulling and slipped farther back on his head. She was smiling—and damn, what a pretty smile she had.
“Greek. Do you want to draw our family trees, or do you want to kiss me?”
That was an easy answer. Jay erased all the space between them and put his mouth on hers.
He tried to dive deep right away, push his tongue in and taste all of her, but she eased back, closed her mouth a little, and kept the kiss light, like a tease. He could feel her trying to lead him, to make him kiss her the way she wanted to be kissed. So he took the instruction and followed along.
Holy shit, she was good at this. Even with hardly any tongue, this kiss was practically sex. Her mouth moved gracefully, sometimes entirely under his, sometimes slipping over his bottom lip to claim it. Sometimes her tongue teased over his lips. Jay felt like he could hardly keep up. He was actually lightheaded.
At some point, the cut on his lip opened again. He felt the sting and tasted blood, but he didn’t care. When she tasted it, too, and tried to lean back, he threw his hands up to hold her head where it was, to keep her mouth with his. Her hair caressed his fingers like the softest silk.
He’d never had a kiss like this in his life, and he didn’t want it to end. He wanted to be standing right here, doing exactly this, when the sun rose.
But then she closed her mouth and turned her head. No more than an inch or so, just enough so her mouth was no longer on his but on his cheek instead. They stood like that, both quiet. She seemed as unwilling for the moment to end as he was.
And what was happening? How did a PG-rated kiss have him so spun? He’d barely had his tongue in her mouth but he was so hard he hurt and was right at the edge ofshakingwith need.
Petra was the one who finally broke the moment. She tipped her head back and smiled up at him, pale eyes twinkling in the muted light from the apartment above. What color were they?
“If I let you follow me home, will you behave yourself?”
“What does that mean? How do you want me to behave?”
“No means no. Stop means stop. And when I say it’s time for you to go, you go. Will I be safe with you?”
A question rose suddenly in Jay’s mind:WillIbe safe withyou?But that was a stupid, humiliating question, completely unwarranted and uninvited, and he shoved it away. He could take care of himself just fine. This little bit of a woman was no threat.
“Totally safe,” he answered.
“Do you want to come home with me, Jake?”
He’d sworn off going to girls’ homes, but who the fuck cared about that. He wanted to go home with this one.
As an answer to her question, he kissed her again.
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~oOo~
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Surprisingly, Petralived close to downtown Tulsa, about twenty minutes or so from her bar. Jay was even more surprised when she turned into a garage under an old brick commercial building and talked to an attendant at the gate, who then waved Jay in with her.
He was familiar enough with the building to know that the ghost of an old sign, painted on the brick decades earlier, still showed in the daylight—MACDOUGAL HAT FACTORY—and that some developer several years back had turned the derelict property into loft condos for hipsters who wanted to pretend they lived in New York City.
Petra parked in a spot against the wall. Not knowing what else to do, Jay stopped his bike directly behind her and waited for her to get out of her car so he could ask where to go.
As she climbed out, showcased in bright light for the first time since they’d met, Jay swallowed hard. It was like he’d forgotten how fucking gorgeous she was during the ride over, and now he was hit straight in the eyeballs for the first time all over again. He pushed his night riders to the top of his head, and she looked even prettier without the yellow tint.
She smiled. “There’s a guest lot over there”—she pointed to the back of the garage—“or you can park in front of me, if there’s room.”
With a glance, he could tell that, while his Street Bob would fit in the space in front of her Volvo, if a neighbor parked beside her, he’d have some work to get back out without damaging something. So he walked the bike back, turned it, and parked in the guest lot.
She was standing at the back of her car, bag on her shoulder and box in her arms, waiting for him.