Chapter 5: Seat Reclined

The rest area was empty except for a snowplow and a vending machine glazed with ice.

Tobias parked at the far end, facing a stand of bare trees, and left the engine running for the heat.

He turned toward me.

"What is it?" he said. "Are you okay?"

"No."

I unbuckled my seat belt.

"I'm so angry my hands hurt," I said. "And I'd rather use them on you."

His eyes went dark.

For a second he didn't breathe.

"Lena."

"You said you'd been holding that seat for me all night."

"I did."

"Well, I'm taking more than the seat."

I climbed over the console.

It was graceless, all knees and elbows.

I hit the gearshift with my hip and swore.

He laughed, a rough surprised sound, when I landed in his lap.

Then I kissed him, and neither of us was laughing.

He tasted like coffee and cold air.

His hands came up under my coat and settled on my waist, big and warm.

I felt the tremor in them.

"You're shaking," I said against his lip.

"I've wanted this since we were twenty."

I pulled back and looked at him.

His face was open in a way I had never seen it, nothing careful in it at all.

"Since we were twenty?"

"Don't ask me to be sensible about it right now."

"I wasn't going to."

I took the hem of my sweater in both hands and pulled it over my head.

The air was freezing and my skin rose in goosebumps.

Tobias made a low sound in his throat as he looked at me in my plain gray bra.

"God, Lena."

"Touch me."

He did.

His palms slid up my ribs, slow and reverent.

His thumbs found the edge of the lace and traced it.

I arched into him.

He dragged his mouth down my throat and over my collarbone.

When he closed his lips around my nipple through the fabric, I grabbed fistfuls of his hair.

I said his name out loud.

"Again," I said.

He unhooked my bra with one hand and took it off me.

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