Chapter 24: Not on the Clock

"Pull over," I said.

We were ten minutes down Route 7 in Ben's green Ford pickup.

My duffel rode in the truck bed, and a pie plate sat on the dashboard.

All of Vermont was on fire on both sides of the road.

He glanced at me.

"Here?"

"The next gravel."

"There's a pull-off in a quarter mile, by the apple stand."

"Then there."

He put the signal on and eased the truck onto a patch of gravel under three enormous maples.

He shut off the engine.

The silence pinged.

The apple stand was closed for the season, shuttered up with a hand-lettered sign, and nobody was anywhere.

Leaves came down on the hood in slow yellow spirals.

I unclipped my seat belt.

"Slide the seat back," I said.

He slid it back as far as it would go.

I climbed over the bench and across the gearshift and into his lap.

My knees were on either side of his hips, and the steering wheel was at my back.

He grinned up at me.

"We're in a truck," he said.

"I noticed."

"We're in public."

"We're in a closed apple stand."

"Yes, ma'am."

I undid his belt, and the button of his jeans.

His zipper, with fingers that weren't quite steady, and he lifted his hips so I could free him.

He was hot and hard and already wet at the tip.

I wrapped my hand around him and stroked, and he dropped his head back against the seat.

"I've been thinking about this since the farmhouse," I said.

"We left the farmhouse ten minutes ago."

"I've been thinking about it since you carried my bag."

He laughed, low in his chest.

I pulled up my skirt, and pushed my underwear aside, and rubbed the head of him through me, slowly, once, twice.

We both shivered.

"Put your hands on my hips," I said.

His hands closed on them.

I lowered myself an inch at a time, watching his face go slack and wondering.

When I had taken him all the way, a shiver went through me, my warm breath fogging the windshield.

"Oh," I said. "There you are."

"Here I am."

I started to move.

Slow, at first, lifting and sinking, with my forearms on the headrest on either side of his head, and my forehead against his.