Without waiting for a response, he pulled away and held the door open. He helped her into the passenger seat and hoped he’d managed to get her as hot and bothered as she’d gotten him. One look at her heaving chest and hooded gaze as he climbed into the driver's seat told him he didn’t have to worry. She most definitely wanted him as much as he wanted her.
They filled the ride to the empty parking lot with conversation about family. From the sound of it, Willow’s parents were incredibly supportive of her life as a dancer, and all the sacrifices that came with it.
“I don’t know what they would have done if I’d turned out to be a normal person,” she said, her elbow resting on the back of his seat, her fingers twirling in his hair.
“A normal person?” He turned to her, laughing. “You aren’t a normal person?”
“No, silly. I’m not. I’m a dancer and we, as a rule, are very much abnormal.”
“I mean, I see two arms, two legs—a great set of legs, might I add. You breathe. Your heart beats. I bet you’ve got dreams and wishes and desires somewhere in there. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that you sleep at night and are most active during the day. Sounds pretty normal to me.”
“Right. All of that is true. But, the sacrifice. The dedication. The hours and hours in the studio. I mean, my job is literally to chase perfection, knowing the whole time that perfection is unattainable.” Willow swallowed hard and shrank into her seat, wrapping one arm around her stomach. “There’s a statistic, and who knows if it’s true, but they say for every one day I don’t take a class, it takes two days to get back to where I was. So, I’m always pushing. Always working. It’s a good thing I love to dance.”
“That must be really stressful. Feeling outside of society. Feeling like you can’t take even a single day off.”
“Eh.” She waved her hand and straightened. “It can be. But not today. Today I’m sitting next to a good-looking guy, with the sun beaming down and the ocean doing its beautiful thing, what with all the glinting and glittering, and I’m finally going to learn how to drive!”
Harry pulled into the parking lot a few minutes later and traded seats with Willow. “Okay. So. Go is the right pedal. Stop is the left pedal. This big wheel in your hands points the car in the direction you want it to go. Just be sure not to point the car at anything that will dent the bumper and we should be good.”
“Harry! This is serious! You’ve gotta give me real instructions.”
“Sweetheart, those are the real instructions. This thing is an automatic, so other than go, stop, and steer, there isn’t much more to it than that. Just put the car in gear here…” He showed her the gearshift. “Then very slowly give her some gas until you get the feel for how to work the pedals.”
Somehow, sitting behind the wheel of his Jeep, she seemed even tinier than usual, a look of utter concentration increasing the intensity in her eyes. “Do I use one foot or two?” she asked.
“What?”
“Does each pedal get a foot, or do I just use one foot to work them both?”
Harry couldn’t help but laugh. “You just use your right foot. Don’t worry so much, Willow. You’ll be fine. You’ll see.”
A few minutes later, Willow was laughing maniacally as she maneuvered the Jeep around the lot at a snail’s pace. “I can’t believe I’m really driving!”
Harry chuckled in response. Her max speed up to that point had been thirteen miles per hour. “You think you’re ready to hit the road?”
Willow stomped on the brake and the Jeep lurched to a stop, flinging them both forward against their seatbelts. She twisted in her seat to face him. “You think I’m ready? Wait. Isn’t that illegal? Do you think I can do it?” She turned and put both hands on the wheel, giving a curt nod as she looked out the front window. “I think I can do it.”
“Yes,” Harry said, laughing and shaking his head. “I think you’re ready and I totally think you can do it. And yes, it’s illegal, but hey. Sometimes you gotta live on the edge, you know?”
Willow gripped the wheel, flared her fingers, then gripped the wheel again. “Okay. Let’s do this. I’m at your command. You just tell me what to do and how to do it.”
Of all the words she could have chosen, she had to go with those. His cock jumped to attention, reminding him of all the delicious things he intended to command her to do.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Willow
Harry was right. There really was no joy quite like driving with the top down, the sun shining, and the radio blasting. By the time he guided her back to his house, exhilaration was too small a word for what she was feeling. After coming to a stop at the end of his driveway, she sat for a minute, staring at the controls. She knew how to turn the Jeep off in theory, but having never actually done it before, she wasn’t comfortable with the order of things. With Harry’s instruction, she shifted into park and killed the engine.
As soon as the car was off, she plucked the keys from the ignition, unfastened her seatbelt and climbed over the console into Harry’s lap. Straddling him, she kissed him long and hard, trying her best to show how much she wanted to pick up where they left off the night before.
“I’m gonna have to let you drive more often,” he said when she came up for air.
“No complaints here, although I have something very different on my mind right now.”
The way Harry kissed
