And as much as I know she isn’t ready to hear it, I have to tell her. But I don’t. I don’t because I don’t want her to freak out. I don’t because I don’t want her to leave.
She pulls me to her kissing me. I shift until she is no longer under me. Then she lays her head on my chest as I stroke her hair softly. It doesn’t take long for her to fall into a soft sleep.
“Slow the fuck down,”I yell as I hang on to the ‘oh shit’ handle.
She throws her head back laughing as she takes my truck through another massive mudhole on the back roads we’re travelling. “What’s the matter, Zane? Thought you said this is what your truck is made for.”
I grip the handle tighter as she barrels around another slick curve. “I said that’s why I bought it. Have you ever driven anything like this on roads like these?”
Another laugh. “I haven’t driven anything in years,” she tells me. This is news she didn’t previously share before now, and my heart begins to pound harder. “I live in New York. A driver’s license is more for decoration than function.”
“Fuck me,” I grit out.
When she asked if she could drive, I already knew she had never driven down roads like I was bringing her to. She’d already told me she hasn’t spent much time outside of New York until she met me, and that it was the only place she’d ever driven. But she didn’t specify that she hadn’t driven there much either.
We’re coming to where the road forks. One way takes us to the swamp, the other back to the highway. She takes the left toward the swamp, and I don’t think I’ve ever been more anxious in my life. This doesn’t just take you to the swamp. It literally ends in the swamp.
“Tori, you should probably let me drive now,” I tell her nervously as the road continues to narrow into even sharper curves.
I let out a very emasculating sound when I practically feel the truck tip to one side as she slides around a nearly ninety – degree curve.
Then she picks up speed. “Tori come on. Stop so I can get us out of here.”
“What’s the matter, Zane? You’re not scared, are you?”
“I am secure enough in my masculinity to admit I am fucking terrified right now.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
“Darlin’, any other time that answer would be yes, but this road is going to end any second and it doesn’t give a lot of warning.”
She doesn’t even blink nor does she attempt to slow down. I know we have three more curves before the one that literally ends in the swamp.
My feet a pressed hard into the floorboard of the truck. My grip on the handle is so tight, I can feel it giving under the pressure and my other hand is trying to find anything on the center console to grip.
We slide around another curve. Two more to go.
I’ve never been afraid of anyone or anything. Even the idea of death has never scared me. I have looked down the barrel of guns aimed for my face. I have been in fights that could’ve easily ended with my death. I have helped torture and kill men who weren’t worth the oxygen they wasted.
Suddenly, sitting in my own fucking truck with the girl I’m head over heels in love with, I am terrified. Terrified for my truck, Tori, and my impending demise at the hands of the sexy blonde sitting behind the steering wheel.
She goes sliding around another curve. “Goddammit, Tori. Fucking stop!”
She casts a glance my way. Defiance is all I see in her eyes.
And she speeds up even more. Down a dirt road that’s nothing more than a hunting trail. With absolutely no idea where it ends.
The last curve is up ahead. I can see it now. My heart ratchets up ten thousand notches. I’m pretty sure I’m about to have a heart attack.
She begins to fishtail on the road. I see the panic setting in her eyes as she hits the brakes. “Don't stomp the brakes. Don’t fight the spin,” I yell at her as the curve comes closer. “Press the brakes slowly and turn into the spin.”
“But we’ll hit the trees,” she cries out.
“Just fucking do it, Tori. Hit the brakes easy and turn with the truck.”
She does as I say even though I’m not sure it’s going to work. I see this ending many, many ways. None of them good.
We finally come to a stop in the middle of the final curve, the truck kissing the tree in front of us. We let out a breath. Then another.
