Drive

by Stephanie Fournet

  When they reached the Impala, he quickly helped Archie into the back seat as rain pelted his back and shoulders. He straightened up to find Rainey staring unseeing at the door of the car and getting soaked in the process. He knew she probably couldn’t even feel the rain, but he could. It was cold, and she’d soon be freezing. He nudged her gently aside, opened her door, and settled her into the front seat without a word.

  As he rounded the hood of the car and ducked inside, Jacques knew his first priority was to put some distance between Rainey and the awful scene with Gloria Lopez-Craine. And his next goal was to find a place for the night where she could get warm and dry. If that place came with a stiff drink, so much the better. For both of them.

  Rainey sat immobile and silent beside him as he started the car and practically sped out of the parking lot. He couldn’t help but glance at the storefront of Glorious Locks, and even through the driving rain, Jacques was sure he saw the silhouette of a boy in its glass doorway. He had to turn to angle out of the parking lot before he could be sure, but Jacques could only hope his eyes hadn’t deceived him.

  When they merged back onto Highway 231, Rainey still hadn’t spoken. She hadn’t even shifted in her seat. Her hands were fisted in her lap, and her blouse and skirt were both drenched. He reached across to her and covered her left hand with his palm. Rainey jumped and flung her startled gaze at him.

  “I know it seems bad right now, but it’ll be okay.” His attempt at reassurance sounded lame to his own ears, but he couldn’t leave her to the torment of her thoughts. Beneath his hand, her fingers trembled, and he saw now that her teeth chattered.

  “That… that couldn’t have gone any worse. How… What… I…” Her voice trailed off as her gaze shifted down, her misery swallowing her again.

  He just squeezed her hand and drove as the windshield wipers lashed rain off the glass. The cars in the oncoming lane all drove with their headlights on. Some even flashed their hazards. He made sure his low beams were on as he looked for a place where he could pull over and form a plan.

  “Did you know that only half of aplastic anemia patients who can’t find stem cell donors survive on drug therapy?” Rainey asked him, her voice just a rasp. She lifted her gaze to him, and Jacques could see the anguish in her eyes though she tried to hide it.

  The car suddenly seemed airless, and Jacques could only shake his head.

  “And those who do survive with treatment have a statistical likelihood of eventually developing acute leukemia?”

  He couldn’t find any words to respond to these facts, so Jacques squeezed her hand again. He could have been fooling himself, but he thought she might have squeezed back.

  “And eighty percent of patients who don’t respond to drug treatment — like Holi — die within two years?”

  Jacques couldn’t take his eyes off the road, but he didn’t have to in order to know how much pain and fear he’d find in her yes. He searched for any words of comfort. “A lot can happen in two years.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her nod fervently. He drove, silence enveloping them again. Until the sounds of Rainey’s quiet sobs filled the car.

  “Rainey,” he murmured, his heart rending at the sound. He spotted a park on the other side of the highway, and he pulled off the road and stopped along of a row of trees whose white blossoms seemed to be losing the battle against the storm. Other than the doomed blossoms, the park was empty. Jacques killed the engine and turned to Rainey, moving his hand to her shoulder.

  “It’ll be okay,” he promised again, hoping this time he sounded more convincing. Rainey just shook her head, wiping her eyes. She wouldn’t meet his gaze.

  “Why did he do it?”

  Jacques’s head jerked in confusion. “Who?”

  “My dad. Why would he give up my brother?”

  The stricken look on her face was like a spear through his heart. How could he answer that question? Without words, Jacques wrapped her in his arms and squeezed her against him.

  Rainey grabbed a handful of his soaked shirt and buried her face. He wasn’t surprised when her shoulders shook with sobs, but that didn’t make the sight of her crying any easier.

  He kissed the top of Rainey’s head, her hair just as wet as his. Even now, her lavender-wild orange scent filled his head. He told her the truth and hoped it would ease her. “I can’t explain your father’s choices any better than I can explain mine.”

  Her breath hitched on a sob. “I-it’s not just him,” she cried into his shirt. “You know what really scares me?” Her words ended on a squeak that made his chest ache.

  Jacques pulled her tighter against him. “Tell me.” If she told him, maybe he could do something about it. Maybe he could ease her fears.

  She hiccupped against him. “I’m afraid… I’m afraid that I’m just losing everyone I love… one by one.”

  “No,” he soothed, drawing out the word as he ran a hand up and down her back. But Rainey just nodded soundlessly, keeping her face buried against him. She sniffled twice, and he could tell she was trying to speak again.

  “I’m losing everyone,” she said, her voice now throaty with defeat. “And in a way, it’s all my fault…”

  “No… no,” he protested, stroking her hair. “You’re not losing anyone. And none of this is your fault.”

  But she kept going as if he hadn’t spoken. “… and if I can’t be stronger and fight harder, I’ll be all alone.”

  “Rainey,” he murmured into her hair, kissing her again. “That’s… that’s crazy.”

  She pushed against him then, and she brought her watery gaze up to his. Her irises swam in greens and golds, and despite the pain they held, Jacques thought he’d never seen anything so beautiful. “It’s true. I’m not strong enough to hold onto anyone,” she said, trembling as she spoke. “Not even you.”

  The doomed words took hold in his heart like barbed hooks. Jacques clenched his teeth and shook his head. “That’s not true.” The rearview mirror vibrated with the depth of his voice as he gripped her arms. “You have me.”

  The car fell silent. Rainey blinked up at him and shivered. She was soaked to the skin; they both were. But as her eyes focused on his, Jacques could feel the heat of her body beneath her wet clothes. His palms seared with it. His own body felt volcanic, despite the fact that water still dripped from his hair.

  Her eyes dropped to his mouth, and before he could stop himself, before he could ask her permission, Jacques was kissing her.

  Rainey’s soft, wet mouth opened beneath his, an invitation that went straight to the base of his brain. He felt her hands on his face as his fell to her waist, dragging her as close as her seatbelt would allow. His tongue plunged into her mouth, seeking her heat and her sweetness.

  He let his lips unseal from hers only long enough to echo his words. “You have me,” he murmured into her mouth. And he was rewarded with her half-moan-half-cry, a lilting sound that came from her throat and carried a paradox of desire and fulfillment.

  The sound spurred his blood. In two moves, he released both of their seat belts, but even though he lunged for her, the center console dug into his right hip as the gearshift blocked his knee. Vaguely, he knew he’d have bruises in the morning, but Jacques could not care. Rainey was in his arms, her mouth joined with his, her breasts pressed against his chest.

  And her hands were everywhere.

  From his face, one moved to his nape where she clutched his hair with surprising force, her fingernails grazing his skin. The other trailed from his shoulder down over his pectoral, making his nipples stand at attention beneath his wet T-shirt. She then moved her touch down his ribs, and his cock leaped as though it could reach her.

  Jacques’s breath stuttered when she found the hem of his shirt and her cool, damp hand pressed against the thermonuclear surface of his abs.

  “Rainey—” Her name was an urgent plea for mercy.

  “Jacques…” His own name had never carried such plaintive need.

/>   At the sound, Jacques experienced both a burgeoning of his desire and a mastering of it. His focus shifted from the sensations she gave that threatened to overwhelm him to the way she responded to his touch.

  And Rainey responded to his touch.

  He moved his mouth to her angelic neck, the place he’d dreamed of returning to since their night in the courtyard. And when his lips and teeth marked the favored spot, Jacques had to wrap a steadying arm along her back as Rainey sagged with a sigh. With his free hand, he traced the V of her open collar, and he brought his lips up to her left earlobe.

  Suckling on the darling, he whispered. “You’re so beautiful.” And a shudder passed through her. Jacques wanted to make her shudder again. Countless times. His fingers worked open the first button of her blouse. Then her second and third. He kissed his way down her neck, her collarbone, into the now open valley of her blouse where her creamy breasts rose and fell with her panting. He kissed the tops of each, nipping the skin through the lacey edge of her bra.

  “Jacques—” The hand in his hair tightened again, and Jacques grinned against her cleavage. She sounded impatient, fretful, and knowing it was for him — that she had just as little control and just as much desire for him — made him absurdly happy.

  He had enough presence of mind to lift his gaze and scan their surroundings. The storm raged on, and not a soul had entered the park. He looked down at Rainey, and her half-lidded eyes rose to his. He couldn’t read the words in her gaze, but she lifted her mouth to his, and he felt her affirmation, giving him back the kisses he’d taken moments before.

  As they kissed, his left hand cupped her breast through her lace, and the cadence of her breath changed. Jacques tugged at the bra cup and freed her right breast, the weight of it in his hand becoming one of the most sublime pleasures he’d ever known. As soon as his fingers closed on her tight nipple, he knew touching her would not be enough.

  With three kisses against her lips — an unspoken promise that he’d return — he let his mouth fall to her breast, claiming the sweet flesh for his own. A tortured cry ripped from her throat, and while his eyes were half-closed, Jacques felt her buck beneath him. Keeping his mouth at her breast, suckling and teasing her nipple with his tongue, Jacques let his hand ride down the curve of her waist, down along her belly, and into her lap. With each suck, he could feel the way her thighs clenched together beneath her skirt, and Jacques quickly decided that flared skirts were his absolute favorite feminine article of clothing.

  His eager fingers skated over the fabric of her plum-colored skirt until they met her bare thighs. He traced a figure eight against her skin, and as if in response, he felt her hand along his stomach respond in kind. The sensation nearly choked him.

  “Easy now,” he murmured against her breast, and to his surprise, Rainey gave a throaty chuckle, but she stilled her hand by pressing it into his stomach, splaying all five fingers as a kind of tacit surrender.

  Unable to forget the touch of her hand and its proximity to the fly of his jeans, Jacques pulled in two steadying breaths through his nose and threw his being into the worship of her body. She had not stilled his hand or stayed his advances, so he let his fingers glide up her thighs, making a deliciously slow journey beneath her skirt until he touched the searing, silken fabric of her panties, and he heard Rainey’s breath catch.

  The lovely sound made him wish to return to her mouth, so he captured her kiss again, wanting to be close to her breath, her voice, and any words she chose to utter in this state. She received his kiss with such ardor and urgency that Jacques felt his heart turn over. Wordlessly, he understood that he had not been alone in all of his yearning. All these weeks, she’d carried that inside of her, too.

  He understood why. He didn’t need for her to explain her fears any more. Jacques could only hope that her surrender was a sign that she’d overcome them. They’d be together. As they should have been from the beginning. And he’d show her — over and over again — that he could be trusted with her heart.

  The fact that she trusted him now with her other delicate parts made him feel about ten feet tall. His fingers traced over her soft mound, and she gave a muffled cry. He repeated the motion, and her body trembled again. He gripped her tighter around the back as his fingers slipped under the band at her panties.

  Heat and her wetness met his fingertips, and this time, it was his moan that filled the cab of the Impala.

  “Rainey… my God,” he breathed against her mouth. He stroked her yielding, liquid-hot flesh, imagining its pinkness, its dizzying perfume — all woman, all Rainey — and he promised himself his mouth would journey there soon — when a Chevrolet center console and gearshift didn’t stand as chaperones, and he had space and time to lay her down on a bed and feast on every inch of her.

  Music flooded his head as the tip of his middle finger found her most sensitive spot, and he stroked a rhythm he was sure they both could hear. Rainey’s head tipped back exposing her neck again to his mouth, and he allowed his middle and index fingers to bury themselves inside, his thumb keeping time to the song they played.

  The percussion of Rainey’s breath sped ahead, far quicker than he’d have imagined possible. And soon after, tiny vibrations encircled his fingers, the promise of a building crescendo. Jacques knew he was in grave danger of ascending with her, even though his sex was still tucked safely in his boxers and jeans. He’d never found himself about to come just from having his fingers inside a woman, but clearly Rainey was no ordinary woman.

  She was his.

  The moment this thought burst into his head, he couldn’t hold onto it. Jacques pressed his lips to Rainey’s ear. “I’ve got you,” he whispered.

  And whether she heard the words as assurance that she could let go or as evidence that he was staking his claim — both meanings could not have been truer as far as he was concerned — the words must have meant something to her because at their utterance, Rainey arched her back, clutching the hair at the back of his head even tighter, and clamping her thighs together as much as his devoted fist could allow.

  “Jacques!” Her cry came as hidden muscles clenched around his fingers. Again. And again. And again. And Jacques looked down at her face just in time to see the most adorable frown of concentration and culmination smooth out over her perfect brow.

  He bent down and placed a gentle kiss on her flushed lips as he slowly withdrew his fingers, and he watched her eyes flutter open. Her pupils were dark pools, deep and otherworldly. He smiled down at her, certain this was a view he’d never tire of seeing. Not if he lived a thousand years.

  Rainey smiled back at him. Then she blinked, and he watched as her gaze cleared.

  “Oh, my God.” She gently pushed his hand aside and resettled her skirt.

  “What’s wrong?” Jacques asked, frowning at her sudden distress.

  Her eyes darted to the back seat as she started doing up her buttons. “We just rounded third base in front of Archie.”

  “What?” Jacques looked over his shoulder to see the dog curled in the middle of the bench seat, wagging patiently at the two of them. The crack of his laughter ricocheted through the Impala. “What?! Did you just say rounded third base to describe what we just did?” Somehow, he managed to speak the words through his laughter.

  Rainey shrugged as she buttoned her top button, but her face was now scarlet. “What would you call it?”

  He mastered his laughter and gave her an arch look. “Long overdue.”

  She swatted his knee. And Jacques promptly hauled her into him for a kiss. For a whole quarter of a second, she didn’t yield. But then she did. Her arms wrapped around him, and the soft noises from her throat fell on him like blessings. He drew back to find her still blushing.

  “You okay?”

  She blinked three times and chewed on her lip. “Sure,” she said, sounding anything but sure.

  He nodded, knowingly. This was Rainey after all. He couldn’t expect that she’d be even-keeled about their foray
into unchartered territory — long overdue though it was. But if she thought she could push him away again, she’d be wrong. For right now, he could be sure for the both of them.

  Chapter 24

  “We need to find a place to stay tonight,” Jacques announced, keeping her tight in his arms.

  The rain still pounded against the car, and Jacques grinned down at her with such an easy, relaxed glint in his eye that Rainey wondered if she’d just imagined the steamy, toe-curling, oh-my-God-he-had-his-hand-up-my-skirt interlude.

  But she couldn’t have imagined it. Because she could still feel it. It had been a while — quite a long while — since anyone (other than herself) had brought her to orgasm. And when she did it solo, it felt nice and all, but it didn’t rearrange the plate tectonics of her whole body, and Rainey was quite sure that the ground beneath her had shifted.

  Irrevocably.

  In fact, the events of the last hour had been more than a little earth-shattering. She’d met her brother and in the process completely wrecked their plan of talking to Gloria. And she’d let Holi down. She’d confessed to Jacques her greatest fear. And then she’d let herself lose control with him.

  So, when he started talking about finding a place to stay, Rainey could only nod. The roaring noise in her head was making rational, linear thought sort of impossible.

  Jacques released her from his embrace, but he kept her hand clasped in his as he took out his phone. The hand, she allowed herself to admit, felt good. She looked at Jacques out of the corner of her eye, and her heart gave a painful squeeze.

  He was everything she wanted. Not just in a man, but in another human being. He was thoughtful, and compassionate, and smart. He laughed at her jokes, and he made her feel interesting.

  He made her feel beautiful.

  She craved him. She savored every piece of knowledge about his nature and his past. She hungered for more. Rainey couldn’t imagine a time when she wouldn’t want to be near him.