Sighing, I glanced out at the parking lot again. Snow was starting to pile up on the bikes and cars. Bleakness swallowed me. I just needed to get home. The compulsion to seal myself in my dorm room until I felt like me again rose up inside me like a desperate, living thing. I could forget the recklessness of this night but I had to get it behind me first.
“I live in town,” I heard myself saying. “In a dorm. At Dartford.”
He chuckled lightly and the sound rubbed like velvet on my skin. “Could have guessed that.” His gaze skimmed over me. “C’mon, college girl. Let’s get you home.”
I hesitated, still thumbing at my phone in my pocket. I could call Georgia. Or just take a ride from this guy and be home in thirty minutes. Georgia and Pepper wouldn’t have to know how stupid I was for going out with Annie in the first place and drinking too much. I could forget all about tonight and go back to being the carefree party girl in charge of her fate. And the next time Mom called I’d let it go straight to voice mail. I could feasibly go another six months without talking to her. All these less than coherent thoughts chugged through my brain.
He stepped ahead into the parking lot and stopped, turning halfway, waiting for me. My eyes scanned him. He was tall and built. Any girl would want to climb all over him. And he could handle it, too. He wouldn’t break a sweat. I squeezed my eyes in a tight blink at the sudden image of my legs wrapped around his lean hips, his big palms holding me up by the ass as I dragged my mouth down his neck. My breathing quickened.
“C’mon. You don’t have to be scared. I promise I’m not a sociopath.”
Wouldn’t a sociopath say that very thing? But it was his: You don’t have to be scared that got to me. Taunted me. I wasn’t scared. Ever. I wouldn’t allow myself to be. Not again. Lifting my chin, I stepped forward and followed him. He stopped at an old beat-up truck, actually leading me to the passenger-side door.
I gave the truck and him a long look. “What? No bike?”
“It’s like ten degrees out.”
So he did have a bike. That image of him wasn’t totally dashed then. He pulled the door open for me. It was rather gentlemanly, and, I admit, unexpected. Most of the guys I hooked up with didn’t get the door for me.
I shoved the comparison aside and climbed inside. He shut the door, the sound jarring. I fumbled for the seat belt, my fingers clumsy and slipping several times before getting a good grip. God. I really was drunk.
I exhaled a deep breath and stared straight ahead, willing myself into sobriety.
It wasn’t the first time I’d drunk a little too much, but this was seriously the worst scenario considering I was at the mercy of a strange guy. How many crazy abduction stories began this way?
I shivered a little where I sat and not just from cold. I wrapped my fingers around my knees. Come on, Em. Pull it together.
Then he was in the truck cab with me, turning the engine over. It purred to life. He adjusted the heat. The air puffed out cold from the vents.
“Give it a minute,” he said. Leaning down, he grabbed an ice scraper from under his seat. Slamming the door shut, he hopped out and scraped the windows free of ice and snow with strong, sure movements.
I watched his face through the glass, and his look of concentration did something to my chest, made it squeeze a little tighter. Stupid. I knew that achy little squeeze for what it was, and I couldn’t let myself succumb to attraction for him. Square jaw; straight nose; and sensual, well-carved lips aside—he wasn’t my type. As if to confirm that fact, I turned on him as soon as he got back inside the truck. “You’re taking me straight home.”
He gave me a look that told me he was beginning to think I was a freak. “I got that, yeah.” Chafing his hands, he blew air into them, not looking at me again as he waited for the truck to warm up. Like I wasn’t worth the time, and that made me feel a little foolish.
“Are you a student?” I asked, relieved that the question sounded normal.
He glanced at me. “As in do I go to college?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
He lowered his hands from his mouth. “Do I look like a college boy to you?”
No. Not any of the boys I went to college with at least. “Did you finish high school?”
He made a soft snorting sound. “Yeah. I finished high school.”
A beat of silence followed before I asked another question. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-three.”
He was three years older than me. And he never went to college. “What do you do?”
The skin along his jaw tensed, a muscle feathering the skin, a hint that I had hit a nerve. “Who said I did anything?” His tone was hard, almost mocking again.
I’m sure that he did something—how else did he survive?—but now I’d annoyed him and he wasn’t about to share anything with me. I shrugged like I didn’t care.
“How about we start with names?” I asked, my voice conciliatory. “I’m Emerson.”
“Shaw,” he returned.
Shaw. He looked like a Shaw. Whatever that meant. It just fit him. I exhaled through my nose. The air escaping the vents was feeling decidedly warmer now.
“Emerson.” He shifted the truck into drive and backed out. “Well. Hope you don’t mind me saying so, but you’ve got some suck-ass friends.”
A breath shuddered from my lips. “Yeah. Well. They’re not really my friends.”
“Guess that’s good, but then why were you out with them tonight?”
Because an ugly conversation with my mother sent me over the edge and made me act stupid.
Instead of saying that, I admitted, “ ’Cause my real friends all have boyfriends.”
The words slipped freely from my lips and I realized I might have been better off if I’d just admitted to a fight with my mother. I almost sounded like I envied my friends their girlfriend status.
“And you don’t?” Was he trying to find out if I was available? But he’d already made it clear he wasn’t interested in fooling around with me. My gaze traveled over the hands holding the steering wheel. They were big, masculine hands. Sexy, with strong lines and blunt-nailed fingertips. The kind of hands that screamed capable, strong. Hands that would know how to touch a girl.
Blinking, I forced my gaze to the road, my grip on my knees tightening. “No. I don’t have a boyfriend. What about you?”