Page 19 of True Ruin

He shrugged, not sure what it meant beyond the fact that he’d be more agile in a boot.

Gabi trailed a finger down his chest, her eyes glowing in the dim light, sending a jolt of longing straight through him. “That thing you whispered at the end.”

I want to fuck you standing up, go so deep we scream.

Dallas exhaled softly, hoping he hadn’t shocked her. It seemed he had a tendency to talk dirty in the moment with her. “I remember.”

“Sam is with his grandparents Saturday night.”

Two things hit him at once. Well, three. Fondness, terror, and furious, all-consuming lust.

“What’s going on up there, Dallas True?” She gently tapped his temple.

“You’re going to make me tell you, aren’t you?”

“I have questions, yes,” Gabi said with a knowing smile. “Lucky for you, I also have answers.”

The noise in the hallway grew louder, teenage laughter drifting closer. The last stragglers, lingering long after the theater crowd had cleared out—the exact kind to go looking for trouble and talk if they found a certain couple in a compromising position. But Dallas was trapped. With crutches, he’d only slow her down.

“My cottage. Saturday. Dinner.” Dallas gave Gabi a little shove toward the main room. “Believe it or not, Sparkle, I’m an excellent cook.”

He pointed to the door he remembered leading to the senior parking lot and waited until Gabi slipped out, one hand pressed over her mouth to smother her delighted laugh. Her cheeks were rosy from her ride on his fingers, and her scent was all he had left.

Damn, but he liked that.

In the hallway, the voices drew closer, sneakers squeaking on tile, laughter bouncing off the lockers. Probably clustered around the payphone he needed to use to call for a ride.

Dallas glanced at his crutches, then at the fire alarm beside the door.

“My therapist also says I have issues with impulsivity,” he murmured to no one, and pulled it.

SEVEN

Interstate Love Song–Stone Temple Pilots

Dallas would always thinkof it as the hottest kiss of his life.

Actually, the second hottest. There was that little experiment with Gabi on the bleachers in 1985, a memory that lived in him like a wound, the good kind. And since she’d seemed put out—cute as hell over something neither of them could change—when she learned she hadn’t been his first everything, he decided he’d tell her over dinner that she’d still been his first in one way that mattered.

Maybe that would mean something.

I’m going to ruin you.

Dallas groaned and scrubbed his hand over his growing-in hair, wishing he didn’t get hard every time that ragged whisper rippled through his mind. Distracted, he scribbled on the pad before him, his attention nowhere near theDispatchoffice.

Even with a sufficient amount of sexual experience, he’d never had desire catch like a brushfire and scorch everything in its path. For fuck’s sake, he’d fingered her to orgasm in a closetoff the choir room. The memory hadn’t left him since—her kiss, the silk of her skin, the bite of her teeth against his neck.

And the scent of her pleasure on his skin? Let’s just say he’d taken the longest shower of his life that night.

The situation was dicey. Dallas got the impression she wanted to keep things light. Or rather, that she’d never had much chance to explore. Getting married at nineteen and having Sam right after had swallowed the years when she might’ve made other choices. Reckless choices.Funones. There was no need to make it complicated now, not when he was out of here in less than two months. Gabi wasn’t ready for anything real, and neither was he.

Maybe what they both needed was something exciting and sexy.

No promises. No pressure. Just delight.

He’d done that before; he was pretty good at it.

But he’d never shared anything with those women they couldn’t read in his bio. Then he went and spent ten minutes with Gabi Wilder and blabbed about being put on leave, something he hadn’t even dared tell his family. That look in her golden eyes—seeing too much, wanting to know more.