The drive started to feel like an awkward distillation of every horrible flight we shared during those weeks of travelling together. Half started conversations. Watching his hands because looking at anything else was too obviously interested. Looking forward to the grazing, accidental touches that you just can’t avoid in close quarters. But we’d burned a lot of small talk in 100 hours of air travel, and we didn’t have the next location to plan or ideas from the last one to work up. And while I’d worked convincing napping posture down to an art form, it wasn’t going to sell here and now.

The only thing that made me feel better was that Jason was just as obviously stuck for conversational topics as I was. I mean, it should have made me feel better. Actually it just made me feel guilty for making him awkward. He never had been before. I’d actually come to depend on his obliviousness to my oddities.

We were nearly home, I had settled for just watching the lights rush past, and humming along to the radio until the radio went away. Jason had turned it off. I turned around to do my best with whatever the new conversation fragment was going to be. It wasn’t what I expected.

“Melissa, I move words around for a living. There’s a plaque in the back seat of this very car that supposedly says I do it pretty well. So I can’t figure out why I can’t seem to find a way to ask you this.” I tried to pry my eyes off the steering wheel, I knew I’d understand what was going on much better if I could see Jason’s eyes. “So, I’m just going to put it out there.” Jason’s arm reached out across my body, making my heart skip a beat. He opened the glove compartment, pulled out a folded piece of paper, and dropped it in my lap. Then he didn’t say anything else.

So, I unfolded it. I looked. And I realized where this was going. Confessions were coming, I just didn’t know how many would be necessary. I was holding a picture ripped out of one of my sketchbooks. One of the books Jason borrowed that day on the beach. I think I’d drawn it earlier that day, but I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t remember it all that clearly. It was a picture of Jason, very clearly Jason, sanding on the edge of the ocean, waves lapping around his ankles, shoes in one hand, his head tipped back the way he did when he was enjoying the sun, eyes closed. His body was rendered in exquisite detail, I’d been observing it for over a month at that point. His shirt undone, his face lit from above. It wasn’t a quick sketch, it was a full fledged portrait. And me. Clearly me, though less well rendered. Sitting up in the top right corner of the page, naked, arms wrapped around my knees, surrounded by dreamy mists of clouds, watching him not see me. Honestly, money for an analyst would be wasted on me….I’m much to easy to piece apart. But he may not have seen it, not the whole of it. I just didn’t know yet.

“So, like I said. I’m the wordsmith, not all that good with pictures. I was hoping you could, you know, talk me through this one.”

“Jason, I do a lot of spontaneous drawing…,” but that’s as far as I got.

“Because, quite honestly, I was surprised to see it. At first I wasn’t even sure it was me. I thought it might just be that, what with all the time we were working together, you were adapting a familiar….face. And if it was just me, I think I’d have left it there. But the way you’re looking down at me in the picture….”

Oh my god, he was babbling. He wasn’t letting me get a word in edge ways. He’d asked a question he didn’t want the answer to. And if he didn’t want the real answer, he’d take the one I wanted to give. All I had to say was “It’s just a drawing, it doesn’t mean anything.” Or I could even deny the drawings were related, two separate pictures on a page he’d put together in his mind. He may not believe me, but it’d get me off the hook and out of the car. So why wasn’t I saying it? Why wasn’t I saying anything?

“You never looked at me like that in life…so….I was just wondering…and…you know what, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up. It’s not my business. It’s just a…”

“I did.” Not what I meant to say. I hadn’t meant to say anything. I didn’t know I was going to until my lips started moving. And then there was silence.

“Did what?” he asked.

“Look.” I dragged my eyes away from the page in my lap and up to his face. I saw his throat work as he swallowed, his gaze rigidly fixed on the road ahead, his jaw tense and rigid. “I did look. And I didn’t want you to know. Because now you obviously can’t look at me.”

Jason smiled just a little, awkwardly, but didn’t so much as glance at me. “Have to keep my eyes on the road.” Monosyllables were apparently contagious.

I took a deep breath and decided that I could make the monosyllables work for me. “So park.”

Jason’s breath caught just a little, if I hadn’t been watching I wouldn’t have known it. Neither of us said a word as he took the next exit. I could feel my heart pounding, the blood rushing to my skin, making it tingle. I couldn’t help fidgeting with my skirt, then smoothing it back across my thigh. But my eyes never left his face, and his never left the road.

We pulled into the darkened parking lot of a local restraunt. He slowly turned the engine off, but then didn’t miss a beat and turned to face me. “See? I can look. No problem.” Maybe he wasn’t having a problem. I was having several. Among them, I couldn’t seem to speak. “So, what happens now?”

I honestly didn’t know. So I closed my eyes, asked the part of my mind in charge of fantasies, and saw the answer. Without opening them I reached out my hand and stroked the backs of my fingers across his cheek. But it wasn’t what I’d anticipated. His skin wasn’t the simple smooth, soft warmth I’d always imagined. It was more than that. There was hardness under the softness, the beginnings of stubble as I approached his jaw, muscles moving under my fingers as he opened his mouth. Then I felt his hand close around mine, a tug that travelled all the way up my arm as he lifted my hand away from his cheek, the unexpected moistness of his breath on my knuckles, the way lips stroked them as he kissed my hand. I opened my eyes, this was entirely off script, and saw his eyes, beautiful brown eyes, looking right into mine.

Jason lowered his hand without releasing mine. What happens next? I asked the voice in my head, tangled my fingers through his, and pulled his hand toward me, lay it against my waist, and leaned toward him, head tilted at that “so when ARE you going to kiss me” angle. Jason smiled at me, traced my lips with the fingers of his free hand, pressing the hand I’d placed against my waist firmly against me. Looking at me, but not coming any closer. This man needed to learn about the script. If I leaned any further forward, it wasn’t going to be his face I’d wind up kissing. And while that fantasy had an appeal all it’s own…I didn’t think it was where I wanted things to go right this instant. To give myself more scope to move, I pulled a knee up onto my seat and pushed up to kneel on it so I could reach across the console between the seats and kiss him properly. It would’ve worked too, if I’d been wearing jeans. But that slit skirt tangled and I didn’t so much gracefully lean as fall across his lap and bang my head on his shoulder.

Jason’s arms came up to stabilize me, wrapping around me, possibly to make sure I didn’t elbow the car horn. He pulled me forward, and turned me to sit across his lap. I hadn’t imagined he’d be able to move me that easily. At least, he made it look easy. “This always seemed simpler when I was a teenager,” I muttered.

Jason laughed, the way his body moved against mine as he did made me shiver. “What was easier?” he asked, shifting his arm behind my back to a more sustainable position. “Flirting?”

“Well, I mostly meant the making out in cars part” I replied, wriggling to turn towards him, working my arms up around his neck to hold myself up or to tug his head down to meet mine, either would suit me. He didn’t even play at avoiding me this time. His mouth met mine, softly at first, then suddenly more firmly demanding, the arm around me holding me tightly against his body. I knew there were months of frustration and longing in my side of the kiss, but it suddenly occurred to me that it wasn’t all coming from me. I couldn’t manage to think deep thoughts about it just then. Not with his lips hungrily working across mine, his tongue probing and tasting my mouth. It was better than I’d dreamed his kiss would be, there was a need in it that I couldn’t have imagined. I gave myself up to it fully, letting the rest of the world disappear.

When we came up for air, Josh rested his forhead against mine, eyes tight closed, breathing in deeply, exhaling slowly. I turned my head just enough to reach his face, kissing his cheek, exploring the planes of his face with my lips and tongue. My hands pressed against his chest, moved across his shoulders, felt the muscles move under my fingers as his arms shifted across my back. I held myself against him, seeking his mouth again, more aggressively. And then it happened all at once. I felt Jason’s hand moving across my back, up from my hip to where my dress stopped and skin started. His fingers dipped in under the fabric moving across to stroke my side. I moaned and twisted, wanting more. I pressed my breasts against Jason’s chest, needing the stimulation, wanting him closer. Wanting one hell of a lot more than that, I wanted this dress off, his tux long gone, my legs wrapped around him. Jason pulled free of the kiss, “I’m sorry, Mel, I just, I have to get you to move.”

“Hmmm? Why?” I ask, only half paying attention. The rest of my attention was focused on pulling at his shirt, wanting my hands inside his clothes almost as badly as I wanted his hands in mine.

“Melissa please, you’re driving me crazy….but if you don’t move soon.”

“Hmmm? Soon….just a minute.” I murmured into his ear…I’d almost gotten that shirt free, should’ve started with the cumberbund.

“Mel! You’re not….oh hell,” Jason took my head in his hands and pulled me around to kiss me hard. When he had my attention he grabbed me around the waist, pulled me hard against him. He ground his hips hard up against me, showing me in no uncertain terms what the problem was….and precisely the degree to which I wasn’t helping. “Sorry,” I breathed….”I’ll move. But I’m coming right back here later.”