her head toward him, her eyes blazing, and he met her stare. She turned away first, swatting off the radio and bringing both hands to the steering wheel, and he leaned back in his seat, a smug smile curving his lips over the fact that she had turned away first. Sure, he realized that she needed to keep her eyes on the road, but fuck it, he wanted to celebrate it as a victory.
They drove the next half hour in complete silence. Andie didn’t turn the radio back on, and every now and then, Chase would glance at her hands on the steering wheel; they were immobile, her knuckles white as she gripped the wheel at ten and two.
This would be impossible, he realized, trying to keep this drive amiable. She got fired up too easily, and if he were being honest, he enjoyed the reaction too much. It was a bad combination. And he wasn’t about to put on some act for the next two days just because this girl was overly uptight. They’d both be better off if he just kept his mouth shut; she obviously wasn’t dying for company, and he didn’t mind spending the next two days in thoughtful silence.
He rested his head back on the seat and closed his eyes, inhaling slowly.
At that moment, without his sense of sight, her scent consumed him, and he exhaled with a soft, contented hum in the back of his throat. His eyes flipped open, startled by his visceral reaction to the way she smelled; it wasn’t like any perfume he knew. Not pungent, not fake.
Natural. Understated.
Sweet, but not fruity. Feminine, but not floral. He had no idea how to describe it. What he did know was that it gave him the strangest feeling in his stomach, one that was as pleasant as it was completely wrong.
He looked over at her, hoping she hadn’t heard him, that she wasn’t aware of his reaction to her. By that time, her posture had relaxed some, her fingers loosely curled around the steering wheel. He dropped his gaze to her leg, her left knee bouncing slightly, as if she were keeping the beat to some private tune in her mind.
Of their own accord, his eyes began to travel up her body, over the fitted white tank that hugged the flat plane of her stomach, the swell of her breasts. He lifted his eyes to her profile, her delicate, sloping nose, her pouty mouth. At that moment her lips parted, the tip of her tongue peeking out to wet her bottom lip, and he swallowed hard just as she slammed on the brake, catapulting them into the restraint of their seat belts and yanking him from his culpable reverie.
“Jesus Christ!” she shouted. “You jackass!”
By now Chase’s eyes were safely back on the road, staring at the taillights of the car that had just cut Andie off.
She exhaled heavily, leaning back into her seat. “Sorry,” she said softly.
“It’s okay,” he said, somewhat unsettled, but not at all from the near collision.
After a minute, Andie laughed humorlessly. “Unbelievable,” she said, gesturing at the windshield. “Why does someone become a daredevil just long enough to cut you off, but then proceed to drive like someone’s ninety-year-old grandmother as soon as they’re in front of you?”
“Are you telling me you didn’t factor shitty drivers into your travel plans?”
She pursed her lips at that, keeping her eyes on the road, and he smiled.
“When someone drives like that in front of me, you know what I usually think about that makes me feel better?”
Andie glanced over at him. “Do I want to know the answer to this question?” she asked, and he laughed.
“Think about it this way. What if this person never came out in front of you, never forced you to slow down, and you took an upcoming curve too fast and went flying off the road? Or what if your original travel speed put you in an intersection at the exact moment a truck ran a red light? Or when a little kid forgot to look both ways before crossing the road on his bike?”
Andie looked over at him, her expression taken aback.
“Maybe something bad would have happened if this guy didn’t slow you down when he did. Maybe this is your guardian angel, looking out for you.”
She stared at him for another second before she blinked quickly, bringing her eyes back to the road.
Chase kept his eyes on her for a moment before he sat back