Free ReVamped by Lucienne Diver Page B

teased.
    His fingers rose from my thigh to trace over my stomach, up the valley between my breasts. “Sure, like that,” he answered. “Or anatomy or chemistry.”
    He leaned in for a kiss, and I met him halfway, nearly moaning at the contact. It had been way, way too long. Days.
    I felt zippy like I had at Red Rock, only this time it was all-natural. I slid my hands into his Zac-Efron-shaggy hair to hold him in place as I kissed him back. He stroked my hair, my neck, down again over my borrowed shirt. I started to shiver, trailing my hand down his chest, determined to get the same reaction out of him.
    Something rocked the car, jolting us suddenly so that our teeth clicked together. We jumped, ready for action, and found that a pack of teens had decided to use my car instead of the nearby picnic tables for their snack. Two girls and a guy were planted on the hood, and three others stood peeking in our windows like we were the entertainment.
    I glared back at the one staring in the driver’s side window, hand up like a visor over his eyes to help him see inside. I debated slamming the horn, but I didn’t think it would scatter them. Putting the car in drive … now that might do the trick.
    “Rain check?” Bobby asked. “The sight of you in that towel was driving me nuts.”
    “Total rain check.”
    We shared a smoldering look and probably would have forgotten our audience and moved in for another lip-lock if the kissy sounds of the peeping Toms hadn’t stopped us. The guy on my side had gone so far as to press his lips to my window and blow his cheeks out so that he looked like something out of Wallace and Gromit .
    I turned the key, and hit the gas as the car rumbled to life so that it roared a watch-out! warning. The kids jumped back with a “Hey! What the—” like I was the one being unreasonable.
    I put the car into drive and let it jump an inch to scare those who were slow to vacate the vicinity, but slammed on the breaks at what I saw just beyond them. It was Hailee, dressed in her signature red, but this time it was a hoodie with some kind of bedazzled design over the left side, and jeans tight enough that I could tell you the cut of her panties—if she were wearing any. She was walking with a guy who had a good six or seven inches on her.
    But that wasn’t what got me. He wasn’t exactly a giant, not even to me at five foot nothing. And it wasn’t even the fact that he was at an ice cream place without a smidge of frozen goodness, like the plain vanilla cone that Hailee was licking as she looked up seductively at him from beneath her lashes, a trick I could do with … okay, not with my eyes shut, but practically in my sleep. No, it was something else, but I couldn’t quite figure out what it was.
    Then my conscious caught up with my subconscious, which had always been the speed demon of the two.
    “He’s not breathing,” I said aloud.
    “Who isn’t?” Bobby asked, eyeing the voyeurs we’d just chased off.
    “Him,” I said, pointing.
    The guy had his arm around Hailee now and was steering her toward the wooded area behind the shop.
    “The guy with Hailee?” he asked.
    “Oh, so you’re on a first-name basis with her?”
    “You’re jealous!” he said, one of those guy-grins spreading across his face. Smug so wasn’t a good look for him.
    “Do we have time for this?” I asked.
    The smile vanished. “No.”
    We were out of the car, relinquishing it to the flock we’d just scattered, and halfway across the parking lot in the blink of an eye, but already the woods had swallowed Hailee and her undead date. There was a sharp contrast between the overgrown grass and the tree line, which was completely imposing. Tall trees, thickly grown. So much of Wappingers Falls, apart from Route 9, was like that—patches of civilization interspersed with woodlands that were probably unchanged since pre-pioneer days. Twigs snapped beneath our feet, and Bobby, leading the way, had to hold branches