#15
character: Phillip Graves words: 8726 cw: 18+, sexual content, smut, reader is being a brat of course, age gap relationship description: in which you’re on a road trip with your much older boyfriend. a/n: the lovely @echojays requested more domestic phil graves and who am I to say no? :)))
The truck had been baking in the heat for so long that the leather seats burned through the backs of your thighs when you climbed in, making you hiss between your teeth and grab uselessly at the hem of the loose button down you’d stolen from Phillip’s duffel that morning. It still smelled like him, faintly, beneath the sharp detergent and the dry, masculine trace of his cologne worn down by sun and travel and the clean grit of motel soap. You’d buttoned it wrong at first, standing barefoot in the room while he packed with that soldierly efficiency of his, and he’d watched you from over the zip of his bag like he had no intention of telling you. You’d only noticed once you looked down and saw the whole thing sitting crooked on your body, one side hanging lower than the other, your denim shorts barely visible beneath the untucked fabric. Phillip had laughed then, just a rough breath through his nose, amused enough that the fine lines around his eyes had deepened. He’d come over and fixed it himself, those competent fingers moving from button to button while you stood there pretending not to enjoy it.
He always knew when you were pretending. That was the worst part. Or maybe the best. With him, the difference had gotten harder to name.
Texas rolled out ahead of you in a long, ruthless sheet of gold and glare, all sun-bleached grass, low fences, shallow ditches, scrub trees, barbed wire, and cracked two-lane roads that seemed to shimmer loose from the earth before the truck ever reached them. The sky looked too big. It hung over everything without mercy, a hard blue dome smeared only here and there by thin white clouds that did nothing to soften the light. Heat rose from the pavement in wavering distortions, turning distant telephone poles liquid, bending the horizon until every mile looked as if it might melt before you got there. A few bugs struck the windshield in small, wet ticks. The truck’s air conditioning fought like hell and only half-won, cool air hitting your knees while warmth still gathered behind your neck and under the fall of Phillip’s shirt, the cotton sticking in soft patches.
Phillip drove like he did most things, relaxed on the surface and exact underneath. One hand rested high on the wheel, the other loose near the gear shift, forearm tanned by the sun that poured through the driver’s side window. His sunglasses sat low on the bridge of his nose, and every once in a while he glanced over them at you instead of through them, making you feel watched in a way that was not casual even when he pretended it was.
Early forties looked unfair on him. It should have made him softer somehow — should have taken some edge off the easy arrogance in his mouth, the command in his posture, the way he filled the driver’s seat like the truck was an extension of him. Instead, age had only settled him deeper into himself. He had that worn, dangerous polish of a man who had already survived enough to stop needing to prove it every time he walked into a room. He knew how to look harmless when he wanted to. He knew how to smile like a gentleman and say something vile enough to make your thighs press together. He knew how to be charming with his drawl and his manners, yes ma’am, no ma’am, appreciate it, darlin’, and then turn his head just enough that only you could hear what he wanted to do to you.
A few months in, and you still had moments where you looked at him and wondered when you had started letting him take up this much space in your life. It hadn’t happened all at once. Phillip Graves hadn’t barged into your heart, even though he absolutely could have. He slipped in through routine, through the weight of his hand at the small of your back in crowded places, through coffee left on your counter, through a spare shirt tossed at you after you complained about being cold, through late night calls from places he never fully explained and short texts that arrived at odd hours with no punctuation and too much meaning.
He was not sentimental in any soft, obvious way. He did not drown you in pretty speeches. He did things. Fixed the loose hinge on your cabinet without mentioning it. Remembered your favourite food. Kept one hand on your waist when you crossed parking lots at night, not because he thought you were helpless, but because some part of him seemed unable to stop tracking exits, shadows, movement, threats. Even on leave, with his phone tucked away and his shoulders less tight than usual, the habit stayed in him.
The road trip had been his idea. He’d brought it up like it was nothing, standing in your kitchen with his boots planted apart and your mug in his hand, saying he had nowhere he needed to be for a week and he’d rather not waste it sitting around. You had asked where he wanted to go. He had shrugged and said, “Anywhere you’re sittin’ beside me.” Which was exactly the sort of line that would have made you gag from anyone else. From him, it had made you look down at your coffee so he wouldn’t see your face soften. He’d seen anyway.
Now, three hours past breakfast and God knows how many miles into sunstruck emptiness, you had one bare foot tucked beneath you and the other planted on the dashboard, your knee bent, toes flexing idly to the beat of the music spilling from the speakers. Country, because of course Phillip Graves listened to country while driving through Texas in a black truck like some obscene cliché that somehow became less embarrassing when he did it. You’d complained about it twenty minutes ago. He’d told you suffering built character and turned it up one notch.
His gaze flicked to your foot.
“Put your damn feet down,” he said. “We crash and you can kiss your legs goodbye.”
“So then don’t crash, old man.” You put your legs down anyway and slipped your shoes back on, mostly because the look he gave you over the rim of his sunglasses went straight through your stomach.
“Quit distractin’ me then.”
You settled lower in your seat, grinning at the windshield. “I’m distracting you now?”
“Every fuckin’ day, darlin’.”
The warmth in your chest was stupid. You hated how quickly he could do that. A few words, that velvety rasp in his voice, and suddenly you were twenty minutes away from crawling into his lap in a moving vehicle like you had no sense left in your head. You turned your face toward the window instead, watching a stretch of cattle fence blur past, posts leaning tiredly beneath the weight of old wire.
“Yeah? In what ways?”
Phillip’s mouth twitched. He knew exactly what you were doing. He always knew when you were baiting him, and half the time he let you anyway because he liked the sport of it.
“Sittin’ there in those damn shorts,” he said. “Wearin’ my shirt.”
You glanced down as if you’d forgotten. The button down hung loose over your body, sleeves rolled messily to your elbows, the fabric too broad in the shoulder, soft from wear. “It does fit me better.”
“Baby, you’d look good in a hazmat suit for all I care.”
You laughed, then made a face. “Is that why you’re with me, old man? Because you find me hot?”
“Quit fishin’. You know why I’m with you.”
The words landed too cleanly. They were never flowery, not dramatic, and somehow that made them worse. You knew he wouldn’t elaborate unless you pushed, and even then he’d probably say something dry to save himself from sounding too open. Phillip could be direct about wanting you. He could be filthy and shameless, sure. He could look you in the eye and tell you he wanted your mouth on him or his hands on you, could curl his fingers around your throat just enough to feel your pulse and murmur something that ruined your whole night. But tenderness was different. Tenderness had to be caught in the gaps, in what he did when he thought you were not paying attention, in the subtle way his voice lowered when he said your name, in the fact that this whole trip existed because he wanted uninterrupted time with you and would rather drive across half the state than admit he had missed you while he was gone.
You tapped a finger against your knee, refusing to let him have the silence for free. “Could it be the midlife crisis? Having a young thing on your arm makes you feel just as young?”
Phillip laughed, real and rough, head tipping back just a fraction before he turned the music a little higher. “You’re such a fuckin’ brat.”
You brightened immediately and sang along with the chorus in the most obnoxious voice you could manage. “You’re as smooth as Tennessee whiskey, you’re as sweet as strawberry wine.”
“Thought you hated country.”
“I’m passing the time.” You looked around out the window, letting your cheek press against the warm glass for half a second before pulling away. “There’s nothing out here but farmland. Kinda boring.”
“It’s good to be bored sometimes.”
“Oh, here we go.” You shifted in your seat, lowering your voice into a terrible imitation of his. “Back in my day—”
His hand came off the gear shift and pinched your thigh, not hard, just enough to make you jolt and smack at his wrist. His fingers lingered for one extra second before leaving you. “Keep bein’ a smartass and see where that gets you.”
You turned your head slowly, mouth curving. “Hopefully parked on the side of some road with my shorts down to my ankles?”
“Jesus Christ, kid.” His jaw flexed, and he looked back at the road with exaggerated discipline, though his hand stayed closer to your knee now. “You tryin’ to kill me?”
“You’re the one who told me to keep going.”
“Didn’t tell you to tempt me into committin’ a traffic violation.”
“You commit war crimes for a living.”
Phillip’s smile sharpened. “Allegedly.”
The answer should not have been funny. Maybe that was part of the problem with him. He could be too easy in the dark. Too comfortable around things most people would avoid naming. There were parts of him he did not bring home to you, but after months, you could feel the shape of them sometimes. The sealed rooms. The locked drawers. The version of him men followed into gunfire. Commander Graves, Shadow Company, clean shirts under body armour, clipped orders, charming cruelty when the situation called for it. You had seen flashes of it in public, the way his warmth could leave his face in an instant if someone approached too fast from the wrong angle, the way his hand would still on your back while his eyes did a quiet sweep of a room. You had never confused his charm for softness. Phillip was not soft. He was controlled, loyal on his own terms, dangerous when crossed, and arrogant enough to believe he could bend most outcomes back into his favour through force, money, timing, or nerve.
And still, there he was, driving you through nowhere because you’d once mentioned you had never really seen Texas outside of airports and city traffic. Because he had remembered. Because he could make whole operations bend around logistics but had spent last night searching for some ridiculous roadside stop with good pie after you said you wanted pie and then fell asleep before he found one.
Your stomach growled then, loud enough to embarrass you. Phillip looked over.
You folded your arms. “When are we going to stop? I’m hungry.”
“We ate in the mornin’.”
“That was hours ago.”
“We’ll stop soon. Get some food in you so you quit complainin’.”
“I want the thickest burger known to man.”
“You’ll get what you get and you’ll be happy about it.”
“So mean. I’ll remember that later.”
His eyes slid to you again, slow behind the sunglasses. “You remember whatever you want, sweetheart. You know I love the chase.”
Heat shot low through you, sudden and inconvenient. You looked away quickly, pretending to be fascinated by a line of pecan trees flashing past in the distance, their shadows pooled dark beneath them. Phillip noticed. Of course he noticed. His laugh came quieter this time, satisfied in a way that made you want to bite him.
The town appeared after another stretch of empty road, small enough that it felt less entered than stumbled upon. A faded green sign announced the name in peeling white letters. There was a gas station with two pumps and a sunburned man in a feed cap standing outside with a cigarette. A church sat behind a low fence with its signboard advertising Sunday service and a bake sale from three weeks ago. The main strip consisted of a hardware store, a barber, a closed antiques place with wind chimes hanging by the front window, and a cluster of brick buildings that seemed to have given up competing with the heat. Flags hung limp from porches. A dog slept in a sliver of shade near a rusted pickup. Everything looked slow, bleached, and slightly dusty, as if the whole town had been dipped in sleep and left there to dry.
Phillip slowed as you sat up straighter, peering out the window with the intensity of someone searching for civilization.
“Bee’s Quilting,” you read aloud, squinting at a little storefront with blue trim and lace curtains. “What the fuck? Who even has a quilt shop nowadays?”
“Whatever happened to supportin’ local businesses, huh?” Phillip asked. “Thought your generation was all about that.”
“Shut up. I’m just saying.”
He jerked his chin toward a low building with a gravel lot, red vinyl booths visible through sun-fogged windows. A sign above the door read Mabel’s Kitchen in chipped yellow paint. “Here.”
The gravel crunched beneath the tires as he pulled in beside a dusty white sedan and killed the engine. The sudden absence of movement made the heat feel louder. You heard cicadas buzzing somewhere beyond the lot, the ticking of the truck as it settled, the distant rattle of a loose sign shifting in a faint, dry breeze. When you opened the door, hot air rushed in so thick it felt almost solid. You hopped down and immediately tugged at the back of your shorts where they had ridden up, then smoothed the loose front of Phillip’s shirt like you could make yourself look less rumpled from the road.
Phillip came around the side of the truck, sunglasses pushed up into his hair now, mouth already curved because he had caught you fixing yourself. He looked entirely too good in the sunlight, which felt like an offense. His T-shirt clung lightly at the chest and shoulders from the heat, jeans sitting low on his hips, boots scuffed from travel, watch glinting when he reached past you to shut your door. He gave the lot one brief scan, automatic, then put his hand on your ass and smacked it once, playful but firm enough to make you inhale.
“Let’s go, kid. We’re burnin’ daylight here.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“You like it.”
You did, unfortunately, so you walked ahead of him and refused to answer.
Inside, the diner smelled like fryer oil, coffee, old vinyl, and the sweet artificial chill of overworked air conditioning. It hit your damp skin so abruptly that you nearly sighed. The place was small and bright in a worn-out way, with checkerboard flooring scuffed grey along the main path, framed photos of Little League teams on the wall, and a pie case near the register. A ceiling fan turned lazily above the counter, doing nothing useful. Somewhere in the kitchen, a spatula scraped a grill. Two older men sat near the window drinking coffee in silence, both of them turning to look when the bell over the door jingled.
A plump waitress emerged from behind the counter with a coffee pot in one hand and a pencil tucked behind her ear. Her name tag said Wanda.
“For two, sugar?”
Phillip smiled at her with that easy, polished courtesy he could summon even half-starved and road-worn. “Yes ma’am.”
“Take any booth you’d like, darlin’.”
You slid into one near the back, choosing the side facing the door before realizing Phillip had paused for half a second because he’d clearly wanted that seat too. You raised your eyebrows at him. He narrowed his eyes just slightly, amused and assessing, then sat opposite you without comment. It made you feel triumphant in a small, childish way.
Wanda brought menus and set them down with a soft slap. “Can I get you guys some coffee to start?”
“That’d be great, thank you,” Phillip said.
“Actually, I’ll have a Diet Coke, please,” you decided.
“Right away, sweetheart.”
The second she left, you opened the menu and went quiet. There were burgers listed with no attempt at elegance, which was always a good sign. Bacon cheeseburger. Double stack. Mushroom Swiss. Patty melt. Fries, onion rings, fried pickles, biscuits, pie by the slice. Your hunger sharpened so quickly it was almost rude. You could feel Phillip watching you over the top of his own menu.
“Well shit,” he said. “Almost makes a man jealous.”
You did not look up. “What?”
“When’s the last time I made you drool like that, huh?”
“A few nights ago when you had my head dangling off the foot of the bed.”
The menu lowered slowly. Phillip smirked at you like you’d handed him a gift. “Oh yeah. That was fun. What town were we in again?”
“Buttfuck Nowhere, Texas.”
“Hmm. Lovely little place.”
“Pretty sure you left bruises on my ass in the shape of your hand.”
“Baby, I’d be disappointed if I didn’t.”
You pressed your lips together, fighting a smile as Wanda returned with your drinks. Phillip thanked her, utterly normal, while you sat there with your ankle hooked around his under the table and the memory of that motel room crawling hot beneath your skin. The carpet had been ugly. The curtains worse. There had been a flickering lamp by the bed and a rattling air conditioner shoved into the wall, and Phillip had fucked you slow enough at first to make you impatient, then rough enough that you’d had to bite the pillow when the bedframe started knocking. He had been relentless in that focused, competent way of his, one hand braced beside your head, the other hooked under your knee, mouth at your ear telling you to take it because he knew you could. He talked filth like it was nothing. Calm. Certain. Viciously observant. He could hear the smallest change in your breathing and use it against you until you were ruined and furious with him for knowing your body so well.
Wanda took your orders. You got the double cheeseburger with fries. Phillip ordered chicken fried steak and added onion rings for the table because he knew you wanted them even though you hadn’t said so. When she walked away, you leaned back against the booth and wrapped both hands around your cold glass, letting condensation wet your fingers.
“You’re paying, right?” you asked.
Phillip gave you a flat look. “When have I ever not paid, sweetheart?”
You pouted a little. “You say that like I’m expensive.”
“Better than being cheap.”
“You’re so romantic.”
He leaned back too, one arm stretching along the top of the booth, looking unbearably at ease beneath the fluorescent light. “You want romance? Fine. I’ll buy you pie.”
“I want cherry.”
His mouth twitched. “Already makin’ demands?”
“I’m a woman of standards.”
“You’re a brat is what you are.”
You smiled around your straw, and for a second his expression changed in that subtle way you never knew what to do with. The teasing did not vanish, but something quieter moved underneath it. Fondness, maybe. Hunger of a different sort. He looked at you like he was still adjusting to the fact of you sitting across from him in his shirt, elbow on a diner table, mouth shiny from Diet Coke, making demands he had every intention of meeting. You wondered sometimes if he had expected this to become what it had. You wondered if he had meant to keep it casual in the beginning, if the age difference and his work and his own nature had been enough reasons to keep one hand on the exit. Maybe they had. Maybe he had simply underestimated how stubborn you could be. Maybe he had underestimated himself.
“What?” you asked, softer than you meant to.
He shook his head once. “Nothin’.”
“No, come on.”
“I’m just lookin’ at you. Can’t I admire my girl?”
The words still did something to you. It was ridiculous. Months of being with him, and they still hit with that private little drop through your chest. My girl. His. Not owned, no matter how much he joked, no matter how often his hand found the back of your neck when he wanted your attention. Just chosen. Included in the small radius of things Phillip Graves actually gave a shit about.
The food arrived shortly after, and thank God for that. You were hungry enough to use the burger as cover. It was huge, greasy, and perfect, stacked with melted cheese, onions, pickles, and a bun glossy enough to leave your fingertips slick. The first bite nearly made your eyes close. Salt and fat and heat filled your mouth, the burger dripping down onto the wax paper in the red basket, fries piled golden beside it. Phillip watched you for two bites, then three, before cutting into his chicken fried steak with exaggerated patience.
“You gonna make love to that burger or eat it?”
You wiped the corner of your mouth with a napkin. “Don’t be jealous just because Mabel knows how to satisfy me.”
“Mabel ain’t here, first of all. Second, you keep makin’ noises like that and I’m gonna have to do somethin’ about it.”
You glanced around the diner. “In front of Wanda?”
“Wanda’s seen worse.”
“Phil.”
“What?” He cut another bite, entirely unbothered. “You think small-town diners don’t have bathrooms with locks?”
“You’re awful.”
“You’re the one sittin’ there with your legs all pretty under the table, actin’ innocent in my shirt while you lick sauce off your thumb like you don’t know what it does to a man.”
You froze with your thumb still near your mouth. His eyes dropped to it, then came back up to your face, blue and bright with heat. You lowered your hand slowly, pulse starting to misbehave.
“I’m eating,” you said.
“You’re showin’ off.”
“I am not.”
“Darlin’, you could sit there quieter than a church mouse and I’d still wanna spread your legs.”
That shut you up more effectively than it should have. He knew it too. His smirk eased into something smaller, private, almost smug. You hated when he won without trying very hard. So you kicked him under the table, not hard enough to hurt, just enough to make his knee shift.
His gaze narrowed. “Careful, baby.”
Your stomach tightened so sharply you had to look down at your fries. Outside, heat pressed against the diner windows. Inside, the air conditioning hummed and Wanda refilled coffee for the men near the front as if the whole world had not just tilted slightly beneath you. Phillip went back to his food. That was always his trick. He dropped filth into casual conversation and then acted like you were the unreasonable one for reacting.
You finished half your burger, most of the fries, and two onion rings before giving up with a groan and slumping back. Phillip ate the rest of what you couldn’t manage because he always did that too, wordless and practical, dragging your basket over and finishing the last few fries while you picked at the ice in your glass.
“I thought we were burning daylight,” you said.
“We are.”
“You’re acting like you got nowhere to be.”
“I got somewhere to be.”
“Where?”
“With you.” He said it plainly, eyes still on the basket. “Don’t matter where.”
You looked away first.
After Phillip paid, Wanda told him to drive safe and called you sweetheart again. He held the door open as you stepped into the glare, and the heat slammed into you so hard after the diner chill that you actually laughed. The afternoon had deepened, the sun lower now but somehow meaner, pouring across the gravel lot in flat white sheets. Phillip rested a hand at the back of your neck as you crossed to the truck, thumb brushing once under the collar of his shirt. It was such a small touch. Barely anything. Yet you felt it all the way down your spine.
You expected him to head straight back to the highway, but two streets over, you spotted a cluster of white tents set up near a little square, handwritten signs staked into the dry grass. Produce. Honey. Peaches. Handmade Goods. A few pickup trucks were parked along the curb, and an older woman in a straw hat sat beneath a tent fanning herself with a paper plate.
“Stop,” you said, sitting up. “Phillip, stop.”
He glanced over. “What now?”
“Farmer’s market.”
“You just ate.”
“I don’t want food. I want cute shit.”
He sighed like this pained him deeply, then turned into the little lot anyway.
The farmer’s market was barely a market, more like six stubborn people refusing to surrender to the heat. There were baskets of peaches with their skins blushing soft gold and red, tomatoes piled unevenly in green cardboard flats, jars of honey catching sunlight like amber, homemade soaps wrapped in brown paper, crocheted dishcloths, candles, little leather keychains stamped with flowers and initials. The air smelled different here, less like asphalt and more like warm fruit, dust, cut grass, and sugar from a lemonade stand where a teenage girl stirred a pitcher with visible boredom. Phillip bought you a cup before you even asked, then followed while you drifted from table to table, sipping through a paper straw that went soft almost immediately.
He was patient in a way that surprised you sometimes. Phillip did not become a different man just because he cared about you. He still had that watchful edge, that faintly predatory calm, his eyes moving over faces and hands, cars and corners. But he let you take your time. He stood behind you while you smelled candles with names like Porch Light and Rain Barrel, holding your lemonade when you needed both hands free. He listened while a woman explained the difference between whipped honey and raw honey. He bought a small jar of peach preserves after you said it looked good, a bag of spiced pecans because he wanted them, and then, at the last table, he caught you touching a bracelet.
It was simple, strung with tiny glass beads and a small metal charm stamped with a star. Nothing expensive. Nothing dramatic. You only picked it up because it looked sweet, delicate in a handmade way, the clasp slightly imperfect. You set it down again when you saw him watching.
“What?” you asked.
He reached past you and picked it up. “You like it?”
“It’s cute.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
You rolled your eyes. “Yes, I like it.”
“How much?” he asked the vendor.
“Phil,” you said under your breath.
He ignored you, paid, and then took your wrist without ceremony. His fingers were warm and dry from the sun as he fastened the bracelet around you, brow furrowed slightly with concentration. The charm settled against your pulse. It should have been nothing. A trinket from a half-dead farmer’s market in a town you’d probably never find again. But watching him close the clasp made something in you ache. He had bought you nicer things before. Dinners, hotel rooms, a dress once after he said he wanted to see you in it and then barely let you leave the room wearing it. This felt different because it was small. Useless, sweet, chosen in the heat because he caught you wanting it.
“There,” he said, thumb brushing over the beads once. “Spoiled.”
You looked at the bracelet instead of him. “You can’t complain if you keep doing it.”
“Maybe I like spoilin’ you.”
“Midlife crisis behaviour.”
He huffed a laugh and tugged you closer by your wrist. “Careful, baby. You keep bringin’ that up, I’m gonna start actin’ accordingly.”
“You already bought a hot younger girlfriend a bracelet at a roadside market. I think the crisis is in full swing.”
His hand moved to your waist, firm through the loose cotton. “You got a lot to say for someone who was beggin’ me to pull over an hour ago.”
“I didn’t beg.”
“No? Must’ve been another pretty little brat in my passenger seat talkin’ about her shorts around her ankles.”
You hated the flush that rose in you. He watched it happen, pleased and shameless, then let you go only because the vendor was pretending very hard not to hear. You walked back to the truck with preserves, pecans, lemonade, the bracelet on your wrist, and Phillip’s hand resting too low on your back to be innocent.
The road outside town narrowed before it widened again, the truck slipping back into open country as if the little square and the market had been a heat-hazed interruption. The sun had started its slow descent, turning everything richer and stranger. Fields glowed brass. The edges of the clouds, where there were any, burned pale. Shadows stretched long from fence posts and shrubs. Every window of every distant farmhouse flashed white as you passed. The cab smelled like lemonade, peaches, Phillip’s cologne, and the warm plastic of a vehicle left too long under sun.
You turned the bracelet around your wrist, watching the charm catch light. Phillip noticed. He said nothing. That made it worse.
“You’re quiet,” he said after a while.
“I’m enjoying my cute shit.”
“Good.”
You looked at him. “You really get off on spending money on me, huh?”
“I like watchin’ you get flustered when I do.”
“I do not get flustered.”
He laughed and reached for your thigh again, his palm settling just above your knee. You looked down at his hand. Broad, veined, knuckles faintly scarred, fingers spread casually like he had every right to rest them there. He did have every right. You’d given it to him over and over, in beds, against doors, in the dark of his truck, under tables, in the easy private spaces that had formed between you. Still, the sight of it made your breath shift. It always did. No hesitation beneath the act unless he wanted to make you wait. No uncertainty unless he was giving you room to move away.
His hand slid a little higher.
“Phillip.”
“Hmm?”
“Shouldn’t we try finding a motel soon?”
“We should.”
“Then why are you feeling me up while driving?”
“Multitaskin’.”
“That sounds unsafe.”
“You want me to stop?”
You glanced at him, and the look on his face made your mouth go dry. He was still watching the road, but there was a curve to his mouth that told you he knew the answer before asking. You hated him a little for it. You hated yourself more for shifting your hips the smallest amount toward his hand.
“No.”
“Then enjoy it, baby.”
The phrase sounded too smug coming from him. You slapped his wrist lightly. “Don’t get cocky.”
“Too late.”
His fingers moved up again, slow over the inside of your thigh now, pushing beneath the loose hem of his shirt where it draped over your shorts. The denim had ridden up from sitting, exposing more of your leg to the cool air and his warm hand. You stared out the windshield, trying to look unaffected while the empty road unspooled ahead, while the music played low, while a line of black birds lifted from a fence and scattered across the sky. Phillip’s thumb rubbed once, lazy, almost absent. It was not absent. Nothing he did with his hands was ever absent.
“You’ve been runnin’ that mouth all afternoon,” he said.
“You like my mouth.”
“I do.” His hand slipped higher. “Like it better when it’s busy.”
Your breath caught despite yourself.
He heard it. “That right?”
“Shut up.”
“Make me.”
You turned your face toward the window because looking at him felt dangerous. The glass reflected a faint blur of movement, his arm shifting, your body stilling. His fingers reached the frayed edge of your shorts and traced along the seam, unhurried. You felt every inch of the road suddenly, every vibration through the tires, every turn of the engine, every tiny jolt that moved his hand against you. The truck cab had become too small. Outside there were miles of open land, acres and acres of nothing, but inside his truck the air seemed to fold tighter around the two of you until all you knew was the sound of his breathing and the pressure of his hand.
“You wore these on purpose,” he said.
“They’re shorts, Phillip. It’s hot.”
“Bullshit.”
“You think everything is about you.”
“When you’re wearin’ my shirt with barely anything underneath?” His fingers pressed along the front of the denim, just enough to make your muscles tense. “Yeah, sweetheart. I’m comfortable makin’ that assumption.”
You swallowed. “You’re so full of yourself.”
“And you’re wet.”
The bluntness of it punched through you. You turned toward him, scandalized, but he only smiled faintly, eyes still forward.
“You don’t know that.”
His fingers slid lower, cupping you through the denim with a confidence so intimate you nearly forgot where you were. “Don’t I?”
“Phillip.”
“Say my name like that again and I’m gonna put us in a ditch.”
“Then drive better.”
His laugh broke rough in his throat, and for a second his grip tightened, almost punishing. “Fuckin’ brat.”
He eased his hand away just long enough to undo the top button of your shorts. Your pulse kicked hard. You stared at the road, at the yellow line, at the heat shimmer, at anything except the fact that Phillip Graves was driving with one hand and opening your shorts with the other like it was the most natural thing in the world. The zipper whispered down a fraction. His knuckles brushed your stomach, then dipped beneath the denim.
You exhaled shakily.
“There you go,” he murmured. “That’s better.”
“This is not better. This is insane.”
“This is me keepin’ you entertained since you were so bored.”
His fingers slid lower, beneath fabric and heat, finding you with humiliating ease. Your hand shot out and grabbed his wrist, but you didn’t pull him away. You only held on, nails pressing lightly against his skin as his middle finger dragged through slick warmth. His jaw tightened. The truck stayed perfectly steady.
“Jesus,” he said under his breath. “All that attitude and you’re fuckin’ soaked.”
You pressed your lips together, a small sound catching behind them.
“Don’t get shy now,” he said. “You were real brave at lunch.”
“Because we were at lunch.”
“Should’ve thought about that before teasin’ me for half the damn day.”
His finger moved slowly, not enough to give you what you wanted, enough to make your hips twitch against the seatbelt. The restraint crossed your lap, suddenly maddening. You wanted to open your legs wider and couldn’t, wanted to tell him to pull over and refused to give him the satisfaction, wanted to come apart and also wanted to keep enough control to keep annoying him. That was always the game with him. Push, retreat, push harder, then act surprised when he called your bluff. Phillip let you tease because he liked the moment when teasing turned into wanting, when your voice lost its sharp little edge and your body told on you. He liked making you feel the consequences of every smartass comment.
He circled his finger with unbearable patience, grazing your clit and making your breath stutter, then dipping lower until you felt him press inside you just barely. You gripped his wrist harder.
“Phillip.”
“Mhm.”
“We’re on a road.”
“I’m aware.”
“There are laws.”
“You always this concerned with civic order when you’re drippin’ on my hand?”
You made a strangled noise, half laugh, half mortified. “You’re so vulgar.”
“You love vulgar.”
His finger pushed into you properly then, slow and thick enough to make your words die. The landscape outside blurred at the edges. You let your head fall back against the seat, eyes fluttering closed despite the brightness burning orange through your lids. He moved with obscene control, his wrist angled awkwardly but his rhythm steady, shallow at first, then deeper, just enough to make your thighs tense around his hand. The truck hummed under you. The music kept playing. The world did not stop, which felt rude. Fences passed. A road sign flashed by. Phillip drove like nothing was happening while his finger fucked into you beneath your open shorts.
“Look at you,” he said softly. “Quiet now.”
“I h-hate you,” you breathed.
“No you don’t, baby. You love me.”
He added another finger and your breath broke. His hand was too good. He was too good. That was the problem with an older man who knew exactly what he was doing and had no shame about it. He didn’t rush because he didn’t need to. He didn’t fumble around guessing. He listened to your body, to the sharp little inhale when he curled his fingers, to the way your knee shifted outward, to the tremor that moved through your stomach when his thumb found your clit again. He catalogued every reaction like intel and used it mercilessly.
“Such a greedy little thing,” he murmured. “Actin’ like I’m mean when all I do is take care of you.”
“You are mean.”
“Mean would be stoppin’.”
You opened your eyes and turned your head toward him. “Don’t.”
His smile barely moved. “Then behave.”
“I am behaving.”
“Baby, you don’t know the meanin’ of the word.”
He kept you there, suspended in that awful place between pleasure and frustration, winding you tighter without letting you tip over. Each slow thrust of his fingers made heat pool low and heavy in you. Every brush of his thumb dragged another unsteady breath from your mouth. The seatbelt held you down. His shirt stuck to your back. Your open shorts felt obscene. You stared at his profile, at the hard line of his jaw, the sunglasses hiding his eyes, the faint scar near his cheek catching sunlight when he shifted. He looked controlled, but you knew him well enough now to see the strain. The flex in his forearm. The set of his mouth. The way he adjusted in his seat once, subtle but unmistakable.
“You’re hard,” you whispered, because you were still you, even with his hand down your shorts.
He huffed. “I know.”
“You have no self-control, huh?”
His fingers curled inside you, and you gasped, hips jerking as far as the belt allowed.
“I got plenty,” he said. “That’s why I haven’t pulled over and fucked you against the side of this truck yet.”
The image hit hard enough to make you clench around him. He felt it. His laugh came low and dark.
“Oh, you like that.”
“Shut up.”
“You want that, sweetheart? Want me to find some empty stretch of road, bend you over in the heat, and make you take it while there’s nothin’ but fields around us?”
Your breath faltered pathetically. “Phillip.”
“I’d keep that shirt on you,” he said, voice dropping further, almost conversational now, which made it worse. “Just open enough to get my hands where I want ’em. Leave those shorts around your ankles since you were so set on that earlier. You’d be complainin’ about the heat and still pushin’ back on me like a good girl.”
Your hand tightened around his wrist again. “Fuck I’m so close—”
“I know.”
The truck slowed suddenly. Your eyes opened. Ahead, a weather-beaten sign advertised a motel three miles down the road, with a pool, cable, vacancy, and free ice in uneven red letters. Phillip eased his hand out of your shorts before you could get there, leaving you empty and furious and so close your entire body felt like a struck match. You stared at him in disbelief as he wiped his fingers lazily against the inside of your thigh, then brought them up to his mouth and sucked them clean with a shameless glance in your direction.
“You’re evil,” you said, voice thin.
“I’m busy drivin’.”
“You were driving five seconds ago.”
“And doin’ a damn good job, too.”
You yanked your zipper up with shaking fingers, fumbled the button twice, and heard him chuckle beside you.
“Don’t laugh at me.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“A little.”
“I hope your motel has cockroaches.”
“Baby, with what I’m plannin’ to do to you, you ain’t gonna notice the amenities.”
The motel emerged from the roadside like it had been waiting there since the seventies. A low horseshoe of rooms wrapped around a parking lot patched with tar and pale gravel, the office marked by a buzzing neon vacancy sign in the window. The pool sat off to one side behind a metal fence, small and rectangular, water glowing a strange artificial blue beneath the late-afternoon sun. A couple of plastic loungers leaned crookedly near the shallow end. One umbrella had a tear in it. The ice machine hummed outside the office like a dying appliance with unfinished business. It was exactly the sort of place Phillip liked on trips like this: private enough, cheap enough, anonymous enough, with doors that opened straight to the parking lot and no one asking questions if you left before dawn.
He pulled in near the office and killed the engine. Silence fell thickly, broken only by the tick of the cooling truck and the distant buzz of insects. You sat there for a second, still hot, still frustrated, with your thighs pressed together and your pulse refusing to calm down. Phillip turned toward you slowly, one arm braced on the wheel, sunglasses pushed down his nose so you could see his eyes.
“Stay put,” he said.
You watched him get out and cross to the office, boots loud on the pavement. Through the glass, you saw him lean one forearm on the counter and smile at the woman behind it, all Southern manners and dangerous ease, as if he had not just had his fingers inside you on the highway. You hated how composed he looked. You hated the way the clerk smiled back. You hated that he returned three minutes later with a brass key attached to a plastic tag, looking pleased with himself.
“Room twelve,” he said when he opened your door. “End of the row.”
He reached for your hand to help you down. The second your feet hit the pavement, he crowded you back against the side of the truck, one hand on the door beside your head, the other at your waist. Heat radiated off the black paint behind you. His body blocked the sun. For a moment everything narrowed to him: the clean sweat at his throat, the faint scrape of stubble along his jaw, the blue of his eyes now unobstructed and fixed on your mouth like he was done being patient.
“You got about thirty seconds to keep bein’ cute,” he said.
“Or what?”
“Or I’m gonna take you into that room, get you on the nearest flat surface, and finish what I started.”
You lifted your chin. “Nearest flat surface? Again with the romance, wow.”
“I’ll call you darlin’ while I do it.”
“That does help, I guess.”
His hand slid lower, thumb pressing into the front pocket of your shorts. “You think you’re real funny.”
“I know I am.”
“You know what else you are?”
“What?”
He leaned in until his mouth brushed your ear. “In trouble, sweetheart.”
A shiver went through you before you could stop it. His hand tightened on your waist, and his laugh was quiet, mean in the way that made your knees feel useless.
“Room,” he said.
You let him take the bag from the back of the truck and followed him down the row, past sun-faded doors and curtained windows, past the humming ice machine and a vending machine full of off-brand soda. The key scraped in the lock. The room smelled like cold air conditioning, carpet powder, and old wood furniture. There was one bed with a patterned comforter, a little round table by the window, a television mounted crookedly on the wall, and a bathroom door standing open onto tile too white for the rest of the place. Phillip tossed the bag onto the chair and turned to you with the look of a man done negotiating.
It should not have made your stomach drop the way it did. It was only a lock. A small metal click in a small, ugly room. But after an eternity of his hand between your thighs on the highway, after the way he had left you wet and wound tight in his passenger seat, it felt like a verdict. He set the key on the scratched dresser, slow, almost too calm, then turned fully toward you with that look on his face. The one that made him seem less like the charming bastard who bought you lemonade and more like the man who gave orders for a living and expected them followed.
“C’mere,” he said.
You leaned back against the door, one hand still on the knob behind you, feeling the warm metal through your palm. You let your gaze move over him with obvious, insolent slowness, from the dust on his boots to the fit of his jeans, the stretch of his shirt across his shoulders, the tight line of his jaw. He looked sun-warmed and road-worn, too handsome in a way that pissed you off a little. You could tell he was waiting for you to fold. Phillip Graves loved when you got mouthy, but he loved the aftermath more, that narrow little bridge between you acting untouchable and you turning soft under his hands.
You smiled.
His eyes narrowed.
“You got somethin’ to say, baby?”
You pushed away from the door and took one step toward him. Then another. His attention dropped to the loose button down hanging open at your throat, his shirt on your body, sleeves messy at your elbows, hem brushing your shorts. You touched the top button like you were thinking about undoing it. His mouth twitched. You gave him the second one too, slow enough to be cruel, slipping it free while the air conditioner rattled and the room hummed around you.
“Maybe,” you said.
Phillip’s hand flexed at his side.
You got close enough that he could have grabbed you. Close enough to smell sun on his skin, coffee on his breath, the faint bite of sweat beneath his cologne. Close enough that his body heat cut through the stale cold air between you. His gaze dragged over your face, your mouth, the open line of his shirt. You watched him decide not to move first. He was giving you enough rope to hang yourself with, and that was the mistake.
You rose onto your toes, brushing your mouth near his without kissing him.
Then you slipped neatly past him.
Phillip caught your wrist before you got far. Fast. Firm. Not painful, but enough to remind you he could stop the game whenever he wanted. Your pulse jumped under his thumb.
“Where the hell do you think you’re goin’?”
You glanced toward the window, where the motel pool shimmered under the late sun, blue water broken by the lazy ripple of a filter jet. “Swimming.”
For half a second, nothing moved except the air conditioner’s plastic vent rattling in its frame.
“Swimming,” he repeated.
“Yeah.” You looked back at him, all wide-eyed sweetness. “The sign said there’s a pool.”
Phillip stared at you. His expression did not change much, but you felt the heat of it. The slow climb of irritation. The reluctant amusement beneath it. The knowledge that you were doing this on purpose because he had spent the last twenty minutes making you suffer and now you wanted to make him walk after you in the heat like a man with no dignity left.
“You’re out of your goddamn mind,” he said.
“Hey, you chose a motel with a pool.”
“The plan was to get you alone, baby.”
“You did.” You twisted your wrist in his hold just enough to make the bracelet he bought you slide against his fingers. “And now I wanna be alone with you at the pool.”
His jaw worked once. You could see him trying not to laugh. Trying harder not to drag you to the bed.
“You really wanna play this game?”
You leaned in close again, letting your breath touch his mouth. “You started it, Commander.”
Phillip’s eyes darkened.
For one sharp second, you thought he might actually do it. Put you on that horrible motel bed, make you regret every word, leave the pool empty and glittering outside while you forgot why you ever thought teasing him was smart. The possibility flickered so vividly through you that your knees nearly went weak. You wanted it. You wanted him to snap. Worse, he knew you wanted it, which meant you had to get out before you lost.
So you slipped your wrist from his grip, backed toward the bathroom, and let his shirt slide off your shoulders onto the chair.
“I’m changing,” you said.
“[Name].”
The warning in his voice caught low in your stomach. You paused in the doorway and looked back at him.
He stood in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips, head lowered slightly, looking at you from beneath his brow like he was counting down from ten and already on three. Sweat still clung lightly to his throat from the drive. The sun through the curtains cut a gold line across his boots. He looked furious in the most controlled, attractive way possible.
You smiled again, softer this time, meaner.
“You coming, old man?”
Phillip exhaled through his nose, dragged one hand down his face, and muttered something under his breath that sounded a lot like fuckin’ brat. Then he grabbed the key off the dresser.
“Fine,” he grumbled. “But when you get in that pool, you better enjoy every damn second of it.”
You opened the bathroom door wider, already grinning.
“Why?”
He looked up at you, mouth set, eyes hot.
“Because when I get you back in here,” he said, “I’m not lettin’ you make it to the bed.”
You disappeared into the bathroom before your face could give you away, but you heard him outside the door, boots shifting on the carpet, impatient and annoyed and following anyway. By the time you came back out, the motel room still smelled like dust and cold air and sunbaked curtains, and Phillip was waiting by the door with the look of a man who had lost the argument on purpose so he could win worse later.
Outside, the Texas heat swallowed you whole.
The concrete around the pool burned pale under the evening sun, the air thick with chlorine, gasoline, dry weeds, and hot metal from the cars in the lot. Phillip followed you through it grumbling under his breath, sunglasses back on, shirt collar damp at the nape, looking deeply pissed off and entirely yours. You walked ahead of him toward the glittering blue water, giggly and smug, knowing he was staring.
You didn’t have to turn around to hear him.
“Yeah, yeah, sweetheart,” he called, low and rough behind you. “See what happens later.”
You couldn’t wait.
