“I’m not letting you drive.”
She pulled the car forward five feet, then jerked to a stop and leaned out the window to look back at him. “Doesn’t look like you have much of a choice, does it?”
Sighing, he went to the passenger side, only for Evelyn to jerk the car forward another five feet. “Oops. That one was an accident.”
“The surprise better not be you killing us,” he grumbled, climbing in but sitting close enough to grab the wheel if he needed to. “Where are we going, anyway?”
“You’ll see,” she said, turning on the radio.
They always avoided town on their evenings together, as any gossiping neighbors who spotted them would surely tell Miriam. But Evelyn parked the car crookedly in front of the house on Main Street. The sun had just set.
“No,” Tony said, seeing where they were. “Evelyn, what are you doing?”
“Ease up. No one is home. Papa is sleeping at the cottage.”
“And the neighbors?”
“The Kleins are in Maine, and the Fultons went to a wedding on Cape Cod.”
She didn’t show it, but Evelyn felt nerves prickling through her stomach and along the back of her neck. She hadn’t expected this chance, but when it came, right before she was due to leave, she took it.
“Come on,” she said, and they climbed the steps to the wide front porch. Evelyn unlocked the heavy door and shut it quickly behind them without turning on the light, then took Tony’s hand, leading him through the darkness up the staircase and to her bedroom, where the moonlight shone through the window. Tony reached for a light switch, but Evelyn pulled his hand away, placing it on her hip instead before kissing him.
“This is dangerous,” he whispered.
“We’re practically engaged.” She pressed herself closer. “And I want this.” He didn’t respond. “Don’t you?” She brushed a light hand across his pants.
He groaned. “You know I do. But we can’t.”
“Yes, we can.” She pulled him toward the bed.
“And if you get pregnant?”
The moonlight illuminated her grin, sheepish this time, an emotion Tony had never seen on her. “Well . . . there are ways around that.”
“I don’t—”
Evelyn reached into her bag, then dropped it on the floor, the bottle clinking as it hit the wood and then rolled away. “I do.”
Tony recoiled slightly, knowing what she was holding. “Where did you get that?”
“I swiped it from Papa’s store.” She sat and began unbuttoning her dress as Tony stood frozen next to the bed. When she was down to her brassiere and panties, she reached for him and he let himself be pulled onto the bed, falling into her kiss, the feel of her bare skin under his hands, his mouth. He pulled the strap of her bra down over her shoulder and reached into the cup, hearing her gasp, her back arching into his touch as he moved his mouth to her. He barely felt her hands unbuttoning his pants, so intent was he on what he was doing, but when he felt her touch under his shorts, he stiffened and pulled away sharply, propelling himself off the bed.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, her voice husky. “Tony—？”
“No,” he said. “Not like this.”
She sat up, pulling her bra back up to cover herself. “Not like what? We’re not in a car. We’re planning how to get married.”
“We should be married first. Or at least actually engaged.”
“Then propose. And you can have me. Right now.”
He looked away. If he looked at her, like that, on the bed, he would say yes. And he couldn’t.
“No.”
She turned on the lamp next to the bed and went to him, forcing him to look at her. “I’m leaving in three days. If we do this, it’s proof we love each other. That the distance and the time won’t matter.”
“I don’t need proof.”
“And if I do?”
He looked into her eyes, memorizing the sight of her. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Maybe more than ever now, when she was laid bare of all the pretense. Then he reached for her hands and turned them up, kissing each palm. “Let this be your proof, that I won’t until you’re really mine.”
“I am yours.”
“And I’m yours. But that’s why we’ll do it right.”
She sank onto the bed and put her head in her hands. “This is not how I imagined tonight going.”
He handed her the dress. “Put this on before I lose my willpower.”