"Not without you, I'm not."
The rush of relief, of joy, nearly knocked him over.
By the time he got down to the bottom of the stairs she was standing in the gravel parking lot looking disapprovingly at his Porsche. Every other woman he'd ever been with had practically wanted to do his car.
Somehow it was fitting that Janica seemed annoyed by it instead.
"Why can't you just drive a truck?" Before he could answer, she shot him an irritated glance, and said, "Because let me tell you, it's going to be hell trying to do it in this stupid sports car."
He laughed out loud and got hard all at the same time. "I thought we were going to go dancing?"
She rolled her eyes. "Dancing. Fucking. One leads right to the other. How can you not know that?" She opened the passenger door, got in, and slammed the door.
He was going to have a hell of a time dancing with a hard-on like this. Not that it really mattered, however, since he didn't dance. In any case, he seriously doubted they'd find a place to dance in this fairly remote coastal mountain town.
Which meant they could just focus on the fucking, he thought with a grin that he had a feeling he was going to pay for later.
But maybe she was a little witch. Because they had barely hit the two lanes of Highway 1 when she had him pull over in front of a biker bar. The parking lot was packed with motorcycles and big trucks.
He could hear the music blaring before he'd even turned off his ignition.
Still in the front seat of his car, she turned and looked at him with a wicked gleam in her eyes. "You are going to absolutely hate this, aren't you?"
"Fuck, yes."
She threw her head back and laughed, then got of the car and all but skipped inside the bar.
Wondering why he was even bothering to lock his car in a place like this - it would only be more fun to steal if it was a challenge, wouldn't it? - he headed inside after her. She was already in the middle of the dance floor by the time he got inside, shaking and shimmying and writhing with everything she had.
Quickly noting he wasn't the only one drinking her in, knowing without a shred of doubt that every guy in there--and probably half the women--wanted to drag her into a back room and take her, a swift burst of red-hot jealousy rushed him. Without thinking, he pushed through the crowd to lay claim to her.
As if she'd expected him to do just that, she spun into his arms and wrapped them around his neck, pulling his mouth down to hers.
If there was a better feeling than claiming Janica like this, he sure as hell didn't know what it was. Something took him over then, a feeling of deep release. Similar to how he felt when he was pouring himself into her body, but different at the same time. It was the most natural thing in the world to dance with her there in the middle of a biker bar to country songs about drinking too much and sleeping with the wrong guy.
Maybe it was the way her eyes shined as she looked at him.
Or maybe it was just how right it was to be with her, doing anything.
Anything at all.
Song after song they danced, Janica moving in and out of his arms, her hips brushing and swaying against his, her breasts slipping and sliding against his chest, his arms, his hands, until he couldn't take it anymore. Because she was right, dancing and fucking were practically the same thing, only he couldn't take her in a crowded bar in front of a roomful of strangers.
Without a word, he grabbed her hand and pulled her off the dance floor, past the bar, and out to his car. Only taking the time to open his door, he practically threw her across the car onto her seat.
He could scent her as he peeled out of the parking lot, her sweet smell of heat and arousal and pleasure completely obliterating any remnants of the beer and smoke that had surrounded them inside the bar. Neither of them spoke, not even her, and barely a minute later he was pulling off the road onto a dirt track that led to a beach trail. In the thick of the woods, he yanked his keys out of his car, shoved his seat back as far as it would go, and grabbed her out of her seat by her hips, pulling her on top of him.
"You make me crazy," he said, and then his lips were on hers and he was ripping at the thin straps of her dress, pulling them down past her breasts. She shifted up on him and he sucked one hard, pink nipple into his mouth, swirling around it with his tongue before taking it between his teeth.
She ground herself into him, begging him without words to give her the release they both desperately needed. It didn't matter that he'd made love to her twice that morning.
He needed her again.
Now.
Cupping her breast to his mouth with one hand, he shifted his lips to her nipple, tasting, sucking, devouring. His free hand slipped under the short skirt of her dress to cup her mound, damp and sizzling hot beneath his palm.
"I've got to touch you," he said against her skin, and then he was sliding one finger into the leg band of her silk panties and sweeping it through the slick moisture that coated her labia.
She thrust down on his fingers and he added one more, then another until she was practically sobbing and holding his head against her breasts. Shifting his hand just slightly, he rubbed his thumb against her clit with every ramming stroke of his fingers inside her heat.
"Luke," she moaned. "Yes, please, there, oh God."
She went perfectly still for a split second as the pleasure hit her and then she was moving again, even faster, her pussy drawing on his fingers, her clit slamming against his thumb, her muscles wrapping themselves around him tighter and tighter as she exploded.
But even as she came, he could feel her fingers working on the button at the top of his jeans.
"Next time you come you're not going to be able to do another goddamned thing," he growled as she pulled open his pants and reached for his cock.
Her eyes opened then, and she looked at him in beautifully unfocused pleasure. "I need to have you in me."
He had to kiss her, had to take her, had to be with her, inside her, in every possible way. His tongue found hers just as his cock began to slide into her tight, wet canal. She was tighter than she'd ever been, even that first night, and somewhere in the only part of his brain that could still hold thought, he knew he was being way too rough with her, taking her too many times, too fast, too hard.
Fighting for control, he gripped her hips, stopping them with only his head inside her pussy lips.
"We need to go slower, sweetheart."
"No," she said, clearly trying to use every bit of strength she possessed to force herself out of his grip and slide down onto his cock.
But he'd made up his mind. For her sake, even though it was probably going to kill him, they had to take their time.
"It'll be even better this way," he said, working like hell to convince not only her, but himself, as he said it. "One inch at a time."
To illustrate his point, he moved her body down over him just enough to cover that inch.
A thick rush of moisture immediately coated his cock and she sucked in a breath.
"I love it when you boss me around," she said in a breathy voice with a sexy little grin.
Through the thick haze of his lust for her, he managed a grin. "And I love it when you obey."
"Only you," she whispered in response. "I only want to obey you, Luke."
He throbbed thick and strong inside of her, his cock only growing bigger and harder and more demanding the more control he tried to exert over it. He had to get in deeper, had to take another inch of her sweet, slick heat. As he shifted her yet again he could feel her opening up around him, her aroused and swollen flesh both giving to him and taking from him in equal measure.
And then she was saying, "Oh my God, I'm going to come again," in a low, raw voice.
He could hardly believe it, that without anything more than not quite half of his cock inside her, her muscles were tightening down on him, squeezing his sensitive cock head for everything it was worth. Whatever shreds of control he had left were immediately lost as he pul
led her mouth down to his and ravaged her with his lips and teeth and tongue. In the next breath his cock was in to the hilt and he was right there with her as she cried out into his mouth, his groans of pleasure indistinguishable from hers.
Chapter Sixteen
The next day they went for a long walk on the beach and Janica filled up his pockets with seashells, exclaiming that each one was "the most beautiful one she'd ever seen." They bought some clams and mussels out on the pier and had the messiest lunch in memory feeding each other buttery mollusks, which only got messier when Janica stopped eating and instead squirted them at him, shooting them out of their shells like little slippery missiles. His immediate thoughts about the huge mess they were making and what a pain in the ass it was going to be to clean up were quickly overridden by the need to nail her with his own uneaten clams.
They'd ended up fully dressed in the shower, cleaning each other carefully, first with a bar of soap and their hands, and then their mouths, and then he took her up against the tile wall again. It had been a combination of playful and hot and hungry too that he'd never known existed.
Night fell and they made burgers on the grill, also polishing off a bag of potato chips. Luke could have easily written a textbook on proper nutrition, but it was the strangest thing that instead of having less energy after easing up on the "good" stuff, he had more.
But it wasn't the food, he knew.
It was Janica.
As his mid-30s had crept up on him he'd been more and more careful about diet and exercise. But with her he felt at least a decade younger. Still, when she reached into the grocery bags after dinner and pulled out a huge bag of marshmallows and chocolate and graham crackers, he decided that next time he should pay closer attention to what they bought at the store.
Of course, that would mean he'd somehow have to learn how to stop focusing on her ass as she walked down the aisles.
Which meant that it was far more likely he'd have to get used to eating crap food. Because her ass was a goddamned miracle.
It wasn't until he was almost past his thoughts, that he realized where he was going with them. When had grocery shopping with Janica in the future become something that was a given beyond the next few days?
He knew better, knew he'd been horribly remiss about stopping things between them from going any further. Where Janica was concerned, right now he just didn't have it in him to be the strong one. To be the voice of reason. To do the right thing, no matter the personal cost.
He looked up just as she threw the bag of marshmallows at him, and then the chocolate. He caught them right before they nailed him in the forehead.
After grabbing a box of graham crackers, she headed for the door. "How are your fire-making skills?"
He nailed her with a hard look that told her she didn't know who she was messing with. "I was the top scout in my troop."
"Of course you were," she teased. "I don't know why I even bothered to ask. Some things are just a given, aren't they?"
"Hey," he said as he caught up to her and grabbed her around the waist, "don't knock the outdoor skills, babe. Hands down, there's no one you would rather be lost in the woods with."
She reached her hand up to his cheek. "Even without the mad scouting skills, there's no one I would rather be with. In the woods or otherwise." And then she pulled out of his hold and scampered down the stairs.
His head, his heart, reeled as he followed after her.
She'd held up her end of the "just fun" bargain really well so far. Almost too well. So far, that had been her only slip.
But knowing how much she enjoyed being with him wasn't what had him reeling. After all, he already knew she loved him.
No, what gave him pause was how much he liked hearing her say it.
How much he liked knowing it.
Too damn much.
She was already collecting rocks and arranging them in a circle on the sand by the time he reached her with an armful of sticks and broken logs that he'd found in the woods between the cabin and the beach. It was a still night out on the coast, and he easily lit a match and put it to the kindling. Minutes later, a bonfire was roaring.
It was the most natural thing in the world to sit down on a blanket in front of the fire with Janica between his legs, her back pressed to his stomach, his arms around her, holding her tight. They stared into the flames in silence for quite a while, her head leaning back against his chest, his chin resting lightly on the top of her dark head.
But despite what should have been the perfect peace of being out on the beach under the stars, Luke felt as if his insides were shifting around, conflicting emotions pushing at each other inside his chest.
He wanted to know more about this beautiful woman he was holding. He already knew just how she like to be kissed, stroked. He knew what made her cry out with pleasure, exactly how to take her to the peak and over.
It wasn't enough, damn it.
"Did you always know you wanted to design clothes?"
He felt the slightest tightening of her body against his before she replied. "Pretty much. Lily used to take me to the store and buy whatever dolls were on sale."
"What kind of doll goes on sale?"
He loved feeling her laughter rumble through her chest to his. "The really ugly ones. But they weren't ugly for long, because we'd head to the fabric store next and rifle through their scrap bins. You could fill a bag for five dollars. I'd spend hours cutting and sewing at home."
"Why do I have a feeling you weren't making your dolls pretty little dresses?"
He felt the light jab of her elbow against his ribs. "Are you accusing me of making them look like little Goth sluts?"
He brushed the hair away from the side of her neck and pressed a kiss there by way of an apology. "No. But you definitely don't look at things the way everyone else does."
Her skin was so soft, so sweet smelling, one kiss wasn't enough.
He wanted more.
And not just more of her incredible body. He wanted more of her. More information about what made her tick. More stories about how she'd grown from a little girl into this incredible woman.
"Was it hard to start a business?"
She shifted again in obvious surprise at his question and her hair shifted back to cover her neck. "I thought we weren't asking questions?"
She was right. He'd asked for fun. And nothing but. If he were being smart, he'd simply strip her clothes off and make love to her, no more words, no more getting inside her head. Her heart.
But it wasn't enough.
"I want to know more about you."
The silence stretched out between them, the crackling of the fire and the waves washing up on the shore not nearly big enough to fill it.
Finally, she softly said, "I was a little scared."
It took him a long moment to realize she was answering his earlier question, rather than commenting on his wanting to know her. Because she had to know, just as he did, that it was a really bad idea to talk like this, to get in even deeper with each other.
"But even though I was scared," she continued, "I knew I would regret it forever if I didn't go for what I wanted."
He wasn't ready for the way her words settled themselves way down deep in his gut and was glad when she didn't let them linger.
"I have Lily to thank for so much of my success. I can't even calculate how many hours she sat there on the floor and clapped and cheered while my dolls gave imaginary fashion shows. And she was such a sensation in my final show for school, and then my first show on my own."
"I love Lily too," he said, "but I'm not asking about her. I'm asking about you."
"Well, here's something you should know about me." She moved out of his arms and reached for a stick and the bag of marshmallows. "I have a major sweet tooth."
He shouldn't be feeling disappointed at her clear switch away from his probing. He should be thanking her for keeping them in safe territory.
Fuck. Who was he kidding? They hadn't bee
n anywhere near safe territory since the moment he rang her doorbell and kissed her.
She handed him a long stick and a couple of marshmallows and side by side they held them over the flames. A minute later they were assembling their s'mores. The sound she made when the sugar and chocolate hit her tongue was almost enough to make him jealous.
"That good, huh?"
She opened her eyes back up and smiled at him. "Only one thing is better."
She pressed her lips against his and he tasted the lingering sweetness on her tongue.
"What about you?" she whispered against his lips.
What was it about kissing her that made him lose hold of his brain, he wondered as he repeated, "Me?"
"Do you like it?"
"I love kissing you."
She pressed her lips back to his, harder this time. When she pulled away, she said, "Good. But I was talking about your dessert."
He looked at the s'more in his hand as if it was the first time he'd seen it.
"Take a bite," she insisted.
Food had never been all that important to him before, simply something he took care of to keep his energy up. And it had certainly never been sensual.
Until now.
Her eyes never left his mouth as he bit into the gooey treat. He felt crumbs on his lips but he didn't have time to brush them away, because Janica's tongue made it there first.
He barely managed to swallow as she sat back, waiting expectantly for his answer.
"So?"
"It's good. But I still like the taste of your kisses better."
Her smile was as bright as the bonfire. "You know, with lines like that you could have given your brother a run for his money."
Knowing she and Travis had always had a fairly bumpy relationship, he said, "He's a good guy. Better than most people know."
She looked uncharacteristically serious. "I see the way he treats Lily. I know how good he is. But that doesn't change his past."
Something about her statement, something about the words, But that doesn't change his past, sent a warning bell clanging through his head. He ignored it, though, because he was far more concerned with wanting to see another smile on her face than any more warning signs. Lord knew, there'd been a bucket full of them thrown at him since their first kiss. And he'd ignored them all.
"You may find this hard to believe," he told her, "but when we were kids, I was the daredevil."