by Karr, Kim
I’m out on the floor before I can say yes, and aligned thigh-to-thigh, belly-to-belly, before the next line of the song is sung.
“Did you like that?” he murmurs in my ear.
“Yes, I had no idea you could move in that way,” I answer, my pulse pounding in excitement.
Jasper splays his fingers against my spine, his thumb drifting back and forth in a slow seductive way. “I have all kinds of moves.”
Sliding my arms down to his chest, I look up into his hungry gaze. “I hope you show them all to me,” I breathe out.
His eyes stare into mine, hard, and his smile is a little less bemused. “I want to show you the world.”
People press against us, the dance floor filling back up. Somehow we ended up in the center of it all, and yet it feels like just the two of us. “I want that, too.”
His thigh slides between my legs. “Do you?”
The bass is thumping loud and I can feel it throughout my body, but most of all in my beating heart. All I can do is nod, and then because I can show him much better than I can tell him, I reach for his mouth.
He kisses me back with so much emotion that I get lost in the music, the beat, in him. Both his hands slide up just below my breasts and then glide back down to my hips. Soon enough, they’re resting on my behind, and he’s pressing me to his very hard body. It isn’t long before I feel his cock against my belly.
At first I’m startled. There are so many people around. But no one is paying any attention to us. Everyone is lost in the beat. My hands circle back around his neck and I toy with his hair, now a little wet from the exertion of dancing.
His hands aren’t idle either. They move up my back to tangle in my hair. And then he tugs a little, causing my head to tip back, and slides his lips along my throat.
I’m not sure who can hear me, but a small moan escapes my throat in delight as little tingles erupt beneath my skin from my head to my toes.
My little moan turns into a gasp, and I lean back to look at him. Low-lidded eyes. Lips parted. A man looking at me like I’m the only woman in a club that has to be filled with hundreds of hot, sexy bodies everywhere.
We move this way for a long time. The song changes. It doesn’t matter. Soon, we’re toward the back of the dance floor, the dancers surrounding us pushing us even closer.
This time, when his hand splays across my behind and presses me into his erection, I press back. Even through the denim, I can feel how hot and thick his cock is. Seemingly unbothered by his state of arousal, he reaches upward to the small of my back, my tattoo. He holds his hand there for a moment or two, and then caresses down again.
My intake of breath is sharp.
“It’s okay, just relax,” he assures me, his warm breath blowing across my neck and sending a shiver down my spine.
Breathless, aching, and pleasure building between my thighs, I do as he says, and relax into his hold.
This time when the song changes, he turns me around.
I’m facing the graffiti-inked wall, the mob of people on both sides of us lost in their own movements.
His hand slips inside the waistband of my skirt, and immediately moves to cup my sex.
To anyone else we look like a couple swaying to the beat. Hips moving slowly from side to side. Feet shifting ever so slightly. No one would know Jasper is pressing the heel of his palm against my clit, and no one would know it is sending a rush of tingles between my thighs.
The crowd moves around us; we move too. And for a moment, when there’s another shift in the crowd, I think he’s going to turn me back around. Instead, his fingers dip inside the lacey edge of my panties and find me wet.
There is no way to control my body’s reaction or the passion flooding my veins like hot lava.
His teeth graze my neck and his fingers dip inside my slick heat. Once. Twice. Three delicious times.
Biting my lip to stop my moan, I find myself leaning against him for support, my arms going over my head and around his neck. As soon as I am in this position, I am all his. Completely open for him. And he strikes fast. His fingers rubbing my clit and dipping inside me at such a pace that my entire lower body feels like it’s throbbing within moments.
Fun is fun, but I can’t have an orgasm on the dance floor. I turn my head. “What are you doing?”
“Turning it up,” he blows against my skin as he nuzzles my ear.
Before I can say another word, my body is shuttering and my clit pulsing around his fingers. I’m shattering in his arms—on the dance floor. Red, yellow, blue, and green lights coat my vision. A psychedelic spectrum of colors takes over my world as the earth shifts beneath my feet.
After a few seconds, he takes his hand out of my skirt.
When I first try to catch my breath, I can’t. It seems to still be running in circles. On my second attempt, I inhale and it’s the scent of Jasper that pulls me back down to earth. His nearness. The need to see his gorgeous face. Finally, I turn around. When I face him, I’m met with the most beautiful set of brown eyes.
Warm.
Inviting.
And flaming hot with desire.
Jasper bends to kiss me. “I love watching you come.”
Heat creeps up my chest. Down my spine. A new kind of want is spreading warm and hot through my body, and all I can do is stare at him.
The song changes again.
He runs his hands through my hair and pushes it over my shoulders.
My breathing picks up again. If it were legal to fuck in public, I’d let him take me right here, right now. It sounds dirty, animalistic, feral, but it’s the truth. “I want you,” I manage, unable to think of anything else.
Whiskey-scented breath washes over me. “Here?”
I nod.
I want to kiss every beat of his heart for making me feel the way he does. I want to give him the world. To give him me.
The wetness of his tongue caresses my earlobe, making the warmth I’m feeling spread even deeper. “You sure?”
I nod again.
“There’s a VIP room in the back. I can see if it’s open. Follow me.”
Like I wouldn’t?
Halfway through the crowd, he turns. “I can’t wait to fuck your brains out, but I don’t want to do it here. What do you say we head home?”
There’s that word again.
Home.
And this time when I hear it, the smile that spreads wider and wider across my face is only for him.
“I’d love to go home,” I tell him, wrapping my arms around him so I can feel his body against mine one more time before we get off this magical dance floor.
Jasper lifts his chin and wipes a stray tear away that I didn’t even know I shed. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing, absolutely nothing.”
My emotions have been haywire. It goes hand in hand with my elevated sex drive, I guess.
Making our way through the crowd once again, we finally reach the end of the dance floor. Before I even have both of my stiletto-killing-me feet on the alternate surface, I feel a hand on my shoulder.
I turn.
“There you two are. I’ve been looking for you both.”
It’s Jake, and there’s no doubt in my mind that while we’ve been on the dance floor, he’s been drinking. And doing a lot of it. His eyes are unfocused. His words slurred. And his body is swaying.
“Have a drink with me,” he slurs.
“Next time, man. We were just heading home,” Jasper tells him with a clap on the shoulder.
“You can’t do that. Will already left. Drew’s in the VIP room. And I shouldn’t be looking at all these women the way I am.”
Jasper raises both of his brows. “What are you talking about? Look bro, why not?”
“I took a vow of celibacy.”
Laughter fills the space between us. “Why the fuck would you do something like that?”
“Because I’m an asshole and I don’t deserve a nice girl like Shannon. She’s everything I should never have.”<
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“That’s not true, Jake,” I tell him.
His blue eyes flash. “Yeah, it is. I was an asshole to you, too.”
I say nothing. He was.
Jasper looks at me and crosses his arms over his chest.
Something in my face makes his soften in understanding.
“I am to every girl I meet,” Jake continues. “Why didn’t you tell me to fuck off?”
I look him the eyes. “I was able to see what you were doing was your way of protecting yourself.”
He scoffs. “Protect myself? From what?”
“I don’t know, Jake. That’s for you to figure out.”
He cuts me a dark look. “Yeah, maybe I could do that after another drink.”
All I have to do is look at Jake in this state and my heart hurts for him.
“I think we’re done drinking tonight,” Jasper tells Jake with a clap on the back.
“No, you guys go. I’ll be fine.”
Just then someone pushes past us and Jake loses his balance, almost falling to the ground, but Jasper catches him.
Jake starts laughing. “You might need to help me to the bar before you leave, though.”
Jasper whispers in my ear, “Do you mind if we take him home?”
“No, of course not.”
Clearly Jake drank way too much because in order to move him from the spot we are in, we have to drape his arms around both Jasper’s and my shoulders.
“I love you,” he mutters to Jasper.
Jasper just shakes his head. “You tell Charlotte that and I’ll leave you here right now.”
“No man, I wouldn’t think of it. That’s your job.”
Jasper looks over at me with eyes that tell me just how he feels.
I say nothing.
Although I wish I could.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
WINDING ROAD
Jasper
MAX, OUR CHIEF automotive design engineer, has this process he refers to as a thought experiment.
I fucking hate it.
Then again, he knows this and likes to fuck with me. I remember this one time when the result was more than even he anticipated.
“First, picture a traditional six-cylinder engine,” he says.
The engineer in me can do that easily enough. Shit, the street-kid mechanic in me can do that with his eyes closed.
“Now take the cylinder heads, valve train, camshaft, head gasket—take it all off and throw it in the trash.”
I look at him like he’s lost his damn mind.
“You don’t need it anymore,” he tells me.
Right, I think, he must have been drinking at lunch.
“Then, take that engine and chop it in half, right down the middle.”
I continue to humor him.
“Now,” he says excitedly, “flip it over, one half on top of the other.”
“What the fuck?” I respond, unable to play around anymore. We have work to get done.
“Think about it, Jasper,” he says.
And I do.
It takes me a couple of hours, but I sketch out the idea, put a lot of hard thought into it, and then the light goes on. What we have is an engine with two pistons in each cylinder that oppose each other—it just might be the powertrain of the future.
No fucking way.
That experiment is still going to rock the automotive world.
It is state-of-the-art technology all the way.
It is the soul of the Storm.
What will sell it.
That was seven years ago.
Seven.
We’ve spent years making it better, stronger, faster.
We have.
It’s been a long road.
And this guy I’m carrying out the door is now the one selling this technology to investors—and he’s fucking great at it.
So yeah, I’ll help him through whatever shit he’s got going on in his head tonight, but come Tuesday, you better believe I’ll be pounding that head if he isn’t focused as fuck.
A rumble in the distance steals my attention.
Dark, angry clouds are gathering high above us in the heated summer sky. Strikes of lighting are already illuminating the blackened heavens in quick flashes, and the thunder is roaring in the distance.
I pull my phone out to call for the car, but before we even make it past the row of tents, it pulls up to the curb.
The window rolls down. “Good, you’re here; I was just coming back to get you.”
“What’s going on?” I ask Will.
“Where’s Drew?”
“Still inside.”
“What happened to him?” Will jerks his chin toward the weaving Jake holding onto Charlotte and I for dear life.
“Just what it looks like—too much Jäger.”
The car door opens. “Get him inside, I’ll go find Drew.”
Like a bat out of hell, he passes me on the sidewalk, and I grab his arm. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing good. I’ll tell you in a minute,” he says and strides off.
Always the drama queen.
Inside the car, I don’t worry about him right now. Instead, Charlotte and I try to get Jake situated. We just get him settled in his seat when he lunges for the door. “Get out of my way, I’m going to puke.”
In a rush, I practically shove Jake’s head out of the door.
True to his word, he tosses the Jäger.
I really should have known better.
When I turn back, I see Charlotte struggling to open the other door, and then I hear her vomiting too. I shouldn’t have let her drink so much either. The rain has started to fall and the drops hit her one by one. Pulling Jake back in the car, I lean over to her. “Baby, are you okay?”
She holds a finger up.
Tentatively, I ask, “What can I do?”
All she gives me is a shake of her head.
I hate being helpless.
Nerves jittering, I wait for her.
Sighing, she pulls herself back into the car and leans over. She looks sexy as all fuck, but completely exhausted.
Hating this for her, hating I can’t do anything to help her, I rub her back with slow, small soothing stokes. “Hey, are you sure you’re okay?”
Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she takes a deep breath and pulls the car door closed. “Yes. I’m fine. The heat just got to me. That’s all.”
“Yeah, me too,” Jake says with a laugh.
Dumbass.
Sometimes I really hate when I’m in a situation I can’t control. Knowing nothing I do is going to make her feel any better, I pull her to my chest. “This night is not turning out the way I thought it was going to.”
She rests her warm cheek on my chest and I comb my fingers through those mounds of curls I can never get enough of. Soon, that adorable little snoring noise is coming from her mouth.
I can’t help but grin.
Fifteen minutes or so pass before the car door opens. The sound has me bolting upright. I might have dozed off. I watch both Drew and Will get in the car, solemn faced.
Charlotte startles and sits up. I pull her back to me. “Lay down and rest.”
She obliges.
Jake is passed out cold.
Upon Will and Drew settling in, I take a deep breath and prepare myself for what Bunny might have done now. In the past four weeks she’s been a handful. Will’s attention isn’t fully on his job because it’s always on her. But I get it. She needs help. And someone to watch over her. She’s tried to steal his checkbook, been caught soliciting men in his building, invited a few friends over to party at nine in the morning, and somehow managed to drink all the booze Will had in the house before he even noticed. This isn’t going to sound right—but it could be so much worse.
Will tells the driver to go and then turns to look at me. Here it comes. “Jasper, Drew,” he says, “we need to sober Jake up and then get to the airport. We’re on a flight to LA in three hours.”
Wha
t?
Sobering up, I scowl at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Drew is quiet. He must have gotten a heads up inside.
Rising off the seat, Will pulls a piece of paper out of his back pocket. “When I got to my apartment building tonight, I found Whitney sitting in the lobby. She gave me this.”
He hands me the piece of paper.
It’s a newswire of some kind from the Detroit Free Press. The headline states, ‘Lightning Motors to add a fifth partner.’
What the fuck?
I keep reading. ‘Acquitted child molester, Nickolas Crown, offered stake in his son’s company. After winning a wrongful damage suit ten years ago, is Nickolas Crown just the fat cat this company needs to survive?’
With shaking hands, I crumble the paper and stare at Will. “It isn’t true. Jake hasn’t talked to his father since he was accused.”
“I know that, Jasper, and so does Drew, the fucking problem is the public doesn’t know that. We can’t survive a scandal like this. Taking a child molester’s money isn’t the image we want out there. Investors will be pulling out as soon as the story hits the press. That’s why we’re going to go out to LA to meet with the best damage control law firm in the country.”
“When is the story releasing?” Charlotte asks.
Will shrugs. “It hit Alex’s inbox just before Whitney was going home this evening. Her best guess is the Free Press is looking for validation from the city office before running it because they know Alex has invested a lot of resources in helping us. Bottom line, best case is that it will happen after the holiday weekend. Alex hasn’t even seen it yet. I’m certain he won’t endorse it, but that doesn’t mean it won’t run.”
“When is Whitney showing it to him?”
“I guess he’s off with the family for Labor Day Weekend.”
“Hank’s lake house,” I mutter. That fucking house he loves with his wife, son and his wife and child, daughter, dog, and cabin cruiser. The thing missing—my mother.
“Is Whitney going to alert him?” Charlotte asks, sitting up and crossing her legs.
The limo feels warm and the rain is pounding harder and harder on the roof. “No,” Will says, “she’s going to leave it alone, not draw any attention to it, which should give us time to hopefully get in front of it. She’s the one who gave me the name of the firm in LA.”
