Again he didn’t say a word.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“Maybe.” He made a hard turn. The truck groaned over a hill, and she gasped, unlatching her buckle. Majestic and timeless, the mountains exploded out of the trees. Shale gray was the dominant color of the cliffside with rusty tips that made the mountains look like they’d been dusted in cinnamon. The surrounding trees were a deep evergreen color. Oaks and birch trees swayed in brilliant yellows among the green. A river roared beneath the tiny vista.
“This is your place?”
He nodded. “Merced River.”
She ducked her head out the window as he parked. She couldn’t get over how immense the mountains looked.
“Kendall, get back in here.”
She sat on the window frame and nudged his shoulder with her sneakered foot. “Be quiet. I’m communing with nature here.”
He laughed.
She slid back inside and knelt beside him on the bench seat. “Did you just laugh?”
He shook his head solemnly. “Nope.”
She drilled a finger into his biceps. “I think you did.”
“Go commune with nature.”
She spun around on the seat and opened the door and hopped down. “I think I will.” She ran to the edge of the vista, and the water and expanse of field on the other side made her itch to explore.
“Like it?”
She turned around, then rushed forward to take a bag from his overburdened arms. “It’s gorgeous. That view is to die for.”
“Wait until you see the next one.”
“Really? It’s better than this?”
He looked up. “Clear skies. Yeah, it’ll be even better.” He dropped the sleeping bag, then released the ties and snapped it out.
The sun was well past its zenith, but it was still warm enough that she stripped out of one of her layers and threw her shirt at the corner of the sleeping bag, leaving just her skinny-strap tank top. She toed off her sneakers, kicking them onto the grass, stretched out on her stomach, and propped herself on her elbows. The supercushioned and insulated material was almost better than her mattress. With the sun on her back and the view, could it get any better?
Shane unpacked their food and held up the huge deli pickle she’d bought. He lifted a brow and set it beside her sandwich. She grinned, but her attention slid back to the mountains. “I can’t get over that view.”
“So you keep saying.” He leaned back and crossed his legs. “My mom took me here every year as long as I can remember.”
She looked down at her turkey club. Not sure she wanted to know, but she asked anyway. “After she met Lawrence?”
“No. Not after Larry,” he said quietly.
She took a healthy bite of her lunch. The crunch of lettuce and bacon with the kick of horseradish mayo made her groan. “Oh, man, that’s good.”
He glanced at his sandwich. She laughed. Limp bread soaked through with greasy mayo didn’t look nearly as appetizing as hers. She sat up and held hers out. “Bite?”
She was expecting him to say no, but he leaned in and took a large bite. “Hey!”
He shrugged. “You offered.” He rolled onto his knees. “Yours is better.”
She pulled her arm back. “A bite, not the whole thing.”
He flipped her onto her back and clasped her wrist. His lips brushed her fingers as he took the last bit of the quarter of her sandwich. “Much better than mine.”
Their legs tangled, and she tried to shimmy back, but he pressed his hips into hers. “Well, then. That good?” She laughed at the definite ridge in his jeans.
He wiped the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand, then caged her in. “Let me see.” He dipped his head, and her elbows dissolved under her. He hooked her knee over his hip and lightly rolled his hips against the V of her thighs as he took her mouth.
She slid her fingers into his short hair. The strands sifted and teased around her fingers and wrist as she held on and accepted the slide of his tongue along hers. She sucked on the tip gently, and the kiss went from hard and fast to slow.
She reversed their positions until she straddled his waist, her knees hugging his ribs. She laced her fingers with his and pinned them over his head. The golden centers of his hazel eyes burned. She lowered herself until there was little more than breath between them.
He lifted his head to bridge the gap, but she backed off. “Uh-uh.”
He let his head drop back down with a growl.
She smiled and lowered her mouth. She flicked her tongue along his lower lip. “You can just lie there and take it for once.”
He widened the space between their clasped hands and his head so she had to come closer. “I don’t remember you being an inactive participant.” He sealed his lips over hers, and she hummed into his mouth.
God, he was way too good at that.
His grip tightened on her as she lightly undulated against his belly. The kiss spiraled out so fast she couldn’t drag in a breath between the breaks of their lips. His tongue was a slice of pure temptation.
With a shiver she remembered how it felt inside her.
This angle was awkward and taxed the muscles of her shoulders and arms. She tried to manuever his hands toward his head, but he wasn’t budging.
Stubborn man.
She scooted up farther, and he broke their handclasp. “Keep moving up, babe, and I’ll have my tongue between your thighs.”
His lips were berry red from her bites and nips. What would they look like wet from her in the sunshine?
He dug his fingertips into her denim-clad ass. “You like that idea?” He lifted her until she was balanced on her knees. He pushed up her tank with his nose and licked around her belly button. “I want to taste you again.”
“I—”
He tugged open her button with his teeth. “Say yes.”
She shuddered out a breath. She was always saying yes to this man.
His hands slid around to the front of her jeans and unzipped her. “Say yes.”
Chapter Seven
He dipped his thumb into the gap of her zipper. The skin under her navel was downy soft. He moved lower to the fringe of lace along the top of her panties. Incredibly tiny panties. Both times he’d gotten her naked, they’d been quick to shed clothes. There was something infinitely sexy about a woman’s lingerie.
The triangle of cotton and lace cupped the skin just above her pussy lips. He circled the side of his thumb around the plump V. She jerked under his hand. There was a tiny wet spot there. The baby blue darkened as he gently swiped the flat of his thumb back and forth.
“Shane.”
His name was a shaky moan. God, he wanted to get his tongue on her. He peeled her jeans back and over the sweet curve of her ass. Her apple scent made his mouth water. He brushed the tip of his tongue along the wet spot.
She looked down at him. Her teeth sawed her lower lip. Her breasts swayed with each deep breath as he teased her. The stiff denim wouldn’t go down any farther until she moved. He didn’t want her to go far. Couldn’t bear to have her get up even long enough to get her jeans off. Instead he lifted her.
“Off.”
Kendall was a quick study. She shimmied out of them and flicked them to the side. She straddled his hips. Too far away. Not close enough to touch or taste. He cupped her ass and slid her forward. His shirt rode up, and her smooth calves hugged his sides.
His stomach muscles bunched as he closed his mouth over her lace-covered mound. She gasped and fumbled to brace herself on something. Finally settling for his shoulders, she leaned forward, and he relaxed back onto the blanket. He tongued her pussy through the material. The first hit of her taste and he wanted more.
He wanted to go slow, wanted to make it last. He gripped the smooth muscles of her ass, and she flexed under his touch. Her thighs opened wider. He tugged her forward again until her knees were jammed into his underarms. “There,” he muttered. He used his teeth to peel the sopping-wet mater
ial off her. The cotton clung to her swollen lips and the tight little bead of her clit.
Her knees slid wider along his biceps, and she lowered to his mouth.
He flicked his tongue either side of her clit. Her taste burned through the lace and exploded on his tongue. Salt and the crisp tang of her scent added to her musky flavor. He skimmed his fingers along the cleft of her ass and widened her again.
She moaned above him. Her thighs quivered, and he clenched his jaw.
She cupped his face. “So fierce, even doing this?”
He didn’t want to be so solemn, but the emotions she dragged out him were too much to give over to smiles and laughter. They weren’t laughter. They were more like the knife-edge of madness. Possessive, exhausting, illogical—he’d only known her for a few days, and she was under his skin. She overwhelmed him with her ability to lose herself in the moment.
He nudged one hand under the leg of her panties from the back, and her pussy grasped the tips of his fingers. No.
Don’t rush.
He swiped the very tip of his tongue through the silky cream that had drenched her panties beyond wear. “Fuck, Kendall.”
She tipped her head back, and the elegant line of her lithe body shattered him. He was so fucking hard he could come in his goddamned jeans.
“Braid. Take it out.” He wanted to see all her sunlit hair in his favorite place.
This was a place of happiness.
Not of death and misery.
This was his place, and he could have one last good memory here before the crash of reality intruded.
She unwound the end, and the rest simply unraveled. Why she tried to contain all the curls and life, he didn’t know. But he wanted to see them fly free around her shoulders before he put his mouth over her.
The tiny triangle of downy-white hair unmanned him. He used two fingers to push back her hood, found the stiff center of her, wrapped his lips around her clit, and slid his tongue inside her as he sucked.
She bucked above him, and he gripped her hips.
He held her still and tried to listen for the cues to what worked for her above the roar in his head. She tasted like autumn. Dark and spicy and so addicting. He swallowed as she drenched his chin. His angle only really allowed a taste. He wanted to fill her. To taste her as she came.
He shifted her until he could get his hand between her knees. He delved two fingers into her swollen folds and pulled down, opening her.
Her hips swayed. He knew she needed more, but he wanted another taste.
The sweet, sharp keen followed by his name on a guttural cry was his reward for patience. He’d heard that sound on that last night. He rolled her onto the blanket and opened her wide, thrusting two fingers into her as he circled her clit with his thumb.
He thumbed open his jeans and took himself in hand. All it would take was a pump or two, and he’d be done. Christ, she was so unfathomably hot.
She reached for him. Even as he locked her inside another cresting orgasm, she tried to touch him.
He shook his head. “Shh. Don’t worry about me.”
She arched off the blanket and twisted her fingers into the plaid flannel. He turned his hand, and the grasping clasp of her tissues around him made his cock throb even harder.
God, he wanted inside her.
But it wasn’t about him.
Not right now.
He groaned. Her legs quaked and shuddered as she melted into the flannel. He laid his cheek against her belly. The quivers inside her felt like tiny aftershocks. He opened his palm over the slice of skin between her navel and her hood and lightly massaged her.
The hiccuping moans finally faded, and she covered his hand with hers. “Shane.”
“You’re so goddamn beautiful.”
She trailed the backs of her knuckles along his hairline, her dark eyes soft and sated. “Every time you tell me I’m beautiful, there’s a swear word in there.”
He opened his mouth to answer, but she traced her nail over the dip at the top of his lip.
“I like it.”
He rubbed his bearded chin across the concave of her belly and up to her ribs. She left him split open and frayed. The numbness was easier. But easy hadn’t worked in the past. Easy had left him adrift with nothing concrete to hold on to.
Their eyes locked as he pushed her tank up and revealed the matching sky-blue cotton and lace of her bra. He sucked her nipple into hardness under the cotton. He let it go, crowding over her. He hissed when her hand slid around the base of his cock.
“Kendall. I told you—”
“I know what you told me. I want you inside me.” She flicked her tongue under his chin where the scruff of his beard faded into skin.
He hovered over her, one hand beside her head, the other tucked against her side. Her curls twisted around his wrist; her skin burned against the other.
He eyed the bag at the corner of the blanket. He’d bought condoms at the rest stop. It was going to look like an asshole move. That he expected this. He just knew his willpower and Kendall didn’t live in the same zip code.
She writhed under him and drew the tips of her nails along the underside of his shaft. “Get the condoms out of the bag.”
He looked down at her. “I—”
“I saw you go back in for something when I was buying lunch.” She tightened her grip at his cockhead and twisted.
He shut his eyes. “Fuck.”
She laughed. It was free and sexy as hell. Startled, he looked down at her again. “Something funny about this?”
“Just that you feel guilty.”
“You don’t know what I feel.”
The growl in his tone seemed to tickle her even more. She wrapped one smooth leg around his waist, pushing at his jeans with her foot. “It’s a beautiful day, and you have a girl who’s willing to go”—she dropped her voice to a whispery, over-the-top Marilyn Monroe voice—“all the way.”
He leaned down and nipped her jaw. “All the way, huh?”
She nuzzled her cheek against his, and his arms weakened for a moment. She made him want to give her softness, but that was stupid. Then again, nothing about Kendall put him in the smart column.
She reached over her head. “I can’t—”
Her breast lifted until the fullest part of her was an offering. Small and perfect and cupped in the same color as the sky. His hips circled in the haven of her thighs; the head of his cock grazed her slick folds. The heat of her lured him closer. Skin to skin. He grasped his shaft and groaned as she opened for him.
Madness crawled up his spine. Just one stroke inside her. To feel that warmth.
Her dark eyes widened, and the naked need there had to match his own. She dug into his shoulders. “Shane. The condoms.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to beg. To ask her to take him without it. Would this finally break the numbness? If he got inside her with no barriers?
He shook his head to fight off the gut-deep longing and reached with his significantly longer arms. He ripped the box open and split the packaging with his teeth. Protection for her. For him. He obviously needed it even more than for its intended use.
He snapped it on and sank into her. The sun beat down on his shoulders. He slid out but kept the tip of himself inside her. Her bra still covered her, and her panties were still on, even if they were skewed to the side. He reached behind his head and tugged his shirt up.
She smoothed her hands up his belly to his chest.
He stopped when she rose and the cross of his rosary slid forward to swing between them. Her nails bit into his skin, and the tent of his shirt put them into a weird little cocoon. She grinned up at him as the sun filtered through the waffle texture of his shirt.
Simple as that, the ice inside him melted a little. She pushed his shirt the rest of the way off and nudged the rosary aside to get to his nipple. He cupped the back of her head and slid home again. She clasped around his cock and locked her ankles behind his back.
Her slight
little body was more muscular than he realized. She grasped his shoulders and hauled herself up until he fell back on his butt. With his jeans still half on and a lap full of Kendall, he barked out a laugh, then a groan as she took him deeper.
“There.” She slid forward and back, taking him on her own terms. “I knew there was a smile to be found inside you.”
He hid his grin in her neck and swiped his tongue behind her ear. She vised him, and he groaned. He unhooked her bra, wanting to feel her against his skin. If he couldn’t have the most fundamental part of them skin to skin, he would have the rest.
She looked around, then unwound her arms long enough to get the bra off.
Her hair was pure sunshine and as carefree as her smile as it bounced around her shoulders. She was the fun and light he’d been missing for so long. Her head tipped back to the sun, and she rolled her hips. His brain might have thrown a pause in the clawing need to come. But his body had other plans.
He didn’t want to let go of the sunshine in his arms.
He gripped her hips and drove into her as he felt the burn of his release. He maneuvered his hand between them. She pushed it away and returned his grip to her ass.
“I want to see you come inside me, Shane.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he jerked her harder into his hips. She slid her hand up along the back of his skull to the top and latched her mouth to his just as he came. In his head it was her name he chanted as he lost himself in her.
KENDALL DROPPED BACK onto the blanket. The decadent feel of sunlight on her breasts and a man still buried between her thighs had her laughing up to the sky. Shane’s hand spanned her hip bones, the heel of his hand rubbing lightly just above where they were still joined.
She closed her eyes, enjoying the softness of a lover.
She’d never had a lover.
She’d had boyfriends, and she’d had a few one-night stands.
But never had a man who was only worried about her pleasure. As gruff as Shane was, when they were naked, he honed that intensity into making sure she came her damn brains out. She was used to the men from Bradley and the occasional traveler. A bounce, mutual pleasure sometimes, an orgasm if she was lucky. But mostly it was the contact of a person she’d longed for. And disappointment had almost always made her wonder if it was all worth it.
Suspended Page 10
