Flirting in Traffic

by BETH KERY

  “Er, something like that,” she said almost unintelligibly into his chest. He prodded her shoulder and she looked up at him. “It was really nothing though. You just have to be familiar with the signs—”

  “It was something. Thanks.”

  His gaze narrowed on her parted lips. She had the prettiest, most kissable mouth he’d ever seen in his life—full, pink lips that always were begging to be sampled…to be penetrated. Just thinking about the honeyed cavern inside made his cock thicken with a stab of undiluted lust. The potent memory of her kneeling between his thighs, using that mouth for the sweetest of sins, flashed graphically into his brain

  The arousal that suddenly coursed through his veins felt shockingly strong and imperative. It amazed him to realize that he honestly didn’t know if he could wait for the length of time it took to get back into the city in order to have her. She had said something about a few nights in bed, hadn’t she? A few could technically be…what? Six? Seven? A dozen?

  Maybe he could bargain for an extension at the end of his term?

  “Let’s go to my place,” he suggested gruffly.

  “Oh…all right.”

  He grabbed her hand and pulled her hastily toward the door.

  * * * * *

  Twenty minutes later Esa unlocked the door of Rachel’s car so that Finn could squeeze his long frame into the passenger seat. Esa had been puzzled by his terse explanation that they would take separate vehicles from his mother’s house. Before they’d separated he’d told her to follow him to the restricted construction area off the 59th Street overpass on the Dan Ryan.

  “I’ve got a surprise for you,” he had told her before he’d ducked his head and kissed her through the car window, quick and potent, and then left to get in his own vehicle.

  “Why are you leaving your truck here?” Esa asked, eyeing the white pickup truck where he’d parked it next to a bulldozer that read Madigan Construction on the side of it.

  “I don’t need it. I’ve got my car at home and I can always take the ‘L’ to get to work. I usually only use the truck to get back and forth along the highway during work hours.”

  Esa couldn’t help but feel like an insider as she gazed at the huge machinery and the brand-new stretch of pristine white road that led just inside the barricade. On the other side of the cement barricade traffic moved at a sluggish thirty miles per hour even at eleven-fifteen at night.

  Finn readjusted the seat so that it went back as far as possible.

  “When I was with your Grandma Glory earlier she said that you have master’s degrees both in architecture and engineering,” Esa stated baldly.

  He paused for a fraction of a second in the process of pulling on his seat belt.

  “Yeah. Is the number of degrees I have important to you or something?” he asked with a stiff jaw as he fastened his seat belt.

  “Yes…I mean no, not in some kind of nasty way. I’m not…you know, hanging around you for your diplomas,” she replied with a roll of her eyes. “It just struck me when she said it because you’d never told me. Jeez, Julia really did a number on you, didn’t she?” Esa mumbled under her breath after a strained silence.

  He shifted in his seat, seeming entirely too big for the confines of the sleek sports car. “I’ve wanted to talk to you about Julia. I’m sorry about what happened last weekend. I was as shocked about Julia showing up as you were.”

  “I know. I mean, it seemed pretty obvious that you were surprised. Besides, you don’t owe me any explanations,” Esa added with a sinking feeling, thinking about Finn saying something similar earlier.

  She felt his gaze on her. “I do. For the discomfort you experienced—I at least owe you something for that.”

  Despite the anxiety the topic of Julia provoked, Esa’s lips twitched slightly. Molly Madigan would approve of her son’s manners.

  “So…Julia Weatherell was the fiancée they you told me about. The one who walked out when you decided to take over your dad’s business?” Esa prompted.

  He nodded. She listened while Finn explained in more detail about his father and uncle dying and leaving a faltering business, his decision to sell the architecture and design firm that he’d developed with a friend, the resulting fights between Julia and him and her ultimate decision to leave.

  “She was dead set against me selling my shares in the firm to Jason. When she realized I wasn’t going to change my mind about getting Dad’s business on solid ground again she decided to leave. I guess she felt like I was saying my family was more important than she was.”

  “If that’s the way she felt, she was being unfair. You weren’t choosing your family over her. It didn’t have anything to do with her,” Esa said sourly. Although of course Julia would have made it all about her—her needs, her expectations, her image. Never mind the fact that her fiancé was suffering from the abrupt death of his father and that his family required support. Never mind that Finn had needed someone in his corner.

  Hearing about Julia’s selfishness always irritated her but hearing about what she’d done to Finn got her really boiling.

  He shrugged. “She’s got a high-profile job. Apparently having a partner who fits her image is more important to her than I’d ever imagined. That’s how it is sometimes. You never really know what a person is really made of until the bombs fly.”

  Esa scowled in the semi-darkness.

  “But Julia hasn’t given up the hope of being with you, despite the fact that she doesn’t want to marry a guy who works in construction. Am I right?”

  “I can’t control what Julia does or thinks, Esa.”

  “No, I don’t suppose you can,” Esa conceded.

  That still didn’t answer all her unasked questions about how he really felt about Julia, her betrayal…or relationships in general for that matter. But did she really need to ask? It seemed pretty obvious Finn was still nursing some pretty raw wounds—certainly significant enough injuries to keep him well out of the dating arena.

  They sat for a moment in thoughtful silence.

  “Traffic’s still pretty bad, huh?” he observed, an obvious attempt at breaking the weighty silence.

  Esa exhaled tiredly as she shifted the car into drive. Even the word “traffic” seemed to drain her of energy nowadays.

  “Uh uh,” Finn said sharply when she started to take the restricted ramp back onto the overpass so that they could merge onto the Dan Ryan. “Keep going on this road.”

  Esa stared at him wide-eyed. “But it’s not even finished yet, is it?”

  Finn’s eyes gleamed in the semi-darkness. “As of yesterday, one driving lane as well as the emergency lane are finished and cleared. We’ll open up the extra express lane come Monday but tonight…it’s wide open.”

  Esa braked, bringing the car to an abrupt stop.

  “You mean this road is clear sailing all the way into the city?” Esa asked, excitement making her voice tremble slightly.

  “That’s my surprise to you.”

  Esa just stared at him for a few seconds. Suddenly she laughed and pressed her foot to the accelerator.

  The thought struck her as they blew past the cars moving sluggishly in traffic to the right of them that Finn had just given her a gift. And even though she hadn’t known him for that long, it was the most intimate, exhilarating…wonderful gift she’d ever been given.

  “I felt like I was flying,” Esa exclaimed ten minutes later as she came to a neat stop inside of Finn’s parking garage.

  “That’s because we were.”

  For the first time Esa realized he looked a little pale.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Was I going too fast?”

  “Going fast was the whole point, I suppose.”

  He looked a little surprised when she unsnapped her belt and leaned across the console to hug him tightly.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she repeated as she pressed feverish kisses against his neck and jaw.

  “I guessed that driv
ing fast and free on the Dan Ryan would be the equivalent of foreplay for you. I’m just glad the feeling is transferring to me,” he chuckled.

  “Oh, it transferred to you all right,” Esa assured him with a soft growl as she bit at his earlobe. “You have no idea what you just unleashed.”

  He grinned broadly but his hand on her jaw was firm as he gently pushed her back so that he could look into her eyes.

  “I had an idea. But let’s get one thing straight, honey.”

  “What?” Esa asked impatiently. Her nostrils flared to catch his delicious male scent. She couldn’t take her eyes off his firm lips. She noticed that they set into a determined line when she tried to crane over to kiss him. He fingers burrowed into her hair and tightened, restraining her.

  “Here in the car you’re the boss. But up there my bedroom I’m in the driver’s seat. Understood?”

  Heat simmered between her thighs. She squirmed restlessly in the seat but Finn quirked one eyebrow…waiting.

  “Yes, all right,” she murmured, recognizing that he expected a verbal agreement.

  He smiled. “Okay, let’s go.”

  Esa wondered if Finn was testing her.

  He’d led her into his bedroom and set her down on the edge of this bed. Then he’d said he would be right back and gone into the bathroom. Esa glanced around the dim bedroom in rising anticipation and nervousness.

  It was almost the precise same scenario as that first night…the night she’d run out on him.

  Like that night, she stood hesitantly and fiddled with her coat. She jumped when the bathroom door suddenly opened and she saw Finn’s shadow outlined in the doorway. He’d left on the lights over the mirror in the bathroom so she could make out that he wasn’t wearing anything but his low-riding jeans. His fly was partially unfastened. The erotic sight of the thin trail of golden-brown hair that ran from his taut bellybutton down below the waistband of his starkly white boxer briefs left Esa temporarily speechless.

  “What are you doing?” he asked as he padded into the room with silent stealth. “Were you planning on running out again?”

  “No!” Esa assured him when she heard the incredulity in his tone. She swallowed thickly. She didn’t know why she was so nervous. It wasn’t as if she’d never slept with him before. Maybe her anxiety was due to that taut challenge he’d issued her in the parking garage. Maybe it was caused by the fact that she’d accepted it.

  Perhaps she trembled with nerves and wild excitement because tonight it wasn’t the same with Finn. The playful, fun, delicious near-stranger had disappeared. At some point he’d transformed into a fierce, determined, dead-sexy lover.

  “I was…was starting to undress,” Esa admitted in a hushed tone as he came toward her.

  He grabbed her hand and swung her around while he seated himself on the bed. “Good. I can watch you.”

  Her heartbeat began to throb in her ears in the seconds that followed. His face looked sober and set.

  “I…uh, well, I—”

  He interrupted her stammering with a firm command.

  “Take off your clothes, Esa.”

  Her hands shook a little, betraying her nervousness as she shrugged out of her leather jacket and tossed it on the floor. She’d never stripped for a man before. Surely Finn was going to be disappointed in her lack of seduction skills. But Esa just couldn’t see herself morphing into slinky-stripper mode and giving him sultry winks as she tossed her panties into his lap.

  Somehow she knew the sex kitten role would ring glaringly false tonight. Just as it should, perhaps. Esa craved to be herself with Finn as much as she feared that he would be turned off when he realized she wasn’t really as experienced with no-strings-attached sexual affairs as she’d led him to believe.

  She certainly didn’t feel like much of a seductress as she unzipped her short boots and stripped off her socks, letting them fall limply to the carpet. Nevertheless Finn sat utterly motionless as he watched her every movement.

  His gaze trailed her fingers when they rose to unbutton the pumpkin-colored sweater she wore. She knew the color flattered her skin tone, hair and eye color. Esa also recalled the way she’d caught Finn staring at her chest with a gleam of masculine appreciation in his eyes several times that evening. The sweater didn’t cling to her indecently but it certainly left little to the imagination in regard to the shape and size of her breasts.

  That recollection gave her confidence as she parted the two sides of the fabric and gave him a peek at the valley between her black lace-encased breasts. He tensed. His nostrils flared noticeably. Sexual excitement seemed to flood into her veins at the sight, quickening her flesh and sharpening her senses. Her fingers smoothed down the bare strip of exposed skin to her jeans and curled beneath the waistband.

  “Take the sweater all the way off,” Finn ordered abruptly.

  Esa hesitated only for as long as it took her to recall her agreement in the parking garage earlier. Well a deal was a deal, after all.

  The sweater dropped to the floor.

  Finn leaned forward slightly in his sitting position. Her nipples tightened beneath his palpable stare as though he’d just reached out and caressed the tips.

  “Now the jeans,” he instructed after a tense moment.

  Her fingers flew over her button fly at first, until she noticed how Finn’s pulse leapt at his throat. Her movements slowed as she unfastened the buttons just over her most sensitive, aching flesh. Seemingly of their own accord her hips gyrated, circling subtly against her hand.

  Esa bit her lip to still a moan at the subtle, evocative pressure. How many times in her life had she unbuttoned her jeans? And never once had it ever felt so tantalizingly sexual as it did with Finn’s hot eyes watching her.

  Finn’s gaze shot up from where it had been glued to her crotch.

  “Stop teasing me, Esa,” he said in a hard tone.

  “I wasn’t—”

  “Take off those jeans. Now.”

  Esa wasted no time in shoving the jeans down her hips and shimmying out of them. When she stood in front of him wearing just her bra and panties she saw that Finn was in the process of unfastening the rest of his own button flies. The glimpse of the thick pillar of his cock pressing tightly against the white cotton of his underwear made Esa reach hastily for her panties.

  “No. Turn around to take them off,” Finn demanded.

  Esa turned around slowly, not because she was trying to be seductive but because she wasn’t overly thrilled about him getting an eyeful of all her bountiful flesh. She paused in wide-eyed disbelief while in the process of pulling her silk panties over her bottom when she heard him groan behind her.

  “God, you’re sexy, honey.”

  Esa clenched her eyes shut, taken by surprise by the emotion that crashed through her at what she’d heard in his tone. She bent and drew her panties over her thighs. By the time she’d stepped out of them she’d gained a measure of control over her feelings.

  She turned to face him with a newfound pride. That’s what the sound of the pure, raw desire in Finn’s deep voice had given her just now. She stood still while his gaze ran over her belly and hips, lingering between her thighs, scorching her in the process. When he just nodded once toward her chest, seemingly incapable of speaking for the moment, she unfastened her bra and slipped it off her shoulders.

  “Come here,” he said hoarsely after a moment.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Esa walked toward him, her heart hammering loudly in her ears, pausing just inside his spread thighs. She made a little strangled sound of arousal when he put his hands on her waist and pulled her to him. She stared down at him in helpless desire as his blond head moved forward. His nose and lips almost skimmed the skin of her stomach…almost. He remained a fraction of an inch away from her as he moved his head over her and inhaled deeply.

  “Finn,” she groaned, completely a prisoner of her desire at that moment.

  “I love the way you smell,” he muttered, more to himself
than to her. He planted a single hot kiss on her bellybutton. Her abdominal muscles quivered in longing at the simple caress. Her fingers came up to tangle in his soft collar-length hair as he pressed his lips along her stomach and hips, tasting her occasionally with his agile tongue, taking love bites from her curving flesh. His hands lowered to explore her buttocks, shaping and molding her into his palms.

  If another man had been doing it, Esa likely would have felt self-conscious about her body. But Finn’s warm, cherishing mouth and caressing hands made her feel so rich in her femininity, so soft, so beautiful.

  When he scraped his teeth along a lower rib her nipples pulled unbearably tight. Before she knew what he was about he grabbed her wrists and pushed her hands toward her breasts.

  “Hold them up for me,” he said, his light blue eyes gleaming silver in the dim light as he looked up at her.

  She hesitated only a second before she gathered her breasts in her hands, cradling them from below. Her face tightened with mixed arousal and poignant emotion when he leaned forward and slipped an erect nipple between his lips.

  He watched her for a moment as he drew on her breast so sweetly. She clamped her thighs together to still the ache he wrought. His tongue was a warm, abrasive lash one second, a sleek soothing glide the next. Her hands trembled around her breasts. She closed her eyes and moaned when he transferred his mouth to her other nipple and moved his hands to the backs of her thighs. He reached into the tight crevice, coaxing her to part for him.

  “Ohhhh,” Esa cried out in helpless abandon when he slid a finger into her slit. He lifted his head a fraction of an inch from her glossy, erect nipple.

  “You’re so wet,” he praised, his voice thick with lust.

  Without consciously realizing she did it, Esa plumped her breasts in her hands, offering herself to him for further ravishment. He accepted her offer eagerly, dipping his head and drawing on her nipple with a steady, firm suction, palming her left buttock and lifting her flesh in order to make an easier passage for a second finger.