by Kit Rocha
“Right, you're a sex god,” Jasper interjected. “The end.”
“C'mon, Jas, this next part makes you look heroic.” Ace's grin widened. “I might have been distracted, but Jas wasn't fucking around. He comes roaring down the stairs, a gun in one hand, and with his other, he's still trying to pull up his pants. By the time I made it out here, he was in a goddamn shoot-out with his jeans around his ankles and his dick waving in the wind, just begging to get shot off.”
Jeni turned her face into Hawk's neck, her shoulders shaking with silent mirth, but the others weren't as subtle. Warm laughter rose around them as Jas glowered.
Noelle bit back a giggle and stroked Jas's arm. “I'm glad nothing got...shot off.”
“I bet you are, princess.” Ace slapped Jas on the arm. “Gotta say, it wasn't the worst strategy. The punks were distracted by Jas in all his glory, and it only took so long to finish them off because I couldn't stop fucking laughing.”
“You've had your moments, Santana,” Jasper grumbled.
“Not like that.” Ace sprawled back in the chair and threw his arms wide. “If it had been my magnificent dick, they all would have swooned on the fucking spot.”
Dallas snorted. “If that was true, I'd kick your ass for not saving us all that work.”
“My man's wise, as always.” Lex flashed Dallas a wicked grin as she rose and reached for his hand. Without a word, she tugged him from his seat, toward the deserted dance floor.
The music had been turned down, relegated to the background as they drank and talked, but it still throbbed softly through the room. Together with the lowered lights, it created the illusion of a sheltered place out of time, a calm in the middle of the storm.
As Ace started in on another story, Hawk laid his hand over Jeni's and twined their fingers together. “Dance with me.”
She slipped into his arms like falling into bed at the end of a long day, with a quiet, relieved sigh that warmed his skin. “I wasn't sure if you'd want to.”
On any other night, he would have wanted something more. Something filthy and raw, the realization of all his fantasies of Jeni, shattering at his touch while the whole damn gang watched.
He pulled her more tightly against him and let one hand drift up her back. Her hair slipped over his fingers, soft and silky, and his thumb found the leather collar at her throat. He didn't need to stake his claim in a public declaration. Jeni had been his from the moment she said yes, and he was the only one who hadn't believed it.
Maybe he never would, entirely. Because having her like this, snuggled trustingly against his chest as they swayed with the music... It was too damn good to be true. “I'll always want to dance with you.”
She laughed. “Not the me part. The dancing part. Some people don't like it.”
“I suppose I didn't let you get much dancing done at the rally.” He caught her hand and spun her around before dragging her back to his chest. “It's just about the only thing to do at those parties, since they're not quite as adventurous as us O'Kanes.”
“Liar.” She rubbed her thumbs over the ink around his wrists. “That barn's seen its share of clandestine rendezvous.”
“Well, sure. Clandestine being the key word.” He grinned and leaned close. “C'mon, Jeni. Admit it. Sneaking away can be fun, too.”
Her amusement faded into a glowing smile. “With the right person.”
With him. His heart dove toward his stomach before flipping up into his throat, and the emotion swelling through him was too big to contain and too new to share.
He twirled her toward the door as laughter rose behind them again, another round of affectionate ribbing as Ace finished a second outrageous story. They were reliving old memories and making new ones, fixing each one in place in their hearts because, this time, they really were standing on the edge of oblivion.
And there was one memory Hawk needed to make.
They slipped through the warehouse door, but when Jeni turned for the barracks, Hawk shook his head and steered her toward the garage instead. His car was inside, chrome gleaming in the flickering overhead light, the new paint job flawless.
He ran his fingers up the hood. “If we weren't on the brink of war, I'd take you out into the desert. Drive fast, and then ride you nice and slow.”
Jeni walked around to the other side of the car, skimming her hand over the surface of one headlight as she moved. “We don't have to go anywhere.”
The car had been an extension of him for so many years that he damn near felt the trailing of her fingertips, like she was stroking him, too. “You gonna make out with me in the back seat, Jeni?”
“Or the front seat.” She tilted her head, considering. “We'd probably dent the hood.”
The image of her spread out over it bloomed in his imagination. Her hair wild, her short red skirt up around her hips, ankles braced on his shoulders while he took his time working deep. “I might be willing to risk it,” he rumbled, circling the front of the car.
“You wouldn't.” Smiling, she leaned over the trunk, gliding her body across the cool metal as she slipped away. “This car is your baby.”
That was an image to savor, too—Jeni, bent over the trunk. She'd like it like that, hard and rough, trapped between the unyielding metal and his unforgiving thrusts. He lengthened his strides, stalking her with a lazy smile that promised trouble when he finally got his hands on her. “Is that a challenge?”
“I don't know.” She stopped and propped her hand on her hip, dragging that sinful skirt a few inches higher on her bare thigh. “Should it be?”
He took two more steps and lunged for her. Her squealed laughter echoed off the huge bay doors as she ran, threading softer warmth through the sharp edges of his arousal. His heart was pounding when he caught her with an arm around her waist and dragged her to him.
Her ass rubbed against his cock, and her hair flew wildly into his face as he bent to her ear. “I can't resist a challenge.”
The only answer was the click of the handle as she opened the back door.
He caught the top of the door, hauled it wide, and nudged her inside. Her skirt fluttered up as she slipped onto the seat, flashing her thighs and the sweet, naked curve of her ass.
Hawk damn near dove in after her.
She squealed again when he caught her and pulled her into his lap. His boot slammed into the seat and her head almost bumped the ceiling, but then he settled on the leather with Jeni astride him, her skirt hitched up to her hips and her bare ass filling his hands. He found the ribbon around her waist, some barely-there scrap of nothing masquerading as underwear, and he dragged her closer and groaned as she ground down against his erection.
Jeni traced the corner of his mouth with her tongue. “You said nice and slow, right?”
“You're the impatient one,” he teased, stroking up her back. The top of her strapless dress barely clung to her breasts, and it was so easy to coax it down as he kissed her throat. “I could make out with you like this all night long.”
“Now that sounded like a challenge.”
He licked the spot that made her squirm before teasing her with a soft bite. “I don't know,” he echoed her words back to her. “Should it be?”
She closed her teeth on his earlobe—hard.
He could tease her all night, but fuck if he wanted to. He caught her mouth, groaning in approval when her lips parted for him. He fell into the kiss as he tugged at her dress. Her breasts spilled into his hands, warm and soft, with hard nipples begging to be pinched. He rolled his thumb around one, and she hissed in a shocked breath.
He did it again and murmured against her lips. “Open my pants.”
Jeni smiled and tugged at his belt. They were pressed together so tightly that every movement was also a caress, the backs of her hands stroking his stomach through his shirt.
She left his belt hanging open and danced her fingers lightly over the top button on his jeans. Teasing. Tempting.
He dipped his head and closed his li
ps around her nipple. One hard suck, and she popped open the button with a throaty moan. He teased her with a hint of teeth but pulled back when she arched into him, switching instead to her other breast.
Another suck. Another button. Jeni squirmed in his grasp, and he cupped her breasts again, catching the wet peaks between his thumbs and fingers. When her dazed gaze locked with his, he pinched both of her nipples at the same time.
The last button yielded, and she rocked against him with a shudder.
“Now take my cock in your hand.”
She didn't look away, and she was barely breathing as she freed his erection and wrapped her fingers around the shaft in a firm, possessive grip.
He dropped one hand to the leather seat, grasping the edge of it as his self-control faltered. For one heartbeat, all he wanted to do was thrust up into the sweet circle of her fingers, but he held himself back. Everything but the words.
“We're gonna fuck just like this.” He slid his other hand up her thigh. He found the ribbon and traced it to the tiny scrap of silk covering her pussy, and a brush of his thumb rubbed the wet fabric against her clit. “I'm not even going to take these off, just push them aside and shove my cock deep, because that's what you want. You want me to lose control and take.”
“Sort of.” She shifted closer, until their bodies were pressed together, their hands trapped between them. “I want you. All of you.”
Maybe he wasn't the only one who couldn't quite believe, who touched the collar around her throat and thought too good to be true. “You've had all of me, Jeni. From the first fucking time I put my hands on you. Maybe I control my body, but the rest of me…”
He moved his thumb in a tight circle and inhaled her jagged sigh. “The words that come out of my mouth when I'm touching you… I can't even talk to anyone else, but with you, I can't fucking shut up. Every dirty thought, every fantasy I've ever had—I can't control it when you have your hands on me. I can't stop wanting.”
Her gaze dropped to his mouth. She lifted her free hand, trembling as she traced his lower lip with her fingertips. “I'm the opposite,” she confessed. “I'm good with words. I usually know what to say, just...not when it matters this much.”
He kissed the tips of her fingers, his heart racing with more than just arousal. “You don't have to say anything. Show me instead.”
Her hand fell away, and she kissed him, long and deep, every slick glide of her tongue reflecting the need that pulsed within him. She lifted her hips, and Hawk scrabbled for the control to think past her kiss, for the coordination to help her into place and nudge her panties aside.
It wasn't smooth. It wasn't easy. He knocked his knee against the front seat and almost put his elbow through the window, but he didn't care. He was more sure than ever that anyone who could hold themselves apart from Jeni didn't fucking deserve her.
And none of it mattered when she slid down his length, her slick pussy gripping him tight, the friction of fabric and the confines of the car making it all hotter, rawer. She bit his tongue and moaned into his mouth as she began to move—slow, so slow, but with an intensity that consumed them both, that narrowed the whole fucking universe to just them, here, in the back seat of his car.
He let himself pretend it was their universe, that they'd driven so far that everything else had fallen away. He gripped her hips, helped her rock, every slow withdrawal torture, every slide back like coming home. His life could be this—just Jeni, just the two of them, deep, drugging kisses and slow, sweet fucking and no pain but the kind she begged him for.
She was panting, gasping for breath, when she finally tore her mouth from his. Her head fell back, and the look on her face was beyond pleasure—a new expression that didn't exist in his careful catalog of all the ways she gave in to ecstasy.
It was more. It was his. “That's it, Jeni. Fucking show me.”
She clutched at his shoulders, scratching him through his T-shirt. As sharp as the caress was, it paled next to the sensation of her nipples against his chest, rasping through the thin cotton. Different than skin on skin, but he liked this, too, how she would strip away all her protections for him, how she trusted him enough to be exposed even if he wasn't.
He couldn't work his hand between their bodies to touch her clit, but he could shift the angle of her hips. He dragged her close and tilted them until she was shuddering every time he met her thrusts. Her throat beckoned, and he couldn't stop himself. He bit the delicate skin just above her collar, and she turned her face to his.
Her lips brushed his ear. “You're the first,” she whispered. “The only one I could ever give this much to.”
The darkness inside him would have loved that, if there had been anything dark left. But Jeni had crawled under his skin and slipped through him, shining so fucking bright that nothing seemed wrong anymore, as long as she was right there with him.
“I want it all. All of you.” He sank a hand into her hair and urged her back, grinding out the words between each slow, endless thrust. “You're the only one who's ever made me dream.”
Her breathing hitched on a noise that sounded like his name. Her mouth crashed into his again as she rode him faster, harder, fucking her way toward bliss. Using him for her pleasure, shameless and selfish—
It was the hottest fucking thing he'd ever seen.
She came with a rough cry, one that filled the confines of his car. Her teeth dug into his bottom lip, and she kept moving, even as she shook above him, clenched around him.
Control was a vague memory, and patience a joke. Hawk tightened his grip and drove up into her, gave her all of him. His hope and his future and then his pleasure, as the perfect grip of her pussy around his cock tipped him over the edge.
He kissed her as he came, traded her cries for his groans, and stopped himself from letting more words tumble out. Words that offered too much, too soon.
Words that would scare her away unless she was dreaming of the future, too.
She collapsed against his chest, her face nestled in the hollow of his shoulder. Hawk struggled to catch his breath, but pleasure lingered in lazy, tingling waves, set off all over again every time she exhaled against his skin.
He wrapped both arms around her and closed his eyes. “Would you believe this is the first time I've ever fucked a woman in my car?”
“It is not.”
A smile tugged at his lips. “Yeah, it is. You weren't wrong. It's my baby.”
She wiggled in his lap, in his arms. “All the more reason, I would think.”
There hadn't been anyone he wanted enough, anyone he could let become a part of this—the only thing that had been his during the hardest years of his life. “When you don't have a lot to offer, you save it for the people who matter.”
Jeni went still for a moment, then snuggled closer. “Thank you, then. For sharing it with me.”
He guided her hand down to the cool leather seat. “I rebuilt it, you know. Inside and out. Figuring out how to reupholster these seats, that was a pain in the ass. The guys kept razzing me, telling me to settle for the fabric we'd scavenged. But I wanted leather, so I saved for it.”
Her hand flexed under his. Then she twisted her wrist, turning it so she could twine her fingers with his. “Tell me about it. I want to know.”
“The car?” He wove his other fingers into her hair and smiled. “When I left the farm, I ran into Shipp not long after. I was pissy and mad at the world, and he wasn't that much older than me, but he had his shit together. Like Dallas, you know? You just look at him and you know that if you follow him, your life will be better, because he cares about making it better.”
She made a soft, amused sound. “So you joined a gang of smugglers.”
Hawk laughed. “No, I joined a gang of gearheads who smuggled so they could afford to fix up their cars.”
Her laughter joined his. “An important nuance.” She lifted her head. “Were you happy?”
Not an easy question to answer. “I thought I was,” he said fi
nally. “Not at first. But after about six months, Shipp dragged the bones of this car home and gave her to me. And he told me I could brood about what I'd lost, or I could make something new. Took me a couple of years, but by the time I'd earned enough to do the seats, I was content.”
She squeezed his hand. “And now?”
“Now I know what happy feels like.”
“Mmm.” Her eyes were shining. “Like this.”
Exactly like this. But he still brushed his lips over hers and corrected her. “Like you.”
Chapter Fifteen
Noah had spent the last three days in his workroom—and it showed.
He wasn't a slob, not by any stretch, but there were unmistakable, unavoidable signs of constant inhabitation. He'd slowly collected tablets and manuals and loose components and put them all into easy reach. Now, those items formed a clear semicircle around his chair where it was situated in front of his numerous, differently sized screens, like leaves shuffled to the side of a well-used wooded path.
Noah's eyes were red, his hair mussed. When he slept, it was only because Emma periodically dragged him away to bed. When he ate, it was because someone shoved a plate or a sandwich into his hands. He downed the food quickly, almost all of his attention still fixed on the lines of code scrolling across the screens.
Cracking the encryption was vital, but Jeni didn't know how much longer Noah could keep this up. She shot Noelle a pointed look from her chair near the door, where she sat with her own tablet, and the other woman furrowed her brow. “Noah—”
“No.” He half-rose from his seat, his face intent on the screen to his left even as he reached out and tapped blindly on a tablet to his right.
Noelle exchanged a worried glance with Jeni and circled the table. “I know you said you were close, but that was five hours ago. You need—”
“Shh.” He swept up the tablet they'd picked up from Owen Turner, leaning over so far that his chair rocked precariously. He thrust the tablet in Jeni's direction. “I think I've got it.”
The last few times he'd uttered the words, adrenaline had surged through Jeni. But they'd turned out to be false alarms. “I think it's time to talk about diminishing returns, Noah. You're exhausted.”
