* * *
—
Jack ducked his chin and kissed Mari’s head. Her hair was soft and tickled his nose. He liked sitting out here with her. Hell, maybe his fetish with cars and shit wasn’t even sexual, because even cuddling in a truck was turning out to be better than he’d expected.
She turned a little and kissed him back, in the bare scrap of skin above the first button of his shirt. A quiver ran through him, and she laughed.
“Ticklish?”
“Yup,” he agreed instantly. It was better than the truth, which was that he was basically a teenager where she was concerned. He was half-mast hard and his heart was speeding at even that tiny kiss, which was miles away from his mouth or any more-sensitive parts.
Her free hand stroked over his ribs, patting nicely against his buttons. “I like this shirt.”
“You do?” He’d got it three for ten dollars at Walmart, all different colors of blue plaid. It wasn’t what Leroy would have called a “gittin’ laid shirt.”
“I do.” Her fingers started to toy with his first button, and he had the notion that perhaps she hadn’t bought the ticklish explanation after all. Her lips rose, touching his throat this time, and he considered if it’d be worth it to pull away for long enough to turn up the air-conditioning.
Instead, he just started to sweat.
“It’s such a nice sunset,” Mari murmured.
“Mmm. Yuh-huh.” His eyes had fallen closed, but he didn’t think she could tell from where she was cuddled down into his side. His ribs on that side were tingling, every gentle brush of her body waking them up all over again. He could feel the slim curve of her shoulders, her long, pretty back. His hand curled into her waist, holding her into him.
His chest loosened, and it took him longer than it should have to realize the sensation was one of his buttons. Now he was afraid to open his eyes.
Her cheek skimmed the exposed skin, and he stopped breathing. Two buttons, three. Shit. Hell. Unborn illegitimate son of a—
“Mari!” he blurted and she paused.
“Mmm?”
His eyes had popped open, and he was rather discomfited to note it wasn’t even close to full dark yet. “Maybe I oughta—” he mumbled, not sure what he meant to say.
He worked hard, kept fit, but his chest wasn’t anything to write home about. Scattered with tattoos as faded as his jeans, and most of them were crooked because his cousin Wicket hadn’t often been sober when he was in the mood to get his tat gun out of the closet. Even when Jack was twenty, he’d never had one of those stomachs like you saw on women’s paperbacks in the grocery store, like six dinner roll tops poking up in individual bulges.
“I can stop,” she whispered. “I kinda felt back in the mood, but it’s okay if you didn’t.”
“No! Nuh-uh, you don’t have to stop.” He paused, but before he figured out how to explain the situation he was having, she kissed him again. In that hollow, hard spot between his nipples. Damn, that felt good. And when she undid another button and kissed that spot, too, he forgot all about abs and grocery store books.
“Jack . . .” She wiggled in protest, and that’s when he realized his hand had clamped closed over her side with all the strength of years of climbing towers.
“Sorry.” He let go, then rubbed the spot in case he’d hurt her. She gave a little shiver he recognized and the corner of his lips kicked up. “Ticklish, huh?”
“Not a bit.” She tipped her head back and gave him a smile so wicked that he suddenly remembered it’d been her idea to drive all the way out here so she could get in his pants.
And, okay, she’d decided she’d rather not, but he certainly wasn’t opposed to the chest kissing that had started up. He petted her back more softly now, letting his palm stroke over her bare skin where her shirt started to pull up.
That seemed to only make her more enthusiastic about uncovering more of his chest.
Jack was starting to think this sex thing, much like the conversation thing, was just not the same with Mari as it had been with other women. She and Jack seemed to maybe have similar taste in stuff. Or maybe it was just that everything she did appealed to him one whole hell of a lot.
He got bolder, letting his hand slip up under the back of her shirt. When she arched her spine and let out a little huff of breath, he wandered lower, past her belt line. To her pocket. He faltered a little but she pressed closer and his hand ended up filled with the delicious curve of her ass.
She had slipped sideways to where she was almost lying in his lap now. His shirt was unbuttoned and her position the same as all his fantasies. The sight of her lit up something in his chest that felt halfway between pride and some crazed, masculine energy that demanded to be released. It was Mari here with him. So much more impressive than all those faceless fantasy women.
He hauled her up to his mouth, a growl building in his chest that he didn’t fully understand. That fevered aggression that always seemed to take her over had infected him now, too, and it made him want to use his tongue. On her mouth, her breasts, her . . .
His brain got a little foggy, possibly because she was letting him support her weight while her hands had snuck inside his shirt. His belt buckle had loosened, and her kisses had gotten hotter and more out of control. He became very bold then, whispering things to her and nipping at her neck just beneath her pretty little ear and the wink of her tiny earrings and she was saying yes. Yes, yes, yes into his ear. A lot of things happened then.
One of them involved her losing her pants, which apparently talked his shirt off as well. His fantasies about trucks had taken a sharp, interesting turn, and Mari was all on board with his whispered idea of what he wanted to do to her.
A few grunts and his too-wide shoulder honking the horn later, he got his back to the driver’s door, and stretched out across the bench seat with Mari spooned between his legs. Her head lay against his shoulder, her bare legs pale and pretty against his new seat covers.
His hands found their way back to what was becoming familiar ground between her thighs. Mari’s went to her own buttons, opening her shirt and popping her front-clasp bra so that he now had the best view in the desert.
And it didn’t have a thing to do with sunsets.
26
Fantasies Fulfilled . . . Kind Of
Jack had Mari’s delicately curved body draped all down the front of his, and even in the limited space, she felt amazing.
She shifted against him and made a sound. It wasn’t a moan—Mari wasn’t a moaner. Mostly, she made these tiny sounds in the back of her throat, changes in the way she breathed. They’d only messed around a few times but he was already starting to sense patterns in her noises that told him when to lighten his touch, when to go deeper. Easy as following tracks in fresh snow.
Goddamn, but this was easier now that she wasn’t wearing pants.
He liked the position, too, except that he was getting all worked up from being able to watch what his hand was doing to her. His other arm was hugged tight across her waist, keeping her securely on the narrow seat. At least until Mari took his wrist and moved his palm up, unambiguously, to her breast. Jack made a sound. It might have been a moan. Damn, he hadn’t known he was a moaner.
That made her make a louder sound. Shit, by the end of this, they were both gonna be moaners.
She was so fucking wet. He had no idea women could get this wet, and it did something crazy down deep in the base of his skull. His hips kept rolling against her back, twitching forward when he wasn’t paying enough attention to keep still.
Mari arched her back and reached behind herself to pop his pants open.
“Hey,” he rumbled. “I’m fine. Just lay back and let me take care of you.”
“I’m just giving you a little more room. It’s got to hurt.”
It did hurt. The confines of his now-too-tight jeans, not to mentio
n the door handle digging a bruise into his spine. But Jack was used to pain, and it wasn’t much penance at all to pay for having an armful of mostly naked Mari.
“Ain’t nothing,” he said, but she opened his zipper for him anyway.
“Let me know if I’m crushing you.”
His cock was free. Swollen as all hell and rubbing against her back with only a thin layer of cotton boxers between them. “Uh-huh,” he tried to say, his throat all tight and scratchy. Sweet God, that felt like heaven. He loved fooling around in trucks. He loved her.
He blinked and stopped moving at the thought, the way it’d just snuck up on him like that. But then Mari curled her hips, rubbing restlessly against his palm in a mute protest at his sudden lack of movement. He went back to exploring which parts of her were soft, and which were slick, and which made her shiver when he brushed a fingertip across them. He was just working out a rhythm of pressing and slowly circling when a spasm jerked through her and her legs clamped closed around his hand.
She wasn’t a screamer any more than a moaner. When she finished off, she just got real, real quiet and stiff, and he was learning if he got quiet along with her, he could almost feel the pleasure bolting through her nerves.
He hugged her into him, his hand drifting to her silky inner thigh when she relaxed again. Kissed her head two or three times, because he really, really liked it that she let him do that for her. Especially when she wasn’t wearing pants.
She shifted, hitching herself a little higher up in his lap, which just rubbed on his too-sensitive cock, and he bit back a groan.
“I want to hold you,” she whispered. “Inside me. Would that be okay?”
He blinked, trying to sort out the words she just said. “Uh . . . what?”
She reached around behind herself and gave his shaft a squeeze, like this was something they’d done a hundred times. “We don’t have to do anything. Move or anything. I know you’re worried about that. I just . . . want to feel you.”
“Don’t wanna hurt you.”
She laughed gently and turned onto her side, nipping a little playfully at his pectoral muscle. “I’m so wet right now I’m pretty sure nothing could hurt me.”
He couldn’t breathe. Wasn’t sure he wanted to. “Don’t have a rubber.”
“I do. No glove, no love, remember?”
He chuckled, remembering their conversation about gloves and tortoises.
Mari pulled his head down and kissed him, then caught his eyes from so close that it felt private, safe to talk about anything. “We can stop if you’re worried. I only want to know what it would be like. Just for a minute.”
He could feel one of her nipples brushing his chest, and she was so pretty, her eyes so earnest. “Uh . . . uh-huh. Yeah, all right.”
She answered his stuttering, grunted answer with a brilliant grin, and crawled out of his lap and across the seat to dig in her purse. He was so distracted by the view he almost forgot to toe off his shoes and shimmy out of his jeans. After a second, he shoved off his boxers, too. It was nearly dark out, but getting naked still set his heart to pounding. That, or maybe it was the shadowed desert spreading out around them, the steering wheel that kept barking at his elbow.
In his fantasies, they were usually in traffic, with people all around who could see what the woman in his car was doing to him. But this was better. The impulsive, adolescent nature of making out in a truck in the middle of nowhere. The way the narrow truck seat seemed reckless and experimental: like trying out what felt good was all that mattered and not as if he needed to perform some three-part symphony of a seduction.
He half smiled. “Wait, you brought condoms?”
“Bought some last week.” She threw a laughing glance at him before she went back to digging in her purse. “Then had to go back and exchange them, because I wasn’t entirely sure you were going to fit in the size of the first batch.” She procured a foil package and scooted back into his lap. “First time I’ve ever gotten turned on by running errands.”
He laughed, taking the condom. “You serious?”
“Dead.” She passed him a small plastic bottle of lube and gave a happy little shimmy in his lap. “Buying a different size was kind of fun.”
A laugh rumbled deep in his throat at her gleeful reaction.
This was usually the point where his excitement started to wane in response to the nerves about getting to the sex itself. But with her so near and the vanilla scent of her smoothing the air, his cock was so hard it hurt to even roll the condom over his swollen tip. He wiped his palm on his leg, the lube leaving a slick spot. Then he scooped her back into his lap.
The additional weight made his neck kink and the truck door dig even harder into his back, but his dick was between her legs now, prodding at a place that made his heart pound in his ears. He didn’t want to fuck this up, didn’t want to spoil how perfect this night had been.
“Just put it in so you can feel me, right? Because I’m not much good at everything that comes after that.”
“Nothing else unless you want to,” she said. “But if you get any dirty ideas you want to try, just let me know.” She turned her head and kissed his neck, and he could feel her smiling. He chuckled again. She was a strange woman, but if she wanted him just to put it in, he’d try. Couldn’t drive him any more out of his mind than he already was. He positioned himself and nudged inside, having to put a little force behind the thrust to make it work. Her breath hissed out and she wiggled, tipping her hips up and then back.
“Can I flip over?”
“Uh-huh, but, Mari, if it hurts—”
She pulled away and laid a finger over his lips when she turned in his lap. She was smiling, though, her eyes twinkling. “Don’t even take away my birthday right now. I’m just fine.” Her voice was light and teasing, and when she took hold of his erection, his hips twitched and yearned upward. She shifted and urged him flat on his back on the seat. His back eased in a happy rush at the change.
She braced one knee in the crease of the seat beside him. To fit, she had to drop her other foot to the floor of the truck. It was an odd position, but she didn’t seem to mind, and as soon as the tip of his dick felt the slick warmth of her, he didn’t mind, either.
She started to sink down on him, wiggling a little until she got the right angle. Her forehead creased and her eyes squeezed shut. She braced one hand on his shoulder and he caught her hips. “Mari, don’t if—”
“It doesn’t hurt,” she gasped, taking a little more of him. “It feels . . . I really don’t know if I could explain it to a man. It’s a lot. But a really . . . good lot.”
He held very still, uncertain and slightly unnerved by how great it felt. One inch at a time, he sank into the heat of her, the tight clasp slick and . . . safe? That was crazy. His sex brain was getting unhinged. But it really did feel like that, like they were hiding together someplace nice and he didn’t ever want to be found.
The creases in her forehead had given way to soft sighs and a strange look that he liked very much. He flexed his legs, just enough to bump up into her, and she gasped and then grinned. “Almost there,” she whispered, and gave a quiet squeeze that he felt all along his length.
Jesus.
His thumbs rubbed at the creases of her hips, holding her so she didn’t have to keep her whole weight on her legs as she adjusted. When she slid the last part of the way, it felt so good his eyes fell closed. Don’t move, he reminded himself. She just wanted to feel it. That’s it.
He could feel it, all right. Feel every beat of his heart pulsing blood up through his erection. Feel how tight she was all around him. Feel that, even now, without his fingers strumming at her, she was wet as fucking hell. She gave a quick squeeze, clenching deliciously around him. Sweat broke out across his forehead.
Maybe he’d just never had it so slow before, so he could concentrate on every littl
e thing, but he couldn’t remember sex ever feeling this . . . fancy? That wasn’t the right word, but he couldn’t think of a better one at the moment.
“You okay?” His voice came out sounding hoarse.
Somehow, their eyes came open at the same time and hers looked dreamy, almost startled. She smiled at him. Just a little, but it was enough.
She shrugged off her open shirt, untangled the straps of her bra. The fabric tickled his knee as it slipped onto the floor of his truck. She leaned forward, and he stole a kiss before she gasped against his mouth and flexed around his cock all at the same time.
“Ooh, that angle is . . .” She moved and his arousal pressed deeper, into a place that made her breath flutter and his speed up.
“Is this all right?” Mari whispered. “Should I stay still?”
“God, no,” he growled, then remembered himself. This was her experiment, not his. “Can move however you want, if you like that.”
He clamped his teeth shut, fighting against the instinct to thrust. Wasn’t no point in rutting away. Nothing good ever came of it anyhow. This was just about her. And she was shifting around, tiny sounds falling from her lips whenever she found a particularly good angle. He could watch her like this all day. He could tell he wasn’t hurting her; maybe because she was in control, or just because she was so worked up from all their playing. Hell, she seemed to be kinda . . . enjoying herself.
Slowly, her little movements evolved into a jerky kind of rhythm as she found a place that felt good to her and kept coming back to it. Even those small up and downs were shivering pleasure all up and down his shaft, and a groan wound tight and silent in his chest. Fuck, at this rate he wasn’t going to be able to drive back to town without staggering out in the desert and having a private moment first.
Her hand laid against his jaw and her hazy eyes came open again. “This okay?”
He nodded. “Like watching you. Like you—” He didn’t know how to say it without sounding crude.
Breathe the Sky Page 20
