Pinning It Down

by Lexxie Couper

  Rooted to the spot, her heart wild, Tash stared at his profile. “Why not?”

  He raked his hands through his hair with a fierce swipe of clawed fingers. “Because you’ve just had an asthma attack, because we work together, because I’ve only just survived a broken heart and because you hardly ever talk to me, let alone give any indication you want me to—”

  Tash destroyed the space between them and silenced him with a kiss hungrier than the one he’d given her.

  For a split second, he didn’t move.

  And then he did.

  With a low growl, he grabbed her arse cheeks and yanked her hard to his body. Plundered her mouth with his tongue as he ground his erection to her belly.

  She met his ferocity with equal need, cupping his face in her hands, sliding her tongue against his. He tasted warm and clean and incredible. Addictive. She rolled her hips, telling him without words how much she wanted this.

  It didn’t matter a flying fuck she’d just had an asthma attack. This was all that mattered. His lips on hers, his need melding with hers, their mutual lust…

  He squeezed her backside harder, his splayed fingers taking savage possession of her body. She moaned, the less-than-gentle touch turning her core to liquid heat, and tangled her hands in his hair.

  Another rumbling growl vibrated in his chest and he dragged his lips down over her chin, to the bowed column of her throat, up to her lips again.

  She’d never been kissed with such desperate hunger. With every searing stroke of his tongue on hers, with every nipping bite of his teeth on her flesh, the urgent need in her body grew tenfold. Her clit swelled with blood and desire, her pussy lips the same. Her breasts grew heavy and round in her bra, her nipples tight and pebbled.

  When Matt bunched the material of her shirt in a tight fist and yanked it free of her jean’s waistband, she didn’t stop her gasp. When he shoved his hand beneath the now un-tucked cotton, his palm hot on her ribcage, it was all she could do not to cry out with wanton impatience.

  Oh God, he was touching her. He was—

  He closed his hand over her right breast and palmed the heavy globe.

  She whimpered into his mouth, clawing the backs of his shoulders. So good. It felt so good.

  “Fuck, Tash,” he moaned against her lips, kneading her breast before dragging his thumb over her puckered nipple. “You have no idea…”

  He didn’t finish. Instead, he lifted the front of her shirt with a sudden shove of his arm, exposing her breast to the day. He closed his lips around her nipple and sucked on it through the satin of her bra.

  She arched at the unexpected possession of her body. Shards of molten pleasure sank into the very pit of her belly. Her pussy contracted. Her clit ached. She hissed in a shallow breath, scraping her nails over his scalp, holding his head for fear he would remove his lips from her breast.

  He didn’t. Instead, he hummed around her nipple, flicked its tip with his tongue and then suckled it harder, cupping the round weight of her breast with one hand as he kneaded her backside with the other.

  Ribbons of fresh pleasure joined the building pressure in her core, an intense heat that made her head spin and her breath rapid. She writhed on the spot, her clit an aching button of denied need. “Matt…” she rasped, rubbing her thighs together. “That’s…that’s so good, oh God, that feels so…”

  Without warning, he yanked up the other side of her shirt and fastened his lips around her other nipple.

  The air licked at the wet satin covering her abandoned nipple in a wicked torment of sensations. Her mind had a second to register it, just a second, and then Matt was slipping the fingers of his hand between her breast and her bra cup.

  A wave of concentrated pleasure crashed through Tash and she clawed at the back of his head. “Oh God, yes,” she groaned, arching her spine when he caught her distended nipple with his thumb and finger and pinched.

  Delicious pain shot through her, searing her body with a need she never knew she had. “A…again,” she panted, her pussy contracting in a throbbing pulse. “Please…again.”

  He did as she begged, pinching and pulling her nipple. This time, however, he drew on her other nipple just as fiercely with his mouth.

  Her lower body, her very core, bloomed with heady lust at the unfamiliar and oh-so-amazing sensation. She wasn’t a virgin, she’d had more than one boyfriend, but she’d also been determined to become the best fighter pilot this country ever had. It had been her dream since she was a teenager. That dream had always come first to anything else, including making out. Time making out with groping boyfriends had meant time not spent studying, training…

  Her parents weren’t the only high achievers in her family, and Tash had never regretted her lack of experience. And then, when her final air force medical examination had revealed she had severe adult-onset asthma… Well, after that there had been no desire to connect with anyone again.

  The concept of pleasure in pain was as unfamiliar to her as failing.

  And here she was, discovering in her failure a concept unlike any other. With a man she craved no matter how often she told herself she didn’t.

  If this was failing again, she didn’t care.

  This…him…the doc, Matt, was nothing like failing…his mouth on her breast, his hand on her breast, her ribcage, her hip…between her thighs…

  Oh God, between her thighs…

  Tash gasped again, bucking into Matt’s hand as he buried his fingers between her thighs and rubbed at her pussy.

  The pressure, coupled with the coarse denim of her jeans’ crotch, sent fresh heat twisting through her. Her sex throbbed, a damp need pooling inside her.

  He stroked at her clit through her Levis, his fingers exactly where they needed to be. She hitched out a cry of surrender, parting her thighs to grant his hand greater access to the most sensitive area.

  He moaned his appreciation around her nipple, before sucking it deeply into his mouth. Once again, dark swirls of painful pleasure claimed her. Owned her.

  She threw back her head, staring with unfocused eyes at the cloudless blue sky above her. The place she’d always felt more at peace, more alive…the sky. How wrong could she have been? She’d never felt this alive in the air. She’d never felt this—

  Matt’s fingers slipped from her pussy and tugged at the zipper of her fly, shattering all thought of the sky and peace and flying.

  She staggered back a step, the abrupt action tearing his lips and fingers from her nipples.

  “Shit, Tash,” he ground out, his stare locking on her face as he straightened. Regret boiled in his eyes. “I didn’t mean…I didn’t…shouldn’t be rushing…”

  Lifting one eyebrow, she lowered her hands to her fly and slowly lowered the zipper.

  His nostrils flared. His Adam’s apple slid up and down his throat.

  “Rushing?” she echoed, inching the opening of her fly wider apart to expose the flat plane of her belly below her navel and the small tattoo of a F-35 Lightning fighter plane inked there. “I was about to tell you to hurry the hell—”

  Someone cleared their throat behind them.

  He jerked away from her. Spun to face whoever had joined them, his face flooding with embarrassment, his eyes wide.

  “I’m sorry, Doc,” Beryl McGuire’s wavering voice met Tash’s ears, the hesitant dismay in it mingled with undeniable worry, “but I can’t seem ta get Reggie ta wake up.”

  Heart crashing way too fast, Tash turned to face the billabong, shoving her shirt back into her jeans and yanking up her fly.

  “I didn’t mean ta interrupt,” the elderly woman continued behind her, “but I’m so scared he’s gone inta a coma. You said he had a concussion, and I read on Google that if someone goes ta sleep with a concussion they can go inta a coma, and I’d be lost without him, and I’m sorry for interrupting, but I didn’t know what else ta do, and Ted said you hadn’t taken off yet, and he thought he’d seen you both walking towards here, and I’m sorry, I real
ly didn’t mean ta—”

  “It’s okay, Mrs. McGuire,” Matt cut off her stressed babbling with a soothing voice. Tash didn’t need to check over her shoulder to see he was walking towards Old Man Dingo’s fretting wife. Nor did she need to see his face to know he was still shaken by what had just happened between them. “It’s better you told me now, rather than when I’d taken off.”

  “I really didn’t mean ta interrupt you and…what you and Miss Freeman were…”

  “It’s nothing, Beryl,” Tash heard him say, farther away now. “Honest. Miss Freeman, I’ll meet you back at the plane, okay?”

  She half-turned her head, enough for him to see her silent nod, not enough for her to look at him.

  A dry cough scratched at her chest. Just one.

  She raked at her hair with shaking hands and cursed herself for being so damn weak.

  Damn it, she couldn’t let that happen again.

  Not when Matt’s words still echoed in her head now.

  “Because I’ve only just survived a broken heart.”

  She wasn’t going to be a rebound. There was a reason she didn’t do relationships. She sucked at them. A snarky perfectionist with little social skills and a serious failure complex had no right getting into a relationship, no matter how much she liked the doc. Being his rebound would just be asking for grief.

  Her heart—and her stupid lungs—wouldn’t survive.

  Note from Lexxie

  I do hope you enjoyed this book, I’d so appreciate it if you’d help others enjoy it, too.

  Recommend it. Please help other readers find this book by recommending it.

  Review it. Please tell other readers why you liked this book by reviewing it at online retailers or your blog. Reader reviews help my books continue to be valued by distributors/resellers. I adore each and every reader who takes the time to write one!

  If you love the book or leave a review, please email lexxie@lexxiecouper.com so I can thank you with a personal email. Your support means more than you’ll ever know! Thank you!

  About Lexxie

  Award-winning romance author Lexxie Couper started writing when she was six, and hasn't stopped since. She's not a deviant, but she does have a deviant's imagination, and a desire to entertain readers with her words. Add the two together and you get erotic romances that can make you laugh, cry, shake with fear, or tremble with desire…sometimes all at once.

  Connect with Lexxie online:

  Email Lexxie at: lexxie@lexxiecouper.com

  Twitter: http://twitter.com/lexxie_couper

  Visit Lexxie's website at http://www.lexxiecouper.com, where she occasionally makes a fool of herself on her blog.

  eBooks by Lexxie Couper

  Visit Lexxie’s website at

  http://www.lexxiecouper.com

  Dare, a Contemporary Romance series

  1. Triple Dare

  2. Dare Me

  Stimulated, a Contemporary Romance series

  1. Blowing It Off

  2. Revving It Up

  3. Switching It On

  4. Plugging It In

  Dangerous Desire, an Erotic Contemporary Romance series

  1. The Bad Boy Next Door

  2. The Good Girl In My Bed

  3. The Bad Boy In Cuffs

  Farpoint Creek Cattle Station, a Contemporary Romance series

  1. Outback Princess

  2. Outback Cowboy

  3. Outback Master

  4. Outback Lovers

  Heart of Fame – Stage Right, a Contemporary Romance series

  1. A Single Knight

  2. Compliance

  3. Balls Up

  4. Lust’s Rhythm

  Outback Skies, a Contemporary Romance series

  1. Bound By You

  2. Breathless for You

  3. Burn for You

  4. Bare for You

  5. Better With You

  The Boundaries, a Science Fiction Romance series

  1. Assassin

  2. Agent

  3. Animal

  Spaceport Mercy, An Erotic Science Fiction Romance series

  1. Highest Bidder

  2. Deadly Pleasure

  3. Captured Rapture

  4. Forced R and R

  The Dingo Pack, a Paranormal Romance series

  1. Dingo Wild

  Savage Australis, a Paranormal Romance series

  1. Savage Retribution

  2. Savage Transformation

  Fire Mates, a Paranormal Romantic Suspense series

  1. Sera’s Dragon

  2. How to Love Your Dragon

  3. Tigress and the Dragon

  4. Scorched Desire

  Stand-Alone Titles

  The Sun Sword

  Can't Stay Away

  The Stone's Soul

  Shadow Whispers

  Copping a Feel

  Kat and Mouse

  Lexxie recommends … Shelli Stevens

  Can’t Buy My Love

  Shelli Stevens

  Chapter 1

  “I had sex again last night. This time with Mr. Walden three rooms down.”

  I didn’t want to hear this. God, I didn’t want to hear this. We strolled down the produce aisle at the Grocery Guru and I grabbed a peach, pretending to check its damage.

  “I do have to say, he wasn’t nearly as proficient in bed as Mr. Nickels was last month… Jessica Davis, are you even listening to me?”

  Okay, obviously feigning indifference wasn’t going to work with her. “Yes, I’m listening, Grams. You had sex with Mr. Walden.”

  My grandma gave a quiet harrumph and shot me a skeptical look. “It just doesn’t make sense. Surely if someone my age can have a healthy sex life, then someone as virile as you should be getting some too.”

  Getting some? God, when would she quit?

  My friends seemed to think it was great that I had a grandma who was still comfortable with her own sexuality and even acted on it. But being on the receiving end of constant sex stories and talks about improving one’s love life just wasn’t that fabulous.

  “You know, there’s this young man who works in the Peaceful Woods cafeteria.” She gave me a thoughtful look and I could practically hear the wheels in her head turning. “You should let me introduce you to him. He seems young and healthy. Why, I bet he’d have wonderful stamina.”

  Okay, surely she wasn’t talking about the pimply faced kid who’d just turned twenty-one a few months ago. I’d been there when the entire community of senior citizens had thrown him an impromptu party. Brought him balloons shaped like beer bottles, a bag of condoms, and then pinned a button on his shirt that said, “Trust me, I’m legal.”

  “Maybe you’ve seen him? His name’s Andy. Red hair, pretty blue eyes…”

  Yup. She was definitely talking about the kid. I wasn’t sure why my grandma was so determined to set me up, but for God’s sake, couldn’t she pick someone who wasn’t a decade younger than me?

  “Hey, grab me a couple of those avocados, Jessie, and make sure they’re squishy. I don’t like them too hard.” She poked me in the ribs with her cane and guffawed. “Well, my fruit that is.”

  I obliged her request and swallowed a groan. Could this have sucked a little more? I mean, I loved my grandma, but, seriously, there was a line and Grams was notorious at crossing it.

  “Anyway, I have a favor to ask you.”

  “Another one? I’m still trying to recover from the last one.” Chaperoning a dance full of senior citizens. I swear there was something in the water at Peaceful Woods, because the folks there were the horniest batch of AARP members I’d ever seen. “Okay, what’s up, Grams?”

  “Do you remember the Buy a Dame auction that happens every summer?” Yuck. How could I forget?

  The auction was a notorious fundraiser that the town put on every August to raise money for the public schools. Women dressed up in revealing clothing and paraded in front of the single male population on Leaf Island. Overall, it was a bit sleazy, with the
highest bidder getting to keep the woman for twenty-four hours. The men loved it, and the women who were within the age of participation usually scrambled to get in.

  Technically, it was supposed to be rather innocent. Just cooking, cleaning, and a woman to take out on the town—there were no sexual expectations. But I knew for a fact more than one woman had met their husband that way.

  Gotta love life in small towns. Thank God I was too old for that kind of pony show though.

  “I’m the one hard of hearing, not you. Answer me, girl. You remember that auction?”

  I smiled at the produce boy who was arranging the apples, and tried not to get annoyed by her tone. “I remember it. What’s going on?”

  “We’re short of girls this year.”

  Ah, I’d forgotten Grams was on the committee. Had Leaf Island never had the auction? What would they do if they were short of women? Would they cancel it? Though I hated the auction itself, I knew the money went to a good cause.

  “Are you going to have to cancel?”

  “No. I want you to go up for auction.”

  I clenched my fingers around the red apple I was loading into a plastic bag. Surely, I heard that wrong. But just in case I hadn’t, “I’m too old, Grams.”

  “Bah!” She rolled her eyes. “I spoke to the committee and they’re willing to make an exception for you. You’re thirty-one so you only missed the cutoff by one year. You’re pretty enough—have good skin. And you could probably pass for twenty-nine.”

  Pretty enough? I bristled. “I don’t think so, Grams. You know I love you and would do almost anything for you. But I draw the line at being pimped out for an auction.”

  “Oh, but…” Her lips started to tremble and she shook her head. “Think of the children. The school district has already gone through most of their allotted budget, and if—”

  “All right.” Jeez, she sure knew where my guilt button was. I adored kids, and thoroughly planned on popping out some of my own. Grams knew that all too well. “I suppose I could do it. When is it?”