by Amy Knupp
Instead of going around to the passenger side, Clay followed Andie to the driver’s door and opened it for her.
She looked shyly at him. “Trying to kiss up?”
“I don’t know about up,” he said. He pressed her into the side of the truck with his body. “You’re stunning in that dress, biker girl.”
Her smile faded and her eyes dropped to his mouth. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
He kissed her, all the need that’d been building up for the past four torturous hours — hell, the past few days — exploding at the first touch of their lips. He’d long passed the point where gentle was an option, but Andie didn’t appear to mind. She wove her fingers into his hair and pulled him closer.
“Clay,” she uttered into his mouth, arching her body into his, setting off all kinds of friction that burned through every last layer of clothing that separated them.
His reply was more a groan than a word. He wasn’t sure he could speak if he wanted to.
She pulled away when a car full of teenagers went by, the group of boys howling and hooting at them through open windows.
“Clay.” Her voice was firm. “Get in the truck.”
She was breathing hard. They stared at each other for several heartbeats, and he saw the need in her eyes, matching his own. With half a nod, he sucked it up and stepped away from her, the loss of contact like no loss he’d ever felt before.
By the time he closed his door, she had the engine running and had thrown the truck into reverse. He had no idea what her intentions were — he’d thought when she told him to get in the truck that finding the nearest motel was a possibility — but she drove with remarkable control, not a tick above the speed limit. When she reached out to punch on the radio power, though, he could swear her hand shook.
When she turned off into a small park along the bay — the one he’d stopped at after the baby party — his hope soared. She pulled all the way to the far end of the parking lot, in a private corner without light, and killed the engine. Before he could say a word, she climbed over to his seat and straddled him, floor-length dress and all.
“Hi,” she said in a low, sexy voice.
“Hello.” His voice wasn’t working right. “Andie, what are you doing?”
She laughed, the sound seductive as hell. With a whisper of a kiss on his lips, she said, “You’re smart.” She nibbled at the corner of his mouth. “Capable.” Ran her tongue over his upper lip. “I imagine you can figure it out.”
“We’ve talked about this…”
“It’s time to get it out of our systems. Let it happen. No one will see us here.”
Those were points he couldn’t begin to argue with.
He closed his eyes and pulled her closer. “I’m shocked.” He grazed his lips over hers, his blood pounding from the feel of her everywhere, the sweet scent of her that filled the truck. “Scandalized.”
She laughed again, the sound turning needy as his hands roved over her.
“This isn’t a good place,” he whispered.
“Why not?”
“We’re like teenagers. Stealing away. I want you stretched out beneath me. In a bed.”
“Play your cards right and you might be able to have me there too.”
“Andie…”
“This isn’t a honeymoon, Clay. We don’t need satin sheets.” Her mouth caught his and wore him down, which took exactly two-thirds of a second. “But I can drive you back to the reception if you want.”
He laughed and yanked her to him. “I don’t think so.”
oOo
Andie’s dress had inched up her thighs when she’d climbed onto Clay’s lap. She felt his hand sliding over her thigh, beneath the material, leaving a trail of fire wherever he touched. Then he was touching her everywhere, with his mouth, his hands. She was drowning in the sensations.
She made it her mission to explore every accessible inch of his body. Yeah, the truck cab was a little cramped, but that wasn’t going to keep her from Clay. It became their private, steamy world, and Andie couldn’t make herself care about anything else — the reception, what the girls would say, what might happen between her and Clay afterward. She couldn’t even process afterward. She was fully absorbed in the right now, aching for him to fill her, quell the need, and yet never wanting the moment to end.
He lifted the dress over her head and tossed it on the driver’s seat, revealing her black lacy bra. He drew both straps down her arms, baring her, and took her breast in his mouth. His tongue drove her to a fever, had her arching her lower body into the distinct hardness that bulged between his legs, her breathing shallow, stuttered. She pulled at the still-buttoned lower half of his shirt and ripped it open with both hands, craving the feel of his skin. The buttons flew, one of them clinking against the window.
“Didn’t need that shirt anyway,” Clay said, eliciting a shaky laugh from her.
He pulled her into his chest, and the heat of skin on skin had her promising herself they would wind up in a bed, soon, where they could stretch out naked and have nothing but friction between them. For now, this was working just fine, thank you. She smiled.
“What’s the grin for?” Clay asked, his voice rough with need. “You could give a guy a complex, you know.”
“Like you’re short on confidence,” she whispered into his ear. From what she could feel, he wasn’t short on anything. She rubbed her hands over his chest, relishing the hard ridges and the dips beneath her fingertips. As her fingers trailed lower, down to where their bodies were separated by too many layers of material, she tasted him, running her tongue over him, kissing and nibbling at his muscled chest. When she undid his pants, slid them down a few inches, and grasped him, he leaned his head back and let out a sexy groan from deep in his throat.
He was granite-hard and bigger than she could’ve imagined even as she’d straddled him over his clothes. She needed him inside her more than she needed her next breath. The only thing between them was her thong.
“My turn,” Clay said, and in an instant, her ripped underwear was a wad in his hand.
Andie reached for her purse on the console between the seats.
“What are you doing?” Clay asked, trying to pull her back to him.
“Condom.” She unzipped the purse and dug to the bottom.
“I’ve got one,” Clay said, grabbing his wallet, also from the console.
“Aren’t we just a corner drugstore,” Andie said, still fumbling to find hers.
“We can use mine.”
“Here,” she said, finally locating the packet and dragging it out.
“Got it,” he said, ripping his open.
“What’s wrong with mine?” she said, truly not caring what they used as long as she didn’t wind up pregnant.
“I know mine’s not expired.” He unrolled it along his length as she watched, biting her lower lip. After a second, his words sank in.
“I can’t decide if that’s an insult or not.”
“Take it however you want.” Clay grasped her hips.
“You know,” she said, fighting his effect on her, trying to keep her voice steady, “it’s not the best time to get on my bad side.” She touched her forehead to his and gazed into his eyes.
“You going to put your panties back on and drive off?” The grin on his face was wicked.
She slid him inside her and couldn’t help moaning. She ground her hips to take him in farther, her head falling back, body arching into his. “Not … just … yet.” Her words came out as barely more than a whisper.
“Was hoping you’d say that.” He tried to shift in the seat but got nowhere. “Good thing I bought the biggest truck on the lot.”
His large hands dwarfed her waist as they guided her body. Their rhythm quickly became urgent. Clay wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tightly to him so their skin, damp with sweat, was in full contact.
Andie buried her head into the side of his neck and nibbled at him relentlessly until she could barely b
reathe. She had no concept of the minutes that ticked by, only that she hoped this never, ever ended. Because later…
No. No thinking about later. Only now.
As he drove her higher, she threw her head back and called out his name repeatedly. Maybe she was being too loud, but then he wasn’t exactly quiet, and besides, who was going to hear? He thrust upward into her, over and over, and she lost control of the rest of her body as it clenched and contracted around him and she came.
“Fuck,” he said, his voice gritty, gasping, and then he stiffened and followed her over.
Andie melted into him as he trailed his lips along her neck and caressed her back. Her heart thundered in her chest. And maybe she could feel Clay’s too. She noticed for the first time the windows had fogged up in the humid night, granting them even more privacy. As if she’d been worried about that ten minutes ago.
“Damn,” Clay said, his breath still ragged. “You do amazing things to me, biker girl.”
She laughed, low and lazy, totally sated. “I might have to start calling you truck boy, for more than one reason.”
“Might have to take this elsewhere for an encore so you don’t have reason to call me truck boy.”
The thought of doing this again made Andie shiver. Yet again she pictured him stretched out on top of her in her bed…
“Ow. Ow. Ouch.” She slid off him quickly, unceremoniously, and pushed her dress off the driver’s seat as she fell into it, naked as the day she was born.
“What the hell?” Clay asked.
Andie started laughing. “Cramp. In my leg. Too small in here.”
Clay’s low laughter joined hers as she massaged the muscle that had sent her through the roof. “Come here,” he said. “I’ll rub it for you.”
“Not in here. You’re not rubbing anything until I can stretch out all my parts completely.” She leaned across the console between them and met him for a long, unhurried kiss. “It’s getting better,” she said, still rubbing at the tight spot.
The sound of her cell phone ringing made her jolt upright as if they were high school kids getting busted in a car. Which, except for their age, they pretty much were. Andie scrambled to find her phone, holding her dress over her nakedness in a panic.
“Got a video camera on your phone or something?” Clay asked, grinning and handing her her bra, which had ended up on the dash, as she answered the call.
“Hello?” She tried hard not to sound breathless or … like she’d just had amazing truck sex.
“I don’t want to know where you are or what you’re doing,” Macey said, “but it’s hot and we have thirsty people.”
Andie glanced over to see Clay putting himself back together, buttoning the two buttons that remained on his shirt.
“On our way. There was a crowd…”
Macey laughed wholeheartedly. “Stop, Andie. Just bring the ice. Drive safely.”
“Yes, Mom.”
“Later, I’ll want to hear all about it.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Is everything put back together?” Andie whispered to Clay when they’d climbed out of the truck back at the bar. She ran her hands down her gown, checking for the fortieth time that it wasn’t caught somewhere — though there wasn’t much it could get caught on since Clay had ruined her underwear.
“You look amazing,” he said, then pressed a light, intimate kiss just below her ear.
Andie shivered and touched her hair. “No bedhead?”
He laughed quietly. “How would you get bedhead when there was no bed?”
“About time you two showed up,” Evan said out of the darkness. “The masses are demanding ice.”
Andie could only smile and mutter that she was off to find Macey. For the first time in her life, she understood what people meant when they said they were floating on air.
She floated around the perimeter of the party, searching for Macey’s white dress, thinking it was even more crowded than when they’d left for ice. The wedding guests who’d been on the beach must have migrated up to the patio to be closer to food and drink.
As she made her way along the wall between the patio and the beach, toward the bar itself, she wondered if maybe she’d missed out on another bathroom run, because she couldn’t see Macey anywhere. What she did see, however, stopped her cold.
Across the way, just off the bar’s property and close to the hotel on the other side, a man stood in the shadows. Watching her. She could see his outline from the streetlights, and she’d recognize him anywhere, even though it’d been three years.
Trevor.
She froze — long enough for him to know she’d seen him. But he didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge her. Forgetting her search for Macey, Andie moved into the relative shelter of the bar. It was closed to the public tonight and full of wedding guests, and Kevin was at the counter filling orders for mixed drinks. No one was in the kitchen, though, since the caterers had set up on the patio.
Andie slipped behind the counter, nodding at Kevin as he mixed a cocktail, and disappeared into the kitchen. She turned the light off and moved to the door that looked out toward where she’d spotted her ex.
He stood in the same place, leaning against a wall, arms crossed. Andie’s mouth went dry and she couldn’t swallow. How had he found her? Why was he here? He wasn’t looking toward Andie’s window, so she had plenty of time to stare. She’d give anything to be wrong about who it was, but no. He looked mostly the same, maybe a few pounds lighter, hair a little longer, but undoubtedly the man who’d hurt her so badly.
She had to get out of here.
He’d seen her outside, and he’d probably be watching for her to leave so he could catch her alone. Whether he intended to hurt her or not, she couldn’t handle the thought of being by herself with him. Talking to him. Hearing that voice. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.
Her dress would make it damn hard but she’d escape to the restroom first, then into the darkness on the other side of the building. There was another tall hotel on that side of the patio, and once she got around it, she’d be out of sight from the reception. Glancing around, she searched for any extra clothing Macey — or anyone — might have left lying around. Nothing.
She’d leave a message on Macey’s phone — which she knew for a fact Macey didn’t have on her — that she’d begun to feel sick as soon as she and Clay had returned.
Clay. God, how had her night gone from him to this? Not that she and Clay had any kind of chance at long-term anything, but couldn’t the high she’d been on have lasted longer than fifteen minutes?
Andie avoided Clay and everyone else on her way to the restroom.
Once there, she waited in one of the stalls till the room was empty, and then she left and went the opposite direction from the party. The duplex was the other way, but she couldn’t walk by out in the open. Like a criminal, she crept around the hotel in the shadows, on the side nearest the street, heart pounding out of control, and dammit, it pissed her off that Trevor forced her to do this on Macey’s big night.
She went two blocks out of her way to the west and then angled south toward home. As far as she knew, no one had seen her and she didn’t have a tail. She’d never been so glad to see the house she shared with Clay and Payton, never been so relieved to have, as Jonas had mentioned, a door with a lock.
Heart still pounding, she let herself inside, closed the door quietly but firmly, and locked it with a reassuring click. Leaving the lights off, she slid to the floor and hugged her knees to her chest, trembling like a little girl.
oOo
Clay knocked on Andie’s door again.
Where the hell had that woman gone? Had sex in the truck really flipped her out so much she had to disappear? He’d never kidded himself that she was a stable influence, but he’d thought she could handle some mutually consensual fun. Especially since she’d initiated it.
Mother of God, it had driven him wild to see her hike up her dress and climb on top of him.
“An
die!” He pounded on the door one more time, at a loss for where to search for her next.
He was about to walk away when he heard movement inside.
“Andie, it’s me. Open up.” He spoke more quietly now, bowing his head next to the door. She was right on the other side. He could practically hear her debating with herself whether to open it or not. “Don’t be a damn coward.”
The door opened.
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected when he finally laid eyes on her, but it wasn’t to have her search left and then right to make sure the coast was clear.
“What are you looking for?” he said, stepping inside.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered.
It dawned on him there was no light in the room behind her. “Were you sleeping?”
She closed the door softly and the lock clicked home.
“Can we turn on a light?” he asked, so confused that he forgot he was annoyed at her.
“It’s too late. What’s up, Clay?”
“Why don’t you tell me? Where the hell did you go?”
“I … felt sick.”
He could hear it in her voice she was lying. She sounded … scared.
“Did you hear from your ex or something?” he asked. He’d heard what she’d said about bullies to Payton the other day and couldn’t help but wonder if he was the only one and what exactly he’d done to her, what she’d gone through.
Andie tensed. “My ex?” She shook her head, distracted. “No. He hasn’t contacted me.”
He wasn’t altogether convinced.
There was enough light coming in from the balcony door that he could see her outline, and he reached for her hand. Led her over to the futon and pulled her down next to him. When he drew her into his side, she didn’t resist. Clay pressed his lips to her temple and tried to ignore the rush of lust.
“Why’d you really take off?” he asked. “Wedding party isn’t supposed to leave until everyone else is gone.”
