by Anna Jeffrey
“Boyfriend?”
“I told you before, I do not have any boyfriends. But it’s none of your business if I have five.”
The idea that she might still be lying to him shot an inexplicable white-hot anger through
Drake. “That guy would like to be.”
“He’s the city manager. I have to deal with him from time to time. I don’t date people I have to work with.”
“He touched you in a possessive way. Like you’re his.”
“Were you spying on me or something?”
“I didn’t have to spy. You were in my line of sight.”
She blinked a few times, then opened her palms and shook her head, a gesture of annoyance and frustration. “Well this is just insane.” She looked around, avoiding looking at him. “Where is that damn waitress?”
Drake leaned forward and said in a low tone. “I still say his hand was on your ass.”
She released a great sigh and leaned against the booth’s back. “Look, I don’t know what this is about, but let’s stop it. Just because we…we…”
Her words trailed off. He was already on his way to being a jackass. He was so angry and confused as to why, he couldn’t stop himself from morphing into an unrecoverable one. “Fucked is the word you’re looking for, sweetheart. Fucked.”
She ducked her chin. “You don’t have a claim on me. I wish we could just call the Christmas party a mistake and go our separate ways. I think it’s the civilized thing to do.”
“Look at me,” he said, and she looked up, her eyes wide, her lips parted. He wanted to grab her and kiss her silly. “Darlin’, there was nothing civilized about what went on in my condo. I had my mouth in some real private places. Now that doesn’t brand you for life, but the way I remember it, you did return the favor.”
She flinched and leaned forward, fixing their faces inches apart. “Shut up,” she stage-whispered. “People will hear you.”
Apparently she didn’t like being reminded of her enthusiastic participation. “I’m trying not to believe you were trolling the Worthington for a romp in the sack with a guy with a fat checkbook. So why don’t you clear that up for me?”
“You’re being a bastard.” She got to her feet, snatched up her coat and bag and stamped toward the front door, her heels clicking on the tile floor and her perfect nose high in the air.
Christ, she had no business getting behind the wheel. He sprang to his feet, jerked his wallet out of his pocket and dropped a fifty on the table. He grabbed his coat and cap and strode after her into the dark parking lot. When he caught up with her, she had almost reached her Kia’s door. “Shannon.”
She stopped, but continued to dig inside her bag. For her keys, he hoped. Hell, she was so unpredictable, she might be carrying.
“This is nonsense,” she said, still digging. “I never fight like this with someone.”
He moved closer, within a foot of her. “I’m not trying to fight with you. I’m trying to tell you how I feel.”
She looked up at him, but he couldn’t make out her features in the dark. “And how is that?”
“Seeing that son of a bitch grab you like he had a right to made me want to crunch nails with my teeth and—”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“You and I don’t even know each other. We spent a few hours together and we didn’t even…didn’t—”
“I’m trying to change that.”
She shook her head, dismissing him, returned to digging in her purse. “I’ve got a busy day
tomorrow. I need to get home.”
He refused to let her brush him off. “I wish you wouldn’t.
She looked up at him again, one hand still in her bag. “Wouldn’t what? Go home?”
“Let me take you. You shouldn’t be driving. You’ve had too much to drink.”
She said nothing and he couldn’t see her face clearly enough to read her expression. Then, “Damn you,” she whispered, a shudder in her breath confirming that she wanted him as much as he wanted her. “I don’t need this in my life.” She shook her head fiercely. “I do not want it, do you hear me? You’ll ruin my life.”
All he could think was she was about to leave him. “Take me home with you,” he said roughly. “You know you won’t be sorry.”
“I can’t. I live with my grandmother.”
But she wanted to. He knew it. Because she had said she couldn’t, not that she didn’t want to. “There’s a motel across the highway. I’ll get a room and—”
“If I did that, half this town would know it before daylight.”
“Dammit, Shannon—” He couldn’t help himself. He was about to burst his zipper and he remembered the taste of her lips. Hooking one arm around her neck and the other around her body, he kissed her.
She didn’t return his kiss, but she didn’t push him away either. She let his mouth work at her succulent lips and he drank of their sweetness. The longer their lips remained joined, the more she relaxed into him and kissed him back.
And the more he wanted her.
When he finally lifted his mouth from hers, she whacked his hip with her purse. “You’re an arrogant jerk. Let me go,” she said weakly, but he felt no effort on her part to move away.
“After you kissed me like that? Don’t you get it? This is it, Shannon. The bottom line. I’ve been trying to figure it out. It’s what the whole damn thing was about at that party and in my condo, what it’s been about all evening. It’s why my cock gets hard as a rail spike when I’m near you. All I have to do is think of you and I’m close to embarrassing myself. This picking on each other, driving each other crazy is just an extension of it. And I think you know it as well as I do.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. It doesn’t matter anyway.”
You’re wrong, baby. You’re wrong.” He cupped her jaw with his palm. “It matters to me,” he said softly. Then, he bent his head and covered her mouth with his again as gently as he knew how. To his astonishment, her hand came around his neck and her lips parted. She sucked his tongue into her mouth and he was lost. His tongue played with hers. He delved deeply, pulled out and bit at her lips. The kiss turned hotter. Hungry.
It was all the encouragement he needed to make him cage her against the side of the SUV with his arms and press his erection against her belly. She lifted herself to it. An image of the thick red curls that covered what she pressed against him passed through his head and his dick turned even harder. He had to touch bare skin. He slid his hands under her coat, over her body, her butt, her breasts, everywhere, fondling and kneading through her layers of clothing, looking for an entrance.
“What in the hell are you wearing?” he ground out, finally discovering a way beneath her top. He tugged her sweater from her skirt’s waistband, felt warm flesh. She didn’t resist. They kissed again in a lush melding of mouths. He wedged his fingers beneath her bra and filled his hand with her warm breast, found her nipple erect. He brushed with his thumb and a tiny sound came from her throat. He gently fondled until the nub was rigid while little grunts came from her throat.
He tore his mouth away from hers and shoved her clothing up and out of the way, buried his face against her breasts. They felt like orbs of fire against his lips. He hunted for her nipple one with his mouth, found it firm and distended. He sucked it hard and worked it against his tongue. She made soft little whimpers, clutched his hair and clasped his head tightly.
Every sound she made sent a new spurt of hot blood straight to his groin. He was shaking, close to passing the point of no return and he believed she was on the edge, too.
He lifted his mouth from her breast, moved his hand down and caught the hem of her skirt, yanked it up and worked his hand beneath it. “Let me get us a room—”
“No,” she said and kept kissing him and teasing him with hot bites and tongue flicks.
She was wearing those thigh-high stockings and those tiny panties, just like before. Thank you, Jesus. He mov
ed his hand again and slipped his fingers between her legs. She was hot as a furnace, her panties damp. His cock screamed for the paradise his fingers had claimed. He hooked his fingers into her panties’ waistband of and jerked them down, combed his fingers through her woman’s hair, dipped between her slick layers. She was so ready.
She made a strangled sound. “Drake, stop,” she panted. We’re…we’re…we have to…”
“Not yet,” he said hoarsely, continuing to stroke. Her breath caught and she wilted against him. God, she was so hot, he almost couldn’t bear it. “You don’t really want me to stop,” he whispered hoarsely.
“No, don’t…stop…”
They stood there, forehead to forehead, while she hung onto him and he played with her and listened to her shallow breathing and little sounds that nearly drove him crazy. “You like that, baby?”
“Uh-huh.”
“This?...Like this?...”
“Uh-huh.”
“More?...”
“Yesss…”
He managed to push two fingers into her and found her sweet spot with his thumb. She gasped and her vaginal muscles clutched his fingers. She buried her forehead into his shoulder, her grunts muffled by his coat as her muscles rhythmically milked his finger. A few seconds. That’s all it took. He continued to stroke until he was sure she had finished.
She went limp against him. He smoothed her hair with his free hand, clasped her neck.
“Aw, baby, baby…you’re so good…so good…”
“What about you?” she said in a tiny voice. “It isn’t fair—”
“Rain check,” he choked out. Knowing his screaming erection wasn’t going to find a home in that tight sheath tonight nearly had him in tears, but he murmured against her ear, “That was for you. Just for you.”
She pushed him away. “No. It’s not fair. Just a minute.”
She went at his fly with both hands, unbuckling his belt, undoing his pants and lifting his rigid penis out of his shorts. He was so hot and hard the cold temperature didn’t even soften him. “Oh, Jesus, Shannon—”
“Do it,” she said frantically, wrapping her hand around his penis.
He didn’t need a second invitation. He shoved her skirt higher, above her ass. She arched to him. He lifted her thigh with one hand and squatted while she pulled the crotch of her panties to the side and guided him to her. But her panties were still in the way.
“Just tear it,” she said. “Hurry.”
He yanked, the flimsy fabric ripped and the tip of him found her entrance. He lifted her bottom, thrust upward and plunged into her, pinning her against the SUV. She let out a little yelp. Her hands gripped his shoulders and she hugged his hips with her thighs. “Oohh…Oohh, Drake…”
Those same powerful muscles that had contracted around his fingers grabbed onto his cock, working him, taking him ever more deeply.
He held his breath, clenched his teeth. Every coherent thought left his mind. His hips worked. He rooted up into her again and again, animal sounds chuffing from deep in his chest.
Her head lolled backward. “OhGodohGod…”
“Hold on, baby…” He bit into her neck, worked his fingers between her slick lips, found her little clit, swollen and firm. He gently plucked at it with his fingers, soothed it with his thumb. She cried out, but he caught her mouth with his and kissed her while she made muffled grunts and sobs and milked him with quick pulls.
He had been so hard for so long, orgasm had coiled tight as a spring in his belly. He could stand no more and he couldn’t move from where he stood. He lost control and it ripped through his system. Like a flame thrower, he spurted into her, again and again until he was empty, not even caring that his semen filled her with no barrier. All he could think of was marking her as his. And in a flash of rationality, he knew he might never get enough of her.
“Christ,” he said, his voice breaking. “Jesus, Shannon. I can’t believe…” He gave up trying to talk. He was too weak. Neither of them moved. Finally, he began to feel the cold. “You okay?”
She made an incoherent noise. Gripping her bottom, he lifted her and eased out of her, his essence draining onto her thighs.
“Oh, my God,” she said shakily, her head falling onto his shoulder.
“God, Shannon….I’m going to get us a room….Do this right.…It shouldn’t be—”
“You aren’t wearing a condom,” she said weakly. She clasped his wet penis, which hadn’t yet gone completely flaccid. “You came…inside me.”
His own lungs still bellowed. “Hunh?” he barely uttered.
“You came inside me….Without…without—”
Oh, Christ. “You didn’t say anything. I thought—”
“I have to go home.” He let her push him backward. She began to fumble with her clothing. “Why aren’t you on the damn pill?” he asked, grabbing the bottom of her skirt and helping her pull it down over her butt.
“I don’t need to be.” She slapped his hands away. “I don’t have sex….Not in over two years.”
As she pulled and twisted at her top, their brief conversation from that Saturday night zoomed into his memory: …What did you mean, it’s been a long time?...Nothing. Just…that…. How long?... Just… a while….Two years…
What the hell did all of that mean?
She tightened her coat belt and began looking around. For her purse, he presumed. He saw it on the ground, picked it up and handed it to her. “No one goes two years without sex.”
“I do.” She began digging inside her purse again, came up with car keys. She bleeped the car door open and scrambled inside, slammed the door and fired the engine. The dash lights lit her face. He motioned for her to lower the window.
When she did, he leaned in and kissed her. She kissed him back. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “If anything happens, we’ll take care of it.”
“Easy for you to say.” She looked at him a few seconds, a glimmer of moisture in her eyes. “I have to go,” she said softly.
“Are you sure you’re okay to drive?”
“I live less than two blocks from here. I could walk if I had to.”
He stepped back, she buzzed up the window, backed up and left him standing alone in the dark parking lot with his pants undone.
Chapter 18
Morning. After being awake most of the night, Shannon stood at her bedroom window staring out at Camden’s Victorian era square. There, the city and the Camden Historical Society devoted much time, energy and money to preserving the look of 1880, right down to the narrow redbrick-paved streets. Grammy Evelyn’s rambling old home on its half-acre lot stood less than a block off the square.
Tiny white Christmas lights wove through the bare branches of the many trees that surrounded the century-old courthouse. In the silvery light of the dawning day, they stood out like stars come to earth.
A dull ache throbbed behind Shannon’s eyes. Last night’s margaritas. She should have known better.
The memory of Casa Familia’s employee parking lot lashed her. She would like to blame tequila for that, too, but three margaritas hadn’t rendered her unconscious, only stupid. Just as champagne hadn’t been the most powerful influence at the TCCRA party. Something else was at play. Something she didn’t understand. Something about Drake turned her into a sex-crazed fool. In only two meetings, he had become another of Shannon’s Follies.
God knew she had been anything but a good girl in the past, but unprotected sex in a parking lot in freezing temperatures was the ultimate thoughtless behavior. Her brow crunched into an uncomfortable frown and she bit down on her lower lip. Dear God. A few quick minutes of careless sex could wipe out everything she had spent six years building.
…If anything happens, we’ll take care of it…
What had he meant by those words? If she got pregnant, would he expect her to have an abortion? She had been pregnant once, when she was seventeen. She remembered it only vaguely now, but she recalled what followed more clearly. Having no clue w
hat to do, she and her baby’s father, her steady boyfriend, Kevin Barton, had gotten married in a quickie wedding. With teenage naiveté, she thought she was in love. No one could have been more unprepared for marriage and parenthood than her and Kevin. Those days had made up one of the more miserable periods of her existence.
She miscarried after two months, but getting out of what turned out to be an abusive marriage had taken much longer and had been one of the hardest undertakings she had ever tackled in her short twenty-one years. Even now, though her ex lived in Fort Worth, he wasn’t out of her life and he might never be. She still heard from him occasionally when he needed money. He had been the first of Shannon’s Follies.
Well, at least this morning, she didn’t have to worry about being pregnant. On arriving home last night, she had checked her calendar first thing. Her period should start any day. The little Lockhart soldiers had arrived on the scene too late and missed their window of opportunity.
She blamed herself for what happened. Drake might have kissed her, but she believed he wouldn’t have forced himself on her. If she had kept her hands to herself, he would have just let her go home.
She closed her eyes and arched her brow. Most of her wretched history with men had resulted from bad judgment on her part. The past few years, she had been able to look back and see that.
Well, this craziness wouldn’t happen again with him. After she drove off and left him standing in the parking lot, she doubted if she would hear any more from him. His pride would be hurt. And if any man she had ever met had more than his fair share of pride, Drake did. He
would be too angry to ever contact her again.
Something good thing had come out of the evening, though. He now knew who she was. She no longer had to worry that someday he might find her when she least expected it. It was time to stop stewing over it and get on with her life.
She directed her thoughts to what the day would bring. The forecast for Christmas week was for sunshine and temperatures in the seventies. Texas weather. One extreme to another. People would be out shopping and bustling, getting ready for the holiday. She and her team would decide if they would hold a holiday open house during the week for their customers and peers. She might even go shopping herself.
