by Lili Valente
Damn. This guy was as big below the belt as he was everywhere else. And he was hard, hot, and ready, so erect she could feel him throbbing against her even through his jeans and her damp panties.
“Looks like we’re on the same page,” she said, breath coming faster as she flexed the muscles in her legs, urging her clit into even tighter contact with his cock. “And I really hope you are up for…”
Her words trailed away and the heat coursing through her was replaced by a wave of ice cold fear.
Oh, God. Why hadn’t she made sure she got a good look at this man’s face before she jumped him like a nympho on roofies?
“Something wrong, Erin?” Blake Roberts asked as he set her down on the ground.
Several seconds passed in awkward silence before she could remember how to form words. And once she did, only two words came to mind.
Holy.
Shit.
CHAPTER FOUR
Erin
Of course, the first man she’d decided to sleep with since her breakup would be the one man she never thought she’d see again.
It was Blake. And, whoa, if he hadn’t grown up in all the right places.
Back in high school he’d been sweet, loveable, and sexy, but now he was…
“Why don’t we get out of here? We can go for a drive, catch up. Go get your things,” he said, his tone revealing there would be no argument.
Trouble. That’s what he was. Big trouble.
And damn if that didn’t make her panties even wetter.
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Blake,” she said, moving slowly behind the bar, concentrating on capping the well liquor, no matter how much a part of her wanted to hasten to obey him.
But then, she supposed some sub tendencies died hard.
“We haven’t—” She broke off with a nervous flutter of one hand. “I mean it’s been years and— I-I’ve just got a lot going on right now, and I—”
“It’s just a ride,” he said in that deep, sexy voice of his. “And a talk.”
“That’s not what it felt like a few seconds ago.” She blushed, cursing the shot of Jack Daniel’s she’d tossed back before her last turn on the bar.
This was all the whiskey’s fault. She never would have jumped into a stranger’s arms and started rubbing herself all over him without it.
She might have wanted to, but she wouldn’t have actually done it.
“That was a few seconds ago.” He smiled, and she caught a flash of the skinny boy who’d appointed himself her protector from the second they met, making her wonder how much he had really changed.
“I came here to talk old times not relive them,” he continued. “Though I wouldn’t put up a fight if you decided you wanted more than talk. Seems we’ve still got the same chemistry.”
“Seems like it,” she said, finding it easier to return his grin.
She capped the last of the well drinks and eased out from behind the bar, highly conscious of Cassandra’s eyes on her and Blake. The other bartender had been giving her shit for weeks, begging Erin to let her set her up with an eligible screw or two. Now Erin could practically feel the “go for it” vibes surging toward her from across the room.
Unfortunately, Blake wasn’t any more her idea of eligible than the ex-porn star crowd Cassandra hung with.
“But that’s probably not a good idea,” she said. “Sometimes it’s nice not to have any history.”
He made a considering noise low in his throat. “Sometimes you’re in the mood for a stranger.”
“Yes.” She nodded, grateful he understood. He didn’t seem angry or disappointed, either.
In fact, he was amazingly casual about the whole thing. If she hadn’t felt how hard he’d been, she would never have guessed he was interested at all. Which was a good thing, she supposed, though she couldn’t deny a certain disappointment.
“But other things are better with an old friend.” He stepped closer, forcing Erin to tilt her head back to keep looking him in the eye. When he spoke again, his voice was soft, almost a whisper. “Come on, let’s go for a ride.”
“Go, Angel,” Cassandra said in a knowing tone as she wiped down the bar. “I’ll finish closing up and Pedro’s still in the break room. He’ll walk me to my car.”
Erin hesitated for the barest moment more.
There was a voice inside her that urged her to forget she’d ever seen Blake, grab her purse, and call a cab to take her back to South Pasadena alone. But it was a quiet voice, one that couldn’t compete with her curiosity.
Why was Blake here?
Why had he tracked her down now, after all these years?
She had to know. Besides, Blake was the most trustworthy person she’d ever known. One of the only trustworthy people she’d ever known. If he said he was cool with talk and nothing more, he meant it.
And she was strangely exhilarated by the thought of just taking a drive with this man.
But then, some of her best memories were of being in the car with Blake, racing down the desert back roads, imagining they were on their way somewhere, anywhere but back to Carson City, Nevada.
“Let’s just keep going,” she said, hanging her head out the window and letting the hot desert air whip it into a wild tangle.
“Where should we go?” Blake asked, playing along, the way he always did. “Rome? Paris?”
She laughed as she reached out, threading her fingers through his much longer ones. “I don’t need Europe. Give me Denver. Or maybe Miami. Someplace hot where we could live in swimsuits and have sex in the ocean every day.”
Blake’s grip tightened on her hand and his jaw clenched. “You’re killing me. You know that.”
She leaned in, pressing a kiss to his cheek before she whispered. “No, you’re killing you. I’m so ready, Blake. I want more than your fingers or your mouth. I want you. Inside me. Tonight.” She reached her free hand over, caressing him through his jeans, her breath rushing out as she felt how hard he was. “God, baby, I want you. Please, tonight. Please… Make love to me under the sky and then let’s get back in this car and keep driving until the sun comes up.”
“Okay,” he whispered, finally giving her what she’d been begging for.
At least the first part.
He made love to her until she felt like she’d died and been reborn in his arms, until she was even more in love with Blake Roberts than she’d been before. And even when he’d turned the car around and headed back to their foster home, she hadn’t been too sad about it.
Phil was a nightmare, but she had the dream of being in Blake’s bed every afternoon before their foster father got home to look forward to.
The memory of those long afternoons spent learning how to drive Blake as crazy as he drove her made Erin’s decision for her.
“Okay, let’s go for a drive,” she said. “Just let me grab my purse.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Blake
“So, what brings you to L.A.?” Erin’s bare feet were propped on his dashboard, just like in high school. Her long legs were the same shade of tan, but this time the tiny moon-shaped toenails were painted a deep black instead of cherry red.
Black like her soul, man. Don’t forget it.
But it would be so easy to forget. To forget what he’d come for, what they’d been to each other, and to forget the dreams she’d abandoned when she’d hauled ass out of Carson City the morning after his eighteenth birthday.
From the second she’d jumped into his arms in the bar, he’d wanted to forget it all.
To forget and to fuck. To strip away those white panties she was wearing and get balls deep in Erin.
She’d been more than ready for it, before she’d realized who he was. Even then, she’d still agreed to go for a ride. She might very well be up for heading to the nearest hotel. They could check in for the weekend and he could have her in every filthy way he’d imagined for the past eight years. Maybe that alone would be enough to get her out of his system.
“Is it business?” she asked, reclining her chair until she was lying almost horizontal in the passenger seat beside him. “Or pleasure?”
Blake’s eyes flicked to the newly bared skin at her midriff and then quickly back to the road.
Jesus, who was he kidding? One weekend would never be enough.
The second he felt that hot, tight little pussy encasing him, he’d be a goner. Fucking Erin Perry had been an unparalleled pleasure and he was sure fucking Angel Perry could become a bona fide addiction. She’d had eight years to perfect what had been an amazing natural aptitude for sexing a man’s soul from his body, and just the way she’d danced on the bar made it clear she’d been hard at work mastering her seduction skills.
“I’m guessing business if I know you.” Erin let one of her knees relax outward, giving him a clear view of her panties.
God. Damn.
They were modest as far as women’s lingerie went and looked like sensible cotton, with just a hint of lace at the edge. They weren’t anything fancy or seductive. But just knowing Erin’s hot little cunt was beneath those granny panties was enough to get him hard enough to shatter glass.
“Something to do with that show you’re in?” she asked. “I’ve never seen it, but I’ve heard you’re great.” Her legs squeezed back together, depriving him of that glimpse of white fabric, which was probably a good thing.
He should be keeping his eyes on the road. California drivers took no prisoners. You were expected to be going eighty miles an hour and tailing the driver in front of you close enough to count the dents on their bumper, or it was grounds for a drive-by. Even at past midnight, Interstate 10 was hopping, packed with cars headed to Palm Springs and destinations beyond. He needed his attention on the traffic, not his passenger.
Thankfully the streetlights beside the highway would disappear in a few miles, once they were out of the city. Then it would be too dark to obsess about what Erin was or wasn’t revealing.
“So do you like being a reality television star?” she asked.
Blake shrugged and moved the car into the carpool lane. In California, two people counted as a carpool. No wonder the traffic was so brutal.
“I thought you said we were going to talk while you drove?” she asked, a hint of amusement in her tone. “Don’t tell me you’ve turned into a real man and can’t do two things at the same time.”
He smiled in spite of himself. Erin had always been able to make him smile when no one else could. “You haven’t asked where we’re going.”
“Maybe I don’t care where we’re going,” she said, following the words with a sigh sadder than anything he’d ever heard out of her mouth.
It was just the tiniest exhalation of breath, but it spoke volumes. Even back in the day, when she’d been the new girl at Casa de la Hell—Blake’s nickname for his final foster home—she’d never been anything but upbeat and sassy. Erin defined sass. She’d more than done her part to earn the occasional backhand from their foster father, Phil.
Phil. Such a fucking friendly name for such a demented bastard. Blake wouldn’t have blamed Erin for running away from that man.
If only she’d told him where she was going…
“I’ve got a cabin up in the mountains, not too far from Lake Arrowhead,” Blake said. “We’ll have privacy there. We can hang out, drink a few beers, watch the snow fall.”
Now was as good a time as any to fill Erin in on his plans. Even she wasn’t crazy enough to jump out of the car while he was doing eighty on the interstate. It’s when they turned off the highway that he’d have to get out the rope—assuming she wasn’t any more accommodating to his in-person request than she’d been to his letters.
“I got the letters you sent back to me, by the way,” he said, ready to get that out in the open, as well. “That was a mature response.”
“I’m sure it was.” She laughed, but it was a short, bitter sound, not at all like the old Erin. “Unfortunately, it wasn’t mine. I haven’t been receiving my mail for a long time. Well, the past few weeks I’ve been getting mail at my new apartment, but nothing from you.”
Blake was quiet, taking in the information, knowing she would clarify if he stayed silent. Erin always divulged information in bits and pieces. Stories burst from her like hiccups, interspersed with other random information unrelated to the matter at hand.
“You hungry?” she asked. “I’m dying for a burger. With onions. Lots of onions, the grilled kind.”
His lips twisted in a bittersweet smile. At least some things were still the same.
She reached down, fiddling with the controls on her seat until she was nearly upright again. “My soon-to-be ex-husband intercepted all of my mail. He was very…controlling.”
“That why he’s going to be your ex?” Blake asked.
“That’s part of it,” she said, her tone making it clear she would rather not talk about the man.
Fine with him. Blake didn’t like to think of any man in connection with Erin. Part of his own set of mental glitches.
“So what did the letters say?” She sounded uncertain and strangely…hopeful.
Blake risked a look at her side of the car, but now it was too dark to see her expression clearly. “Just hello from an old friend.”
She snorted. “Bullshit.”
“How do you know? You didn’t read them.” But he couldn’t keep from grinning. This could actually work out. If Erin hadn’t been the one to rip up his letters, she might be open to having the angel tat modified.
“My bullshit meter still works fairly well. Most of the time.” She laughed, a lighter sound this time. “So what else did the letters say, old friend?”
Shit. He actually wished they weren’t driving now that he knew Erin hadn’t heard his request. This was the kind of thing more comfortably discussed if you were sitting down, looking someone in the eye, not driving down the highway.
But here is where they were.
“I was asking if you would be open to having me modify your angel tat.” He kept the words casual, but he could feel her surprise in the beat of silence that followed.
“Why?”
Here was the tricky part, the part so much more easily communicated in a letter. Good thing he wasn’t the type of man who could only do things the easy way.
“Obviously things didn’t work out the way we planned when we decided to get identical tattoos, Erin,” he said, trying not to think too much about the kids they’d been or how much he’d once loved her. “That’s fine by me. You made your choice and I respect that. But I’ve come to a place in my life where I’d rather not have a matching tattoo with a woman I don’t even know anymore.”
“And you can’t change yours because of your dad,” she said, making a considering sound beneath her breath. “That’s a sucky position to be in.”
“Only if the woman in question isn’t open to having me modify the tattoo.” Casual, just keep it casual. “I’ve got all my stuff in the car, ink and—”
“This is hardly a car. It’s an Expedition, for God’s sake.” She laughed as she stretched out her legs and still didn’t touch the back of the floorboard. “It’s like half of an eighteen-wheeler. Lot different than that Impala you had in high school, huh? Bet it doesn’t die every three days.”
“I’m one of the best in the business now,” Blake said, refusing to be distracted. “I was an amateur when I did that work on your shoulder. Now, I’ve got the skills to give you something really beautiful and unique.”
“Though I did like that car,” Erin said, crossing her legs on the seat as she reached down to the floor for her purse. “It had personality.”
“And don’t worry, I’ll do it for free.”
She sucked in a breath and let it out through pursed lips. Even before she spoke, Blake knew he wasn’t going to like what she had to say. “No, you won’t,”
she said, her tone serious. “You won’t do it at all. I’m sorry, Blake, but I’m not going to change the tattoo.”
His jaw clenched. “Would fifteen grand change your mind?”
She did a double take. “Are you trying to bribe me?” She seemed angry for a second, but when she spoke again, her voice was soft, almost defeated sounding. “You know what? It doesn’t matter, because, no, it wouldn’t.”
“I understand it’s become a big part of your professional persona, but—”
“It is my professional persona,” she said, returning to rifling through her purse.
“Like I said in the bar, I think you have a few things—”
“My name is Angel now, for God’s sake. Not legally, but it might as well be.” She flipped down the visor and opened the mirror, causing light to spill across her face, showing him how sincerely troubled she seemed. “That’s what I’m known as and the tat is a big part of what I’m known for. I’m just now trying to get back into the modeling business after two years. I can’t change one of the most memorable things about me.”
“That’s understandable,” Blake said, not losing hope just yet. “What if I reworked it so that you still had an angel? I could lengthen the wings, change up the colors, maybe even add some darker hair on one side so it looks like she’s facing—”
“I can’t,” Erin said as she smoothed on a coat of berry-colored lipstick. No, gloss, that’s what they called the stuff that made a woman’s lips shine like she’d just been kissed, or just had her mouth smeared with—
Nope, not going to let his mind go there. Erin was going to be pissed when she realized he didn’t plan to take no for an answer. There was no chance she’d still want to go to bed with him, and he wasn’t the type to take what wasn’t freely offered.
Except control over what she’s going to have tattooed on her skin for the rest of her life. Isn’t that just as bad?
