Country Roads

by Nancy Herkness

  “You’re a good brother.”

  “You’re not the only person who’s said something like that to me today. But it doesn’t change anything.” He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it, his silver eyes going hot over their joined hands. “Let’s go back to my place and I’ll give you a tour.”

  Pulling her up and against him, he ran his hands under her shirt and up her back, so she could feel his touch on her bare skin. He lowered his mouth slowly to hers as he opened the catch of her bra and slipped around to tease her nipples to hard peaks. Her body responded before her mind could catch up to the abrupt change of his mood.

  He deepened the kiss, his tongue touching hers, and she arched into him, her hands twined into his hair as much to hold herself up as to feel its strong texture. She moaned when his hands skimmed down and around her rib cage to slip under her jeans and knead her buttocks with a powerful, erotic grip. His revelations were forgotten as heat went zinging down between her legs. “Oh God, yes! Lift me up!”

  “Easy, sweetheart. We’ve got the rest of the day.”

  “It’s not enough,” Julia said, using her grip on his hair to hold his mouth to hers. “Carlos comes tomorrow.”

  He squeezed her butt one more time before he slid his hands upward to retrieve the two ends of her bra and deftly refasten it. “Carpe diem.”

  “I know what that means, and it’s not legal Latin.”

  She felt rejected. Why didn’t he ask her to stay in Sanctuary?

  Chapter 25

  JULIA TRIED TO savor the swift rush of their ride back to town, but her body was jittery with arousal and her mind kept running through Paul’s story. The enormity of his sacrifice took her breath away. She understood he had powerful obligations in Sanctuary, so he couldn’t think only of himself when it came to the future. He couldn’t leave, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t stay. Yet he seemed to be pulling away from her, not trying to keep her here. Was he too proud to ask her to remain? Did she need to make the offer first?

  She was out of her depth here.

  “You can unlatch your arms now,” Paul said over his shoulder, as they turned and rumbled into a driveway. “I think you may have cracked a few ribs in the last couple of miles.”

  Julia yanked her arms away, noticing her muscles were shaking with fatigue. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was squeezing so tight.”

  “I slowed down in case I was making you nervous, but it didn’t seem to loosen you up.” He held the bike as she clambered down. “Is everything all right?”

  Was that her opening? Should she say something now? She glanced around the quiet neighborhood where dusk was just drifting in and golden light bloomed in house windows. No, this conversation needed to be more private.

  Something caught her attention and she focused on the house they stood in front of. It was Victorian but had a distinctive shape and design. “Is this an old train station?” she asked, noting the simple but elegant crisscrossed gingerbread decoration under the peak of the entrance gable.

  He nodded, his eyes on his home. “I rented it originally and then it grew on me. It used to be right in town, but they moved it when the train stopped running. You can still see the ticket window inside.” He walked to the attached garage and keyed in a code, making the door rise so he could wheel the big bike in.

  She followed him, skimming her palm along the sleek lines of the black Corvette crouching in the dim light, as the garage door clanked down again. The car looked sexy, ominous, and fast, reminding her of her first sight of it on the gravel shoulder of the interstate. When she stopped to admire the long, elegant hood, Paul came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. His voice rumbled past her ear. “I’m picturing how your bare skin would look against the shiny black paint.”

  She sucked in a gasp as she wondered what it would feel like to lie naked on the hood of the car with Paul’s silver eyes locked on her. “Wouldn’t it dent the car?”

  He made a strangled sound. “That would be one repair I wouldn’t mind paying for.”

  She turned in his arms and pulled his head down. He came willingly, locking his mouth on hers. Her body caught fire and she opened her legs so his thigh pushed between them, the friction making her throw her head back and moan. “Oh dear God, yes!”

  “Ah, Julia,” he breathed against her throat as he dragged his lips down the skin bared by the neckline of her shirt. She worked her hands up between them and ripped the shirt off over her head. He understood the invitation and ran his tongue along the lace edge of her bra before he closed his mouth on the hard, sensitive nipple.

  She rocked her pelvis against his thigh as she nearly came just from the heat and moisture of his mouth soaking through the fabric. “Oh please, take it off,” she begged, wanting his lips against her skin.

  He released her to unhook the bra. Yanking the straps down her arms to drop onto the cement floor, he lifted her breasts with his hands, bending to suck at them, first one and then the other. She threaded her fingers into his thick hair and held on as wave after wave of sensation rolled from her breasts downward to pool deep between her legs. As she felt the pressure building inside her, she drew his head upward. “I’m ready. Now.”

  His eyes blazed. “All right. Let’s go inside.”

  “No. Here. On the car.”

  She unzipped her jeans and yanked them and her panties down to her ankles while she toed off her loafers. As his gaze was drawn to her body, she retreated until the backs of her knees hit the ’Vette’s bumper, and she thudded down less than gracefully on the hood. She got one heel onto the bumper and scooted herself up enough to recline on her elbows.

  Paul stood like a statue, his gaze devouring her as she lowered herself onto the curving metal, her eyes never leaving his face. The car’s surface was unyielding but smooth, the feel of it on her bare skin erotic and charged.

  “Do you know what you look like?” His voice had dropped an octave and taken on the rasp of sandpaper.

  She shook her head, kept speechless by the scorch of his attention.

  “Every man’s fantasy.” He stood several moments longer, his eyes tracing a path she could nearly feel over her body. Then he was between her legs, spreading them as he braced a knee on the bumper and lowered his head to kiss her inner thigh. “I want to feast on you.”

  He blew a waft of breath against her that brought her arching up to his mouth. For a moment she felt the graze of his lips before he skimmed his hands down behind her knees and pulled them upward, bracing his shoulders between them. Now she was spread open to his eyes and his mouth. Her eyelids fluttered closed and she splayed her hands over the satiny metal as he drove her into a delirium of sensation with his lips, tongue, and an occasional graze of his teeth.

  Her mind filled with flares of pleasure and escalating need until she heard herself begging him to let her finish. He slid one finger inside her as he flicked his thumb in exactly the right place. Her orgasm exploded, sending her internal muscles into a clench so hard she screamed and bowed up off the car, carrying his weight upward with her. He flicked his thumb again and sent another contraction ripping through her. After that, she lost track of how many waves broke over her until she sprawled limply across the hood, tiny rills of pleasure eddying through her wherever Paul feathered his fingers along her bare skin.

  She summoned enough strength to force her eyes open. He bent over her, one hand braced on the hood beside her hip, while he ran the other one over her body, his gaze following its progress. When his touch moved up to her cheek, she saw the arousal still white-hot in his eyes. “Paul.” It came out as a croak, so she cleared her throat and tried again. “It’s your turn.”

  He shook his head. “You just gave me something I’ll never forget. I don’t need anything else.”

  She got herself up onto her elbows. “Are you trying to tell me that bulge in your jeans is your wallet?”

  He gave her hair a tug. “You can barely move. I’ll carry you into the
house.”

  He took one of her hands and started to pull her upright, but she resisted, putting her free hand on his chest to keep him from scooping her up. “Don’t you want to have me on the Corvette?” She dropped her voice to a husky purr.

  “Sweetheart, I want to have you everywhere I see you. Now let’s get you up to my bed where we can be comfortable.”

  For a moment, Julia forgot the seductress act as the compliment sent a different kind of pleasure singing through her. “I don’t want to be comfortable. I want you to come inside me on the hood of your car. Hard.”

  She snapped open his belt buckle, then tore the button of his jeans from its hole and yanked the zipper down. He caught her hands in one of his and pushed her chin up with the other. The cords of muscle in his neck were taut, but his touch was gentle. “Are you sure you’re ready, sweetheart?”

  In answer, she pulled her hands from his grasp and freed his cock from his briefs, giving it a hard stroke between her palms.

  His breath hissed in as his hips jerked forward, and she knew she had him. “Give me the condom,” she said.

  The foil envelope appeared in his hand as if by magic. As she opened it, he whipped his shirt up over his head, revealing the stretch of smooth olive skin over the defined geometry of muscle. She rolled the condom down his erection and reached toward the undulation of his bared abdomen.

  “No.” His voice grated harshly. “If you touch me again, I won’t last. Lie back.”

  She lowered herself onto the metal, squirming slightly as her heated skin touched its cool surface.

  He slid his hands under her bottom, easing her closer to him. Then he stepped between her thighs, the denim of his jeans brushing her inner thighs. She gasped as the touch sent her nerve endings pirouetting along the edge between pleasure and overload.

  He locked his thumbs around her hips, lifting her, and then in one stroke he was inside her. She felt the scuff of his jeans on her skin, the curl of his fingers into her behind, and the pressure of his cock pushing deep within her. “Oh yes,” she said. “Oh yes.”

  He pulled back and thrust into her again, his breathing harsh, his grip turning to iron. “Sweetheart, I can’t hold on any longer.”

  “Don’t hold on.” She pulsed her hips against him. “Let go. Take me with you.”

  The sound that came from him was primal. He yanked her right to the edge of the hood, lifting her hips so he could drive even more deeply into her. As his rhythm quickened, her body shifted from satiety to wanting again. She could feel the fist of arousal squeezing tighter and tighter inside her, until he ground his hips against her and she convulsed around him, screaming his name.

  She took him over the edge with her. She felt the pump of his climax and heard her own name echo against the walls of the garage as he shouted it.

  For a long moment, he stood like that, holding her lifted against him as his erection softened and the aftershocks trembled through her. Then he slipped out of her and lowered her hips so her knees hung over the hood and her heels grazed the bumper.

  He blew out a long breath and brought his gaze to hers. His eyes glinted in the dim light with some emotion she couldn’t read. He bent at the waist and laid his forearms on either side of her, bringing his forehead down to rest on her shoulder. “Julia.” His voice vibrated into her bones.

  “Yes?”

  “Just Julia. There’s no room for anything else right now.”

  She lay still, listening to Paul’s breathing slow, a delicious lassitude wrapping itself around her body. Her heart was singing at his words. If this didn’t make him ask her to stay, nothing would.

  Her stomach growled so loudly she jumped.

  Paul lifted his head. “When was the last time you ate?”

  Julia thought back but couldn’t remember any meal after the corn muffin she’d had for breakfast. “This morning?”

  He stood and pulled her up to a sitting position. She put her hand to her head as a wave of dizziness swept over her.

  “Let’s get you fed before you faint on me,” Paul said, concern shadowing his face. He gathered their clothes in one hand before he swept her off the car and against his side with the other.

  He swung open the interior door and walked her through it. Embarrassment flared as her dizziness faded. “You can let go. It was just sitting up so suddenly that made me woozy.”

  He loosened his hold and watched her carefully before he nodded. “You can use the downstairs bathroom to wash up while I rustle up something to eat. It’s through the hall on the right.” He held out her clothing.

  Julia followed his directions, closing the door and pulling on her clothes. As she turned to the sink, she caught sight of herself in the mirror and shrieked.

  Paul must have sprinted because he was at the door almost immediately. “What is it? I’m coming in.” He eased the door open.

  “My hair!” she wailed, holding up the mass of red tangles in both fists. “Please tell me you have a brush.”

  He braced his hand on the doorjamb and leaned his forehead against it. “You scared the bejesus out of me.”

  “Sorry, but it will take me hours to undo this.” She tried to work her fingers through a snarl but it refused to budge.

  “In that case, we’ll work on it later. Together.”

  “I don’t want you having to look at this across the dinner table,” Julia said. “It’ll give you indigestion.”

  “Sweetheart, you give me indigestion in so many other ways. Your hair is the least of my worries.” A smile glinted in his eyes. “Try not to look in the mirror while you’re washing so I don’t have another heart attack.” He gave her an affectionate pat on the behind before he turned and left, closing the door behind him.

  A few minutes later, Julia was perched on a high stool at the kitchen counter, nibbling on cheese and chopping three colors of peppers for some Italian concoction Paul was whipping up. “I had no idea you were a gourmet cook,” she said.

  “It’s that or eat out every night.”

  “I’m pretty sure the single ladies in town would be delighted to bring dinner over for you.”

  He picked up a bottle of olive oil, flipped it end over end in the air, and caught it in his other hand before he twisted off the cap and poured it in a frying pan. “That happened a few times. I didn’t mind the food; it was the strings attached.”

  “I can imagine. Even if you’re not Rodney Loudermilk, you’re still pretty eligible.”

  He chuckled as he walked over to ruffle her hair before he scooped up the pepper bits. “The ones looking for a commitment weren’t the worst.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A couple of them were married.”

  “Woo-hoo!” Julia cackled. “They just wanted you for your body. Not that I blame them.”

  Paul didn’t comment as he scattered the vegetables in the sizzling oil and shook the pan.

  They bantered back and forth through the rest of the food preparation. Julia knew they were deliberately keeping it light and superficial, but every time they came near each other, there was always a touch. It kept the physical awareness between them simmering as hotly as his frying pan.

  Finally the chicken Marsala was ready, and they sat at a table topped with rich green and brown tiles. Julia had set out thick golden plates with borders that picked up the green of the table. Paul clearly cared about the aesthetics of his home, which pleased her.

  He shook out a deep-green napkin and laid it on his lap. “Mangia!” he commanded.

  “¡Buen provecho!” she said, repeating her family’s traditional comment as she dug into the deliciously scented food. Putting the first bite of chicken in her mouth, she closed her eyes at the burst of flavors on her tongue.

  “Hunger is the best sauce,” he said dryly. She noticed, however, that he was devouring his own food with gusto. After a few minutes of silence as they enjoyed their meal, he put his utensils down. “Your Spanish reminded me of the other bombshell you dropped th
is afternoon. Are you ready for your uncle?”

  Surprise made her swallow badly, and she had to gulp a few swallows of water before she could speak. She should have known Paul wouldn’t forget that. “I know exactly what I’m going to do with him.” She’d been considering it while she’d painted. “After lunch, I’m going to take him to the gallery to see how Claire will show my Night Mares, and then I’m going to take him to my riding lesson.”

  Paul gave a short bark of laughter. “I see you don’t intend to ease him into the situation.”

  “You can’t ease Carlos. He’s like a bull in a ring, and I’m not going to let him run over me this time.”

  “What about lunch? What do you plan to say to him then?”

  That was the one vulnerability in her scheme. She had to fire him before she could demonstrate her strength and independence. It would be worse if she tried to delay the lunch; he was very set on regular mealtimes. She cut another piece of chicken, put it in her mouth, chewed, and swallowed before she said, “I’ll have to break the news to him that he’s fired. He can’t come to the show thinking he’s still in charge of my career.”

  “Would you like me to join you? Maybe I can wave a red flag so he charges at me instead.”

  She dropped her fork and reached across the table to cover his hand with hers. “Always ready to come to my rescue.” However, she wasn’t going to risk Carlos revealing her secret in an effort to bring Paul around to his point of view. She let go of Paul’s hand and sat back. “I have to face him myself.”

  Paul pleated his napkin into an elaborate geometric shape and stood it up beside his plate. “Julia, you’re in a tough situation, and I’m an experienced mediator. Let me help you.”

  She wanted to accept his offer so badly, it made her ache. Her eyes brimmed as she balanced the comfort of having Paul by her side against the danger of Carlos spilling her secret. She imagined the look on Paul’s face when he heard about her epilepsy, and her decision was made. Shaking her head, she picked up her fork again. She wasn’t going to risk him pitying her. “It’s like riding Darkside. No one can do it for me.”