by Rin Daniels
Nadine caught his face between her hands. “I’m fine,” she said, breathy through her smile. He’d always imagined what she’d look like when he was balls-deep inside her.
His fantasies didn’t hold up.
This was better. Rose bloomed on her cheeks, spread across her chest. A fine sheen of sweat gave her sun-kissed skin the kind of glow he thought only happened on magazine covers.
She was beautiful.
He couldn’t do this. Not here. Lucas let go of her hair, fingers cramping with the wild need to hold on to her, to take her, mark her, imprint her body with him until she’d never forget what this—what her first time—had been like.
He was a freaking savage.
Lucas grabbed her wrists in each hand. “Wait.”
Her smile strained. The first whisper of hurt filled her eyes. “Lucas, it’s okay—”
“No,” he growled over her. His fingers tightened. “Shut up for a second.”
Her eyes narrowed. The muscles wrapped around his dick clamped harder.
He sucked in a harsh breath. Claws of near-violent want raked over his fragile control.
When her smile inched up at the corner, he gave up.
Lucas didn’t ask. He didn’t dare. Every sense he possessed had tunneled down into narrow-minded focus—to that spot where he buried his flesh in hers—and it was all he could do to cling to any thread of rational thought.
Only one remained.
She deserved better.
But she’d chosen him, and Lucas didn’t know why, but he’d be damned if he let it go like this.
He pulled her upright, teeth clenched as every motion only slid her along his aching shaft. His knees were starting to go numb—God, he wanted her. All of her. Right now.
But not right here.
“Lucas?”
“Hang on,” he managed, and pulled her into his arms. Her thighs wrapped around his waist, opening her for him—thrusting him deeply inside her and nearly taking the ground out from under him. His arm clamped around the small of her back as he slid the other hand into her hair. “Just hold on. We’re not doing this here.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not, damn it,” he growled, and forced himself, step by torturous step, to carry her to the bedroom.
To his bed. Where he could take his time. Make her feel right from start to finish.
She wrapped herself around him, her nails digging into his shoulders. “You’re strong,” she whispered into his ear. Then she set her teeth delicately against his earlobe and bit.
Hard.
He sagged against the doorframe as pleasure, pain, and desperation sparked in his vision. “Fuck, Nadine.”
“That’s the idea—Oh,” she gasped as he fell with her to his unmade med. He never bothered making it. He barely had the presence of mind to let her drag a pillow beneath her head before he arched into her, thrust himself hard and slick into her sex with a shaking groan.
Nadine’s palms flattened on his back, holding him close. “Yes,” she echoed, eyes fluttering closed. The color on her cheeks, on her chest, deepened. “God, you feel good.”
She didn’t know the half of it.
Good didn’t cover it. He felt savage and wild, he felt hungry and desperate.
He felt like an outsider sampling the ambrosia of gods.
God, he felt like fucking poet and all he’d done was slide his cock inside her body, watched her respond beneath him.
Mazel tov, she’d said.
Like it didn’t matter.
With rough, clumsy fingers, Lucas tugged one cup of her inanely sexy bra down, spilling her breast free. Her nails scored into his back as he dropped his tongue to her nipple. As he sucked the dusky peak into his mouth, laved it with his tongue. Her knees lifted higher against him, tilted her hips so that he surged deeper inside her. Every thrust ate away at the foundation of his life, of his sanity.
Every ripple of her muscles around his dick stripped away another layer of excuses.
She let him go to wrap her hands around the headboard, her head thrown back and color staining her throat. “Lucas,” she gasped. “Ohmigod. There. There,” she sobbed, her body straining to meet his, her thighs soft and smooth at his sides. Her waxed skin was just as soft. Just as smooth.
Twice as fatal.
Bracing his weight on both arms, he set his teeth and looked down at her splayed out beneath him. Nadine Sherwood had always been as pretty as an angel. Her laughter had come easy, her wide blue eyes the downfall of anyone stupid enough to fall in them.
Lucas knew that she’d started hanging out with him because he hadn’t.
He knew that she was more manipulative than everyone thought, that she knew exactly what sort of weapon her appearance was.
He knew she’d occasionally aimed that weapon at him.
But he had never imagined that he would fall this hard. That he would give in this much. Not like this.
Sweat slicked his back, the tangled ball of frustration and need dissolved into a different kind of pressure entirely. A slick one, a coiling intensity that grabbed him by the balls and demanded he push harder, take more, until his name dissolved on her lips and all she could do was gasp for air.
Her fingers whitened on his headboard. The bed springs creaked in time with each thrust, and then he couldn’t even hear that as white noise filled his ears and his world became nothing but slick flesh and Nadine’s cries—and the feel of her orgasm as it tightened her body, twisted her hips against his and squeezed every last bit of control from him.
He came so suddenly, so intensely, that all he could do was grab fistfuls of the sheet on either side of her head, hold on as his body locked down, jerked against her. Everything went white. Everything went numb.
Except the feel of her against him.
The rapid beat of her heart.
Her voice. “Lucas.”
There was a wealth of wonder in his name.
He collapsed over her, just barely cognizant enough to brace the bulk of his weight on his forearms. His face buried into the sweaty curve of her neck as he struggled to remember how to breathe.
Shaking fingers slid into his hair.
Yeah. He was so fucked.
CHAPTER FIVE
SHE HADN’T BLED all that much. A little bit of discoloration, but that was hardly enough reason for Lucas to go white when he stripped the condom off. Lips sealing into a tight line, he adjusted his jeans back over his hips—wow, he hadn’t even taken them off, and she didn’t notice until just now—and left the room.
Nadine didn’t know whether to pull her bra back into position or just take it off entirely. What was the usual program, here? Was she supposed to get up, get dressed, say ‘thanks for the fun!’ and head off?
Uncertainty battered at the full-body lethargy claiming her. The pleasure Lucas had brought her to was unlike anything she’d expected. A little rougher, a little harder.
A lot perfect.
Since wearing a bra with the cup pulled down was uncomfortable, she adjusted it back into place. Was her underwear somewhere on the floor?
In the kitchen?
Would it be acceptable to wander half-naked through Lucas’s house to get it?
Before she could decide which avenue to take—whether she should be hurt, confused, or simply indulge in the afterglow of the moment—Lucas came back. A wash cloth hung from his hand.
Without saying a word, he sat on the side of the bed and curved his free hand over her naked thigh. “Come here.”
Nadine shivered. “I, uh…” Embarrassment warred with the embers of her post-coital glow. “I can shower.”
“Let me,” he countered, voice a husky demand.
Slowly, guided by the slide of his palm up her thigh, she opened her legs for him.
The air hissed out from between her teeth as he pressed the warm, rough folds of the washcloth against her sensitive sex. Her hips twitched.
Lucas watched in silence, his tawny eyes darker than
usual.
Sign of his arousal, maybe?
It killed her that she didn’t know this side of him.
Even as it excited her to learn.
She let her legs open wider. Bared her waxed flesh to him. “More,” she whispered.
He gave her more, but not the way she hoped. Instead of his fingers, he dragged the cloth over her skin. Eased it into her folds, wiping away the last signs of her virginity.
Good bye, and good riddance.
Nadine leaned back against his pillows, lacing her arms lazily over her head. She could get used to this. Get used to the way Lucas's face tightened as the muscles of her stomach clenched and jumped, or the way the pulse at the base of his throat hammered when a gasp she couldn’t contain escaped her.
She closed her eyes, floating on a sea of pure, physical bliss.
The washcloth eased from her skin. The warmth of Lucas’s body bent over her, and she held her breath, waiting for a kiss. Waiting for his touch.
It came, but it wasn’t what she expected.
A fingertip touched her lower lip. “We should talk.”
Her eyes flew open. “Why?”
He hovered over her, cloth thrown over his shoulder like he absently did with his workout towels and mechanic rags, arm braced across her body and anchored by her hip. His fingertip smoothed over her lip, tracing the contours like he couldn’t get enough.
She snaked out her tongue to lick it.
Lucas swallowed hard. “I don’t…” She dipped her chin to take the tip of his finger into her mouth. Smoothed her tongue over the callused skin. His breath shuddered. “What is…”
She caught his wrist, held it as she let go of his finger to say, “Too much thinking, Lucas Bourdin. What’s wrong with taking this a day at time?” Just day by day, until one day, he’d wake up and realize he loved her.
Nadine could play the long game. She’d waited for seven years. What was a few more weeks?
Or days?
The fingers of the hand she held loosely framed her throat. A possessive bracket she didn’t think he realized he did.
Every part of her thrilled at it.
“Day by day, huh?” he asked, but he didn’t seem happy.
Did she get it wrong? Nadine’s warm glow faded to something sick. Scared. “Is that okay?”
The silence in the room echoed with her pulse.
She almost laughed, but it hurt too much. “At least wait until a girl’s dressed before you break her heart,” she joked, but she didn’t feel it. The amusement she forced into her voice didn’t cushion her fall. Easing Lucas’s hand away from her, she leveraged herself to a sitting position, gaze flicking to the floor.
Where were her clothes?
The kitchen?
Great. They might be soaked in beer.
Lucas caught the side of her neck in one hand, thumb easing up by her ear. “Hey.”
“It’s fine,” she said, horrified when her voice hitched. “I’ll just—”
His grip tightened. It forced her head to turn, her gaze to meet his again—and what she saw stole what was left of her will.
Desperation. Uncertainty.
Raw hunger.
He caught her face between both hands. Bent until his forehead bumped hers. “Jesus Christ, you scare me,” he said hoarsely.
She stared at the thick line of his dark lashes, fanned closed against his cheeks. “I— I’m sorry?”
“Don’t.” An order. Hell, a plea. “Don’t ever be sorry for this. Fuck, Nadine, if you only knew.”
“I have a pretty good idea,” she whispered. She lifted her fingertips to the skin over his heart. “We’re cool?”
“No.” Her heart kicked, but as he tilted her face, as his mouth eased closer to hers, he whispered, “Cool is the last thing this is.” He kissed her as if to prove it; as if to remind them both exactly what kind of blistering heat rose to the surface when they touched.
Nadine’s hand flattened on his chest. His heartbeat slammed against her palm, as hard and heavy and fast as hers. He deepened the kiss, swept his tongue into her mouth to tangle with hers, to claim her again with his mouth as thoroughly as he’d claimed her with his body.
She moaned when he pulled back.
Lucas tugged the cloth from his shoulder, let it fall to the scuffed up wood flooring. “You busy tonight?”
She couldn’t help herself. She grinned, holding out her arms as he finally—oh, finally—stripped off his jeans. His body was perfection, lean muscle in sculpted definition. And he was hard again, his cock standing proud and straight.
“Yup,“ she drawled. “I’ve got dinner plans.”
“What time?” He braced a knee on the bed.
Nadine wrapped her hand around his thick erection. His back went rigid, breath caught. “Now,” she said, easing herself closer to him. “Right now.”
“Wait, don’t—”
No way. Nadine ignored his strangled command, flicking her tongue out over the head of his cock. It leapt in her hand; she swore it grew harder. Before he could force her away, move, do anything to stop her, she opened her lips and took as much of him as she could into her mouth.
The string of words he groaned were filthy. Violent.
Amazing.
She bent on the mattress, wrapped her tongue around the underside of his shaft as her fist stroked the base, and thrilled when Lucas flattened a hand on the small of her back. Her sex throbbed as his hips jerked, but he didn’t thrust into her face—he held himself back, legs rigid, breath panting.
She’d practiced a little. It was different for toys. Nadine relaxed her throat as much as possible, took a breath through her nose, and took him farther into her mouth. Deeper.
“Holy fucking mother of—” Lucas’s surprised curse ended on a guttural groan as he all but bent over her, one hand on her back, one braced on the bed by her knee. His body trembled. “Fuck,” he gasped. “Fuck. Nadine.”
Her back curved under his hand. Her body twisted, her sex warmed; she could feel it respond to the taste of him on her tongue, a little salty, a little musky. She pulled back, heard him suck in a relieved breath, then took him into her throat again. It hurt a little, but that was nothing compared to the vicious thrill of arousal as he shuddered in her mouth, as his voice graveled.
“Stop,” he gasped. “God, baby, stop, I’m going to—”
She didn’t stop. Instead, she slipped her fingers between her legs to rub her clit. Stroked herself as she sucked and licked him, swallowed his flesh and eased off again, until all he could do was give in to her.
Give in to the things she’d always wanted to do.
He straightened, but only to capture her hair in both fists. He groaned in time with her mouth, panted for her the way she’d dreamed he would.
Reveling in her power, in her ability to make Lucas fold like a house of cards just with her mouth, Nadine hummed as she sucked him off, as her tongue slid over his shaft, as he lost all control and his hips thrust his cock harder between her lips.
As he came inside her mouth.
* * *
“Ho. Ly. Shit.”
Nadine grinned at Kat’s eloquent sum-up of her evening. She shut the car as quietly as she could, carrying her slightly beer-stained shoes in one hand, and transferred the phone to her other ear. “I know,” she said, voice as soft as possible. “It was pretty much the best night ever.”
Her friend’s voice all but vibrated with excitement. “So the mechanic tuned your engine, is what you’re saying?”
Nadine smothered a giggle.
The clock on her phone said it was just after seven, which was later than she’d hoped to get home but not so late that her parents weren’t likely to be in. Or maybe just her mom would be home.
Either way, she needed to go through the attached door and bypass the kitchen without anyone noticing.
“Is this where I ask you to tell me all the dirty bits?” Kat added, smug on the line.
“Not without you finally
sharing yours,” she retorted, laughing. “I’m still dying to know if your man’s got ballgags in his closet.”
Her friend’s peals of laughter forced Nadine to muffle the phone against her shoulder as she eased the door into the mud room open.
She’d never known why her mom called it a mud room. They’d never tracked mud through it, and the open foyer was decorated like a separate breakfast nook with maritime flair.
“Tell you what,” Kat offered. “You tell me if your mechanic ever spreads you over a hot car like one of those rockabilly pinups and I’ll tell you about the ballgags.”
“You mean he has them?” Nadine whispered, but cut into her friend’s laughter with a whispered, “Shh. I’m trying to get inside.”
“Mmhm,” Kat hummed, a knowing sound. “Baby’s first Walk of Shame. I’m so proud.”
Nadine swallowed down her giggles as she hesitated just outside the hall that connected the nook to the rest of the house. On the other side of the wall, the kitchen was silent. Daylight streamed through the open windows, which suggested that her mom, at least, was awake.
Kat waited quietly on the line. Occasionally, a slurp punctuated the silence—coffee.
Nadine could go for more coffee right about now. She was tired, but happy. Her body ached in ways she’d only ever associated with a good work out.
And in places no workout had ever touched.
The idea of sleeping in ’til after noon had seemed brilliant, but Lucas had woken her up with a cup of coffee and a none-too-subtle suggestion that he had work to do, and she had parents to appease.
And then he’d kissed her breathless and told her to lock up behind her.
Not the worst morning-after ever, she figured. He did have work, after all. She’d never really understood what his hours were, but she got enough to know he was a sort of mechanic labor for hire. Sometimes he helped out at the auto shop near his place.
She figured he had clients like her, too, who trusted him over the shops.
Well, almost like her.
Nadine inched her way into the hall, hesitated outside the kitchen. Holding her breath, she bent to peer inside.
Empty.
Thank God.
