Don't Let Me Go

by Rin Daniels

  Although now that she thought about, maybe the direct method with him would work, too. Show up naked, bring beer?

  Kat caught her checking her phone. “Expecting a call from tall, dark and sexy?” she teased.

  “Maybe.” Nadine wrinkled her nose. “Is it proper etiquette to text or call the day after?”

  “For you or him?”

  “Yes?”

  Her friend chuckled, reaching across the small table to cover Nadine’s phone with her hand. “Stop worrying. From what you told me, the mechanic doesn’t sound like the type to hit it and quit it.”

  “So.” Nadine widened her eyes in full-blown innocence. “I shouldn’t text him and thank him for the earth-shattering orgasm?”

  “Depends. How’s his ego?”

  She laughed, shaking her head. “Needs no help from me.”

  “Yeah, no. Don’t do that.” Kat checked her own phone, then glanced back with a wicked glint in her eye. “Give him a day to settle. Then just show up with beer like you always do.”

  Nadine sighed. “It’s like you know me,” she said again.

  “Not as well as he does.”

  She waggled her eyebrows, slurping the margarita through her straw again. With the plastic between her teeth, she said suggestively, “Anytime you want to show me your boyfriend’s billionaire domination dungeon…”

  Kat dissolved into laughter.

  She needed this. Needed Kat, and the drinks, and the ambience.

  But she couldn’t completely relax.

  Lucas hadn’t called. Hadn’t texted. She didn’t even know what to expect from him, post-seduction. Was he the type?

  Or did he send her off this morning thinking he’d made the worst mistake of his life?

  The thought made her sick.

  “One more round?” Kat asked, taking a look at her face.

  Nadine smiled sheepishly. “Yeah.”

  “Lunchtime margaritas are the best.” Kat drank the rest of hers down. “We’ll have all the fun, and your mechanic will eventually call you because you’re a sex goddess.”

  “At least if he never calls me,” Nadine said lightly, “I’m not a virgin anymore.”

  Kat snorted. “If he doesn’t call you, he’s completely brain dead.”

  Elbow on the table, Nadine cupped her chin in hand. “Yeah,” she said with a sigh. “He usually is.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  TWO DAYS PASSED without a single text from Nadine, and Lucas didn’t know what pissed him off more—the fact she hadn’t contacted him, or the fact he didn’t try to contact her. He couldn’t shake the nagging voice telling him he was doing it wrong.

  To be fair¸ here, she’d always texted him. He couldn’t remember a day when she didn’t. Even if it was just a ‘good morning’, or a random cellphone picture of a smiley face on a stop sign, or whatever. She was always part of his life.

  Then he’d screwed her.

  And she was gone.

  Hard rock pounded through the garage, frenetic drums and electric guitar a wild counterpoint to the frustration in his head. It slammed like a fist through his chest.

  Usually, the 428-cubic-inch V-8 and some solid tunes were all it took to drown his irritations. No matter what else was going on, no matter what disquiet slipped through his world, he could leave it at the door of his garage.

  Not today.

  Today, the Cobra Jet engine wasn’t enough to tear his mind away from the memory of Nadine Sherwood, sprawled on his bed wearing a scrap of something that should have been outlawed. The violent music wasn’t enough to keep his body from clenching in instinctive reaction, to keep his dick from a permanent semi-salute. All. Freaking. Day.

  The hex wrench he should have been paying attention to slipped off a bolt, and Lucas swore as he jerked his hand back. Overcompensating sent the wrench into the knuckles of his other hand, a searing shockwave through his fingers. A string of curses didn’t make his hand feel any better. Or distract his obsessive imagination.

  Nadine Sherwood. The closest thing to a best friend he’d ever had.

  And up until two days ago, a virgin.

  Lucas dropped the wrench to the cement before he threw it. It clanged, the sound shearing through the garage in battered echoes

  “Shit,” he hissed between clenched teeth. He didn’t have the patience for this.

  “Well, you aren’t dead.”

  Christ. Her voice came out of the ragged edge of angry music and wrapped like a fist around his instantaneously rock-hard cock. All the damn thing wanted was an opportunity.

  Nadine strolled through his side door with all the confidence years of familiarity had given her, and it was all he could do not to snarl his frustration at her. This wasn’t her fault. Lucas was the idiot. He was the one who suffered a crippling moment of weakness, his first in years.

  He was the one who’d given in.

  And she had the nerve to walk in like nothing had changed, wearing some kind of sun dress that made her look fresh and clean and sunny.

  Like she hadn’t gone home to lie to her parents.

  He wasn’t stupid. He knew exactly what kind of people they were; exactly how they’d react if they ever found out their darling daughter was slumming around with trash like him.

  The worst part was that they were right. Only trash lied to the girl they were in love with.

  He snatched the towel from his shoulder to scrub angrily at his hands. Because he couldn’t say anything without sounding like an asshole, he kept his mouth shut.

  She blew out a breath, lacing her hands behind her back. Her flouncy dress, one of those in-between shades of purple, hugged her breasts and swung in flirty folds around her bare thighs. Her pose thrust her cleavage into view, and damn, but he noticed. The shape of her breasts, soft and warm. The taste. Oh, yeah, he remembered.

  “Did you get into a fight with a bear?” she asked, blue eyes big and wide and not half so innocent as she portrayed.

  Lucas threw the stained towel over the hood of his car. “Don’t needle me, Nadine.”

  Her lashes flickered. “Needle you?” She looked over the garage with overly emphasized care, the long ponytail of her hair bouncing around her shoulders. “I’m not needling you. I thought maybe you’d lost off your fingers in a tragic engine accident. That would explain why you didn’t call me.”

  “When do I ever call you?”

  As soon as the curt words slipped out, Lucas regretted them. Her beautiful mouth twitched—a wince, he knew. The kind she didn’t want him to see.

  She smoothed a hand down the draped fabric of her dress, flattening it against her thigh. “That’s…true.”

  Shit. Way to go, Lucas. Way to completely burn it all to the ground.

  He glared down at his clenched fists. Grease lingered under his nails, gathered in the creases of his fingers. His tank top was smeared with it, his jeans stained beyond washing. He looked exactly like what he was. Dirty. That was it, right? That’s what it came down to.

  Nadine was clean and wholesome, from a good family, with parents who loved her.

  He came from dirty money. Worked a dirty job. Lived in a dirty part of town.

  And he couldn’t tell her about any of it.

  She deserved better.

  His body disagreed.

  “Damn,” he muttered, and jammed one of his hands through his hair. “Look, I’m sorry.”

  She tipped her head, weight shifting on her sky-high heels. Goddamn, he wished she’d stop wearing those kinds of shoes around him. They did impossible things to her legs.

  Legs he’d had wrapped around his waist once already.

  “For?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. Her arms folded under her breasts, and Lucas wanted to tuck a towel over her shoulders to cover her from the neck down. His heart couldn’t handle the things she did to him.

  Right now, all he could think about was peeling that dress to her waist, pulling it up over whatever impossible panties she’d put on this time and burying himself in
her all over again.

  Mixed freaking signals.

  He managed an inarticulate sound and strode for the side door.

  She followed him in. Her heels clicked on the linoleum. “Be honest, Lucas,” she said to his back. He grabbed the refrigerator door, jerked it open. Glass clinked and clattered. “Are you mad about the other day?”

  “Mad is not the word,” he muttered, staring at the beer he didn’t want and couldn’t see.

  “Yeah.” The sound of her shoes stopped. “But I figured I’d wait on the name-calling until I got more details.”

  His fingers cramped on the refrigerator door handle. “Come on, Nadine.”

  “Just trying to see if I should call a dick a dick.” Her tone was breezy, but he’d known her too long. It wavered. Just a breath.

  Just enough.

  His heart bled right into his conscience.

  He was a dick. “At least now you know.”

  She sucked in a breath. “What— You—” It cracked. “What the hell, Lucas?”

  The hurt he heard in her voice killed him.

  “I thought you said not to regret this,” she shot at his back.

  He flinched. “That’s not—”

  “I thought,” she said over him, “you said I was I was beautiful. Was that just your penis talking through your face?”

  “Christ,” he groaned, turning on her. The door slammed shut in his wake, rattling the glass inside.

  He didn’t get a chance to say what he’d hoped to say—the half-formed thought died a grisly death in his brain, burned to ash by the sheer image of her.

  She didn’t have to get naked. Didn’t have to dress up. She didn’t have to do her make-up, all bright and pretty, or put on fuck-me heels, or anything. All she had to do was settle those sky blue eyes on him. Take a breath. Smile.

  All she had to do was exist and he wanted her.

  Those years he’d spent spilling himself into his own hand over her, all those fantasies, and he was the idiot who wanted her to choose somebody better.

  He was the idiot who wanted bury his frustrations in his own head.

  And instead, he reached for her. Couldn’t stop his ugly, grease-stained fingers from wrapping around her nape.

  Her eyes widened. Altered to a shimmering, fragile blue—an ocean of mysteries he’d never figure out. Her tongue slipped out to wet her bottom lip, and Lucas almost groaned at the ache that welled inside him. She didn’t resist his tug, but her hand splayed on his chest. Held him that far away. “For the record,” she said, voice gone husky, “I am not some barfly you can push and pull around.”

  Lucas’s laugh bit. “I know.”

  She smelled like soap and lilies. Her usual lotion. She’d worn it for years, or some variation. When they were younger, she’d come to hang out in his garage as he tinkered with the rusted old frame his dad had left behind. After she left again, he’d sit where she had and inhale until he couldn’t smell her fragrance anymore.

  He’d always had it bad.

  And here she was, in the flesh. Right in front of him.

  Nadine caught his jaw in one smooth hand. Her thumb grazed the five o’clock shadow at his cheek. “I know exactly what I’m doing. Who I’m doing.” The hand on his shirt slipped under the hem, and he sucked in a breath as her palm slid up his bare skin. “Can we just…” Her nails skimmed across his abs. He locked his teeth around a groan. “Day by day it?”

  Those words again.

  What did he have to do to prove that he’d been doing exactly that for years?

  “I mean,” she continued, mapping out the skin of his side with blisteringly hot fingers, “obviously, my name-calling isn’t all that creative. I’m a little preoccupied with your manly bits.”

  This time, it was a laugh he choked on. “You—” What? What could he possibly say?

  Her gaze searched his, lush mouth curved up in a vague half-smile. But the pink tinge to her cheeks was all too familiar. The pulse at the base of her throat hammered wildly. He could see it fluttering against her smooth, sun-kissed skin. Feel it in the tension vibrating beneath his hand.

  She wanted him to kiss her. He could read it in the way her breath hitched in her chest. The way her lips softened, the way her body tilted ever so faintly towards him.

  A step, half a step, and he’d seal the distance between them. Bend to take her lips, to taste her again. Real. Not a fantasy, but alive and warm and everything he wasn’t supposed to want.

  He was supposed to protect her from himself.

  So why was it so hard to step away?

  * * *

  Violence probably wouldn’t help.

  Nadine didn’t know what exactly kept Lucas from jumping her bones, but she didn’t have the patience for it. She was done waiting around. Punching him would probably snap whatever weird thread had seized him, but she wasn’t so sure it’d accomplish anything else.

  Besides, he could take her. She had a mean right hook, but he’d taught it to her.

  Her palm edged around his back, smoothed over his skin. Warm. His body was warm and hard and perfect in her hand, and it was about time he got the fact that they were perfect together.

  So she sealed the distance herself. Felt him stiffen in defense, grinned when his hand tightened on the nape of her neck. Electricity zinged under his grip, coiled into her fluttering stomach. “Kiss me, Lucas.”

  His brown eyes lit, even as his mouth twisted.

  Nadine pressed herself against him, eased her soft curves against his harder body. So good. Even that much, separated by their clothing, sent thrills of anticipation, of hunger, through her. So right. Her hand mapped the strong lines of his back, nails digging in near his spine. His nostrils flared, he hissed an indrawn breath.

  “Don’t you want me?” she asked, tilting her head to peek up at him through her lashes.

  Dirty play, and she knew it.

  So did he.

  Lucas caught her wrist, tugged her hand out from under his shirt. “Why is it so easy for you?” he asked harshly.

  She almost laughed, but thought he’d be offended if she did. Instead, she shrugged. “You think this is easy?” She tugged at his grip.

  His fingers tightened. “Seems like it.”

  “Oh.” It did, huh? Her free hand fisted at her side. “What part, exactly, seems easy to you?” When he only stared down at her, his eyes an awful mix of hunger and flinty resolve, her jaw thrust out. “Me? Am I too easy for you, Lucas?”

  “Oh, man.” He stepped back, but didn’t let her go. The fingers of his free hand thrust into his hair. “What the hell am I supposed to say? ‘Yes’ makes me an asshole—”

  “Too late,” she replied lightly.

  The grip around her wrist pinched. “And ‘no’ suggests I don’t want this,” he finished, a rough confession.

  A fragile flicker of hope curled to life in her chest. Nadine’s eyes widened.

  Her fingers curled into the front of his grease-stained tank top. “Do you?” It shook.

  He closed his eyes. “Come on, Nadine. You were a virgin, for Christ’s sake.”

  “So?”

  “So?” He repeated it like she’d lost her mind. When his eyes opened again, his gaze flicked behind her. “I took you on the counter. Like fast food!”

  Fast food?

  She shouldn’t have laughed this time, either, but she couldn’t help it. It bubbled out of her, swelled up from that little ember of hope until she had no choice but to back up half a step, hang onto his shirt and let it all loose. She laughed so hard, her sides ached, her eyes watered.

  He’d given her multiple orgasms, and he was hung-up over where he’d done it?

  God, he pissed her off sometimes.

  And she loved him anyway.

  She laughed until all the nerves were gone.

  When she looked up, Lucas's anger had softened. He stared back at her with a wry, sexy half-curve to his lips, his eyes filled with humor—and with that self-deprecation she was really st
arting to dislike.

  His shirt collar, pulled askew by her helpless grip, grazed over one flat nipple, and her laughter died.

  Slowly, she took a deep breath. Let it out on a husky sigh. “I think I already told you to stop being so noble.” She tugged on his shirt, pulled his collar a fraction more to the side.

  His nipple eased out. Darker against his golden skin.

  Her mouth went dry. Her heart skipped a beat.

  Lucas made a sound deep in the back of his throat, something raw and maybe angry again—or maybe hungry. Finally.

  Words weren’t working so well. Okay, fine. She could deal with that. Words sucked, anyway.

  Nadine bent to press her lips against his skin. He jerked, but he didn’t step back. Her tongue darted out to taste him, flicked over the small bead of his nipple. It hardened underneath her lips.

  One hand caught the back of her neck, fingers digging in to the tender muscles there. The word he muttered could have been anything, but his tone—dark, raspy—said he liked what she was doing.

  Probably didn’t want to.

  She smiled against his skin and dragged her tongue over his nipple again, set her teeth gently around it as her nails scored across his abs.

  He jumped. “Fuck,” he breathed.

  “Okay.” She tipped her head up. “If you insis—”

  He was done taking her crap. Lucas’s fingers slid up to the back of her head, jerked her up onto her tip-toes, heels off the floor, to meet his mouth in the kind of kiss good girls weren’t supposed to know about.

  Every inch of her thrilled as his lips pressed against hers, as his tongue seamed her lower lip. She gasped, and his tongue slid into her open mouth. Delved deeply to taste her, to taunt her. Her tongue flicked against his, his breath eased out on a shuddering sigh she echoed.

  He slipped a hand into the front of her dress. His fingers curved around her breast, squeezed the sensitive flesh until fiery tendrils of arousal burned all the way through her. The empty ache between her legs increased, pulsed with every tweak of his fingers around her nipple. She shuddered. “Ohmigod,” she gasped when he let her come up for air. Her vision fuzzed from the force of her arousal.