by Rin Daniels
He had it so bad. He always had.
So when she jerked hard on his hair, forcing his head back, it took him a moment to pull his brain out of his dick and realize she’d grabbed her purse. “Hang on,” she said, voice husky. “Wait a second, I need— Oh.” His thumb brushed against her nipple, hard even through the cup of her bra. “God. Lucas.”
She made him lose his mind.
Obviously.
He closed his eyes before he gave in to the urge to ignore her request, to shove her purse off the bed, strip her of that flouncy pink blouse so he could see what kind of underwear she’d gift-wrapped herself in this time.
Like it mattered. She could be wearing white cotton granny panties, and he’d lose himself in all the ways to make her wet underneath them.
Nadine rolled out from under him, her hair tousled and lips plump and wet from his kiss. It took everything he had not to go after her, lunge for her like a savage. Instead, he let his weight drop into the space she vacated, buried his face in the blanket and inhaled her scent. Lilies and Nadine.
Practically interchangeable to his messed-up senses.
He heard her rummage in her purse, sighed and rolled over on his side to prop his head up on his fist. Her face was flushed, her bottom lip between her teeth as she found whatever she was looking for. She was…Hell, everyone in Sulla Valley knew Nadine Sherwood was beautiful. He’d spent half his time in school fuming at any boy who got close to her, and then half his life wondering which asshole would be the one to crack her shell.
And she had a shell. He knew her too well. The wide-eyed innocence, the bimbo facade expected of every spoiled little rich girl, wasn’t Nadine.
He was lucky, and he knew it. He got to see under the mask—watch her laugh and cry and mouth off.
Watch her come part in his hands.
He was selfish.
Nadine shifted her weight to her knees, folded under her on the bed. A faint line formed between her eyebrows, which he recognized as nerves. “I feel like I need to put a disclaimer on this,” she said, hiding whatever she grabbed inside the folds of her big purse.
He raised an eyebrow. “Is it a kitten?”
“In my purse?” She scowled. “Don’t be horrible.”
“Why not? It’s practically an alternate dimension.”
“It’s not a kitten,” she shot back, but she laughed. It eased something inside him, something heavy and knotted. “No, I mean…” Her smile faded. “I got you something.”
Whatever gentleness had opened up inside him, it crystallized. Lucas sat up slowly. “Nadine—”
“I know,” she said hastily, but dragged out an envelope covered in red and purple glitter. The stuff winked as she thrust it at him. The attached curled ribbon bounced.
He didn’t know which bothered him more—the gift, whatever it was, or the fact it shed glitter all over his dark blue sheets.
“It’s a gift,” she said, stressing the word. “A, what do you call it, token of my affection.” She held her breath, but as he took the envelope gingerly with two fingers, she added hurriedly, “It’s not meant to be anything more than a selfish desire to go out and have fun with you doing what you love to do.”
The worry in her features only worried him more. “A gift, huh?”
“Just a gift,” she promised. “It’s something I want to give you because I want to make you happy.”
Making him happy wasn’t that hard. “Show up naked,” he began.
“There’s beer in my car,” Nadine finished, but her smile strained. Her gaze settled on the glittery thing she’d handed him, and he couldn’t help but brace himself as he flipped the envelope over.
A hot red lipstick kiss decorated the seal.
An eyebrow twitched. “Nice.”
“Yeah,” she replied, a little weakly. “Um.”
Before she could say anything else, he held the envelope over the side of the bed and cracked it open. They both watched glitter rain to the hardwood floor.
Nadine cleared her throat. “In hindsight, high school girls are dumb.”
He couldn’t help himself. He laughed, shaking his head as even more shiny decoration floated off the envelope. “I wouldn’t know. I never got one of these love letters.”
“What, really?”
He shook his head, peeling the flap open. “Girls in my crowd, they didn’t really go for the whole glitter thing. Not on a letter.”
“I thought you just didn’t tell me about them,” Nadine replied, and he looked over to find her scowling fiercely at him.
He paused, fingers around the thick paper inside. “What?”
Her eyes flashed. “If they weren’t into letters, what did they give you?”
“Mm.” Lucas pulled a bright red paper out of the envelope and, saying goodbye to any hope of not making a mess, let the envelope fall to the floor. “Experience.”
“Ugh.” She shifted again, the mattress bouncing beneath her. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“You weren’t complaining before.”
“Neither were you.”
And only one of them had experience. Lucas cleared his throat. “Trust me, baby. One of us needed experience.”
“I hate you so much right now.” She moved fast, draping herself over his back and making a grab for the folded paper. “Give that back, Lucas Bourdin.”
He twitched it out of her grasp, grabbing her reaching forearms and holding them at his chest with one hand. “Too late,” he began, unfolding the paper with one finger.
Nadine went still over his shoulders, her hair ghosting over his side. Her heart hammered against his back.
It echoed the sudden, painful beat of his. The surge of anger that flooded his brain.
He took a sharp breath.
Nadine’s arms tightened around him. “It’s a gift,” she repeated, her chin nestled into the curve of his shoulder. “You love cars, you love your car, and I love your car.” Her fingers curved around his throat, as if afraid he’d get up and leave her.
He wouldn’t.
He wasn’t sure he had the breath to stand.
She’d given him a ticket to the car show. A thousand dollars, gone. Just like that.
And what could he give her? A relationship built on things he couldn’t say?
An orgasm?
What did that make him?
“I’m…” Her breath eased out over his cheek. Wavered. “I’m asking you out on a date. And I want to be your showgirl.”
That got him. He turned his head. “My what?”
“You know.” Her eyes were so close, so blue—achingly clear. Pleading. One wrong word away from more tears, maybe. “Do my hair up in victory rolls like a pin-up and lounge by your Cobra. Your showgirl.”
He wouldn’t lie. In the end, he was just a dude, and that visual hit all his buttons.
Lucas closed his eyes.
She pressed her lips against the pulse at the side of his neck. Opened her mouth over it.
He shuddered.
“I’m not asking you to do anything weird,” she said against his skin. She sucked at the sensitive spot, drew it into her mouth until his hand clamped around the ticket, crinkling it, and his dick surged to sudden, desperate attention. When she let go, he gasped. “I’ve never been to one of these shows. You looked so happy when you talked about it, I just thought—”
“Okay.” He turned in the cage of her arms, dropping the ticket to the glitter-strewn floor, and pushed her back onto the bed. Her surprise shifted abruptly into sharply obvious arousal as he shoved a hand up her shirt, spanned her lush waist with a hand and pressed her down into the mattress. “I get it,” he said roughly. “I get it, so just…” Shut up.
She clutched at his head as he bent to kiss her stomach. Her muscles jumped under his caress, quivered as his lips mapped a path down to the waistband of her white capris.
God. She wore white. Even coming to a mechanic’s house, she wore white like she didn’t have to care about accidentally
smearing her designer clothing. Ruining it.
Wrenching the button loose, he eased the material over her hips.
Nearly went cross-eyed at the red lace she wore beneath. “Jesus, Nadine.” A gritty compliment. He couldn’t manage more than that. The sheer visual of thin red lace cupping her bare sex was enough to make him forget about the glitter he knelt in as he dragged her body to the edge of the bed.
Nadine yelped in surprise—a sound that transitioned into a groan as he gave up on her pants, leaving them hanging off one leg, and splayed her thighs wide. “Oh,” she managed. “I’m so glad you like it.”
“I’m not dead.”
She laughed. It shook as she pushed herself up on her hands, her features flushed and gaze hazy as she looked down at him. “Yeah, I… I wore them once, when I was first going to come over here and sex you up.”
He snorted, curving his hands over her hips. His fingers slid over her bare ass. She jerked. “Baby, you would have killed me.”
“That was the idea.”
He bent closer, fingers digging into her flesh. His breath eased out over the swatch of red lace. She jumped again, muscles in her lush thighs flexing. “So,” he said, his lips so close he could inhale her fragrance—lilies and arousal. Musky, heady, druggingly sweet. “What changed your mind?”
“My parents set up a blind date.”
That got him. He looked up, jaw hardening. “Did he see them?”
It didn’t occur to him what he’d asked until it was already out of his mouth. He winced.
Nadine laughed. But as she did, she grabbed his hair, fisted it in her hand and jerked his face up with way more aggression than he would have expected from her.
He was teaching her all kinds of things, wasn’t he?
And hot damn, did it feel good. She bent, fusing her mouth to his—kissed him for everything she was worth. He could taste it on her lips, feel it in the tension bracketing her body. She kissed him like he was the only thing in her world, and Lucas lost himself in it. In her. He thrust his tongue into her mouth, strained on his knees to meet her aggression with his own, fought for control of that kiss until she was the first to pull away, gasping.
“Idiot,” she managed between pants.
“Yeah.” It was all he could think to say as he tugged her closer, bent his head, and opened his mouth over the crimson lace she didn’t show that other guy.
Possessiveness filled him. Raw anger, violent need, and the smothering shroud of a lingering crush combined into something so very different—something he might have called love, if he could be sure he knew what that was. Love for a girl who didn’t need him. A girl who had everything she could ever want, including parents who loved her so much that they’d do anything for her.
Including make her date someone not like him.
“Fuck,” he breathed against her flesh, and she squirmed in his grasp. He dragged his tongue up the center of that lace, pressed hard against the gathered nerves of her clit and thrilled when she let out a long, low groan.
Mine.
For the moment.
Lucas licked at her, pulled the lace aside and thrust his tongue between the folds of her flesh until she writhed in his grasp, until her body went tight and her breath came in gasps. She called his name over and over—his name, in his bed. Her body responded beautifully, opening for him, wet and lush, and he couldn’t get enough. Ignoring the hard press of his erection, the insistent ache that he take her now and take her hard, he lapped at her flesh and slid two fingers into her sex.
Her muscles clamped around them.
Her voice broke. “Oh—”
“There,” he said against her, flicking his tongue over her clit as he withdrew his fingers slowly. “Like that.”
Nadine grabbed the sheets above her head, her thighs trembling as her back arched. “Ohmigod.”
“Uh huh.” Again, his fingers thrust inside her. One knee came up, foot braced against his shoulder as she grabbed his hair in both hands, a wordless cry on her lips.
Not there yet.
He licked her, worked his fingers in and out, reveled in every response. His body ached, burned to bury itself in her, but he patiently, deliberately, cruelly coaxed her alone. “Come for me,” he rasped, nearly a growl. “Come in my mouth.”
“Lucas,” she gasped, but he didn’t give her time for shock.
“Come,” he urged. He crooked his fingers, ensuring they dragged against her channel wall as he pulled the flesh surrounding her clitoris into his mouth.
Her hips rose off the bed. Her foot slid off his shoulder, and he wrapped an arm around her thigh to keep her steady as her orgasm tore her control away. He closed his eyes at her sobbing shout, braced her as she shuddered and strained against his mouth, and loved her.
She was exquisite. Perfect in every way.
She wasn’t the problem here.
Lucas sat back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’ll go,” he said as she struggled to regain her breath. Every word strained through the knot in his chest. “We’ll go together.”
She inhaled slowly. Let it out. Then tilted her head, her eyes wide and shining. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
Her mouth curved up, and she blinked rapidly—but arousal already made her gaze hazy, and he couldn’t tell if she was going to cry or just unsteady. He braced, but instead of tears, her smile flipped, and she slanted him a pouty little frown. “Tell me you aren’t done.”
Never. He got to his feet, ignoring the prickle of glitter sticking to his soles, and stripped off his jeans. Her eyes followed every motion with unconcealed enjoyment. She pushed the leg of her capris off, and wriggled out of her blouse.
The scarlet lace bra was the killing blow.
He pulled a condom out of the nightstand drawer, rolled it on. His hand curled around the base of his cock, fisted it hard as it pulsed in his grip.
Her eyes flared. “Holy whoa, that’s hot.”
He set a knee on the bed beside her leg, dragged his hand up to the tip of his erection, shuddering. “Ask me,” he growled.
Nadine licked her lips. “What?”
“Ask me how often I did this to myself while thinking about you.”
Her eyes darkened, ocean deep. “Want to compare numbers?”
“Oh, fuck,” he rasped, and gave up on taunting her. On baiting her. He grabbed her thighs, knelt between them and eased himself inside her, shuddering as she opened for him. Welcomed him.
He’d always known, in some part of him, that it would be like this. That he’d lose himself, drown inside her body. Inside her laughter until it broke to a rhythmic gasp, to sobs of pleasure.
His name.
This time, he’d make it last. He’d enjoy it as long as he possibly could.
Enjoy her.
He didn’t know what the hell would be in store at that show, didn’t know what he’d do, but damn it, going would make her happy. And no matter how uneasy he felt about the money she’d spent, about the gift she called it, her eyes had lit up like he’d given her everything she could ever want.
All because he said he’d go.
He didn’t have anything else to give her but that.
CHAPTER TEN
THE SUN BEAT down on Wakefield Park, reflected by the glare of so many classic cars lined up on the lawn. Heat shimmered off the beautiful paint—red, yellow, black, white, green, every classic color in every ratio of gloss. His palms were sweating, but it wasn’t all humidity. The arty memorial fountain sprayed in a tall, glittering umbrella, the perfect backdrop to Lucas’s own personal Christmas Day.
He couldn’t quash the uncomfortable knot in his gut.
Music played from speakers strung up across the makeshift lot, pouring vintage rock into the crystal clear sky. It was a beautiful autumn day—warm but not scorching, which meant no lack of flirty summer dresses and pin-up bustiers to admire.
Assuming he could tear his gaze from the cars he paced between.
A 1966 J
aguar XK. White body, soft top, all sleek curves and roadster glory.
The ubiquitous Eldorado, 1954 Cadillac in an Aztec red so bright, his mouth watered just looking at it.
A 1969 Chevrolet Camaro, with a Coupe body style and black racing stripes. The Houndstooth yellow interior could only be purchased with the Daytona yellow exterior paint job, and she was a beauty. Later, when the event popped the hoods, he’d come back to see if the 350 CC engine had numbers matching or if the owner had converted it over.
Sometimes, owners did that. It was a hell of a lot cheaper than going all vintage parts, especially matching serials. This event didn’t require one hundred percent vintage-appropriate for the second tier cars. Only the first tier, showcased on spinning platforms in the center of the field. His Cobra couldn’t enter that tier—price of admission aside. He’d done the best he could, but some vintage parts had been entirely out of his price range.
For now, it was all he could do to keep his tongue in his mouth and his eyes in his head. He loved his car, but Lucas saw nothing wrong with admiring the classic menu.
As he jammed his hands in the pockets of the new denim jeans he’d gone out of his way to buy—unstained, relaxed fit, and all those other things Nadine had insisted a man’s butt could stand to be flattered by—he surveyed the crowd. Food stands had been erected across the way, outside of the no-food zone the cars occupied, and a healthy attendance kept the vendors hopping. That didn’t thin the people meandering through the lanes at all.
And right on display, occupying the farthest lane but still in the game, his 1969 Ford Fairlane Cobra. It didn’t have the brightest red or the sleekest body, didn’t have racing stripes or chrome fixtures, but damn, she looked good out there.
Every time anyone approached, his insides cramped. His shoulders went tight, and he caught himself holding his breath until someone made some kind of signal—a nod, a smile, something that indicated they liked what they saw. It shouldn’t have bothered him as much as it did, shouldn’t have meant so much, but Lucas swallowed back his nerves and checked his phone for the fiftieth time in ten minutes.
