by Leslie Kelly
“Okay, you win.”
Pressing a kiss on her lips, he let her slide down his body, loving the instant when her parted legs hugged his hips and they came to within a few layers of fabric of ultimate connection. She ground against him, and he thrust back, his cock painfully hard and desperately in need of hot, wet woman.
Needing another taste before they completed the walk home, he carried her over to the nearest tree and leaned her against it. Bending his face to hers, he kissed her hungrily, exploring the soft, wonderful places in her mouth. Their bodies ground together, mimicking the heated act they’d be completing if not for their clothing.
“I want in,” he groaned.
“And I want you in,” she whimpered. “Stupid tights.”
“They’re awesome tights. But right now I’d like to rip them with my teeth.”
She hissed into his mouth, bucking a little as she envisioned it. “Why don’t you just use your hands instead?”
He stared down at her, wondering what she meant, then getting it. He couldn’t decide at first if she was serious. They were not in a brightly lit vestibule anymore, they were half hidden in the shadows of a tree. But still....
“Right here? Right now?”
“Yes,” she begged, arching harder against him. “Just a taste, Chaz. Give me something to tide me over for another few blocks.”
He reached between her heated thighs, felt the dampness of her crotch and dug his fingers into the weave of the tights, easily pulling them apart. Sighing with relief, with masculine satisfaction, he fingered her, finding her every bit as wet as she’d been before.
Letting most of her weight rest against the tree, he quickly unfastened his pants. His cock sprang hot and hard into his hand. It brushed against her thigh, and she moaned and tightened her legs around him, pulling him close to her heat.
“Please, Chaz,” she begged, writhing, thrusting her hips forward to take what he wasn’t yet giving her.
It was insane. They were outside on a public street, in one of the biggest cities in the country. But there was something dark and elemental about the night. Maybe it was the late hour. Maybe it was because of the date on the calendar—Halloween night. Maybe it was the bright moon or the long, narrow clouds drifting across the inky sky or the sense of surreal, all-encompassing attraction he’d felt from the moment he’d laid eyes on her. Something just wouldn’t let him stop without grabbing this hedonistic, dangerous moment of sin.
He began to slip into her, his cock inching in, gobbled by her silky, wet flesh. From the very first moment of possession, he was shaken by the primitive desire to pour himself into her. He wanted to make a permanent place for himself inside her body, to bury himself so deeply she would never remember what it felt like before he’d taken her.
He’d pushed no more than an inch, barely even the head of his dick, into her, getting nothing but a taste of her sweet tightness, when a car came by, slowing and beeping as someone cat-called out the window.
“Fuck,” he groaned, immediately pulling away, lowering her to stand, and tugging her skirt down into place. He quickly spun around, his back toward the street, blocking her from view, and trying to fix jeans that were suddenly way too tight.
“Oh, God, just shoot me now,” she groaned.
He glared over his shoulder at the occupants of the offending vehicle, hidden within shadows behind closed windows. The car quickly sped up and tore off down the street with another honk of the horn and a squeal of tires.
“They’re gone.”
“Did you get that tag number? I’m going to put a hit out on them,” she said, sounding tortured by sensual need.
Although it physically pained him, he managed to get his clothes around his steel-hard cock, shoving it behind his seam as he heaved in deep breaths of cold night air.
“It’s not much farther to my house,” he said, swallowing in an attempt to calm himself down. His heart was racing, his blood coursing hotly through his veins. If he closed his eyes, he could almost feel her still, and it was easy to imagine what it would be like to sink all the way into her and be wrapped in all that silky warmth. “Can you run in those damn shoes?”
“I’ll crawl if I have to,” she said, her vehemence both cute and flattering. “And FYI, if you’d like to revisit that particular position as soon as we’re behind closed doors, I definitely won’t complain,” she said sounding breathless.
“You’ve got a deal.”
Both anticipating that moment now more than ever, they returned to the sidewalk, walking together, hip-to-hip, thigh brushing thigh. He slid an arm around her waist, tugging her close, and she pressed her cheek against his shoulder, her head fitting there just perfectly. They didn’t run, but there was purpose in their strides, a hunger for what would come when they reached their destination.
A chime suddenly interrupted the quiet night. “Crap, let me turn this off.” She glanced into her purse and retrieved her phone, quickly scanning the message on the screen.
“Problem?”
Sighing, she asked, “Are you going to rape me, then murder me and make a lampshade out of my skin?”
He almost tripped over his own feet, coming to a stop and spinning to face her. “Excuse me?”
“My friend Viv, from back at the bar. She finally stopped dirty-dancing with an entire football team and realized I was gone. Now she’s harassing me for leaving with you, as if you’re Hannibal Lecter’s long-lost twin.”
“Please assure her that I’m not a rapist, or a killer, or an interior decorator.”
It took her less than a second, then her lips twitched. “Ha. Very funny. So I can assure her my skin is going to stay where it is?”
“It seems to be doing a very good job in its present location,” he said, casting an appreciative eye over her, from windswept red hair down to her wickedly sexy shoes.
In fact, he wouldn’t change a single thing about her. Except for removing that mask. Oh, and the rest of her clothes.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice so proper and prim and adorable, he had to tug her close for another quick brush of lips on lips.
Realizing her friend was just being protective, and that she had the right to be, considering this relationship was moving super-fast and had so far involved acts that would probably get them arrested for indecency, he said, “Tell her I’m going to make wild love to you all night, then get up and make you waffles for breakfast.”
That sounded like the perfect way to spend his first night and following morning home.
She lowered her eyes and stepped away from him. “Um...”
“You don’t like waffles? All right, pancakes it is.”
“Listen, the first half of that sounds wonderful.” She twisted her hands in front of her, her eyes on her own fingers. “But I’m not looking for anything serious here.”
“If I were making Peking duck, I might consider that serious, but we’re talking breakfast food here. How about Lucky Charms? How serious can a cereal with marshmallows in it be?”
“They’re my favorite,” she admitted with a sheepish sigh.
“Mine, too. I once broke up with a woman who told me she wouldn’t allow a kids’ cereal at her breakfast table.”
“Guess she didn’t want kids.”
“We hadn’t really reached that stage yet. But on behalf of any potential future children she might have, I called her bluff and didn’t see her again.”
“Dumped over a box of cereal. Harsh.”
“Hey, don’t mess with a man’s one weakness.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“Tomorrow morning?”
She immediately realized she’d backed herself into a corner. “Uh, wait, no, that’s not what I meant.” She tucked a strand of wildly blowing hair behind her ear, visibly stalling. Taking a d
eep breath, she admitted, “Breakfast implies an all-nighter.”
“You doubting my manhood again?” he asked, deliberately misunderstanding her. He knew she was skittish and was backing away from the idea of actually spending an entire night in his bed. Hell, if she thought up-against-the-front-door sex was all he was after, she didn’t rate her own appeal very highly. After what they’d already shared, what she’d already made him feel, he wasn’t sure he’d be willing to let her out of his sight for a month.
“Not at all,” she said, her smile tremulous. “It’s just, I’m not thinking long-term here.”
“And tomorrow morning is oh-so-far away?”
“Too far away for my taste.”
Huh. She’d really surprised him. He hadn’t had many one-night-stands, but he felt pretty sure that women got testy if they thought you didn’t want them to actually sleep with you once they’d been invited to, uh, sleep with you.
“I like you,” he admitted with a shrug. “Going to bed with you tonight and waking up with you tomorrow won’t exactly be a hardship.”
“It might if you knew who you’d be waking up with.”
“You mean, the wicked witch?”
“Something like that.”
“I’m a big boy. I’ll take my chances.”
She swallowed, her throat quivering. A gusty wind howled through the night, and she pulled her coat tighter around herself. Chaz stepped closer to block the wind, enjoying the way her hair blew against his face. Not to mention how deliciously soft her skin felt against the tips of his fingers. The memory of sinking just one inch inside that beautiful body made him shake with need, from head to toe.
Yeah. He would definitely take his chances. He’d savor whatever she wanted to give him and then figure out how to make her want to give him more.
He reached for her chin and lifted it, forcing her to look at him. The silly mask remained on her face, and he couldn’t wait to take it off. But he sensed they were doing that dance again, like they’d done in the bar. Forward and back. He didn’t want to do anything to push her away.
“Just come home with me,” he urged, “and let the chips fall where they may.”
She stared up at him, uncertainty awash in those shaded eyes. “With no promises?”
He sensed she needed an out. Hoping she’d change her mind, he nodded. “No promises.” Lightening the mood, he grinned. “And no lampshades.”
She visibly relaxed, her stiff posture loosening, her tight mouth softening. “That’s a deal.”
“Are you going to let your friend know?”
She glanced at her phone, tapped out a brief message, and then turned the device off. “I’m all yours,” she said once she’d dropped it back into her purse. “For the next hour or so, anyway.”
“There you go, doubting my manliness again.”
“Three hours?”
“At a bare minimum.”
However long it lasted, he would never forget it. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before, and he was already sure that he was in the middle of something very special. Possibly life-changing. He couldn’t say how he knew it—maybe intuition, maybe wishful thinking. It didn’t matter. He was just certain, on some elemental level, that he would be irrevocably changed after this night.
They started walking again, but hadn’t gone more than a couple of feet before he heard her soft giggle. So maybe she wasn’t thinking about anything on an elemental level.
Which was just one more thing he liked about her. She was damned unpredictable.
“What now?”
“I just had this mental image of somebody at that savings and loan watching the video and wondering what in hell was going on when you stood there for so long with your head thrown back.”
He thrust a hand through his hair, wondering where on earth the two of them had gotten the nerve to be so outrageous. He could practically see the headlines now: Local Reporter Charged With Indecency In A Bank Lobby. Wouldn’t his friends and colleagues have a field day with that one?
Still, he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. “I suppose that depends on who was watching.”
“You might want to change where you do your banking.”
He wasn’t worried. “I really don’t think they watch those recordings unless they have a reason to review them for a crime or something.”
“Then let’s hope nobody robs the place tonight. I’m so not ready for my close-up to be seen by an audience.”
“Your close-up was my favorite part of the whole banking experience,” he admitted, unable to deny it. “But even if somebody does watch, that camera didn’t capture anything below waist level.”
And if it had, there’d be nothing to see except a mass of glorious, curly red hair.
Christ, the thought of what she’d done to him—how she’d made him feel—was enough to make him want to throw his head back and howl to the moon like a werewolf on the prowl this Halloween night. Her sexual generosity had stunned him.
“You know, I’ve dated women for months who didn’t do for me what you did back there.”
“Do you mean going with you to the ATM so you could, uh—” she licked her lips “—make a deposit?”
God, she was outrageous. “Yeah. You didn’t have to actually let me complete my...deposit.”
“I enjoyed it.” She shrugged, sounding as though she meant it.
“I thought women only enjoyed it on a guy’s birthday or after getting a diamond bracelet or something.”
“You calling me cheap for settling for a cherry-flavored drink and a dance?”
“There is nothing cheap about you,” he insisted with a squeeze of her hand. “Absolutely nothing.”
“I’m kidding. But there was no quid pro quo about it,” she said. “I wanted to taste you.”
“You didn’t have to go for the full-course meal and swallow every morsel.”
She stopped and turned on her heel to look up at him. “I told you before, I’m not a cock-tease. I wasn’t going to bring you up the mountain and not let you jump off the highest cliff.” She lifted up on her tiptoes and brushed her lips against his. “You taste good.”
He tugged her close and covered her mouth for a kiss, sweeping his tongue inside to explore her all over again. She twined around his body like a vine around a post, pressing every inch of herself against him. By the time the kiss ended, he was barely able to catch his breath. His heart thudded, his pants refused to stay zipped to the top, and he found himself wishing he hadn’t insisted they leave the vestibule. And cursing that stupid honking car to the ninth circle of hell.
Letting her go, he said, “Come on, we’re almost there.”
She nodded, twined her fingers in his and matched him stride for stride as they headed down the street. They passed one young couple, dressed as a pair of comic book superheroes, who barely managed to stop groping each other as they walked by. He wondered if he and his mystery woman had just interrupted the couple the same way the car had interrupted them. The other couple hadn’t seemed to rush to put any clothes back in place, but he would bet they weren’t more than a few minutes from reaching that point.
“Happy Halloween,” he said with a grin as they passed.
“You, too,” the guy said. “Hope you get lots of treats.”
Chaz fully intended to.
“That’s my place on the corner,” he said, nodding toward his townhouse.
“Good thing, these shoes are killing me,” she said.
“Serves you right for doubting my manhood.”
“I didn’t doubt your manhood. Just your wisdom.”
That startled another laugh out of him. Damn, how he liked this woman.
“Well, I don’t see any toilet paper or eggshells, so I guess the trick-or-treaters didn’t punish
you for not being home to give out any candy.”
“A few knocked before I went to the bar. I handed out a couple of bags of airplane crackers and some Altoids.”
“They should’ve egged your house just for that.”
She was probably right. Fortunately, no angry, deprived-of-candy ghosts or goblins had played tricks after he’d left.
Yanking her hand from his, she suddenly stopped. “Who’s that?”
“Huh?”
“The woman sitting on the car over there.”
Realizing she was looking toward one of the reserved parking spaces directly in front of his house, he followed her stare. A bright yellow Beetle was parked beside his own car, and on the hood of it sat a woman. She was draped in gauzy white fabric that might have been a toga or might have been a ghost-sheet like the one he’d worn.
Chaz scrunched his brow for a moment, wondering why some stranger was sitting alone on the hood of her car at this time of night. Then he spotted the hair, as yellow as the vehicle, and realized who it was.
“Shit.” He turned to his mystery witch. “It’s my sister.”
“Sarah,” she whispered.
Taken aback for a moment, he suddenly remembered he had mentioned his sibling’s name at the club. “Yes. I have no idea what she’s doing here.”
“She looks upset.” There was a hint of coldness in the tone that hadn’t been there all evening. It appeared he wasn’t the only one disappointed that someone had delayed them from getting inside for their promised up-against-the-wall adventure. His sister had the worst timing in the universe. Well, second worse. That car honking was number one.
“There you are,” Sarah said, sliding off the car and sniffing audibly. Definitely a toga. Roman goddess? “Mom said you got back to town today and I just had to see you and you weren’t he-re when I neeeeded you! Where have you be-en?”
“Have any cheese you can give her to go with that whine?” his companion muttered.
Chaz smothered a laugh, because, yes, Sarah had sounded like a whiny brat. Which wasn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence. She was the baby of the family and relished the role, getting her way in just about everything she’d ever wanted.
