by Diane Roth
"Hey, it is what it is," he said, dropping his gaze away from hers. Those eyes were dangerous territory.
"Yeah, but let's don't let it ruin the night." She slid her hand all the way down his arm to his wrist and gave him a tug. "Come on. Let's dance," she said, her tone snapping with that bubbly, contagious happiness he couldn't resist.
They moved to the dance floor as one song was ending and another began, a slow love ballad, and Greg pulled her up close, one hand engulfing her smaller hand, his other arm reaching around her waist. She came into his embrace like she'd been formed for him. Her scent enveloped him, warm and sweet, with a hint of exotic spice he couldn't have named. He inhaled deeply, an error in judgment, and felt it spill into his lungs and go straight for his vitals, a potent potion for arousal. They moved around the dance floor, her arm around his shoulders, her breasts pressed against his chest, and Greg used every maneuver he'd ever employed for fighting obvious arousal. If he wasn't successful, every person in this place was going to know exactly what he was feeling for his sister-in-law when they walked off the dance floor. He counted the steps of the dance, he tried to remember the words to the song, he wondered when his inspection sticker expired on his truck. Just anything to keep from thinking about the woman in his arms and all the decadent things he wanted to do to her.
She poked her nose nearer the open collar of his shirt and sniffed, then hummed a little noise he felt in her body more than he heard. "You smell so good," she said, leaning her head back a bit to look into his eyes.
He chuckled. "I was thinking the same thing about you."
She smiled at him. "And I'd forgotten what a great dancer you are. Smooth as silk," she purred.
"Okay, you don't have to butter me up to lift my mood," he said, laughing.
Her grin turned wry. "It's not buttering up if it's true."
"So you won't think I'm buttering you up if I tell you that you are, without a doubt, the most gorgeous forty-year-old woman in this place tonight?"
Her expression lost some of its playfulness, turned more serious. "I have to admit, I'd suspect that to be more in the buttering up category than true category," she said.
"It's true, darlin'. It's a repeat of the fundraiser where I stood around and fielded questions about you all night. Every man in this place has his eye on you tonight," he said, leaning close to her ear so he wouldn't have to shout it over the music.
She shook her head dismissively and actually rolled her eyes, not even bothering to argue with him. "Well, I've been asked about you too, so there."
He brightened. "Really?"
"Oh, yeah. They all think you're hot," she said, and he heard a note of mild irritation in her voice.
"And that bothers you?" he asked, fighting a touch of pride over all that.
"Yes, it does. They're acting like a bunch of heifers who've never seen a bull."
He laughed right out loud at that, enjoying that they all thought him hot, that she compared him to a bull, and that she might be feeling a tad possessive, just like he was. She sent him a dark look, but he kept right on laughing.
"Oh, I see how it is," she said. "Get a herd of heifers hot on your tail and your mood suddenly becomes elated."
"Show me a man who wouldn't be elated with that." He swung her out for a turn, spinning her around and under his arm, then drew her back into his arms, pulling her even closer than before. She raised an eyebrow at him, but never missed a step, and actually pressed herself up against him until he could feel every lush curve of her against his chest and belly.
"All right. You enjoy that elation. It's well deserved," she said. "Clearly, there are not too many of our classmates who devote the amount of time and effort to the gym that you do."
"Not everyone has a masochistic streak like I do."
"Maybe not. But it's serving you well. Women like a hard man," she whispered right in his ear. She might as well have grabbed him by the nads. At least, that's where he felt it.
The music changed, the deejay offering up some rock for a different type of dancing. She leaned back in his arms and gave him a dare with her eyes. "You up for this?" she asked, a suggestive grin toying with her mouth.
"Darlin', I'm up for anything," he said, as the music grew in intensity, the base booming and reverberating in his chest.
The floor filled up with dancers in that strange phenomenon that happened in Texas honky tonks when the country band was on break and the deejay decided to up the energy with a rock song or two. It never failed to bring them all out of their chairs for some reason.
Cara twirled away from his embrace and began to shake her hips to the beat, her gaze steady on his. Greg moved, too, in time to the music, but really was there to keep a place warm on the floor as he watched her do her thing, her dancer's body using a rhythm and agility no one else in the place could mimic, much less match. And it wouldn't have mattered if they had. His eyes were on her, and her alone.
That flirty little skirt teased him again and again as she moved with the beat, and the way she shook her hips made him want to grab two handfuls of tight ass and grind himself against her. She might have been reading his thoughts, he decided, as she turned her back to him and looked back over her shoulder to send him the most smoking hot come hither look he'd ever received, then slipped her spine, arms in the air and bounced her ass in invitation. He was on it in exactly two beats, taking her hips in his hands and moving in time behind her. Up close. Brushing, bumping, dirty dancing at its best.
Cara teased him mercilessly, moving against him, then turning away, dancing barely out of reach. Her gaze found his then, and she held it captive as she moved back in closer, her hips mesmerizing him with suggestive movements he wanted to feel rather than see. He reached for her hand and drew her back, turning her again so that he danced right up against her backside, and she took it a step further by placing his hands on the swells of her hips, then inching them over on the flat of her belly so he might feel it as she made tiny little erotic circles with her hips. Her head fell back against his shoulder, the scent of her hair rising up to inflame him even more. Her back arched, and she stretched, her bottom pressing hard into his groin, and Greg about lost his grip on reality. This was like a page out of his fantasy journal, and it was happening in a public venue with half his high school classmates watching. Heaven and Hell right there in his lap. The thought sobered him a little, and he put some distance between them and sent her a warning look. She had to know what she was doing to him, had to feel his arousal. She cocked an eyebrow at him as if to say, "What are you gonna do about it?"
He'd been tempted by women before, but never to the point of wanting to find some dark corner where they could get up against the wall, knock off a quickie, skirts bunched up around her waist, his pants open and sagging at his hips. He was about to that point, and she must have been reading his mind, her expression changing, challenge losing its edge to something less confident.
The music died abruptly and the lead singer of the band took the mike to announce their next set. They both stopped dancing, like everyone else, but stood there looking at one another with an avalanche of unspoken communication taking place between them. Breathless desire and temptation warred with uncertainty and doubt. Greg thought he might have even seen a glimmer of fear in her eyes.
And that did him in.
He turned and left her on the dance floor, walking straight to the exit and out into the cool of the evening. He needed some cooling off, he thought as gravel crunched beneath his boots. He walked to his bike and sat down, letting the dark, the quiet and the breeze wick the heat from his body and mind. God, she had him worked into a lather.
He heard her approach behind him, but didn't turn, not ready to face her after what he'd seen in her eyes. He could hardly stand the thought of provoking fear in her, and it mirrored so perfectly what he was feeling, that mind-numbing apprehension that they would screw things up so badly they could never recover enough to be friends or family again. It was a
n enormous gamble.
"Are you okay?" she asked softly, standing far enough away to let him know she recognized the danger in him.
"No, Cara. I haven't been okay in about two weeks," he said, done with dancing in all its forms. Screw it.
She didn't say anything, but stood there silently.
He didn't turn to look at her, knowing it would mess him up, knowing full well there was worry and fear and uncertainty clouding those beautiful eyes. He couldn't take it right now. "How about you, Cara? Are you okay?" he asked, his voice coming out strained, edgy.
There was a prolonged space of time that hung in the balance before she answered, Greg's gut counting the seconds while he waited.
He saw out of the corner of his vision as her shoulders sagged in a defeated gesture.
"No. I'm not all right either," she said in a shaky and tremulous voice that drained some of his lifeblood away. He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her. Instead, he pushed to his feet and moved to plant his elbows on the bed edge of a pickup truck parked next to his bike. He shoved his hands into his hair and wondered how things had gotten so screwed up.
He turned around to face her finally. "What do we do about it then? How the hell are we going to fix this, Cara?"
She moved closer, wanting to comfort him, he could tell, but afraid to touch him, lest she make things worse. "I'm not sure this can be fixed, Greg."
That was not a comforting thought. "So, I've screwed things up between us beyond repair? Is that what you're telling me?"
She came closer, her hand reaching out to touch his and she squeezed it tightly. "Not at all. I know we've changed, and it scares me to think about where we might be going. But I don't think we'll ever be able to move on to whatever the next phase is until we explore what's going on between us now."
He looked her in the eye, measuring what he read there against her words. "And what do you think is going on between us, Caroline?" He watched her carefully, not wanting to miss one clue to what she was feeling.
She squared her chin bravely and met his gaze without a shred of fear remaining. "Pure, unadulterated sexual attraction, Gregory."
He looked at her standing there, so beautiful and sexy and brave.
"Oh, darlin' ... you got that right," he said. He leaned his back against the side of the pickup, reached for her other hand and pulled her into the vee between his legs. "And what do you think we should do about that?" he asked, rubbing lightly on the backs of both her hands with his thumbs.
She smiled a half-smile at him, desire smoldering in her eyes. "Surely you can figure it out. I've always heard you were an ingenious, if not downright kinky man."
He pulled her fully against him, her hips nestling into his groin, and he held her with one arm around her waist while his other hand feathered through the hair falling around her neck. He buried his face there and kissed the skin that smelled so damned good he wanted to consume her, taking small bites so as to savor and make it last. "Ingenious and kinky, huh?," he murmured against her neck. He reached up to suck on her earlobe, making her hands climb his chest and snake around his neck in a very satisfying way. She moaned, as if he needed more incentive. "I'd probably call it ready," he said, then shoved his hands into her hair and directed her mouth to meet his.
They were like dry, underbrush kindling in a Texas wildfire, igniting immediately as their mouths met in hot, wet, deep and demanding kisses. She tasted like the rum she'd been drinking and he suckled at her lips, wanting more. She pressed into his hips like she wanted to straddle him. He couldn't think of anything he'd like better at the moment. "Cara," he breathed against her ear. "I want you so badly." He kissed her again, full of want and unmet need and urgency.
The door opened across the gravel parking lot, music spilling loudly from within, and Cara pulled away from him, stepping back once. But their gazes held steady, one on the other, and there was no turning back now. They both knew it.
"Come on. Let's go," he said, and got on the bike. She climbed on behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. He drove too fast, but she'd pulled the tail of his shirt free of his jeans, and her hands had found their way beneath, and she was doing some serious damage to his self-control at the moment. She laid her fingers in the spaces between his ribs, squeezing and massaging, then tested his response when she raked her fingernails gently across his nipples and down over the muscles of his abdomen. She slipped a hand into his waistband, and he sucked his stomach in hard to aid her, and she brushed the tip of his erect cock with those searching fingers before he grabbed her hand to stop her.
"Girl, you are making this ride a good bit more dangerous," he growled over his shoulder when they stopped at a red light.
She stretched up to steal a kiss from his mouth. "Not scared," she said, flattening her palm against the skin of his belly and fingering the hair that grew there. "Hurry, Greg," she said against his ear. That was the final straw. He looked around quickly and ran the red light.
Chapter Five
They pulled into his garage, and the door closed behind them, then Greg killed the engine. Cara hardly noticed. There remained a buzz of vibration in her entire body as she got off the bike and waited for him to do the same. To her surprise, music played from speakers in the ceiling, somebody was moaning the blues to a grinding beat, but it only added to the thrumming beat of her pulse.
Greg pushed the kick stand down and turned to look at her. It sent something straight down to her middle, that look he gave her, and she wondered if he was ever going to actually get off that bike and take her inside and do what she wanted him to do so badly.
Instead, he reached for her waist and lifted her back up on the bike facing him, perfectly astraddle his lap. His bulging lap, to be exact. And that very firm part of him met the very neediest part of her so perfectly that she actually groaned. She hooked her arms over his shoulders and leaned her head back, closed her eyes and relished the contact. It was so good.
He pulled her more firmly against his erection, and it was even better, then he began to release the buttons at the front of her dress. His lips followed, covering every inch of skin he exposed with warm kisses. Cara wrapped her arms around his head, her fingers delving into his wavy hair as his mouth melted her bones.
He had her unbuttoned to the waist in seconds, then pushed the edges of her dress back and ran his palms across her chest and breasts. It was the only part of her body about which she lacked confidence, her bust, and she wished for more as she unclasped the front closure of her bra. He brushed her hands aside, his gaze finding hers for a moment, then moving on to see what his hands might uncover when he pushed the lacy bra away from her breasts.
"Cara, you are beautiful," he whispered, his words nearly reverent, his hands touching her gently, exploring and learning her shape.
And she felt beautiful as he leaned her back across the tank of that huge bike and placed his mouth on her skin, her breasts. She arched her back, his kisses making her breathless and needy. She wanted to feel his skin pressed against hers as his mouth continued to build a fire in her with luxurious kisses all over her chest and breasts and neck. His mouth was so hot, and he used it with a knowledge of how to please a woman, she recognized.
"Greg ... take your shirt off. I want to touch you," she said.
He kissed her mouth quickly, dispensed with his shirt and threw it aside, then pulled both her boots off and did the same with them. He was magnificently gorgeous and sexy, sitting there astride that bike like it was some beast he'd mastered, his chest so beautifully sculpted with muscle, his abdomen flat and lean. He placed a hand on each of her shoulders and ran them firmly all the way down her body to her hips, then he pulled her against his hips again and ground them together so firmly she felt herself on the verge of coming. It was so erotic to be stretched out over that Harley, Greg's eyes and hands and lips all over her, the groaning blues playing in the background like a musical score to what they were doing, until Cara knew she'd need very little to push
her right over the top to completion.
She sat up and put her hands on his chest, feeling his strength, his labored breathing, then kissed him. Their tongues met one another in an extravagant exchange that left them both breathing hard. Greg finished unbuttoning Cara's dress and pushed it completely off her shoulders, then gently laid her across the front of the bike again and nearly blistered her with a drugging perusal of desire that covered her from the top of her head down. It did amazing things to her to see the desire in his eyes. Desire for her.
His fingers toyed with the lacy edge of her panties, slipping inside to smooth over the skin of her stomach beneath. "I've been fantasizing about this scrap of lace all evening. Every time that dress fluttered up near your ass I was riveted, hoping to get a glimpse," he said.
"Was it worth the wait?"
"You're damn right, it was," he answered, then kissed her stomach, making it go all hollow. She shuddered with need.
His fingers moved between her thighs and slipped under the lacy edge to explore, and Cara began to tremble, her need so strong now. Deeper, more certain now, his caresses made her moan, and Cara pushed herself hard against his hand.
"Greg," she heard herself call his name, but was beyond any control of what she might say next. She wasn't too proud to beg at this stage. "Please," she whispered.
He fished a condom out of his front jeans pocket and ripped the packet open with his teeth, then rolled it on efficiently. Cara tried not to think of the fact that he had a condom in his pocket and what it might mean as he removed her panties. And then he entered her, slowly, though she could tell it cost him to move so painstakingly. It was like she'd been waiting for him forever, she thought, shuddering as she felt herself stretch to accommodate his length, rejoicing in the feel of him.
