It probably should have. “You aren’t going to take me on a snipe hunt and dump me in the forest, are you?”
“Not tonight. You’re safe.”
She tossed her sweater into the back and climbed across the console and into the passenger seat with as much dignity as possible. Nick fired up the Mustang, and the dash lights flashed to life. He backed out of the parking lot and pulled onto Fifth. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going now?” she asked, excitement tingling her nerve endings. She couldn’t believe she was actually sitting in Nick’s car. She couldn’t wait to tell Lisa. It was just too incredible.
“I’m taking you back home.”
“No!” She turned toward him. “You can’t. I don’t want to go back there. I can’t go back yet.”
He glanced at her then returned his gaze to the dark road before him. “Why not?”
“Stop and let me out,” she said instead of answering his question. How could she explain to anyone, let alone Nick, that she couldn’t breathe there anymore? It felt like Henry had his foot on her throat, and she couldn’t get air deep inside her lungs. How could she explain to Nick that she’d waited most of her life to break free of Henry, but now she knew that day would never happen? How could she explain that this was her way of finally fighting back? He’d probably laugh at her and think she was immature, like Henry and her mother did. She knew she was naive, and she hated it. Her eyes began to water, and she turned away. The thought of crying like a baby in front of Nick horrified her. “Just let me out here.”
Instead of stopping, he turned the Mustang onto the road leading to Delaney’s house. The street ahead of the car’s headlights was like an inky tube, shadowed by towering pine and lit only by the reflection of the center divider.
“If you take me home, I’ll just leave again.”
“Are you over there crying?”
“No,” she lied, forcing her eyes real wide, hoping the wind would hurry and dry them out.
“What were you doing with the Finleys?”
She glanced over at him, his face cast in the gold lights of the dashboard. “Looking for something to do.”
“Those two guys are bad news.”
“I can handle Scooter and Wes,” she bragged, although she wasn’t so sure.
“Bullshit,” he said and stopped the Mustang at the end of the long drive leading to her house. “Now, go on home where you belong.”
“Don’t tell me where I belong,” she said as she reached for the handle and shoved the door with her shoulder. She was sick to death of everyone telling her where to go and what to do. She jumped from the car and slammed the door behind her. With her head high, she headed back toward town. She was too angry for tears.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he called after her.
Delaney flipped him the bird and it felt good. Freeing. She kept walking and heard him swear right before the sound of his voice was drowned out by the squeal of tires.
“Get in,” he shouted as the car pulled alongside her.
“Go to hell.”
“I said get in!”
“And I said go to hell!”
The car stopped but she kept on walking. She didn’t know where she was going this time, but she wasn’t going back home until she was good and ready. She didn’t want to go to the University of Idaho. She didn’t want a degree in business. And she didn’t want to spend any more of her life in a little town where she couldn’t breathe.
Nick grabbed her arm and spun her around. The headlights lit him from behind, and he looked huge and imposing. “For Christ sake, what is your problem?”
She pushed at him and he grabbed her other arm. “Why should I tell you? You don’t care. You just want to dump me.” Tears pooled on her lower lashes, and she was mortified. “Don’t you dare call me a baby. I’m eighteen.”
His gaze drifted from her forehead to her mouth. “I know how old you are.”
She blinked and stared at him through blurred vision, at the finely etched bow of his top lip, his straight nose, and his clear eyes. Months of angry frustration poured out of her like water through a sieve. “I’m old enough to know what I want to do with my life. And I don’t want to go to college. I don’t want to go into business, and I don’t want anyone to tell me what’s best for me.” She took a deep breath, then continued. “I want to live my own life. I want to think about myself first. I’m tired of trying to be perfect, and I want to screw up like everybody else.” She thought a moment, then said, “I want everyone to back off. I want to experience life-my life. I want to suck the marrow. Take a walk on the wild side. I want to take a bite out of my life.”
Nick pulled her up to the tips of her toes and looked into her eyes. “I want to take a bite out of you,” he said, then he lowered his mouth to hers and softly bit the fleshy part of her bottom lip.
For several long heartbeats Delaney stood perfectly still, too stunned to move. Her head clogged with a myriad of astonished sensations. Nick Allegrezza was softly biting her lips and her breath caught in the top of her lungs. His mouth was warm and firm, and he kissed her like a man who’d had a lifetime of experience. His hands moved to cup her face, and he slipped his thumbs along her jaw to her chin. Then he pressed downward until her mouth opened. His warm tongue swept inside and touched hers, and he tasted like beer. Hot shivers ran up her spine and she kissed him like she’d never kissed anyone else. No one had ever made her feel like her skin was too tight at the base of her skull and across her breasts. No one had ever made her want to act first and deal with the consequences later. She placed her hands on the solid wall of his chest and sucked his tongue into her mouth.
And always in the back of her mind was the absolute incredibility of it all. This was Nick, the boy who’d spent equal time terrorizing and fascinating her. Nick, the man, made her feel hot and breathless.
He ended the kiss before Delaney was ready, and she slid her palms to the sides of his neck.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said and grabbed her hand.
This time she didn’t ask him where they were going.
She didn’t care.
Chapter Seven
They drove three miles out of town and parked on the sandy shore of Angel Beach. The property was secluded and they had to open a wire gate to get to it. It was an area Delaney knew fairly well. Dense forest gave way to white sand, and it all belonged to Henry.
Nick leaned his behind against the hood of the Mustang, then planted one foot on the bumper. He pulled two Coors out of the six-pack, then set the rest next to him. “Have you ever drank a beer?” he asked, popping the two tops and handing one to Delaney.
She’d been allowed to taste Henry’s. “Yeah, sure. All the time.”
He slanted her a glance from beneath his lashes. “All the time, huh?” He raised the can to his lips and took a long pull.
Delaney watched him and took a sip of her own beer. She hid her grimace by turning her back and looking out at Lake Mary twenty feet in front of her. A shimmering path led across the dark ripples to the full moon hanging low above the water. The trail looked magical, like you could step from the shore onto it and never get wet. Like you could walk across the water and end up someplace exotic. She tried her beer again, and this time she succeeded in keeping the frown from her face. A cool breeze whispered across her skin, but she wasn’t cold.
“I take it you don’t want to go to the U of I.”
She turned back toward Nick. Streaks of moonlight glistened in his dark hair. “No, I don’t want to go to college right now.”
“Then don’t.”
She laughed and took a few more sips of her beer. “Yeah, right. When has what I wanted ever counted for anything? Henry didn’t even ask me which classes I’d like to take this fall. He just signed me up and paid for it all.”
Nick was quiet for a moment and Delaney didn’t have to ask him what he was thinking. The irony spoke louder than words. Nick worked his way through college to pay for the
privilege his father was forcing on Delaney. “Tell the old man to shove it. I would.”
“I know you would, but I can’t.”
He raised the can and asked, “Why not?”
Because she’d always felt like she owed Henry for rescuing her mother and her from that tiny Airstream trailer on the outskirts of Las Vegas. “I just can’t.” Her gaze took in the black outline of the mountains before resting once again on Nick. “This is so weird,” she said. “I never would have thought you and I would be drinking buddies.”
“Why’s that?”
She looked at him like he was slightly retarded.
“Because you’re who you are. And I’m me,” she said and took a few more sips.
His gaze narrowed. “You mean because you’re the mayor’s daughter and I’m his bastard son?”
His bluntness surprised her. Most of the people she knew didn’t come right out and say things like that. They kissed the air above your cheek and said you looked good when you didn’t. She wondered what it was like to have that kind of freedom. “Well, I wouldn’t put it that way.”
“How would you put it then?”
“That your family hates me, and my family doesn’t care for you.”
He tilted his head back and drained half his beer. He studied her over the top of the can until he lowered it again. “It’s a little more complex than that.”
“True. You’ve spent most of your life torturing me.”
One corner of his full mouth lifted. “I never tortured you. I may have teased you occasionally.”
“Ha! When I was in third grade you told me that Reggie Overton stole little blond-haired girls and fed them to his Dobermans. I was terrified of Reggie for years.”
“And you’ve spent most of your life walking around with your nose in the air as if I smell bad.”
“No, I haven’t.” Delaney didn’t think she’d ever looked at anyone like that.
“Yes, you have,” he assured her.
“Than why did you kiss me tonight?”
His gaze slid to her mouth. “Curious.”
“Curious to see if I’d let you?”
He chuckled quietly and let his eyes move down the row of buttons closing her dress. “No,” he said as if a rejection had never occurred to him. He looked back up into her eyes. “Curious to see if you taste as sweet as you look.”
She stood as tall as she could and took a few chugs of beer for courage before she asked, “What did you decide?”
He crooked his finger at her and said in a low and sensual voice, “Come here, wild thing.”
Something in his voice, what he said and the way he said it, drew her to him like they were connected by string and he was just reeling her in. A funny little tickle pulled at her stomach.
“I’ve decided you taste like my Uncle Josu’s huckleberry wine. Definitely sweet, but with a warm kick.”
She hid her smile behind the Coors can. She wanted to be like wine. “Is that bad?”
He took the beer from her hand and set it behind him on the hood of the car. “Depends on what you want to do about it.” He set his beer next to hers and stood in one smooth motion. He placed two fingers beneath her chin and stared into her eyes. “Has anyone ever kissed you until you were so hot you were burning up?”
She didn’t answer, not wanting to admit that she’d never been so consumed or burned up with passion that she’d lost her head or her fear of Henry.
Nick moved his hands to the sides of her neck, and he looked into her eyes. “Until you didn’t care about anything else?” He lowered his face to her ear. “Has anyone ever touched your breasts?” he whispered. “Under the shirt, beneath your bra? Where your skin is warm and soft?”
Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.
“Slipped his hand inside your panties?” His hot open mouth moved across her cheek. “Felt between your legs where you’re slick and ready?”
Besides health class, no one had ever really talked to Delaney about sex before. What she knew, she’d learned from movies and from eavesdropping on other girls at school. Even Lisa assumed she was a prude, but apparently not Nick. Nick saw what no one else did, and instead of being offended at his language, she turned her face and kissed him. For years she’d heard rumors about his sexual conquests. She didn’t want him to think her naive and boring in comparison, and she purposely turned up the passion and devoured him with her lips and tongue. She let herself fall head first into the dizzy heat burning her flesh. Her young body filled with the hot juices of desire, and for the first time in her life, she let go of everything else.
The kiss shattered their differences, sweeping them away on a glut of passion. His hands moved to her back and slid to her behind. He palmed each cheek, then dragged her on to the balls of her feet and crushed her breasts against his chest. He pulled her against his pelvis and let her feel his long hard erection. She wasn’t afraid. Instead she felt free. Free to explore for herself what other girls her age knew. Free to be a desirable eighteen-year-old on the verge of becoming a grown woman. She was flushed with new sensations and wonder, and she wanted him to touch her like he would any other girl. To lose herself in him.
He pulled back and let her slide down his body.
“We better stop right there, wild thing.”
Delaney didn’t want to stop. Not yet. She slid right back up his chest, fitting her body to his. She licked her lips and tasted him there. “No.” A shudder ran through him and he stared at her as if he wanted to shove her away but couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. She looked into his eyes then let her gaze skim his handsome face. She kissed his cheek and just below his ear. “I’m staying right here.” She opened her mouth and licked his warm flesh. He smelled of soap and skin and cool mountain breezes.
His hands moved to her waist, then slipped up her sides, bunching the material of her dress. The hem rode up to the top of her thighs, and he pressed his erection into her abdomen. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
She nodded.
“Tell me. Tell me so there’s no mistake.”
“Touch me like you said.”
He filled his palm with her right breast. “Here?”
Her nipple tightened into a hard point. “Yes.”
“You never answered my question. Has anyone ever touched you like this?”
She looked into his eyes, and it was like she was seeing a whole other side of Nick. For the first time she saw past the breathtaking face to the man inside. She didn’t know this Nick. His gaze was intense, yet he caressed her as if she were made of something delicate. “No.”
“Why?” He lightly brushed his thumb over the tip of her breast, and she bit her lip to keep from moaning out loud. “You’re beautiful, Delaney, and you could have anyone you want. Why me?”
She knew she wasn’t beautiful, not like her mother. But the way he looked at her and touched her, and the tone of his voice when he said it made her almost believe him. He made her believe anything was possible. “Because you make me not want to say no.”
He groaned deep in his throat and lowered his mouth to hers once again. The kiss started as a light brush of lips but quickly turned hard, wet, rough. The carnal thrust of his tongue touched something equally carnal within her and she squirmed against him. She wanted to crawl inside Nick, feel surrounded by him. When he finally set her away from him, her breathing was heavy. He reached for the buttons that closed her dress, and he gazed into her eyes as he worked downward until the pink cotton lay open past her waist. A twinge of apprehension penetrated the warm haze clouding her head. No man had ever seen her naked, and while she wanted him to touch her, she didn’t necessarily want him to look at her. Not a man like Nick who’d seen more than his fair share of naked women, but then he pushed the dress apart and it was too late. The cool air beaded her already taut nipples, and he lowered his gaze to her bare breasts. He stared at her so long her apprehension grew and she raised her hands to shield herself from him.
�
�Don’t hide from me.” He grabbed hold of her wrists and held them behind her back. Her spine arched, and the straps of her dress fell down her arms. He again leaned his behind against the hood of the car, bringing his face level with her naked breasts. He whispered her name, then kissed between her cleavage. His cool cheek brushed the inside slope of her breast, and she forgot all about her apprehension. “You’re beautiful.” His words warmed her skin and tugged at her heart, and this time she believed he meant what he said. He rested his forehead against her, his dark hair in stark contrast to her white flesh. “I knew you would be. I’ve always known. Always.” Then his hot mouth drifted across her breast and he slid the seam of his lips across the very tip. “I knew you’d be pink right here.”
For one fleeting second Delaney wondered how he knew, but then his tongue circled her nipple and her brain shut to cohesive thought. Her breathing became shallow as she watched his tongue curl, licking her.
“Do you like this?”
Behind her, Delaney’s hands tightened into fists. “Yes.”
“How much?”
“A… a lot.”
“Do you want more?”
Delaney closed her eyes and her head fell to one side. “Yes,” she answered, and he drew her nipple into his mouth. His lips tugged and she felt the pull between her legs. It felt good. So good she didn’t want him to stop. Ever. His mouth moved to her other breast and he sucked that nipple also. His tongue licked and stabbed and drove her fidgety for more. “Nick,” she whispered and pulled her wrists free of his grasp. Her dress fell to the ground and pooled about her feet. She dug her fingers into his hair, holding him to her breast.
“More?”
“Yes.” She didn’t really know exactly what she wanted, but she definitely wanted more of the hot ache pooling in her abdomen. She wanted more of him.
One of his big warm hands slid between her legs and he gently cupped her crotch. The thin cotton of her underwear was the only barrier separating his palm from her sensitive flesh. “You’re wet.”
The hot ache intensified and she could hardly speak. “I’m sorry,” she managed.
Truly Madly Yours Page 12
