by Cara McKenna
This girl knew too much about Vince. So much he didn’t think he’d ever felt this naked, standing in front of a woman. Made the urge to get with her so strong, it ached. The most private parts of him had been spread open before her today, knowledge so much more personal than the feel of his cock or the sight of him coming apart. It brought an aggressive edge to his pulse. Made him want to get her clothes off, get his hands and mouth on her. Lay his eyes on the most vulnerable shadows of her, nearly like payback for how exposed he felt himself.
Ask me in.
If she didn’t, he’d finally know for sure what crazy felt like.
Chapter 13
Kim stared up at Vince’s face, just as she had two nights before, outside this very room. He was backlit, a touch ominous, but his voice was mild, the flirtation all but banished. A concession for his original tactless advance? For the day’s general stress? All those things? Deference, whatever the reason. And she realized then, she didn’t want it.
The itch had grown too deep to ignore. It wanted scratching. It wanted clawing. Nothing else would do. Her gaze had dropped, skimming the thrilling length of his body, and she hauled it back up. Her eyes had adjusted, and she could tell from the way his own narrowed¸ he knew she wanted him. Take over, she willed him. Kim had no clue how to make a pass at anybody, but Vince probably had a gold medal in the sport.
Still, he simply waited.
Here they were again, this man standing in the threshold of a room Kim couldn’t quite call her own. Paces from a bed—also not hers. But that invitation she’d shot down a couple nights ago . . . It wasn’t going to manifest unless she took the reins.
And that’s exactly what he wants, isn’t it?
She spoke to his throat, watching the pulse ticking there. “I want you to know, you’re the most obnoxious man I’ve ever met.”
He nodded thoughtfully, looking not at all surprised. “That’s why I dialed back my usual wooing tactics.” He’d procured another matchstick from someplace, and it bobbed as he spoke.
“You call your earlier strategies wooing? You’ll have to rethink your entire shtick.”
“What shtick?”
She waved to indicate the whole of him, head to toe. “The tattoos and the swearing, and the drinking, and the tactless come-ons. And the bike.” That final one wiped the shadowy smile from his lips.
He cast it a backward glance. “Hey now. Don’t be getting personal.”
“It’s very you, that bike. Fast and dirty and loud.”
“Watch it, missy. My girl hums like a lullaby.”
She laughed. “Oh yeah. Completely.”
He crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe. “You’re just not listening right, that’s all.”
“I suppose my hearing’s too sensitive.”
“Just the opposite. You listen properly, behind the growl, it’s all purrs. Pure pussycat.”
For no good reason whatsoever, she imagined his mouth against her jugular, lips vibrating with a guttural hum. “If you say so.”
For a long, silent moment, they merely stared at each other. Kim pursed her lips on a question, but it slipped through after a breath.
“What do you want from me, Vince?”
She watched the matchstick roll from one corner of his mouth to the other as he considered his reply.
God, those lips. Full and hungry. She doubted she’d ever noticed a man’s lips before Vince’s, but now they were all she could think about. That mouth on hers again. That mouth everywhere.
“Didn’t hear you,” he answered quietly. “Ask me again.”
Heart pounding hard, she hugged her middle. “What do you want from me? What did you want that first night? Or this morning?”
“No, ask it like you did the first time. Say my name.” A smirk shined through, warming Kim from her head to her heels and every stop in between.
She came closer by a pace. Another, until they were nearly toe to toe. She plucked the match from his lips and cast it aside. “What did you want from me that first night, Vince? Standing outside this same room?”
“What d’you think I wanted?”
“To get laid.”
He smiled, cheeks growing round, eyes crinkling. Made him look like a boy up to no good, which was precisely what he was.
“That’s one guess,” he murmured.
“Is it right?”
“Maybe. Sounds kind of impersonal when you say it like that, though.”
“And how would you say it?”
“Same as you called it, that night. That I wanted to fuck you.”
Her face blazed, a flush of equal annoyance and arousal. “Classy.”
“Not that I wanted to fuck, in general.” A thick arm rose up to lean against the jamb. “I wanted to fuck you. Specifically.”
“That’s so romantic.” Not. And yet here it was, totally working.
Vince took a step backward, then another, out of the bright light of the overhead fixture. His boots sounded heavy on the concrete, the noise rousing her, or the sudden distance.
“I should let you rest,” he said sweetly. Way too sweetly. “Been a long couple days. You’re probably not thinking straight.”
She matched his paces, stopping at the edge of the walkway as Vince stepped down onto the asphalt. He was still taller than her, even like this.
“You have no idea how sick I am of being told how I feel,” she said.
“You have no idea how hot you look when you’re annoyed.”
“What happened to the man who told me to ask him in, two nights ago?”
“He’s getting off on watching you avoid coming out and saying what you want.”
“You,” she admitted, and swallowed. “I think.”
His smile was slow and dangerous. “Close enough.”
And they were moving. He was back on the walkway; then his knee was knocking hers, forcing her back a half step at a time, back, back, back, until her shoulder blades met the door. She turned to get it unlocked; then the dark of her room swallowed them.
Vince knocked the door closed. By the ambient light of the lot, he strode to the bedside table and flipped on the reading lamp. He shut the curtains with a smart tug, the motion concise and authoritative and so unbelievably, ridiculously erotic. He moved to her next, leading her backward again, pace by pace.
He’s pushing me toward the bed.
And she wouldn’t stop him. Not for anything. She’d been held back enough times in her life.
The pushing felt too goddamn good.
Every certain aspect of Kim’s life had crumbled since she’d arrived in this damn town, every foundation drilled out from under her. The only solid thing in her world was this man’s hard, pushy body, her attraction the only fact she trusted anymore.
She felt the mattress at her calves, the end of the line. Vince leaned in close.
“I knew we’d get here,” he murmured.
“I bet you did.”
“You knew it, too. Maybe not that first night, but when I took you out to Big Rock . . . When we kissed. You knew.”
“You think that’s all it takes with me?” Her hands rose of their own accord, fingertips tracing his bomber’s lapels. “A pretty sunrise and a trip around first base?”
His mouth was at her temple—so close she felt his lips moving as he spoke. “You know what it took for me?”
She shivered from his voice alone. Hot and cold at once. “No. What?”
“The fucking way you smell. Maybe you should put some of that perfume on for me.”
“Oh, should I?”
He nodded, so fucking cocky.
She left him standing there to stride to the dresser and do as she did every morning—she gave the bristles of her brush one good spray from the bottle, then ran it through her hair. She turned and crossed the room, leveling her eyes at Vince to say, Done. Your move.
His move, as it turned out, involved two broad, warm, rough palms—one on her neck, the other cupping her jaw. The posses
sion stole her breath and crackled over her skin, wrecked her attempt at a cool façade. His face came close, but he didn’t offer the kiss she anticipated. Instead, he breathed her in, long and full and oddly filthy, nose buried deep in her hair. It felt like the dirtiest thing she’d had done to her in ages. Dirty as the stroke of this stranger’s fingertips between her legs, she bet.
Don’t make it so personal. He likes your fucking perfume.
Fine by Kim. Didn’t need to be personal. Shouldn’t be personal, with her only two days free from a major relationship. Plus, everything else that bound her to this man was so eerie and messy . . . It was all jumbled enough, without feelings joining the mix.
He said it himself—he wants to fuck you. End of sentence. And she wanted precisely the same. Nothing more.
So go for it.
She slid her hands up between them. His jacket was open, and her palms drank in the hard shapes of his abdomen, memorizing them through the cotton of his tee. He smelled like the desert and old leather, and maleness. She bet she’d taste it if she ran her tongue along his throat. Her fingers slipped under his jacket to stroke his chest, then hooked under his collar, tugging it down to expose a peek of clavicle. Wholly without thought, she put her lips there, to the only slice of his skin she could reach. A heavy hand cupped the back of her head, a silent moan tensing Vince’s trunk, his breath fluttering the hair at her temple.
The scent of him filled her, as intoxicating as any drink she’d ever downed. Her faint kisses affected him as though she had his cock in her fist, and she wondered if he was mentally enumerating all the differences between them, as she was. She was fair, soft, small, domesticated. He was tanned and hard, huge. Wild. He could rip her to pieces. So why did she feel like she held the whole of him in the palm of her hand, with nothing more than the graze of her lips at his neck?
She pulled him toward the bed by that collar. Taking charge once more, Vince gave her a playful shove by the shoulders, dropping her butt onto the mattress with a squeak of springs. The next thing to drop was his jacket, shed to the floor, followed by his holster. He stooped to unlace his boots, the jerky motions of his arms speaking of his impatience. Kim felt the same, wound so tight, her skin was like a cage.
Barefoot, he joined her on the bed. He was above her, his locked, muscular arms flanking her ribs, his knees between hers. They were still dressed, but the fire in his eyes had Kim half expecting their clothes would ignite if he brought his hips down to meet hers.
Though for all the items they were about to strip, there was one that’d need to be donned.
“Are we fucking tonight?” she asked him, point-blank. No need to be subtle with this brute.
He looked scandalized. “Goddamn, woman. Here I thought you were just after a good-night kiss.”
She countered with a dry raising of her brows.
“Yeah,” he said, and freed a hand to pluck the glasses from her face by their bridge, before tossing them atop the nearest pillow. The world went a touch blurry—and blurrier still when he spoke next. “Yeah, we’re fucking.”
She swallowed. “Condoms?”
Some of the cockiness fled his expression. “Ah.” Holding himself up on one arm, he reached back to pull the wallet from his jeans pocket. He sat on his heels to flip through the contents. “Fuck.”
She sighed, a million percent frustrated.
“You got nothing?” he asked.
“Nope. Not exactly on my itinerary.”
“Oh well,” he said, as though tossing his disappointment over his shoulder, same as the wallet that went sailing past the foot of the bed. “Probably for the best. Save something for next time.”
Next time?
More to the point, what would this time look like? Everything about Vince spoke of greedy, male need—everything except that kiss, anyhow. She’d been eager to have sex with him purely for the highlight reel, even if he hadn’t bothered to try to get her off. She doubted she’d ever gotten off with a guy before the third hook-up. Didn’t bother her a bit, provided the show was worth a mental re-watch. But if tonight was going to boil down to nothing more than a blow job and a hasty See ya . . . ?
Vince planted his knees wide and pulled her right up against him by the hips, stealing her breath and scattering her worries. His excitement was pressed to her mound—hard. Crazy hard. He dropped to his forearms, meeting her belly to belly and chest to chest. Nose to nose. The size of him was intoxicating. She held his head, stroking the soft buzz of his hair and the dark shape of his tattoo.
He brought his face down, put those lips to her throat in an unmistakable kiss. A scrape of teeth. A slick tease of tongue. Her toes curled, thighs hugging his hips.
“What’s on the menu, with actual fucking precluded?” she asked.
“Oh, that still leaves plenty, sweetheart.”
“Like?”
“Not sure yet . . . But you turn up in my town,” he murmured. “In my bar. The smell of you makes my dick hard. I like your body up against mine, on my bike.” Another nip of teeth. “Think maybe I’ll just take whatever I can get, tonight.”
“So basically I’m just a good-smelling intruder to you?”
“And what am I to you?” he asked, mouth on her throat again. “Just a royal pain in your ass?”
“You’re the kind of mistake I haven’t let myself make before. But should.”
He made a warm, smug sound at that. “And you, you’re wrapped up in my troubles. I don’t understand yet why the fuck you’re a part of all this, or what to think about it,” he said between hungry kisses. “But if we let our bodies hash it out, maybe I can at least get some goddamn sleep for a change.”
Good an answer as any.
“Plus, I didn’t drag you into this bed by your hair,” he said. “I bet you don’t know any better than I do why we’re here. I could honestly give a shit why. All I care about is your naked skin against mine and your hands on my body.”
She let his head go, running her palms down his shoulders, his back. She felt the gully of his spine through the soft cotton, flanked by hard muscle. It flexed as his hips began to pump.
“You feel me?” he whispered, and that deep voice roused her as much as the stiff length caressing her sex.
“Yeah.”
“Feel what you do to me?” He froze, as though holding a one-armed push-up, then grabbed her hand to usher it between their bodies, clamping her palm to him.
Holy. Shit.
Her exhalation was as incriminating as a moan. He was big—no shock, given the scale of him, and it wasn’t even his size that had Kim panting. It was knowing he was excited. Knowing she’d done that to him. Knowing she’d be the target of its aggression, wondering what shapes his needs would take.
Vince braced himself on straight arms, thrusting slowly against her hand, making her feel every inch of him through strained denim.
Those eyes bored into hers from above. “I’ve put myself to bed thinking about you, the last two nights.”
She reeled, feeling his cock moving against her palm, imagining how it might look in his own grip, bare and ready. “Thinking about what?”
“Us, in this room.”
“How?”
He moved a little faster. “You, standing. With your hands planted on the bathroom sink. Watching the mirror as I take you from behind. You on your knees, in front of me on the floor.”
“Pushy imagination you’ve got there,” she said, breathlessness giving away her fascination.
“I’m a pushy guy.”
And suddenly the thought of her getting nothing from their encounter aside from sore knees wasn’t nearly as insulting. Goddamn perfect, almost.
“What about you? You been thinking about me?”
“No,” she lied.
“Tell me.”
She replayed her private, theoretical movies. “Also here, in this room. On the bed, though.”
“On your back?”
“Yeah. Exactly like this.”
�
�Fast?” he asked, rubbing quicker against her palm.
“Yes.” The entire fantasy was fast—fast and rough, and it had taken barely a three-minute clip of it to get her there, by herself. Just that face, mean with concentration, and the body she’d been imagining. She grabbed the bottom hem of his shirt, peeling it up. When she reached his shoulder blades, he took over to strip it the rest of the way off.
Her excitement shifted gears, thrumming hot as she took in his bare, locked arms. His sleeve tattoos ran all the way up, cresting along with the swells of his shoulders. Stand up, she wanted to say. Give me just one minute to study you. And maybe a few dozen photos. Souvenirs.
A realization dawned. If that was what he wanted you to do, he’d just give the order. She pushed at his arms. “Stand up.”
As his weight left the bed, Kim moved to her knees. She didn’t grab her camera, only her glasses, but her mind’s shutter clicked madly at the spectacle before her. His build was sleeker than she’d guessed—not as beefy as his broad frame suggested. She wished she knew the names of all those muscles. Especially the ones along his ribs that flexed as he slid a hand down his pants to adjust himself.
“What am I doing?” He hid his impatience poorly. And she liked it.
“I just want to look at you.” To admire his body and imagine how the soft, dark hair scattered from his chest down to his navel would feel, before she found out for real. She wanted to anticipate. To savor. She doubted she’d ever be in this position again, with a man who affected her as this one did. Or indeed simply looked this goddamn good.
Vince ran a hand over his hair, scratched the side of his nose. Huffed a breath. She could just about smell his frustration. But he did know how to heel, it would seem. That was intriguing.
She curled a finger to beckon him back, and those hard thighs were spreading hers before she could blink. The pillow was whipped out from beneath her head, tilting her face to his, and all at once, they were still. A long, weighted moment. Then he kissed her.
It wasn’t shy. Not smothering, either. Blunt, but so, so sweet, she wanted stay in that second all night. A tease of lips, then the bold sweep of his tongue against hers. He kissed deeply, explicitly. With slow intention, as though this were the instant when his cock first eased inside her, contact that could never be unknown.
