Lay It Down

by Cara McKenna

  “You really think I’m going to be able to help you? Lead you to the bones, or however your mom put it?”

  He nodded once. “I do, yeah. For better or worse, my mom’s visions don’t lie. And I’d hold you hostage if I could, if it meant I might get to the bottom of this shit. But I can’t, so I’m just asking nice.”

  “Things are starting to feel really dangerous.”

  “They are.” His gut plummeted at that—at the thing that left him the most ill at ease about her staying. But there was no gaming his mom’s spooky system, no predicting how this shit unfurled. It was a fuck of a lot to ask of the woman. “I tricked my brother, to get him to come home,” Vince said, “but I won’t lie to keep you here.”

  She smiled weakly. “Thanks for that, I guess.”

  He curled a finger to draw her close. “C’mere.”

  It was too familiar, too soon, but he folded her inside his arms all the same, burning with gratitude. And beneath that, need. “Second you spot one of those men, we get you someplace safe. I won’t let you get hurt.” A promise he had no business making. A promise he had no choice but to believe, and to dedicate himself to proving true.

  She nodded, hair brushing his cheek. “Okay.”

  “You sure?”

  “I think so.” Restless fingers clutched and released his jacket, clutched and released. “Whatever I might get up to, back north . . . There’s nothing waiting there for me that’s more important than finding out the truth of what happened to a good man.”

  A good man. That was what Alex had been, sure as the desert was dry. But not Vince. She’d stay to help shed light on a good man’s death, but he knew she wouldn’t be sticking around after that to warm a bad man’s bed. Didn’t warrant thinking about, though. Falling for her would be breaking the habit of a lifetime. Keep it simple. Keep it in perspective.

  He murmured, “Thank you.”

  “Sure.”

  Yeah, sure. No problem. She was only putting her life on hold and maybe risking her neck for him. No biggie.

  The longer he held her, the darker the contact felt, gratitude steadily giving way to desire.

  He buried his mouth in the hair behind her ear, breathed in that maddening scent. “If I don’t get inside you tonight, I’m gonna lose my fucking mind.”

  Smooth hands stroked his neck. “Don’t lose it before we make it back to town in one piece.”

  “We’re not heading back to town,” he told her, stepping away. “Not yet.”

  “Where?” She followed him to his bike.

  “Hotel. Nearest hotel to right here.”

  “Okay . . . As long as I’m back at Three C in the morning—I have to get my frames turned in to the marketing people by noon.”

  “No shoptalk, tonight. Tonight we find a bed, and we forget there’s such a place as Fortuity for a couple hours. Forget the casino, and what you heard, forget every other damn thing the two of us are tangled in together, aside from some sheets.”

  She nodded, a warm smile curling her lips as she strapped on the helmet. “Take me there, Vince.”

  Thirty minutes later, he all but slammed the hotel room door behind them. The place wasn’t fancy, but compared to the Nugget, it was eight-star. He tossed the plastic key swipe in the general direction of a desk and strode to the far windows to jerk the drapes shut, closing them in the pale gold glow of one bedside lamp.

  He was burning up, and he studied Kim as he stripped his jacket away, then his holster. She took a seat on the edge of the big bed, stroking the sand-colored covers and watching him in turn.

  Every last thing in this room was an invitation to fuck. The bed, the big mirror mounted behind the dresser, every inch of carpet, every wall. Her, above all. His body was humming, and it had nothing to do with those hundred miles he’d just ridden or the stress of the day.

  He held her stare, spoke quietly. “Undress for me.”

  The striptease began with her camera bag, lifted over her head and shoulder, set on the nightstand. Her sneakers were next, followed by her socks; then she stood to shed her jacket and sweater, tossing them on the floor. Her bare arms excited him as much as another woman’s naked breasts might, and he wanted to stroke her neck, her cheek, her hair, as badly as he might to want to rush toward release with some other girl. He wanted to feel her pulse against his palm as he held her face and kissed her deep.

  He closed in, halting her wrist as she went to slip her glasses off. “Leave those.” He needed her watching whatever was about to go down, crisp and indelible.

  He felt the air go out of her as he cupped her jaw, and he tasted her excitement when their lips met. She liked kissing him. He’d noticed that the very first time they’d done this, and it wasn’t something he’d ever read from a woman before. Then again, the types of women he usually woke up with weren’t interested in things as subtle as kissing. If they wanted subtle, they wouldn’t be getting with Vince, after all. But Kim was something else. Unassuming herself, yet she hid so much intensity behind the façade.

  Her tongue stroked his, lighting him up. The smell of her perfume joined the mix, and then it was the cool relief of her palms on his skin. He held her head and tasted her deeply, letting his hunger hide how much it affected him—simply feeling her hands on him. Just grazing his sides and hips through his tee, but it got him hotter than a wet mouth on his cock.

  She pulled away and asked, “You remember condoms this time?”

  He cooled himself enough to tease her back. “Listen here, modern woman—how’s that my sole responsibility?”

  “That’s a yes, isn’t it?”

  He smiled. “Yeah. But do you have any clue how stupid all our sexual tension’s been making me? You’re lucky I even remembered where the motel was, to fetch your undies. I barely know my own name when you’re around me, way you’ve got under my skin.”

  “Show me.”

  He pulled away and stepped back, so hard and ready, it hurt. She had to be feeling as impatient as he was, as her striptease resumed in earnest.

  “Slow,” he murmured, rapt as she peeled her tee up and over her head, blond waves falling against her neck and cheek. She was wearing a blue bra the color of slate—the color of her eyes—with black dots. He’d touched that satin when he’d gathered her things from her motel room, and felt not nearly as guilty as a better man might have. He’d watched her put it on before his very eyes, and he was dying to be the one to take it off her. She undid the button of her jeans and pushed them down. Her panties didn’t match her bra. They were the ones he’d harassed her about, navy and aqua stripes, white piping, and her skin glowed against the fabric in the burnishing light of the lamp. She looked like no woman he’d ever been with, the kind they didn’t make in Fortuity. Calm, cautious. Not innocent, yet so goddamn in need of dirtying.

  “Should I keep going?” she asked, fingertips tracing the underwire of her bra.

  “No. I’ll do the rest.” All in good time, and he had catching up to do. He hadn’t missed the way she’d watched him last night. He’d seen shock in her eyes—some dark persuasion of wonder. No doubt she’d never been with a man like him. She’d have been with men who fit her. Smaller, leaner. Cleaner. Better educated, with better manners. Fuck, with any manners. But had any of them ever made her feel what he had? Having watched her face when she’d come, Vince couldn’t help but doubt it.

  He stripped his own tee, searching her eyes for that gleam and finding it. Desire, amplified. Whatever he was to her, it was new. A little wrong, a little dangerous.

  “You ever been with a man like me?”

  She swallowed, her eyes moving slowly from his waist to his chest and finally to his face. She nodded. “Last night.”

  “Last night was nothing.”

  Her nostrils flared, a shadow of a smile tweaking her lips. “Nothing to you, maybe.”

  Well yeah, of course, twist it that way. Two could play that game. He ditched his boots and socks, then finally asked her, “And what was it to yo
u, then?”

  Her expression changed, something serious overcoming her. She held his stare. And Vince wasn’t used to staring into a woman’s eyes, in all honesty.

  “Last night . . .” She looked away.

  “Yeah?”

  Nothing but a deep breath, and Vince came close to crook his finger under her chin and tilt her head up. “Tell me.”

  She didn’t speak at first, but touched him. Her fingers were electricity on his skin, gliding from his shoulders to his belt in long, slow, matching trails, shooting sparks down his body. He caught her wrists before she could pull away.

  “Tell me. What was last night?”

  The tip of her pink tongue toyed at the corner of her lips, and those blue eyes flashed at his. “That was the best sex of my life. And we didn’t even quite have sex.”

  “I rounded it up.”

  “Me, too.”

  Tell me about your exes, he wanted to say. About the one she’d cut loose, and every other fool who’d not pleased her as Vince had. God help him, he wanted that shit. The praise. The top spot and its spoils, winner take all. His world was black and white beneath the blazing desert red.

  He led her hand back to his belt, breath hitching as her fingers toyed with his buckle. He felt a faint tug, a release. Again at his fly as she undid the button. He let her wrists go, and his breath slipped out in a silent moan as she slid his zipper down. Christ, this was his cue. A cue he’d taken too many times, to cup a woman’s head, lead her down to her knees. A selfish man’s most natural move, yet his hands lay limp at his sides, the whole of him mesmerized as she explored.

  She pushed his jeans to the tops of his thighs, framing his erection in his spread fly, masked by black cotton. Boldly she touched him, centering his cock. Shocked by the contact, he clasped her hand again. But he didn’t move it away. Didn’t rush them headlong into the dirty stuff, either. Instead, he gently wrapped her slender fingers around his length and held her there. His stare brought her eyes up to meet his. He felt his pulse in her grip, enthralled to imagine she could feel the same. Felt her gaze drilling straight into his brain and lost the game, looking away first.

  “On the bed,” he ordered, suddenly desperate for control.

  As she hopped her butt onto the high mattress, he shoved his jeans down and kicked them away. Climbing on after her, he knocked her knees wide with his. Fucking perfect—the covers soft, the surface thick and silent. Utter privacy, anonymity. And after these past few days, with Kim seeming like an exotic visitor to Vince’s world, now here they both were together, equals in this unfamiliar place. Nothing between them but their underwear. And that was easily remedied.

  He centered his erection against her seam through the cotton, knowing with excruciating certainty how warm she was there. How soft that skin was, how wet she got. How she smelled. Not what she tasted like, however . . . and without any lube handy to rush the proceedings, what a genius proposition. He gave her long, taunting strokes, rewarded when those short nails bit into his arms.

  He leaned close to draw his tongue up her jugular. “I gotta taste you.”

  A suck of startled breath answered him.

  He slid his body along hers, settling on his forearms between her thighs. If he’d thought her perfume smelled good, it had nothing on her excitement. He got his face right up close and breathed her in, arousal tearing through him like a brush fire.

  “Fuck, you smell amazing.” Had to taste even better. He drew the tip of his nose along her hidden lips, then his tongue, wet fabric dragging. Slid two fingers under the cotton, knuckles brushing her folds. Her legs twitched and tensed against his biceps, and a gasp answered his next lap. That snuffed his patience. He tugged at her panties and she brought her legs in so he could strip them. Nothing between them now but his self-control. He studied the most private, most feminine part of her for a long moment, and drew his thumbs along her outer lips—the touch as soft as his skin was surely callused. Another gasp.

  “How do my fingers feel?” he asked, stroking.

  “Rough. But I like it.”

  “My tongue’s just the opposite. But you’ll like that, too, I promise.” He gave another symmetrical sweep of his thumbs; then he brought his mouth to her.

  He couldn’t tell which of them felt it more. Slender legs squeezed his shoulders, but he was so drunk on her, it barely registered. His reality became her skin, her smell, the faintly salty sex-flavor of her excitement. His cock’s angry insistence faded, its wants incidental next to his need to please her.

  Her hands were on his head, nails on his scalp, thighs against his forearms. Her soft curls tickled his cheeks. Her sex and his tongue spoke in slick, needy whispers, sharing secrets. He lapped her deeply, rewarded by an arching of her back and a sharp taste of her desire priming. Deeper. Deeper still, so deep, his teeth grazed her skin. He’d deprived her clit, and now he rewarded its patience with a light flick of his tongue. Her back rose from the bed and those nails raked him.

  “Good.” He said it right up against her, lips teasing. He took her clit between them, sucking, finding her hard. He fluttered with his tongue until she was mewling and panting and fidgeting—close. So close he felt her wetness at his stubbly chin. Finally, he let her go. She gasped like the air was ice-cold against her sex, after the heat of his mouth.

  “Jesus,” she breathed.

  “I earn my way in yet?” he asked, already on his hands and knees.

  “God yeah.”

  The condoms were in his jacket, and he reached for where it had landed against the wide headboard. Her hands were on his waistband; then cool air caressed his pounding erection.

  “Yeah. Get me ready.” He was so hard, he figured he was already there, but when her smooth hand stroked him, everything doubled. He freed a condom from the strip and handed it off, letting Kim wrestle the thing open as he ditched his shorts. He’d meant to savor every second, but the moment she slid the rubber down his cock, there was no slowing this train. He fisted himself and drove his knees deep under her thighs, spreading her open. Then his crown was at the folds he’d left so flushed and plump, heat swallowing him.

  “Fuck.” He dove in like a man on fire, but she didn’t quench him—only made him burn brighter. She grabbed his hips with her hands, his ass with her legs, drew him deep. Every atom of him wanted to fuck hard and fast and rough, lose himself inside a hot minute. Nearly let it go down that way, too, but he collected himself. Slowed. Breathed. Found a sustainable rhythm, an angle more for her than him. Smooth, steady strokes, and he pushed up on his arms so she could watch. When she did, he felt dizzy.

  “Good?” he asked.

  She nodded, eyes locked on his motions, expression wild.

  He moaned as her nails dug into his ass. Fuck yes—make it rough. He rewarded that, exaggerating his movements, lengthening them. “You want it deep? That it?”

  “Yes.”

  He freed a hand to grab her knee, spread her wider. He went so deep, he felt her hip bone biting his, and still he didn’t think they could ever get close enough.

  She swore against his throat, nails jabbing.

  “You like it?”

  “Yeah. Lean back. Let me see.”

  Good goddamn. Vince was the bossy one in bed as a rule, but he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t liked the order. He gave her just what she wanted, sitting on his heels, gripping her by the thighs and delivering every inch.

  “Yeah,” he muttered, rapt. “You just try to forget this.”

  But even this perfect view wasn’t enough. He needed more—needed her pressed to him, tight as they could get. He slid his arms under her back and hauled her up, her legs locking around his waist and their chests meeting. With a hand on her ass and the other between her shoulder blades, he moved her against him and matched every push with a thrust of his own. She clasped the back of his neck, giving herself over to his needs. He led her in long motions and made her hear all the sounds she roused in him. Everything that reflected the pleasure rock
ing his body and the excitement building between his legs. Deep moans, guttural grunts. The things she made him feel. And he heard her softer voice behind his gruff one, as she surrendered to the sex.

  He kept them fucking until her back grew slick, his hold slipping.

  Easing her down onto the covers, he gave her a minute’s extra show before deciding he wanted to do the spectating.

  He slid out of Kim’s warm body and stood from the bed, offering a hand. “C’mere.”

  She let him help her to her feet; then he turned her, urged her toward the dresser. Their eyes met in the mirror on the wall behind it, and he smiled, feeling wicked. His hands went to her waist. Hers sought the edge of the wood as he angled and found her slick folds with his cock. He watched her expression as he slid back inside. Watched her hair and breasts sway with the impact as he found his rhythm. He couldn’t get enough of her. Couldn’t feel her, smell her, taste her, hear her, see her completely enough. Goddamn, she made him greedy on a level he’d never reached before.

  “Up straight,” he said, and she arched her back. “Yeah, like that. Lemme see you.” He needed to see the both of them.

  Fuck, they looked good. Big, small, hard, soft. Tan and tattooed against creamy pale. So crazy hot, though all he could see was their bodies from the waist up. Soft-core, yet he doubted he’d ever watched anything half as explicit. She made him feel more of everything. Strong and dark and male and bad. He gathered her hair in his fist, gently drew her head back until their eyes met in the reflection.

  “Watch me.”

  Remember this. Memorize it, just as he was. Remember it long after she escaped his troubles and returned to her normal life. Remember them, like this. Remember Vince as more than the man who’d turned her world inside out one dusty summer. Remember me as the best goddamn lay you’ve ever had.

  He ran his palms up her sides, closing them around her small breasts. She tightened at the contact, eyes shutting, lips parting. He watched her face as he drew his rough fingertips across her tight nipples, thinking it was the hottest thing he’d ever seen. Couldn’t get enough of the ways she reacted. He wanted to remember every stroke and glance and noise and smell.