by Leigh Landry
“Listen, it’s cold and I have a warm truck. Let me take you to get some food, then I’ll bring you back to your car.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why on earth would you do that?”
“Because I’m a nice jackass?”
She stared at him for a few seconds, sizing him up. “How about we skip the food?”
Shit. He wanted to take that mouth of hers right then and there, but that was one bad decision he wasn’t about to make. “I don’t skip food with tormented, two-shots-of-bourbon women.”
Her eyes flared with annoyance for a quick moment, then she smiled and held out her hand. “Well, Nice Jackass, I’m Natalie.”
Shane took her hand in his, shook it, and felt the heat rise all the way up his arm from her touch. “Shane.”
She downed the rest of her Coke, then he helped her to her feet. They stood face-to-face, hands still gripping each other. She was close enough that he could smell the bourbon and Coke lingering on her mouth. Sweet and oh so tempting.
He took a step back, but still held her hand. With a nod toward his truck, he said, “Let’s get you some food.”
Chapter Two
Somewhere between the convention center and the nearest Taco Bell, Natalie sobered up. Not that she’d been drunk, but she shook off the thin blanket of buzz that had been coating her raw emotions. And since her brain was free to fire on all cylinders now, she was second guessing what the hell she was doing in a drive-thru with a stranger in the middle of the night.
“Shane, right?”
“Yeah.” He turned to her with those intense, blue-gray eyes of his, and she forgot for a second what she was going to say. Those eyes were so soothing but burned at the same time, like Icy Hot for her brain. And other parts.
“You can take me back to my car. I’m fine now, I promise.”
“Now?” He pointed at the car in front of them. “We haven’t even ordered yet.”
“You don’t have to babysit me.”
“I’m not babysitting you.”
“Sure. You just have a habit of taking strange women to Taco Bell in the middle of the night.”
“Just the pretty, mouthy, strange ones.”
She snapped her head around and glared at him, but had to stifle a smile. Natalie was fairly certain a guy who looked like him had enough people to fluff his ego. He didn’t need her for that.
Now that she was sane and sober—more than she was before, at least—she could enjoy her up-close-and-personal look at Shane. He had a short, scraggly beard and dark-blond hair, with a couple of strands falling around his face.
Strands falling out of the messy bun on top of his head.
She was in a truck…in a drive-thru…with a dude rocking a manbun.
For fuck’s sake.
A smoking hot dude with a manbun. But still.
Hot or not, he was off limits. Or at least that’s what she’d told Robin.
His mouth curled in a satisfied little grin when he caught her checking him out. She quickly turned to look out her own window to hide her flushed cheeks.
Shane rolled forward, asked Natalie what she wanted, and placed their order. A few minutes later, they were on their way back to the convention center, her car, and the end of her awful night.
Her guitar was behind her seat. Along with that fucking envelope. The one she still hadn’t opened. She didn’t need to. If Camille had given it to Robin instead of giving it to Natalie, face-to-face, she knew what that meant.
Camille wasn’t coming back. Not yet. It didn’t matter why.
Natalie pointed to his window. “You missed the turn.”
“Didn’t miss it. I live around the block. You can eat at a table instead of in your car.”
Her back straightened as a cold chill crept up her spine, and every muscle tensed. She didn’t know this guy at all. And she didn’t like this change of plans.
“There’s a baseball bat on the floor behind you,” he said. “You can knock me out and take my truck back to the convention center if I cross any lines.”
She glanced on the floor behind her to locate the bat, then turned back to read the dashboard clock. It read eleven twenty-five. Long past Cadence’s bedtime, even if she had tried to stay up and wait for Natalie to come home.
She looked over at Shane again. He didn’t look like a bad guy, but bad guys never exactly looked like bad guys, did they? And he outweighed her by more than enough lean muscle to make her nervous about being alone in a truck with a stranger.
But the bat did even her odds. So did her eight years of Taekwondo training and the multiple self-defense classes her mom insisted they take together.
She liked her odds here.
“Sounds fair,” she said.
A couple of turns later, they pulled into a small apartment complex, and he backed into a spot up front. Natalie grabbed her guitar and followed him to the first floor apartment right behind the truck.
He unlocked the front door and handed her their takeout, the scent of her bean and rice burrito and his nachos wafting up through the paper bag. He gestured inside. “Make yourself at home. I’m going to unload my gear.”
“I can help.” She put the bag on a counter and looked for a spot to safely stash her guitar for a few minutes.
“Seriously,” he said, “eat.”
She leaned her guitar against a wall in the carpeted living room and followed him back outside. She owed him for the ride. And the food. And for being the only person to give a shit about her that day, even though he didn’t know a damn thing about her.
Or maybe he cared because he didn’t know her.
She grabbed a box of cables from the truck bed.
“I said I had it.”
“I know,” she said.
He shook his head. “Pretty, mouthy, strange, and stubborn, huh?”
“Damn right.”
He lifted the case holding his sound-board like it was a bag of feathers, and Natalie admired his strong arms and hands for an extra second before heading back in the apartment.
He was providing an excellent preoccupation for her brain. Her life might be an overcrowded mess, and everyone might be bailing on her like rats abandoning her rusty, sinking ship, but at least she had a sexy distraction. For now. What Robin didn’t know wouldn’t kill her.
They brought the rest of the equipment inside, and Shane shut the door behind them with his foot. After she placed the last of his gear on the carpet, she caught him peeking down the top of her tank.
He ran a hand through his hair, smoothing back his loose strands. Natalie had to admit the slightly embarrassed gesture was just about the most adorable thing she’d seen in a long time.
But she wasn’t interested in adorable. She didn’t have room in her life for adorable.
What she needed was to forget. At least for a little while.
She locked eyes with him and took his scruffy face in her hands. His dark pupils widened. Natalie took a deep breath, and before she could second-guess this, too, she pressed her mouth against his.
Her life might be a clusterfuck, but she sure as hell could make something out of what was left of this shitty day.
Shane startled against her lips, then grabbed her hands and pulled his head back. He looked at her, long and hard, taking in her whole face, her eyes, her intentions. After a few moments of staring at each other, she felt his grip on her hands tighten, and his eyes flared with an intensity and hunger she knew all too well.
Still holding her hands, he lunged forward and kissed her back, desperate and eager. His beard rubbed against her face, thick and rough, but softer than she’d expected. She opened her mouth and let his tongue slide inside. He tasted like Mountain Dew and the delicious promise of fun and forgetting.
He slid one hand behind her head and the other behind her back and pushed forward until she walked backward into the wall. He pressed the thickness behind his jeans against her, proving he was as ready for her as she was for him.
She r
an her fingers down the smooth, soft T-shirt fabric covering his chest, then moved them back up again to grip behind his head and pull him even closer. Her breath was heavy and ragged, her body taking over so her brain could go off duty for a while. She couldn’t think of anything she wanted more.
With a smooth, swiftness that told her he was well-practiced at this move, he pulled her shirt over her arms and head with one hand. She gave him a quick eyebrow raise and a smile of admiration in honor of his skill, then she took her turn to lift his shirt and throw it across the room. Her hands slid over the light hair on his chest, while his mouth took no time at all getting acquainted with the tops of her breasts. She breathed heavily, her chest rising and falling beneath his mouth, while she gripped the thick muscles of his back.
When she’d gone looking for a little distraction, this was exactly what she’d been looking for.
No…this was even better. This man was proving to be the best distraction. And more.
He moved up to kiss her neck and slipped his hand between their bodies to unbutton her jeans. When his hand slipped farther down, into her panties, she released a moan, but abruptly cut it short.
“Wait, wait, Shane.” She could barely get the words out, and it took every ounce of self-control she had to say them.
He pulled his hand up and rested it around her waist. Her skin tingled and burned beneath the heat of his touch.
“I thought…” he said. “Sorry. It’s not a good idea, right? Whatever was bothering you earlier…I shouldn’t have—”
She put a finger on his lips. It was fucking adorable, once again, but she sure as hell didn’t have the patience for adorable right now. She needed something else from this guy.
“It’s a great idea. A condom would be an even better idea right now.”
He looked her over again, making sure he was reading her right. A few seconds later, a smile crept back on his face. He kissed her and said, “Don’t fucking move.”
She kissed him back hungrily as he pulled away. “Better hurry.”
He disappeared down the hall, leaving her cold and breathless.
And alone.
She shook that thought from her head, along with all the other thoughts fighting their way back to the front of her brain.
He really did need to hurry. Not that she was going to regret this at all. But she didn’t want to think about anything but Shane for the next…well, however long she could keep him in her grasp.
* * * * *
When Shane grabbed the condom box beside his bed, an orange-striped blur of fluff darted out from under the bed to smack his hand.
“Not now.” He scratched the as-yet-unnamed kitten’s head and swatted its paw away. “Playtime later. I’m already in the middle of playtime with someone else.”
Someone else he didn’t know.
He sure as hell hadn’t planned on having sex with Natalie when he offered her that ride. Not even when he brought her back to his apartment. A few years ago it might have been all that was on his mind. But now? After the year he’d had and being dragged in the middle of someone else’s marital mess? Now he knew better than to get involved—in any capacity—with a woman clearly carrying around a heavy heaping of drama.
That kiss had surprised him, though. Not just the fact that she kissed him, but how much he wanted to kiss her back. She seemed pretty sure she wanted this, so who the hell was he to deny her whatever her own brand of therapy might be?
A guy who knew better, that’s who.
So with condoms still in hand, he walked back to the living room and steeled himself to make a graceful exit from whatever shitstorm they’d stirred up a few moments ago.
He found Natalie with her back to him, examining his bookshelves. She was still in just her bra, her blonde hair trailing down the tanned skin of her back, and her jeans, slung low on her hips. Her long, perfect-for-playing-guitar finger traced the title on the spine of one of his books, while her head tilted to read the sideways font.
Suddenly, he lost all ability to make rational decisions.
He placed the box of condoms on the shelf she was examining and slipped his hands around the smooth, cool skin of her waist, while he placed a soft kiss on her bare shoulder.
“You like McCaffrey?” She gestured at his worn copies of the first eight books in the Dragonriders of Pern series.
He kissed up her shoulder and neck until he reached her ear, where he whispered, “Do you really want to compare literary favorites now? Or can we save that for dessert?”
She turned in his arms and gave a devilish grin. “Why can’t we do both?”
He kissed her gently, tugging on her bottom lip as he pulled back. “Efficient. I like it.”
“You ain’t seen nothing yet.” She grabbed his jeans and began unzipping. “Now answer the question.”
He kissed her again, then sucked in air as she slid her hand inside his boxers. “There was a question?”
“I asked if you like McCaffrey.”
He moved his hands up her back and unhooked her bra. To his brief disappointment, she removed her hand from his pants long enough to slip out of the straps. But his disappointment was short-lived once he had his hands on her now bare breasts, and she tossed her head back with approval.
“That first book is a signed copy.” He attacked her neck with his mouth, his hands sliding down to tug her jeans to the floor.
“Nice.”
He couldn’t tell if her enthusiasm was genuinely for the book or her physical pleasure. He was certainly willing to continue this experiment to find out which.
“So what’s your favorite part? The examination of class structure, gender roles, or colonization politics?” Her voice was ragged as he gripped her hips and lowered himself to her breast. He traced her nipple with his tongue and sucked it once.
“The dragons.”
She laughed, thoroughly enjoying herself, then wove her fingers through his hair and tugged at his head so he looked up at her. She bit her lip in a way that made him dizzy with want. He rose to face her, eye-to-eye again, while she stroked him, long and hard, her green eyes dancing with mischief and desire.
“You should try His Majesty’s Dragon.”
He dropped his jeans and boxers to the floor, then took a condom from the box on the shelf behind her head. “Isn’t that my line?”
She laughed again, a sound he could really get used to.
Damn. He wasn’t supposed to be getting used to anything here.
She removed her hand from his cock to inch both hands up his chest and nibble on his ear. With one of his hands cradling her breast, Shane rolled on the condom, then slid a finger inside her, to make sure she was ready for him. She released a moan against his ear, as he removed his finger, now slick from her.
“Naomi Novik,” she said, breathily. “Napoleonic Wars. With dragons.”
“Sounds fascinating.” She wrapped a leg around his waist, and he hooked his arm under it and slid inside her, fully burying himself within two slow, smooth strokes.
She sucked in air and grabbed his back, pulling herself further against him. He placed one hand behind her ass and one hand behind her shoulder blades to cushion her from the edges of the shelves, then rocked against her.
Natalie propped a foot up on one of the lower shelves for leverage and dug her fingers into the muscles of his back, groaning with pleasure. The bookshelf knocked against the wall behind her with each of his thrusts. Shane leaned in, burrowing his face in her mass of blonde waves that smelled like sweet sweat from a night of playing and a lingering hint of jasmine blooms, and he lost himself in her scent for what felt like an eternity.
Her breathing became more ragged, and her gasps escalated until she tightened around him, then released with a deep groan. Shane followed her lead a few thrusts later, holding her tightly against the bookshelf, afraid to fall over with the dizzying wave of release and euphoria.
Natalie ran her fingers through the side of his hair, a tender gesture. He p
ulled away and kissed her cheek. While he walked to the bathroom to clean up, she pulled her jeans up and over her rear end. The sight made him want to pull her down to the ground and fuck her all over again.
When he returned from the hall bathroom, she was slipping her arms through her shirtsleeves and grabbing her guitar.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Been here long enough,” she said. “I should get going.”
“You didn’t eat yet.”
She dug in her bag on the side table and pulled out her burrito. She unwrapped one end, took a bite, and held it up to show him. “I’ll eat on the way.”
“Wait.” He grabbed his pants. “I’ve gotta drive you back.”
“It’s fine,” she said. “It’s right down the road.”
“I can’t let you wander the streets alone in the middle of the night.”
She was already at the front door, but she paused and looked back at him. “You can’t ‘let’ me?”
“How about it’s not a good idea?”
She shrugged and winked. “I’m on a roll for good ideas here, so I’ll take my chances.”
“Natalie. Seriously, wait.”
“Don’t worry. I know where to find a bat.”
He pulled up his jeans and looked around for his shirt. “Don’t be stubborn. It’s freezing outside. Let me drive you back.”
“I’m all warmed up now. Thanks for the fantastic distraction.” She opened the door and waved goodbye with the burrito in one hand and her guitar slung over her shoulder.
He shook his head. “Thanks for the book recommendation.”
She smiled over her shoulder as she disappeared out his front door.
He looked around his living room. His sound equipment was piled along the wall, and he was still shirtless. This wasn’t even close to how he had pictured this day ending.
The apartment was eerily silent now. And painfully empty. Normal.
He wondered for a moment if he might have imagined the whole last hour. But Shane knew his imagination wasn’t half that good.
* * * * *
The house was pitch-black when Natalie walked inside. Her mom must have taken her up on her offer to spend the night, so she wouldn’t have to drive home so late. If it would mean Natalie didn’t have to answer why she was back so late, she was glad to sleep on the couch.
