Melt For Him

by Lauren Blakely

  Pleasure forked in his body, rippling through his veins, and he was reduced to nothing more than want. He spun her around, backed her up against a nearby tree, and tugged up her T-shirt. “I need to touch you,” he rasped in her ear.

  She moaned as he spread his fingers across the soft flesh of her belly. Shivering under his touch, her back bowed and her hips jutted out.

  It was an invitation, one he was damn sure he had no choice but to RSVP to. He ran his fingertips along her skin, tracing her belly button, her hips, the edge of the waistband of her shorts. He dipped his head to her neck and licked a path up her neck, her skin so hot. “I want you so much. More than I should. More than I’m supposed to. But I just don’t care because right now I want to hear the sweet, sexy sounds you make when I touch you,” he said, his voice gravelly.

  “I can’t stop, either. So don’t you dare,” she said. She grappled at his shirt, her hands frantic as she pulled and tugged at his clothes, as if she couldn’t get him near enough. He felt her fingers grasping at his shorts, jerking him even closer.

  He groaned as he pressed against her, his cock hard and heavy, and he wished he had a condom with him, so he could strip off her clothes, pull down his shorts, and thrust into her. He slid his hand between her legs, feeling the heat of her desire through her shorts. She gasped the second he made contact; she was so ready to have him inside her.

  She moaned again, and it started as a long, low sigh that became his name. “Becker.”

  “Do you have any idea how much I want to be inside you?”

  She nodded against him. “As much as I want you there,” she answered quickly, her voice ragged.

  “I want to bury myself inside you right now. I want to feel you gripping me,” he whispered huskily against her neck.

  “And then?” she asked, rocking against his hand, greedily seeking out his fingers even through the layers between them.

  “You’ll give yourself to me, spread your legs wide open, take me all the way in.”

  “I will,” she said, as she shuddered in his arms. He wrapped a hand around her waist, keeping her steady.

  “Then I’ll kiss you while I fuck you,” he whispered into her ear.

  She gasped, and wriggled her body closer to his. “I want that. All of it. I want fucking and kissing,” she said, her breathing turning more erratic.

  “I’ll fuck you like I kiss you, and kiss you like I fuck you. With nothing held back,” he said, his tongue darting against the salty skin of her neck as she trembled against him.

  “Do that to me now,” she said, her breathing turning erratic, her sounds reminding him how close they were flirting with danger.

  Too close.

  Like the moment before a back draft.

  “We shouldn’t be doing this,” he muttered, but words like that were pointless when she turned the tables, slipping an agile hand inside his shorts, and with a quickness he hadn’t expected, wrapping those fingers around his cock.

  “I know,” she said as she caressed him. “We shouldn’t be doing this at all.”

  She felt so fucking fantastic that he was damn near ready to throw all caution to the wind and fuck her without a glove, but there was no way that would happen. Hell, if she kept stroking him with those soft, talented fingers, he was going to come in her hand, and that wasn’t acceptable either. With all the self-restraint he possessed, he removed her hand from his briefs.

  “If I stop now, I won’t feel like a total ass,” he said through gritted teeth.

  She nodded, her eyes wild and hazy. She pushed a hand through her hair. “Stop. Yes. No assholes allowed here,” she said, as if she were reminding herself.

  Somehow, they managed to untangle themselves from each other, to readjust their clothes, to breathe normally again, and they started to walk to the dirt parking lot not too far away. She stopped briefly, pointing to the meandering river, the only witness to their entanglement moments ago. “Hey, Becker. I really do think we should shoot you by the river.”

  “Yeah? Why’s that?”

  “Because you look good by the water. It suits you.”

  It was a shoot. It was only a photo shoot. He’d managed restraint that should earn him a goddamn Olympic gold medal. He could do that again. He took a beat, nodded once, and never stopped looking at her, her beautiful brown eyes captivating him. “Then we’ll shoot by the river.”

  “How about tomorrow morning?”

  “Same time?”

  “Morning light is the best light,” she said as they resumed their path.

  He didn’t say out loud that there’d be nobody there in the morning. Just like today. He didn’t want to acknowledge the temptation. Maybe because he wanted to believe he could manage it. He wanted to believe nothing could harm his friendship with Travis.

  …

  Her hand was itching to touch his. The desire to be connected to him physically was like electricity, stirring the air. Given how he’d touched her only moments ago, her body was still vibrating with need. She craved the feel of his strong hand in hers, and the force of that desire surprised her.

  Yet it felt entirely natural to want that from Becker.

  As they walked to the lot together, she lifted her fingers a few times, reaching toward him, then dropping them back down to her side, trapped by this strange indecision. She wanted to stroll to their vehicles together, fingers clasped. That warm, comforting image was so potent right now, and it felt like the right gesture after their morning together. Surely he was the kind of man who’d hold her hand, especially after that near-O she’d just about achieved.

  But then, there was something about holding hands that felt like a promise of more. More times, more moments, more connection. Almost-orgasms were one thing; deeper intimacy was another. Holding hands while walking together would be another line to cross. It was the quieter hint of where things were headed; it was the sweet contact between lovers who were connecting outside the bedroom, too. Holding hands would be some kind of symbol that acknowledged what was happening between them.

  And whatever was happening was bound to become far too treacherous for her heart. She felt healed from the loss of her father; she’d made it through, she’d survived, and she’d learned. She lived on the other side of the pain and the grief. That healed heart—such a precious gift that so many people never reached, or took for granted when they did—needed protection, didn’t it? The heart could be a fearless creature, prone to parading around town naked and unafraid. It needed the brain to keep it safe from its own propensity for foolish acts.

  Even on a temporary basis. Perhaps especially since she and Becker could only be temporary. She didn’t want to head north with an aching in her chest from missing him. Because she would miss him.

  She kept her hand to herself. She kept her heart shielded safely in its cage where it could behave.

  When she reached the parking lot, he eyed her motorcycle. “Dangerous beasts. I’ve seen far too many accidents on bikes.” He opened the door of his truck. “Why don’t you let me pick you up tomorrow?”

  “You’ll be my chauffeur, then?”

  “Yes.”

  She gave him the address, he repeated it once, then tapped the side of his head. “Now it’s there. In permanent ink.”

  “Be careful of permanent ink,” she warned, and she had a feeling neither one of them was talking about writing implements. Especially when he moved first, brushing away a strand of hair that had dared to flutter across her cheek. The slightest touch from his fingertips lit up her insides, like a neon sign turned on after dark. Her breathing turned shallow as he tucked that hair behind her ear. Then he lowered his hand.

  “Be careful on that beast.”

  “Don’t worry. The speedometer is broken, so that makes me go extra slow.”

  His eyes nearly popped out of his head. “Extra slow?”

  “Just kidding. It’s just the oil gauge that’s broken. Trav is going to help me fix it,” she said with a wink.

&n
bsp; He narrowed his eyes. “You had me there for a minute.”

  “I know. It was cute,” she said as she pulled on her helmet and straddled the seat, and she couldn’t deny how much she liked that he was looking out for her. That she was part of his natural instinct to save and protect.

  Chapter Eleven

  Becker didn’t like the way Megan rode home on her bike. Fine, there was nothing innately daredevilish in her style—she rode at the speed limit, stopped at lights, and didn’t weave into oncoming traffic. But he’d tended to enough accidents and been called to the scene of more than he could ever count. Motorcyclists were always the ones who wound up losing when they tangoed in a crash.

  In his early days in Chicago, he was the first responder to a motorcycle crash that hadn’t even been anyone’s fault. As the eyewitnesses told it, the biker had been waiting to make a left turn onto the on-ramp. The light changed, and the biker clipped the curve too wide, bouncing hard, once, twice, three times, on the road. The guy wound up in a back brace for months.

  Even as he pulled into his driveway, cut the engine, and headed inside for a quick shower, he couldn’t shake the images. Couldn’t stop picturing the same thing happening to Megan. He could even imagine in stark detail being called to the scene—down to the crackle of the scanner and the smell of the gasoline. Then her face, bruised and bloody. He shuddered. He had to halt that image.

  He turned the water to scalding, and as it pelted his back, he tried to remind himself that there was no logical reason that he should be so transfixed now on all that could go wrong, with her or with anyone. He’d saved more people along the way than not, and had managed it without feeling like his head was in a vise, forcing him to witness an endless reel of memories. But sometimes, all it took was the flicker of worry, the possibility of someone else he cared for being hurt, or worse, and he was thrust back to the past. Helpless to his wandering mind that returned to the same point in time, hearing the roar of the flames, smelling the burning building, then witnessing the moment the wall killed his friends.

  Maybe he could have grabbed them harder. Held on longer.

  Fuck if he knew anymore.

  All he knew was he hadn’t been able to save them. That knowledge was always pounding on his skull, an endless loop that never let up. But then it started to loosen its hold as he returned to her, remembering their morning. When he was with Megan, he didn’t feel so caged in. It wasn’t that he forgot the past with her; it was that he didn’t feel imprisoned by it. For a moment there by the river, with her hand spread out across his chest, fingers stretching over the thin fabric of his T-shirt as if she owned him, he’d felt something like release, like a ghost being exorcised, then quietly slipping away, never to come around again.

  Then it was gone.

  He scrubbed shampoo in his hair, then rinsed it out, turned the faucet off, and stepped out of the shower. He wrapped a towel around his waist and went hunting through his drawers for clothes. He pulled on boxers, jeans, and a T-shirt. Today, he had to review the books at the Panting Dog, and he hoped the numbers and the rhythm of the balance sheet would soothe his mind.

  Until tomorrow. Until he saw her again.

  …

  Megan Photoshopped an ostrich head onto her brother’s body. She studied the shot, then added other random animal features—massive black wings to his arms and a pair of webbed feet. Perfect. She emailed it to him, and moments later as her cell phone rang, she prepared herself for some mud-slinging.

  But it was her mother calling from the cruise.

  “Are you tanned, rested, and ready to come home?” Megan asked when she answered.

  “Heck no. Robert and I never want to come back. We’re docked somewhere in the Caribbean now, and I’m dining on tilapia and sipping a tropical fruit drink on the deck of a restaurant that looks out over the ocean waves. Have I mentioned it’s eighty-two degrees and balmy?”

  “It’d better be. It’s a cruise in the tropics.” She pushed away from her laptop at the kitchen table where she’d been working on the photos.

  “How is it being back in town, sweetie?”

  “Oh, you know. Same old, same old.”

  “Could you try being more evasive?” her mom teased, and Megan liked how playful she seemed. Two weeks at sea under the sun could do that to you. But then, her mom always enjoyed herself when she was with Robert. She had met him when he landed in town and opened a bookstore several years ago, after running a successful one under the same name in New York City. Her mom attended the first reading at the bookstore and a whirlwind courtship followed.

  Robert was good to her, treated her like a queen, and was home for dinner every night. Megan figured that’s what her mom had wanted most of all. Dependability. In the last year, they’d both scaled back on work, and had a talented manager who ran the shop so they could take vacations like this now and then. It was almost as if her mom was making up for lost time, and cramming all the good things in life into her schedule now, since she’d missed the chance to do so during those dark years.

  “It’s actually not so bad being back,” Megan conceded. “The calendar is keeping me busy. Plus, I’ve been hanging out with Jamie and Travis. He’s still a pain in the ass. That hasn’t changed.”

  “Well, there’s not much about your brother we can change, now is there?”

  “Truer words were never spoken.”

  “In any case, I was hoping you could help us out with a little something at the bookstore.”

  “Sure. What is it?”

  “My manager, Craig, needs a day or two off,” her mother said. “Could you fill in for him?”

  Immediately, Megan cycled back to Jamie’s comments the other night about Craig’s near-death accident on the slopes. If he needed time off, it probably had to be related to the accident. Besides, Megan’s instincts were to help her mom. “Of course. Anything I can do.”

  “It won’t interfere with the photo shoot?”

  “Not at all. There’s a lot of flexibility with when I can shoot, and I already have a few great shots of the guys, so it’s shaping up nicely. Besides, I want to help,” Megan said as she headed into the kitchen to root around for something to eat.

  Her mother sighed gratefully. “Oh, thank God. Maybe you can stop by the store later this week just to go over everything with Craig? Get up to speed, you know.”

  “Consider it done.”

  “He’s a sweet guy, too, Megan,” her mom said. “You’d like him.”

  “Are you trying to set me up?”

  “He’s nice,” her mom said, letting her voice trail off suggestively.

  Megan rolled her eyes. “Get back to working on your tan.”

  She didn’t need another guy. She needed to figure out what the hell she was doing with one guy. The guy she was seeing tomorrow morning.

  …

  The National’s latest album played on the sound system as Becker delivered the bar tab to Cara, a well-known dog trainer in town who’d been working with Jamie’s new puppy.

  “I hear Chance is a perfect pooch,” he said as Cara reached into her purse and fished out a few bills for her beer, handing them to Becker.

  “He’s doing great. Such a fast learner,” she said with a bright smile as Jamie returned from the tables and joined them behind the bar.

  “He’s the best pup in the universe.” Jamie beamed. “And Cara is one disciplined lady. She doesn’t let that boy get away with anything.”

  Cara blushed and ran a hand through her blond hair.

  “Don’t be shy. You’re the best,” Jamie said to Cara, wiping her hands on a towel, then scurrying around to wait on another table.

  Cara said good-bye, and as she walked out the door, Travis and Smith strolled in. Travis’s eyes wandered to Cara, checking her out on his way in, then he snapped his eyes up once she was gone. Becker was tempted to bust him, but decided to keep that bit of intel to himself.

  Both men were wearing their blue T-shirts and pants. They were on
duty, and were likely here for dinner, which would be on the house as always. They grabbed some empty seats at the bar, and Becker shook hands with each of his men.

  “You freeloaders looking for some grub?”

  Smith nodded, and Travis flashed a grin. “Oh, please, sir. Can you serve us your best burgers?” Travis asked in a faux-pleading tone.

  “Coming right up,” he said, and handed the order to Jamie to take to the small kitchen.

  “I’ll join you,” Smith said, pointing his finger to the back of the bar. “Just need to make sure you can find your way back there,” he added with a wink.

  “Yeah, it’s a pretty complicated route,” Jamie tossed back, as Smith followed her, leaving Travis alone at the bar, along with a few others.

  “How are things on shift today?” Becker poured Travis a Diet Coke and slid it across the counter.

  “Bitch of a car accident over on the highway earlier,” he answered, shaking his head and blowing out a long stream of air.

  Becker’s shoulders tightened with worry. “Yeah?”

  “Everyone will be fine, but the medics took them to the ER. A few minor broken bones here and there, but the cars took the worst of it.”

  “The way it should be.”

  “Absolutely,” Travis said, raising his soda in an imaginary toast. “We were there within two minutes. The driver was pretty shaken up but seemed to do better when we arrived.”

  “Glad to hear,” Becker said, feeling a quick rush of warmth over the news that all would be well. That’s why they did what they did. To help.

  “Hey! Check this out,” Travis said, grabbing his phone from his back pocket and sliding his finger across the screen. He scrolled quickly, then called up a picture. “Here’s my shot for the calendar.”

  He took the phone and cracked the hell up. “Man, this is the best picture of you ever taken,” he said, admiring the ostrich head on Travis’s body.

  His friend laughed. “My sister did it.”

  Becker tensed immediately at the mention of Megan. Travis’s sister, his absolutely delicious, adorable, sexy, sweet, kind, and completely forbidden sister. Whom he’d kissed like his life depended on it this morning. And it had. He’d been sure of that at the time.