The Thrill of It All

by Christie Ridgway

  She shouldn’t let Magee touch her again. But his hand was so warm. Not sexy at the moment, but…strong. “I didn’t know Tootsie Pops had a smell,” she murmured, fascinated by the interlocking fit of their linked fingers.

  “Like your spiders, Tootsie Pops remind him of a bad time.”

  After a silent moment, she looked over, tugging on his hand. “Hey. You can’t leave it like that. What ‘bad time’?”

  He frowned. “Maybe I shouldn’t—”

  She shifted closer so she could swat at his shoulder with her free hand. “C’mon! I told you about the tarantulas!”

  “Yeah, and thanks to you I’m going to spend the rest of my life listening for their long fangs clackety-clacking and their fat hairy legs rub-a-dub-dubbing.”

  Now he was laughing at her. Diving toward him for another swat, in her over enthusiasm she half-slid off her seat. Magee caught her, pulling her toward him to keep her from the floor. In a blink, she was sitting on his lap.

  From inches away, they stared at each other. Her heart started that fist-thumping against her breastbone again as she breathed in the scent of him. Were there enough words in the world to talk herself out of this strange sense of comfort and connection? “Magee, I…I…”

  As if he were afraid of what she was on the verge of saying—something she didn’t know herself—Magee started talking. “They gave my brother—he’s my half-brother—a bag of Tootsie Pops at the police station after his father’s murder.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  Magee’s arms tightened around her. “His father was shot, almost right in front of him. He remembers unwrapping and eating those Tootsie Pops, every single one, while he waited for our mom and my dad to come get him.”

  The shocking information should have acted like a dash of cold water. It should have had her hopping back into her seat and demanding he return her home. But his heart was thudding against her shoulder and his breath was warm against her cheek and the intimacy of their conversation made it hard to think clearly.

  She ran her fingers over his glossy bangs and down the side of his face, lingering along his cheek so that his stubble scratched her palm. “Your poor brother,” she said.

  Magee gave a little shrug. “So, see? You’re not the only person with weird childhood shit.”

  She brushed his hair back, watching as the slippery strands drifted through her fingers. “What about you, Magee?”

  His gaze was focused on her mouth. “What about me?”

  “What’s your kink?”

  He tensed for a moment, then relaxed, smiling as he lifted one finger to start tracing her top lip. “You. I think my kink just might be you.”

  She grabbed at the finger. “No ducking. C’mon, I gave you spiders. You give me one real kink.”

  In a single smooth movement, he straightened up in his seat and flipped the interior light off. She was now in the dark, and though she was still on his lap, his thighs were stiff and hard beneath her and his voice was stiff and hard, too.

  “I don’t have a right to any kink, okay? You said it, I grew up in sitcom suburbia. My parents are still married, they’re still happy. I come from the most conventional, the most fucking functional family I know.”

  Hmmm. And yet he possessed one little quirk that pushed him into climbing tough mountains and air-walking across slack ropes. That last thought set her shivering again as she thought of his gleaming torso, those rippling abs, his glossy hair playing over the wide shoulders of his muscled back.

  Don’t think about sex, don’t think about sex, don’t think about sex. Trying to rein in her wayward thoughts, she restarted her mental exercise. Z…y…x…

  “Lissie?” His big hand ran up her spine.

  At his touch, she quivered again, this time the shiver starting inside and moving outward. Oh, God, she wanted—

  No! Z…y…x…e…s… X…e…s. S-e-x. She couldn’t get away from it, she thought, panicking.

  But wait! It was s-e-x, not l-o-v-e. In this particular instance, s-e-x was good. S-e-x was safe.

  He was right, they were a magnet and metal filings, but the bonus to acting on their potent physical attraction was that having sex with Magee didn’t leave room for gooey, ephemeral emotions and notions that might try moving into her heart.

  Rough-and-tumble. Hot and earthy. When she was having sex with him she couldn’t think of the cool, golden statue. And she couldn’t think of anything terrifying and long-term like love, either. With him it wasn’t emotional or spiritual. It was all about being Lissie, with greedy, animal urges. Lissie, who wanted to roll on the floor, to scratch and bite the greedy animal inside Magee.

  She wound her arms around his neck, pressing her upper body into his and sinking her teeth into his bottom lip. “You need a kink then, Magee? I accept. Let your kink be me.”

  Thirteen

  At her words, Felicity felt Magee jerk and his voice lowered in warning. “Lissie—”

  She was already working on the buttons of his shirt. “C’mon, Magee, let me give you the thrill this time.”

  He stilled. “What are you up to?”

  She’d made it to the buckle of the slick leather belt. It gave way, leaving only a zipper between her and her goal of mindless, heartless, down-and-dirty sex. What would her fans from GetTV think about that?

  The naughty idea put a sexy little throatiness into her voice. “The real question is,” she said, undoing the top button, then tugging on the little metal tab, “exactly how many inches are you up to, hmm?”

  But the metal tab wasn’t budging. She gripped it tighter between her thumb and forefinger and yanked. Her fingers slipped off. Setting her jaw, she went after the zipper again, but its metal teeth were clenched as tightly as her own.

  She sucked in a fast, deep breath through her nose. This was clothing, damn it. She was good with clothing. She sold clothing, extolled the virtues of clothing, made people yearn for clothing. A simple fastener of fabric would not get the best of her.

  With a small growl, she attacked.

  And failed again.

  No. She wanted sex! She wanted to feel that flood of heated passion, that flood that would drive everything dangerous and frightening out of the way. She wanted that Erica Jong moment when the clothes peeled away. That anonymous, zipless fuck. Her eyes stung. But she couldn’t even get the stupid clothes to cooperate! No wonder Erica Jong had called it a zipless fuck.

  “Can I help you with anything down there?” asked a bemused male voice.

  Magee. In her tempestuous passion and almost-panic, she’d nearly forgotten all about him.

  Impatient, she tried to explain what she wanted. “It’s Jong—”

  “You’ve said that before, dollface, and I appreciate your noticing,” he said modestly.

  She shook her head. “No, really. Jong.”

  “Thanks. Really long, I know.”

  It made her laugh. She wasn’t sure if he was teasing or if it even mattered, because laughing reminded her not to take this so seriously. It wasn’t life-or-death. It wasn’t heart-whole or heartbreak. It was the opposite of all that. It was wanting sex with Magee, the most casual of all men.

  So she took each open edge of his dress shirt in a fist. “Listen up,” she said. “I want earthy, raw, bad-to-the-bone sex, and I want it right now.”

  He groaned. “Hell, Lissie, what am I supposed to say to that?”

  She slid off his lap, settling onto her knees on the metal floorboards between the two seats. From between his splayed thighs, she looked up at him and smiled. “You’re supposed to say yes, and the nastier you say it, the better.”

  Now the zipper parted like butter. Inside it, he was hard, hot, and smooth. She took a bracing breath, then began indulging herself on his body, running her mouth up his sex and beyond, tickling his navel, licking one nipple, then rubbing her cheek over the lean, taut pad of pec muscle to find the other. It puckered against her tongue and her womb clenched.

  He was murmuring
something—cursing, maybe—but she couldn’t tell because her sense of hearing was subjugated to her other senses—the ones that were relishing the salty-citrus taste of him, the sleek, firm feel of him, the heated scent of the both of them together.

  Making her way back down his chest, her lips bumped over his fascinating male topography. She wished she was a painter, able to capture all his hard, muscled beauty on a canvas, but she settled for making her tongue into a brush and stroking over every inch, rendering the image in her mind.

  Her mouth found his erection again. It was hotter now, harder. As she bent over him, he speared his fingers in her hair, the urgency of the gesture driving up her own need. Her blood was humming with it, singing. This was what she wanted, the flavor of desire in her mouth and the flame of it burning through her body.

  Earthy, raw, bad-to-the-bone sex.

  Her pulse jumped higher and she took him deeper, taking herself deeper into mindless sex. Heartless sex.

  His fingers bit into her scalp, then he grabbed her by the upper arms. She found herself being pulled free of him, off her knees and back into his arms. They tightened when she squirmed, wanting to dive back into that heavy, throbbing place of desire.

  “Don’t move,” he choked out. “You’re killing me, Lissie. Give me a minute. Just a minute.”

  But nothing was going to stand between her and her need for earthy, zipless sex. She twisted against him and found his mouth, plunging her tongue inside. He groaned, the sound a buzz against her tongue and against her breastbone, plastered to his. He slid his hand between them to make quick work of her buttons. In short order he had her blouse undone, the front clasp of her bra unfastened, her garments spread to expose her breasts to his gaze.

  He held her upper body away from him to look at her, and she watched his breath rasp in and out of his chest. With his nostrils flared and his hair mussed, he looked like trouble—a reckless, hot-blooded lover who was going to take her down with him.

  She couldn’t wait.

  “Magee. Magee, please.”

  He glanced up at her, and she saw what she wanted in his eyes. Risk and defiance and heated intent. He wouldn’t care if he marred her polish. He wouldn’t worry about fingerprints or scratches. He was the bad-boy, tempting devil of all her gotta-be-a-good-girl fantasies and he was going to give it to her hard and fast.

  He smiled, slow and seductive. His voice was dark and bad. “I’ve got your number now, Lissie.”

  She shivered.

  “You’re the one who they trusted to work in the attendance office, aren’t you? But you’d help out guys like me, wouldn’t you? Cut class? Go see Lissie. She’ll fix it for you.”

  The skin between her breasts prickled as he drew an idle pattern there. “You’d be my biology partner, too. The old fart who taught the class hoped that a sweet thing like you would keep me in line. But you’d do all the work yourself and then put my name on it, right next to yours.”

  She tensed as his wandering finger edged toward her nipple. It was aching, hurting for his touch, but he was still talking, teasing her, telling just like it was.

  “And you’re the one, Lissie,” he continued, “the one with the sweetheart image by day but who by night unlocked her bedroom window and let the scruffy boy with the motorcycle crawl into her room and into her bed.”

  Her breath stuttered into her lungs. Yes. Yes. She’d never done any of those things, but she’d wanted to. Oh, how she’d always wanted to.

  His fingers closed gently over the throbbing tip of her breast. But it wasn’t enough. Not enough. She squirmed on his lap and he lightened his touch. She stilled, moaning.

  His forefinger and thumb clasped her nipple again and he laughed, a rough, threatening, delicious sound. “Oh, yeah. There’s no doubt about it. You, Lissie, are a very, very bad girl.” And then he squeezed.

  Every muscle clenched. She arched toward him, wanting more of that not-quite-painful touch, wanting him to unleash every bad-girl craving burning inside of her. As his head dipped toward her bare breasts, she managed to shuck her suit jacket, blouse, and bra.

  “I’m ready,” she whispered to him as his wet mouth latched on to her. The devil could have his way with her.

  But then something happened. Somewhere between the rasp of his tongue on her hard nipples and the shedding of the rest of their clothes, the devil and the bad girl slowed down. Urgency thrummed beneath her skin, but he stoked her fire with soothing strokes, lingering here, playing there.

  Even when she found herself sitting sideways on the passenger seat, with Magee kneeling, her thighs over his shoulders, his mouth was gentle, his tongue not taking her anywhere, but exploring her everywhere. It was raw and it was earthy and it was…

  Not.

  It was Lissie and Michael—she kept calling out that name, over and over. It was passionate, but when he made her come the first time she had tears in her eyes.

  It was everything that Erica Jong described in Fear of Flying—passionate and exciting—except it wasn’t anonymous. Because as Michael entered her, his gaze didn’t leave hers.

  “Lissie, Lissie, Lissie,” he whispered. “Oh, sweetheart. You are so, so bad.”

  And he was so, so good. Hard and strong and parting through the folds of her body with the same sureness as when he’d parted the veils covering her secret self.

  Just as she reached for her pleasure, just as she knew it would take only a few strokes more, three, two, she closed her eyes. A haze of golden warmth spread behind her eyelids, reminding her of something…. But she was too close to think any longer.

  He thrust in, deep, and held there.

  “Michael,” she cried out, and, pressing herself up against him, convulsed.

  Neither spoke as they drove out of the desert and back to her car, parked in the convention center lot. Once there, he turned off the engine and ran his hand over his hair, then rubbed at the back of his neck.

  “Well,” he said, looking over at her. Unsmiling.

  Felicity swallowed. “Well.”

  “That was—”

  “Did you—”

  They both broke off.

  “Go,” he said, gesturing to her with his chin.

  She didn’t remember what she’d been about to say. “Did…did you…um, oh, yeah, did you have something you wanted to talk to me about?”

  “What?”

  She swallowed again. “Earlier, earlier tonight, I think you mentioned…”

  “Oh. Right. It was…it was nothing.” He looked away from her, out the windshield, then looked back. “So, you’re around a few more days.”

  She nodded. “Just a few. Scouting locations. Spots where we can get some good shots of climbers.”

  He rubbed his bristly jaw with the back of his hand. “I can help with that. I’ll show you some places.”

  “Oh. Okay. That…that would be great. I guess.” She didn’t sound enthusiastic, she knew that, but then neither did he.

  Her fingers found the door handle.

  “Lissie.”

  She paused. “Yes?”

  “You gonna be all right?”

  “Truth?”

  He hesitated a moment, then nodded. “Yeah.”

  “My knees are murder.”

  There was a moment of stunned silence, then he released a bark of laughter. “God, no kidding. Mine are screaming at me.”

  She nodded in empathetic understanding.

  Then he grinned at her—and he looked…happy. “We’ll take care of that tomorrow, too, dollface. I promise.”

  Felicity gave him a squiggle-fingered wave and hopped out. As promises went, it was more than she’d expected from Magee.

  The next afternoon, she trudged after him along a dusty path. “Flintstones, meet the Flintstones,” she sang beneath her breath.

  He glanced over his shoulder. “What’s that?”

  She gestured at their surroundings. The arid landscape of the “wilderness area” they were walking through was studded with prehis
toric-looking, tumbled outcroppings of sandstone boulders, most bigger than houses, many taller than office buildings. “I’m preparing for my introduction to Fred and Wilma. This place is seriously Stone Age.”

  She paused a moment to study one of the Joshua trees that dotted the area. The twisted branches coming off its equally twisted trunk were tufted with speared leaves. “And these things have always struck me as something Dr. Seuss might have dreamed up.”

  He grinned. “Welcome to my world, baby.”

  It was his world. Or at least had been, that was clear. Earlier that day he’d taken her by several popular bouldering areas—what they called the sport of climbing the strange sandstone beasts—and she’d been awed by what she’d seen. Women and men scaling walls like Spiderman, their fingers and flexible shoes finding cracks and ledges she couldn’t see.

  Another group had been doing something straight out of a Marine recruiting film—rappelling down the side of a six-story rock. Farther off, she’d glimpsed specks on top of the tallest boulder yet—a skyscraper!—her gaze landing on them just as one of the tiny figures tossed a coiled rope over the side.

  Magee appeared to know everyone and everything about what they were doing, from their equipment to their routes to their chances for success. At their last stop, a climber in a bandanna ’do-rag and a ragged Yosemite Mountaineering School T-shirt had offered Magee a waist harness and a rope, but he’d shaken his head.

  “I don’t climb anymore,” he’d declared, his expression closing off.

  Mr. Bandanna hadn’t questioned any further. In silence, Magee had stalked back to the Jeep.

  As he’d started driving again, she’d tried to probe what was going on inside his head. “So why does anyone do it? Climb, I mean. Why did you?”

  He was quiet a moment, then answered. “There are as many whys as there are climbers. To appreciate nature. As a physical or mental challenge. To leave stuff like money troubles or the asshole at work behind—ordinary, everyday worries—because they don’t matter when your life depends on the very next step or the very next move.”