Pulling out of the strongest arms I’d ever had the pleasure to be wrapped in was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. But self-preservation had overridden my silly attempt to walk on the wild side and share an intimate dance with the only man I’d ever loved. Without sparing him even the courtesy of a glance, I spun away from him and beelined it off the crowded dance floor.
Each step I took proved to be more precarious than the last. My legs had turned to wet noodles and my head to a balloon on the precipice of floating away. Also, fun fact: The room was spinning. As I shouldered my way through couple after couple, my chest began constricting. My brain was telling me that there was not enough oxygen to fill my lungs.
Air. I needed fresh air.
Through the buzzing in my head, I heard my name being called several times by people I passed as I rushed out of the barn, but I barely registered it. I gave little waves and kept plowing forward in my mission not to pass out and make even more of a spectacle of myself than my hasty exit was most likely already causing.
Thankfully, the second I walked through the large, double doors and around the side of the barn, my senses started returning to normal. Inhaling the fresh night air, I kept sprinting until I’d made it to the shed that, like the barn, was deceptive in its name. The Briggs’ shed was larger than my apartment, had a full kitchen—including a walk-in refrigerator—and a skylight that took up half the roof. It did have the tools its title would imply though—in its attached garage.
Growing up, Harmony, Cara, and I used to play house out there. We’d pretend that we were making dinner for our husbands, who were out working on the farm. I hadn’t needed much of an imagination for that particular flight of fancy since the only man I’d ever dreamed of marrying had, as a matter of fact, been out working on the very farm where we were playing the game.
Peering over my shoulder, I was happy to see that no one—JJ—had followed me out of the party. I’d made a clean escape. As I pushed the six-digit security code to unlock the door, my hands were shaking something fierce. It was more than a little irritating that that man could just waltz into my life and effortlessly spin my body and my soul out of control. The arousal humming through me was scary enough, but the thing that really concerned me was that my heart was swelling with an emotion I refused to name.
The green light flashed before the lock clicked open. As I pushed my way inside, I wished that I had a six-digit security code for my heart. If I did, the last person in the world I would hand it out to was JJ Briggs. But, knowing him, he’d be able to crack it anyway.
I reached to flip on the light switch as the door clicked shut, but decided against it when my eyes were drawn upward to a blanket of stars twinkling through the glass of the skylight. I let my head fall back against the wall beside the door as I took in the spectacular sight and tried to let it soothe my tortured soul.
I hadn’t traveled much. Or at all. But, despite my lack of passport use, I was absolutely certain that a Texas sky should be added as the eighth Wonder of the World. There just weren’t words to describe its majesty.
After a few minutes, my heart rate began to return to its natural rhythm and my brain felt less JJ-clouded. I figured I should go back to the party, check on my cupcakes, and then get the heck out of there. I would go home, feed Captain Pickles, take a hot shower to scrub the intoxicating scent of JJ off my body, and then fall into bed and forget that this night and that dance had ever happened.
I was pushing off the wall when I heard the beeping sound of someone punching the code into the keypad followed by the lock clicking open. Knowing that my short reprieve was about to be interrupted, I began mentally preparing how I would explain to one of the waitstaff, who was probably coming in to retrieve something out of the stocked fridge, why I was in here.
But being a psychic was obviously not my calling, because behind door number one was not a server. It was the person who had sent me into hiding.
I was face-to-sexy-face with JJ.
Unlike me, he didn’t appear at all surprised that we were face to face as he stepped inside. Panic rushed through me though, and I felt the same way I had when Harmony, Cara, and I had been caught smoking under the bleachers at a Friday-night high school football game—busted. Caught.
I reminded myself that I was not a kid doing something I wasn’t supposed to do. Then that pesky inner voice piped up and said that, if I wasn’t careful, I would be an adult doing something I wasn’t supposed to do. Team Play it Safe was back in full effect.
“How did you know I was in here?” I asked, frozen in place by JJ’s piercing gaze.
After closing the door behind him, he stood directly in front of me. I leaned back against the wall as far as I could. Even with my wedges on, I barely stood at chest level to him, so I had to drop my head all the way back to look into his eyes. The musky, earthy smell that had always been uniquely his drifted through the air, and it was all I could do not to drool.
“You are so beautiful,” he rasped as he brushed a stray piece of hair off my cheek and tenderly placed it behind my ear.
“You didn’t answer my question.” Okay, there was a tremor in my voice, but I was happy that it had sounded stronger than I’d thought it would.
Even though every cell in my body was alive with arousal at JJ’s nearness, his touch, his smell…I tried my darnedest to stay on track. My brain train was headed to self-preservation station, and I refused be redirected onto a bow-chicka-bow-wow detour.
The warmth of his sweet breath fanned over my face. My pulse quickened as a hot, wild tremor ricocheted through me. None of his body parts were touching any of my body parts, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t closer to having an orgasm than I had been in so long that I couldn’t even remember.
Stay. On. Track.
Shaking my head slightly, I fought to suppress my traitorous body’s reaction. I’d been down this road with JJ before, and it led to a whole lotta heartache with a huge helping of embarrassment on the side.
“Damn, I’ve missed you,” he spoke softly as he moved just a millimeter closer to me.
Why? Why did he have to go and say things like that just when I was gathering up my defenses? Talk about playing dirty. Well, if he wanted to go there, even though I had been trying to avoid it, I guessed we needed to go there.
Gathering all the zip-a-dee I could muster in my doo-dah, I stared directly into the pools of his coffee-colored eyes and placed my hands on my hips for good measure. “Yeah, you mentioned that on the dance floor. Just out of curiosity, did all that missing start after you took me to prom, went down on me, gave me one of the best orgasms of my life, and then pushed me off of you and told me I was ‘too young’ and ‘nothing more can happen between us’? Or was it after I asked if you were serious and you laughed—laughed at me—and asked if I seriously thought that you would be interested in me!? Was that when you started ‘missing’ me?”
This was good, it was helping. I’d tried to bury that night deep in my subconscious, but digging it up and dragging it to the surface was causing all kinds of righteous indignation and anger to bubble up inside me. I could definitely use some of that.
Anything was better than arousal.
Chapter 8
JJ
“Throwin’ your rope before you make a loop ain’t gonna catch the cow.”
~ Grandma Dixie
I needed to choose my words carefully here. Destiny was, once again, getting herself good and worked up for a fight, and fighting was not how I wanted to work out the sexual frustration we were both feeling. But I knew she wasn’t about to let me off without some kind of an answer.
She might’a been fishing for a fight, but I was not about to take the bait. Instead of addressing the part of the question that would lead down a path I wasn’t ready to go down, I answered the part about how long I’d missed her.
“Actually, it’s been a little longer than that.”
Blinking twice, I saw confusion in her aqua gaze. Which was a
whole lot better than the anger it’d replaced.
If I had to choose between confused Destiny and pissed Destiny, I would go with confused every time.
“How much longer?” she asked.
Infusing as much sincerity as possible into my tone, I spoke with authority. “Longer.”
“What?” Her voice was a whisper of disbelief. Shaking her head from side to side, she started rambling. “Well, then why did you… Why did you say… Why didn’t we…”
She might not have been finishing her sentences, but I knew what she was asking.
“Because I couldn’t.”
The skin around her eyes bunched in a pained stare, and it broke my heart that I was causing her anything but happiness and pleasure. But pain quickly morphed to anger, and she stepped forward, hitting my chest. Hard.
“Why are you telling me this now?!” she exclaimed furiously.
“Because, now…” I explained as I backed her up flat against the wall. Needing to touch her, I lifted my hands to cup her jaw as I lowered my head and rested my forehead on hers. “Now, I can.”
She froze, her only movement was the rise and fall of her chest as her breaths came in pants. Her brow bunched above her button nose. “What does that mean?”
I knew she needed answers, but being this close to her, there was no way I could form any words to answer them. The Q-and-A portion of this evening was over. It was time for show-and-tell.
“It means this.” I brushed a few strands of hair that had fallen across her cheek.
Destiny’s eyes widened as my fingertips grazed the sensitive skin beneath her ear before I tightened my grip at the nape of her neck. It was time to show Destiny why I hadn’t been able to get her out of my head these last four years. Actually, a hell of a lot longer than that.
Leaning down, I covered her mouth in a demanding, claiming kiss.
She gasped, and the soft sound sent heated desire spiraling through me. Maintaining ironclad control, I held back the primal urge raging in me to devour her. Instead of plunging my tongue inside her mouth, I lightly licked the outline of her lips before slowly sliding it between them. Her tongue eagerly met mine, as I took my time leisurely exploring her mouth in a long, drugging kiss. Every hot pass of our tongues fueled the explosive need that had been burning just below the surface since the day I’d sat down in that circle and Destiny had spun that bottle.
“JJ,” Destiny whimpered against my lips as she fisted her hands in my shirt and seductively rolled her hips against my rock-hard shaft.
Heat radiating from her core caused every caveman instinct I had to roar to life. I wanted to pull her dress up, unzip my pants, and bury myself in her wet heat. That was what I wanted, but I wasn’t convinced that Destiny wanted it. Sure, in this moment, she might. But one time, as a kid, I ate all the cookies in the cookie jar and ended up sicker than a dog. Sometimes desire overrode what was good for us.
I was not about to do anything she would regret the second she wasn’t consumed with lust. Still, that didn’t mean that I was going to leave her like this.
Lowering my hands down her back, I continued taking my time, sensually feeding off the sweetness of her wet, warm mouth. Licking. Sucking. Exploring. As my fingers skimmed over her ribs, my thumbs brushed her outer breast. Just the outline of her pinup-worthy mounds beneath my touch caused my dick to jump and beg for attention. A sharp pain of desire shot directly to my groin.
Damn, this girl’s curves were going to be the death of me.
As much as I would’ve loved to take my time and memorize every inch of Destiny’s amazing body, this was not the time or the place for it. Any minute now, someone working the party could come back there. Hell, my mom, my dad, or one of my many siblings could walk in. I needed to take care of Destiny and get the hell out of there before my thin thread of self-control snapped like a twig under my boot.
Bunching the material of Destiny’s dress up in my hands, I stepped between her legs. Even with the denim barrier, I felt her inner thighs trembling against me. My shaft was like a steel rocket, throbbing painfully. The head on my shoulders knew that nothing was going to happen tonight. Unfortunately, the head below my belt was sure he was going to get to come out and play. He wasn’t.
As I slipped my hand beneath Destiny’s dress, my fingers grazed over the soft skin at the curve of her hip, and electricity ran up my fingers and my arm. She felt that good. While I continued to kiss Destiny with all the pent-up desire I had for her, my fingers slid between her legs. My touch was met with wet heat seeping through the satin lining of her panties, causing an erotic urgency to surge through me.
Her hips bucked against my hand as I applied the softest touch over the damp heat of her sex.
“JJ.” Desperation bled through Destiny’s voice as she clung to my shoulders, seductively grinding her hips into my touch.
Hearing my name fall from her mouth as I touched her so intimately was almost enough to make me come in my pants. But, taking in a deep breath through my nose, I somehow maintained control as I moved her panties to one side. That control was threatened again as my middle finger slipped between her wet folds and ran along the seam of her tight opening.
Fuck. She felt so good.
Breaking our kiss, Destiny softly cried out as I massaged her entrance while it pulsed beneath my touch. Every time I increased the pressure of my finger moving up and then down her silky slit, it was more heavily coated with her arousal, so my next few passes would be featherlight to draw the experience out.
“Damn, you are so wet,” I growled before I kissed the soft skin just beneath her ear.
God, I loved this. Making Destiny come apart in my arms. I could have stayed there all night, teasing the body of the only girl I’d ever loved, bringing her right to the brink and then backing off, only to repeat the pattern again.
“Oh, come on,” she panted in frustration.
“Come, huh?” I repeated as a smile crept up on my face.
Most girls would beg, plead, for me to give them what they needed. Not Destiny. Nope. She got irritated.
“Is that what you want to do?”
“Yes,” she said, clearly exasperated. “Now.”
“Still bossy as hell, I see.”
Before she could react to my statement, I circled my thumb around her swollen clit and then ran it directly over her slippery surface. Back and forth, I flicked over it as my middle finger continued teasing her moist opening.
“Yes, oh yes,” she breathed out as her stomach clenched and her body began convulsing against me.
Holding her up with one arm, I stayed with her, rubbing her folds as I caressed her swollen nub. She made the sexiest noises as she rode her release out. They were somewhere between a cry and a moan. I remembered those noises, had dreamed about those noises, from the last encounter we’d had.
When her entire body went limp, my jaw clenched as I shifted her panties into place. Ignoring every muscle in my body screaming not to, I removed my leg from between hers and stepped away enough so that her skirt fell back down around her legs.
Leaning against the wall, Destiny looked up at me, her brilliant, blue eyes framed by thick, inky lashes as she took in shallow breaths. “That was…”
“I know,” I said as I bent down. Then I kissed her forehead. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the festival.”
She stood up straight, and her heavy-lidded, lust-filled gaze turned sharp and alert. “You’re leaving?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes doubled in size. “Again!”
“Yes.”
“What happened to”—she lowered her voice in (what I could only assume was) a sad attempt at mimicking me—“‘Because now…now, I can’?!”
Destiny was beyond pissed. My balls felt like they were going to explode in my pants. And this was far from over, but I still had to get out of here. Because, there was no way I could have a conversation with her in that moment. I was too worked up.
“I can. But not tonight.”<
br />
Her mouth dropped open. “Not tonight?!”
“No. If you still want to do this tomorrow night, then we will. After the fireworks.”
With that, I kissed her once more on the lips and got the hell out of there before she started throwing things or I stripped her down and took her up against that wall. Because, without a doubt, if I’d stayed in that room one more minute, one of those things would have happened.
Chapter 9
Destiny
“That man’ll put a hundred-dollar saddle on a twenty-dollar horse.”
~ Grandma Dixie
“It’s hotter than a goat’s butt in a pepper patch.” Tami Lynn dropped an ice cube down her shirt.
She’d been helping me at my Sugar Rush booth for the last hour, and the frosting on the cupcakes wasn’t the only thing that was melting. The weather report had predicted that it would be in the low hundreds today, and for once, it looked like they’d gotten it right.
Surrendering to the heat, I broke down and pulled my hair up in a sloppy bun. I was glad I’d decided to wear my cut-off jean shorts and a tank top. I’d almost worn my khaki shorts and a V-neck shirt in an attempt to appear more ‘business ownery.’ You know—dress for success and all that. But I’d opted for comfort instead. Thank the Lord I had. I was sweating so badly that it would have looked like I’d peed myself. Not to mention massive pit stains, which would not have been the most appetizing thing for people to look at while I tried to pedal them my baked goods.
“So, where did you run off to last night? I saw you dancing with Mr. Big Shot and then poof.” Tami Lynn’s fingers fanned out as she demonstrated the poof. “You were dust in the wind.”
Teasing Destiny (Wishing Well, Texas #1) Page 5
