Ten first dates, p.38
Ten First Dates, page 38
There would be no romance with this woman.
She was off-fucking-limits.
The light turned green, and he stepped on the gas.
It felt like they were the only people in the world awake as his car growled its way up the hill, then twisted around a switchback type of turn. The road snaked along the edge of a canyon, then climbed again.
He didn’t know how long he’d planned to drive for—probably forever—but Monica’s hand sliding onto his thigh put an end to any question about what her plans for this cover of darkness entailed.
“There’s a lookout up ahead,” she breathed. “Want to stop for a bit?”
His cock did. So fucking much. He’d gone half-hard when she said he could take the other guy, and stayed in that aroused state ever since. Now that thickness filled all the way out, testing the limits of his jeans, and her hand felt too good and not enough at the same time.
“You sure?” He had to ask.
She smiled, barely illuminated by the dashboard lights. “Very.”
Very.
Around the next bend was a gravel carve out at the side of the road, and he pulled off. Killed the engine. And then he turned off the music, too.
“Josh,” she breathed at the same time as he said, “Let’s get out.”
She waited for him to come around to her side. He opened her door, then offered her his hand. She took it, her fingers warm and sure.
Very sure.
“This isn’t how I saw the night going,” he told her as they walked to the edge of the lookout. It was too dark to see whatever was in the canyon below, but the sky above was beautiful. Not as beautiful as Monica turning in a slow circle in the night air, but close.
He glanced up, trying to figure out what constellations were visible tonight, but his attention yanked right back to her. The moon was nearly full and there weren’t many clouds. So now that his eyes had adjusted to the night, he could see her just fine.
More than fine.
“What are you thinking about?” She shot him a coy look over her shoulder.
“My thoughts are torn in a few different directions.”
“Such as…”
“Wondering if I can impress you with astronomy knowledge.”
She nodded. “You definitely could. What else?”
“How pretty you are.” Too honest, Kincaid. In for a penny… “And how I shouldn’t be thinking that.”
“Mmm.” She looked pleased at both pieces of that thought. “What should you be thinking about?”
“Strategic career moves. Impressing you as a colleague.”
“Is that what we are? Co-workers?”
“Yeah.”
“Have you ever fooled around with a colleague?”
“Nope.”
“Mmm.” She skimmed past him and stopped at the side of his car. “Can I lean against her?”
“Sure.” He joined her, their hips just barely brushing as they rested against the passenger side.
She rolled her head back, looking at the sky. “Okay, impress me as a colleague. Is that the astronomy stuff?”
He laughed. “No.”
“Oh.” Her little breathy realization sounds did just as much for his arousal as the warm stroke of her palm on his thigh. “That would be because you think I’m pretty?”
He nudged her shoulder with his. “Look up.”
“What am I looking at?”
“That’s Ursa Major. The Big Dipper. And over there…Ursa Minor.”
She craned her head to the side.
And now the weight of her body was leaning ever so slightly against his.
“And what would you say to impress me as a colleague?” She whispered the question, as if she didn’t want to startle him away from the warm press of her side against his. “What is your strategic career move?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you see yourself staying with Fischer Racing? You mentioned saving money for something.”
“I’ve got plans.” He slid his arm around her shoulders, because fuck it. Those plans didn’t include retiring as a mechanic working for Michael Fischer, and life was too short not to hold this woman for at least tonight. “Definitely not staying forever.”
“Can you tell me? I promise not to tell anyone.”
“It’s not really top-secret. It’s stuff like this car. I love restoring old vehicles. Not like the flashier resto-mod garages, but something a bit more elegant. More restoration, less modification. But some modifying for purpose. Like racing. I know what you need to pass a race Marshall’s inspection. And I know how to make it a comfortable ride. I love shit like that. It’s what I think about eighteen hours a day, when I’m retooling a transmission or whatever. So if I could make it a real career, that would be amazing. But I want to do it right. If I’m going to leave the comfort and security of working on racing teams, then I want to do it properly. That means investors. And I’ll get them.” On his own terms. That was key.
She lifted her face, studying him. “That nest egg you mentioned. You want to be one of the investors?”
He nodded, surprised she’d figured that out, but she did have a business degree, after all. “I want business partners. I don’t want to be beholden to the money folks.”
“I bet you’ll do it. You have something there. Your enthusiasm is special.”
He squeezed her shoulder. “How about you?”
“You know my future path.”
Take over the family business, on a scale most could never imagine. “You don’t sound excited about it.”
“I have to prove myself first. Then I get to be excited. Can’t be too entitled.”
“I recognize that voice, and it’s not yours.”
She laughed. “No, it’s not. But he lives rent-free in my head.”
“What if you were someone else? What would you want?”
“I don’t know. I try not to daydream about lives I’ll never live, when my life is as good as it ever gets.”
“Humour me.” He wanted to know her secrets. He’d hold them sacred for the rest of his life, when their paths had carried them as far apart as two people orbiting each other now could probably ever get. She’d spin into the highest echelons of business, and he’d stay a blue collar grunt forever, even if he started his own company. There was no comparing the scope of their futures.
“My college roommate loved dinner parties. I miss those.” She sounded wistful. “A crowded table full of laughter. Bottles of wine and plates of interesting food.”
He squeezed her close. “Love that. Do you cook?”
“Mm-hmm. You?”
“Hell yeah. Five brothers raising themselves? We all had to take a dinner night. I’m not adventurous or anything, but I know my way around chicken, steak, salad and veg.”
“I learned at school. The Swiss are comprehensive in their curriculum requirements.”
That made him chuckle. “What else did you learn?”
“Uh…sewing, knitting, woodwork. And skiing. I excelled at cooking and woodwork.”
“Not skiing?”
“I’m a SoCal girl through and through. Winter is not my favourite season.”
“How long were you in Switzerland?”
“Three years.”
“Three long winters?”
“They have very good indoor heating. I survived.” She laughed a little. “Do you ski?”
“Snowboard.”
“So much falling down!”
“I don’t fall down that much.”
“It seems hard. Skis at least point in the direction I want to go.”
“Nah, it’s just like surfing.”
“Something else I’ve never done.”
“I thought you were a SoCal girl through and through? I could teach you.” The offer was out there before he thought better of it.
He couldn’t. Shouldn’t even have agreed to teach her about racing, although…he hadn’t ever actually agreed. It had just happened, like an inevitability. And he’d made her swear she wouldn’t tell her father.
He couldn’t stack other secrets on top of that. Don’t tell him about surfing lessons. Don’t tell him about a snowboarding trip. Don’t tell him I want to peel your clothes off and lick every erogenous zone in your body.
“We don’t have a surfboard here tonight,” she said softly. “What else can you teach me?”
A clear invitation.
Her fingers brushed his abs, making his whole midsection tense. Making his cock throb.
And then her hand slipped under his shirt.
“Hey, easy there…” He grabbed her wrist.
“We have to do something with this extra adrenaline.” She grinned and hooked her fingers over his belt.
His dick leapt and his vision swam at the deep pulse of delight that the teasing, intimate gesture roused in him. This girl—mature, willing woman—shouldn’t have this effect on him. He had better control than this.
“What do you usually do after a night of racing?”
Go home and jerk off. “Nothing like this.”
“What should I do? For the full experience…”
He dropped his gaze to her soft, pink lips. Maybe he didn’t have better control than this. Because nobody had ever tested his control the way Monica did.
“Kiss me,” she breathed. And if it had sounded haughty or demanding, maybe he could have resisted. But it was a plea, like she really didn’t think he would, and if there was one thing he knew deep in his marrow that he could never do, it would be to let this woman think he didn’t want her.
She was stunning. Funny, gorgeous, smart, and resilient.
Kiss her?
It would be his God damned pleasure. He settled his hand at the side of her neck, savouring the way her breath hitched in anticipation and how her fingers curled into the front of his t-shirt. He leaned in, almost brushing his lips against hers, then waited.
Giving her a chance to push the grease monkey away.
She tugged at his clothes instead, wanting him to close the gap. He turned and curved over her, pinning her between him and the car.
She wants this.
It wouldn’t end well. It might be a guillotine coming down on his career. On that health insurance and 401k he liked so much, and the work visa that allowed him to stay in America. But he couldn’t stop himself from lowering his head to take a sip from her lips.
Except that first brush of their mouths sparked a wildfire, a rush of heat he didn’t see coming, should have seen coming, and suddenly he was consumed with need. He pulled at her lips again, desperately, and she surged up against him.
Her hands clutched at his shoulders, her throat working beneath the grip of his hand, and he rocked her against the side of the car. Her legs wrapped around his thighs at the same moment her lips parted for him, and then he buried himself in her taste and in her soft curves. His tongue stroked deep and his hips thrust up, finding her core with precision.
If he wasn’t swallowing all of her moans, she’d be crying out his name.
He felt like a king on top of the world. Behind them, far away, the city lights glittered. But right here, magically, they were all alone.
And their first kiss was rapidly devolving into a dry hump on the side of the road. Heat licked up his spine. He traced his thumb to the base of her neck, to the wild thump of her pulse, and he focused all of his attention there. On her reaction to his body wedged between her thighs, and the way she turned to liquid in his arms when he found exactly the right spot to pulse against.
He dragged his mouth to her ear, so he could growl in her ear. “There? Does that feel good?”
She breathed his name. Yes. He made her feel more than good, and that made him feel powerful beyond measure.
“Did it turn you on? When I downshifted and took off?”
“Yes.”
“Next time you’ll wear a skirt.” There wouldn’t be a next time, but a man could dream. And it was what they both wanted to hear in this overheated moment of lust.
She shuddered.
“Do you know why?” He squeezed her neck, using his thumb on her chin to tip her head to the side, baring the other side of her throat for his mouth. “Because the best fucking reward for winning a race would be sinking my fingers into your panties and discovering just how soft and sexy you feel.”
She gasped. “You won tonight. Repeatedly.”
“Should I take my reward, then? Or do you want to ride my cock like this? Pressed between me and my car? Your choice, honey. I just want to see you come.”
“Like this?”
He liked the disbelief in her voice. As if she thought it impossible for him to give her the ultimate pleasure with just the weight of his body and his wicked, wicked mouth. He wanted to think it meant she hadn’t done anything like this before. He wasn’t above a certain possessive pride that he was giving her a new experience, one that he’d own forever. “I can fuck you a half-dozen different ways without taking off your clothes. Suck your tits through your shirt. Slide my hand into your panties. Keep giving you my cock just like this, so your clit gets all the attention. Turn you around and—”
“Can we get naked?” she breathed, interrupting him. “I want to feel you against me.”
He was already moving her to the side so he could open the passenger door. “Climb into the backseat. Let me see how pretty that pussy is.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Monica’s legs shook as Josh set her down. He opened the passenger door and levered the seat forward.
Heart racing, she scrambled into the backseat. There was a dim overhead bulb illuminating the space, but it cast shadows, too, so it somehow felt darker in the car, and then darker still when he crawled in after her, closing the door—killing that overhead light—and taking up all the space.
Both of them were breathing hard, audible in the cavernous space.
“This is a big back seat.”
He grinned at her inane comment. “Big enough.”
She peeled off her shirt, and he sent it sailing into the front seat.
His gaze dropped lustily to her black bra, which was doing the Lord’s work in displaying her tits to their absolute best potential.
“I’ve never fooled around in a car.”
“We’re breaking all the rules tonight.”
“Take off your shirt. Let me see you, too.”
“In a minute.” He leaned in and traced the curve of her breast, his fingers sliding into the cup of her bra enough to make her thighs ache and her nipples pull tight. “I thought about how fucking pretty your tits would be, and I was wrong. They’re better than I imagined.”
“It’s the bra.”
“It’s not. But let’s get rid of that to be sure.”
“Your shirt first.”
He sat back and rolled that up his torso. She surged forward, needing her hands on his flesh in the same way he’d just touched her. Reverently. He looked thicker through the middle with his shirt off, heavily muscled on the sides, and she had a flashback to that morning when she watched him do lat pulldowns with ease.
Screw putting this guy on Instagram, she wanted a private feed of photos of his body for her own personal pleasure.
“You’re gorgeous,” she whispered.
“That’s my line.” He picked her up and hauled her into his lap, so she was straddling him. He undid her bra with a single tug, then curved his hands around to her front and groaned as he filled his palms with her aching flesh. “You feel amazing.”
Her bra tumbled to the floor as he lifted her breasts to his mouth.
The first heavy suck at her nipple sent a pulse of pure need straight to her clit. She rocked her hips, needing to find his cock again, and earned another groan from him when she was successful.
Her other nipple wasn’t abandoned, either. He rolled his thumb back and forth over it as he pulled the first one into a swollen peak, then switched. That steady thrum of his fingers felt different on the wet nipple, felt more like a good kind of torture, and she writhed in reaction.
His free hand landed hard on her hip, guiding her into a slower grind.
Her whole torso shook as he licked and sucked back and forth, back and forth, making love to her tits like that was the main event, and the closer her body got to a tight, needy release, she realized it maybe could be the main event, he was going to make her come like this, and that was fucking wild.
“Josh, Josh, Josh…”
He nodded, her nipple pulled into his mouth. Yes. Do it.
She tangled her hands in his hair, holding his head to her chest as her hips snapped forwards and back. Fuck. Oh. God. No. Yes….
She shattered in his arms, and his pulling mouth softened immediately, letting her nipple slide off his tongue as she leaned back.
Her torso glistened even in the dark, wet with his spit.
His mouth was wet, too, swollen from his ministrations. And his gaze was locked on her face. “Good one?”
She dove forward, kissing that gifted mouth, thrusting her tongue against his. Needing more of him, now, all of him.
Her hands fell to his waist, wanting to get at his cock, but he was sitting and his jeans were pulled tight by the heavy bulge she wanted her hands on.
“Up,” she panted.
He pushed her off, over to the other side, and she kneeled on the seat and braced herself against the window, panting. Then he covered her from behind, his hands going to the button on her jeans, and his fingertips on the bare slice of her belly above her soaking wet panties felt incredible.
“No,” she panted.
He paused, his mouth on her neck at the top of her spine. “No?”
“Your turn.”
He laughed and licked the slight bit of fuzz there. She felt him breathe in the scent of her flesh, which only made her feel even more wild.
She rolled her hips, sliding the curve of her ass against his erection. “Josh, you just made me come.”
“I know. I want to do it again.” He shoved her jeans and her panties down her thighs, baring more of her sensitized skin. She scrambled to help, and then her knees were free, and her thighs spread open.
