Crash Lights and Sirens, Book 1 (6 page)

Nick exhales carefully. He’s half-hard already, heavy inside his jeans. “And where am I driving to?” he asks, watching her face.

Falvey gives him a look like he’s been lobotomized. “Somewhere private,” she whispers, loud enough to echo down the hall. Nick raises his eyebrows and watches her turn a dull red, the blush spreading like someone’s coloring between her freckles with a crayon. “Oh, like you don’t want to just as bad.”

She’s not wrong. Nick tips her bossy head back and kisses her roughly, sealing the deal.

Taryn spends the walk to Kanelos’s truck trying to figure out her game plan.

She had a strategy to get them to the parking lot, sure—separating by the pay phone, her circling around to say goodbye to Emily while Nick headed straight for the Ortizes and his coat—but that was pretty much where her forethought ended. Now that they’re actually here, in the cold and not talking, Taryn is a lot less sure of herself.

“Over here,” Nick’s telling her now, holding open the door that leads to the second level of the garage. It’s the first time they’ve spoken since the bar and it’s weird, charged and serious like Taryn’s never been with a guy. If it were Pete, they’d be bumping shoulders and joking.

“Hurry up,” she mumbles, ducking in close under the exit sign for a kiss that’s more chin than lips. “M’cold.” The fluorescent lights turn Nick’s crooked grin orange.

Part of the problem is that Taryn isn’t sure where they’re going to go. Her place is right out, obviously, and she knows enough about the history with Kanelos’s wife to feel strange about inviting herself over to his. Lynette told her the full story last fall, how they bought the house and then not three months later she died, pneumonia brought on by Huntington’s. “At least it was quick,” Lyn said. “She was still mostly herself.” Taryn thinks about Nick’s unfinished kitchen and shivers.

“Cold, huh?” he asks when they get inside the truck. He flicks the heat on full without waiting for an answer, tilting all the vents Taryn’s way so warm air buffets her immediately. Something uncurls in the pit of her stomach. It’s dark here, she’s noticed, way in the corner with no other cars around, the closest one eight spots away at least.

And the Tahoe has a big backseat.

Nick catches her looking. “Seriously?” he asks, the ghost of a disbelieving smile flickering across his face. He’s got a pretty mouth, Kanelos, oddly feminine considering how New England solid he is everyplace else. There’s a well-built kind of steadiness to him that reminds Taryn of slate and granite, of geese flying south in the fall. “In my truck?”

Taryn shrugs, shy all of a sudden. He has that effect on her more than anyone else. “You got a better idea?” she demands.

“I got a lot of better ideas, Falvey,” he tells her mildly, pushing her hair out of her face with one big hand. His palm feels warm and rough against her skin. She’s trying to come up with a way to tell him why it’s not a good idea to take this to either of their bedrooms, but then, “Get back there.”

Taryn inhales, the lick of desire in her middle getting stronger and brighter. She likes him, God, way more than she’s let herself even think about since the fire. She’s going to need to watch her step. “Not that much better then,” she sasses, shrugging out of her bulky parka and pushing it onto the floor of the truck with an audible swish. Nick doesn’t laugh.

She clambers between the two front seats while he opens the door and slides in back, letting in a chilly slice of air that leaves Taryn shivering. “Hurry,” she murmurs, goose bumps springing up inside her button-down as he reaches behind him to pull the door shut. “Come here.”

Nick comes. The angle of the yellow light across the garage leaves it even darker in the backseat, his face hard to make out as he closes the distance across the slippery leather. He’s still wearing his jacket. Taryn remembers being real little and building forts out of bedsheets and kitchen chairs, the warm, humid dimness and the feeling of being safe.

“Hi,” she says, once she’s swallowed.

Now Nick grins, ducking his head close to kiss her. “Hey, Falvey.”

Taryn sifts through the dark hair at the back of his neck, feels his pulse ticking away underneath her thumb. Her own heart is throwing itself against her chest. She bites at his mouth to take control of the kiss and is surprised when Nick lets her, holding still even as she takes his bottom lip between her teeth to worry. The redder his mouth gets, the more it looks like a girl’s, strangely lush against the sharp cut of his jaw. All of a sudden Taryn wants to sink her teeth in everywhere, wants it rough and quick. She felt the same way in the alley outside Old Court, an itch all through her body and not enough road in the world to run it out on. She half-expects Nick to stop her this time too, curl a hand around her upper arm and tell her to be easy.

He pulls her forward instead, right onto his cock.

“Crap.” Taryn breaks away to pant, a full-body shiver rolling through her spine.

Nick rubs up and down her back roughly. “Still cold?” Taryn shakes her head but he wraps his coat partway around her anyway, tucking her inside with all his body heat. “Don’t love the idea of getting naked back here,” he admits, tipping his skull back against the headrest. The dim light cuts a yellow slice across his forehead.

Taryn grins. He’s hard enough that she can take his pulse through their jeans. “So? Who said anything about naked?” Her hand slips down to work at his belt.

Nick narrows his eyes in the dark. “That’s a smart mouth you got on you,” he mutters, beating her to the punch and tugging down her zipper. Taryn stops what she’s doing as his palm slides roughly inside her underwear, this expression on his face like he’s trying to prove a point.

“I’ve heard that, yeah.” She whimpers without meaning to as he cups her—just lightly, no pressure at all. Nick hums his agreement into her neck. He opens her up real slowly, sliding two clever fingers forward to investigate.

“Jesus, Falvey,” he murmurs when he feels how wet she is. Taryn’s surprised too. It usually takes her a while to get ready. With Pete especially she was self-conscious about it, like she couldn’t always quiet her mind down enough for her body to do what she needed it to do.

That is…not so much a problem right now. God, the way Nick’s spreading the slickness around between her legs, sucking at her throat like he’s aiming to put a mark there. He rubs hard at her clit and dips inside her—first one finger, then two, working them deep and dragging them out again until she whines. “That’s it,” he says when she gives in and starts to rock. His free hand starts working the buttons on her flannel. Taryn braces one shaky arm against the door.

“Thought getting naked in the car offended your delicate sensibilities,” she teases as his knuckles trail up and down her bare stomach, her muscles jumping under his touch. “Huh?”

Nick raises his eyebrows, twisting his fingers inside. “For me, not you,” he tells her, tugging down the satiny purple cup of her bra and lowering his mouth to her nipple. “For you I like it fine.”

Taryn grins. “No fair,” she complains, sliding her own hands down inside the collar of his T-shirt. His upper back is smooth and warm. He’s stupidly good with his tongue, is a thing Taryn remembers from the night in his kitchen. He licks at the tip of one breast until she’s squirming on his fingers, then tugs hard enough that she yelps.

“Shh,” Nick chides, even though there’s nobody around to hear them. Taryn hasn’t seen another living soul since they left the bar. It’s kind of a rush, truthfully, the idea that what they’re doing is illicit, that they could get caught any second by God knows who. She’s still got her arms in the sleeves of her flannel, her bra bunched crooked and messy underneath her breasts. The next time he curls his fingers, he rubs up against something electric and good inside her, and she muffles her cry against his neck.

“Yeah?” he asks, boosting her with his free hand to find the angle again. Taryn nods and presses her face into his throat, concentrating. Her palms slide even farther down the back his shirt until she’s draped over him completely, sacked out how Caitlin and the boys get when it’s bedtime. Night of the fire notwithstanding, he’s still unfamiliar enough that she’s going to have to think herself into it a little, close her eyes and coach the orgasm along. He’s got such good hands; Taryn’s sure that if she can just stay here and private for a second she’s definitely going to be able to—

Yeah, Nick isn’t having it. “Don’t get shy now,” he says quietly, nudging his cheek at hers. When that doesn’t work he makes a fist in her hair and tugs, not letting go until she’s sitting all the way up on him, no place to hide anywhere. “There.” His fingers keep moving over that electric place inside, insistent.

Taryn bites her lip. “M’not shy,” she protests, working hard to keep her voice steady as he brings their foreheads together. She wants to turn her head.

It’s no use. Nick holds her right where she is like he’s setting up to watch the whole production, so close she practically goes cross-eyed trying to read his expression. “Come on,” he murmurs, scissoring his fingers inside her. “Let me see.”

“Oh my God,” Taryn gasps before she can stop herself, cringing when she hears how desperate she sounds. She squeezes her eyes shut to hide from the expression on his face. She wants to keep being smug with him—it’s Nick, God, with his maddening silences and his stubborn all-weather exterior—but it’s hard to come up with a smartass comment right now, the pleasure glass-sharp inside and out.

He knows it too. “Good?” he asks, this tone that’s completely rhetorical. Taryn can feel it building deep in the cells of her spine. “Open your eyes,” Nick murmurs, working a third finger inside her. The added pressure is equal parts amazing and almost scary. “Come on, Taryn, you’re perfect. Open your eyes.”

So. Taryn opens them.

The orgasm breaks almost as soon as she makes eye contact, crashing through her like a tidal wave clear down to the tips of her fingers and her toes inside her boots. Nick keeps at her slippery body the whole entire time. Taryn presses her forehead against his as it’s happening, clenching hard and rhythmic around his fingers and watching the look on his face that says he can feel every single twitch.

God. God.

“Okay,” she says, before she’s even done, Nick still wringing the last of it out of her. The intensity of it is freaking her out, honestly (she thought it was a fluke, how insanely good it was the night of the fire, the hardest she’d ever—yeah). She wants to make them even as fast as she can. “Okay, you have to let me—” She wriggles until Nick eases his hand out of her panties, scooting back so she can get his dark jeans undone and his boxers around his thighs. Nick lifts his hips to help her out.

“Have to let you what, Falvey?” he asks, breathless. He’s got a nice cock, heavy and thick against his stomach. He’s the one teasing her now. Taryn doesn’t know how she feels about that, but still when she ghosts her knuckles along the underside the skin is so velvety warm—and the sound he makes is so achingly desperate—she almost bends down and sucks until he loses it right there.

But, priorities.

“Have to let me,” she repeats, figuring he can put the pieces together on his own as she crawls back up his body, tipping her chin down for a messy kiss and brushing herself against his cock. Nick breathes in fast and ragged.

“Taryn,” he says, once he’s swallowed. She reaches down to feel him out, wrapping her fist around him and spreading the liquid at the tip with one curious thumb. “We can’t… I didn’t—” Nick breaks off in frustration, skull thudding back against the headrest. She squeezes, just lightly, and he groans. “I don’t have a condom, Falvey.”

Oh. Well. Taryn bites her bottom lip, thinks,
Weren’t imagining bringing me back here
. Takes a deep breath before she can chicken out. “I do,” she tells him bluntly, and reaches up into the front seat for her purse.

Which—Jesus Christ. Nick stares at her as she roots around in her shoulder bag, a cheap-looking pleather that’s fraying around the straps. She is going to destroy him before they ever get off the ground. “You do?”

Taryn flicks her eyes at him coolly, fishing out a strip of three foil packets and handing them over with a twist of her wrist. “Uh-huh.” Then she grins, sudden and startling as the sun coming out. “Like I told you, Kanelos. All the first moves.”

Nick grins back, her pretty freckled face and a full-body flush from her orgasm. His fingers are still sticky from being inside her. “You told me,” he agrees, closing his fist around the condoms. “Figured we’d need three, huh?” he asks, as Taryn drops the purse and leans back in.

“Mmm-hmm.” Falvey pats his closed hand condescendingly, ducking close for a kiss. “N’case you effed up.”

Nick rolls his eyes and pulls away to tear one open, Taryn watching from her perch near his knees. Her eyes are very bright. “Come here,” he says once he’s sheathed, pushing that tight flannel shirt down her arms and off. The Tahoe is warm as anything now, their body heat plus the vents, the windshield starting to get just the slightest bit steamy. Falvey’s skin is damp underneath the band of her bra. Still, even with her naked to the waist, Nick can’t quite get at her the way he wants, jeans too snug around her hips. He clucks his tongue, nudging her onto the middle seat and swinging her legs up to work on her boots.

“Your nudity rules suck,” Taryn tells him, letting her thighs fall open. The whole truck smells like her now, on his fingers and everywhere, vanilla mixed with salt. Nick hopes it sticks.