His eyes lightened, the tiny laugh lines at the corners deepening as he grinned. "Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah. With the fire and all, her mother doesn't have time to use the tickets, and Izzy thought we might like them."
Nodding with enthusiasm, Doug sat forward, moving to the edge of his chair. "I'd love to go. I haven't made a Texans game yet this year, so this'll be great. It's a date. Thanks."
"You're welcome." Their mugs empty and the hour late, Kinsey got to her feet, definitely feeling more hopeful than she had five minutes ago. A false hope? Maybe, but at least she'd been proactive in her campaign.
And that, to her, was the most important distinction, because she was still not ready to give up her pursuit of this man.
Which brought her to the next subject on the agenda.
"Well, maybe you wouldn't mind doing me a small favor in return?"
Doug pushed up out of his chair. "Shoot."
"If it works with your schedule for Halloween weekend, maybe you could put in a bid for me at the gIRL-gEAR
bachelorette
auction?" That had to be one of the strangest requests she'd ever made of a ma, and the question's shock value seemed to have had the desired effect.
Slack-jawed, Doug stood there, holding both mugs. "
Bachelorette
auction?"
Nodding, Kinsey went on. "It's a fund-raiser for the family who lost their home in the fire. I have absolutely no details. We're getting together during next week's Monday meeting to work them out." She followed Doug toward the service bar. "But I'll feel like such a big loser if no one wants to buy me for the night."
"Trust me, darlin'. That won't happen." Doug left the mugs on the counter before ushering her toward the door with a hand at the small of her back. "Wow. A
bachelorette
auction. I guess it's a good thing I've already gotten past feeling jealous, huh?"
"Yes. And so quickly, too," Kinsey said, her sarcasm evident. He didn't have to take her completely at her word that he had no need to worry. He didn't, but it would appease her ego in a big way if he did.
"Yep." His had moved to her shoulder, and he didn't let her get more than a step from his side. "I've decided to work on more of a Zen-like attitude. Job stress is wicked enough. I'll be doing my blood pressure a favor this way."
"Sure. Don't want you stroking out or anything," she said, and mentally rolled her eyes.
They'd reached their vehicles, parked side by side in a lot that was small and deserted and edged by a high privacy fence. Kinsey appreciated that fact when Doug, under the guise of seeing her safely to her car, backed her into the side of her SUV.
He pressed his body along the length of hers, imprisoning her hands at her sides. She opened her mouth to tease him about Zen and the cosmos and serendipitous karma, but he gave her time to do nothing but gasp before his mouth covered hers and settled in to devour and feast.
Even when she struggled to touch him, he held her wrists still, almost as if he wanted to be the one who decided the extent of their contact. Fine, whatever. He could have his way as long as he didn't stop what he was doing, because the contact he was making stole her ability to breathe.
He touched her from knee to nose, his leg wedged between hers and pressing upward to stir coals of last night's flame. She widened her stance as far as her skinny-legged pants allowed, giving him better access and waiting on a sharp cutting edge for him to take it all.
He did, his tongue slipping inside her mouth, his thigh rubbing back and forth, pushing her panties up into the folds of her rapidly steaming sex. She moaned; Doug swallowed the sound, moving their joined hands down between their bodies.
She couldn't speak to ask him what he wanted from her, what he wanted her to do, what he wanted to do in return. His deft mouth kept hers too busy to do anything but kiss him back the way he demanded she do. She did, playing along with his teasing Pied Piper of a tongue.
Yet his hands were even more insistent. He moved one of them around to her pats' back zipper, taking it down and baring her backside to the night air. She was with him all the way, even when he slid both of his hands and both of hers down her belly and into her panties, which were nearly soaked through.
He forced her to touch herself, dragging her fingers through her slick folds to spread the wetness from her clit to the opening of her sex. His mouth moved from hers in a kissing, nipping, sharply sucking line down her neck, and she thought she was going to die.
Sensation consumed her from skin to core, plucking at her nerves as if she were a sexual instrument and Doug her maestro.
Oh, oh, oh.
Why the hell was she making poetic when all she wanted to do was drop her pats to the ground and strip him out of his?
He leaned further into her body, and then dipped down enough to slip an index finger inside of her, urging her own finger into her tight sheath, as well, until she wasn't sure how much of the thrill she felt was from his touch or her own.
She wasn't a stranger to the sensation of self-pleasure, but this … this … she'd never known…
"Oh, Doug." She breathed out his name at the same time he increased the tempo of their slick, thrusting fingers. The next sound she made was less of a moan and more of a whimpering cry. "Oh, Doug."
His mouth continued to arouse her, his lips drawing on the spot he remembered, that one there,
oh, yes,
right there on the side of her neck… She whimpered louder, breathed in, breathed out, so close, so close…
And then he pulled away from her neck and from her body and dropped down to crouch there between her legs. Tugging her pats down her thighs, he exposed her bottom to the cool metal of her SUV's door and her sex to the heat of his mouth.
He used both of his thumbs to open her fully; his tongue swirled around her clit, down her labia and back before he entered her, licking his way in and out and around the whole of her sex. When he returned to suck on her clit, she threaded her hands into his beautiful long hair and held on, pushing her mound against his mouth.
One of his hands slid around to squeeze her bottom and pull her open, and then he pushed two fingers as far into her as he could, withdrawing immediately, shoving his way inside again and then pulling away. He repeated the process with his fingers, continued the magic he was working with his mouth. Her knees shook; her belly clenched.
She slammed her palms against the cold metal door. Orgasm consumed her. She panted and gasped and moaned through seconds that went on forever, seconds of Doug's rhythmic stroking with both fingers and tongue, seconds of pressing back on the vehicle for balance while a wave of pleasure that was as fiercely emotional as it was physical crashed over her.
He completely took her apart; the shattering continued far beyond any she'd ever experienced. And the return to solid ground lasted almost as long. Never had she imagined anything so intense, anything that sent her to the edge of consciousness.
She barely recognized the fact that Doug had returned her clothing to rights until he practically crawled back up her body, kissing her thoroughly once be reached her mouth, and tasting of what she swore was the salty flavor of the sea.
The way he pushed his hips into hers and ground roughly against her belly left no doubt about his state of arousal, and she pressed hands to the fly of his pants.
He shook his head, pulled his mouth from hers. "It's okay. I'll be okay."
"I know you will," she whispered back. "I want to do this. For you."
"If you want to do something for me, I'd rather you do it naked in bed than on your knees in a parking lot."
Her smile was as twisted as the thoughts running through her mind. "Rather chauvinistic, aren't you? In this world of equal-opportunity oral sex?"
Laughing out loud, he opened her door. The interior light shone brightly enough to illuminate the wild intent in his eyes. "I'm a pig of the worst order. Greedy and selfish enough to want more of you than I can get to here. Besides, I like to look. And this parking lot is too damn dark."
He helped boost her up into the driver's seat. She buckled up, squirming a bit as her panties bunched again between her legs.
"You okay?" he asked, standing in the V of the open door.
"Girl stuff." She shrugged. "Trying to fix what you didn't adjust quite right."
He took a step closer and didn't even ask before sliding his hand between her legs. She just looked up at him as if he'd lost his mind while he fiddled with her there where the seam of her pants ran the length of her sex.
The fact that she was fully clothed didn't matter. In fact, it raised the level of sensation, increased her pulse, which raced with the tempting fear of discovery. Her door was open; the light was on. They were no longer hidden behind the vehicle in the parking lot's shadows.
She stared into Doug's eyes; his look dared her to stop him, dared her to close her legs and push him away. Instead she turned the tables, pressing her head into the headrest and her mound up to rub against his wrist.
He worked her through her clothes, turning her into another wet mess. Her eyes rolling closed, her abs clenching, her hands gripping the edges of the seat cushion as she held on for the ride.
Easing her eyes open, she looked up to find his body bathed in the light from the open door, while his face remained eerily in the shadows. Perspiration and gooseflesh prickled over her skin, tightening her nipples and the hold she had on the seat. "If you don't move and let me close the door, I'm going to come again all over the place."
He did move; he came closer, ducking his head so that he could rest his forehead on hers. When he forced her legs even farther apart, she complied with a sharp gasp, squeezing her eyes closed when he slid his hand beneath her bottom. He cupped her fully, pressing the heel of his palm into her sex, which was waiting and ready. His breathing came raw and ragged and hot on her face.
She whimpered then, and he wedged one long, thick finger along the entire length of her, his thumb circling her clit, his fingertips probing and rubbing and …
oh, oh, oh.
Three seconds and she was done
She cried out the way she'd wanted to minutes ago, verbally letting go and spilling everything she felt. He continued to work her, rubbing and pressing and squeezing in and out and ruthlessly around until she shuddered from a pleasure that reached close to being pain.
She collapsed, slumping down into her seat and wondering if she'd even be able to drive. Aw, who the hell
cared.
Eyes closed, she managed a halfhearted grin. "Please stop doing that."
"You know you love it."
God, but she did. "Yes, but a girl can take only so much intensity before she goes blind."
"Hmm. I thought that was a situational hazard proprietary to men."
"Situational hazard?"
"Going too long without a real woman."
"A real woman? As opposed to one you've blown up?"
"As opposed to one who talks it up in an Internet chat
room.
"
"
Eww
. You do Internet porn?"
He looked at her for a long moment before he tossed back his head and laughed out loud. "You are way too easy, darlin'. You know that?"
She slapped the center of his chest. "You're just plain mean."
Before she could even think to pull away, he grabbed hold of her hand. "Come spend the night with me."
A thrill rushed through her. "What? Having trouble seeing?"
That strange flash of despair winked in his eyes, then was gone. The same one she'd seen last night over dinner when he'd spoken of the decision he still had to make about selling his share of his company.
There was something deep going on with Doug
Storey,
and Kinsey was absolutely dying to figure out his secret. But for now, she kept her mouth closed and waited.
His expression shifted again and he leaned into kiss her. A briefly fleeting tease of his lips to hers, and then he pulled back. "Come home with me. I've got a flight out first thing and won't be back until Saturday. That's just too long to wait."
"For sex?"
He shook his head. "No, darlin'. To see you again."
Chapter 6
D
oug lay on his back, his head pillowed on his crossed forearms.
He stared up at his bedroom's plain white ceiling, counting the narrow stripes where the courtyard's security lights shone through the slats of his miniblinds.
Eighteen, nineteen or twenty-one.
He had yet to come up with the same total twice. And he'd just started in on his fourth try when Kinsey stirred beside him.
He willed his body to perfect stillness so as not to wake her if she were doing no more than turning over and cuddling up to his heat. If she came fully awake, she'd want to talk.
And he wasn't up for spilling any more of his guts than he had while they'd made love.
No, he hadn't gone and blabbed out anything about falling in love. He wasn't that stupid, though he was a very short centimeter from disproving that fact.