He cut himself off with a curse and shifted back hard on the bed away from her.
Fol owing her impulse—apparently where Luke was concerned she was unable to do anything else, even when she knew better, even when she knew she was just setting herself up to be destroyed—she moved from her side of the bed and shifted over him so that she was sitting up above him straddling his hips.
“You can say anything to me. You know that, don't you?”
She saw him try to fight a grin and lose the battle.
“Where the hel did you come from?”
Holding her hands out at her sides as if she were trying to fly, perfectly comfortable with her nudity, she said,
“I'm one-of-a-kind.”
His grin widened, but then, suddenly fel away. “I can't ask you to stay. I shouldn't ask you to stay.”
“You use those words too much. Can't. Shouldn't. I think you should stop worrying about a bunch of random rules and get to the real question.” She pressed her palms flat against his six-pack, enjoying the feel of his muscles rippling beneath her hands. “What do you want, Luke?”
“I want you to stay.”
This time, it was her turn for her grin to fal away at his potent statement. And when he fol owed it up with, “I don't know what I would do if you left, Janica,” she was pretty sure al the breath left her lungs. Again, it wasn't love, but it was something. Something more than she'd ever thought to hear him say to her, to have him feel for her. Especial y considering the way he'd practical y been trying to force her out the door before their walk on the beach, when he'd been an apple and she'd been an orange.
But when she looked at him, she could see that there was stil something more.
“Say it al , Luke. You don't have to hold back with me.”
She could see his brain trying to take over. She moved one hand from his stomach to his heart.
“Keep talking from here, not up there,” she said, nodding at his head.
“I just want to be with you. For the next few days without any—” He cut himself off again. “Fuck, I suck at this, don't I?”
“Kind of,” she teased, then decided to let him off the hook by saying, “Are you trying to tel me that you just want to have fun?”
“Fun,” he repeated, the word almost hol ow. He didn't move or speak again for a long moment. Final y, he said, “That's exactly what I want.”
She knew what he was real y asking for. No more difficult questions. No more trying to reach inside his heart to uncover everything he kept hidden. And no more worrying about the real world or either of their opposite places in it.
Her answer was simple. And the only one she could give. Because she wasn't strong enough to leave him. Not when she loved him so damn much it actual y hurt.
“Okay.”
He didn't look convinced. “I know it's a lot to ask.”
Slowly shifting her weight down his hips to get closer to the erection that she’d felt growing against her backside during their conversation, she said, “I'm al for fun,” as she wriggled down over him. “Although in the name of ful disclosure, there is one thing, though, that I don't think I'm going to be able to promise you.”
“Tel me,” he said, his hips shifting with hers, easily finding her wet heat.
“I don't think I'm going to be able to stop tel ing you that I love you. ”
With that said, she pushed down onto him, taking him al the way to the hilt.
“I don't want you to stop,” he said.
Surprise at his stark admission made her open up even more, both between her legs and behind her breast-bone. “I won't, Luke. No matter what.”
But in the aftermath of their orgasms, Janica realized she didn't actual y know what he'd meant. Had he simply been tel ing her not to stop the erotic slide of her body against his because he'd been about to come?
Or was it the outpouring of love from her heart that he didn't want to end?
Luke couldn't remember feeling like this since he was a little boy. When he was with Janica, he caught snippets of freedom. Of happiness.
And the sex was beyond great.
Jesus, he'd never come like this, not with anyone else. He final y understood why the French cal ed it “la petite mort.” Being with Janica, taking her to the edge and then fol owing her over, almost felt like it was obliterating the dark patches inside of him, one orgasm at a time.
The next day when they could final y stop devouring each other's bodies, they drove a couple miles down the road to go for a hike and then she made him stop at every little store and cafe on the way back to the cabin. What should have taken fifteen minutes, took over an hour. He'd never met anyone as interested in everything around her. Especial y when he knew that, if it were up to him, he would have kept his focus on the unimportant goal of getting back to the cabin to the exclusion of al else.
In the afternoon, she apologized about having to take care of some work. He knew she was successful, but he hadn't realized quite what an extensive operation she ran until he caught snippets of her detailed conversations from the kitchen over the next few hours. Two days with her and he couldn't imagine what that kitchen would look like without her in it. He couldn't imagine sleeping alone. Hel , he couldn't even imagine showering alone at this point.
He hadn't invited her to come here, to invade his life, but now that she was here the crazy truth was that he was glad.
So damn glad it scared the shit out of him. Because he knew it couldn't possibly last forever, this fantasy world they were living in just steps away from the ocean and the forest.
It was getting dark when he realized he was missing her too much to stay outside and give her privacy any longer. She dropped the phone on to the counter just as he walked in, looking mildly irritated. And total y beautiful.
He knew another moment of fear. It was a big deal for her to give him these days away from her business. The look on her face after hanging up the phone told him how badly she was needed at the office. She was going to leave.
No. Not yet!
His entire body tensed. His gut clenched tight, like it was being held by a ruthless fist. He needed to stop her, had to convince her somehow, someway, to stay. At least for a little while longer.
Because he needed her. So badly it shocked the hel out of him.
She swept out of the cabin. “I need to go dancing. Now.”
She threw his car keys at him and he barely caught them before they fel over the edge into the thick brush.
“You're not leaving?”
The words came out before he could stop them, before he could delete the pathetic undertone of need, of fear beneath them. She stopped running down the stairs to look back at him with a frown.
“Not without you, I'm not.”
The rush of relief, of joy, nearly knocked him over. By the time he got down to the bottom of the stairs she was standing in the gravel parking lot looking disapprovingly at his Porsche. Every other woman he'd ever been with had practical y wanted to do his car. Somehow it was fitting that Janica seemed annoyed by it instead.
“Why can't you just drive a truck?” Before he could answer, she shot him an irritated glance, and said,
“Because let me tel you, it's going to be hel trying to do it in this stupid sports car.”
He laughed out loud and got hard al at the same time.
“I thought we were going to go dancing?”
She rol ed her eyes. “Dancing. Fucking. One leads right to the other. How can you not know that?” She opened the passenger door, got in, and slammed the door.
He was going to have a hel of a time dancing with a hard-on like this. Not that it real y mattered, however, since he didn't dance. In any case, he seriously doubted they'd find a place to dance in this fairly remote coastal mountain town.
Which meant they could just focus on the fucking, he thought with a grin that he had a feeling he was going to pay for later.
But maybe she was a little witch. Because they had barely hit the two lanes of Highway 1 when she had him pul over in front of a biker bar. The parking lot was packed with motorcycles and big trucks.
He could hear the music blaring before he'd even turned off his ignition.
Stil in the front seat of his car, she turned and looked at him with a wicked gleam in her eyes. “You are going to absolutely hate this, aren’t you?”
“Fuck, yes.”
She threw her head back and laughed, then got of the car and al but skipped inside the bar.
Wondering why he was even bothering to lock his car in a place like this – it would only be more fun to steal if it was a chal enge, wouldn't it? - he headed inside after her. She was already in the middle of the dance floor by the time he got inside, shaking and shimmying and writhing with everything she had.
Quickly noting he wasn't the only one drinking her in, knowing without a shred of doubt that every guy in there—and probably half the women—wanted to drag her into a back room and take her, a swift burst of red-hot jealousy rushed him. Without thinking, he pushed through the crowd to lay claim to her.
As if she'd expected him to do just that, she spun into his arms and wrapped them around his neck, pul ing his mouth down to hers.
If there was a better feeling than claiming Janica like this, he sure as hel didn't know what it was. Something took him over then, a feeling of deep release. Similar to how he felt when he was pouring himself into her body, but different at the same time. It was the most natural thing in the world to dance with her there in the middle of a biker bar to country songs about drinking too much and sleeping with the wrong guy.
Maybe it was the way her eyes shined as she looked at him.
Or maybe it was just how right it was to be with her, doing anything.
Anything at al .
Song after song they danced, Janica moving in and out of his arms, her hips brushing and swaying against his, her breasts slipping and sliding against his chest, his arms, his hands, until he couldn't take it anymore. Because she was right, dancing and fucking were practical y the same thing, only he couldn't take her in a crowded bar in front of a roomful of strangers. Without a word, he grabbed her hand and pul ed her off the dance floor, past the bar, and out to his car. Only taking the time to open his door, he practical y threw her across the car onto her seat.
He could scent her as he peeled out of the parking lot, her sweet smel of heat and arousal and pleasure completely obliterating any remnants of the beer and smoke that had surrounded them inside the bar. Neither of them spoke, not even her, and barely a minute later he was pul ing off the road onto a dirt track that led to a beach trail. In the thick of the woods, he yanked his keys out of his car, shoved his seat back as far as it would go, and grabbed her out of her seat by her hips, pul ing her on top of him.
“You make me crazy,” he said, and then his lips were on hers and he was ripping at the thin straps of her dress, pul ing them down past her breasts. She shifted up on him and he sucked one hard, pink nipple into his mouth, swirling around it with his tongue before taking it between his teeth.
She ground herself into him, begging him without words to give her the release they both desperately needed. It didn't matter that he'd made love to her twice that morning.
He needed her again.
Now.
Cupping her breast to his mouth with one hand, he shifted his lips to her nipple, tasting, sucking, devouring. His free hand slipped under the short skirt of her dress to cup her mound, damp and sizzling hot beneath his palm.
“I've got to touch you,” he said against her skin, and then he was sliding one finger into the leg band of her silk panties and sweeping it through the slick moisture that coated her labia.
She thrust down on his fingers and he added one more, then another until she was practical y sobbing and holding his head against her breasts. Shifting his hand just slightly, he rubbed his thumb against her clit with every ramming stroke of his fingers inside her heat.
“Luke,” she moaned. “Yes, please, there, oh God.”
She went perfectly stil for a split second as the pleasure hit her and then she was moving again, even faster, her pussy drawing on his fingers, her clit slamming against his thumb, her muscles wrapping themselves around him tighter and tighter as she exploded.
But even as she came, he could feel her fingers working on the button at the top of his jeans.
“Next time you come you're not going to be able to do another goddamned thing,” he growled as she pul ed open his pants and reached for his cock.
Her eyes opened then, and she looked at him in beautiful y unfocused pleasure. “I need to have you in me.”
He had to kiss her, had to take her, had to be with her, inside her, in every possible way. His tongue found hers just as his cock began to slide into her tight, wet canal. She was tighter than she'd ever been, even that first night, and somewhere in the only part of his brain that could stil hold thought, he knew he was being way too rough with her, taking her too many times, too fast, too hard.
Fighting for control, he gripped her hips, stopping them with only his head inside her pussy lips.
“We need to go slower, sweetheart.”
“No,” she said, clearly trying to use every bit of strength she possessed to force herself out of his grip and slide down onto his cock.
But he'd made up his mind. For her sake, even though it was probably going to kil him, they had to take their time.
“It'l be even better this way,” he said, working like hel to convince not only her, but himself, as he said it. “One inch at a time.”
To il ustrate his point, he moved her body down over him just enough to cover that inch.
A thick rush of moisture immediately coated his cock and she sucked in a breath.
“I love it when you boss me around,” she said in a breathy voice with a sexy little grin.
Through the thick haze of his lust for her, he managed a grin. “And I love it when you obey.”
“Only you,” she whispered in response. “I only want to obey you, Luke.”
He throbbed thick and strong inside of her, his cock only growing bigger and harder and more demanding the more control he tried to exert over it. He had to get in deeper, had to take another inch of her sweet, slick heat. As he shifted her yet again he could feel her opening up around him, her aroused and swol en flesh both giving to him and taking from him in equal measure.