The Good Chase (12 page)

How did she want to spend the time with him that was left?

Standing, she found herself close within his space. Close enough to touch again, though neither made a move to do so. When she inhaled through her nose, his scent was this incredible mix of the turf he'd rolled around in all day, and the wood polish from the Stone Pub the previous night, and the sweet water he'd hosed himself off with.

“I like that you showed me this place,” he said, sweeping a long look over her valley. The beautiful house felt both fantastically posh and wonderfully homey at the same time. Kind of like Byrne. She didn't know if she'd ever be able to come here again and not see him standing on this rise, the spread of her dreams unfolding over his shoulder.

His eyes came back to her, and this time they were unmistakably hot with desire. His voice was low and rumbling, like the encroaching clouds.

“I like
you
, Shea.”

The humor, the lightness of their moments together here in Gleann, slipped away.

Weeks ago she'd considered one night of sex with him and thought that would've been the end of it. Maybe it would have, had it actually happened. But now? What exactly did she want? Him, yes. Absolutely him. Byrne naked and between her legs, no doubt about that.

But after? What then?

He was staring at her mouth with hunger, the speed of his breathing doing its best to catch up to hers.

And then she realized she didn't want to think anymore. She just wanted to say
yes
.

Could he see the way she was already shaking, already vibrating? Surely he could. Her vision was actually blurring with the force of it. So why wasn't he touching her?

Then she remembered how she'd made him promise not to touch her until she said it was okay.

“Sorry. Okay.
Now
.”

Breath whooshed out of him. He grabbed her. No, she grabbed him. There was a messy tangling of arms as they each tried to figure out where to put theirs, whose limbs went where, what they both wanted to touch, to feel. His chest went hard with tension, his arms tight with movement as they wrapped around her back. She didn't know where to go first, and in that brief moment as they pressed together, all was chaos.

And then their mouths met and there was instant peace.

Utter and complete heaven. A burst of taste and heat and light that translated quickly into a full-body shiver. It started where his lips moved across hers, a gentle claiming of her senses, and then the moment his tongue came out and licked hers, her entire body reacted. She was powerless to stop the shivering, the wave upon wave of adrenaline that coursed through her and made her arms into vises around his neck.

She wanted him to feel what he did to her. To know it. To know her.

When he pulled away, his own lips slack as he wildly searched her face, she knew he did.

Taking his head, she pulled his mouth to hers again. It was the antithesis of the campground kiss, which had been all innocence and tentative seeking, uncertainty and careful exploration. This kiss was a dive into a pit of half-crazed vipers. Of absolute lust, stolen from the atmosphere, sucking it out of the world. She wouldn't doubt if every lover everywhere suddenly looked down at themselves, wondering where their libido had gone, because she and Byrne had stolen it
all
.

Fuck, it was amazing, this high. To be kissed and grabbed with such untamed need.

The pulse between her legs made her weak, and when his big hands shot upward into her hair, yanking her head back, so he could attach his lips and tongue to her throat, her legs completely gave out. He held her up by sliding one of those ridiculous rugby thighs between her own.

The cry that came out of her mouth shot high and shocked over the valley—a direct response to the unexpected burst of pleasure that raced across her clit.

His head snapped back, and she barely recognized him for the slack-jawed desire that had taken him over. He breathed hard, an animal just after the attack, ready to devour.

“I want to hear that again,” he said. “Only with you naked. And underneath me.”

All the words that came to her mind would sound so dumb spoken:
Wow. Yes. I want that, too
. So instead she spoke with her body, her tongue darting out to lick his bottom lip while her hand slid down the cotton stretched over his flat abs. The nylon of his warm-up pants made the hard length of his dick impossibly smooth and alluring, and as the heel of her hand pressed down it and dragged back up, they both made low sounds. Raw want in vocal form.

In the distance, more thunder, louder and bigger, echoed what she felt. An impending storm.

“Trying to torture me, eh?” His sideways grin, all slow and sure.

“Trying to make you want me even more.”

“Impossible.”

He kissed her again with her hand wrapped around him, and never had the promise of sex felt so good.

Just then a sharp, terrible sting stabbed at her ankle and shot down the top of her foot. “Ow!”

He yanked back, eyes dancing with worry. “What? What'd I do?”

“Nothing! Ah, damn it!” She folded herself in two, stretching for her ankle . . . and saw some sort of giant flying bug out of the prehistoric ages taking off. Giggling.

“Did you see that thing?” She pointed.

He laughed, but it was a pained sort of laugh. The kind of laugh guys do when they're turned on and it's the only sound blue balls will let them have.

“You okay?”

Holding on to his shoulder, she balanced on one leg to rub the ankle. “I'll be fine.” She glanced at him wryly. “A bug bite? Seriously? That's what interrupts us?”

“You allergic?”

“No, but it—”

“Good.” With a sudden sweep of his arms, he tipped her off her feet and cradled her close to his body.

She pushed at his arms—holy cow were they strong—because she felt like she had to, but secretly she loved it. “I'm not helpless, you know.”

His eyes twinkled. “You've got that She-Ra power woman thing going on. Which I love, by the way. But this feeds me testosterone. Let me do it so that evil bug doesn't steal my hard-on.” He started kicking through the long grass, back toward her car. “Plus, I want to kiss it better.”

“You want to kiss my foot?”

“I want to kiss something else.”

She was spaghetti in his arms, so when he swung her back down and her shoes hit the gravel on the side of the road, her legs didn't hold her. Again. But then he was pressing her hard up against her car, the door not giving her any quarter. Not that she wanted it.

And when his mouth took hers again—just absolutely claimed it, ruining it for anyone else's mouth ever again—she distinctly felt that the damn prehistoric bug had done absolutely nothing to kill his erection.
Praise be
.

He was between her legs now, pressing in, the fabric of his pants slipping and sliding all over where it felt the absolute best. She could tell, by the way he had his hand pressed into her throat and his fingers on her face, and by the slow curl of his hips as his hardness tried so eagerly to get into her softness, that he was going to be so, so good in bed.

“Tent sex,” he murmured as a particularly good undulation of his hips brought out stars behind her eyelids and a mini-orgasm everywhere else.

The wind picked up without warning, tossing the trees in the distance, coming down upon them like a gathering wave and carrying with it the sweet scent of impending rain.

“Mmmm,” she said, because every sense of hers was on fire and it was all she could get out or think to say. His ass felt incredible under her hands, especially when he curled against her, that flex of muscle, and she couldn't wait to feel skin on skin.

The first drops of rain hit the top of her head and dripped down her cheeks. She held on to Byrne for dear life, kissing him and kissing him as the rain echoed their intensity, until all of a sudden the drum in her ears wasn't her hormones or her consuming desire but the drive of rain on the hood of her car and the beat of the drops as they slammed against the nearby abandoned house.

When they took a breath, when she could finally drag herself away, Byrne was soaked, water sluicing down through his dark hair and heading right for his wicked grin. The wet rugby shirt sealed itself to his body, and the wet pants showed exactly what she'd felt and wanted so desperately.

He peered up into the rain, and it made his eyelashes clump together. “Damn,” he said. “There goes tent sex.”

“What
is
it with you and the tent?”

He shrugged. “Because you're in it?”

Shea futilely tried to wipe water from her face as the rain drove down. Steam started to rise from the heated pavement. “Wow, that came fast.”

A possessive hand on her hip, fingers digging in. “So might I, the second I'm in you.”

She scrunched up her face. “You know that's not exactly good for a girl, right?”

So many white teeth as he laughed. “I meant the first time. Then a lot of time for you. I mean,
a lot
. And then a good, long second time.”

“That's more like it. Get in, Quick Draw McGraw.”

They piled back into her car, the rain making blurred sheets down her windows.

“Your seats are going to be soaked,” he said, patting her crappy upholstery.

“That's okay. The eventual mildew will remind me of you.”

“Excellent.” He flicked pointed eyes at her chest. “That boring, proper shirt doesn't look so wholesome right now.”

The rain had made the white cotton translucent, showing the pale pink bra underneath. She wasn't well-endowed by any means, but the image was still rather salacious. And she found she liked it, looking like this in her work clothes. She exaggeratedly pushed out her chest, hard nipples and all.

“We small-chested girls need all the help we can get.”

He slowly shook his head. “You need no help at all.”

Her hand holding the key paused halfway to the ignition. “Um, I just remembered. Hope this isn't awkward or anything, but I'm not on the pill and my . . . stuff . . . is back at the campsite.”

“Would you consider coming back to my hotel room? I've got”—oh that smile—“stuff.”

In her pause, he turned serious and added, “It's one of those motels out on Route 6. The kind with the doors that open to the outside. I have my own room, you can park right outside, and no one on the team will see you run in. If that's what you're worried about.”

“I'm not embarrassed or anything about being with you. You get that, right? It's not
you
.”

“I do. It's all good.”

“It's just, I came here for work. People know me. I can't give out the wrong ideas—”

“Shea, it's cool.”

“Of course it's cool. You're about to get laid and—”

He leaned across the center console and kissed her. Close-lipped. The pressure lovely. The length longer than a peck but shorter than a kiss that could quickly morph into something desperate and never-ending.

As he pulled back, the smile was no longer on his lips but in the warmth of those pale blue eyes.

“You, my dear,” he whispered, “are the best kind of surprise.”

9

A
s Shea did a U-turn on the narrow access road, Byrne couldn't stop shivering. And he wasn't entirely sure it was because of the rain-soaked chill.

Shea turned on the heat, even though it was still easily eighty degrees outside. “You okay over there?”

The best kind of surprise. One hundred percent.

“I will be,” he said.

The headlights speared through the darkness, the windshield wipers flapping back and forth.

“What?” The wickedness in her voice came through loud and clear. “No more talking?”

He barked out a sound of frustration. “Time for telling you what I want to do to you is past, I'm afraid, unless you want a big mess in your car.”

“Ew!” Laughing, she slapped him on the arm.

It was an oddly intimate gesture, one that might've happened between two people who actually knew each other. Who had had more than a few random encounters among the screech of bagpipes and strange shaggy cows. Peaceful campgrounds. And random rich men's apartments.

And it felt completely natural.

He caught her hand as it slid down his biceps, her fingers cool and damp from the rain, and brought her palm to his mouth. He hadn't planned to do that. The urge just came to him, this need to taste her in this way. His lips fit perfectly into the little cup of her hand. The rain against her skin was delicious.

The sound that came out of her mouth was a musical mixture of surprise and desire. For a millisecond she tried to pull her hand away, but then she gave in. And inside that millisecond, he knew there was a very real possibility that she could become more to him than sex. There was a chance she could be part of his future and exist in his world outside Gleann, New Hampshire.

Maybe he should stop now before he got too lost in this woman. She'd built such formidable structures around the sections of her life, but now that he got a peek inside, he saw what a funny, warm, smart, sexual creature she truly was.

Fuck it. No way was he stopping. He was going for it. And not just for the sex. He was going after
her
.

When his tongue pushed through his lips and slid up her palm, the car swerved to the left. She yanked her hand from his grasp and righted the steering wheel.

“Thought you said you were in pain over there.” Her chuckle sounded strained, her voice tight.

“I am. That wasn't for me.”

She gripped the wheel hard at ten and two. “No more distracting me if you want me to get us to your motel in one piece.”

But the way she slipped a long, sultry glance in his direction was such an open dare, such a clear invitation to distract her more.

He cleared his throat, ready for the challenge.

“You have the best legs,” he said. “I want them around me. On my shoulders. All that skin. I want to be tied up in you.”

She coughed, then blew out a long breath between tight lips. “Calm down, calm down.”

“Sorry. Can't.”

She glanced at him. “I meant me.”

He reached for her. She jumped when his fingers smoothed over her knee and ran up the inside of her thigh. Underneath those wet black pants, her leg clenched hard.

“What are you—” A tiny gasp came out of her lips—so high, so wonderfully girly—as he dug his hand between her legs, pushing down slowly, his thumb rubbing just
there
.

“No distractions,” she whispered, even as she stamped her left foot against the running board and lifted herself up a bit, letting him further in.

He dragged his hand back out, lazily, as though they had all the time in the world. Even though he'd done this to tease the hell out of her, it was making him absolutely insane.

Aside from Mary Alice who'd worked at the Dairy Queen back in high school, he'd never wanted to get a woman out of a uniform so badly before. And if Mary Alice had once been the gold standard for girls wearing plain, dictated clothing, then Shea was fucking platinum. There was an entire mine of treasure buried underneath that boring white shirt and those black pants.

She moaned a quiet complaint when he pulled his hand away. He sat back, satisfied. For now. The look she slid him—full lips parted, eyes glassy—made his knee bounce in anticipation.

The ride back to his motel should have taken about twenty minutes, but Shea did it in about four. He might've feared for his life on the bending, dipping backcountry road except that his mind was soaring somewhere in the sexed-up cloud of imminent possibility. The real world sped by him in a soundless blur.

She swerved into the parking lot outside his motel and shoved the gear into park so hard he thought it might come off in her hand.

“Anxious, are we?”

“There's been a lot of buildup, Mr. Byrne. You don't even want to know all the incredible things my mind has been promising my body.”

“Of course I want to know.” Door open, one foot on the asphalt outside. Rain slicked down his exposed leg. “I'll make it all happen.”

“Can you read my mind or something?”

“No. Your body. It'll tell me.”

Starlight hit and burst in her eyes. A gorgeous smile ticked at her lips, but only for a second. She tried to wipe it away, but the remnants were even more beautiful, even more intriguing. “Just so you know, I hate cocky men.”

He responded by getting out, shutting the door, and jogging through the rain over to room 134, the second-to-last door on the ground level. She remained in the car until he got the cardkey in the lock. A gentle jiggle. Then a hearty jiggle. Then a jiggle that rattled loudly up and down the row of doors. He thought,
No, no, no. I am
not
going over to the office to talk to some greasy-haired late-night desk clerk about getting a new key now.
Then, green light. Thank fuck. He stepped inside as her car door slammed. Then Shea appeared at his heels, slipping into the warm, dark room behind him.

The curtains were pulled nearly closed. The lamps out in the parking lot burned brightly, and a hard white stripe of light divided the room, lying crooked across the circular table under the window and traveling over both double beds.

A vision flashed in his head. Shea, lying back across the bed, her body perfectly framed in that stripe of illicit light, all that pale skin completely uncovered and moonlit gorgeous.

“I thought you were more of a Four Seasons guy,” she quipped.

“Clearly you need to get to know me better.”

She'd been teasing, but he was not.

As he turned to secure the deadbolt and the chain lock, she snapped the curtains closed with a screech of rings across a metal bar. He was ready to protest the loss of light and his fantasy, but then Shea went to the standing lamp in the corner and clicked it on the lowest setting.

Much warmer, much more intimate.

Her shoulders rolled back and down as she turned to him. He loved how the rain had clumped together long portions of her hair.

“I want to see you,” she said.

Yes.

“Back to the ‘I wants,' I see.” Never being one to disappoint, he took the hem of his rugby shirt and peeled it off before she could say anything more.

As the shirt came off and hit the circular table with a wet
splat
, the air-conditioning swept a chill across his damp torso, tightening his skin. But then the look in her eyes and the gentle lick of her lips heated him up rather nicely.

As her fingers rose to the buttons of her wet shirt, he closed the space between them and pushed aside her hands. “I want to do it.”

The first button, right above the crease between her breasts, popped out of its hole. The second button came free and he peeled back the wet fabric, exposing the pink of her bra and the hard nipples pushing up against it.

“You'll be the death of me,” she said all hushed, her chest pumping with breath.

“No, not death.” The third button. “Life. Pleasure.”

“That's what I mean”—her head lolled back on her neck, and now he could see how evenly creamy and pale her skin was all over—“the death of me.”

The final button. “Sounds like you need more pleasure.”

He had to pull the wet sleeves of her shirt hard down her arms, and when he got to her wrists, the dampness of her body wasn't giving up the fabric so easily. If there was one thing he could identify in life, it was opportunity, and this definitely was one.

Pressing right up against her until they both shivered with the contact, he used the shirt to trap her arms behind her. It arched her back, pushing her chest against him, and even through the bra the feel of her nipples on him was absolute heaven. Holding her like that, motionless in his arms, he kissed her.

It started out slowly, the prodding of his lips to open her mouth, the tentative, deep penetration of their tongues. But the second she moaned, the very moment that she wordlessly told him how much she wanted him, how much she was ready, the kiss turned hard, stinging, unrelenting.

When he couldn't breathe anymore, when her taste and the passionate way she kissed simply became too much, he edged back and finally yanked the shirt from her arms.

She swayed on her feet, looking dazed, drugged. He loved it.

Reaching behind her again, he unlatched her bra, feeling the tickle of the wet ends of her long hair. At last she was exposed, and if the bottom half of her body was anywhere near as pretty as the top, he might claim that she'd be the death of him, too.

As he bent to unlace and discard his cleats, and to pull off his socks, she toed off her own black shoes. And since he was already down there, he kneeled, reached out, and thumbed open the button of her pants. Her breath hitched when he went for the zipper, drew it down with more patience than he thought himself capable of. He looked up at her.

“Death,” she murmured. Her head slowly shook back and forth, long strands of hair falling down over her shoulders, swishing across those perfect tits. She must like how it feels, he thought, because she kept doing it.

“The way you're looking at me is pure evil,” she drawled.

“Yep.”

Fingers curled over the top of her wet pants, he pulled them down to her knees. He'd meant to unwrap her slowly, to enjoy the rain-soaked present of her, but her underwear came down with the pants, too. Vaguely he was aware she wore a pink thong that may or may not have matched the bra. But then he didn't really care because, good lord, she was definitely as lovely below the curve of her waist as she was above.

Bracing one hand on his shoulder, she let him pull one pant leg off, then lifted her knee and allowed him to do the other. The pants discarded, she stood before him, her feet set far enough apart to give him the best view of something else in a beautiful shade of pink. He leaned forward—he was powerless to do anything else—and drew a long, slow lick up the seam of her body.

It elicited a full-body shiver from her and drew a low groan up from deep inside his own chest. Underneath his hands, her thighs quivered. He held on and pressed in tighter. Kissed her there. Licked in a little deeper. Swirled the wonderful taste of surprise around with his tongue.

Pressure on his shoulders, then the tangle of fingers in his hair. “For the love of God.” She shuddered. “Get naked.”

Reluctantly, with the mental promise that he'd be back for more later, he removed his lips from the warm, wet, delicious spot.

Rocking to his feet, he pulled out the string to loosen his warm-up pants.

“My turn to help.” With a mighty swing of her hips she came forward, sliding her hands down his chest, then shoving them into his waistband.

Just as he was getting lost in the way she simultaneously moved her mouth across his and her hand up and down his dick, she released him. Stepped back. Left him gasping and brain-dead.

Then she dropped down.

Oh, Jesus, she was naked and on her knees in front of him. Taking off his pants and underwear. Licking her lips again. Like he was a three-hundred-dollar bottle of whiskey or something.

The moment he was fully naked, her mouth was on him. She tangled her tongue with his cock. Rolled him around in her warm mouth. Sucked him down her throat. Suddenly he was insanely jealous of every single whiskey she'd ever put in her mouth. Then she pulled off him with a
pop
.

She sat back on her heels, knees slightly apart. Panting, she asked, “Where's your . . . stuff?”

He grinned. Couldn't help it. “My ‘stuff' is over here.”

On shaking legs he swiveled and dove for the hastily packed gym bag sitting on the far, unused bed. There they were, stuffed into the inner side pocket. Emergency condoms.
Hallelujah
.

As he got one open, he felt her slide up behind him, pressing her front to his back. The chill of her skin was gone, her body now fantastically warm. Right before he was ready to roll on the rubber, she snaked her arms around his waist and took him in hand. Stroked him with impeccable skill. He couldn't move for a while. Couldn't think. Just felt.