Can't Buy Me Love (34 page)

Their connection was intense. Dizzying. As if somehow she could see the ribbons that tied them, that curled around them in an endless figure eight she didn’t understand but she could no longer outrun.

“I’m not going to kill you,” she whispered. “I’m going to fuck you.”

He lunged across the seat, sealing her lips with his. Hot and warm, she melted against him.

It took her a second to unbuckle her seat belt and crawl into his lap, where his heat, the living presence of him, made her sigh with pleasure.

She banished the demon trying to tell her what to do and went with her heart. And her heart told her to put her arms around this man for as long as she could.

He reached beside him and hit the lever to lower the back of his seat and she leaned back.

“You’ve done this before?”

“Never,” he said.

“Come on, a quickie in a car?”

“This … quickies in a car only happen if you’re out of control.”

“And you’re never out of control?” Her stomach turned over, like she was on The Zipper at the State Fair when she was a kid.

“There’s something about you, Tara Jean …”

“That makes you want to get naked in a car.”

“That makes me want to get you naked in a car. Naked.” He kissed her lips, a nip that made her gasp. “Hot.” He sucked on that spot on her neck as if he had a secret map to the places that made her crazy. “And wet.”

She shifted her legs so she was straddling him. Her
skirt stopped her from getting close to him, so she wiggled, trying to hike it up past her hips.

Luc helped. His big hands, warm and callused, slid up her legs pushing up her skirt, revealing the bright blue cotton bikini underwear she wore with the smiley face on the crotch.

“Cute,” he murmured, his breath fanning her neck, sending goose bumps down her arms and across her back. He smelled like coffee and toothpaste.

With the skirt out of the way, she pressed herself into his lap, gasping when that smiley face met the erection growing under his jeans. Looking into his eyes, she saw the sadness cut away with a knife and she circled her hips, teasing him. Teasing her. Making that smiley face very happy.

His hands slid up under her halter top, across the trembling taut skin of her belly. Her nipples hurt with anticipation; hard and painful, they waited for his touch. Slowly, his palms cupped the undersides of her breasts and her eyes fluttered shut. Breathless, she leaned against him—alive where he was touching her, cold where he wasn’t.

She leaned down and put her lips to his neck, bumping her head on the window. Her hips popped away from his, cool air blowing between them, and she moaned in protest, trying to scoot closer. He braced his foot on the floorboards, hitting his knee against the dash. They laughed into each other’s skin.

It had been a long time since she’d made out in a car, and she’d forgotten the pleasures of confined places. The bliss of extra-close proximity.

She leaned back, putting her hand against the roof of the car for leverage. His face was dark, the skin nearly red, his lips white from the force applied by his teeth.

His eyes met hers, and for a moment it was the kitchen all over again and what she saw in his eyes was too
much. His emotion and need contributed to hers, and the combined weight was going to sink the good ship dry hump.

Closing her eyes seemed the best option—to keep the good times going, to keep her from freaking out again.

Don’t count on me past this, don’t expect more. Because there is nothing in me to give you. Nothing lasting. Nothing real
.

He was seeing things that weren’t there. She was empty. Ruined where it mattered a long, long time ago.

Panic cut through the desire.

He’s lost his career
, she told herself. And he was grabbing onto her with both hands because she was there. He was going to try to make more out of this than there was.

“Tara? What’s wrong?”

“It’s just sex,” she told him. His hips stopped. Smiley face would have frowned had it been able.

“Instead of … what? A pony?”

“I’m just saying …” She stroked his cheek, trying to take the sting out of her words. “You’re a man at a crossroads, Luc. And I’m a diversion, nothing to hold onto.”

His chuckle was hot and dangerous, and the temperature in her core climbed. His hands cupped her breasts, his fingers surveying the curves, circling the nipples. She waited for the stroke of his thumb, but instead he pulled her closer and she got the wet heat of his tongue through her shirt as he sucked her into his mouth. She cried out, cupping the back of his head, grinding against him as he used his teeth against her. Pleasure curled and the hot, bright edge of it was pain.

He left that breast, the nipple cold in the damp fabric, to find her other one and his mouth through the fabric was sexy and dirty, but it wasn’t what she wanted and
she clawed off her shirt, tossing it onto the driver’s-side seat.

“I’m not going to argue with you now,” he muttered. “Let’s just agree to disagree.” He cupped her breasts, cradling the weight, kissing and licking the soft and sensitive flesh until honestly she thought she’d go mad with it.

She caught the hem of his shirt and pulled it up, revealing the hard muscles, the soft skin. The fine hair under his arms made her crazy. The dip of muscle to ligament, ligament to bone, and the gorgeous skin that blanketed it all was perfection. Exactly as it should be.

He was an anatomy textbook brought to life.

She kissed his shoulder, traced his bicep, found the ridge of whatever muscle it was on his back that made him look so wide. So strong. A shield she could hide behind.

“This isn’t some kind of pity fuck, is it?” he asked, and she leaned back to stare into his earnest face. “Poor Luc, he’s lost his career?”

Slowly, she shook her head. “I feel bad for you, Luc. But I would never pity you.” She could see he didn’t totally believe her, that it would take years before he believed that no one was pitying him. “Truth be told, Luc, men who cry and throw shit—it’s a big turn-on.”

His laughter was bright and relieved and his kiss tasted sweet. Like gratitude.

But his fingers, nimble and clever, slid up her legs to the happy face. He petted her through the fabric until she knew she was so wet he could feel it. He dipped a finger beneath the elastic and she gasped, curling against him, holding onto the pleasure as hard as she could. He teased, traced the edges of her sex, sliding past her clitoris, leaving her breathless.

Grinding against him, chasing that finger down as best she could, she whimpered in frustration.

“Oh God, Tara, you kill me.”

His hands slid under her butt and with a shrug of his shoulders, he practically threw her into the roomy backseat of the SUV.

She turned, flipping her hair out of her face, only to see him crawling after her, his face dark, his intent clear. If she weren’t so sick with lust, so mad with affection, she might have popped open the door and run, just so he could catch her.

A game. To keep them both safe. Their emotions locked behind flirtation and subterfuge.

But she was dying for him, and the only thing she could do was lie back and open her arms.

He licked a hot path up her belly, back to her breasts, murmuring all the while dark and wicked things that made her blush and squirm.

“I want to taste you,” he said, sucking on her lips, nipping at her tongue. He started to backtrack, taking side roads across her cheeks, to her ears, down to that hot spot on her neck, but she stopped him.

“Me first,” she murmured, sliding awkwardly against the leather, her skin sticking. He lay down, filling the space she had vacated, and she started her own
National Geographic
tour of his landscape.

“You’re so beautiful,” she murmured against his chest, licking his nipple, tugging at the button on his jeans. She stroked the skin of his stomach and sides with both hands spread wide, trying to touch as much of him as she could. His hands captured hers, pulling them over his chest, right over the beat of his heart. Looking up, she found his eyes burning and she couldn’t look away. She licked his belly, tugged free one of her hands, and cupped his erection, opening her mouth to blow hot air over the fabric. He bared his teeth, lifted his hips, and the air in the truck was a bonfire of sweat and need and sex.

As she pulled down his black boxer briefs, the column of his erection sprang free, muscular and masculine in the extreme. She licked him, base to tip, staring into his eyes, feeling the best kind of dirty.

His heart pounded under her palm and against her lips and she felt so very much a part of his existence at this moment. No matter what happened between them, she knew that this moment was theirs. And they were as much a part of each other as any two people could be.

Tears burning behind her eyes, she broke eye contact and focused her attention on what lay beneath her lips.

He growled, his hands fisting in her hair, and she didn’t know how she could be so turned on without being touched, but she was. She was hot and ready. Cupping him with both hands, she took as much as she could into her mouth and found a pace that had him sweating and arching against her.

“No more,” he finally muttered, pulling her away. She held on as long as she could, the length of him slipping out of her mouth with a delicious pop. Hauling her up his body, her weight nothing to all that overt strength, he ravished her mouth, split her wide open, and swallowed her whole.

“Condom,” she said.

“Not yet.”

Lifting her even farther, she realized what he was doing and she braced one foot in the foot well and one hand against the window, desperate for relief.

Scooting down the bench seat, he pulled down her underwear. She shifted to help him take it off, but then he just grabbed Mr. Happy Face and tore him, right down the seam.

She shuddered with pleasure and then screamed when his lips found hers. He licked, sucked, bit once and then again. And she shook, riding his face while he squeezed and palmed her hips.

The temptation to close her eyes and just let this happen, just let him please her, was intense—all-consuming. It would be so easy, but she wasn’t doing this because it was easy. She was in the backseat of this truck with him because it was hard. It took more courage than she thought she had.

She jerked away from him, slipping down his body. “I want …” Looking into his eyes, she felt a little foolish. “I want to do this with you.”

His lips, shiny and slick, split into that crooked grin that broke her heart and sent it soaring at the same time.

Lifting his hips to dig into his hip pocket, his erection brushed the electrified nerve endings between her legs and she couldn’t help arching into him, making him groan and fumble with the condom he pulled from his back pocket.

“I thought you didn’t do this sort of thing,” she said, staring down at him from where she sat on top of his hips.

“I didn’t say I wasn’t hopeful.”

It was sweet and endearing and she couldn’t help but laugh, giggle even, from her place of power on top of his crotch.

He laughed too and suddenly, the mood in the hot, sweaty confines of the SUV changed; lust’s predictable and sharp edge became soft and wholly foreign.

“Hey,” he murmured, cupping her cheek. “Stay with me.”

“I’m with you,” she said, taking the condom from him. She tore the wrapper open with her teeth and his chuckle forced them into bobbing and shaking contact again.

She stood slightly, rolling the condom over him, and for a moment she allowed herself to believe that when this was over, when they’d worked out this ill-fated passion
against each other’s rocky shores, she could walk away.

But that was a lie.

Holding him in one hand, she braced herself against his chest and slowly, as slowly as if he were performing hara-kiri, he speared her, split her. She gasped and cried out. He groaned and pulled her down against him in terrible, wicked increments until she was seated fully on him.

She’d never felt this way, so cherished and endangered at the same time, and her heart fell into rhythm with her body.

I could love him
, she thought, climbing up and up and up.

I probably already do
.

As soon as
the truck pulled to a stop, the front door of the ranch opened and the women in his family came running out. He was suddenly adrift again. Lost without the anchor of who he was to himself, he had no idea who he was supposed to be to these people.

Who was he if he wasn’t Victoria’s hockey-playing brother? Celeste’s famous son?

“Can we go back to that tree?” he asked.

Tara Jean’s hand cupped his, and he grabbed it as fast and as hard as he could.

“They’re worried about you,” she said. “And they love you.”

“I know,” he sighed.

“Gotta face them sometime.” She put her hand on the door and he stopped her.

“You need to call the cops. Tell them about Dennis.”

She nodded. “I will, right now.” Her eyes dropped to his lips, but she turned away, probably intimidated by his family glaring at them outside the window.