Fender Bender Blues (18 page)

The room was dark, lit only by the light coming from the stairway. He set her down on the tall bed in the center of the room and followed her, his lips never leaving hers. He broke away just enough to look down at her and sucked in a breath. She was so beautiful lying against the dark blue of the comforter, her glorious hair fanned out around her face.

She’s perfect.
Amazed, he leaned down to claim her mouth again.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Rach wasn’t thinking straight and for once she didn’t care. The pain of opening up to him, telling him her story, was now a dull ache, almost forgotten in the heat of his kisses and the comfort she found in his arms. Absent were any thoughts of consequences, plans, or anything else but right now and the feel of him loving her.

His lips nibbled at her ear and he pressed soft kisses against her neck, sending tingles of anticipation down her spine. She gave a soft moan of pleasure and clutched his shirt in her hands. When he moved to lift her t-shirt over her head she accommodated him by lifting her back off the bed so he could slide it off easily. Lying there in the dark of the room, the light from the stairway casting a dim glow upon them, she felt sexy and alluring. A shiver passed over her as bare skin met cool air.

He stared down into her eyes with an intensity she hadn’t known any other man capable of and hadn’t ever thought he’d look at her with. He slowly unbuttoned his shirt and she knocked his hands away to assume the task herself. With the last button finally free she pushed the material away and groaned when her hands didn’t meet skin but the white of an undershirt.

“How many damn layers are you wearing? It’s not snowing out.” She tugged the shirt free of his pants.

Craig chuckled. “Patience.” The soft whisper of his voice drifted over her in the dark. He shifted his hands over hers and she sucked in an unsteady breath as he gently took the shirt from her unsteady hands to tug it up over his head and drop it to the floor.

She ran her hands up and down his bare chest, following the contour of his body, smooth and tight beneath the pads of her fingers. A stomach hard as granite had been hiding under his business clothes. The feel of the rippling muscles under her fingertips sent a shiver of sexual need from her neck straight down between her legs. It had been such a long time since she’d touched a man—she wouldn’t last long.

When he leaned in to kiss the soft skin above the cup of her bra all thought fled from her mind and the warmth encompassed her entire body. His hands were at her back, fiddling with the bra that stood in the way of his mouth and her breasts. When the material grew slack he tugged it off and stared down at her, topless beneath him. The sultry expression on his face took her breath away.

He’s perfect.
And why was he only half naked? She wanted him—all of him—now.

She reached between them for the waistband of his slacks as he braced himself above her, and Rach managed to undo the button and zipper in what had to be record time. Reaching inside without hesitation, she found a nice handful through his boxer briefs and smiled when he groaned above her. Emboldened by his reaction and the vodka, she stroked him through the cotton. Amazed at how his penis hardened in her hand, her breath hitched in her throat.

“Take them off,” she breathed. He needed no more instruction and slid off the bed to push his pants down, kicking them off his feet. When he rejoined her on the bed, she pushed him onto his back and straddled his legs, leaning down over his penis, thick and hard in her hand. His flesh pulsed inside her soft grip and she lightly flicked him with her tongue before taking him into her mouth. The salty taste of his skin and the warmth of him against her tongue was as exciting as the feel of his body tensing beneath her.

“Oh God,” he moaned, and gripped her shoulders with both hands. She gave him one final stroke as his eyes darkened. “E - enough - that’s enough.”

“Ah, well that’s no fun,” she pouted, and he pulled her up the length of him to take her mouth in a deep, hard kiss, stealing her breath and any more words from her lips.

“I’ll show you fun,” he whispered against her lips and she shivered with anticipation.

His strong hands trailed down the length of her outer thighs in a slow, torturous movement, and she worried he’d take his time, but when he got to the waistband of her shorts he smoothly rolled her over onto her back and pulled the material from her body in one swift motion, tossing them to the floor. Kissing his way up her knees to her thighs, her body tensed when he brushed his lips low on her belly, just above her pubic hair. Would he kiss her there now? She shuddered beneath him when he continued his upward movement, kissing her goose pimpled flesh along the way, until he reached her jaw, and then her lips.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he moaned against her mouth.

Beautiful?
Rach smiled in the dark.

He grasped her waist and rolled, settling her on top of him. She straddled his hips, her long hair teasing his chest. Rach sucked in a breath of air when he leaned up and took her nipple, already hard, into his mouth, flicking it with his tongue.

“Craig,” she moaned out in frustration. The teasing wasn’t going to work out. She wanted him inside of her and if she let him go at this pace she’d be done before they got to the good part. Before she could move, he grasped her by the hips and pushed her up to straddle his shoulders.
Oh hell, here we go.

“Hold on to the headboard,” he ordered, and she did just as he directed, gripping it tight with both hands.

She nearly shot out of her skin when his tongue parted the velvety folds of her slick, wet flesh. A siren went off in her ears and she threw her head back, biting her lip to keep from screaming at the intense pleasure. Nothing had ever felt more incredible in her life. Her breathing increased on short, labored breaths and her mind swirled with foggy thoughts until all that was left was nothing but darkness as she squeezed her eyes shut.

Her body tightened as the climax built inside of her, escalating until she hung on by a thread, slowly unraveling, when finally it exploded within. Tiny white lights danced behind her closed lids. She was panting, the intensity of the orgasm rolling over her body in waves of warmth that overwhelmed her.

Rach collapsed against him, spent, and his mouth found hers in the dark in a tender kiss that begged a response. The kiss was so gentle that her heart softened and her mind thought, impossibly,
He’s mine.

He rolled her over again, this time holding himself above her, and when he finally entered her she had to grind herself to him, but he held her hips still with firm hands. He pushed inside her in a torturous, slow motion that made her squirm beneath him.

Then, an invasive trill of the phone in the kitchen downstairs cut through the silence of the townhome and they both froze. As if holding their breath and wishing it away would silence the next ring. It didn’t.

“Shit,” he grunted, backing out. Rach reached out for him, her breathing ragged, and said, “Forget it. Let it ring.”

He stared deep into her eyes and she willed him to come back to her. When he did, he captured her lips in a passionate kiss, leaving her breathless, and he thrust into her, deep and complete. She clenched her body around him, arching her back off the bed, and moaned, “
Craig.”

They would have gone on like that forever, the incessant ringing of the phone drowned out by sensations that left reality behind, but the answering machine clicked on and Leah’s hysterical voice filled the house and rushed up the stairs. “
Oh my God, Rach
! Where are you? Pick up your phone! Rick and I just hit a deer. I mean, we
really hit a deer
! It ran out into the road and we smashed it! It came through the windshield! I mean his antlers and everything. We’re okay, I have a cut on my arm and Rick hit his head, but his car is totaled! Please, please be home and answer your phone. We can’t get a hold of either you or Craig and I’m hysterical here! Come and get us! I need you!”

Craig went still above her, resting his forehead against hers, and Rach sighed. Her breathing slowed until it was almost normal, her body cooled, and his shoulders grew slack with frustration.

“I’m sorry,” she sighed.

“It’s okay.” But the pained expression on his face told her a different story. “You better call her, doesn’t sound good.”

She gazed up at him for a moment, then leaned up and kissed him on the lips. A soft, tender kiss to tell him she really was sorry she couldn’t stay. Then she rolled out from under him and snagged her robe off the bottom poster of the bed, shrugging it on as she hurried down the stairs. She dialed Leah’s number from the landline phone and bit her lip while she waited for it to ring.

Leah skipped the greeting and shrieked into the phone, “
Where have you been?!
”

Like a naughty little girl caught in the act of something very bad she blushed and stuttered, “Uh, I was—uh—you know—I—I was watching a movie.”

“
What?!
” she screeched, and Rach held the phone away from her ear. Leah demanded, “Why did you turn your cell off to watch a movie? That makes no sense. Whatever, just
get here!”

“Where’s here?” she asked, nudging a piece of popcorn with her bare toe. It was all over the kitchen floor. They must have spilled the bowl when they’d gone upstairs.

“I’m—uh—about twenty minutes east of town on Highway 6,” Leah stammered and Rach glanced at the clock on the wall, suspicious.

“It’s almost two a.m., what are you guys doing?” She looked down at the circle of popcorn she’d created with her toes and wondered what Craig was doing upstairs.

“We—never mind, it’s not important. Just head north and you’ll see us parked on the right side of the road about twenty minutes out.” She hung up before Rach could ask any more questions.

“What’s going on?”

She looked up at Craig standing in the doorway, dressed. Remembering the feel of his bare chest beneath her hands, she shivered and pulled her robe tight. He had his phone out and his attention was on the display.

“They got into an accident out on 281.”

“What were they doing out of town—” he glanced at his phone again and said, “—at 2:03 in the morning?”

“I have no idea. She hung up on me when I asked.”

“They were all right, though?”

“Yeah, sounded like it.”

“Good,” he said, and his attention went back to his phone.

She narrowed her eyes. She was standing in the middle of her kitchen with nothing but a robe on, with popcorn scattered all over the floor, and he was acting like nothing was out of the ordinary. As if nothing had happened upstairs. Maybe it was nothing to him.

Thoroughly ticked off, she stalked to the kitchen closet and yanked it open, pulling out the broom. She shoved it into his chest as she walked past and he looked up at her, surprised. She marched up the stairs, leaving him to figure out what to do with it.

“I’m officially an idiot—
wonderful news,
”
she grumbled, and yanked on a pair of sweat pants. She pulled her hair back into a tight ponytail, and muttered to her reflection in the dresser mirror, “Get a grip, Bennett.”

****

Rach glanced over at Craig as he drove the Toronado, the rumble of the exhaust the only sound inside the car. Back at the house, he hadn’t said a word as she handed him the keys—even now, he had nothing to say. She reached over to play with the stereo, found a local country station and turned up the volume. Pretending interest in a song she’d never heard before was much easier than telling him what they’d done had been a mistake, a conclusion she guessed he’d come to as well since he hadn’t spoken a word since leaving her house.

He wasn’t looking for a relationship any more than she was or he wouldn’t have kicked out his ex when she’d asked for a key to his apartment. And she wasn’t looking for complicated. She needed to keep reminding herself of that because whenever she was around Craig, her common sense flew out the window. And she liked him. A lot.

Hazard lights flashed into view on the dark highway and she straightened. She glanced over at Craig whose hands gripped the wheel. “Did you see the blood trail back there? Must have been a big deer.”

“Yeah,” he replied, switching the radio off. He pulled to a stop behind the wrecked car and she pulled her sweater jacket tight around her middle. He put the car in park, leaned back and said, “Lots of glass on the road, there.”

She nodded and opened the car door. Leah was crying in Rach’s arms the moment she stepped out of the car. Patting her head, she crooned, “It’s okay, everything is fine.”

After a few minutes her tears turned to sniffles and Rach pulled back to look Leah over.

“Thank God, you’re okay.” Rach leaned back to do another once over to make certain she hadn’t missed any injury on first glance.

Leah sniffled again, wiping at her nose with a tissue that had seen better days. “I can’t believe neither of us were hurt. We were going
sixty-five
when we hit that poor deer!”

Rach took her by the hand and lead her to the front of the car where Rick and Craig stood, assessing the damage. Her eyes widened at the sight of the large buck splayed across the hood. His antlers had broken through the windshield and his lifeless head dangled at an impossible angle over the dashboard. A few inches further and Leah would have been badly injured. She was thankful Rick had been able to keep the car under control and they hadn’t gone off the road and rolled. She shivered and pulled Leah into her side.