Flirting in Traffic (9 page)

Her eyes flashed open. What a bizarre—not to mention dangerous—thought.

Finn paused when he felt her stiffen in his arms. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

She yelped in surprise when he spun her onto her back and rolled on top of her in two seconds flat.

“You’re a liar, Esa Ormond.”

Her eyes went wide at his stark accusation and the abrupt change of her circumstances. Her heartbeat began to pound out a warning in her ears. His eyelids narrowed. The seconds stretched unbearably long as Finn subjected her to his laserlike inspection.

He finally sighed and shook his head slowly. “I’d sure like to know why you get so defensive sometimes.”

She gasped in surprise. “Talk about calling a kettle black! You’re the one who got so prickly about that college thing.”

“Guess you subscribe to the best offense is a consistent defense theory of combat?”

“I don’t want to
fight
with you,” she sputtered incredulously.

He grimaced slightly. “Sorry. I was doing it again, wasn’t I?”

Esa just raised her eyebrows wryly. “Nice of you to realize who was in bed with you. Let me guess. Your ex-fiancée wasn’t only snooty when it came to things like where you worked but where you went to school as well.”

She went completely still when he leaned down over her until his lips almost brushed her own. “I don’t really feel like talking about that right now. Do you?”

He dropped a slow kiss on her upturned lips. It was a closed-mouth kiss—nowhere near as blatantly sexual as he’d kissed her in the past—but Esa found herself wondering if it wasn’t the most erotic kiss of all. He sandwiched first her lower lip between his own, then the upper. He rubbed against her and molded and teased until she squirmed beneath him in renewed arousal.

“I’ll take that as a
no
,” he said huskily before he applied those gold-medal lips to her neck. She shivered.

“W-what?” she asked, no longer certain what they’d been talking about.

He examined her face before he smiled.

“Never mind. I’m about to make love to you again,” he explained patiently. “Are you going to be good?”

“What do you mean?” she asked suspiciously.

“I mean that if you don’t hold still while my tongue familiarizes itself with every inch of your beautiful body, I’m going to have to tie you down to this bed.”

“You would never do that,” Esa scoffed. She paused, mouth hanging open, when she saw the gleam in his blue eyes and felt his cock lengthen and stiffen against her thigh. He didn’t bother to reply but just lowered his head and proceeded to make good on his threat.

She gasped at the sensation of his firm lips and warm, slightly abrasive tongue on her shoulder. He took a gentle bite out of the muscle before he scraped his front teeth along her neck.

Esa tried her best to keep still but she couldn’t seem to stop from arching her back, suddenly desperate to rub her hypersensitive nipples against the crinkly hair on his chest.

He’d said her body was
beautiful
. Was it remotely possible that Finn didn’t mind that she hadn’t been to the gym in almost a year and staged a daily battle with the Häagen-Dazs cookie dough ice cream in her freezer…a battle which she usually lost miserably? She ground her teeth together and forced herself to remain stationary when he kissed the sensitive sides of her torso and examined her goose bumps with his sleek tongue.

She would persevere at all costs, excruciating torture though it would be.

Finn lay in bed, lazy and extremely sated, while he watched dawn break around Esa where she stood by the windows. He found himself entranced by her still figure, the beguiling, feminine curve of her hip, the contemplative tilt of her head, the elegant lines of her back.

When she’d come out of the bathroom a few minutes ago she’d been wearing his discarded gray flannel work shirt. It fell on her to mid-thigh, leaving exposed a good portion of her long, shapely legs. She’d brushed her hair while she’d been in there because it hung below her shoulders in shiny auburn waves.

He’d wager that most women would be extremely envious of Esa’s natural beauty. She’d awaken after only an hour or two or actual sleep looking downright gorgeous—skin glowing, hair mussed and spilling in a sexy auburn mess around her lovely face…the mysterious smile of a well-satisfied woman on her swollen, well-kissed lips, Finn added to himself with a touch of male smugness.

He had no grounds for being cocky, of course. She was the most sensual, responsive, carnal creature he’d ever had the privilege to make love to, and that had precious little to do with him. But it wasn’t only her sexuality that had captivated him throughout the long night. So had her obvious intelligence, her sense of humor…even the occasional glimpses of her little insecurities.

He liked Esa Ormond—he liked her a lot. Too bad he’d met her at such a crappy time in his life.

His eyelids narrowed on her thoughtful feminine form outlined by the sunrise. It wasn’t just his recent breakup that made a relationship between them highly unlikely. Esa had clearly stated that she wasn’t looking for anything permanent. She was obviously used to having casual affairs, given the circumstances of how they’d met and her job. Which was convenient for him.

Wasn’t it?

He frowned.

“Come back to bed,” he called, eager to chase away his unsettling thoughts.

She turned and gave him a smile that made his demand even more imperative. “I have a better idea.”

He shook his head while he held her stare. “Ain’t a conceivable better idea in the entire world, honey. Come here.”

She laughed low and husky as she came toward him. “Even you can’t have that much energy. Come on, get out of bed. You’ll like this, I promise.”

He couldn’t resist the sparkle in her brandy-colored eyes.

“How long will I have to be out of bed?” he asked warily.

“An hour, tops,” she answered as she pulled the comforter and sheet off him. He caught it and yanked tautly to garner her attention.

“On one condition.”

Her dark eyebrows rose expectantly.

“We get right back in bed the minute we get back.”

She lowered her eyes and trailed her gaze down his naked torso. Despite their multiple rounds of sometimes fierce, sometimes playful, always intense lovemaking, Finn found himself stiffening beneath the sheets once again.

From the look of her widening smile she’d noticed.

“You really do have enough energy, don’t you?” she mused a tad incredulously. She shook her head as though to clear it and resumed pulling on the sheet. “All right, then. You have yourself a deal.”

“Where are we going?” he asked when Esa merged onto Lakeshore Drive. She’d insisted that there wasn’t time to shower. They’d just thrown on their clothes and hurried to Esa’s little sports car as if a sudden emergency had been broadcast to her while she stared out his bedroom window not ten minutes ago.

“
Here
,” she responded as she shifted gears and the car accelerated forward like a jet.

“Here?” he repeated as he glanced at the four lanes of Lake Shore Drive. The stretch of relatively empty road must have been what she’d seen from his bedroom window. Lake Shore Drive offered a beautiful view of the lake and Chicago’s skyline but it was almost always crowded with cars. Esa had seen her opportunity to drive fast and free and grabbed it, Finn realized with mixed admiration and amusement.

The sun sat like a giant orange ball on the horizon. Lake Michigan rippled calmly, its color a muted steel blue. Esa had put back the top on her sports car before they’d left his parking garage. The early morning autumn air felt cool but pleasant as it whipped through his hair.

He studied Esa as she drove. She had on the preppy glasses she always wore driving. He thought she looked sexy as hell in them, although he liked her without them just as much since it gave him more direct access to her warm, brandy-colored eyes. She’d clipped her hair onto her head but auburn strands still lashed wildly around her cheeks and neck as she drove. She seemed unaware of it.

She looked sublimely content as she hurtled down the miraculously empty ribbon of curving road, the sun rising over the lake on the right and the high-rises towering over them to the left, the tall buildings seeming sober and watchful in the early morning light.

Neither of them spoke until she parked in the empty lot at the Montrose beach.

“You really love it, don’t you?” he asked after they got out and sat on a picnic table, watching the sun begin its slow ascent.

“The lake?” she asked.

“No. Driving that car.”

She laughed. “I don’t know. I never thought about it before. I suppose I do. Maybe I’ve been driving in traffic too much lately. There’s something freeing about an open stretch of road.”

“And a fast car,” he added with amusement.

She shot him a look of reprimand. “I’m not actually into fast, flashy cars.”

“Uh-huh,” he murmured doubtfully while he tucked an errant tress of auburn hair behind her ear.

Her big eyes widened. “You don’t believe me?”

“Why should I, when all evidence points to the contrary? A, you do, in fact, own an expensive, fast car; B, I was getting a little jealous of a the damned thing for putting a look on your face that I’ve only seen so far after a round of great sex, and C…you’re extremely good at it.”

“At sex?” she asked dazedly.

“No,” he replied. He chuckled when her transfixed expression changed to irritability quicker than he could say,
damn
. He came down off the picnic table and gathered her into his arms. “I was talking about your driving. Rest assured, your talent and enthusiasm for driving nearly matches your proclivities in the bedroom. I stress,
nearly
.”

When she appeared pacified but still bemused he brushed his lips against her parted ones.

“Nobody has ever told me I was a great…driver before,” she mumbled against his mouth.

“Well, you are,” he assured her, letting his lips caress hers as he spoke. “An exciting, skilled…extremely
precise
driver.” He kissed her once, hard, before he briefly lifted his head. “For my sake though, I wish you’d slow down some.”

“What’s the fun in that?” she whispered before she craned up and touched her grin to his.

They kissed warmly, playfully. That was one thing he really liked about Esa—how easy it was to play with her sexually, how lighthearted and
good
it felt at times.

It felt like precisely what he needed at this point in his life.

As he’d quickly learned was the usual case with Esa, however, what began as teasing and playful became hot and eye-crossingly serious in no time flat. She tasted like mint mouthwash with just a hint of cherry that had nothing to do with the plastic bottle of green fluid in his bathroom and everything to do with Esa’s singular taste. She smelled like fresh air and sweet, well-loved woman.

He thought of what she’d tasted like when he’d finally coated his tongue in her honeyed, musky essence last night.

His cock swelled hard and full at the thought of tasting her again, the strength and near-pain of his body’s reaction shocking him a little.

“How fast do you think you can get us back to bed, Speed Racer?”

“We’re there within ten minutes,” Esa replied huskily.

“Make it eight and I’ll give you a prize.”

Her eyes smoldered. “And if I make it seven?”

“I’ll make it the grand one,” he promised as he grabbed her hand and they jogged toward the car.

He seriously considered doing a rerun of their foyer escapade from a few nights ago when she yanked him down to her like some kind of lusty barbarian warrior-queen the second after he closed his front door. But no, he’d learned his lesson. What if this was the last time he made love to her?

He’d take her right…no matter how much she tempted him.

He chuckled into her ravenous kiss even though amusement wasn’t his only reaction to his thoughts. Lust was the other. What man wouldn’t want to be ravaged by a fiery red-haired beauty who was built along the lines of Wonder Woman, a la Lynda Carter?

What red-blooded man wouldn’t want to tame the little hellion?

Okay, maybe she wasn’t
little
relative to other women, Finn thought as he overfilled his hand with a firm breast, but she was little compared to him. Graceful and delightfully curved, not to mention the most exciting woman he’d ever kept sequestered in his bed for a night of pleasure.

For a morning of it.

For an afternoon and evening, if he could talk her into it.

He tripped over her feet as he returned her kiss with equal ravenous hunger and pushed her back to his bedroom.

They finally stumbled and fell on his bed in a tangle of long limbs and craning necks. She tried to roll on top of him but he held her down with ease with his flexing, spread thighs and heavier weight.

She squirmed beneath him.

“Are you that anxious for your prize?” he asked with gruff amusement as he ground his cock in the heat emanating from the apex of her thighs. She resisted the pressure with her hips, rubbing up against him like a strong, supple feline in heat.

“You know I am, you damned—”

She paused in the process of biting his lower lip between her small white teeth when the sound of a key in the front door lock penetrated the cloud of thick lust that surrounded them.

“
Shit
,” Finn muttered with blistering heat.

It must be building maintenance. Was there something elementally wrong with his condo that he hadn’t had the ability to notice with his nose next to Esa’s fragrant skin? Was the building perhaps going up in flames around him while he operated under the sole dictate to bury himself between her thighs?

“Who’s
there
?” he roared. His head reared up. He was furious with
anything
that even remotely dared to interfere with his possession of the warm, vibrant, succulent female he held captive beneath his body. A second later he heard a voice call out his name and a familiar figure walked through the door of his bedroom.

Not an inferno then. More like an earthquake.

“Julia. What the
hell
are you doing here?”