Chapter Nine
Nick dragged a twenty-foot beam from the heap of barn parts and dropped it next to the other solid pieces that would be used for the main bar area. His back practically creaked, the muscles were so tight from all the lifting and hauling he’d done over the past four hours.
As he arched his back to stretch, he glanced at Eve, who was sorting and—of course—inventorying ten-foot lengths of barn siding, hopping around and moving the planks like they were pick up sticks. How did she do that? She was like an ant…tiny, and lifting a million times its own weight.
Except sexy as hell.
Her hair stuck to her face and neck in clumps, and sweat stained the tank top she wore. Her shoulders had gone from creamy white to pink.
Instead of ogling her, he bent to pull a nail from a plank.
He was mostly over the snit he’d gotten in at the hospital—hell, if his dad actually did manage to get out and be in good enough shape to come back to work, Nick would just take off. He’d be off the hook and could head back to Knoxville. Which didn’t sound as appealing as it had just a week or so ago, but still—the chances Raleigh would show up and be able to work were slim.
“Are you still worrying about having to work with your dad?” Eve had snuck up while Nick was distracted by the stubborn nail.
“Nope,” he lied.
“You’re lying,” she said, hands on hips.
“No, I’m not. I don’t worry about things. You worry about things and write them down so you can remember to keep worrying about them. I wait until things happen, and then I deal with them.”
She narrowed her eyes at him.
“What?”
With a heaving sigh, she looked at the sky and said, “You’re right. I’m a worrier.”
He nodded. “Maybe you need to leave that planner at home and be a little spontaneous now and then.”
Her horrified expression made him burst out laughing. “Okay, I’m kidding. Kidding. I don’t want any meltdowns on my conscience.”
“Oh, you’re probably right about that, too. But it’s part of my genetic makeup. And now I’m worried about the rain that’s about to soak our hard work.”
“Well that’s something I can promise you that you don’t have to fret over. This wood’s been outside for the past fifty-some years. A few more hours of rain isn’t going to ruin it.”
With that, a crash of thunder broke overhead and a streak of lightning split the sky to the west.
“Whoa!” Eve jumped about a foot into the air. “That was close!”
“Go get in the truck,” Nick ordered. “I’ll gather up the tools.”
He jogged to the other side of the clearing to grab a pry bar Mason had left behind when he’d split to take his oldest kid to soccer practice. A drop of water hit him on the head. Another landed on his arm. He turned back toward the truck in time to see Eve dragging the toolbox toward the bed of the truck.
“I got that!” he called. “Get in the truck!”
Just then, the heavens opened up and dumped about a thousand gallons of water in four seconds. And continued to pour from the sky in great buckets, soaking Nick to the skin in a heartbeat. He cursed and gathered as many tools as he could find in the rapidly filling puddles. Screw it. He began to run toward the truck. Water ran into his face, blinding him to the board that had been left between him and the truck. His boot struck the obstacle and he managed to right himself in time to plant his foot in the slick mud that had formed beyond the plank. Tools flew from his hands, and he splashed face-first to the ground.
“Nick!” Eve’s voice was way too close.
“What the hell are you doing? Get in the truck!” he said, struggling to push himself up.
“I’m not gonna melt.”
He got himself to his hands and knees, but when he looked up at Eve and saw how transparent her pink tank top had become, his hands slid out from under him and he fell again.
She knelt next to him and brushed his soaking wet hair from his face. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” Really okay. He had his own personal wet T-shirt model right in front of him.
She must have been wearing one of those stretchy sports bra things, because her nipples stood straight out from her breasts through the fabric. Niiiice.
Looking down, seeing where his eyes were fastened, she scowled and crossed her arms. “I thought you were hurt!”
He was going to be hurting pretty soon, the way he was swelling beneath the belt.
“Come on, get up before you drown.” She held out her hand to him.
Oh hell. He took her hand, rolled to his back, and tugged.
“Waaaaugh!” she shrieked, laughing as she fell, landing across Nick’s body like a warm, damp…woman. And oh, Jesus, was she perfect. Her breasts, hard nipples and all, pressed into his chest, and her lower body covered his growing erection with a blanket of heat so nice that he couldn’t stop himself from groaning.
She glared down at him, but couldn’t hide the light in her eyes. “You’re a bad, bad man.” Water dripped from her chin onto his face.
“Yep.” He put a hand behind her head and tugged her face down. Closer. Almost close enough for his lips to meet hers.
He looked at her staring back at him with those laughing eyes.
When he murmured, “I have to taste you,” her smile faded, but she nodded slowly.
“Yes.”
This kiss might even be better than the ones the other day. Her lips met his, touching softly and moving away before coming back to nip. He slid his hands down, over the curve of her ass, and pulled her more firmly against him, so that she straddled his hips.
It might have been thunder, or it might have been his heart slamming against his chest when she moaned and rocked over him. He slid his tongue into her mouth, tasting her sweet kiss. Aching to feel more, he moved a hand between them to cover one breast, teasing the nipple with his fingers. She squirmed in response.
Rain continued to wash over them, soaking into his clothes and making him feel weighed down to the earth, pressed into it by the woman above him.
Thunder crashed again.
She gasped and pulled her lips away from his. “Aren’t you worried about your tools getting wet?”
He laughed. “Baby, the only tool I care about right now should be wet.”
She pulled her chin back a bit to look at him in puzzlement, then with dawning understanding. She huffed out a laugh and slid off of him. “I’m not doing this out here in front of God and everyone.”
Did that mean they were going to do it? Somewhere? Yes. “There are clouds. God probably can’t see us. And there’s no one else out here for miles.” But he rolled to his feet anyway. He had condoms in his wallet, which was in the truck.
He pulled her up with him, and laughing, they held hands and ran, splashing through the puddles and sliding in spots.
They reached the truck, and he pushed her back against the door, pressing his body against hers. She stared up at him, all big blue eyes and need, so he kissed her again. And again. He could stay here, like this, forever.
No he couldn’t. He had to be closer. Naked closer.
Soaking wet, freezing and burning up at the same time, Eve had never been so turned on in her entire life. She let Nick open the door to the back seat of the crew cab and climbed in, dripping water on everything there. She shoved her boots off and tossed them, with her wet socks, toward the foot well of the front seat.
“Just shove that stuff onto the floor,” he practically panted, climbing in behind her.
It was a testament to how badly she wanted Nick that she barely registered the piles of envelopes, folders, magazines, and receipts that went hither-nither off the seat.
She reached the other side of the back seat and turned to see Nick coming toward her, like a…like a panther or something. He practically stalked forward, his long, muscular arms moving along either side of her legs, his body following along. He paused to pull his feet in and shut the door, then with a growl, pulled her down under him, so that he was pressing her into the seat.
Unfortunately, making out in the back seat of a truck during a thunderstorm turned out to be more complicated than making out in a puddle in the same thunderstorm.
“Ow!” Eve said when Nick’s knee came down on her shin.
“Sorry.” He moved off of her, but in the process had to shift his weight, in turn crushing her into the back of the seat, knocking her breath out in a great whoosh.
“Damn!”
He managed to pull up to a sitting position, one of Eve’s legs trapped behind his body, the other splayed awkwardly around his lap. Her head was tilted against the arm rest on the door, and she couldn’t figure out what to do with her hands.
And she was starting to sweat.
“Here.” Nick reached a hand to her and helped her sit up, then scooted forward enough for her to retrieve her leg and get her body arranged in a safer position, no easy feat with jeans that had absorbed ten times their weight in water.
“So…” he started, then stopped. His shaggy, blondish-brown hair was dark now, and he pushed it out of his eyes. Those entrancing light brown eyes, which fixed on her with a mixture of heat and laughter.
Okay, yeah. Getting into the back seat with a guy while you were both covered in mud and soaking wet might be uncomfortable as hell, but when Nick Baker was the guy, and he was looking at you like he wanted to tear your soggy clothes off with his teeth—it was still a pretty big turn on. And even sexier? She was having fun.
His wet jeans were definitely clinging to him in a way that suggested that he was still as turned on as she was.
“So…” she repeated, but went him one further. “I bet we’ll be more comfortable if we get out of these disgusting clothes.”
He nodded, the dimple in his cheek deepening. “You might be right.”
Suddenly feeling very, very brave, she moved again so she was farther from him, her back to the door. With the rain beating on the roof of the truck, they were in their own little world. She pulled up the hem of her tank top, gathering it as she went. Slowly. Watching his pupils widen as he followed the path of her hands. When she got to her bra, his mouth opened. The tank went over her head easily. She dropped it on the floor.
She put her hands on her thighs and waited.
Well, she would have waited, if Nick hadn’t yanked his shirt up and off in about a tenth of the time she’d taken. Following her lead, he put his hands on his thighs. “Your turn.” He grinned.
Oh hell. She hadn’t thought this far ahead. She was wearing a sports bra. Which was hard to pull on and off when it was dry. Soaking wet and sticking to her skin and in the back seat of a truck? Well, at least they weren’t in a Mini Cooper.
Nick cleared his throat.
She opted for her jeans. The button came open with barely a flick of her thumb.
Nick’s hands clenched on his thighs and his breath came faster.
The windows were fogged up now, and the rain continued to beat futilely against the roof.
Her hands shook as she tried to pull the zipper down, but the wet metal didn’t want to cooperate. Finally, the tab was down. Taking one side in each hand, she began to pull them open. Over her lower belly. Lifting her hips, the fabric went farther. To her thighs. Where it stopped. Something about wet denim made it want to stick to itself, and to her legs. She began to fight, to pull one leg up and push the material down with the other foot, but then was even more wadded up than before.
She snorted. “Omigod, if this isn’t the sexiest strip tease ever, I don’t know what is.”
But Nick didn’t seem to mind, though he was laughing, too. He leaned over to grab her leg and pull it toward himself. “Here, let me help.”
Finally, her sodden jeans were in a heap on the floor, soaking into everything underneath them. And Nick was leaning over her, pulling her closer, running his hands from her shoulders to her hips and back again.
“Your turn,” she said, but she was touching him now, too. She traced her fingers over his chest, teasing his sharp nipples, scratching through the line of hair that led to his zipper. “Do you need some help?”
“Absolutely.”
He scooted his hips forward a little so she could get to his fly. She fought the button this time, but the zipper went easier, revealing plain white underwear.
“Ooh, tighty-whities.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I’d have put on a thong if I’d thought I’d be getting lucky today.”
How did this guy make her both laugh and need to press her thighs together at the same time?
His erection pushed the fabric forward, outlining the size and shape of him, making her mouth water. She reached a tentative hand toward him, reveling in the gasp he released when she caressed him.
He moved then, arching his hips up and shoving the jeans and underwear down. She could have sworn she heard a boing echoing through her head. But she didn’t have time to look—or touch—more because he pulled her beneath him, his hips between her thighs.
Oh, but then she didn’t need to look or touch, because she felt. Felt the way the ridge on the underside of his cock pressed against her, forcing the fabric of her underwear into her crease, rubbing over her swollen tissues.
She barely had time to register that before one hand was at her chest, pulling the elastic fabric of her sports bra up to release her throbbing breasts. His mouth covered one nipple while his other hand squeezed the other.
She was left to do nothing but clutch at the back of his head and arch against him.
He released her breast and slid a hand between their bodies, fingers finding her center and caressing her, making her brain short circuit. “Jesus, baby. You’re so fucking hot. I gotta have you now, but I wanna make you come for me first. Can you come like this?” He nipped at her breast again.
Between the tugging at her nipple and his fingers rubbing against her clit, she was close. Very close.
“Come on baby, let me feel you. Let me hear you.”
And like that she did. She came against his hand, pulsing and arching and crying out his name while he held her tightly, murmuring to her about how good she was, how hot, how fucking sexy.
She began to relax slightly, still quivering and feeling aftershocks, but she needed to get him inside her.
“Do you have a condom?” she asked.
“Yeah. Yeah I do. I—”
The front door of the truck swung open and a gust of wind carried in about four gallons of rain. “Hey! You guys okay in—” The head that appeared, retreated so fast Eve was barely able to tell it belonged to Mason. “Um, sorry,” he said from outside the still open door. “I’ll just—”
“Shut the fucking door!” Nick scrambled up and off of Eve as it slammed shut, grabbing his sodden T-shirt and trying to stretch it to cover her as she covered herself with her hands. “I can’t fucking believe this.”
“I forgot my drill!” came a muffled shout from outside. “Do you have it in there? And can you hurry? It’s raining out here!”