EIGHT
Alex pulled the pickup into a secluded clearing next to the lake, the same area he had first noticed the woman Janey was turning into, six years before.
The narrow dirt road that led to the tree-sheltered clearing and rocky beach was a favorite summer gathering place. During those warmer months, the lake level would be higher, the water warm and relatively safe to swim in.
Now the bare trees swayed in a cold winter wind, the lake was low, deserted, and the clearing intimate and empty of anyone except the two of them. He cut the lights and stared at the water spreading out before them.
“Natches has a right to be pissed,” he finally told her softly. “You need someone who’s going to fall in love with you. Someone who can give you a future.”
And he couldn’t. He couldn’t give her the dreams he knew she had inside her. That happily-ever-after every woman deserved, especially this woman.
“I don’t expect you to fall in love with me, Alex,” she answered him, her voice somber. “I never asked you to.”
He turned and stared at her.
She was watching the lake, her expression quiet, calm. That damned mask she wore had the power to piss him off more than Natches’s barbed comments or the hard, warning fist he’d felt in his back earlier.
“Then why are you here with me, Janey?” he asked her gently, when the need, the hunger, powering through him was anything but gentle. “In six months you’ve not had a single date. You haven’t made friends.”
“Rogue . . .”
“Doesn’t count.” He sighed. “Rogue is a good person; don’t get me wrong. But she’s one person, Janey. One friend, and a wild one at that. The woman in that bar isn’t you.”
Her lips took a bitter edge. “That’s where you’re wrong, Alex.” She shook her head, her hair brushing her face as she still stared at the lake. “So wrong.” She looked at him then, and he felt a ragged, painful emotion tighten his throat at the expression on her face. “That’s everything I’ve had to push back all my life. Dancing. Laughing. I had fun. It was fun. I want to be me, just for a little while. Just me. Without feeling the condemnation of a county, or the judgmental opinions of those who keep watching to see if I’m just as dirty, just as evil as what spawned me.”
“Janey.”
“I want to touch you, Alex.” She turned then, shifted her shoulders, shrugged off his jacket. “I want to be wild with you. I want to be me with you. Is that so wrong? Is it so horrible?”
Pale skin shimmered in the moonlight. His palms itched to touch her, to feel her soft flesh beneath his hands.
“Alex. Just for a little while, pretend with me.” He watched her eyes, saw the shimmer of tears. “Pretend I’m just a woman you want. That there’s nothing wrong with me. That there’s nothing dirty tainting who I am. Just for a little while.”
Christ. She was going to cry. The tears were in her eyes, eyes naked with need. The need to be touched, held. To be a woman with the man she desired.
Then her words penetrated his lust-fogged brain. His gaze sharpened on her as he reached out, jerking her to him.
“Never let me hear you say something like that again,” he barked ruthlessly as her eyes widened in shock and he gave her a quick, hard shake. “Pretend, your ass. For Christ’s sake, Janey. I want you until I can’t breathe for it. I have for years. And the only thing you’re tainted with is my fucking touch. Because by God, I should know better.”
The desperate, blinding need that exploded inside him, to wipe such a thought from her head, spilled through Alex. He ached; to the center of his soul he ached that she somehow believed she wasn’t truly desirable, that she was tainted and somehow unworthy.
“Look at you.” His voice was an agonized whisper as he wrapped his hand around the back of her neck, holding her as he moved, shifted, bending over her until she had no choice but to recline back on the bench seat.
God, now he knew why he hadn’t wanted that fucking console in his truck. So he could do this.
“You make me so fucking hard I can’t even think.” He lowered his head and nipped her pouty lower lip.
Damn truck was too small. He shoved his knee between her thighs and braced his foot on the floor. But hell. He shoved his knee right against her pussy, watching that damned skirt slide up her thighs to reveal white lacy panties.
He was not fucking her in this truck, he thought. It wasn’t going to happen. There simply wasn’t enough room.
“Alex.” She whispered his name, her hips moving, riding his knee as her arms twined around his neck. “Kiss me hard and deep. Like you’re as hungry for me as I am for you.”
Janey was dying inside. She needed him. She’d partied and had fun tonight, maybe had one beer too many, but she hadn’t forgotten that she wasn’t dancing with Alex. He hadn’t taken her out; he wasn’t holding her, laughing with her.
And then he had been there, like a fantasy come to life. Hard and warm, holding her in his arms, dancing with her, staring at her with all that hunger in his eyes, and all she wanted was one night. Just this one night to be more than the traitor’s daughter, more than the responsibility he had to babysit.
She was no one’s baby. Sometimes she felt as though she belonged to nothing and no one. Tonight, just for a little while, she wanted to belong to Alex.
She lifted to him, her thighs tightening on the hard width of his knee shoved against her pussy, and oh, that felt so good. Her arms tightened around his neck, her tongue licking out at his lips.
And then he was there. His lips covered hers with that hungry groan she loved so much and he was kissing her hard and deep. One hand held her neck, keeping her in place. The other gripped the hem of her skirt, jerking it higher, over the band of her stockings.
She could feel him all over her. From her lips to her legs. So warm and hard, like a living blanket filled with fiery heat.
“I’m not fucking you in a pickup.” He groaned, sipping at her lips now rather than devouring them. Teasing her with his kisses. “I’m telling you now, Janey. I’m not doing it.”
“Okay,” she panted in excitement, her hands moving down his chest as he eased back, pulling the shirt from his jeans before her fingers moved to his belt. “We can do other stuff.”
“Ah hell.” His groan almost made her smile.
“I want to taste you again, Alex.” She jerked his belt open, loosened it, then pulled at the metal button of his jeans. “I want you in my mouth, against my tongue. I want to suck you, taste you.”
She slid the zipper of his jeans down, her eyes widening as his cock sprang free.
“Hmm, commando,” she whispered breathlessly, using both hands to surround it, stroke it. “Alex. I’m scandalized.”
“You’re about to get more scandalized. Because, baby, you’re gonna suck my dick until I fill your mouth.”
She’d never heard that tone in his voice. It sent a shiver down her spine as he pulled back, sitting back in the seat to lean against the door, his cock rising from his jeans, thick and hard as he pulled her up between his legs.
One large hand circled the heavy stalk; the other clasped her neck again. She hadn’t realized how sexy that was, how much she loved his strong fingers controlling her head, holding her wherever he wanted her.
Submission wasn’t a game she played, but this, the firm, determined hold of a man who knew what he wanted, knew how to take a woman. Oh yeah, this she liked.
She tugged back, staring up at him as she knelt in front of him, her lips parting as she fought to breathe.
“It’s awful big,” she drawled before licking her lower lip. “Maybe I can’t handle it.”
The amused grunt that filled the cab almost had her grinning. “I’ll teach you how to handle it.”
He palmed the back of her neck, pushing her down. “Lift your ass while you go down on me, baby. Give me something to play with while you blow my mind.”
Janey wrapped her fingers around the engorged shaft. Her tongue peeked out, licked over the damp crown, and she moaned at the taste of him. Moaned at the hard jerk of his cock, the rasp of his breath.
He reclined against the door, one leg on the floor, the other stretched out along the seat, and his cock really was big. She loved it. It was thick and long, and for tonight, it was all hers.
She pursed her lips, pressed them over the slit, then slid them down over the throbbing heat as she felt his hands, both of them, clench in her hair.
“Christ. Your mouth,” he groaned. “Janey, sweetheart, you’re going to kill me.”
She was dying herself. She surrounded the thick crest with her mouth, remembering the taste of him in the bar, salty and male, dark and delicious. She wanted more. She wanted to feel him pumping in her mouth, filling her with his release.
She could feel her own pleasure building at his ragged, hoarse groans. Electric sensation whipped through her, sizzled between her thighs, wrapped around her clit, and tormented it with the need for orgasm.
“Damn. Baby. Such a sweet little mouth.” His voice was harder now, darker. He was loving it. Loving what she was doing to him, and it filled her mind, intoxicating her. He was more potent than whiskey.
His pleasure tore through her mind, building her own. She was touching him. This hard, experienced man. A man she’d never believed she would have in her bed. Touching him and he was loving it. He was hard and hot in her mouth, his muscles tight, bunching each time she flicked her tongue over the broad crest and sucked him deeper into her mouth.
“That’s it, Janey,” he groaned. “Suck me slow and easy, baby. Damn you. It’s so good. So sweet.”
One hand moved from her hair, slid down her back. She felt the skirt rising, passing over her rear, exposing it, bunching at her hips.
“Damn you. Fucking thongs.” His finger slid beneath the little strap that ran between her buttocks. “Oh, Janey, that’s fucking wicked, baby.”
He tugged at the strap, tightening the material over her clit as she moaned. Because it felt so damned good. Her thighs parted, and her mouth drew him deeper, sucking his cock head with hungry draws of her mouth.
Each time the pleasure tore through him, he rewarded her. He pulled on the strap, caressed her clit with the tightening fabric until her hips were rolling with each tug of the cloth, her moans building in her throat and passing by his cock.
One hand stayed locked in her hair. He moved her mouth on him, refusing to let her suck him faster, keeping her rhythm slow and easy.
“Yeah, that’s the way, baby. Tease my dick. Pay me back now. Because when I get you spread out on a bed . . .” He groaned, his hips jerked, driving his cock against her almost involuntarily as she tongued the underside. “You little witch, when I get my lips on your pussy, I’m going to make you beg to come.”
Oh well, that was going to take a long time, wasn’t it? If she could force herself to let his cock go for a second, she’d be begging him now.
So she did as he suggested. She teased, licked, stroked. She used her admittedly limited knowledge and his groans of pleasure to guide her. She probed at the slit with her tongue, tasted him, and needed more. She sucked the head deep, firm, moaning, stroking the shaft.
“Ah yeah, baby, right there.” He tightened violently as she rubbed her tongue under the head of his cock and sucked him deep. “It feels like you’re going to swallow my dick. Fuck, that’s good.”
Alex was in hell. In ecstasy. Each ripple of her hot little mouth over the head of his cock was agonizing pleasure. Her hands stroking the shaft, the sweet, subtle scent of her pussy reaching him.
Hell, he was going to have a stroke right there in the front of his truck and he couldn’t do a damned thing to stop it.
All he could do was hold her head, show her how to move to make him crazier, to make the pleasure better. Sweat beaded on his forehead, ran down the side of his face. It was cold as hell outside and he was burning up inside the truck. Burning in her mouth and fighting to hold back just a few more minutes. To let her torture him just a little bit longer.
“Ah, Janey. Baby.”
She moaned again. Every time he used an endearment, she softened against him, and his heart raged with pain at the thought that no one called her anything but her name.
“Ah, there, sweetheart. So fucking good. Like an angel. Sweet, sweet Janey.”
She sucked him like she was starving for him. Her lips, her tongue. She licked and sucked, stroked, and her moans rippled over the sensitive crest.
He tugged at the scrap of material that ran between the cheeks of her perfect ass. The thongs were snug; each tug he knew would caress her clit. Lift her higher, give her the smallest hint of the hell he was in right now.
Flames were erupting in his balls. Fuck.
“Janey, baby, I’m going to come,” he groaned. “If you don’t want your mouth full of me, then you better move.”
She didn’t move; she took him deeper, hungrily.
Alex shook his head and fought the release. Not yet. Ah hell, it was so damned good. He didn’t want it to stop. Didn’t want to lose the pleasure of her sweet, hot mouth consuming him.
His balls grew tighter, drawing beneath the base of his cock as electric tingles began to build at the base of his spine.
“Darlin’. I can’t hold back.” He couldn’t fucking breathe. “Janey. Fuck. Fuck.”
He arched his hips, held her head in place, and heard the ragged, hoarse groan that tore from his lips as fiery sensation raced up his spine and ecstasy erupted in his balls. He felt his cum spurting inside her mouth, filling it as her mouth worked to take him, swallowing as she moaned, cried out, licked, and sucked until he was spent. Until he had to pull her head back, because each stroke of her tongue was like a lash of agonizing pleasure on the oversensitive flesh.
He was breathing hard, sweating. Lifting her face to his, he stared into her dazed expression, watched as she licked her lips slowly, catching a final drop of his semen from the pouty curves.
Instantly, he was as hard as he was before he came in her mouth.
Sliding his hand between her thighs, his teeth clenched at the heat of her dampness against her panties. Oh yeah, she was wet, ready for him. Wild with the need. Too wild to wait.
“Lay back, baby.” He eased her back on the seat, staring up at her as he slid her panties over her thighs, along the black stockings. Holding her feet in his lap, he drew the panties past the red fuck-me pumps and tossed them on the dash before spreading her thighs.
“Fuck. I bet those wild-assed Mackay women take you to the spa with them, huh?” He stared at perfect pink flesh, bare of curls, glistening and wet.
“I go by myself, too,” she said breathlessly, a temptress smile on her face as he spread her legs wider and shoved the seat farther back toward the backseat of the dual cab.
Okay, that gave him some room. It was cramped, but God, he couldn’t wait to get her back at the apartment. He had to taste her now. Just a little bit. Just enough to have her screaming in release as his tongue shoved up her pussy. Yeah. He could wait that long.
His lips lowered, his tongue parted silken, soft folds, and he licked up the narrow, snug slit of her pussy with a groan.
Had any other woman ever tasted so sweet? He knew none had. Silky syrup clung to his tongue as he circled her clit and moved back. It filled his senses, and he devoured each taste.
He licked at her sweetness, pushed his hands beneath the rounded globes of her ass, and lifted her to him, kissing her clit, pursing his lips over it and giving it soft, gentle little sucks as she writhed in his arms.
“Alex. Oh God. Alex. It feels too good.”
Oh yeah, he knew too good. He remembered her mouth on his cock making him insane.
“Payback,” he groaned against her clit and felt her shudder in pleasure.
He wanted her shuddering in pleasure. He wanted her screaming with it. He wanted her release spilling to his tongue and infusing his senses.
She was so fucking hot he was about to melt. His cock was pounding. It would be so easy. So easy to slide between her thighs and press inside her. To fuck her as hard and deep as he needed to fuck her.
His hands clenched around the cheeks of her ass, his tongue circled her clit and fought to snap the reins back on the lust lurching demandingly against the hold he had on it.
Fuck, he wasn’t taking her in a pickup truck. He’d have her in her bed. With her legs wrapped around his waist like they were wrapping around his shoulders now.
Ah hell. Her hands were on his head, buried in the short length of his hair, urging him to her.
He sucked her swollen clit into his mouth, let his tongue press and ripple against it as she gasped his name, then nearly screamed his name.
God, he loved that sound. That surprised pleasure, the rush of sensation in her voice, the way her nails pricked his scalp.
She was close. So fucking close that he could draw this out for another hour or shove her into release now. If he let her have it now, he could take her home, he told himself. Take her back to her bed and spend the night fucking her.
But if he let her come now, he’d have to stop. He’d have to drive them home. And he didn’t want to let her go. Didn’t want to lose the sensation of her in his mouth, her heated juices making him drunker than hell on her taste.
“Alex, please,” she moaned, her voice throaty, so damned sexy.
He pleased her. He licked her little clit, drew it into his mouth. For a second. Until she tensed, tightened, that building pleasure racing through her. Then he drew back and licked along the folds again until he came to the tight, gripping entrance to her pussy.
He rimmed the opening, licked over it, and heard her cries fill his head, felt them stroke his senses. So close.
She was so close.
Janey couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but feel. She shook her head as need exploded inside her, over and over, racing through her bloodstream as she felt the pleasure consuming him.
Oh God. It was so good. She hadn’t thought it would be this good. She had thought it would feel like her own fingers, her own touch, not like this. His tongue was rough silk, and so hot. When it stroked over her, it flayed her with sensation. When he sucked her clit into his mouth, she was devoured by the pleasure. It was burning through her, licking over her flesh and making her crazy.
She needed.
“Alex, please,” she cried out. “Oh God. Please let me come, Alex. It’s so good. So good.”
He groaned. His tongue probed at the opening to her vagina and she tensed and cried out at the pleasure. Then he was kissing her again. Deep kisses along the slit, his tongue licking into it before he came back to her clit.
He sucked it into his mouth and didn’t stop. His tongue flickered just beneath it as he drew on her, and a thousand suns exploded inside her.
It couldn’t get any better. She hurled through ecstasy, then it got better. His tongue thrust hard and heavy inside her, pumped inside her pussy, and she was screaming his name, detonations of pure white-hot energy flowing through her as she felt her juices spilling from her. And felt Alex tasting them, consuming them, groaning and fucking his tongue inside her, deeper, harder, until she collapsed in mindless pleasure. And he was still licking, still taking her, still groaning her name.
“I’m going to hell,” he finally groaned, lifting his head to kiss her one last time, to purse his lips over her quivering clit before pulling himself up.
He was fixing his jeans.
“What are you doing?” She frowned. “You’re not finished.”
Alex had to grin at that demanding tone. A virgin she damned sure was, but she wasn’t going to be one for long.
“I’m not fucking you in this truck, sweetheart.”
Her lips parted at the endearment; pleasure filled her face. She loved it. And he loved that look on her face.
“Why not?” She stretched, arched, and he almost took her then.
“Minx.” His chuckle was rough, strained. “Sit up. You’ll be lucky if I can get us back to your place before I’m buried inside you.”
“I could handle that,” she promised with a smile, though she sat up.
He cupped her face, because he saw the edge of worry in her eyes, the hint of vulnerability.
“I want room, baby. Room to touch you. To suck those sweet nipples, to taste that pretty pussy again. Room to watch as I take you. I want that really bad, darlin’. I want to watch my dick stretch you open and take what no one else has a chance of touching. I can’t do that in this fucking truck.”
That glazed look of hunger and need filled her eyes, and he almost took her anyway.
“I can handle that,” she whispered.
“Hell, let’s hope I can handle it,” he groaned, sliding behind the steering wheel and readjusting his seat. “You just might be the end of me. Because touching you, Janey, is hotter than hell.”
He dragged her to his side and attached the middle seat belt around her rather than let her slide into the passenger seat. He wanted her against him. Wanted her right by his side, heating him, close to him.
He turned the truck around and headed back to the apartment, moving a little faster than he probably should have. He was definitely pushing the speed limit.
Driving with one hand, he tucked the other beneath Janey’s leg, holding her close as her head lay on his shoulder. Fuck. This was insane, but he couldn’t let her go. He hadn’t done this since he was a hormone-crazed teenager with more dick than good sense.
And he swore, tonight, he was in just as bad shape as he had been then. More dick than good sense. Because tonight, he was taking her. All fucking night long. Because he had a feeling it would take a hell of a lot longer than he’d imagined to ever sate the hunger he felt for her.
He was suddenly worried he would never sate that hunger.