Chapter Fourteen
So much for being afraid of heights.
Caitlin was about a million miles above earth, her old grounded self a mere pinprick in the distance.
Dizzy was an understatement.
Breathing into a paper bag seemed like a plan right about then.
But there was no paper bag. There was Shane, a stalled-out elevator, and the best orgasm of her life zinging through her body like he’d tied her up with a live wire and teased her to delicious agony.
If the memory of that night was going to have to sustain her, she’d need a whole crate of batteries.
Refilled monthly.
She didn’t think he’d actually heed her request, so when he steered into a drug store parking lot she had to fight the urge to crawl under the floor mat. “Um, thank you, but I’m not going to put my underwear on in a parking lot to go in there.”
“You’re not going to have to,” he said, right before he hopped out of the truck, a bit less agile than usual. That last part left her with a smile, but also teeming with guilt. She should have insisted on taking care of him, but the sincerity in his eyes when he said he wanted it to be about her had stopped her.
He returned within minutes and tossed what had to be a twenty-pound bag on the seat between them. “I’m just going to tell myself the need for these isn’t due to a lack of satisfaction on your part,” he muttered as he adjusted himself.
She gawked at his lap, then flushed hot when she realized he watched her. “How many…battery operated devices do you think I own?”
“To be honest, I’m not sure I would have guessed any, at least not before I knew you were running a sex library.” He threw her a cocky grin while she died inside. “To answer the question I think you’re asking, you didn’t specify what kind you needed.”
She dug through the bag and pulled out a card. “Shane, these are hearing aid batteries.”
He clicked his seatbelt in place and backed out of the spot. “Do I look like I know what kind of batteries a vibrator takes?”
She held up another package. “Do I look like someone who would go through thirty-six double AAs?”
“Have you ever checked the unit price on those things? Much cheaper to get the bigger packs.”
Speechless, she leaned back against the seat and ticked off a list of what she’d just learned about him: he paid attention to unit prices and bought name brand batteries. And no condoms, which meant—contrary to the accusation she’d levied earlier—he hadn’t made any assumptions on the rest of the night.
She wished she could appreciate that more.
Back at her house, he walked her to the door. Light from the porch fixture threw shadows, darkening a hint of stubble on his jaw. It would be gone with his next shift, she was sure, but in the meantime, the hint of badassery made her knees weak.
He hesitated.
She stood without even digging for her keys, because she had no idea what would come next. Should she invite him in? Was he hoping she wouldn’t? He had just given her a year’s supply of batteries…well, other than the Cs. And he hadn’t bought any condoms, so surely he wasn’t planning anything. But if that was the case, why wasn’t he going away?
“What are you thinking so hard about?” he asked, breaking the long silence with something way worse.
She didn’t need to confess to wanting him. Heat tore through her, turning her into a neon-pink billboard of want. Anxiety left her chewing on her lip and quite possibly breaking a sweat.
Sexy.
She pushed up her glasses, then wondered why she had any desire to see better. A cock-eyed version of the world was probably preferable. Only that poor word choice hadn’t helped.
Her gaze crept to his. With any luck he’d think her ridiculous and flee. She could go on about her life, trying like crazy not to get stuck on any bridges or start any fires on his shift until what was left of those two weeks were up. Then life would be normal.
Like normal existed after she’d had an elevator orgasm thanks to a man whose talents in setting fires had to rival his ability to put them out.
Leave it to her to freeze on a bridge in front of a sexual pyromaniac.
“I’m not. Thinking, that is.” She sputtered the words.
They were laughably true.
She didn’t have a chance to laugh, though, because he did, and before she could ask him what was so funny his mouth was on hers. And so was the rest of him. He was a force, but the kiss was soft. So incredibly soft. She sighed against his mouth, then erupted with a tiny shriek when he hoisted her against the door. Self-preservation caused her to tighten her thighs against his waist, her legs hooking around his back.
Under a porch light.
For the entire neighborhood to see.
His mouth closed on her earlobe.
Oh hell. Let them look. If Shane kept kissing her like this, her days were numbered anyway.
“Where are your keys?” He murmured the words, his lips grazing her ear, his teeth punctuating with a promised ferocity that belied the benign, if utterly loaded, question.
“Keys?” Her glasses had gone awry. She blinked, dazed, but he didn’t come into focus.
“Either we get that door open, or the neighbors are really going to have something to talk about.”
“Oh.” It was the lamest oh in existence. “In my…” She fumbled for her bag, which flapped at her side as she tried to grasp it. “Somewhere.”
“May I?” he asked.
She nodded, and within seconds he had her keys in his hand. There were only two on the chain—the old bookstore key and the brand new one for her house—and he made quick work of figuring out which was which, sending the door flying inward on the heels of his success. She expected she’d fall in after it, but he had her.
As if to cement that, in one swift move he’d kicked the door shut. He fumbled at her back, and the snick of the lock somehow made itself heard over the sounds of their traded breaths. He sat her on the back of her loveseat and slid his hands up her body, setting fire to her skin. Cool air touched her heated flesh, and she realized she was five seconds from being the only naked person in the room.
Again.
Hell no.
This was crazy, and she didn’t do crazy.
At least, she didn’t do crazy alone.
Before he could get her arms over her head, she countered by yanking at his shirt, sending buttons pinging. She opened two stragglers with more traditional methods then tugged the shirt off his arms. The sight of him shirtless, his body doused in ambient light, muscles defined by shadow, left her throbbing. Why couldn’t her body forget that orgasm?
Why would she want it to?
He’d been all about getting her out of her clothes, but when she’d turned the tables on him, he’d stilled. Her gaze dropped from the bone-melting intensity of those dark eyes to the trail of hair leading below the belt, and she went there, too. With shaking hands, she worked at the button then eased down the zipper.
Then she reached inside.
“Caitlin.” He managed her name, then a few choice words when he sprung free and she immediately dropped to her knees and took him in her mouth. “Oh shit.”
She had no idea a single profane word could be so erotic. Actually, pre-elevator, she wasn’t exactly familiar with truly erotic situations. Tolerable, better than nothing, she could live with herself in the morning, maybe got close to an orgasm, yes. Completely forgetting for any number of seconds that she was in public had not happened. Ever. She’d never truly believed it could.
And dropping to her knees in front of a guy…well, that wasn’t exactly something she did. And a man who expected otherwise would be better off protecting himself than exposing himself, but Shane wasn’t going to get her naked twice. Not without joining her.
Somehow she doubted he’d chalk this up to a loss.
She glanced up, slightly self-conscious, and found his head tipped back toward the ceiling and one hand planted against the wall that stood a couple of feet behind him. His entire ridiculously sculpted torso was tense, the muscles sharply defined by the play of shadow. One hand rested against the back of her head, and she couldn’t believe how gentle that touch was with his arm so tight with tension.
She’d take that as a compliment.
Go, her.
Taking him deeper was more of a struggle than she cared to admit, not just because of his size, but because her skills weren’t exactly on point. But what little she could see of him from her knees suggested she didn’t suck. Or maybe she did, and that was the point, but either way, she settled for sliding her tongue along his length, engulfing him, then drawing him deeper. What started as a personal challenge not to be one-upped had heat pooling, and in a flash, fire raging. She had elevator flashbacks, back to that orgasm from which her limbs had yet to recover, and all those doubts faded and she suddenly felt empowered. He’d been hard when she’d taken him in her mouth. Now he was granite, even larger, and unless she’d just lost track of gravity, he trembled.
All because of what she was doing to him.
She took him deeper, rising higher on her knees to change the angle, feeling like hot shit while he cursed and hissed. Then the gentle touch faded. He grabbed her hair and held her back, his arm tight with tension.
She looked up, blinking innocently. Feeling anything but.
He drew deep breaths but said nothing, and his hold on her hair kept her from diving back in, but she did manage to stick out her tongue far enough to lick the swollen head.
“Fuck.” He let go of her, gently deflecting her next move, and closed his hand on himself, a groan slipping from his lips.
Well, then. She adjusted her glasses and decided there was a definite downside to not letting things get too far…this slightly awkward moment blew all the others out of the water. She’d always heard there wasn’t any such thing as a bad blow job, yet he’d just stopped her.
She wasn’t sure whether she should be mortified or kick him out.
“Caitlin.”
She met his gaze, expecting pity.
She got danger. Fire.
“I’m taking you to bed.”
“Okay?”
“You might want to tell me where to look for a bed,” he warned, “because if you don’t I’m going to knock down every goddamn door in this place until I find one.”
…
Shane couldn’t breathe. Jesus fucking Christ, that woman. Not his first blow job. Not by a long shot. But she’d spared him the suction, instead licking, flicking her tongue around so one minute there was abrasion and the next nothing but slick, wet heat. Nothing to brace himself against. Just…fuck. That damnable woman with the clunky glasses and librarian act looking up at him with his dick in her mouth was every fantasy he hadn’t known he had. She hadn’t needed to swallow every inch. Or even half of them. Whatever she’d done was pure fucking magic, and he wasn’t ready for it to be over.
His balls screamed in protest. His dick throbbed. No amount of logical argument from that threadbare connection he still had with his brain felt like enough. The only thing that kept him from exploding was the thought of breaking that spell…of having the world’s most effective overthinker lump him into bridge and elevator territory and back away, right back to that place she’d retreated where she’d gotten all shy after he’d done some licking and sucking of his own.
But no way that compared to this.
“End of the hall,” she told him, her tone a bit timid.
Yeah, well, if she had any clue what he had on his mind, it damn well ought to be.
He scooped her up and tossed her over his shoulder, giving life to every caveman accusation she’d ever levied his way, and headed off in the direction she’d indicated. The short hallway seemed a hundred miles long, and what he found at the end shouldn’t have surprised him. The room was immaculate, the bed made, pillows neatly placed, corners tight.
All of it about to go to hell.
He tossed her on the bed and didn’t give her time to catch her breath before he dragged the dress over her head, leaving it caught on her arms. There wasn’t a bra in his way this time, and before she’d managed a full breath he closed his mouth on her tight nipple, causing her back to bow and her breath to hiss. He took full advantage, sliding his arm beneath her, moving her up the bed, crawling after her. The pillows scattered, and his pants snagged on the side of the bed, dragging to his ankles. He kicked them off, never releasing the suction on her breast.
Her nails, short as they were, tore through his hair without gaining purchase. She must have given up, because the pressure relented and then she was fisting the comforter, arching against him with the dress still caught on her wrists.
He ached. God, he fucking ached. But he ignored that, dipping his head from one greedy nipple to the next, the tight buds begging for the heat of his tongue. When he didn’t think he could stand it a moment longer, he abandoned them both, dragging his tongue to the valley between her breasts, licking playfully, trying like hell not to ruin her pretty flowered quilt with his growing need to lose control.
She shivered and panted, and the dress he hadn’t fully removed was in his goddamned way. He tugged at it, just about to untangle her when an opportunity presented itself. She wanted to stay dressed?
She’d rather take his dick in that hot little mouth, skew her glasses, and bat those innocent wide eyes at him?
Yeah, he’d play like that.
Gently, he moved her arms over her head. She blinked accusatorily at him, but he distracted her by nipping at her breast, then sucking her fingers into his mouth when he couldn’t maneuver her hands the way he wanted from that angle.
Her eyes widened, then drifted closed, leaving him to do a sloppy job of twisting the fabric, tangling it so her hands were caught by the headboard. Hell. Not what he’d wanted, but she’d have a hard time getting them free to return his touch, which meant he might last five minutes.
He returned his attention to her breasts, grazing one, then the other, then kissing his way to her side, licking warmth back into the tiny shivers that pebbled her skin. She wriggled and groaned when he spread her legs, then made a sound of utter frustration when he traced his tongue in the crease between her leg and her center. He loved that she tried to maneuver him toward the middle, and her lingering flavor made him want to go there so badly, but he wasn’t going to give in just yet. Not when he was on the verge of exploding, and especially not when he had this obstinate woman begging for release. She didn’t have to say it aloud. He could see it, with her lip caught in her mouth and her glasses askew and her punishing grip on the twisted and probably ruined dress, hips lifting until he could taste her without dipping his head.
Damned if he hadn’t gotten so distracted by how beautiful she was that he’d temporarily abandoned his determination to tease the ever-loving fuck out of her.
“Please.” The breathless word seemed as much caught in agony as it was pleasure. He responded by inserting a single finger, to which she managed to gasp, “funny.”
Yeah, it was. He curled the digit inside her, finding that spot that made her shake, and toyed with it, lazily, while she shuddered and possibly cursed at him.
The proper librarian definitely had a naughty side—one that extended well beyond words.
His balls were about to explode.
“Don’t move,” he told her, momentarily abandoning her to search the floor for his jeans and the condom he kept in his wallet. Cliché as fuck, but she didn’t have to know he’d put it there just for her. What he’d thought had been blind hope had turned into a woeful understatement, because he had a feeling they could go through an entire box and he’d still want her. But he hadn’t bought any, because she’d lay him out in a heartbeat over that shit. And not in the good way.
He found the package and snagged it, then tossed his wallet on the floor. Just rolling it on almost finished him, and he didn’t want to think of how pathetic that was, but it wasn’t every day he had her waiting for him.
Still, he paused at her entrance, giving her one last chance to stop this thing from happening.
Someone had to save him from this need tearing through him.
But it wasn’t going to be her.
She just spread her legs wider.
“Fuck.” He eased inside her then, using all the restraint he could summon to make sure she was ready before he did any real damage. And she was. She was tight, slick, and pulsing. Hot. His arms shook with restraint to not thrust hard, take it all, feel everything.
She tugged at the tangled dress while she throbbed around his dick, squeezing and torturing him. It was all he could do to keep his shit together. One condom was a mistake.
Fully seated, balls deep, feeling things from her body he’d never felt before in his life, he was hit yet another something to grapple with: she’d wrangled her arms free from the headboard and wrapped them around his neck, her sloppily tied hands managing to find his head, her fingertips curling against his scalp, and kissed him.
He’d never been deeper in a woman in his life. He’d never been kissed like that, ever. Not even by her, because she’d traded that tentative first touch for something that felt sure, for once like she didn’t need to ask permission to slide her tongue against his. She just did it, deep and sweet, until he wasn’t sure what was her and what was him.
It didn’t feel like fucking.
It felt like owning.
He didn’t break the kiss. Wouldn’t for anything. And maybe he should give her more credit, because he couldn’t slam into her that way. He could only rock softly, never really leaving the warmth of her body, while he sucked on her tongue and nipped at her mouth and let her utterly destroy him.
God, he was fucked.
The pressure built, like he was doing things his way, driving her into next week with the power of his thrusts. But he wasn’t. He was lost to this shit, this gentle grind that dizzied him like nothing ever had, and he couldn’t help but wonder if she somehow did this on purpose, keeping him off-balance like she had. Turning his game against him, trapping him with wrists that couldn’t possibly still be bound, holding him tighter, deeper, her teeth nipping at him while her body took everything until he couldn’t take it anymore.
He broke the kiss, or whatever that was that had him lost to her mouth, and twisted her hips so he straddled one leg and held the other, scissors-style, and ground against her clit until she definitely, without a doubt, said something profane.
He didn’t relent.
He pushed as deep as he could without fear of hurting her, only to have her claw at his skin and demand more. She didn’t have to ask twice. He pumped harder, thicker, slamming the headboard against the wall, giving only a passing thought to whether there might be any open windows or noise reaching the neighbors.
He held out until her body shuddered, giving the same treatment to his dick as it had his tongue, and then came harder than he ever had in his life. He lost his fucking eyesight for a good thirty seconds, long enough to wonder what the hell, before sparkles fought their way back from the periphery, leading to a fuzzy vision of her in his arms. For a moment he wondered if he’d just had the best dream of his life, until she stroked his cheek and said something about liking the stubble and how now he’d gone and ruined vibrators and probably her life. It all came through on a buzz, fading without fanfare, until he gave up and eased out of her, grateful and surprised to see the condom still intact.
No way he’d be able to get up yet to get rid of that thing. But he would. And ten more if she’d let him.
Until then, he dragged her close and tried like hell not to think about Denver.