Why limit yourself to panicking in a crowd? Panic everywhere. Follow your wildest, most anxious dreams.
Lanie rolled her eyes at both herself and Mark and cracked open the door. “Yes?”
He hadn’t changed his clothes and his hair had dried a little crazy, as if he’d shoved his fingers through it a lot. “Try out my bed yet?”
Oh boy, she thought. Her body liked the low velvet in his voice way too much. “No. How did you know the bar needed a cop tonight?”
“The bartender’s an old friend. Boomer called me instead of 9-1-1.”
“That seems like a huge risk. What if you couldn’t get there in time to stop the trouble?”
“He knew I’d get there.”
So matter-of-fact. So confident. Not cocky, just very sure of his abilities. She wondered what that utter lack of self-doubt was like. She’d sure like to know. “So . . . did you want something?”
“Yes. It’s later. Sorry it took me so long at the station.” He leaned on the doorjamb looking like sin personified. “You going to invite me in?”
“You’re a bad idea. We’re a bad idea, remember?”
He laughed low in his throat. “How could I forget when I’ve told myself the same thing a hundred times?”
So he’d been thinking about them too. There was comfort in that. “I don’t think this is the time or place.”
“I know.” His dark gaze swept over her from head to toe, slowing at some strategic spots that quivered in response. “But you’re standing there wearing my favorite T-shirt from when I was a teenager and near as I can tell, nothing else.”
She tightened her grip on the door because she didn’t trust herself not to give in at his first touch. “It’s your childhood bedroom,” she said. “We can’t do it in here.”
He just smiled.
She gaped at him. “How many girls have you had in this room?” She narrowed her eyes. “And if you tell me you lost your virginity here in this very bed, I’ll—”
“Zero,” he said. “I’ve had zero women in that bed. Hello, you’ve met my nosy-ass family, right?”
“So . . . you didn’t lose your virginity in here?” she asked.
He smiled. “Your fascination with my virginity is cute, but no, the main event happened in my dad’s pickup truck when I was fifteen.”
“By yourself?”
He laughed, the sound dissolving the rest of her resolve. “Trust me, there was plenty of that too, but no, I actually talked my chemistry partner into an experiment of . . . animal magnetism.” He flashed a grin and leaned in to speak softly into her ear. “We did some okay work that night, but I’ve learned a lot since then.” He nipped her earlobe. “Let me in, Lanie.”
He’d most definitely learned plenty, she thought wryly as her nipples tightened and her thighs clenched. “I don’t think so.”
Undeterred, he nuzzled her throat, brushing light kisses along her skin, setting her on fire from the inside out. “You in that shirt,” he murmured. “You’re a fantasy come to life, Lanie.”
She was trying to come up with a brilliant retort for that when he stepped into her and slid his magic hands to her hips. “I really am sorry about tonight.”
She looked into his eyes and saw that actually he wasn’t his usual confident self. He wasn’t sure what she was thinking or what she was going to do, and there was some unexpected power in that. Stepping back, she gave him room to pass. He held her gaze as he came in, his own revealing his surprise. He hadn’t expected her to let him in. Reaching past him, she quietly shut the door and then . . .
Pushed him up against it.
He raised a brow. “Feeling aggressive?”
“Apparently. You have a problem with that?”
“Are you kidding me? You’re every walking, talking fantasy I’ve ever had.” His hands went to her waist and squeezed gently before gliding up her body to cup her face. “Tell me what you want tonight.”
She didn’t miss the distinction but neither did she hesitate. “Your body on mine.”
His eyes both darkened and softened. “Lanie—”
She put a finger on his lips. “I know the rules. No need to complicate anything,” she whispered and went up on tiptoe to kiss him.
His groan rumbled from his chest through hers as his hand slipped beneath the hem of the shirt to palm her still-panty-covered ass, and she decided his clothes needed to come off and fast. He let her be in control for all of a second and a half as she tugged at his sweatshirt before he reversed their positions and had her up against the door, arms pinned over her head, kissing her until she couldn’t remember her name or why she’d ever thought to resist.
The shirt she wore hit the floor, exposing her bare breasts. The touch of his mouth working its way down her throat made her gasp in pleasure and arch into him as she reached for the string on his board shorts and tugged. “Tell me you have a condom.”
“I’ve got an entire box,” he said and covered her mouth with his.
She was nearly blind with need when someone knocked on the other side of the door right next to her head.
“Lanie?”
Oh dear God, that was Cora.
“I was just walking by and heard a thunk up against the door,” her boss said. “Are you okay?”
Mark lifted his head, his half-lidded sexy eyes both heated and amused.
Not Lanie. She stared up at him in horror. “I’m fine,” she called out. Or at least tried. Her voice was completely gone. She cleared her throat and tried again, but it wasn’t easy with one of Mark’s hands on her bare breast, the other fisted in her hair, a thick muscled thigh between hers.
And she was no better. She had her hands in his shorts!
“Honey?” Cora called. “I have a master key. Do you need help?”
“No!” she said. Maybe yelled. She grimaced and, eyes locked on Mark’s in sheer horror and panic, she said, “I’m fine! Totally fine! One hundred percent fine! Never been finer!” She winced. “Good night!”
Cora’s voice sounded suspiciously amused. “’Night, honey.”
“I think I’ve mentioned,” Mark said in her ear, “my family’s insane.”
“None of you have any concept of personal space boundaries!” she hissed. “Not a single one of you!”
He took a nip out of her ear. “Ironic, considering where your hands are.”
She snorted and tugged her hands free and gave him a push.
He laughed, low and soft and annoyingly sexy in his throat and . . . opened the door.
She stilled, shocked. First of all, his board shorts were opened and dangerously, illicitly low on his hips, revealing more than concealing anything. And second of all, he was leaving? He’d put her in this state and he was going to walk away and leave her to it? She’d self-combust!
Mark took a careful peek out the door.
“What are you doing?”
“Making sure the coast’s clear,” he said and looked down. “Not tonight, Gracie.”
The dog was in the hallway, giving him the sad eyes. With a huff, she ambled off to find another sucker. Mark shut the door and took in Lanie’s panic with a hint of a smile. The slow scan of his eyes made her very aware that she was wearing only a pair of bikini panties. The look also made her very hot in all the places he’d touched. And in the places she still needed him to touch. “Well?” she demanded. “Is the coast clear besides Gracie?”
His mouth twitched. “Out there? Yeah. How about in here?”
“What does that mean?”
He smiled. “You want me bad.”
God help her, but she did. “Not as bad as you want me,” she said with a pointed look at his still-pretty-impressive erection.
“Hard for a man to hide it,” he agreed.
“Will she be back?”
“Gracie? Yes. My mom? Probably not, but I stopped trying to figure out any members of my family a long time ago.” He flicked the lock on the door and turned back to her. “That’ll hold them all off for long enough.”
“Long enough for what?”
He smiled and she nearly orgasmed on the spot. But a part of her was also coming to her senses. “There’s a baby in the house. And impressionable children, your children, so—”
“Lanie, they’re all asleep.”
She bit her lower lip. “What if I make noise?”
His smile was both soft and wicked. “If?”
“What? It’s not my fault, I can’t help it!”
“I know. And I love it.” He snaked an arm around her waist, snagged her in close, and lifted her up so that she could wrap her legs around him, and then he turned to the bed.
“But—”
He tossed her to the mattress and followed her down, pressing his body to hers until every inch touched.
And there were some pretty damn great inches.
He kissed her deep and raw and shatteringly intense, the kind of kiss that stopped hearts and melted brain cells as he slid her panties down and made himself at home between her legs. When he pulled back to meet her gaze, she was panting, squirming for more, and pinned to the bed, spread for his viewing pleasure.
“We’re not going to hurry,” he said. “But we are going to be very quiet. Can you be very quiet, Lanie?”
Was he kidding? She’d do anything as long as he didn’t stop touching her. Arching up into him, she sought more contact even though they were already practically suctioned together.
“Lanie.” He caught her roaming hands. “I asked you a question.”
“Yes,” she gasped. “I’ll be quiet.”
He was kissing his way down her body, her breasts, her belly, a hip . . . “I love the way you look in my bed,” he whispered huskily against her skin.
A low, breathless laugh escaped her, which turned into a gasp when he found her very favorite kissable spot.
“Shh,” he reminded her, tightening his grip on her hips to hold her still for his special brand of delicious torture.
And when she couldn’t be still or quiet, he climbed up her body and kissed her again, probably to shut her up. She shifted as much as she could with a goal-oriented, sexually deprived male on top of her, wrapping her legs around him so he could rub himself against her with deadly precision.
She opened her eyes and he let out a very badass smile as he pulled out a condom and tore it open with his teeth. When he slid home, they moaned into each other’s mouths and as he moved over her in that sexy way of his, she lost herself completely in him. And in perhaps the most amazing part of the night . . . she knew he did the same in her.