Chapter Fourteen

The car hummed. Adrenaline surged through him as he drove into the dusk, heading for the mountains southwest of the city. There was still unchartered land in that area. Building had just begun, which meant miles upon miles of roads were still bare.

As he shifted on an uphill stretch, the engine roared. The feel of the luxury automobile she owned was absolutely extraordinary, blurring into some kind of gorgeous harmony between car and driver and road.

Not to mention the incredible woman in the passenger seat.

As he accelerated, his chest vibrated with a purpose—find some place and fuck her.

He stole glances at Sophie during the drive, wishing it were possible to stare at her and keep his eyes on the road at the same time.

“Have I mentioned you look good enough to eat?”

“It’s the oranges, isn’t it?” she asked, running her fingers along the pattern on her dress.

“You had cherries on your dress when I met you. Now oranges. What will it be next time?”

“Do you like peaches?”

“I love peaches. I love peach ice cream. I especially love peach pie.”

“Then maybe I’ll have peaches on me next time,” she said with a sly look in her eyes.

He laughed then tapped the steering wheel as he turned onto a two-lane road at the base of the mountains. “So what’s the deal with you and this car?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is this like a James Bond thing you have going on?”

She laughed and shook her head. “He doesn’t drive this model. Lately he’s been driving the DBS. This is a Vantage GT.”

“I know. It just seems very Bond.”

“Maybe I’m a spy,” she whispered in a sultry voice, winking as she spoke.

“Are you a good spy or a bad spy?”

“I’m whatever kind you want me to be,” she said, and the innuendo in her words heated him up. The notion that she’d play whatever role he wanted intoxicated him.

But then, everything she did turned him on, it seemed. His attraction to her ran red-hot, and burrowed deep into his body. It operated on some kind of elemental level that at times he felt powerless to resist or deny. His fingers gripped the wheel harder as lust thrummed through him.

But even so, he remained curious about her. The woman who generated all this heat in his blood. He wanted to understand her. “What I mean is,” he said, trying again, “what’s the story with you and this fancy car, and the gorgeous building you live in, and the way you dress like you stepped off the pages of a magazine?”

“The answers are simple. I give a lot of my money away, and I give all my time away. But I still like having nice things. And I like to reward myself for hitting milestones in charitable fundraising. Like this car—it was a gift I gave myself after my first big event. And this dress I picked up when I started working with the children’s wing. Besides, I like dressing nice. Is that a crime?”

He shook his head. “Hell, no. You wear it all well. Do you like being pretty?”

She laughed lightly. “I’m glad you think that about me.”

“Answer the question,” he said firmly, since she’d just danced around what he considered an immutable truth of the universe—she was beautiful.

“Ryan,” she said, and he heard her embarrassment in her tone. He was having none of that.

“Sophie,” he said in a firm voice. “You’re gorgeous. Don’t deny it. Now tell me, do you like being so gorgeous?”

“To you—yes,” she said, managing once again not to answer completely. But her answer was completely satisfying.

Briefly, he ran his thumb over her bottom lip. “Stunning. You are fucking stunning.” He turned his eyes back to the road that curved up into the hills. “Even in that hoodie and hat picture you sent me.”

“I told you I was a nerd in college. I mean, total nerd,” she said, slicing her hands through the air for emphasis. “I had a weird haircut. I died my bangs blue. I was bent over a desk coding all the time.”

“I wouldn’t mind seeing you bent over a desk.”

She shot him a naughty grin. “Why does that not surprise me?”

“Did you like having blue hair?”

She shrugged. “I did it to fit in. There’s a certain geek culture, and I had to work hard to conform to it. Already I had a strike against me being a woman, so I tried to at least look the part of a computer nerd.”

If she hadn’t sent that photo he’d never have believed it. “And now that you’ve left that part of your life behind, you embrace this other side of yourself,” he said, gesturing to the pinup dress and high heels and the styled hair.

“Exactly,” she said, her eyes lighting up.

“Was that part of you untended to? The woman in you?”

She scoffed. “For many years,” she said, almost to herself. He was about to follow up and ask what she meant, but she kept talking. “But there are always parts of ourselves that we don’t take care of. I could ask you the same. Are you the same person you were when you were in the army?”

As he hugged the side of the road on a turn, he eyed his tailored pants, button-down shirt, and leather shoes. “Well, I don’t wear fatigues anymore,” he said drily.

“Did you wear fatigues then? Were you actually in battle?” she asked, worry in her tone.

“I did wear fatigues. But I wasn’t on the battlefront. I was in Germany. Stationed in Wiesbaden. Not far from Frankfurt.”

“I know where Wiesbaden is,” she said quickly, a flicker of excitement in her eyes. “I’m having some work done on a new car at a custom shop in Rüsselsheim, not far from there.”

“Yeah? What kind?” he asked, figuring she’d say Audi, BMW, or Mercedes—luxury autos with high-end options for the discerning buyer. Like Sophie.

“It’s a Bugatti,” she said breezily. “I’ve always wanted one.”

His jaw dropped. There was no hotter make or model of car to a Top Gear fan than a Bugatti. “Yeah, me too. You’re really getting a Bugatti? I thought they were made in France.”

“Mine was made there. But I’ve contracted with a specialty shop in Rüsselsheim to make it more eco-friendly. And the paint job they’re doing is divine. It’s going to be a lush green,” she said, stretching that last word out as if it tasted like honey. “It’s going to look like an emerald.”

“That’s pretty hot. Can’t wait to see it.”

“Me too. I should get it in a few weeks. I bought it when I hit another goal in money raised for charities. But enough about me. Tell me about Wiesbaden. What did you do at the base there?”

“Army intelligence. The 66tth Military Intelligence Brigade. Worked with Captain Jack Sullivan.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Should I know the name?”

He laughed. “No. But there’s a funny story behind that man. He’s a few years older than me so he left before I did, and for awhile after he became known as the soldier-turned-sex-toy-mogul.”

Her lips widened into a big smile. “Really?”

He nodded. “Left the army and started a company called Joy Delivered. Sold products like the Wild One and the Lola. Now he’s back in Europe with his wife.”

“And does the army advertise that career path?” she asked, a sly look in her eyes as she hummed the one-time slogan. “Be all that you can be, find your future…selling dildos?”

He cracked up as he drove. “No. But perhaps they should. He made a lot of people happy.”

“I imagine he did. Though I suspect your career path is the more typical one after working in army intelligence?”

“It is. Military to security. Natural fit.”

“So perhaps you aren’t that different now than in your previous job.”

“Maybe I’m not.”

“Maybe you’re not,” she echoed. “Or maybe you are. I don’t really know.”

“Do you want to know?”

“I want to know what makes you tick now,” she said, her gaze fixed firmly on him as he drove. She was so straightforward as they talked, and he couldn’t deny that he liked her directness in conversation as much as he liked her willingness to bend to him in the bedroom.

Besides, it was a good question, one he was rarely asked but one he could, reasonably, answer with the truth. “This car,” he said, tapping the dashboard. “My dog. My job. My family. Living the life I choose. Keeping people safe. See, I’m not that different than I was before.”

“You’re like my brother in some ways,” she said. Guilt burned through him at the mention of John, and he tried to shove it aside. There was no space tonight for the things he hadn’t told her about how they met. “He’s got the same focus,” she continued, then looked at him, and rested her hand briefly on his leg. “I admire it.”

He gritted his teeth. No, you don’t. You can’t admire me. I’m a fucking liar and you’re a truth teller, and I don’t deserve you. But I still want you. Desperately.

Sophie leaned back in the passenger seat, lowered the window, and let the wind whip through the car until he turned a corner at a lookout halfway up the mountain road and pulled the gleaming silver beast to a stop.

He cut the engine and stared at the windswept woman by his side. Maybe he wasn’t a liar. Maybe he was simply a man who hadn’t yet told the whole truth. There’d be time for that. When he needed to offer it up. Then it hit him — he was thinking about the next time with her, and maybe even the one after that. Which wasn’t like Ryan at all. He didn’t move beyond short-term, so why was his brain thinking differently?

He had no answers, only a stark certainty inside him that he wanted this woman all to himself.

“Do you like the way she handles the curves?” Sophie asked, patting the dashboard.

“So fucking much,” he said then nodded to her door. “Wait for me.”

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said, tilting her head, locking her eyes with his and saying everything in her gaze. His breath stopped short at the way she looked at him. So guileless.

He never thought he’d been waiting for anyone. Given the walls he’d erected and the foundation of privacy he built his life on, he never imagined he’d be captivated this quickly. But Sophie had him bewitched—from her beauty to her spirit to her wide-open heart.

Maybe he had been waiting for her.

His muscles tightened. Something that felt like fear raced through him—the fear of feeling something.

But goddammit, he didn’t want to think about matters of the heart.

The physical was so much easier.

The physical paid better dividends.

He walked behind the car then opened her door, offering his hand.

“Get out of the car and show me,” he said, issuing a command. “Show me how you look in my gift.”

Sophie’s eyes widened, and she unhooked her seat belt in one second. Damn, this woman loved to be told what to do, and he loved being the one to do it.

He tugged her out and spun her around, lining her back against his front. Sex. Contact. Connection. He needed it to wipe his mind of all the dangerous little details he kept locked up. He moved her body closer to the hood of the car. He tested the metal with his palm — warm not too hot. “Bend over.”

She placed her hands on the hood, and flattened her back. My God, she took orders like a dream. “Raise your skirt for me.”

She reached a hand behind her and grabbed the orange hem. She lifted it up and a groan ripped from his throat when he saw her in the panties he’d bought for her.

The hottest item of clothing in all of creation.

“Nothing has ever looked better on any woman in the world,” he said, as he fell to his knees in the dirt, and pressed his face against her rear. He flicked his tongue through one of the crisscross sections that exposed her creamy white flesh, and she gasped. He gripped her cheeks in his hands, squeezing her as he smothered her barely-covered bottom in kisses. Oh, the things he wanted to do to her. The ways he wanted to touch her with his tongue, fingers, and his cock. Lick her, touch her, fuck her, and taste her.

His dick throbbed in his pants, begging to be set free, to be inside her gorgeous body.

“They were made for you,” he whispered as he worshipped her ass with his lips, and she squirmed under his touch, rocking her body back into him. He licked the outline of one of the diamonds, flicking the tip of his tongue over her skin, and she moaned his name.

“I bet you’re soaked right now,” he said, in a hungry voice.

“I bet you’re right,” she answered in between erratic breaths.

The world around them was dark and quiet. There was only the slightest rustle of an evening breeze. They were all alone on the turnout at the side of the road, and he was going to fuck her good and hard.

He slid his fingers between her legs and groaned when he felt how damp she was. Nothing was better in the entire universe than when a woman responded to a man like this. Her body told him everything—from the way she stretched her arms, to how her belly pressed flat to the metal, to how her ass was raised in the air, the skirt all bunched up by her hips.

She wanted him. She gave herself freely, and he was utterly consumed with a deep and potent longing for Sophie. He’d intended to fuck her, but with his face so close to her sweet center, he decided on an appetizer first. “Don’t move,” he said, as he pulled the panel of her panties to the side. Keeping her in place would keep him in control of this ravenous desire that raged inside him. “Stay still as I eat you.”

“I won’t move,” she answered, digging her heels into the ground.

He stared between her legs, where she glistened. His breath came fast as raw desire overtook him. “You’re so fucking delicious,” he said, then licked.

She trembled and sighed sexily. The most enticing sounds floated from her lips as he licked her sweetness. Her clit was a hard stone under his tongue, and with each flick, she trembled but remained still. She’d taken his order to heart and hadn’t moved an inch. She followed directions like a perfect student, and she tasted like heaven on earth. He buried his face in her slickness, his hands gripping her luscious ass as he devoured her.

She flooded his tongue and moaned her pleasure. “I’m so close, Ryan. I’m so close. Can I please move?”

Please.

Oh hell, it was like a direct line of desire to his cock. He ached to fill her. That simple word spurred him on, making him want her even more. “Yes,” he said roughly then gave her an order. “You have permission to fuck my face now.”

She followed it to the letter. He continued his assault on her pussy with his lips, thrusting his tongue inside her heat, as she rocked into him madly. She went from frozen to frenzied in no time. Her thighs tensed, and as soon as he felt her quiver, he slid a finger inside her.

Her soft walls clenched around him, and she cried out into the night as she came on his tongue, his lips, and his chin.

She tasted divine. Absolutely intoxicating all over him, and he was hooked on her, on her taste, her scent, her body. Everything. He lapped up her wetness as the aftershocks moved through her. He placed a palm on each thigh, steadying her as he kissed the backs of her legs, then lapped up a bead of wetness that had slid down her skin.

He stood up and raked his eyes over the gorgeous sight of her bent at the waist, soft and warm from her first orgasm. “I’m just getting started, beautiful. There’s so much I want to do to you.”

She looked at him and smiled, a tipsy grin that made his heart pound and his dick ache. Rabid desire raced through him again, and the need to take her overwhelmed him. Her feet were planted on the ground. He nudged the inside of her right leg with his foot, then kicked her legs open wider.

“Spread your legs for me,” he instructed, and she inched her feet apart into a more perfect V.

His fingers traveled along her spine and up her neck to her hair, grabbing it, turning her so she looked up at him. Her eyes were hazy and full of a lust that matched his. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?” he asked harshly.

“I think I do.”

“You are under my skin,” he whispered, as he kept her pressed against the warm hood with one hand, then slinked his other hand down to her waist, and unfastened the slim, orange belt. “And in my head,” he continued as he snapped the belt free. “And I can’t fucking stop thinking about you.”

“I can’t stop either,” she said, and in a flash he wrapped the belt around her wrists, knotting it, twisting it, and tying her hands together with her own accessory. She allowed him, offering up her wrists to be bound. She was a willing hostage.

“That turns me on even more,” he growled in her ear, as he stretched her tied arms along the silver hood.

“Tying me up?”

“Yes,” he said, pressing his erection against her ass. “But what makes me rock hard is the way you let me. The way you want me to. The way you give your body to me,” he said as he grabbed a condom from his pocket, unzipped his pants, and pushed down his briefs.

“Take me,” she said, meeting his eyes as she lay vulnerable and completely open to him, her face on the side of her car, her body ready for him.

“I’m going to, Sophie. I’m going to take you right now,” he said, as he rolled on the condom. Then he placed his hands on that perfect ass, and dug his thumbs into her cheeks, spreading open her sex. He rubbed the tip of his dick against her wet heat.

Lust crashed over him like a wave beating the shore. He returned his right hand to her neck, held her in place, and sank into her in one swift move.

He stilled inside her, inhaling deeply as he savored the intensity of this moment—the feel of her luscious body drawing him in for the first time. He’d craved this from the second he’d met her, and now he knew why.

She fit him perfectly.

“Jesus Christ,” he groaned, the lush, hot feel of her gripping him skyrocketing his need for her. “You feel fucking amazing. I knew you would. I fucking knew you would.”

She moaned. She whimpered. She cried out his name. “Ryan.”

The sound of his name falling from her red lips made him want her more than he’d ever thought possible. She’d seduced him with her willingness, she’d lured him in with her sweet naughtiness, and she’d captivated him with her mind.

He was mesmerized by this woman. Completely spellbound.

And so he did what he came here to do.

He fucked her. Deep, hard, and feverishly. He swiveled his hips and thrust into her, her sweet, snug pussy taking him all the way. He breathed heavily as he stroked, one hand squeezing her ass. She gave him everything he wanted—complete control of her body—and it annihilated his brain. It scorched a path of pure pleasure through him. He was driven with need for her, by the sheer ecstasy of fucking this woman on the hood of her car in the desert, under the sky, under his command.

“I could fuck you all night. I could fuck you all day.” He gripped her neck as he pumped.

“It feels so good,” she said on a pant.

“Say it again,” he told her.

“You feel so good.”

“Again.”

“It feels incredible.”

“So good you’re going to come on my cock any second?” he asked on a deep, furious thrust.

“Yes, oh God, yes. I’m going to come on you,” she cried out, and screamed his name. The sound of it echoing in the night made his balls tighten and pleasure ricochet through him, sweeping over his entire body, obliterating everything else in his world but this pure and perfect moment with this magnificent woman.

He grunted, calling out her name as he came, then slumped over her back, and wrapped his arms around her.

She sighed happily.

He damn near did the same. “I can’t get enough of you. I just fucking can’t.”

She shot him the sweetest smile. In a soft voice she said, “I’m hungry. Care to take me out for a bite to eat?”

He’d already eaten, but food sounded good.