We were in my car—Luke’s car, actually, a black Dodge Charger. I’d been at the restaurant with Tara, and we were talking. The conversation somehow became about my dick. We’d switched the subject again, talked about other things, but the topic of sex had hovered over us, smothering us like steam. I’d turned her on, something I hadn’t started the evening intending to do but liked a whole hell of a fucking lot.

But I knew the situation. We weren’t a thing. We could take this farther, push it to its limits, but anything we did would be one night. She was Tara, and I was me. We could fuck, maybe, but she’d be vaguely embarrassed afterward about being with a guy like me. We’d go our separate ways, and Tara would find some other guy to be with, and I’d go home to the guest house and overthink it.

And that was okay for her, maybe. A bad boy distraction for a night after her shitty breakup. But it wasn’t enough for me.

With Tara, it would never be enough for me.

In the meantime, I liked talking to her. She was smart and self-deprecating and sometimes funny. She was vulnerable and raw, and she was tough and capable at the same time, a woman who didn’t let me give her any shit. She could make an insightful comment you’d never thought of in one breath, and a dick joke in the next. She was fucking fascinating.

She’d drunk most of the wine at dinner, too much for her to drive home. So I had to drive her, leaving her car parked at her office for her to pick up the next day. Her eyes went wide at the sight of Luke’s Charger because, honestly, the Charger is a woman magnet. Not that Luke was attracting any women anymore, except Emily.

Even though the car wasn’t mine, it felt good to be driving. Ryan had taught me to drive at fourteen, the two of us spinning around the lot behind Riggs Auto. He’d been fifteen at the time. We Riggs brothers knew cars before we knew almost anything else.

After she gave me directions, Tara was quiet on the way to her place, though it wasn’t an awkward quiet. She looked out the window, her shoulders relaxed against the back of the passenger seat, and she seemed to be thinking something through. I let her work through it.

She lived in an apartment in a low-rise building, a nice enough place for single professionals to live. The front lawn was nicely maintained and there were Corollas and Focuses in the parking lot. I’d just come from prison, then a halfway house in downtown Detroit for cons and addicts. If Tara lived here long enough, she’d probably meet a nice up-and-coming lawyer or a divorced accountant looking to settle down. I pulled into the driveway of Tara’s building and tried not to think about it.

Tara was quiet for another long minute. She didn’t get out of the car. “Jace,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“I’m not going to invite you in, because I already know I’m one of the women you’re going to turn down.”

It was like a stab to the gut, those words. For a second it was so painful I almost closed my eyes. I could picture taking her inside, going to her apartment. Undressing her and laying her on her bed and having her until morning. It would be fire, and we would do fucking everything. And for a little while, she’d be mine.

For a little while.

“I’m not coming in,” I told her.

She blew out a breath. “Okay then,” she said. “I guess I’ll do this here.”

“Do what?”

She surprised me. She unbuckled her seatbelt and crawled over the gear shift, settling herself into my lap. Suddenly she was everywhere, the smell of her skin, the fall of her hair, her knees gripping my hips. My mind went mostly blank, but I had the presence of mind to push the seat back as far as it would go so she wouldn’t bump her ass on the steering wheel.

She pressed into my lap and I almost sucked in a breath as my cock woke up all the way. I put my hands on her hips, whether to push her away or pull her closer I had no idea. She leaned forward and ran her fingertips over the beard on my jaw. I felt that touch in every nerve of my body.

“Tara,” I said.

“Jesus, Jace,” she said, and then she leaned down and kissed me.

It was fire. She cupped my jaw and our mouths opened, my tongue sweeping inside her as she sucked on me. Her long hair fell over us like a veil, and I could smell her clean shampoo. I slid my hand beneath her shirt and up her back, feeling the dip of her spine as she shivered and kissed me harder. Then I ran my hand back down, over the curve of her lower back, then down over her ass, which I gripped hard, pushing her hips into mine, letting her get the friction of my cock against her.

She gasped and moaned into my mouth. She squirmed and moved her hips, changing the angle, getting the pressure harder and more directly on her clit. I was hard as iron and I pressed her into me again, letting her practically feel the pulse of my blood through the clothes we were wearing. I moved my other hand under her shirt, brushing her waist, her belly, then up to one small breast, which I squeezed hard as she moaned into my mouth again. I brushed my thumb over her nipple through her bra and she made a helpless little sound, pressing her clit harder against me.

I moved my hand out from under her shirt. I kept my other hand on her ass, pressing her into me. I broke the kiss, gently cupped her face, and ran my thumb over her reddened lips, pushing it into the warm heat of her mouth. She sucked on it as I leaned in and kissed her neck, letting my beard scrape her soft skin, sucking her flesh into my mouth just enough to make her wince and squirm again.

She sucked on my thumb until I slid it out and put my mouth back over hers, replacing it with my tongue. Then she sucked on that. She tasted sweet as wine, her mouth hot and welcoming, and I wanted everything in there—my tongue, my cock, my come. I wanted her to taste nothing but me. I had never, ever wanted a woman the way I wanted Tara Montgomery. I could have fucked her until the cops came, fucked her until next week, until we both grew old and died.

I cupped her breast through her shirt, pinched her nipple lightly. She made a sharp sound and ground against me, half-breaking the kiss. “You’re going to make me come,” she panted against my mouth.

“Not tonight,” I said against her lips, rubbing my thumb over her nipple again.

She moaned. “Jace, you’re going to kill me.”

“Not tonight,” I said again. I put both my hands on her hips and moved her back an inch, taking the pressure off.

She slumped her shoulders, her hair dangling, and let out a breath, the tension going out of her body. “Can you at least tell me why?”

“Because you don’t want me the way I want you.”

She gave a laugh with only a little humor in it. “I thought we wanted each other the same way.”

“We do,” I said, “and we don’t.” I ran my thumb over her lower lip one last time because her mouth was the sexiest thing I had ever fucking seen. I let the pad of my thumb drag her lip down, let it run softly over the flesh inside. She turned her face toward my thumb, moving to take it in her mouth again, and I pulled away.

“Go,” I told her, not unkindly.

Tara paused for only a second. Then she got off my lap and moved back into the passenger seat. She picked up her purse and opened the passenger door. A second later, it slammed.

And she was gone.