worth a try since you’re not doing such a hot job releasing yourself.” His voice came out all warm and gravelly because he’d just painted a picture in his mind of her stretched out on his bed, her head thrown back, that mane of thick hair hanging over the side of his mattress as her fingers delved between her spread thighs, stroking, her brown eyes hot and sultry, her breath coming in short, quick pants as she sought gratification.
He reached across the expanse separating them and his fingers encountered hers. She jerked her hand away, as if she felt the same rush he did. “There’s a button…” he said, the backs of his fingers pressing against the curve of her hip. “You have to touch it just right—not too hard.” She turned her head and her delectable mouth was right there. His jeans seemed to shrink, growing tighter across his crotch.
He pressed the button. Nothing happened. He pressed again. He shifted. “Got to find the sweet spot.” The tip of her tongue peeked between her lips and left a moist glistening trail between the plump pinkness of her lips. Did she know she was slowly killing him? He was pretty sure she didn’t. Still stuck. “C’mon, baby, let go,” he coaxed.
The seat belt, if anything, pulled tighter against her chest, throwing her breasts into distracting relief.
“Can you, uh, see what you’re doing?” She sounded breathless.
He was damn glad to hear it. Breathing was an increasing challenge on his end.
“I don’t have to see. It’s all in the touch.”
“Well, obviously you don’t have it any more than I do.”
“Let me try from another angle.” He got out and walked around to the passenger side. He opened the door and leaned in, across her. Her breath gusted warm against his neck even as her scent slipped around him. His arm brushed against her right breast as he leaned in. Totally an accident, but the result was the same. Her indrawn breath seemed to echo the tightening and clenching low in his belly.
He pressed the button and tugged, but it didn’t budge. “I can’t get it out.”
A breeze blew through the open truck doors and a few strands of her hair danced along his jaw.
“Maybe you should try lubricating it.”
“I’ve got just the thing.” He stepped to the toolbox in the back and quickly returned. She was still sitting there strapped in. There was no way he could’ve deliberately jammed the seat belt but this was perfect. Well, kind of perfect because she didn’t look nearly as pissed off as some women would’ve been. Actually, she didn’t look pissed off at all as she tried to release the jammed mechanism.
Why hadn’t he ever noticed before how sexy a woman could look with a seat belt bisecting her chest? He’d have to be a dead man to not see the way it showcased her breasts, tugging her shirt tight over them, her nipples outlined in taut ball-tightening relief. He wasn’t anywhere close to dead.
“WD-40,” he said.
He reached between her and the seat belt to spread a clean work rag over her thigh and hip. “Scooter’s already got me paying for one outfit. I don’t want to buy another. By the way, are you always getting into jams?”
She sputtered…actually sputtered, but her brown eyes sparkled with laughter and desire. “You…I…Ohhh.”
“Hmm. Should I take that as a yes or a no?”
“You should take that as a you are a bad luck omen. I never had these kinds of problems before.” But there was no real ire in her voice, and her eyes had darkened.
“You’re debunking all kinds of myths for me. I expected a wedding planner to be more even-tempered.”
“You seem to bring out the best in me.”
“Ah, am I tapping into your inner bad girl?”
She shook her head, sending her thick fall of hair on that sinuous slide over her shoulders that he found so hot. “I don’t have an inner bad girl.”
He didn’t believe it for a minute. “How disappointing.” The flash of heat in her eyes told a different story. “I think you’ve got plenty of bad girl just waiting to be released.”
“You are so wrong.”
“Am I?” He abandoned the seat belt and reached up to wrap a thick curl around his finger. “Are you sure? There aren’t any wicked bad-girl thoughts running through your head right now?”
“Maybe one…or two.”
She parted her luscious lips and tilted her chin in a classic invitation to a kiss.
“Ah, Natalie has a naughty side…”
HEAVEN HELP HER but she wanted to kiss Beau Stillwell. Ever since she’d walked in and seen him nearly naked, she’d wanted this. It was as if he were some dark angel sent to torture her. And if she hadn’t wanted him before, his gravel-filled “Naughty Natalie” did the trick.
Beau released her hair to trace the line of her jaw with one finger. He angled his head and her breath quickened in anticipation. She slid her hand around the back of his neck, her fingers testing his corded muscles.
He brushed his mouth over hers. Sampling. Coaxing. Teasing. Nice. She kissed him back. A civil exchange.
Totally unexpected, he swept his tongue against her lower lip and then dragged it into his mouth between his own lips—a delicious faint scrape of teeth and then a sucking.
“You have the most delectable, decadent mouth,” he murmured and then proceeded to make delectable, decadent love to her mouth. She strained into him. Restricted by the seat belt, she pulled him closer.
They nipped, licked and then segued into hot, hungry, openmouthed kisses. She moaned in the back of her throat, a wordless entreaty. His big hands found her breasts, and nothing had ever felt as good as his mouth on hers and his hands cupping her through her clothing, his palms rubbing against her erect points. She arched her back, pushing her nipples harder into his hands. Hungry. So hungry.
He released her mouth and unleashed a tormenting torrent of kisses down her neck, his tongue dipping and delving along her collarbone. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. She tugged his head further down and then his mouth was on her breast, mouthing her through her cotton spandex T-shirt and her bra. He caught her tip in his teeth, and the light abrasion sent her into the stratosphere. Her eyes fluttered closed when he drew her into his wet mouth, suckling her through the cloth.
Where or when it would’ve ended she’d never know, because in the very dim recesses of her still-functioning mind, she registered the sound of an approaching vehicle.
She pushed against his shoulders, her breathing frantic gasps. “Someone’s coming.”
A little more time and it could’ve been her. What, what, what had she been thinking?
His blue eyes glittered when he raised his head and looked beyond her shoulder through the back window. He shook his head slightly, as if clearing it. “Tilson Dobbs. He’s a retired Marine who’s handling security for the place. I’ll go check in with him.” She was still trapped by the seat belt. He glanced down her chest to
