to me.”
“How many men have you danced with?”
She laughed. “Um, counting now?”
“Yeah.”
“One.”
He chuckled, his breath fanning over her cheekbone. So intimate to share the air with him like this. Shocking. “Well, then, you don’t have much to compare it to.”
“I guess not. But I don’t think I would compare either way.”
“Oh, yeah? Why is that?”
“You’re in a league of your own, Chase McCormack, don’t you know?”
“Hmm. I have heard that a time or two. When teachers told me I was a unique sort of devil, sent there to make their lives miserable. Or all the times I used to get into it with my old man.”
“Well, you did raise a lot of hell.”
“Yeah. I did. I continue to raise hell, in some fashion. But I need people to see a different side of me,” he said, drawing her even tighter up against him. “I need for them to see that Sam and I can handle our business. That we can make the McCormack name big again.”
“Can you?” she asked, tilting her head up, her lips brushing his chin. The stubble there was prickly, masculine. Irresistible. So she bit him. Just lightly. Scraping her teeth over his skin.
He gripped her hair, pulling her head back. The sudden rush of danger in the movements sending a shot of adrenaline through her blood. This was so strange. Being in his arms and feeling like she was home. Like he was everything comforting and familiar. A warm blanket, a hot chocolate and a musical she’d seen a hundred times.
Then things would shift, and he would become something else entirely. A stranger. Sex, sin and all the things she’d never taken the time to explore. She liked that, too.
She was starting to get addicted to both.
“Oh, I can handle myself just fine,” he said, his tone hard.
“Can you handle me?” she asked.
He slid his hand down to cup her ass, his eyes never leaving hers as they swayed to the music. “I can handle you. However you want it.”
“Hard,” she said, her throat going dry, her words slightly unsteady. She wasn’t sure what had possessed her to say that.
“You want it hard?” he asked, his words sounding strangled.
“Yes,” she said.
“How else do you want it?” he asked, holding her against him, moving in time with the beat. She could feel his cock getting hard against her hip.
“Aren’t you the one with the lesson plan?”
“You’re the one in need of the education,” he said.
“I don’t want tonight to be about that,” she said, and she was as sure about that as she’d been about wanting it hard and equally unsure about how she knew it.
“What do you want it to be about?”
“You,” she said, tracing the sharp line of his jaw. “Me. That’s about it.”
“What do you want from me?” he asked.
Only everything. She shied away from that thought. “Show me what the fuss is about.”
“I did that already.”
Something hot and possessive spiked in her blood. Something she never could have anticipated, because she hadn’t even realized that it lived inside of her. “No. Something you don’t give other women, Chase. You’re my friend. You’re...more to me than one night and an orgasm. You’re right. I could have gotten that from a lot of guys. Well, maybe not the orgasm. But sex for sure. My coveralls aren’t that much of a turnoff. And you could have any woman. So give me you. And I’ll give you me. Don’t hold back.”
“You’re...not very experienced.”
She stretched up on tiptoes, pressing her lips to his. “Did I ask for a gentleman? Or did I ask for hard?”
He tightened his grip on her hair, and this time when she looked up at his face, she didn’t see a stranger. She saw Chase. The man. The whole man. Not divided up into parts. Not Her Friend Chase or Her Lover Chase, but just...Chase.
He was all of these things. Fun and laid-back, intense and deeply sexual. She wanted it all. She craved it all. As hard as he could. As much as he could. And still, it would never, ever be enough.
“Go ahead,” she said, “take me, cowboy.”
She didn’t have to ask twice.
He propelled them both backward, pressing her up against the truck, kissing her deeply, a no-holds-barred possession of her mouth. She hadn’t even realized kissing like this existed. She wasn’t entirely sure what she had thought kissing was for. Affection. A prelude to sex. This was something else entirely. This was a language all its own. Words that didn’t exist in English. Words that she knew Chase would never be able to say.
And her body knew that. Understood it. Responded. As surely as it would have if he had spoken.
She was drowning. In this, in him. She hadn’t expected emotion to be this...fierce. She hadn’t really expected emotion at all. She hadn’t understood. She really had not understood.
But then she didn’t have the time to think about it. Or the brainpower. He tugged on her hair, drawing her head to the side before he pressed his lips to her tender neck, his teeth scraping along the sensitive skin before he closed his lips around her and sucked hard.
“You want it hard?” he asked, his voice rough. “Then we’re going to do it my way.”
He grabbed hold of her hips, turning her so that she was facing the truck. “Scoot just a little bit.” He guided her down to where the cab of the truck ended and the bed began. “Grab on.” She curved her fingers around the cold metal, a shiver running down her spine. “You ever do it like this?” he asked.
She laughed, more because she was nervous than because she thought the question was funny. “Chase, before you I had never even given a guy a blow job. Do you think I’ve ever done this before?”
“Good,” he said, his tone hard, very definitely him. “I like that. I’m a sick bastard. I like the fact that no other man has ever done this to you before. I should feel guilty.” He reached around and undid the top button on her top. “But I’m just enjoying corrupting you.”
He undid another button, then another. She wasn’t wearing a bra underneath the top. Because, frankly, when you were as underendowed as she was, there really wasn’t any point. Also, it made things a little bit more easy access. Though that wasn’t something she had thought about until just now. Until Chase undid the last button and left her completely bare to the cool night air.
“I’m kind of enjoying being corrupted.”
“I
