natural, seeming to blend with the rhythm of their kiss as he licked a path down to the very edge of her dress, then lifted a hand and flicked open the top button, then the second.
Until he revealed the edge of her bra and licked around the edge of that, his tongue tantalizing the sensitive, aroused skin there.
She rolled her hips forward, the tension low in her midsection drawing up even tighter, that place between her legs slick and sensitive. He moved the hand on her hip lower, around to grip her butt, pulling her hard against him. And then the world burst into brilliant color behind her eyelids. She pressed her hips forward, rubbing herself against that hard ridge in his jeans as wave after wave of pleasure rolled over her, as internal muscles she hadn’t been aware of before clenched tight.
She buried her face into the curve of his neck, a hoarse cry on her lips as she shivered through the onslaught of release that seemed to be unraveling her, pulling at some previously unseen thread deep inside of her, undoing everything that had been Olivia Logan before. Leaving behind a worn, threadbare stranger that was sweating and panting in a man’s arms.
In a truck. On the side of the road.
And then it hit her. Fully hit her.
She had been making out with Luke Hollister on the side of the road.
She’d...
She scrambled out of his hold, pinning herself against the passenger door, her heart pounding so hard she was afraid it was going to break into a million pieces as it slammed itself against her breastbone. As if it were trying to escape, or trying to destroy itself, to release her from this moment. From this humiliation.
She grabbed hold of the door handle and opened the door. And before she could fully think her next action through, she jumped out of the truck and started to walk back toward her house. Away from Luke.
Away from the kind of insanity she knew had the power to ruin her carefully laid plans.
LUKE WAS OUT of the truck and heading after Olivia before he had time to process what had just happened.
They had been kissing, of that much he was certain. An explosion of restraint that had reached its breaking point. At least on his end.
He was pretty sure he wasn’t the only one, though. Judging by her response to the kiss. If he wasn’t mistaken, she’d had an orgasm. And then she had tumbled out of his truck like he was an ax murderer chasing her down, and not the man who had just made her come.
“Olivia,” he called after her retreating figure. He could just barely make out the shape of her, fluttery and small in the darkness.
She didn’t stop moving away from him.
“Olivia Logan,” he called again, taking three steps and catching up with her, grabbing hold of her arm and stopping her progress. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m walking home,” she said, jerking out of his grasp and starting down the road again.
“You are not,” he said. “Get your ass back in the truck.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she said. “I’d rather take my chances out here than get back into that truck with you.”
“Don’t do that,” he said. “Don’t act like I did something to you that you didn’t like. Don’t hide behind all your prickles and indignation. We both know you wanted that.”
She laughed, a kind of hysterical hoot, her brown eyes glittering in the pale light. Her hair was a wreck, and he’d place a bet her cheeks were flushed from the pleasure he’d just given her. She looked like a woman who’d been ravished. He imagined she wouldn’t like that one bit. “I did not want that. I have actively avoided things like that my entire life. Nothing in me wanted that.”
“Then why did you respond the way you did?”
“Good night, Luke,” she said, whirling away from him again and stalking down the road.
“It’s dangerous out here. You can’t see, any car driving on the road isn’t going to be able to see and you’re basically cougar bait.”
“The way I see it, it’s one predator or another, Luke, and I’m happy to take my chances on the ones with claws.”
“Olivia, I would never do anything you didn’t want,” he called after her.
She turned toward him. “I’m just going to go home,” she said, her voice tremulous.
“Let me take you home, Liv,” he said through gritted teeth. “The last thing I want is for something to happen to you because I let you run off having a tantrum.”
“I am not having a tantrum,” she said, stomping her foot in the dirt.
“Honey,” he said, “this is a tantrum. And I’m about over it. So either you get back into the truck, or I’m going to throw you over my shoulder and carry you back.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me, kiddo. Ask yourself if there’s one threat I haven’t made good on. I might be a jerk, Olivia, but I’m an honest one. And I swear to you if you don’t get that pretty ass of yours back in my truck I will put it there myself.”
He wasn’t bluffing. There was no way in hell he was letting her wander around in the forest without a flashlight, with her purse back in his truck... Hell, he doubted she even had her cell phone.
She stood for a moment, and there was no making out her facial expression in the darkness. But he could sense her rage. Had a pretty good idea she was staring daggers through him, even though she probably couldn’t see him very well, either.
“Don’t touch me,” she said, walking back toward the truck, careful not to brush him as she went past.
“I’d rather stick my hand in a badger den,” he commented, walking behind her.
“I’d happily watch.”
She climbed back into the truck and shut the door behind her. And he waited until she was buckled up before he got in and started the engine up again. He checked for headlights, and then pulled back out onto the highway.
His pulse was pounding, and only once they were back on the road did he realize that he was still hard and aching from that kiss. Olivia had come, but he had not. And he wanted to.
He gritted his teeth. He needed to get himself under control. Needed to get his libido reined in. Because he didn’t do things like this. He didn’t go after women who didn’t want him; he didn’t work this hard for a simple orgasm.
And he sure as hell wasn’t going to try and coerce Olivia into his bed. He could have most any woman back at the bar that he wanted. Why was he going to get embroiled in something this complicated? Sure. He wanted her. But he wanted a lot of things he didn’t have.
Life was tricky enough at the moment. He was not going to add
