dragged his palm with painful slowness up her skin, raising goose bumps in its wake, his eyes never leaving the road. And yet, even without glancing at her once, he seemed to know the havoc he was wreaking on her mind… and her body.
Traffic moved forward another couple of feet, and suddenly Tessa wasn’t in such a hurry to arrive at their destination.
He continued to tease with light strokes up… down… across, never quite reaching his destination. Eventually, she couldn’t take it any longer and her eyelids slammed shut, unable to concentrate on anything other than what Clay was doing, how he made her feel.
And it was incredible. She trusted him not to go so far that he would get them both arrested, even as she turned her body over to him, allowing him to do things she never would have let anyone else do.
Because she did trust him.
Wanted him.
Despite their past.
And when he got them home she was going to show him exactly how much.
His fingers slid between her thighs and urged them a few inches apart with a gentle pressure that she immediately responded to, although she did have enough common sense to reach down and flip the fabric of her skirt down over his hand and her knees.
“No fair, Tessa.” He ventured higher, wringing an unwilling moan from her throat, her head lolling back against the seat. “I’m beginning to think I should have chosen the car option.”
She felt the vehicle move forward again. Each time it did, Clay seemed to grow a little bolder.
When he withdrew his hand completely, though, her eyes jerked open in disappointment.
“Truck,” he murmured, as a big vehicle rumbled forward and moved twenty yards ahead of them.
Thinking she’d give him a taste of his own medicine, she twisted on her seat and moved her hand to the gearshift, sliding her fingers over the top of it and then down its stem, watching him. He wasn’t looking but she knew he was aware of exactly what she was doing—of the game she was playing.
“Dangerous.”
“No more dangerous than what you were doing,” she whispered.
“I’m driving.”
Yeah, driving me insane. She didn’t say it out loud, though, because it sounded stupid, even to her own ears. But it was true. And Clay knew it was. He always did somehow, even when she’d tried to hide how devastating his touch was to her. And when he’d shown up at her dorm room she’d kept the door between them, knowing that if he touched her it was all over.
It always would be for her.
That fact should make her wary, should make her back away from him emotionally, even now. That’s what she was trying to do, actually. Accept that they’d always been more than compatible physically, even if they weren’t good as life partners.
She needed to be self-sufficient. He’d tended to smother… trying to take care of her, even when she’d longed to do things herself.
Traffic opened up suddenly, and Clay spent the next few minutes threading his vehicle through the congestion, making several turns before finally veering into the parking garage of what looked like an exclusive apartment building.
Of course it would be.
Even as the thought ran through her mind, she banished it. The brownstone she lived in wasn’t exactly a pauper’s abode, thanks to Holly’s family. Besides, tonight wasn’t about houses or money or anything else. It was about her needs and Clay’s needs and how they could come together to find a mutually satisfying solution.
The second he pulled his car into a space and shut off the engine he threaded his fingers through her hair and turned her face up for his kiss. And as soon as his lips met hers she knew there was no turning back. She and Clay were destined to reignite the fires of the past. She just hoped that when it was all over she’d have the strength and courage to put them out again.
TOUCHING HER MADE something inside him come alive.
And at the moment he wasn’t touching anything except her hand as they rode up in the elevator. But she was gripping back as if her very life depended on maintaining that contact.
If someone had told him four years ago that he’d find himself riding to his apartment with this woman, he’d have said they were crazy.
But maybe he was the crazy one. Setting himself up for another big knock to the gut.
Nope. No gut involved. Just that single night of summer madness he’d been craving for what seemed like ages. Nothing below skin level would be involved. Because anything she touched would be on the surface. No emotions. No longing. Just skin-to-skin contact that he could wash off with a single quick spray of his showerhead. Just like soap or shampoo. Once applied, he would simply rinse it all off again.
But didn’t most of the instructions on those packages say “Lather, rinse… repeat”?
Maybe one night should become two.
He tugged her closer, until their arms were touching. As long as he was smart about this, he could have sex with her as many times as he wanted and not be affected. After all, when Lizza had finally filed for divorce, it hadn’t hurt that much. In fact, he’d been relieved in some ways, except for the fact that Molly had been left without a mom for the most part.
He’d had superficial sex since then. Not very often, because he did have a daughter to think of. But the times he had, he’d been able to roll from beneath the woman’s sheets and get on with his life without a backward glance.
Except he hadn’t brought them to his place. He and Lizza had never even lived in this apartment. His home had become sacrosanct… a place reserved for him and Molly only.
So what was different now? He was about to violate his own unspoken rule: no liaisons of the sexual kind happened in the apartment. Ever.
Madness.
To keep from trying to rationalize things beyond that one word, he let go of her hand and draped his arm around her shoulders, allowing his fingertips to glide across the bare skin of her arm. On the second pass he moved the contact forward just a couple of inches, so that he was still on her arm, but the backs of his knuckles grazed the outside of her breast as he made his way back down. A shiver went through her.
The elevator stopped on his floor before he could do anything more.
And there was still a whole lot he wanted to do.
He spun her out of the elevator and against the door of his apartment, settling his mouth on hers in a way that he hoped left no question about what they were going to do. It wasn’t as if he thought she was going to angle for a cup of coffee and then flee for her life. But why take any chances?
When her palms landed on his butt, fingers splayed
