bowed beneath the desire born of his touch.
His tongue licked out as his blue eyes pierced her with his intent. Her breath sucked in. Her body coiled tight. And then he licked again, trailing a cool, wet path of erotic sensation in a circle around the first.
“We should go inside,” she murmured, more than ready to let Nate take the exhilaration of the ride to the next level. This was a man who made her want everything. A man who, when merged with her, made her feel invincible. Unstoppable and completely alive.
One large hand snaked around her waist, while the other went to her nape, guiding her closer until their lips met in a soft brush, a teasing introduction after too long apart. Her fingers curled against his thighs, and he angled his head, taking the kiss deeper.
Willing and eager, she opened to him. Moaned against the claiming thrust of his tongue as he filled her mouth. So good but she wanted more than a taste. She wanted him everywhere and all at once. Everything he had. Everything he was.
Something was happening within her, something she knew better than to give into but couldn’t seem to stop.
Take me. Make me yours.
The forbidden wish rose unbidden from the dark shadows of her mind.
Hold me. Forever.
When Nate let go of all his careful restraint, he gave her what she’d never had before. Showed her what she didn’t know existed. It was incredible. Addictive. It was more than the physical. More than the mind-blowing sensation spearing through her at his slightest touch and deepest penetration.
But it wasn’t what they’d agreed to. It wouldn’t last. Only when he held her in his arms and stopped holding back, she felt as if, maybe, just maybe…it could.
Soft and wild. That was Payton. It was the sound of the cry that escaped when he caught her lip between his teeth, held and tugged the slightest bit. The sultry moan when he gripped her bottom, dragged her closer and drove his tongue deep into her mouth. Rocked harder as the muscles of her lean thighs bracketed him, flexing and tensing to the rhythm he’d set—until their breath came in fevered bursts between them. Desperate draws cut short by their need for more contact—deeper contact.
“Please…please…oh, God.”
That’s right. Just like that.
His hands fisted at her hips, seizing the delicate waistband of the panties that kept him from where he wanted to be. Sweet perfection tangled with his tongue, curling around, licking over him, sucking every bit of restraint from a mind that hadn’t had much to begin with.
Control. That was what he was after. But her kiss stroked like a match-head over rough stone, igniting Nate in a flash flame. And there was no controlling the combustible desire when she opened to him, invited him in.
Tearing back from the kiss, he sucked air, tried to get a hold of himself. But all he could see were those soft wild curls swaying from side to side as Payton’s mouth devoured his neck, his ears, his jaw, and then more when her fingers got in on the game—working the buttons of his shirt, with her lips following down his chest. Each heated kiss punctuated by her breathy pleas and silky declarations, “Nate, oh, Nate. What you do to me…want you…need you…don’t stop…”
He couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to stop.
Don’t ever stop.
His eyes opened. Had she said that? Or was it simply where his mind had taken him following his train of thought?
And then, somehow, she’d opened enough of the buttons to get the bulk of his chest free, and the little demon was licking at his nipple again. Her teeth grazing around it and then sucking with enough force the sensation pulled straight from his groin—where her deft fingers tugged at his straining fly and he was once again left panting through gritted teeth as he raced to keep up with her.
He was supposed to be holding the reins! It was Payton’s turn to say “when”.
“No.” Hands clamped on her shoulders, he set her back against the fuel tank.
Her brows pulled together in pained confusion. “Why?”
“No condom.” It was true, though only occurred to him as he’d grasped for an excuse to modify their positioning.
“I need to get on the pill,” she groaned. Her heartrending cry of distress over their predicament would have been comical if his groin hadn’t tightened to the point of pain at the forbidden memory of skin on silky smooth, wet skin. If he weren’t totally caught up in her parted, kiss-swollen lips and the warm pants escaping them at a rate that damn near matched his speeding pulse.
“Upstairs,” she urged, trying to sit up from her reclined position at the head of his bike.
Nate stopped her by running his hands up her splayed legs, still wrapped around him, and issuing a gruff, “Not yet.”
He had a point to make and then, once she got it, he’d take her to the privacy of his apartment and spend the next twelve hours making her scream. But first, he took her hands and then brought them up to the handlebars at either side of her head. “Hold on.”
Her eyes went wide and he waited for it, tasting the satisfaction of a success sure to come. This was where she told him “no”. Where common sense and self-preservation prevailed and she realized she needed to slow down. Be more careful. Only her knees didn’t pull closed, she didn’t put a hand out to stop him.
She did as he’d commanded. She held on.
A part of him let out a cheer at the opportunity to take this fantasy come to life a step further. She’d break soon enough, but for now…
Backing down the seat to make his intent perfectly clear, he fingered a bit of her skirt and then flipped it back to expose her panties.
Turquoise. Lace.
Damp.
“Nate,” she gasped.
Oh, yeah. Here it comes. “We should stop.” Only then, nothing but the anxious shifting of her thighs, the soft musk of her arousal driving him past sanity.
Fine. Desperate times called for desperate measures. “Don’t worry,” he growled. “There isn’t much traffic up here. I doubt anyone will catch us.”
No way he could meet her eyes after that one—no one came up to his private garage level, ever—but he was all about pressing the advantage, so, eyes on those racy panties that should have come with a warning, he slid his arms beneath her legs.
This would do it.
He draped first one supple leg and then the other over his shoulders until he had her so erotically laid out he didn’t know if he could last. But it wouldn’t take much more. It couldn’t.
He was taking back control. Showing her who was in charge—Except then he felt it, the slight dig of those killer-heeled boots at his back. Pulling him in.
Payton, Payton.
His hands tightened around her thighs and, slipping the damp scrap of her panties aside, he sank into her sweetness, tasted her cry and the pulse of her body’s ready desire. It was insane and irrational, and yet—those stunned breathy gasps of pleasure, the widening of those deep brown eyes he couldn’t stop watching—suddenly, he didn’t want her to do anything but go with it.
She was desire mixed with an eager curiosity and sense of adventure that left him panting, straining, and demanded he step up to the challenge and make every damn minute they had before this ended the most exciting she’d ever experienced. He wanted her to let him take her as far as he possibly could.
He licked and kissed, circling outward until he felt her writhe beneath him and then working back in until he earned it again. Plumbing with deep thrusts of his tongue and nibbling with the softest graze of his teeth. He closed his mouth over that little bead