Page 516 of Summer Heat
Had that been jealousy on her face when she snatched the phone number from his hand? He turned his mind back over the signals she’d put out while he sat and talked with Marissa. Slamming glasses. Rattling ice. Restlessly moving back and forth between one end of the bar and the other.
He grinned, and started walking back to the bar. Jealous he knew how to handle.
The parking lot was fairly well cleared out by the time he got back there. A waitress waved at him wearily and he lifted his chin, taking up his spot to wait for Tamara—leaning against the hood of her Buick.
He didn’t have long to wait. She came out minutes later, pulling the pins out of her hair, probably in protection against the cold. It tumbled in a glossy swath to her shoulders. She gave a little shake of her head and rolled her neck.
And then she saw him, leaning against her car under the streetlight, his arms crossed. She stopped dead, and Lance knew that if there had been any other option besides coming toward him, she’d have taken it.
Her pointed little chin jutted up, and she hauled her bag close to her side, as if she were preparing for battle. As she came closer, he let himself simply look at her, as he’d been longing to do all night. He watched her dark hair swing, catching the light from the red neon behind her. He admired the long legs and the easy way she moved.
“Do you need a ride?” she asked, fitting her key into the door lock.
He had to hand it to her, she was cool as the night. He shook his head.
She opened the door, hesitated. “I’m sorry about what I said in the bar,” she said.
Lance nodded, and didn’t move.
“You’re on my car. I can’t go until you move.”
“I know.” He lazily stood up and moved toward her. In her eyes he saw a faint flare of alarm and desire. He didn’t smile this time. “I don’t really want you to go just yet.”
As Lance came toward her, Tamara shrank into the space between the open door and the car, her fingers clutched tight around the top of the window. Only when he moved in close did she realize she’d been neatly trapped. She ducked her head, as if he might go away if she didn’t look at him.
“Come here, sweetheart,” he said, and reached out to put a hand on her waist, sliding it under her jacket where it was warm. With a quick gesture, he found the belt loop on the side of her jeans and laced two fingers through it. With a steady pull, he pulled her close, but not quite in contact with him.
“Lance!” she protested, putting her hands up to push him away. “You’re just mad at me—”
“Not at all.” He found himself tasting his lips, remembering the flavor of her there, on his mouth. “I just want to kiss you.”
“I wish you’d stop teasing me,” she said, squirming a little. She still didn’t look at him.
“Teasing? Is that what I’m doing?” Something thic
k settled over him, her nearness, something heavy and narcotic that blunted any sense or reason he might have had at the beginning. There was only Tamara, smelling faintly of shampoo and hard work and something sweet he couldn’t quite place. “No,” he said quietly, “I don’t think I’m teasing.”
He slid his other hand around her, and spread both hands open on her back. She came up against him, breasts to chest, thighs to thighs, and he heard a quick intake of breath catch in her throat, but she didn’t push away. Not this time.
“You feel nice,” he said, moving his hands lightly. “That’s is what I’ve been thinking of all night, Tamara, you know that? Thinking about how I could get your body next to mine, so I could feel you.” Her back was long and curved and the flesh quivered ever so slightly as he caressed it, but there was resistance all through her.
She tilted her face up. In her eyes shone fear and alertness and hunger, all tangled. Her hands had stopped pushing his chest, and he felt her breath come quicker, lifting her breasts into his rib cage at heady little intervals.
The thick sense of narcotic pleasure grew, and he let his gaze drop down to her mouth, the mouth he’d been imagining all night long, the mouth that had tasted so sweet the other night. Letting his anticipation build, he looked at the small bow on the upper lip, and the plump lower lip that jutted out ever so slightly, and let desire fill his every cell, relishing the building anticipation until it made him dizzy.
When he could no longer bear the sight of those slightly parted lips only inches from his own, when the wish for her mouth against his was larger than the sky overhead, only then did he bend his head. Tilt his mouth. Pause, millimeters away, to let the prickles of need cover his skin while cool air mingled with the heat of their intertwined breath.
His heart thudded in his chest in that split second. Thick washes of blood moved in his veins. He felt her thighs against his own, and the uplifted softness of her breasts and the fine quiver of muscles in her back. It was heady, rich, unbearable.
With an outcast breath, he closed the space between them, settled his lips upon hers. Once again, it was a vivid shock, too big for a kiss.
This time, she made a faint sound and lifted her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. Lance reacted violently, mindlessly. He yanked her hard against him, hips to hips, backed her against the car and kissed her. This time it wasn’t soft or restrained. This time, she opened her mouth, inviting him into the dark cavern, and Lance plunged in, knowing he was lost as soon as he did it. She clutched his head, pulling him closer, and he pressed his whole self into her.
The narcotic pleasure swirled and pulsed and intensified until Lance thought of nothing, past or present, but the taste of her mouth fitting so perfectly with his own. Under his hands, her body softened, and she wriggled closer, making him ache. He explored the parts of her mouth he’d been thinking of and the parts he had not thought to consider. He let his tongue dance with hers, and flitter and plunge, and she met him with exquisite timing, as if she knew what he would do, what he thought, before he did.
He slipped his hands under her shirt in the back and touched the heat of her bare skin. She shuddered, pausing a moment as if the sensation were too rich to encompass without perfect attention.
And then he realized he was extremely aroused. Furiously so. He nipped at her lip a little and she only tightened her fingers against his scalp. He pressed his arousal into the softness of her belly and she only moved restlessly against him.
