Page 528 of Summer Heat
Tamara stepped out and her knees nearly buckled. Lance grabbed her hand. “Come on,” he said.
She made no argument.
Chapter Ten
As they walked away from the carnival, Tamara was aware of her heart racing a little in anticipation. Lance took her hand in his, and brushed against her, close, sending the aching sense of awareness up another notch. His hand was big and callused. He stroked her thumb restlessly.
They didn’t talk. The only sound was gravel crunching underfoot, and the fading music of the carnival, and yet it didn’t feel awkward to her. Her nerves hummed with the imagined pleasure of touching him, as much of him as she could—and letting him touch her in return.
He had parked his car between two semitrailers behind the grocery store. “Odd parking space,” Tamara remarked. But it wasn’t, not for their purposes.
“I don’t like to leave her out anywhere. The trucks hide her.” He let go of her hand to unlock the door, and a thread of reason wound through her sensually hazed brain. Was she really going to neck with a man in a parked car?
The heat between them was vivid as a bonfire—Tamara knew they wouldn’t get out of the parking lot, not with each of them in such an aroused state.
She hesitated, her hand on the door. “Lance—”
He kissed her. His hand clasped her head, holding her close for the heady, fierce onslaught of his mouth. It left her dizzy when he raised his head, his eyes burning dark. “Ladies first,” he said. The raw need in his voice was the last straw.
Without a second thought, Tamara slid in, aware of a heady, almost drunken dizziness, and a roaring in her ears.
Lance climbed in beside her and locked the door with a strange deliberation of movement. Then he slid from behind the steering wheel with purpose, making a low, warm sound of anticipation, and kissed her—full mouth, full heat, full desire.
His passion sent her heart pounding into overdrive, and she clutched his shoulders, gasping for breath, her nerves clamoring for the feel of him, for his hands, his mouth, his body against hers. All night she’d been feeling aroused as he held her, as their bodies brushed and crushed and rocked together. All night she’d been wanting to kiss him, to feel his hands on her, to feel his body with her own hands.
And now she had the chance. As he thrust his tongue hungrily into her mouth, as she met those furious, deep kisses with a fierceness of her own, she found the buttons of his shirt and quickly released them so she could put her hands on his skin. On his broad, strong chest.
Supple flesh, lightly dusted with almost silky hair, met her questing fingers. She explored the planes of collarbone and the curve of ribs and the powerful netting of muscles over his flat stomach. Feeling stymied when her fingers tangled in the shirt, she made a sound of frustration and tugged the fab
ric from the waistband of his jeans, then plunged her hands under his shirt again.
A deep noise rumbled from his throat at her actions. His hand on her thigh gripped tight and his tongue plunged deeper, his other hand cupping her skull. He kissed her as if he were drowning, and her mouth the lifeboat, with a kind of desperate and mindless need that sent thrilling jolts of excitement through her body.
He felt so good, so right—the muscles of his waist, the sleekness of his flesh, the soft hair on his chest, the pinpricks of his nipples against her palms. She moved slightly, to kiss his chin, and his neck, and his chest. It smelled deeply of night and sin and promise—a man’s smell. Never in her life had she felt this kind of mindless, pure hunger for a man. Never.
He gripped her head in his hands. “You’re making me crazy, Tamara,” he said in a growling voice. “Crazy,” he repeated. “I want to feel you.”
Tamara let go of him. “I want you to,” she said, amazed and aroused by her own boldness. She began to struggle out of her jacket, and while her arms were trapped in the sleeves, he covered her breasts with his hands.
She went still, electrified by the sensation. As he stroked her breasts, dizziness swirled through her mind, and a pulse beat in her lips and breasts and between her thighs, at once urgent and slow. He bent his head with a growl and put his mouth over one nipple, soaking the cloth of her shirt and her bra with enough heat that she gasped. With his teeth, he gently seized the aroused point and nibbled lightly. Tamara cried out, and without letting go, Lance shoved the jacket from her arms, nibbling and nudging until she thought she would scream in pleasure.
The jacket went flying into the back seat. Lance pushed her against the far door. It was dark but for a single ray of light cutting a path over the top of one of the trucks, and very quiet.
His hands, both hands, covered her breasts, as he lifted his head and kissed her. Lightly this time, with that devastating, exquisite talent. His hands, too, moved with expertise. He slid his palms over her flesh, spreading his fingers to caress and weigh and gauge. He stroked her nipples as Tamara had stroked his, with his open palm, and Tamara moaned softly against his lips, plunging her hands under his shirt to feel his skin, to touch his back and his hair and his beautiful face.
He spread kisses over her face, pressing to her eye, her forehead, her chin, her cheeks, her lips again. And his thumbs and fingers splayed over her aching breasts, teasing and kneading ever so gently.
And then he made a deep groan, and reached for the hem of her shirt. Tamara didn’t think, she only moved forward, away from the door, and let him pull it off of her, lifting her arms so he could tug it from her body. Carelessly he tossed it over his shoulder, his face sober with intent.
He lifted his head, and Tamara felt her breath go still and deep and very far away as he looked at her in the dimness. With the tips of his outstretched fingers, he skimmed the flesh over her bra, tracing the curves from her shoulders to the edge of the utilitarian undergarment she wore, then pressed a trail of nibbling kisses to the path his fingers had taken. A lock of his hair brushed her chin. He kissed her neck, her jaw, her mouth, and lifted his head to look at her.
Pausing, as if to give her time to tell him to stop.
Tamara gazed back at him and touched his face, put her fingers on his mouth. “All I wanted, all night, was to touch you, and have you touch me,” she whispered. “It’s even better than I imagined.”
He did not smile, but only shifted his gaze, and moved his hands to her shoulders. Very slowly he slid her bra straps down over her arms, stripping the fabric from her breasts an inch at a time, until she was unveiled to his gaze. She trembled as he unhooked the garment and flung it, too, carelessly over his shoulder.
It was not cold, but she shivered when his hands rose again, when his bare fingers touched her bare breasts, flickered over the tips. When he opened his palms and took the weight of her into his hands.
