Page 21 of Slow Burn (Driven 5)
“Nice try, City, but I’m already well aware of that rule,” Becks says as he lowers his sunglasses back down over his eyes with one hand while the other places my phone in my hand. He takes a few steps away from me, smirk still owning his mouth, but I can see his arousal as crystal clear as the sky above me. And hell if he hasn’t flipped me on like a fucking switch and is leaving me high and dry without giving me the electricity needed to light me up.
I go to say his name, mouth opening and closing a few times before I just give up and shut it.
We stare at each other a moment longer, my sexual frustration obvious and his point made with a victorious grin before he nods at me. “Good luck with your client tonight,” he says, and then disappears around the driver’s side of the car. I step over to the back of my car as I hear his engine rev before he pulls forward through the open spot in front of him and leaves.
And I stand there for a moment longer, my body amped up on adrenaline and my desire for him a mixture of necessity and damnation.
Well played, Daniels. Well played.
Hell, if strings aren’t looking pretty damn appealing right now. I want to tie him up, get my fill of him, and then leave him bound up with need like he just did to me.
Chapter 9
BECKETT
I let the hot water sluice down my back as I soap up and clean the ocean’s salt from my skin. The wave sets were pretty damn impressive this morning. Nothing like the ones I learned from at the beaches up in Santa Cruz, but decent nonetheless. Add to that the forty minutes I put into running on the beach’s waterline after surfing, and I’m a happy man.
Well, I’d be helluva lot happier if I were standing here with Haddie, soaping up that ridiculous body of hers. Sliding sudsy hands over her smooth skin and perfect curves, and then sliding something else inside her until we’re both panting, spent, and needing to soap back up again.
Goddamn.
The onslaught of thoughts and desires that the memory of that body invokes has me hard as a rock with no relief in sight.
Not if I can have anything to do about it.
Her body might be the holy frickin’ grail of perfection but something in her eyes said what’s inside doesn’t jibe. The confidence she exudes—that she used to own like her golden tanned skin—is tinged with something now. Whether it’s sadness or grief … who the fuck knows? But the glimpses are there when that wall she lives behind slips every once in a while. And when it slips, so do the connections she’s made to everyone around her.
Well, everyone but Rylee, and that’s to be expected, them being best friends and all. Just like Colton and me.
And hell if I don’t miss that asshole. Happy for him that he found happiness with Ry after all of the shit that’s happened to him, but damn if I don’t miss his sarcastic mouth and annoying micromanagement at work.
I pull myself from my thoughts when I realize my dick is still flying full staff in my hand from thinking about Haddie. Then why in the hell has my mind veered to Colton?
Dude, that’s fucked-up. I laugh out loud into the shower stall, knowing I must be stressed over all the preparations at work for the upcoming race season if I’m about to ease the ache from Haddie and my mind shifts gears halfway through to Colton.
Thoughts back to where they should be, on sweet, sweet Haddie, I roll my head back as my hand begins to stroke, adding only a small measure of the pleasure that Haddie gave me that night—when I resisted, tried to do the right thing to prevent what could be a fiasco of catastrophic proportions if our one night together went sideways.
Sideways. Hm, now that’s an option when it comes to bending that sweet-ass body of hers.
I close my eyes and recall the purr from deep in her throat that she emitted right before she came, how her fingers tightened on my body, fingernails digging in when she let go.
I can feel my body tensing, my orgasm gearing up to release some of the rampant need that seeing Haddie the other day made resurface. It’s lingered persistently, like a ghost, always reminding me of every damn thing about her.
And then Rex starts barking like a damn maniac.
At first I force myself to block him out, focus on the task at hand, but then realize that someone is at the door. Are you fucking serious? I stand there midstroke as I try to decide whether I should finish or should just chalk it up as a sign that I need to wait because I’ll have the real thing soon enough.
Optimistic thinking at its finest. Even though the woman I’m after has proven more complex than a goddamn Rubik’s Cube.
Fuck. Waiting it is, then. I turn off the shower just as the doorbell rings again. I can barely hear it above Rex’s howling and tail thumping against the wall by the front door. It’s wagging, so it must be someone he knows at least.
“Just a minute!” I yell as I rub the towel over my head momentarily before wrapping it around my waist. I make my way to the door, mentally telling my dick to downgrade its status, although all thoughts of Haddie and the boner I just had completely vanish when I see the smile on the other end of the peephole.
“Shit,” I sigh as I reach out to grab the door handle. I
make a quick check that I’m not pitching a tent beneath my towel, and my own smile widens without preamble. The door swings open, and she gives me a once-over, up and down with a smart shake of her head. Before I can even say hello, she’s barreling into the house right past me.
“It’s ten a.m., and your lazy butt is just getting in the shower? Is that how I raised you, Beckett Dixon?” She breezes in, and I know she’s serious because she’s using my middle name. I hold back a laugh because I can see her bloodhound nose trying to scent if I’m here alone or have had any females in the house as of late.
