As unbelievable as it was, she felt her toes curl. She was going to go over for him. “TJ,” she choked out, trying to squeeze her legs together to prevent it, but he had a thigh between hers, holding her open as he stroked her. God. “It’s your turn-I can’t-TJ!”
“Christ, I love the sound of my name on your lips,” he murmured, kissing said lips, taking her lower one between his teeth and tugging just enough to have her hiss out a breath. “Say it again,” he demanded softly as he gently but firmly stroked her, and when she helplessly complied, moaning his name, he smiled roughly against her. “Yeah, like that.” He grazed her nipple again, watching from beneath hooded eyes as hers drifted shut in pleasure.
They flew open again when he dropped to his knees.
“Wait! What are you-”
“Just relax. This will only take a few minutes.” When his hands tugged her pants to her thighs, her hands went to his hair. She meant to tug him up, even tightened her fingers in the silky strands to do so, but then he pushed her thighs open as much as he could with her pants at half mast. “You’re so wet,” he whispered, and glided a thumb over her, opening her up for him.
“TJ,” she managed, but then he leaned in and kissed her, there, using his tongue in the exact right rhythm her body needed.
He knew her body better than she did.
It should have shocked her, but she couldn’t obsess over that at the moment because he was making slow stroking motions, holding her hips still for his ministrations, his mouth hot as he sucked and bit, feeding her into a desperate frenzy, and she felt her body tighten, felt every single muscle clenching in sweet agony.
His hair was falling over his forehead as he gave her his fierce, full attention, and unbelievably, as she watched him, she felt the first shudder hit her. “TJ,” she cried out, shocked, overwhelmed that he’d been able to get her there again, right there on the edge.
“You taste as good as I thought you would.” Then he sucked her into his mouth, nudging her right over that edge, and she exploded.
She was halfway back to earth when the knock came again.
“Goddammit, TJ!” came Nick’s hushed voice. “Annie’s going to kill one of those silly girls if you don’t hurry! She’s blaming Not-Abigail.”
“Coming.” TJ cocked his head up at Harley, grinning at the double meaning.
Harley was still leaning against the door, unable to move. TJ righted her clothes for her while she just stood there breathing like a lunatic, shaky as hell. When he’d finished, he leaned into her again, forearms flat on the door on either side of her head, and with his mouth against hers, smiled, eyes warm. “Hi.”
Her lids felt heavy but she managed to look at him. “Hi.”
His hips were pinned to hers, pushing against her so that she could feel every solid inch of what was waiting for her, if they ever got that far. “I can’t believe you-that I-” She closed her eyes again and shook her head, desperately trying to slow her racing heart and put a thought together. “I’ve never been like this, you know. Never have been able to-”
“You’ve never come with a man before?”
Her eyes flew open and she met his steady, patient gaze. “No, I have. Of course I have, I just…not this easily.” She squeezed her eyes shut again. “It’s a problem.”
He frowned as he ran his thumb along her jaw. “Problem?”
“Every time you touch me, I…” She grimaced.
He smiled. “Come?”
“Yes!” She took a drag of air. “You have to stop that.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“You have to! It’s your turn!”
His eyes darkened. “Ever since you told me about that night at Long Lake, I’ve racked my brain trying to remember it, trying to make sure I didn’t hurt you, that your first time was memorable, and I can’t.” He shoved his fingers into his hair, standing there, arms up, taut and strained. “It’s been killing me.”
She gaped at him. “So is that what this has been? You trying to make it up to me?”
He didn’t answer but she saw the truth in his gaze, the soft regret, the heat and desire, and even more devastating, the affection, and it did the unexpected.
It softened her.
For once he seemed unable to read her. He was quietly watching her, and when she didn’t speak, he rubbed his bristly jaw to hers. “Are you okay?”
Funny, but she was. Maybe even better than okay. Sure, this probably was going to end in heartbreak, but that was for the future. She’d always lived for the damn future and she was tired of that. For once she was going to live in the moment.
And enjoy every single second of it.
At least for the next week anyway. Putting her hands to his biceps, she turned them, pressed him to the door, cupping his face to brush her mouth over his jaw. She was trying to find the words to tell him how okay she was, that he had nothing to make up for, but found herself distracted by how his body felt held between the door and hers, how deliciously hard he was.
Everywhere.
Her hands slid down his chest and he groaned. She kept moving, over his belly, heading for gold.
“Goddammit, TJ!” came Nick’s voice through the door. “I’ve been out there alone for fifteen minutes. Those girls have grabbed me at least twice, and I think Annie went looking for her gun.”
“Fuck.” TJ let out a long, shuddery breath and straightened, jaw tight. “Ready?” he asked Harley.
“I am.” She glanced down at the huge bulge in front of his cargoes. “But I don’t know about you.”
“Baby, if I was any more ready, I’d bust out of my skin.” He closed his eyes. “Now don’t talk to me for a minute. I’ve got to picture somebody’s grandma naked.”
She heard the laugh burst out of her as his words bathed over her, infusing her with a power she’d never felt before. She’d never been sexually aggressive, so when she found herself reaching out and running a finger over his zipper, and the hot length beneath it, she shocked herself.
A sound of raw desire tore from deep in his throat. “Harley.”
She did it again.
With another one of those sexy growls, he grabbed her wrist and gulped some air in. “Not helping.” He opened the door and gently shoved her out in front of him. “Go.”
She looked at him over her shoulder, and he groaned again, squeezing his eyes shut.
She felt another surge of that power and confidence, and unable to hold it back, she smiled.
He took it in and helplessly matched it. “Killing me here, Harley. Killing me.”
CHAPTER 22
Outside, TJ and Harley helped Nick load up the coeds and all the gear.
“About fuckin’ time,” Nick whispered over the top of the truck as they tied on the kayaks. “Jesus, what the hell were you two doing in there?”
“Do we need to have the birds and bees talk again?”
Nick rolled his eyes. “But the closet? With Harley? Seriously, what is it with you guys?”
“Hey, I seem to remember you and Annie just last week in the snowcat.”
“That’s different.”
“Really? How?”
“Well…” Nick scratched his head. “We’re old married farts.”
“You just turned forty. Not exactly ready for the senior home.”
“Just trying to keep it interesting. Besides, Annie attacked me. It’s the pregnancy hormones or something. I can’t keep up with her. She’s like a cat in heat. She wakes me up in the middle of the night to-”
“Stop!” TJ covered his ears. “Christ. I do not want to hear this.”
Nick grinned, apparently over his mad. “What happened to the no nookie-on-the-job rule?”
TJ and his brothers had come up with that rule a long time ago, when they’d first started the business. No fucking around on the job.
Literally.
There’d been slip-ups, most notably Cam’s thing with Katie last year, but for the most part, the rule had kept them from being stupid. “Harley isn’t a client.”