That gritty purr was gone from his voice when he said, “Hey, I’m a musician. We all sleep around.”
“I’m a librarian,” she blurted out, unable to take the sexual tension entangled with the biting edge of male fury. “Everyone knows we’re repressed old ladies with too many cats.”
A chuckle. “Clever, Molly.” Again, he stretched out his legs, or tried to. There was simply too much of him to fit in her little car. “You know, if I go into a store and buy condoms, it’ll be all over the tabloids tomorrow that I fucked a local.”
She felt her cheeks heat again. At this rate, she was going to have third-degree burns by the time they got home. “Wear a disguise.” She fought to keep her breathing shallow, but it was no use—Fox’s scent had bonded with every molecule of air in the car.
“Where am I supposed to get a disguise, Miss Molly?” The teasing question was abrasive silk over her skin.
Biting down on her lower lip, she told herself to focus. “There’s a cap in the backseat, sunglasses in the glove compartment.”
He found the items, tried them on before ripping off the sunglasses. “I wear these girly things and my cock will shrivel up.” It was a growl. “Cap’ll do. Long as they don’t notice the ink.”
“Just act shady,” Molly said, her breasts straining against the lace of her bra, the fabric rasping against the taut tips. “The clerk will be so worried you’re planning to shoplift or do something else nefarious”—Nefarious? Really, Molly!—“that he won’t notice anything else.” As long as the clerk wasn’t female.
No woman would ever miss a single tiny detail about Fox.
“You think I can look shady?” A single finger traced the line of her jaw.
Her body wanted to whimper. “You have five o’clock scruff,” she managed to say past the sheer want choking her, “you’re dressed in black with a ball cap pulled low, and your left arm is covered in scary tattoos.” In truth, she found the ink beautiful, wanted to explore the artwork slowly and in intricate detail. “Yes, I think you can do shady.”
A chuckle, deep and low. “You’re mean under the blushes. I like it—I’ll also like licking up that blush from every inch of your body… after I use my tongue to get you off.”
Molly forgot how to breathe.
When she didn’t respond, he said, “Not even a little peek? I’ll start to think you don’t like the look of me.”
Instinctive self-defense had her saying, “You know exactly how gorgeous you are.”
She caught his shrug out of the corner of her eye.
“It’s a face. It’s mine. I don’t want to kiss my own face. I want to kiss yours—while we’re skin-to-skin and I have my cock balls-deep in you.”
Heart ricocheting against her ribs and fingers bone-white on the steering wheel, she pulled into the convenience-store lot. “Go.”
He left without another word, jogging to the door. She wondered if he really was that hungry for her. As hungry as she was for him. Until she had to convince herself not to simply drive to the darkest part of the lot and crawl into the lap of the beautiful, dangerous man she’d never expected to touch. It would take less than a minute to undo his zipper, nudge her panties aside, and—
“Jesus, Molly.” She pressed her forehead to the steering wheel and squeezed her thighs together.
It only intensified the ache between her legs.
They were taking precautions, she thought, trying to rationalize what she was about to do. She wasn’t drunk. Neither was he. They weren’t being stupid about it… but it was still going to be a one-night stand.
She took a deep breath to settle her frantic thoughts, but the lingering scent of Fox, hot and dark, seeped into her, derailing any attempt at coherent thinking. Undoing her seat belt, she opened the door and stepped out into the cold chill of the night, the soft breeze causing the layers of fringe on her silly, pretty dress to sway softly.
Could she do this and look at herself in the morning?
The answer was scarily easy. Every woman was allowed a Fox in her life, allowed one night of unrestrained passion… wasn’t she? This would be hers. When it was over, she’d put the wild, unruly part of her away forever—the part that came from her father and would otherwise destroy her life, as Patrick Buchanan had destroyed their family.
At least she was single, wouldn’t be breaking anyone’s heart by sleeping with Fox.
The convenience-store door opened on the heels of her decision, to reveal a man with a sinful smile and a body made to give a woman decadent pleasure. “Ready?”
“Yes.” Yes.
The rest of the drive home passed by in what felt like seconds. Parking her car in the underground garage of the low-rise building in which she had her apartment, she walked with Fox to the elevator.
He put his hand on her lower back as they entered it, sending a jolt up her spine, but his attention was on their surroundings. “You need better security.” Narrowed eyes scanned the darkened parking garage. “It wouldn’t be that hard to bypass the scanner to the garage.”
It startled her, the edge of concern in his tone. “How do you know that?”
Hand still on her lower back, his lips curled up in a teasing half smile. “You’d be surprised what a boy can learn at boarding school.”
Molly couldn’t imagine him as a boy. His every action shouted strong, confident, adult male. “This is me.” Stepping out on the third floor, she headed down the hallway, her heels clicking on the uncarpeted surface and her nerves doing a stuttering dance.
“You know your neighbors?” He leaned against the white-painted wall as they got to her door at last—the one right at the end.
Unlocking the door with fingers that wanted to tremble, she pushed it open and flicked on the light to reveal the spacious entryway that flowed into an open-plan living room and kitchenette. “Yes,” she said, dropping her purse on the wooden bench where she usually sat to slip on her shoes. It was an effort to find words through the haze in her brain. “We keep an eye on each other.”
Fox came in behind her. “Fuck, yes.” The sound of the door being kicked shut on that harsh exhalation, strong male hands on her hips, hot breath against the curve of her neck.
She went motionless, her pulse in her mouth.
Tugging her hair free from its twist, then nudging the heavy wildness aside to bare her nape, Fox said, “I can’t wait to taste you,” in a voice that was pure whiskey and sex and hard rock.
Then those lips, that divine, delectable mouth, was on her. She shivered as he slid one arm around her waist, crushing her to him. His lips were firm and demanding on her, his stubbled jaw scraping deliciously over her skin. And that ring, it brushed against her in cool strokes that made her imagine what his kiss would feel like in other, more private places… places no other man had kissed.
Fox thrust a jean-clad thigh between her own at that second, forcing her to keep her legs spread. The denim was abrasive against her sensitive skin, the flex of his thigh threatening to send her over. “Fox.”
Making a sound of pleasure deep in his throat, he sucked on the curve of her neck and tightened his grip. He was pure muscle and strength underneath skin tanned a golden brown, his erection pushing against her lower back in a blatant demand that made it clear who held the reins. There was nothing of softness about Fox. When he moved onstage, it was all coiled power and deadly grace.
And now he’d focused that aggressive intensity on Molly.
“The dress,” he said, biting gently at the skin he’d sucked. “Take it off.”
Her fingers shook as she lifted them to undo the hidden zip at the side. “It—” Clearing her throat, she tried to speak past the arousal and nerves strangling her vocal cords. She had no idea what she was doing, Fox utterly out of her league. “It has to come over my head,” she managed to get out.