“The little bastards.” He dropped his hand. “No wonder you’re so ornery.”
Was she ornery? Maybe. “What’s your excuse?”
She felt his gaze touch her face for several moments before he answered, “I’m not as ornery as you.”
“Right,” she scoffed.
“Well, I wasn’t until you moved to town.”
“Long before I moved to town you were giving Sheriff Potter hell.”
“Growing up in this town was sometimes hell.”
“I can imagine.”
“No, you can’t.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “People have wondered my whole life if I was going to lose it like my mom and kill someone. Or if I’d grow up and be like my dad. That’s a hard thing for a kid to live with.”
“Do you ever worry about that?”
He shook his head. “No. I never do. My mother’s problem, one of them, was that she never should have put up with a guy who repeatedly cheated on her. And my old man’s problem was he never should have married at all.”
“So your solution is to avoid marriage?”
“That’s right.” He sat beside her on the railing and took her hand into his. “Kind of like you solved your fat problem by avoiding carbs.”
“It’s different. I’m a hedonist and I have to avoid more than just carbs.” At the moment, her hedonist nature felt the warmth of his palm spread up her arm and across her chest.
“You’re avoiding sex too.”
“Yes, and if I fall off either of those wagons, it could get ugly.”
“How ugly?”
He was suddenly too close and she stood. “I’d binge.”
“On sex?”
She tried to pull her hand away, but he tightened his grasp. “Or carbs.”
He grabbed the bottom of her sweatshirt with his free hand. “On sex?”
“Yeah.”
Through the darkness that separated them, he flashed a white seductive smile. “How ugly will you get?” Slowly, he drew her toward him until she stood between his thighs.
The warmth of his hand, the touch of his thighs, and his wicked smile conspired to pull her in, suck out her will to resist, and shove her headfirst off the wagon. Her breasts felt heavy, her skin tight, and the relentless ache that Mick had created the first time he had kissed her hit her now, sharp, painful, and overwhelming.
“You don’t want to know.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I think I do.”
Chapter 11
Ithought you were going to keep your tongue out of my mouth.”
Mick glanced up into Maddie’s face bathed in moonlight, and he reached for the zipper on the front of her sweatshirt. “I guess I’ll just have to put my tongue somewhere other than your mouth.” He pulled the zipper down, and the sweatshirt parted to give him a glimpse of her deep cleavage. She wasn’t wearing anything beneath, and his testicles tightened as the pale swells of her naked breasts were revealed a few inches from his face.
“Someone will see us,” she said and grabbed his wrist.
“The Allegrezzas are in Boise.” He pulled until the zipper parted at her waist.
“What about the neighbors on the other side?” she asked, but she didn’t stop him from pushing the edges of the sweatshirt aside. Her breasts were firm and pale white in the moonlight, her puckered nipples an erotic outline in the darkness.
“No one is out, but even if they were, it’s too dark to see anything.” He slid his hands around her waist to the small of her back and brought her closer. “No one can see me do this.” He bent forward to kiss her belly. “Or this.” He kissed her cleavage.
“Mick.”
“Yeah?”
She combed her fingers through the sides of his hair; her nails scrapping his scalp sent a tingling pleasure down his spine. She took short choppy breaths and said, “We probably shouldn’t do this.”
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No.”
“Good. I’ve found a place to put my tongue.” He opened his mouth and rolled her puckered nipple beneath his tongue. She smelled like sugar cookies tonight and she tasted a bit like sugar cookies too.
“Mmm,” she moaned and pulled him closer. “That feels good, Mick. It’s been so long.” She was a talker, but then, he could have guessed that about her. “Don’t stop.”
Mick had no intention of stopping, not when he was doing exactly what he’d wanted to do to her since the day he saw her at the hardware store. He slid one hand from around her back to cup her breast. “You’re a beautiful woman.” He pulled back far enough to look up into her face, at her parted lips and the desire shining in her dark eyes. “I want to put my tongue all over you. Starting here.” He sucked her into his mouth and drew lightly. Her flesh puckered even more and he loved the feel and the taste of her. His palm cupping her breast moved down her smooth flat stomach and slid beneath her loose pants. Since that night he’d kissed her at Mort’s, he’d had wild fantasies of what he’d do to her if he got her alone again. He slipped his hand between her thighs and cupped her through her thin panties. She was incredibly hot, and wet, and lust twisted and tightened painfully in his groin. He wanted her. He wanted her as he hadn’t wanted a woman in a very long time. He’d tried to stay away from her, but at the first excuse to see her, here he was with his mouth on her breast and his hand in her pants, and he wasn’t going anywhere this time until he satisfied the lust pounding through his body.
She wanted him and he was beyond ready to give her what she wanted. He wasn’t going anywhere until both of them were too exhausted to move.
“Yes, Mick,” she said just above a whisper, “touch me there.” Her sweatshirt fell to her feet and he pulled back to look up past her breasts and into her face. He slid his fingers beneath her panties and stood.
“Right here?” He parted her slick flesh and touched her there. She was incredibly wet, and he wanted to put more than his fingers there.
“Yes.” Her breathing was rapid and her hands clung to his shoulders.
“I love knowing I get you this wet,” he said just above her mouth. “I want to use my tongue on you.” He brushed his fingers across her small feminine bump. “Here.” She nodded. “You don’t mind, do you?” She shook her head, then nodded, and then combined the two.
“Mick,” she whispered as her grasp on his shoulders tightened. “If you don’t stop…” She sucked in a breath. “Oh, my God, don’t stop,” she moaned as a powerful orgasm buckled her knees. He wrapped an arm around her waist to keep her from falling as his fingers touched and stroked and felt her pleasure in his hand. He kissed the side of her throat and ached to be inside her,
feeling her tight walls gripping him with each pulsation.
When it was through, she said, “I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
He pulled his hand from her pants and pressed his erection into her. “Let’s make it happen again. Only next time, I’m going to join you.” He brushed his wet fingers across the tip of her breast and lowered his mouth to her lips and fed her his need and greed and uncontrolled lust.
She pulled back from the kiss and gasped. “You have condoms? Right?”
“Yes.”
Bare from the waist up, she took his hand and led him into the house. “How many do you have on you?”
How many? How many? “Two. How many do you have?”
“None. I’ve been celibate.” She closed the door behind them, then turned to face him. “We’re going to have to make those two condoms last all night.”
“What do you have planned?”
She pushed him against the closed door, pulled his shirt over his head, and tossed it aside. “Something you should not have started.” She took control and her impatience got him so hard, he thought he might burst the buttons on his Levi’s. “But something you are going to finish.” Her breasts brushed his chest as she kissed his neck and her hands worked his fly. “I’m going to use you for your body.” She sucked the side of his neck and shoved his pants and boxer briefs to his knees. “You don’t mind. Do you?”