"You shouldn't complain. It's nice to have people that care enough to drive you nuts."

He glanced toward her. She had that longing in her eyes, the same one she got when she saw him and his brothers bantering. "Do you come from a big family?" She shook her head. "Any siblings?"

"No, it's just me and my mother."

Suddenly a voice with an annoyingly exaggerated Californian accent rumbled in the cabin.

"Hey, yo, you've got a call, dude."

He looked to her. "Not to alarm you, but your purse is talking to you."

"That's my surfer dude," she said, reaching for her cell. She checked caller ID and, with a frown, disconnected the call.

"Your what?"

"My surfer dude ringtone. Some friends from LA sent it to me so I wouldn't get homesick. Cool, don't you think?"

Hardly. "It's annoying," he muttered.

She stifled a laugh. "We Californians are annoying. You have to hear him on my GPS giving directions. He's a blast." He somehow doubted it. "He's actually one of the standard voice options in most GPS devices."

"He is? How do you know?"

"Because I tried all those voice options, of course. Haven't you?"

She looked at him expectantly, as if scrolling through all the language and voice options in the GPS was a total must. "Frankly? It didn't occur to me. I stuck with the first one."

She rolled her eyes. "There's one in Klingon. I used to have it on when I drove my geekier friends to the yearly Star Trek conventions in Vegas. They'd translate for me."

He wasn't sure which part of her statement was more disturbing to him: the friends that spoke Klingon, or the yearly visits to Star Trek conventions. Or that she had geekier friends. Finally he opted for one. "You have friends that speak Klingon?"

She shook her head. "No. Not fluently, no. It helped a lot that from LA to Vegas is for the most part a straight line. You really don't want to get lost in the Mojave Desert with a handful of bickering Klingons and Vulcans who can achieve global domination with a laptop but can't figure out how to change a tire on the car."

Nuts. "You computer people are a bunch of weirdos."

He took a peek at her. She was blowing at her bangs to get them out of her eyes, not bothering to answer. Christy was turning out to be such a kick-a.s.s surprise. There was so much more to her than an extremely f.u.c.kable body. He couldn't recall the last time he'd truly enjoyed a woman's company without his c.o.c.k being actively engaged. Not that his c.o.c.k didn't want to, he pondered as he shifted in his seat, trying to give more s.p.a.ce to his groin.

They arrived in Alden, and as he parked in front of the Red Chicken, she looked to the flashing sign at the door and laughed. "Salsa night?"

"Every Tuesday during the summer months." He unbuckled and turned to her. She seemed nicely surprised, but after the dinner fiasco he had to ask, "Do we have anything against salsa?"

She laughed again. "Nope, nothing against salsa."

"Thank G.o.d."

"Why? What made you think I would?"

"You listen to gangsta rap in your downtime, babe, that's why."

"Ah, but that's for relaxing. Salsa is for dancing."

"Gangsta rap is for relaxing?" he asked to a.s.sure himself he'd heard properly.

She nodded, giving him that d.a.m.n innocent smile that never failed to get him hard.

"You like salsa, though?" she asked, looking incredulously at him.

"Sure I do. I get to grope and show off a beautiful woman while I choose the steps and direct the dance. What more would a controlling b.a.s.t.a.r.d like me want?"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, of course. How silly of me."

Not that he'd been to many salsa nights. Much less for dancing. Mainly because they took place in Alden, and he didn't need that kind of grief.

On the way to the entrance, that d.a.m.n stoned surfer dude started talking again. "Yo, man, answer the call. It's rude to keep people waiting, dude."

She looked at the caller ID again and, with a grunt, disconnected it.

He frowned. "If you want to answer-"

Christy shook her head. "I don't. It's my mom, and you know how moms are."

"No, I don't. I don't have the slightest clue what a mother is-a good one, I mean," he blurted before he could stop himself.

After all, a good mother wouldn't walk out on three children, one of them barely months old. Coming face-to-face with her when he was twenty and having to have his father bail him out of jail had cured him of any illusions he might have harbored about the woman.

He studied Christy. He'd never mentioned his mother, or lack thereof, to any of his dates. He'd done it once, a slip of his tongue really, and the woman had gotten that pity look on her face. Wanting to mother him. Please. But Christy wasn't giving him the look. As a matter of fact, she snorted.

"Oh, I wouldn't go so far as to call my mom that, believe me. I don't think 'decent' would even cut it."

He narrowed his eyes on her. "What's wrong with your mother?"

She laughed. "Plenty, I tell you. If you want to get to dance salsa anytime this century, then we better drop the subject."

Christy didn't seem to mind talking about her mother, but he didn't insist. He was curious, but he wanted to have her in his arms more. "Let's go dance salsa."

"Good choice. Talking about my mother would give us indigestion. Salsa is better. Although I'm a bit rusty, and I wasn't very good to begin with," she said as they went in.

"Don't worry, I'm good. Just follow my lead."

After a couple of hours of sheer torture, having her in his arms yet unable to touch her as he really wanted, and tired of half the men in the place hitting on her, he took her aside, kissed her long and hard, and then pressed his forehead against hers. "Let's go, babe. Now, before I end up f.u.c.king you right here."

She nodded, her breath choppy, her eyes glazed. Thank G.o.d she got as worked up by him as he did by her; it would certainly suck to be alone in this.

She seemed to feel how volatile that energy between them was, because she kept quiet while they drove home.

He chanced a glance at her and right away regretted it. She was so d.a.m.n s.e.xy sitting there, nervously licking and nibbling at her swollen lips.

"Stop, sweet thing. Have some mercy here."

"What?" She sounded clueless.

He kept his eyes on the road. No use tormenting himself more than necessary. "Stop licking your lips, or we won't make it home."

"Oh," she said and then, after a short pause, added, "Well..."

He felt her gaze on him. "Well what?"

Cole turned and saw a flash of heat in her eyes. "Um...maybe we don't need to make it home," she suggested and, a bit hesitant, reached for him.

Sweet mother of Jesus. He fisted the wheel, his erection about to burst through his pants.

He wanted her hands on him so badly he almost shook, but common sense had to prevail. He intercepted her and, placing her hand flat on his thigh, covered it with his.

"No way. I want you too much. I'll get us both killed if your hands get near me."

She cleared her throat. "I wasn't offering you my hands, Cole."

Oh G.o.d. He felt sweat trickling down his back.

He floored it, and in no time they were pulling in to his driveway, where he activated the garage door and drove in.

They could have made it out of the garage and inside his home. Maybe. But he looked at her, and the air around them crackled with tension and ignited. He cupped her neck, brought her to him, and took her mouth in a possessive kiss. "What is it with you and vehicles, babe?"

She smiled against his lips and tentatively placed her hand over his crotch, palming him through the jeans. Hissing and lifting his hips, Cole pressed against her for a second, then got out of the car and hauled a bewildered Christy out through the driver's door.

"What-"

"On your knees, baby," he ordered in a hoa.r.s.e growl as he grabbed his jacket and threw it at her feet.

She looked at the floor, then at him. "Here?"

He braced his legs apart. "As good a place as any. Or were you playing me back there in the car, sweetheart?"

She shook her head and, gaze never leaving his, slowly knelt in front of him. He was so turned on it was f.u.c.king scary. His c.o.c.k was pounding inside his pants, madly throbbing against his zipper, demanding to be unleashed, his heart already kicking at triple speed.

The second she unzipped him and took him in her small hand, stroking him from base to tip, then back to base, a ragged groan tore from his throat and shivers of pleasure broke out all over his body.

"Harder, sweetheart, squeeze me harder," he said as he covered her hand with his and showed her how he liked it.

In no time she got the hang of it and had him teetering on the edge of coming in his G.o.dd.a.m.ned pants, breath hissing through clenched teeth, body tense as a bowstring. Unable to take his eyes from her, he watched enthralled as she leaned over and brushed her soft lips over his whole length, flicking her tongue here and there, sc.r.a.ping her teeth over the swollen vein running along his c.o.c.k while he sank his fingers in her hair and tried his d.a.m.nedest to hold it all together.

She leisurely licked him, giving special attention to the underside of the crown and his slit while her nails raked over his b.a.l.l.s until he fisted her hair and pulled at it.

"You're killing me here, sweet thing. Take me in your mouth. Suck me."

She did and if he'd thought he was in trouble before, it was nothing compared to the deep s.h.i.t he found himself in the second she actually closed her lips over his crown. She couldn't fit too much of him in her mouth, but she brought him to the back of her throat and then pulled out, sucking and swirling her tongue around him, her hands twisted around the base of his shaft.

G.o.d have mercy, she took his breath away. She was so beautiful with her cheeks hollowed and those s.e.xy lips stretched over his c.o.c.k. He tried to block the sight of her but failed miserably because his eyes refused to close and his mind refused to detach.

Roughly holding her head, he thrust inside that inferno of heat, the need to get deep inside her scaring him. As she let him f.u.c.k her mouth, she slipped her wandering hands under his shirt, splayed them over his stomach, and then moved up, caressing him, her touch soft and tender. Affectionate.

f.u.c.k. He had to retreat. Put this back into perspective.

He closed his eyes and, forcing her to release him, pulled her up and spun her around, placing her hands on the car's frame.

"Keep your hands there, babe," he commanded as he shoved his knee between her legs and yanked the skirt up to her waist, where it stayed bunched. "Now spread for me."

Chest heaving, she complied.

"No more roadblocks?" he asked, trailing his fingers down her s.e.xy a.s.s and over the modern skimpy underwear she was wearing, which left the underside of her cheeks in plain view.

She shook her head and, sounding out of breath, said, "You're a ripper. I'm not risking my vintage panties with you around."

Cole chuckled softly and, just to be contrary, moved the soaked material aside, running his fingers along her drenched slit. He loved a woman bare. Without the pubic hair as barrier, her lube was dripping from her, dampening her inner thighs. f.u.c.king s.e.xy. Not to mention she had worked herself into this state just by giving him head, which was already a motherf.u.c.king turn-on.

He pressed against her back, his hard c.o.c.k lodging between those soft a.s.s cheeks, and reaching over, teased her c.l.i.t while she tipped her head to him and moaned, clenching her cheeks around him, making his d.i.c.k jump too.

He kissed her neck, then spoke into her ear. "Anything against getting f.u.c.ked right here?"

Breath coming out in short pants, Christy shook her head and rubbed herself against him.

"Good, because you have no choice." As he dipped two fingers inside her, she cried out, instinctively lowering her arms, reaching over for him.

"Keep your hands up."

"But..."

He stilled his touch and took a step back, separating their lower bodies. "I can stop if you prefer."

Her hands went instantly up and onto the hard surface. "No, don't," she whimpered, her p.u.s.s.y clenching around him.

He wouldn't have it any other way. Christy was dangerous to him. To his self-control. He had to keep his distance, or she'd have him wrapped around her little finger in no time. As things stood now, he already felt the overwhelming need to crawl inside her skin and stay there forever.

He really didn't know whether to feel amused by that or horrified.

Horrified, he decided. He should be horrified.

He stepped closer and pressed his erection against her a.s.s, his fingers going deeper in her quivering p.u.s.s.y before sliding out.

"I'm going to f.u.c.k you now, baby. I need you coming around my c.o.c.k," he said in a harsh growl while he sheathed himself in latex.

Entering her was such a torturous pleasure. Her p.u.s.s.y gripped him, and Cole gritted his teeth, trying to control the l.u.s.t raging through him. He placed his hands over hers and laced their fingers as he pushed all the way in. f.u.c.k, being buried b.a.l.l.s-deep inside her felt amazing. Her p.u.s.s.y walls yielding to him. He stilled and let his mind get accustomed to the overwhelming sensation.

"You feel so good it blows my mind every time," he told her with a groan as he slid a bit out and then pushed back in. He got in a couple more slow strokes, but then it began spinning out of his control. While their lower bodies slammed at each other with ever-growing intensity, he nipped her ear and languidly kissed her jaw and her throat.

"Let me see you pleasuring yourself."

"What?"