A Demon in Waiting (Crimson Romance) (11 page)

She pushed herself upright and wrapped one arm across her breasts, accepting the cup he offered with her other hand. “Thanks. What’s in it?”

“Three sugars and two creams.”

She grinned in spite of her earlier annoyance. “Hey, you learn fast.”

“I’m just observant. Have a good memory.”

Indeed.
She took a tentative sip of the brew and found it perfectly satisfactory. It wasn’t gourmet, but she didn’t expect gourmet in a three-and-a-half star hotel. “Thank you. Hits the spot. What are you drinking?”

“Well, it’s more milk than anything else, but — ”

“John! You’re drinking coffee voluntarily?”

His grin was shy and his shoulders bobbed up into a shrug. “Just a little. I figured it’d be a long day and the air conditioner in the car … ” He let his voice trail off then clamped his lips. It was obvious then he was just as uncertain about what the day would bring as she was.

“Yeah, it makes me sleepy, too.” She watched him take a sip and he didn’t even grimace. “Hey, you want to sit down? Talk to me while my toes shrivel up like prunes?”

“Okay.” He lifted the toilet lid and perched on the seat. “You’ll probably run out of bubbles pretty soon.”

“Good. That’ll keep me from stalling. I want to make good time today. If I can make it almost all the way through Tennessee, that’ll make tomorrow less miserable. By then, I’ll be so sick of driving on I-Forty, I’ll probably never go anywhere ever again.”

“I don’t believe that. I think you have a bit of wanderlust, Ariel.”

“Not.” She giggled then took a long draught of coffee. She’d need to find some real coffee soon. Something dark and hopefully laced with rocket fuel. “I don’t even know why I ended up in California, other than for the job. Of all the places I could be, why there? All the way on the other side of the country. Seems almost like overkill.”

“So, you regret it?”

“Do I regret having the job and getting the experience? No.” And that was mostly true. She had learned a lot, especially about advertising agency politics. She’d learned a little bit about older men, too. “I just wish I had looked for that experience a little closer to home.”

“Ah.”

“So, there’s your warning. I’m not stopping anywhere unless I have to today. Plan not to pee until lunch.”

The slight hint of tension he’d been holding in his jaws suddenly ebbed and his posture got a bit a straighter. “I’ll keep that in mind. No peeing.”

“I’m still mad at you,” she said, and it was soft she wasn’t sure it’d even come out of her mouth.

“You have a right to be. I wish you weren’t, though,” he said.

Yes, she’d definitely said it out loud.

“I don’t want to do anything to upset you. I just … ” He stared into his mug and his forehead furrowed as he thought. “I worry I can hurt you without even trying. So, earlier I was scared I’d gone too far.”

She nearly dropped her mug in the suds. “That
you’d
gone too far? I thought you bolted the way you did because you realized what you were doing and that you’d just given your virginity up to some coffee-addled dork.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Are you serious?”

She shrugged and sank lower into the now tepid water after perching her mug on the tub’s edge. It’s not like she was a mind reader. If she were, maybe she would have figured out what it was that made the last guy so apathetic about her. She’d once asked him, “Are we even dating?”

He hadn’t been able to give her a response right then, but when she’d followed up with, “So, you don’t mind, then, if I see someone else?” he’d suddenly become very friendly.

She wet her hair and reached for one of the tiny shampoo bottles.

“Ariel, can I borrow your phone charger? I think it’s compatible.”

“Help yourself.”

He grabbed her coffee mug on the way out, hardly looking at her in the process, and she rolled her eyes. There she was, buck naked and accessible and he’d passed her by like some kind of eunuch.

Maybe she wasn’t being fair, though. She pondered it while lathering her scalp. He said he was afraid of hurting her, so perhaps he had some back-story that closed off some part of him just like she did. She certainly didn’t hold the monopoly on nasty break-ups. He’d said where he came from, he’d had no value. Maybe because of that, there’d been some woman he couldn’t make his?

She didn’t want to think about some other woman. She didn’t want think about
any
woman besides her in John’s embrace. Even if it was a dream and she couldn’t keep him, she’d close her eyes and let the fantasy play out until it fell apart.

“Yeah, just a fantasy,” she said as she dipped her sudsy head into the water. And while she was there, up to her neck, one hand glided up her torso underwater to find a breast. The other reached down low and stoked other things.

She massaged, plucked, and pressed until she put her head back into the water again, and blew out a ragged breath.

When she opened her eyes, she startled to see John laying on his belly on the floor, and his upper body propped up on his elbows. He stared at her with a wanton lust and she sat up fast and covered herself. With her ears underwater, she hadn’t heard him enter.

Her face burned, and she hoped he assumed the redness was the bath’s heat and not shame. She reached for the soap and lathered as if it’d all been in her imagination.

“Do you need some help?” he asked, voice rough and rasping.

Did she need help? The kind of help she needed would have had her on her hands and knees with her ponytail wrapped around his fist.

Her voice came out in a high-pitched keel. “No, I’m almost done.” She held up one foot demonstrably and lathered it with the soap bar.

His gaze traveled down to the murky water where the bubbles had parted in front of her torso. “Are you sure you don’t need me to wash your back?”

Actually, that sounded nice, but she knew where that would end up. His hands on her waist, on her rear end — teasing her, and her throwing herself at him like an oversexed nymphomaniac.

“I-I … I think I can manage. I’m just going to shower off the soap and I’ll be right out.”

He didn’t move. Was he daring her? Waiting to see if she’d take the bait? Well, she didn’t have time to mess around. She wanted to be on the road by six — before all the commuter traffic picked up. That is, if such a thing existed in Arkansas.

Okay, then
. She stood, her muscles tense, and skin prickling from exposure and pulled the drain stopper. She felt his stare on her back, her ass, her thighs when she turned to the wall and fiddled the handles.

Cold water pelted her from the high showerhead first, and she yipped, quickly correcting the frigid temperature. Whatever ground she’d earned with that freezing blast, she lost as hot water massaged her skin and drenched her hair. She couldn’t help but to imagine that water was John’s hands touching her. Soothing her. Filling her.

She struggled to catch her breath. When she turned to rinse her back, she saw that John was now standing. Watching. Waiting.

She swallowed.

The intensity of his stare was unlike anything she’d ever seen. It almost felt like he was saying
Mine
without even parting his lips.

The next thing she knew, he was peeling off his t-shirt. By the time she rinsed all the soap from her long hair, he’d stepped out of his jeans. When the water from the tub had drained down to her ankles and there were no suds left on her legs, he stepped out of his briefs, hard and erect and ready.

She thought he’d get in — to share the shower with her — but instead, he reached into the tub, turned the knobs to off position, and grabbed a clean towel from the rack.

He wrapped it around her torso and picked her up and out of the tub. He didn’t stop there in the bathroom, though. He kept moving and didn’t set her down again until they were in front of the sofa.

There, he peeled the towel away and let it fall to the floor, and turned her around so her prickling spine was under his intense scrutiny. And she seemed to feel his gaze as it traveled from her neck, down her back, to her ass which he cupped possessively before pressing his erection against her softer flesh.

His hot lips tickled the crook of her neck, and he kissed, licked, then sucked at her damp flesh while his hands glided up to the breasts that suddenly felt very heavy.

He traced feather-light fingertips around her beaded nipples before giving both a tweak between his thumbs and forefingers, and a gasp escaped her lips.

We’re never going to get out of here by six.

And she didn’t even care. Especially not when his left hand danced down her belly, beyond her curls, and parted the sex he’d aroused just by looking at her.

He dipped a finger in, then two, seeming to test her for readiness, and she must have been, because he fell back onto the sofa and pulled her down for the ride.

Angled over him with one of his arms around her waist and the other parting her from the rear, her breath came out short and shallow. It hadn’t even been two hours since the last time, and then he’d pulled away as if she’d burned him. This time, with her on top of him, he wouldn’t have that luxury.

She sank onto his cock slowly, eyelids closed and teeth grinding as her body adjusted to his girth. “God.”

“I don’t think He cares,” he rasped into her ear before resuming his nips at her lobe.

He put a hand under each of her buttocks and lifted her, and when she eased down yet again, she took in more of him — feeling him bump the very end of her.

“How’s that feel?”

She let her answer be the press of her nails into the thighs she gripped for balance.

It hadn’t taken her long before, and this time — with his head probing her elusive G-spot with every stroke — she went even faster, curling her toes and throwing her head back as she moaned.

Suddenly, he stood, still sheathed in her, and she thought once again he’d discard her, all used up, but no. He wrapped an arm around her waist and picked her up to lay her facedown on the sofa.

He pulled her hips back toward him and proceeded to pump into her fast and hard, and it didn’t even hurt. He was so wild, yet so careful, stoking her without a single out-of-place bump.

She felt it when he removed his hands from her hips and continued on without that touch, but looked back to see him balling his hands into fists at his sides, his eyes closed. He growled through clenched teeth.

With a grunt, he pulled out and wrapped a hand around his pulsating cock.

He opened his eyes and let out a deep breath before grinning. “I always wanted to do that.”

“Do what?” She asked, groggily. There were a number of things he could have been referring to, but he probably wasn’t referring to catching his own ejaculate in his hand. Condom use hadn’t even crossed her mind at the time. She hoped she wouldn’t regret it later.

“Doggie-style. It seems so disrespectful to call it that … ” He gave her ass a squeeze with his free hand and planted one foot on the floor to stand. “ … but it really is invigorating. It’s a great angle for a guy.”

“Wasn’t so bad from my perspective either,” she mumbled into the sofa.

“I’m glad. Sorry for attacking you. You’re so fucking gorgeous.” He retreated into the bathroom and she heard water run in the sink. He hummed a jaunty tune.

“Attack me any time, babe,” she said too low for him to hear. “I’ll just get up and get dressed now.”

She closed her eyes.

“Maybe in just one minute.”

At eight-fifteen, they finally checked out of the hotel with Ariel growling and John grinning.

“You could have woken me up,” she said, holding the breakfast burritos they’d nabbed from the buffet while he loaded their luggage into her car trunk.

“Why? It was a nice view for me. You were lucky I didn’t try to mount you again.” He slammed the trunk lid closed.

“We’re not stopping, dammit. Not until
two
at the earliest. Who knows what kind of traffic we’ll hit?” She stomped to the driver’s side and yanked the door open with a huff.

He laughed as he meandered to the passenger seat. Stalling had been on his to-do list, especially since his new-to-him phone needed a charge, but he couldn’t have planned it better if he tried. Two hours behind. Maybe he could pad a couple more hours into that during lunchtime. Like hell if they were going to get as far as the eastern Tennessee border. If he had anything to do with it, they wouldn’t get anywhere near it.

Maybe he’d tease her with a little afternoon delight? It certainly wouldn’t be much of an inconvenience for
him
. Her body was addictive. He looked forward to having that damned mark removed. There on the sofa, he’d felt like his head — the one on his neck — would explode if he didn’t sip up some of that essence she was offering. He’d hardly managed to pull out before he came. That was something he had
no
practice doing, so it was a wonder he’d managed it.

He got in and buckled his seatbelt. “You’re not even going to stop for coffee?”

She jammed her key into the ignition and growled. “Don’t you start with me.”

“You know you want some.”

“It can wait.”

“Think about it. A nice dark roast, perfectly sweetened with maybe a generous froth of heavy cream instead of half-and-half?”

She held out his burrito and narrowed her eyes at him. “Let me guess. You figured out how to Google from your new phone.”

“Maybe.”

“It does sound good, right?”

She didn’t answer, but as she backed out the parking space, she licked her lips.

They ended up going through a Starbucks drive-through just before the highway entry ramp, which was all the stalling he could manage in that regard.

Ariel hadn’t been joking about not wanting to stop. It was nearly noon before he saw her glance at the clock. It was as if, if she looked at it, she’d
feel
it. She managed to keep going at her frenetic pace until one, which was when that venti whatever-she-ordered demanded its release.

She stepped out of the ladies’ room at a gas station and did a little dance in front of him. He laughed as pulled up the drink cooler.