Can't Hurry Love (17 page)

She exploded. A thousand pieces of Victoria Schulman, like a thousand points of light, ricocheted around the cab of that truck. Her fingernails sank deep into the
flesh of his hips as if she had to hold on to him or she’d lose herself in all this pleasure.

The intensity faded and reality returned in the scratch of the fabric beneath her back, the ends of Eli’s hair dripping sweat down onto her cheek. The heavy rasp of his breath, the pounding of his heart against her chest.

“You all right?” he asked and she grinned up at him, so alive with pleasure, so alive with … life, she could barely stand it.

But the hunger wasn’t gone and she was thrilled to still want him, to still feel him hard inside of her. This was her chance to live out every fantasy she’d ever had. He was going to be her own personal boy toy.

She pushed her hands against his shoulders, shifting her hips to settle him deeper. “Let’s try—”

“Can’t. Oh. God. Can’t. Next time.” He slipped his hands under her back, curling his palms over her shoulders, holding her in place while he thrust fast and hard into her body.

Surprised, she braced her hand over her head so she wouldn’t get pushed right into the door. Her lingering pleasure got squashed and while he shook over her, she could only lie there and stare at those foggy windows.

Missionary position
. Her mood turned slightly sour, her pleasure dimming as shades of her former life crept in.

He groaned against her neck, sucking the skin there, and she pulled away, irritated that she would have to explain a hickey to Celeste.

And that earthy smell was … well, it was a little gross now.

She knew in her heart she was being miserly. She’d had that beautiful orgasm. In a truck, of all things! This was the raunchiest thing she’d ever done. It wasn’t his fault she expected some boy-toy antics. He didn’t know.

But she couldn’t, in the heart of her cooling body, say she wasn’t just a little … disappointed.

He lifted himself away from her and she smiled brightly at him, which must have tipped him off because his eyes narrowed.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing. That was great.” She nodded. “Gold star.”

“Gold … 
what?
” He heaved himself to the other side of the truck and she moved her feet just in time so he didn’t get a toe up the bum. She watched, dry-mouthed, as he pulled the condom off and tied a knot in the end.

“Tidy,” she said in asinine approval.

With a long, slow breath, he pushed his longish hair back and closed his eyes. He still wore his shirt. After all that, she hadn’t seen him totally naked. Disappointing.

While he seemed to take a little nap, she curled her legs up against her chest. Without taking her eyes off him, she searched around her ankle for her underwear and jeans and then slipped both up her body.

He didn’t stir, and biting her lip, she tilted her head to get a better look inside the gap in his jeans, where she could barely see his penis slouched against his leg.

She wanted to put it in her mouth.

Joel had loved that in the beginning, but then as time went on, it seemed unnecessary. A too-fancy accessory on a sparse event. And as he was increasingly reluctant to reciprocate, she withheld it as some kind of power maneuver he never seemed aware of.

But this man, she wanted to lick. She wanted to suck and kiss and find all those places on his body that made him shake and groan.

He lifted his hips, pulling his pants all the way up, and she jerked her eyes away, only to find him watching her.

“Gold star?”

A blush ignited in her cheeks and, awkward to the extreme, she shrugged and looked away, fumbling with the door handle. “I should go. My son—”

He put his hand over hers, rough and slightly clammy.
She resisted the urge to curl her fingers around his, guide those fingers to the small ache that lingered between her legs.

“You should explain what’s going on in your head.”

“Nothing. Honestly. That was great.”

He nodded sagely. “It was. But you seem …”

“Disappointed.”

“What?” he howled, yanking his hand away.

“You asked!” she cried right back.

“I thought you were going to say uncomfortable, or maybe overwhelmed …”

“I’m sorry. I am. I’m totally overwhelmed. Let’s just forget it—”

“Disappointed? You’re kidding, right?” He shifted sideways on the seat and pulled down the back of his jeans, revealing red scratches on his back. Red scratches she had put there. With her fingernails. “You did this to me.”

He hitched up his pants, flipping his shirt down like an affronted debutante. “You came, Victoria. I know you did. Unless you faked it.” He seemed oddly wounded at the thought and she put her hand against his shoulder.

His hot, hard shoulder.

The skin was smooth under that shirt, she could tell. The muscles like a boulder against her fingers.

“Tori?”

“I didn’t fake it. I swear. And yes, I came. I really did. It was great. I just … I just … wanted something more. Something …”
wicked, raunchy, dirty
. “Different.”

“Like what?”

All those years of swallowing her preferences and inclinations came back to muzzle her, to crush her with humiliation. Praying he would understand, she shook her head.

But he just kept watching her. Waiting. This man who made her scream. Who made her crazy.

“Tori, we can sit here all night.”

Oh
. It was so hot in the truck. Like a sauna. That smelled like sex. And latex. This was ugly. Not exciting at all. And her body prickled with embarrassment at the desire that still smoldered in her belly.

And she knew, right now, if she didn’t own up to how she was feeling, she would be the one in the wrong. She would be the one pushing aside everything she wanted for no good reason. Just because she was embarrassed. Because she didn’t know how to ask for what she wanted.

She didn’t want to be that woman anymore. Couldn’t stand to be her anymore.

There was a crack in the vinyl under her leg and she dug her finger into the foam, concentrating on that instead of on him, so that she could force the words out.

“I want … I want to have sex against a wall. They do it in movies all the time.”

“Okay.”

His easy acceptance kicked open the door. Everything she’d been denied, everything she’d denied herself. It all came roaring out.

“Yeah. And maybe … maybe I want to be tied up. What’s wrong with that?”

“Not a thing. I got rope in the barn.”

“And you. I want to tie you up.”

“We can discuss that.”

“And I want you to talk dirty to me.”

“I think I can come up with something.”

“And I want to watch porn. Real porn. Not that HBO stuff. And oral sex. Not just for you. Me too.”

That made him blink, and her brain was cold with all that she’d revealed and she felt more naked than she’d ever been. Her marriage had never seemed more lonely than right now. And she’d never been more ashamed of the fact that she’d been too scared to ask her husband for what she
wanted, but she could ask this man, a total stranger, for the fulfillment of her most ridiculous fantasies.

The corner of his lips lifted in a knowing masculine smile that made every girlish impulse and instinct in her body scream as if The Beatles were coming to town.

“Is that all?”

“For … for the moment. I guess.” She wasn’t going to bring up the costumes.

“I should have known,” he said as he opened the glove box and took out the box of condoms. He tore off one packet and then, as if having second thoughts, took the whole box and shoved them in his hip pocket.

“Known what?”

When he stepped down from the truck he circled her waist with his hands, keeping her close. There was a delicious threat in the air, a terrible danger. She pushed away from him, scrambling backwards, but he put his hands on her knees and held her close.

“You are insatiable.”

He stepped closer, the snaps on his shirt touching her breasts, her nipples, and she shied away, her body twitching with delight.

Before she knew what he was doing, he’d crouched and put his shoulder in her stomach and then stood, letting her dangle down his back.

“What the hell, Eli!”

“Shut up, Tori.” He swatted her butt, not hard, but hard enough that the sparks came back.

Spanking. She needed to add that to the list.

The dark thrill ignited her blood as her body bounced against his, his big, hot palm cupped around her inner thigh, his fingers cozied up between her legs.

Oh
, she thought, grinning against his back.
This is going to be good
.

Eli kicked open doors and stomped across the floor until he got to his bathroom, then set her down on the white floor he’d retiled last winter.

“Take off your clothes,” he said. The snaps on his own shirt came apart with loud popping sounds. He pushed open the sliding glass door to his shower and cranked the hot water.

Her face was red from being upside down, and he guessed a pretty good dose of embarrassment. Victoria Baker—he was going to stop thinking about her married name, because clearly her husband had been a prude and an idiot in addition to being a coward and a thief—had told him she wanted to be tied up.

He still couldn’t believe it.

“What … what are we doing?” she asked, pushing her hair off her face and behind her delicate ears. She looked so young when she did that.

“Well, before I go get that rope, I need to take a shower. And I figure having sex in the shower might be on that list of yours.” She stared at him as if he were speaking Japanese and his heart thumped against his rib cage. His whole body filled with affection and lust and laughter. This woman was powerful medicine and she had no idea.

“Are you making fun of me?”

He checked the water and adjusted the cold dial. “Nope.”

Out of the corner of his eye he watched her chew her lip and he held his breath, wondering if she would believe him and believe in herself, but then, much to his delight, she tucked her little hands into the hem of her white T-shirt and yanked it over her head.

She was still skinny, but not nearly as bony as she’d been before. Her breasts were full, rising over the top of that pretty bra she wore, and her hips, once she shucked her pants, were soft and womanly. Her legs were long.

Her skin was white as moonlight and it looked unbelievably lovely against the black cloud of her hair.

“I thought you didn’t bring women into your house.”

“I don’t.”

“So … what’s this?”

“Probably a mistake.”

“You think?” She laughed, which made him feel better—at least they were both going into this knowing it was going to cause problems.

Because having her in his home made him want to climb out of his skin. And would no doubt bother him even more tomorrow when this fever wore off. The distance he kept between himself and the whole wide world had shrunk down to the space of this bathroom, and tomorrow he’d want that distance back.

Right now, he could feel her eyes on the bathroom tiles, the stained-glass lights. His toothbrush! His skin itched, but he hoped that if he touched her, the itch would go away. At least for the night.

“I’m probably going to have to blindfold you.” He pulled down his pants and he heard her sweet gasp.

She made him feel like some kind of love god, just for having a semi-hard dick.

Steam pooled around his ankles from the open shower and he turned, holding out his arm so she could go first, and after a small hesitation, bracing herself for stepping into the unknown, she walked into the shower.

And wouldn’t you know it, beneath those ugly skirts, Victoria had a beautiful ass. She started to turn, but he stepped in behind her, crowding her against the tile wall. When his chest pressed against her back she sighed and arched, the tender skin of her hips meeting the hard length of his penis.

The water pouring down over their heads made her sleek and slick, an extra pleasure to touch, so he reached his hands around to cup her breasts, toy with her nipples.

He stepped back and grabbed his penis with his hand, pushing it down so that when he stepped back against her it slid in tight against the heat between her legs. Her sharp cry of pleasure when he hit her clitoris echoed around the steamy white tiles.

The control he’d counted on while bringing her in here seemed impossible now. She was so hot to touch, so soft and sleek, and it was all he could do to hold on.

But she wanted something dirty. Something more exotic than the vanilla she’d been eating with her husband.

Smiling, he slid his hands from her breasts to her hips, where he showed her the rhythm he wanted her to use to pleasure herself.

He should have known she’d be a quick learner. Instantly, she spread her hands wider against the tiles, curling up harder against him, squeezing him between her legs every time she shifted her hips forward.

And despite having come in the truck, he felt the excitement build faster than he’d intended and he stepped away, panting, his skin as hot as the water hitting his chest.