He wasn’t going to do it again now.
Getting tangled up with hungry, desperate socialites out looking for a bit of rough was a complication he didn’t need. He was supposed to be a better man than that; at least, that was the idea.
Something flickered in her gaze. “Why not? You seemed perfectly happy about it last week.”
“That was last week. And I told you it was a one-off thing. I meant it.”
Still she made no move to leave. “I’m not looking for anything else. So if you’re imagining I’m going to start wanting flowers and dinners and dates, you can stop. I just want what we had last week.”
“Go find someone else. I’m not interested.” It was for her own good—didn’t she know that?
And yours, too. Don’t forget that.
Yeah, he couldn’t pretend this wasn’t about his peace of mind as well.
Her dark eyes glinted in the harsh fluorescent lighting of the garage. She took another step toward him, then another. And this time her gaze swept down his body and stayed down. “I don’t think that’s true.”
Oh fuck. Of course his goddamn dick would have other ideas.
“I’m in charge, pretty girl. Not my fucking cock. And if I said I’m not interested, I’m not interested.”
But she didn’t stop, her heels making soft tapping sounds as she made her way across the dusty concrete floor to him, the light following the sheen on the fabric of her dress, outlining each delicious curve. There was determination in her eyes and hunger, and something else. Something painful.
She was only inches away from him when she stopped and she didn’t look down this time. “Okay, then,” she said quietly. “Here’s the truth. Ever feel like you’re only an actor playing a part? That you’re not really who everyone thinks you are? That’s how I feel. And tonight, I just want to step off the stage. I want to stop acting. Stop pretending. Tonight I want to be me.” She paused, searching his face. “I’m sorry, I’m not articulating it very well. And I know you don’t know me or anything. But . . . that’s the best way to put it.”
There was a raw honesty to the words that caught in his chest, made something inside him go tight.
You know exactly what she means.
No, shit, his situation was different. He wasn’t acting. He was trying to be the man he’d promised Madison he’d be and he’d pretty much succeeded. Gideon and his friends didn’t know his background or even his real name, but that didn’t matter.
Damian Chase, son of Joshua, was dead. He’d died the night his father had told him Madison’s death in a car crash wasn’t an accident.
“I get it,” he said roughly, trying not to notice how close she was standing. How the heat of her body made him want to growl down low in his chest and the pulse at her throat cried out for his hand. So he could feel how fast it was. So he could feel it get faster. “You wanna use me as your rich girl therapy? Get a bit of the dark side? Is that what this is about? ’Cause, baby, if so, there’s a hundred or so guys right outside this door who’ll give you that. You don’t need me.”
“I can’t go to them.” Her voice had a husky edge to it. “I don’t trust them. But I do trust you.”
“Why the fuck would you do that?”
“God, why wouldn’t I? You give women self-defense classes. And you were so pissed off about me hanging around this neighborhood on my own that you gave me a lift home.”
“Yeah, and then I fucked you in the back of my car.”
That glint in her eyes flared. “Because I wanted you to.”
“You were also very clear we weren’t going to see each other afterward. So what the hell happened to bring you down this way again?”
Her mouth tightened. “Does it matter? Can’t a woman just want sex for the sake of it?”
“Sure they can. But I don’t fuck rich girls from downtown, Tamara. That’s a rule and I’ve already broken it once. I’m not doing it again.”
She stared at him for a long moment and he could see anger glittering in her eyes, mixing with the heat to create something intense, combustible.
It pulled at him like she had a string tied to his fucking dick.
“I’m getting engaged soon,” she said abruptly. “I’m getting engaged and I . . . want a night. Just one goddamn night where I don’t have to play a role. Where I don’t have to be anyone but myself.” She stopped, her breathing sounding shaky, her gaze suddenly fierce. “Where I don’t have to keep it under
fucking
control all the time.”
Engaged. Hell . . . There were so many reasons why saying yes would be a bad idea.
But you want to anyway. Because you want her. You want to step outside your role as much as she wants to step outside of hers.
“So you wanna use me? Celebrate your last few nights of freedom with hot and dirty screwing before you settle down?”
Her chin came up, defiance joining the anger in her eyes. “You have a problem with that?”
Of course you don’t. And that’s what makes it perfect. No commitments, no complications.
Yeah, and his head needed to shut the fuck up.
“You don’t know me, pretty girl.” He stared at her. “I could be anyone.”
“You don’t know me either. Which is why this works.”
She wasn’t wrong. So really, why was he protesting? Hadn’t that restlessness been eating a hole in his gut? And hadn’t the fact that he’d been thinking about her all damn week been pissing him off? Yeah, he was wary of girls like her for a number of different reasons, but in this instance she had her eyes wide open about what she was getting into. She already knew what kind of man he was.
The thread of darkness inside him twisted hard.
She wanted something and he could give it, they’d both get orgasms, it was win-win all the way.
He held her gaze. “You want me, Tamara?”
She didn’t look away. “Yes.”
“And what do you want me to do? I wanna hear you say it.” He wanted to hear those dirty, dirty words coming out of her pretty, pretty mouth.
Her throat moved. “I want you to f-fuck me.”
The stutter got him even harder than he was already. Which made him a sick fuck, but suddenly he didn’t much care. “You have to make the first move this time. I’m not gonna do anything until you do.” If she wanted this, if she truly wanted to step out of her good-girl role tonight, then shit, he’d help her. He’d find out just how far out she was truly prepared to step.
You want to show her as badly as she wants to be shown.
He couldn’t deny it. He did. Wanted to know what her limits were and whether he could test them. Perhaps it was the vulnerability he sensed beneath the surface of her that he wanted to get at, that he wanted to uncover. Or the passion he knew burned hot and strong under that sleek, expensive dress of hers. Whatever it was, he wanted it.
Tamara reached out and put a hand on his chest, her palm like a brand on his bare skin. And he had to take a breath, because that electrical current had him in its grip all of a sudden and he couldn’t move.
A lot of women touched him like this, unable to take their eyes off his body.
So he felt it like a shock when she looked up, straight into his eyes. Held his gaze like what he’d seen in her, she could see in him, too.
Unease turned over inside him, but before he could say a word or move to break the contact, she slid her hand on his chest up to his shoulder and around behind his neck, reaching up to the back of his head.
To bring his mouth down on hers.
Chapter 6
T
amara didn’t know what she was expecting as she pulled Zee’s head down. Perhaps the same kind of kiss she’d always had from Robert: tentative and respectful. Not demanding, not taking.
It wasn’t what she got.
He was like a lion lying still and waiting for its prey to get close before pouncing. Because as soon their lips touched, his mouth opened and he simply devoured her, his tongue pushing inside without any preliminaries.
A shudder went through her whole body, the hot taste of him igniting a fire inside her she hadn’t even realized was smoldering.
Her fingers curled on the back of his head, her nails digging helplessly into his scalp. Not so much to hold him there as to just hold on because it felt like her knees were going to give out.
Beneath her palm on his chest she could feel the oiled silk of his bare skin and the rock-hard muscle under it. God . . . so hot. She wanted to spread her fingers, run her hands all over that perfect body of his, feel it against her own. He smelled of engine oil and that spicy, musky scent she remembered from the car. The one that made her body ache and sent her senses into free fall.
Then, abruptly, his hand curled around her throat and he lifted his head, tarnished steel gaze holding hers.
Tamara forgot how to breathe, how to speak. She even forgot how to think.
There was only him and the heat of his hand around her throat, his palm pressing on her pulse, all demanding and possessive. Only the dark glitter in the depths of his eyes, the one that told her the sex they’d had in the car had only been a small taste of what he was capable of.
She shivered, unable to help herself, a sliver of doubt winding through her.
He was right, she didn’t know him and her reasons for trusting him weren’t exactly built on anything but a car ride home and gut instinct.
But it was too late to turn back now. And more, she didn’t want to.
She knew what she wanted and she’d been the one to dress up like this and come down here. The one to convince him even when he’d said no.
She’d been the one to make the first move. She could have turned around and walked away at any time. But she hadn’t.
So now she had to deal with the consequences.
He looked at her a long moment and she had no idea what was going on in his head. Then he flicked a glance up the metal stairs that led to what must be the office, where Gideon had gone.
“Come on.” He let go of her throat, gripped her elbow instead and turned, drawing her after him as he headed toward a door at the back of the garage.
She stumbled a little, her heels not really made for oil-stained concrete floors and the metal offcuts that littered them. “Where are we going?”
His fingers on her arm were hard and sure, holding her up. “Out back.” He pushed the door open and went through it, pulling her after him.
Gravel crunched under her shoes as she stepped out into a small parking area with chain-link fences on either side. The space was full of a number of different cars, probably waiting for their turn to get worked on in the garage.
Zee tugged her over to the side of the building, where the shadows lurked, then pushed her gently up against the brick wall.
Although it was deserted and they were in darkness, and there were a few cars between them and the street, she still felt exposed.
She tipped her head back and looked up at him as he put his palms on the brick on either side of her head. “H-here? Right now?”
His body was so close to hers, the heat coming from him like one of the powerful engines he worked with. “Yeah.” His face was in shadow, and she couldn’t see the expression on it. “You said you didn’t wanna date or get chocolates and flowers. So you’re not gonna get them. You want me, pretty girl, it’s right here, right now.”
Out on the street behind him, beyond the parked cars, a group of people walked past, laughing and shouting.
Tamara swallowed. Okay, so another thing she hadn’t expected. “I just . . . People might see.”
He didn’t move, that perfectly muscled body looming over her, surrounding her. “They might, but it’s pretty dark. And it’s nothing they haven’t seen before around here.”
That wasn’t particularly reassuring, and yet she couldn’t deny a small piece of her was perversely excited by the thought.
You wanted to step outside your life? So step outside.
There was only darkness where Zee’s eyes should be.
And something inside her clenched hard.
“What are you waiting for?” she whispered, suddenly shaking and not quite sure why. “Changed your mind?”
“No.” He lifted a hand and placed it lightly around her throat again, making goose bumps rise all over her body, sending her pulse racing and her breathing short and fast. “I’m just thinking about what I wanna eat first.” His hand moved down, his fingers trailing over her skin in a light caressing movement that made the shakes worse. “And I think . . .” His hand reached the neckline of her dress, brushing over the swell of one breast. “I wanna start here.” And he slid his fingers inside the red silk and pulled down hard.
She couldn’t stop the gasp that burst from her in a soft explosion of sound and she had to grip on to the brick wall behind her to stop from instinctively covering herself. Because she wasn’t wearing a bra under the dress. There was nothing at all between the fabric and her bare skin. And now there wasn’t even that.
She stared up at him and gradually the expression on his face became clear in the darkness, taut and hungry, silver glittering in his eyes.
A deep shiver caught her.
Are you really sure what you’re getting yourself into?
No, actually, she wasn’t.
And then Zee lifted his hand and put his thumb in his mouth. Then he lowered it again and brushed that wet thumb over her already hard, bare nipple.
Electricity arrowed through her, every nerve ending suddenly on fire. She made a choked sound and then another as he lightly began to circle, her skin now slick from the moisture on his thumb and even more sensitized.
“You wanna be dirty for me, pretty girl?” His voice was low and dark and hungry. “You want my dirty hands all over your nice clean skin?”
His thumb moved and it felt like with every circular motion he made, he stripped a piece of her away. Pieces that weren’t herself, but the costume she’d been wearing every single day of her life since Will had died.
Perhaps it was wrong to want this, to embrace it. But something was changing inside her, as if ropes that had been holding her down were slowly being cut, one by one.
“Yes,” she said hoarsely, her breath catching as he began to rub his thumb back and forth over her nipple, slick skin sliding over slick skin. “I w-want that.”
He leaned in, bending his head so his mouth was inches from hers. “So tell me.”
She couldn’t move, held by the look in his eyes and the feel of his finger on her taut flesh. “I want your d-dirty hands on me.” Her voice was thick, the stutter helpless. “And I want to be dirty for you.”
His head dipped, his mouth covering hers for a short, hard, blinding kiss. Then he lifted it again and took his hand from her breast, staring down at her as if debating something.
She couldn’t stop shivering, that aching, restless want prowling around inside her.
Zee moved his hands to the neckline of her dress, up near her shoulders, gripping tight, then pulling apart in a hard jerk. The fabric ripped and he pulled again, tugging it down over her arms, baring her to the waist.
Her breath escaped her. All she could do was stand there naked from the waist up, the brick rough against her bare skin, feeling his gaze brush over her like the flame from a blowtorch.
Robert had never looked at her like that. Or any of the few boyfriends she’d been with in college. Never like they wanted to devour her alive. As if they couldn’t wait to feast.
Zee’s gaze lifted to hers, sharp-edged and blazing like a blade lifted straight out of a forge fire. And then he covered her breasts with his oil-stained hands.
The heat of his palms transfixed her, stole the remaining breath in her.
He squeezed gently, his thumbs pinching her aching nipples and sending bright arcs of sensation pulsing through her.
She groaned and he stole the sound with his mouth in another hard kiss that had her pressed up against the rough brick of the wall.
“On your knees,” he demanded against her lips. “You wanted to get dirty so it’s time to get fucking dirty. I want your mouth around my cock in five seconds or you’re not gonna get to come.”
The sound of his voice cut the remaining ropes holding her down, the last shreds of Tamara Lennox, good girl and hard worker, and she was on her knees before she could even think straight.
The ground beneath her was hard and covered in gravel, but she was barely conscious of it. All she was aware of was the fact that she was kneeling in the dirt at the back of a garage in a sketchy part of town. In front of a tattooed mechanic, a stranger, who was going to make her suck his cock. It was so wrong and yet the hottest thing she’d ever experienced.
“Five seconds, pretty girl,” Zee growled. “Better open that mouth of yours.” His hands were already at his overalls, shoving them down over his hips and taking the hard length of his cock out of his boxers.
Her mouth had gone dry. She didn’t have a lot of experience blowing guys. But this . . . Zee . . . God. That musky, spicy hot smell of him, it did things to her. Made her hungry in a way she’d never been before.
She lifted her hands and gripped onto his muscular thighs. His fingers curled around his cock and she couldn’t take her eyes off the sight. Oil stains and smooth, hot skin. Moisture flooded into her mouth like she was starving and he was food.
“Do exactly what I tell you and you’ll get yours, too.” His other hand reached for her, twining in her hair and gripping on tight. “Open up, pretty girl.”
And then he was sliding into her mouth and the hot, salty taste of him was on her tongue.
So good. So fucking good.
She closed her lips around him and dug her fingers into his thighs, responding to the grip in her hair as he guided her.
“Look at me,” he murmured.
She obeyed, lifting her gaze to his.
Silver glimmered in his eyes, the lines of his face drawn tight. “Oh yeah.” His voice was a rough whisper in the darkness. “Suck me, baby. Just like that.”
And she did, taking him in as far as she could, using her tongue to stroke the underside of his cock, all down the long, hard length of him. Watching the expression on his face change, becoming tighter, fiercer. His gaze flicked to her bare breasts and back to where her mouth was stretched around him and she could see the effect that had on him. She felt it herself, too, in the ache between her legs that had her clenching her thighs together, trying to ease it.
Zee smiled, a hungry wolf’s smile, his fingers pushing deeper into her hair and holding on tight. “You like this, don’t you? You like having my dick in your mouth. Makes you all wet.”
She nodded, increasing the suction, suddenly wanting him as desperate and out of control as she was starting to feel.
But his hips stilled, the grip in her hair almost painful. “Pull your dress up and let me see.”
She would never have contemplated doing such a thing a few days ago. But she wasn’t Tamara now. She was on her knees, her dress ripped, and if she looked down, she knew she’d see the marks of his hands on her breasts, oil on her clean skin.
Tamara was dead and gone.
Her hands shaking with desire, she fumbled with the hem of her dress, pulling it up around her waist, baring herself to him. And she gloried in the tight look on his face as his gaze dropped. “Spread your thighs,” he ordered roughly. “Let me see that hot little pussy of yours.”
She did that too, no hesitation, adjusting her stance so she was kneeling with her legs apart.
“No.” His voice was a harsh rumble. “All I’m seeing is cotton, baby. Get those panties away.”
Her hands were already moving to obey, tugging aside the damp cotton, baring her sex to him.
He exhaled. “Oh yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. Fucking beautiful.” He flexed his hips, a long, slow thrusting into her mouth, his gaze fixed between her thighs. “Touch yourself. Let me see those fingers working that tight pussy.”
She couldn’t do it fast enough, shuddering as she touched her own wet flesh, sliding her fingers over her clit, the sharpness of the pleasure almost making her come on the spot.
Things began to descend into desperation at that point, her world narrowing to the slide of his cock in her mouth, the gleam in his eyes as he watched her hand move between her thighs, the intense hot pleasure of her fingers on her clit.
Everything spun out of control and she let it, embraced it as he began to thrust harder, faster, pulling on her hair and making little points of pain prickle all over her scalp. But that only added to the rush of sensations building inside her. The gravel beneath her knees, digging into her skin. The thickness of him in her mouth. The dirty pleasure of touching herself as he watched her.
It was all so good. All so intense.
The climax broke over her without warning, leaving her shaking and gasping, all her senses overwhelmed. She was barely conscious of Zee’s thrusts becoming faster, wilder, his grip tightening even more painfully. And when the climax took him too, all she could do was kneel there and take it as he thrust hard into her mouth, putting his hand up to lean forward against the wall, a deep groan tearing from him.
Tamara didn’t move, her whole body ringing like a bell with the aftereffects of the climax, the taste of him hot in her mouth.
And it was only in the moments afterward, as he slowly withdrew, that she began to be aware that her knees hurt and her scalp was tingling, her jaw aching.