Hard and Fast (6 page)

“Should we test your theory?” he asked, his hand snaking over and resting on her knee, his thumb caressing in a small circle. “Get you wet both ways and see which one you enjoy more?”

Imogen swallowed. She was no sexual novice. In fact, in college she’d had quite a hot and heavy affair with a grad student, and considered herself fairly well versed in male mating techniques—aka pickup lines—but she’d never had anyone throw it out there in such an obvious way as Ty did. At least she thought it was obvious. It occurred to her she should verify that before she misinterpreted, given her lack of experience with men like him.

“Are you suggesting that we have sex?”

He grinned. “Well, I’m not talking about a dunk in the lake, that’s for sure.”

“This seems a bit impulsive.”

“Sex usually is.”

Ty’s hand had slid farther up on her thigh, and while her intellect might be hesitating, her body certainly wasn’t. Imogen felt a jab of desire low in her womb, and her heart rate had kicked up a notch or two or three. She tried to ignore it. “But you’re just coming out of a bad breakup, and I don’t know how I feel about being a one-night stand you indulge in on the rebound.”

His hand paused in its northward trek up her leg, and he made a sound of impatience. “It wasn’t a bad breakup. I am relieved, do you understand? Totally relieved to be done with Nikki. And who says it has to be a one-night stand?”

“Because in most cases when two people who don’t know each other very well get naked and have sex impulsively, if they try to continue seeing each other, they struggle to define the parameters of their relationship afterwards. It very rarely works to engage in extreme intimacy before you have some working knowledge of each other’s personality and how you interrelate.”

Ty snorted. “Ask a hundred married couples how many of them waited more than a minute before getting horizontal. I don’t see the sense in waiting if you want someone.”

Damn, his hand was trekking upward again and Imogen was struggling to concentrate on her point. She was no longer even sure why this particular point was important, and why she couldn’t just dive into bed with Ty. Yet even under a haze of desire, her sense of logic warred with her curiosity. She wanted to see, to feel, what it would be like to have sex with Ty, but her logical side said she absolutely did need to know why he wanted to get intimate with her, and what they would do about it after the moment passed and tomorrow rolled around.

“It’s not a good idea.”

Curses on her need for control, to always know the answers ahead of time. She could see the irritation growing on his face.

“Look, I’m not going to talk you into it, Emma Jean. I want a woman who wants me with zero hesitation. But if you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

Imogen frowned. “No, I don’t. I don’t know where you live or your phone number.”

Ty laughed. “God, you can’t stop your brain, can you? It’s always working things out.”

It struck a chord with her. She knew that sometimes her logic, her need to analyze and assess and study from every angle, was a huge detriment to just enjoying moments in life. It was something she struggled with, constantly being the observer instead of the participant, and it caused a twinge of shame that Ty had seen straight through her to what she considered her one true flaw.

“There’s nothing wrong with using my brain,” she said defensively. “If more people did, maybe we wouldn’t have a society on the brink of a complete breakdown, its social and moral structure decimated. Maybe if women were in charge instead of men, we—”

Imogen squeaked and forgot what she was saying when Ty’s hand slid under her legs and started to lift her up off her seat. “What are you doing?” she asked in a panic, reaching for the steering wheel, off balance in more ways than one.

“Get your sexy ass over here, Beatrice,” he said, dragging her across the gearshift until she was in his lap. “So I can kiss you until you’ve forgotten all your logical arguments why I shouldn’t kiss you.”

“But . . .” She had no idea what she was going to say because her mind went utterly and completely blank. She was sitting on Ty’s lap. His hard thighs were beneath her butt, his strong arms wrapped around her, and his mouth was inches from hers. She could smell him, a mixture of rain and aftershave, see the even whiteness of his teeth in the dark. He had lovely teeth.

And he had called her Beatrice. He had understood the conversation they’d had, given it back as good as she’d given it, even if he had never read Shakespeare.

Did she really want to be Beatrice? Alone, arguably bitter, holding firm to her principles? Or did she want to enjoy the moment? After all, Beatrice had met her match in Benedick in the end.

“Stop thinking,” Ty told her. “Stop worrying, analyzing, debating.”

“I can’t,” she whispered. “I tried. It worked for a second, then it all started again.”

He shifted her legs so that she was firmly on his lap sideways. His hand settled on her waist, and she was startled by how big it was, how much of the small of her back he covered with his spread fingers.

“I can make it so you can’t think at all.”

“I have no doubt of that,” she agreed.

He made a small sound, almost like a growl, and held her more firmly. “Say no now and I won’t do this,” he said.

Every nerve ending in her body was firing in anticipation and desire. She had the urge to both dig her fingers into his hair and wiggle her backside on his lap. Was she going to say no?

Yeah, right.

She’d worry about the awkwardness later. She’d stress about her thesis tomorrow. She’d examine why he was capable of creating such a total lack of control in her at some point down the road.

Right now she wanted him to kiss her.

“You’re not saying no.” His thumb was on the waistband of her jeans and dipping down into the gap between the denim and her panties.

“No, I’m not saying no.”

“So you’re saying yes?”

Imogen would have thought that was obvious, but she appreciated that he gave her time to change her mind, that he wanted to make completely sure she was on board with what was about to happen.

She was.

“Yes, I’m saying yes.”

Ty smiled, not a grin, but a slow, satisfied smile, as his amber-colored eyes darkened considerably to a rich chocolate brown. “Gentlemen, start your engines.”

Imogen paused. What did that mean, precisely? That she had the potential to start his metaphorical engine? That this was the beginning of a race? Or the beginning of a relationship? That . . .

She forgot to think the second his lips touched hers. Oh. My.

He didn’t hesitate, nor did he test the waters. He kissed her, and he kissed her with confidence and aggression. With fire.

It was the kind of kiss that had her mouth opening immediately, and her fingers clawing into his hair, and her ass pressing down into his lap. It was the kind of contact that stole the breath right out of her, made her inner thighs ache, and her head swim with a heady elixir of pheromones and excitement.

He swept his tongue across hers, and Imogen would have groaned if she could have gotten a breath. Instead, she just held on to his shoulders and gave it back. She didn’t think that in general she was uptight or reserved, but she was fairly certain she had never attacked a man so thoroughly during a first kiss as she was doing with Ty. She was pressing her chest against his, destroying his hair, sliding her tongue across his, and bumping her backside against his erection.

His hands were on the move, too, caressing her back, brushing against the sides of her breasts, heading under her sweater at the small of her back as his kisses got more urgent and demanding.

Imogen broke away to suck in some air and stare at him in wonder. How could he do that? How could he make her so damn hot with just a few kisses?

Ty shifted underneath her, dumping her onto the seat. “That’s it. Time to go back to my place.”

“Really?”

“Really. After that look you just gave me, I could pretty much eat you right here in the car and that’s probably not a good idea.”

Well. “Okay.”

“Shit, sorry. I kicked your books again.” Ty, half-sprawled across the gearshift and her lap, reached down and picked up a book.

Damn. It was the marriage manual. Imogen winced and fought the urge to rip it out of his hands, which would probably only result in calling attention to it. He did glance at the cover, but he didn’t say anything, so she didn’t think he had bothered to read it, given the angle he was at. He just stuffed it in the general direction of the bag and continued to crawl across the gearshift into the driver’s seat, his tight butt in her face. Unable to resist, she tentatively touched him, sliding her hands over the worn denim.

“Hey, now,” he said, his voice rough. “Save that for when I can do something about it.”

“What are you doing anyway?” she asked. “This is my car.”

“But I know where we’re going.” Ty settled upright into the seat and turned her wipers back on. He shot her a grin. “Besides, I like to drive.”

She had no doubt of that.

Imogen swallowed hard and wondered what exactly she had gotten herself into.

 

 

SO much for swearing off casual sex.

Ty had meant to stick to that conviction.

It wasn’t his fault that Imogen had tested his resolve a mere five minutes after he had made his decision.

She was definitely worth breaking the vow for, and somehow he just couldn’t think of her in the same category as Nikki or any woman he had randomly hooked up with in the past. Imogen was more than that.

It wasn’t just her physical appearance he was attracted to; it was her personality, her intelligence.

The way her mind worked fascinated him, and he liked her openness, her innate honesty. Whatever was going on in her head came out of her mouth, and that was a damn refreshing change. She was a logical little thing and didn’t seem prone to emotional outbursts. When was the last time he had dated a woman like that?

Never.

Ty looked behind him, put Imogen’s car in reverse, and shot out of the driveway way faster than he needed to, causing her tires to screech.

“Ack!” she said, grabbing on to the dashboard with one hand and reaching for her seat belt with the other. “Was that really necessary?”

“No. But I like speed as much as I like to drive.”

“Save it for the track, Mr. Checkered Flag. My car will self-destruct if you push it too hard.”

Ty grinned over at her. “Did you really just call me Mr. Checkered Flag?”

“Yes,” she said grudgingly. “I couldn’t think of anything better. But I’m serious. This car can’t go over sixty-five or it will start to rattle and vibrate. It’s old and cranky and seems to have some digestive issues.”

“I bet I could coax it to some speed, Miss Victory Lap.”

The ridiculous name he called her in return made her laugh, but she shook her head. “Don’t try it.”

“Watch me. We’ll skip the highway and take the back roads to my place.”

“It’s raining. The roads are slick.”

“You think I can’t handle a little slick blacktop at a puny hundred miles an hour?” Ty shifted gears hard and opened the car up a little as they turned out of Tamara and Elec’s suburban neighborhood onto the rural route heading south.

“The real question is how you’ll handle my hands around your neck throttling you if you don’t listen to me.”

He laughed so hard at her unexpected words he started coughing. Swallowing hard, he said, “Them’s fighting words, Emma Jean.”

Damn, it was a refreshing change to have a woman tell him exactly what she thought. Nikki had been a pouter, not a protester, which was annoying. Pouting from a woman made him feel irritated and guilty. Imogen’s firm no-nonsense approach amused him and had him obeying. He eased up on the gas pedal.

“Thank you,” she said in acknowledgment of his decreased speed.

“You’re welcome. But for the record, you’re too small to throttle me with any success.”

“Do you want to test the theory?” she asked, pushing her glasses up on her nose.

“No, ma’am.” He shot her a look. “I can think of a lot better things you could be doing to me with those hands.”

“Part of me assumes that what you are saying is so obviously sexually charged, you don’t actually mean anything specific. It was just meant to be a sort of verbal foreplay. So I shouldn’t bother to ask the inevitable ‘like what?’ question. But the other part of me wants to know if there is actually something you would like me to do to you in bed. You know, if you have a particular fantasy or position that you’ve been contemplating.”

Ty almost groaned. He did shift in his seat to try for a more comfortable angle since his jeans were suddenly cutting into him from the erection that had sprung up at her words. There was something so unbelievably hot about Imogen’s bold curiosity. She didn’t say anything to be coy, but to satisfy her own curiosity and to make sure that she was in full awareness of all the facts.

He’d never tried the academic approach to sex before and it was doing a number on him.

There hadn’t been any particular action he’d been thinking of when he’d spoken. He had just wanted to keep her aroused and focused on sex until he could get her back to his condo. But now that she had asked, he had a whole slideshow of positions clicking through his head. He didn’t think he could pick just one.

“Let me think about it and I’ll let you know.”

“Okay.” She bit her lip. “But just so you know in advance, I’m not having anal sex with you.”

Ty almost drove off the road. He could not believe she had just said that. Trying desperately not to laugh, he nodded carefully. “Okay. I’ll make note of that. Though that ruins all my plans for the night. Guess I’ll have to reorganize and come up with a new strategy.”