She's Gotta Be Mine (23 page)

The decision was split-second. She didn’t give herself a chance to think about it. Following smacked of obsession. She didn’t want to be obsessive. Then again, she’d already followed him to Cottonmouth. What could be more obsessive?

She stayed several car lengths behind him, almost a block, though she didn’t think he would have noticed her anyway. He’d had that faraway look on his face. He could very well have an accident in that state of mind. See, she was only looking out for him, trailing to make sure he was safe. Yeah, right.

Five miles, ten. Wasn’t Lake
Beaumonde
out here somewhere? Manmade, the county stocked it with fish during the season. Just as she’d thought, he turned to the left, his headlights flashing across tree trunks, then dipping down as he hit a rut.

By the time she turned, his taillights had disappeared around a bend in the small dirt lane. Through the trees, moonlight glistened on water. She took the same bend, and once again his lights disappeared around the next. Getting closer to the water, she didn’t dare follow in case she found herself right up his tailpipe. After the next turn, the road forked. He’d gone right, she went left, pulling to the side a hundred yards later, shutting off her engine and lights, and climbed from the VW.

What was he doing here? She already knew the answer. The rumble of another engine, out by the road, carried in the quiet night. Bobbie scampered off into the trees, heading to the lake at a right angle, in the direction she assumed she’d find Warren.

The moon dipped behind the clouds, the dark closing in around her. Silence. The car she’d heard must have moved on. Or had stopped somewhere along the dirt road to the lake. What kind of car did Cookie drive? Oh yeah, a Jaguar, low and sporty. With an animal snarl like the growl she’d heard? Maybe. Probably. Damn Warren. He was meeting her. And Bobbie didn’t want to see. So why was she still creeping through the woods?

She might not
want
to see, but she
had
to. She had to find out what Cookie was up to. The lake opened up before her, but she kept to the line of trees. A dark shadow close to the edge of the water, Warren leaned against the hood of his car, staring out at the lake. Then his head dropped to his chest. Where was Cookie? She should have reached the spot already, if that sound
had
been her car.

Bobbie slipped from tree to tree, closing in. An owl hooted in the forest. In the lake, something splashed. She didn’t dare get closer. She stood in the silhouette of a tall tree and rested her hand against its trunk.

Warren hadn’t moved.

A twig crackled behind her.

Then an arm snaked around her waist, yanking her back against a hard body, and a hand clamped over her mouth.

* * * * *

Her ass was warm and soft against him. Nick’s erection was immediate. She twisted in his arms, then bit his palm.

He groaned. Leaning down next to her ear, he whispered, “You don’t want him to hear us, do you?” But part of him wanted the man to know.

Her body relaxed against his like a gentle wave lapping over him. First her torso, then her butt, until she was flush up against his flaming hard-on. Christ, she felt good, smelled good. He stuck his tongue in her ear. She drew in an audible breath.

He wasn’t sorry he’d followed her. Nick caressed the shell of her ear with his tongue. Her hands gripped his wrist where he held her at the waist. He breathed hot against her, her shiver worming beneath his skin.

“Why’d you follow him?” His gut clenched waiting for her answer.

Her asshole husband stared at the barely rippling water. Dammit, here she stood in the dark mooning over a man that had dumped her. She hadn’t let go. Maybe she’d never let go. Nick had correctly surmised that she’d been showing up on his front porch simply to make her husband jealous. Dammit to hell. He was no stand-in.

And he’d damn well prove it to her.

Nick let go of Bobbie to shove both hands up beneath the short shirt she’d worn for
Brax
. Damn her for that, too, for choosing
Brax
to be seen in public with, for dressing sexy as all get-out for another man. She could have pulled away then. She didn’t. Nor when he nudged aside the lace cup either. Her nipple had already peaked and when he flicked it, she burrowed her bottom harder against him and teased him with the tiniest of moans. He hushed her once more with his tongue in her ear.

He undid the bra’s front clasp and held the weight of her in both hands. The scent of damp earth against the tang of her fruity shampoo made him dizzy. He squeezed her breasts and rocked against her bottom.

“When was the last time he made you moan like that?” he murmured.

He found both nipples at once and pinched lightly. She turned and bit his neck, stifling her gasp. Then, “Never.”

Christ, he wanted her. Now. Right here, with her husband only yards away. He wanted his stamp on her, his claim. He wanted to beat the crap out of the bloody careless bastard for trampling her. He wanted to show her how hot she was.

He wanted to wipe any desire for her husband or
Brax
from her mind.

His fingers slid down her abdomen to trace her skirt’s waistband. He dipped inside, far enough to caress the edge of her panties. He’d been there this morning, she’d stopped him. Leather creaked, like a breath of wind, as he inched up her skirt. She reached up, pulled his head down to the hollow between her shoulder and throat. He licked, bit, sucked, and pulled her skirt to her waist. She squirmed against him, nothing between them now but a thin scrap of lace and his jeans. Too much, way too much. He had to touch her.

Stroking beneath the elastic at each leg opening, fine curls brushed his fingers. He insinuated his leg between hers, opening her more fully to his touch. Shuddering as she swallowed, she let her head fall back against his shoulder.

“Did he ever make you this hot?”

“No.”

Her soft admission reached up inside him and filled a spot that ached. “Did he ever try?”

“No.”

The man was a fucking idiot. “Do you want me to touch you?”

“God, please.”

He looked up at her husband, still leaning on the hood of his expensive import, still oblivious. Nick knew he was crazy for touching her now, in this way, but he was past caring about right or wrong.

He slid one finger inside the man’s ex-wife and claimed her for himself.

She was wet. Hot. His. This time she spread her legs, then went up on her toes to grind back against him. He leaned into the tree to bear their combined weight. She bit down on her lip, holding in the cry, as he buried a second finger in her. Out again, along the fold, finding her clitoris. She started to shake as he rubbed, in circles, up and down, soft, then hard. Her hips rotated against his hand, her butt hugged his cock. He wanted to shove it inside her, but first, there was this.

Eyes squeezed tightly shut, fingers digging into his thighs, her tremors consumed her whole body. He could think only of making her come, over and over. He moved inside her again, pressed his palm down hard on her clitoris, then slid back out to start all over again, in small tight circles. She mewled like a cat, and he pulled her face to his, covered her lips and devoured her cries. She blew apart in his arms. And he almost came with her from the glory of her response alone.

* * * * *

Headlights split the night, flashing within inches of where they stood. Nick froze. Bobbie gasped, breathing hard with the afterglow of orgasm.

Nick locked his arm around her waist and pulled her further into the shadow of the trees.

Bobbie’s skirt still ringed her waist. Her damp panties chafed. But oh my God, for a moment there, she hadn’t cared about anything but Nick’s touch. She’d forgotten about Warren, about Cookie, about
Brax
. All she’d wanted was that orgasm, stretching, striving, finally falling into it the way she fell into his kiss, with everything that had been living in a vacuum all this time. Screaming, kicking, crying, wrenching, if only in her mind. Nick wanted her, desired her. Nothing had been more important. Given another minute, she would have had him flat on the ground with his pants around his ankles and his penis buried deep inside her.

His breath beat harshly against her ear, echoing the strain of hers. His erection pulsed in the cleft of her behind.

“Who is that?”

The car pulled to a stop behind Warren’s. A silhouette rose from the open door. Sickly sweet perfume wafted on the air.

“Christ. Is that Cookie Beaumont?”

She bit her lip before answering. “Yes.”

Nick pulled back from her, physically and metaphorically. “What the fuck is she doing here?”

She scrabbled her skirt down. “
Shh
. They’ll hear you.”

But even as she said it, she knew they wouldn’t hear anything. Cookie had reached the front of Warren’s car. Their lips didn’t meet, but their bodies did, melding as if they were one. Then Cookie slid to her knees in front of him.

Oh God. Oh God, no. This was too much. She’d throw up, she’d—

She ran. She would have fallen, but Nick grabbed her hand, hauling her up. Minutes later, she collapsed against the passenger door of the orange Charger he’d parked behind her VW. That was the car she’d heard, the low rumble. Cookie’s expensive engine hadn’t even broken her orgasmic stupor.

“Your husband’s fucking Cookie Beaumont?”

“Actually, it looked to me like she was about to give him a blow job.” Right hook, left jab, straight into the guts. Her own. Better she said it than him.

“How long has this been going on?”

She smiled, her lips curling back over her teeth. “Since he left me.”

“Shit.” He turned, ran his hand through his hair. “What does she want?”

“Him. I guess.”

He massaged his neck, staring off toward the lake as if he could still see them. “That bitch. She’s up to her old tricks. You can be damn sure she wants more than just a roll in the hay with your husband.”

“I know that. I’m not stupid.” She stopped, stared at him. “How do you know?”

“How do you think I know? Because I fucked her when I first came back to town.”

All the oxygen flushed out of her brain. “You had an affair with her?”

“It wasn’t an affair. It was fucking. Then she started telling me—” He cut himself off with a clamp of his lips.

“Telling you what?”

He didn’t say. “She’s a user and a manipulator.”

“And you...fucked her?” She never used that word before in her life. But then, there really wasn’t another word that carried quite the same meaning. She’d never wanted to die the way she wanted to right now, not even when Warren had called at three-thirty in the morning to tell her he was never coming back.

Nick had given her the most momentous orgasm of her life, because it wasn’t self-induced, because he’d
wanted
to touch her. She’d felt desire in his body’s tension, in the timbre of his voice, so needy she could have wept for the sound of it. It had been so long since she’d heard anything like it, if ever, felt it deep inside her. There was something so utterly overpowering about an orgasm gifted from someone else. It couldn’t be duplicated, couldn’t be simulated, couldn’t be...

But Cookie had been there first. As with everything else.

Cookie Beaumont had Nick. Cookie Beaumont had Warren. Cookie Beaumont had it all. Bobbie wanted to lay down in front of Nick’s car and let him run over her until her head squashed like a pumpkin.

“Are you in love with her?”

He grabbed her by the shoulders, shook her. “Are you listening to me? I fucked her. That’s all there was. I didn’t know she was married. When I found out, I dumped her. She told
Jimbo
I came on to her, then stood back while he tried to bash my face in with his fists.”

She plucked his fingers off one by one. He let her. It didn’t matter how it had ended or who had ended it. Cookie had still had him. Mary Alice who? That’s what he’d think about her silly question now. Men never got over Cookie. Nick was tainted. Bobbie still hadn’t gotten to the finish line first.

And she never would.

“Move your car.”