And then she curves into me, her lips brushing over mine, and I’m lost. In her touch, her kiss, her words... I like it that she feels safe with me. I want her to feel safe.
She wouldn’t feel that way if she knew the truth, though...
I squeeze my eyes shut and cut off my conscience. It doesn’t matter what brought us together—what matters is that I’m doing right by her now. I wrap my arms around her and pull her tighter against me, my hardness pressing between us almost painfully.
Then tell her the truth—all of it. Let her deal with the threat her brother poses.
I kiss her back, pushing out the foolish idea. I can’t do that until I understand what’s at stake, what’s really going on. And I can’t do that until I know she’s safe. She’s all lightness and goodness, and Philip’s none of that. God knows what he’ll do if he’s confronted by her when his desperation is at its peak. And that’s exactly what would happen if I tell her—she has the guts to go straight to him and have it out.
Yeah, and what about the shitstorm that will hit when she learns the truth about you? You sure you’re not running from that too?
I kiss her harder, desperate not to feel the aching truth of it. All I want is this. This moment. Her body curving into mine...her desire.
She sighs into my mouth. The heady sound provokes a growl of my own and I break away before I lose the last of my control and take her here in the garage, where anyone could see us.
‘Come on.’ I grab her hand and pull her along, past the Range Rover she picked out.
‘But...’ She stops, pulling back a little. ‘It’s not yours?’
‘No.’ I grin at her. ‘This is mine.’
I come to a stop before my motorbike and her mouth gapes.
‘You’re kidding?’
‘Why so surprised?’
‘I’m not—well, I am, a little...’
‘Is my ego about to take another hit, Coco?’
She laughs nervously, the sound so cute and edgy I want to kiss her all over again.
‘No, this bike is all you.’
My chest puffs like a proud fucking peacock; it doesn’t matter that I know it’s ridiculous to be so pleased at her simple statement.
She strokes her hand over the sleek black frame, her teeth worrying over her bottom lip. ‘I’ve just never been on one before.’
‘I’ll look after you,’ I say, knowing just how true those words are, although guilt pricks all the same.
‘I know.’
She flicks me a quick look that tells me she means it too and I struggle to add, ‘It’s not far to my place anyway...as you already know.’
Her cheeks flush, and the contrast with her over-bright green eyes and her blonde hair makes her appear more fairy than princess. My mind races with all that I want to do to her, to do with her. And all that I wish I could tell her and can’t.
Christ.
I throw my focus into action, reaching for my leather jacket and holding it open for her. ‘Wear this.’
She hesitates a second before obediently slipping her arms in. Her scent reaches up to me, all soft and floral. I’ve only had one whisky—courtesy of Philip Lauren—but standing here with her so close I feel punch-drunk.
She turns to face me as she zips up the jacket, and I’m more than just punch-drunk. I feel winded. She looks small, dwarfed by the black leather, but it’s not that—it’s the hit of possessiveness that comes over me.
‘I must look a sight,’ she says, suddenly coy, and I realise I’m practically scowling at her—idiot.
‘Believe me, that’s the least of your problems right now.’
She frowns. ‘How so?’
I can’t answer her. Putting a voice to my thoughts will make them far too easy to act upon.
I take up my helmet and she forgets her question, delivering another instead. ‘You’re not putting that on me?’
‘Too right I am.’
‘And what about you? Where’s yours?’
‘I only have one, and there’s no way I’m risking anything happening to your cute little face.’
I expect a laugh, or a rebuke at my overprotectiveness. Instead she drags her teeth over her lower lip, her cheeks flushing deeper. She must be used to compliments. People must throw them at her like confetti. So why does it feel like she’s hearing them for the first time with me?
The idea pulls at my chest. I focus on putting the helmet on her instead and tightening it. Really. Well. ‘You okay in there?’
She nods and tries to smile, the cushioned front to the helmet giving her a hamster expression.
I grin. ‘Suits you.’
‘Something tells me I don’t want to ask why.’ Her voice is muffled by her squished cheeks, and I laugh. I can’t help it. I laugh even harder when she tries to scowl at me, her green eyes shooting daggers before I slip the visor down.
‘Come on.’
I swing my leg over the bike and gesture for her to get on behind me. She places her hand on my forearm as she clambers on and scoots in close, her arms tight around my middle. I try to take a breath, but my chest feels closed in.
She leans her head over my shoulder. ‘Ready when you are, bad boy.’
I turn to look at her and curse the visor that hides her eyes from me. ‘Bad boy?’
‘The car was big, strong, safe...but this bike is badass.’
‘If I’m so badass, why are you trusting me to take you back to my place?’
It’s a genuine question.
She shrugs and rests her head against my back. Doesn’t matter that she’s wearing a great big helmet. I feel the gesture like we’re skin-to-skin.
‘Jackson considers you a friend,’ she murmurs, ‘and that’s good enough for me.’
I shake my head in amusement, bewilderment and a sea of other emotions that I know starts with deception and ends in a twisted, tangled mess around my heart.
I kick the bike into life, pulling back on the throttle and letting its roar fill the garage as well as my head. But I can’t shift the weird warmth, the heat that has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with her readily bestowed trust.
Coco would be the end of my life as I know it if I let her—of that I’m certain.
Just as well Philip Lauren’s timescale is short, because keeping a lid on this is proving harder by the second.
* * *
I’ve never understood the fascination with motorcycles. The idea of being so vulnerable on two wheels and at speed puts the fear of God in me. But with Ash between my thighs, and the engine reverberating through me, it wasn’t fear I felt—nothing close.
I clench him tighter and he calls back, ‘You okay?’
More than okay...
But it’s impossible to speak. Instead I nod against his shoulder and hold on as he takes us the short distance to his home. It’s the quickest few minutes of my life and I find myself wishing he lived a hundred miles away just so we could stay like this for longer.
We sit quietly, the engine idling, as we wait for the garage door to roll up. I’m so lost in the feel of him, of pressing him close, I don’t register the inside of the garage as he takes us in.
It’s the engine cutting off that wakes me up and I straighten, creating some distance between us and realising just how tightly I was holding him.
‘Sorry,’ I blurt.
‘What for?’ He kicks the stand down and I set one foot tentatively on the floor to steady myself.
‘For almost squeezing you to death.’ I slip off the bike and fumble over the helmet fastening. My fingers are shaking, my thighs buzzing with the lasting effect of the engine.
He climbs off and turns to me, his fingers nudging my own away as he stares through the visor. ‘I’d die a thousand times over if I got to go out like that each time.’
His v
oice is husky, his eyes wicked, and I swallow back the instant hit of lust.
He pulls the helmet up and over my head and I shake my hair out, feeling the air rush over my scalp, teasing at nerve endings already alert at his proximity, his words. I barely finish the move and he’s tossing the helmet to the ground, his fingers forking through my hair, bringing me up to the fierce onslaught of his mouth.
Fireworks erupt in my belly; heat uncoils through my every limb.
I’m vaguely aware of the garage door rolling down amidst the rush of blood in my ears, punctuated by our fierce grunts as we rip at each other’s clothing. He has his jacket off me, my bag has hit the deck, his fingers are undoing the buttons of my shirt as I tug his own from his jeans.
He rides my mouth, desperately deepening the kiss as he strides forward, taking me back against the hard wall of the garage, imprisoning me between brick and lean, hard muscle. He drops his hands to mine and lifts them above my head, lacing his fingers through mine, pinning them there before breaking the kiss.
I whimper, wriggling against him. I don’t want his mouth to leave; I don’t want my hands trapped. I want to feel him. All of him. But then his mouth is travelling down my neck, searing my skin with its dampened trail. My shirt hangs open and my body arches against the wall, offering my lace-covered breasts to the arrival of his mouth.
He breaks away long enough to stare down at me, to heat me with his look alone. His eyes are dark and hungry.
‘You are so beautiful...’
Sheer pleasure radiates out from my core—seeing him, hearing him so sincere, so choked, feeling his arousal pressing between us, hard, eager... Knowing it’s real, that he feels it as badly as I do, is exhilarating.
I clamp down on my bottom lip to stop a strangled whimper from erupting and then he’s parting my mouth again, his tongue forceful, his mouth ravenous. I squeeze my thighs tight, nursing the budding ache, but it’s driving me crazy. I need more.
I lift my leg around him, locking him against me, seeking out the friction I need. My jeans pull taut, a thick, unyielding layer that frustrates as much as it teases.
‘Ash...’
‘What, princess?’
He drags his mouth against me as he speaks, his hands raking down my arms to slip beneath my shirt. He cups my breasts, his thumbs rolling over their hardened peaks, already erect and pressing. He works them both, caressing, tweaking, groping. I struggle for air, struggle to keep on kissing him back as the pressure builds through my middle.
My hands drop to his hair, half pushing him down, half holding his mouth to mine. I want it all—his hands, his mouth everywhere.
He tears himself away, resuming his hand’s tantalising path down my front, over the swell of one breast, continuing to stroke, to toy, and then his teeth surround one peak and he nips at it. I cry out, pleasure streaking through my veins, my clit pulsing wildly as I clench around the ache. He does the same to the other, alternating between his fingers and his teeth, again and again.
I lower my gaze to take it all in. He’s a badass all right, and I’m fucking loving it. My mind fills with carnal imaginings...the things he’ll be up for in bed and out of it.
I take in our surroundings. The whitewashed garage walls, the bright overhead lights, the motorcycles, the cars...the fucking great big Range Rover.
‘I knew it.’
He gropes my breast hard and nips at the exposed skin just above the strip of lace with his teeth. ‘Knew what?’
‘You own a big black muscle car.’
He laughs, the sound ragged with desire. ‘So what does that make me? A big, safe badass?’
‘Hell, yeah.’
He tugs at my shirt, stripping it from me and flicking it aside. His force triggers a fresh swell of heat and then one hand slips to my bra clasp, undoing it with an ease that tells me he’s done it many, many times before. A strange prick of jealousy erupts, and I quickly shake it off. I don’t do jealousy. He’s not mine to be jealous about.
And then all thought dissipates as the cool garage air sweeps over my bare breasts and my bra hits the floor at the same time the hot cavern of his mouth surrounds one peak, sucking me in.
My head drops back and my ‘Yes...’ is a breathless pant.
‘So fucking perfect.’ He brushes the words against my nipple as he releases me, his palm lifting my breast to offer its peak to the flick of his tongue. He rolls his thumb over the protruding flesh, then his tongue. He shifts to the other, sucking it in, his tongue playing before releasing me.
I’m losing my mind on sensation. I tilt my pelvis and ride my body higher against him, my jeans biting almost painfully into my flesh. I just want... I just need...
‘Ash...’
He pops open the button of my jeans, then the zip, smoothing his hands around to my sides to shove the restrictive fabric down. I lower my leg to ease his way and he stops the second he can slip his fingers inside.
‘Fuck, Coco...’ He straightens and looks down at me, at where his fingers gently probe. ‘Crotchless?’
His voice is a croak, his face strained with tension, his eyes disbelieving and so fucking keen. I’m not sure if it’s a question or a statement but I nod anyway.
‘Easy access.’
‘Fuck.’
He slips his fingers through the opening designed for just that. He parts my lips, running his fingers upwards; the second he strikes my clit, I whimper. He rolls over me, his touch so soft he’s hardly there. I bite into my lip as I move with him, asking for more. Deeper, harder, faster...
‘There are so many things I want to do to you right now.’
I can hear it in his voice: the carnal promise, the ideas merging with my own. He slips back down to my opening, spreading me with his fingers as he dips inside.
‘Like what?’
He lets go of a ragged breath and plunges his fingers in deep, his mouth sweeping over mine to steal one rough kiss. ‘Like this...’
He pulls me with him to the front of his bike and places my hands on the handlebars, angling me forward.
‘You are beautiful,’ he rasps with appreciation, his hands soft as he strokes the curve of my back. ‘You know that, don’t you?’
Do I? I don’t know anything other than the quiver of anticipation running through me and the promise of release, the heat of his palms as he strokes my skin, the crazy stream of sensation along my breasts as they fall heavy in the cool air, my nipples sensitised from his thorough exploration.
‘Don’t you?’ he insists, lowering his hands to the waistband of my jeans and working them down my thighs.
‘Yes.’ I’d say yes to anything in that second.
‘Better.’
He smooths his palms over the curve of my arse, his appreciation drawn out, teasing. My skin prickles in his wake. And then he dips low, between my legs from behind, and I moan, ‘Yes, more, yes.’
He dips inside me like he’s savouring me. ‘So wet.’
I hum as my body sways, the sweet heat of his invasion urging me to spread my legs wider, wanting more. His other hand joins in the attentions, curving around to my front, strumming my clit as he moves within me. I feel a spasm of sheer pleasure deep inside; he has my G spot.
Fuck, yeah.
The pressure is acute, compounded by the perfect rhythm on my clit. I’m panting and crying out at once. It’s so good. So intense. I’m going to come—but, no, not yet... I want him with me. I want to tell him to stop, but I can’t.
‘Come for me, princess. Let go.’
My body rides him of its own accord, its movements rigid and fraught with the tension spiralling through my limbs. I widen my stance again, my jeans cutting further into my thighs an added sensation. Punishing. Powerful. Yes.
I lift my eyes to the bike and catch my reflection in the sleek black metal, my mouth slack, my breasts bare, and then I�
��m coming so hard I fear I’m going to fall.
I drop forward, the cold shield of the bike is sharp against my skin, and then his hands are on my hips, pulling me back against him. I rise and hook my hands around his neck, pressing my arse into his hardness, teasing him as the waves taper off, my limbs fill with sated bliss.
He shudders, his breath ragged as he clamps my lower body tight against him. ‘You’re so fucking beautiful when you come.’
I turn my head into him, press my lips to his jaw. ‘I want you inside me—here, now.’
His cock pulses, his body rocking with it. ‘I won’t last long.’
‘I don’t need you to.’
I love that he’s honest about it...that the effort it’s taking for him to hold himself back has his entire body vibrating against mine. I kiss him again and snuggle my head under his chin as he slips a hand inside the back pocket of his jeans and retrieves his wallet. A condom comes next, and then the wallet joins my bag on the floor, the empty condom packet too.
I lean forward as he unfastens his belt, the jangle of the buckle and the pop of buttons filling my ears, my body reheating with anticipation. I look over my shoulder, desperate to take him in, not wanting to miss a second of his slipping restraint. His cock is bare, pulsing in his grip; his teeth are gritted, his neck corded.
I’ve done that to him, and I smile as I take hold of the handlebars once more, my arse rubbing against his length and making him hiss through his teeth. I love it that he’s so desperate, so keen, and the wetness slips between my legs, coating my underwear. I couldn’t be more ready for him.
Slowly he rolls the condom down and grips the base of his cock hard. I nudge back, purposely positioning him in the valley of my arse, telling him without words that I need him now. He grips my hips, steadying me, but he doesn’t do what I ask. Instead he slips one hand around my front, beneath the lace, straight to my clit, which is so sensitised in the aftermath that I buck and cry out.
‘Patience, Coco.’
‘If you want patience you’ve got the wrong woman.’
‘Is that so?’ he murmurs, his eyes falling to my arse. ‘Guess I’ll just have to teach you.’
Getting Dirty Page 6