Muffin Top

by Avery Flynn

  She watched him, amusement curling the corners of that kissable mouth of hers upward as she reached behind her back and did some pinch-and-snap move that was followed up with her sliding the straps of her bra down her arms and somehow managing to pull it off without ever removing her dress. His gaze was drawn like a magnet to her hard nipples pressing against the soft knit of her red dress. He’d seen those nipples, knew what they looked like, with the large peach areolas framing them. That knowledge, without being able to actually see them or touch them, was making his brain a little foggy. So he swiped the key again, as if by magic it would work.

  Holding her undies in one hand, she reached out and took the keycard from his grasp. “Try the other one.”

  Sexy and brilliant. Fuck yes.

  He grabbed the other keycard out of the holder and swiped. The light turned green. He had the door open and both of them through it in the next half breath. Lucy wasn’t done tormenting him, though; she made sure to walk just enough ahead of him—those damn panties and bra in her hand like a sweetly cruel tease—to stay out of his reach.

  The room was amazing. At least, he assumed it was, judging by the look on Lucy’s face when she turned toward him because he couldn’t look away from her to check it out for himself. There was no better view than the one he had standing just inside the door.

  “This is amazing,” she said as she did a full, slow turn to look at the room again. “But why?”

  “Purely for selfish reasons.” He gripped the doorknob so hard he was kinda surprised it didn’t bend, but he needed to stay where he was at the moment or he was going to drag her down to the carpet caveman-style and shove her skirt up so he could bury himself inside her right away.

  That wasn’t how tonight was going to go, though. This wasn’t just fucking. This was a seduction. This was his chance to persuade her that they didn’t have to end here. There was a place for them in Waterbury.

  “Oh yeah?” She strolled over to the huge bed that faced the windows looking out at the vast national forest and trailed her fingers across the bedspread. “What are those?”

  “I want to show you how good it could be between us.”

  Her jaw tensed just the slightest, but he caught it.

  You not the kind of guy who delivers happily ever afters.

  Shannon’s words came back to haunt him at the worst possible time, but he shoved them back. If he was able to do it with anyone, it would be Lucy.

  She recovered faster than he did—of course—and dropped her bra and panties on the bed and brought her fingertips up to the deep V neckline of her dress. “Then why don’t you show me?”

  The control that he’d been holding onto like a lifeline snapped, and he strode across the room to her. He cupped her face and lowered his mouth to hers, claiming her as much as he could in that moment, deepening the kiss, tasting her, teasing her, telling her without words everything he needed to say.

  But it wasn’t enough. He wasn’t sure it ever would be with Lucy.

  Without breaking the kiss, he walked her backward to the wall by the bed. He roamed her softness with his hands, loving the feel of how she fit perfectly against him, with him. Finally, he broke the kiss before he got so lost in her that he forgot what he really needed to tell her. What was really on the line.

  “I have to warn you that I’m not playing here.” He reached down and started to inch the hem of her dress up. “There’s more between us than some itch we both want to scratch.” He pulled the red material up and off of her, so he could feast his eyes on all of her.

  Sucking in a deep breath, he did just that, lingering on her full tits, the gentle curve of her belly, the way her thick legs were spread just the perfect amount for him to drop to his knees so he could curl his tongue around her hard, wet clit—but not yet. First, he had to make sure she knew this was more than a good-time fuck.

  “This doesn’t end when we leave Antioch.”

  …

  Lucy was about to implode or explode or spontaneously combust, she had no idea which one, but something was going to happen. There was no way she could be on the receiving end of that look from Frankie after that declaration and not be. Damn that man, it wasn’t fair. How was she supposed to keep her head and heart out of this whatever-it-was between them when he pulled crap like that?

  He was Frankie fucking Hartigan, player, hot firefighter, sexy ginger giant. She was Lucy Kavanagh, which was pretty damn awesome most of the time, but she was in a totally different league than he was, even if he didn’t realize it at the moment because he hadn’t been surrounded by Waterbury’s most beautiful just waiting to throw themselves at him in a week.

  “Frankie.” His name sounded like a plea even to her own ears. “Let’s take tonight for what it is.”

  “Hot, melt-your-brain sex?” he asked, skimming up her side, leaving a trail of fire in his wake as he delivered a series of soft, deadly kisses down her neck.

  “Yes please.”

  “But you’re the one who said sex was so much better if there was emotion involved.” He circled a fingertip around the tip of her breast but left her sensitive nipple alone, only letting the heat of his breath tease it. “Were you bullshitting?”

  God, she couldn’t think. Not when they were like this. She arched her back, bringing her breasts closer to his mouth, but the evil man just chuckled and took his mouth on a detour, licking and nibbling his way down the side of her breast—so frustratingly close to where she needed him but so damn far away.

  “You didn’t answer my question, Lucy.”

  That was because she could barely put two thoughts together. “No, but—”

  “Then no buts.” Then his hand was on her thigh, the backs of his fingers touching her overheated flesh, and she didn’t even bother to try to bite back her moan. “I like you, Lucy.” His fingers went higher but stopped before brushing the tight curls covering her mound. “I more than like you.”

  Her core ached for his touch. Even an inadvertent brush of the back of his hand would have set her off. Breath coming in quiet, needy puffs, she spread her legs, hoping he’d take the hint. Of course, the stubborn man didn’t. And when she moved to slide her own fingers through her slick folds, he encircled her wrists in one of his large hands and lifted her arms above her head.

  “That’s not fair,” she groaned, wanting to throttle him almost as much as she wanted to fuck him.

  “A man’s got to use the tools at his disposal.” He nuzzled his face against her neck, kissing the spot where her shoulder met her throat. “What’s wrong, are you feeling desperate, Lucy? Like you need some relief?”

  Oh God, that was the understatement of the eon. “Yes.”

  “So?” he asked, his voice a low rumble that she felt as much as she heard. “What’s the harm in taking this back home?”

  Oh, besides getting gutted by the broken heart that she’d eventually be nursing, because that’s the way life worked? “This isn’t fair.”

  “All’s fair in love and war,” he said, running his hands down from her hips to her thighs as he sank down to his knees. “Come on, take a chance on us. Take a chance on me.”

  She didn’t miss the way his breath paused on the last word as if he was as unsure but hopeful as she was.

  “You really think we could make it work?” Was she crazy for even considering it? Maybe. But even for as much as her body was urging her to say whatever he wanted to hear so they could get on with it, that wasn’t what was pushing her forward. It was the strange, alien emotion that felt a lot like hope building up alongside her arousal.

  He kissed the inside of her thigh, so close to her core that she nearly cried out. “Without a fucking doubt.”

  This was crazy. She should say no. It was the smart plan. It was exactly what she was going to do. “Yes.”

  It was the word that broke them both.

  For as much as she wanted his mouth between her legs, it wasn’t enough for the need wracking her. She needed him, hard and deep, f
illing her until there was no her or him, only them.

  “Get on the bed.”

  She didn’t have to ask twice. He got up, wrapped an arm around her, and fell back onto the bed, taking her with him. She landed on top of him, but the impact didn’t faze him. He just cupped the back of her head and brought her face down onto his and plundered her mouth like a man starved for what only she could offer. And offer herself she did.

  Swinging her leg over him, she brought herself up enough so she could reach in between them and wrap her hands around his thick cock. With a tight grip, she stroked her hand up and down his shaft, letting her thumb rub across the lip and spread the pre-come glistening there. Then, she positioned him just right and sank down onto him, the pleasure of it forcing her to break the kiss and groan out his name.

  “Fuck me,” he ground out the words. “You feel so good, so wet and tight.”

  Then she started to rock against him, and neither of them had words any more.

  His hands cupped her breasts as she raised herself up and let herself slide down in one long, slow movement until he was buried deep inside her. Rotating and rocking, she lifted herself, inching upward as she clenched around his dick, trying to keep him in place but needing to feel him move. She wanted to make this last, to go slow, but she couldn’t. The need inside her was already building into a tight, electric ball of want. And she gave into it. Throwing all caution to the side, she fucked him—forcefully, relentlessly—as he met her every downward thrust and groaned at her every withdrawal. Then, lifting his hand that had been holding onto her hips and guiding her up and down on his cock, he reached up and strummed her clit. Again and again he circled that most sensitive spot until she couldn’t take it anymore, and she came hard and fast, sinking down onto him one final time as he came along with her.

  That’s when the cheering and clapping started from the other side of the wall. Had they been that loud? She looked down at Frankie, who was wearing a satisfied, cocky grin. Oh yeah, they were very much that loud.

  Oh my God.

  She looked at Frankie. “Does this happen to you often?”

  “Only with you.”

  Collapsing with giggles and exhaustion, she was careful to make sure she didn’t land on him as she laid down, but he just grumbled something she couldn’t quite make out and pulled her close.

  With her cheek pressed against his chest, she lay there and listened to the steady thrum-thrum of his heart beating. His springy chest hair tickled her nose, but she refused to give into the sneeze threatening to ruin the moment because it was a perfect moment. The kind of snapshot in time where absolutely everything seemed possible, where the idea of her and Frankie being together as a couple in Waterbury seemed plausible.

  When they got back to Waterbury, they’d be out of the vacation bubble and their real lives would intrude. He’d have a bazillion women who wanted him, tall women with appropriate curves in the appropriate places, the kind who wore skinny jeans that still managed to droop, the kind who never got the wow-she-really-let-herself-go look from strangers. Would he still want her then? Would she be the one waiting, just like her dad had been? That’s the way these things worked, the opposites-attract newness wore off and when it did it would be too late for her. Hell, it was too late now. She’d fallen for him, like a lemming rushing off a cliff and into a big fluffy cloud of love.

  All she could do now was prep for the inevitable ending and try to enjoy what time they had together while it lasted.

  …

  Frankie could hear her thinking, it was that loud in the totally silent room.

  So he gave in to the urge to wrap her tighter in his arms, but managed to keep his mouth shut. Telling her everything he was feeling now would only freak her out even more than she was already. He’d keep the news to himself that she was completely right. Sex wasn’t just sex, not when it involved someone he loved. It was a dumb, cheesy thing to say, even in his head, but it didn’t change the fact that it was true.

  But since he wasn’t planning on turning in his stubborn Irishman card today, he’d keep that to himself, instead he closed his eyes all he could picture was the future waiting for them both in Waterbury.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The next day, after saying goodbye to Tom and Gussie, they hit the road. For his part, Frankie had been hoping Scarlett’s fuel pump would go out again for the past million miles. The car gods, however, had other plans as the miles flew by one field of crops after another until they were almost back in the Eastern Time Zone.

  And with every small town they passed and interstate gas station they stopped at, he could see the truth that they were leaving some sort of alternate reality sink into Lucy a little bit more. She’d gone all silent and contemplative a half hour ago—a fact made more apparent because this part of the country seemed to get exactly zero radio stations.

  He had to do something, or she’d change her mind about giving them a chance back home. It wasn’t that Lucy wanted to sabotage them, but he could feel that big, bad something lingering in the air as apparent as the changing scent of a fire that warned of imminent danger. It had him drumming his fingers on the steering wheel and grasping at mental straws of ideas that could pull her back from the edge.

  That’s when it hit him.

  “What’s your biggest fantasy?”

  Lucy pivoted in her seat, her beautiful face totally neutral as if she didn’t know exactly what kind of fantasy he was asking about—which she totally did. “Having Wonder Woman’s invisible plane.”

  He turned his attention back to the road and passed a tractor on the back-country highway shortcut with ease, and they were again the only ones on the lonely stretch of road. “I thought you hated flying.”

  “No, I hate the teeny-tiny seats,” she said. “There’s a difference.”

  “So you mean I could actually stretch my legs out and not turn into the human pretzel in Wonder Woman’s plane?” Diana was an Amazonian princess, after all. Leg room had to matter to her.

  Lucy nodded. “Yep.”

  “That’s my new second favorite fantasy,” he said, his thumbs tapping on the steering wheel to keep from reaching over and tracing a line across the slice of thigh visible below the hem of her skirt.

  “Only number two?” she asked, her voice getting that husky edge that made his dick sit up and listen. “What’s number one?”

  He’d spent the past hour thinking about it and had developed something that was halfway between heaven and hell. “It involves you naked.”

  “I’m so shocked,” she said with a laugh. “What am I doing while naked?”

  “Well, you’re not totally naked. You’re sort of in clothes but out of them as we’re driving down the highway.”

  Original? Not really, but with Lucy just about everything turned into a sex fantasy for him.

  “Okay, I’m game. Give me some specifics.”

  Of course she was. The woman was fucking fierce. More than anything else, it was that attitude that turned him on most.

  “Your shirt’s unbuttoned.”

  In his peripheral vision, he saw her lift her right hand and reach for the top button of her flowy blue top. She slipped one button out of the hole, then the next one and the next until her shirt was open, revealing her amazing tits encased in a bright red bra. Red. Of course it was. Just like the woman, the color was a warning and a promise. He fucking loved it.

  He gripped the steering wheel tighter and took a look down the long, straight highway. There was no one but them.

  “The next thing you do in my fantasy is take out those gorgeous tits of yours.”

  Lucy didn’t even blink. Instead, without hesitation, she tugged down on the satin material of her bra until her breasts came free. Yeah, he was driving, but there was no way he was going to miss taking a good look at her like that. It was like he’d been imagining, her half undone with a lusty look in her eyes as she bit down on her full lower lip.

  His cock pressed against his thigh,
aching at the sight of her. Then she upped it, pinching one hard nipple between her fingers and rolling it.

  In an act of extreme sacrifice, he peeled his focus off her and back on the boring, straight line of a highway that went on for a fucking eternity. He should have kept his big mouth shut. There wasn’t a pull-off site or hotel for miles.

  Lucy shifted in the passenger seat, turning so that her back was to the passenger door and she was facing him, legs spread as far as possible in the car’s confines. “And how about I add a little of this.”

  Before he could even dream up what might happen next, she one-upped his fantasy by inching the hem of her skirt up until she was showing off her red-satin-covered mound. And if that wasn’t enough to turn his knuckles white with the effort of not reaching out to touch her, he spotted the tell-tale damp spot right in the center of her panties.

  If he thought he’d been hard before, he learned different at that moment, because the mutual one-upmanship of this fantasy had turned him to steel. It wasn’t that she was just humoring him, giving him a little glimpse of what he wanted. No. Lucy didn’t play that bullshit game. His woman always gave as good as she got, and it got her all slick and wet.

  “Is this turning you on, Lucy?”

  She relaxed against the door, one hand on her thigh and the other tugging on a nipple. “Even more than Wonder Woman’s invisible plane.”

  He was going to die of frustration right here in Scarlett’s driver’s seat in the middle of nowhere in farm country. “At least you can do something about it. I’m driving.”

  “You mean something like this?” she asked as she continued to play with her tits, cupping and squeezing them, rolling the nipples to hard points.

  The speed limit might have been sixty-five, but Scarlett’s speed had dropped down to thirty-five as he watched Lucy torment him with such enthusiastic glee that he almost forgot that she’d taken control of his little fantasy and made it bigger, better, and almost more than he could bear.