by Avery Flynn
“Or maybe,” she said, her voice low and breathy. “You meant I could take it a step further.”
And that’s when she tried to kill him by moving the hand that had been resting on her bare thigh higher. His lungs burned from holding his breath, but as he watched her slide her fingers under the damp center of her panties, he knew there were only a maximum of two things he could do at one time and those two were watch Lucy and keep the car on the road. Breathing be damned.
Every second he had to divert his attention from the sight of her fingers circling her clit under her panties to check the road made him want to scream with frustration. It made him want to pull over and sink his face down between her thighs and lick up all that sweetness. He was more than half tempted to do that right now, but Lucy was the master of this fantasy. It may have started as his, but she was in charge now, and if she wanted him to pull over, she would have told him.
“Tell me how that feels,” he demanded. He may not be able to touch her right now, but he could give her his voice, his dirty thoughts to crank up the intensity a little more, just like she liked it. “How slick is that pussy right now?”
“So wet.” Her hand started to move faster and faster under her red panties. “So ready.” Her eyes drooped shut as she let the back of her head fall against the passenger door window. “So soft.”
“You’re killing me.” And she was. The image of her playing with herself in the front seat of his car, her shirt hanging open and her tits just begging to be teased and licked, was going to be with him forever.
“Just keep half an eye on the road so you don’t kill the both of us, because I’m almost there.”
He did. Well, maybe a quarter of an eye, because there was no way he could really look away as she came on her fingers fast and hard. It was the best/worst thing he’d ever seen. The best because there was nothing sexier than watching Lucy have an orgasm. The worst because his cock had never been so desperate for attention in his entire life. He was a good driver and an expert at jacking off, but there was no way he could do the two at the same time without killing them both.
“Gotta tell you,” Lucy said, a satisfied grin curling up the sides of her sexy-as-sin mouth. “My second-place fantasy—after the invisible plane—is good, too, but that felt fantastic.”
Her fantasy? She’d claimed his fantasy but still had one of her own? He shouldn’t ask. He wasn’t sure he could live through another show like that one. Yeah, asking was definitely not a good idea—but where was the fun in that?
“What’s your fantasy?” he asked.
Something wicked and way more fun than should be legal flashed in her eyes. “How about I show you?”
…
Lucy grabbed the seat, needing something to hold onto when the car jerked to the left at her question. There was no missing the hard-on pressing against Frankie’s shorts, and her mouth watered for it.
She knew what he was doing, using sex to soothe her worries. Good thing she didn’t mind, not when it was this much fun.
“Of course, I don’t know that you can handle my fantasy,” she said, scooting a little closer as she slipped the shoulder seatbelt strap down so she would be able to lean over. “You’re already driving pretty erratically.”
“I walk into burning buildings,” he said, the low rumble of his voice making her clench her thighs. “I can take whatever you’ve got.”
“You sure?”
He turned the full power of those sexy-as-hell blue eyes of his on her. “Fuck. Yes.”
“Okay, in my fantasy I’m sitting like this in the passenger seat of your car and my thighs are slick from my orgasm.”
“I like where this is going so far.”
“And I slide my finger like this.” Her finger glided up her toward her core, wetting the tip with her satisfaction. “And let you taste.” She lifted her arm and brought her finger, glistening with her satisfaction, and held it in front of his mouth.
Keeping his hands on the wheel with a grip so tight she was beginning to wonder if there would be indents when he finally let go, he sucked her finger into his mouth.
Holy shoe heaven. Who knew having someone do that could feel so damn good, and why had no one told her before? Her moan of appreciation escaped before she could stop it. Then, she pulled her hand back and dropped it to his leg. She had plans.
“Next in my fantasy, I tell you to hold onto the wheel.”
For once, there wasn’t a smart-ass remark or a flirty rejoinder. Instead, his jaw tightened, and he kept his focus 100 percent on the road as if sneaking even one peek at her right now would send them sailing off the highway into the fields bracketing it.
“Whatever happens,” she said, tracing a direct line up to his zipper, “don’t let go.”
She unzipped his shorts and pulled his hard cock out, which was so much easier in her imagination than in reality. Thank God his legs were miles long and his body set a good distance from the steering wheel. Yeah, there was definitely some awkward scooting and weird angles, but it was totally worth it when she took him into her mouth and he let out a harsh hiss of a curse. She sucked him in and worked her tongue around his girth, lowering until her lips met her hand wrapped around the base. Goaded on by the half-groaned orders to “take him all” and to do it “just like that,” she took him in until he hit the back of her throat—and then she swallowed.
“Damn, Lucy, do that again.”
She did, and then she moved up and down his dick, teasing and tasting him until he said her name in a strained tone that had her sealing her lips around him seconds before he came.
When she sat up again, she noticed the speedometer was down to ten miles an hour. Giggling to herself, she brushed her skirt down and buttoned up her shirt as he got himself squared away. And when the scenery started going by fast enough that she couldn’t pick out individual stalks of whatever the green stuff growing was, she flipped down the visor and got her lipstick from her purse, feeling every bit like a badass who’d just conquered the world.
“Our fantasies really go together,” she said as she uncapped her favorite shade of red.
“Hell yes, they do. Just like us.” Frankie nodded in agreement as he zipped around a slow-moving sedan that thank God hadn’t been around them a few minutes ago. “You are a real wild one. I can’t wait to find out what other wild things you want to do.”
She almost went outside of her lip line with that quip, her pulse picking up speed and her body temperature rising. How many times had she heard something close to that? The first time had been in high school, and it had been repeated again and again in college. The thing about fucking fat girls, the saying went, was that you were always guaranteed a good time for half the work because they were just so damned grateful for the attention that they’d let you do whatever you wanted, any way you wanted, and you didn’t even have to worry about getting the chubs off.
“You’re wild.”
Is that what he meant? She took a deep breath and let it out before she finished putting on her lipstick while trying to work it out. Nothing that Frankie had done so far had come anywhere near that kind of thinking. Surely, he wasn’t one of the assholes who’d brag to his friends about what he got the big girl to do. She snuck a peek at him. The permagrin on his face wasn’t tinged with snark or nastiness. It was just happy. He turned, catching her undercover glance, and winked.
“I can’t wait to get you in my bed at home,” he said. “That sucker is custom-made and so big you can get lost in it.”
Her pulse picked up again, but for a different reason. She was being ridiculous. Frankie wasn’t like those other assholes. Still, she couldn’t ignore that part of her that acted as an alarm system, the one warning her that things were going to be different once their real lives got involved.
“How are we going to make this work back in Waterbury?”
His mouth flattened into a line. “Same way we did in Antioch. Why?”
Damage control. It’s what she did for
a living. There was nothing wrong with applying the lessons she’d learned from years as a crisis PR maven—and, get real, what she’d seen growing up—to her personal life. The last thing she wanted was to make the people in her life she cared about have to pick sides between her and Frankie when the whole thing ended. If her parents’ marriage had taught her anything, it was that opposites didn’t make for forever.
Lust with Frankie she could deal with. Love? That was begging for trouble.
“Are you over there already planning our breakup?” he asked, the words coming out sharp and pointed.
Yes. No. Maybe. Just preparing for it. “It’s not that—”
“Good,” he said without looking her way.
Lucy stared at his stubborn profile, set like granite, for a few seconds and then turned her attention to the highway in front of them and the approaching interstate on-ramp that would get them back to Waterbury within a matter of hours. Unless the fuel pump went out again. They could get lucky that way.
“You aren’t having any doubts about if we can make this work outside of the Antioch bubble?” she asked.
“Not a single one.”
Good. That was good. Right? Yes, totally…except there was no missing the way his entire body was tense, the way he hadn’t looked at her when he’d responded, or the way he’d started drumming his thumbs on the steering wheel again.
None were the sign of a man confident in his declaration.
But she’d keep her mouth shut, take the good times while she still could, because she knew better than anyone that they never lasted.
Chapter Nineteen
Usually after a long trip home, there was nothing better than starfishing on her own bed in her own apartment, doing only what she wanted to do on her own. Yeah, she had a pattern after a long period of peopling, and it was pretty much not peopling for as long as humanly possible—or when she had to get up and go into the office again, whichever came first.
This time, though? Her bed felt too big. It was weird. It felt totally normal-sized before she left, and now that there wasn’t a six-foot, six-inch hot ginger firefighter next to her—there was just too much space.
He hadn’t been in her bed since six this morning. That’s when he’d gotten called back into work, his forced vacation cut short, because another firefighter had gotten injured during training exercises and they needed coverage. While he hadn’t been excited to leave, there was no denying that the man was jonesing to get back to the job he loved. How could she tell? The fact that he got dressed and was out the door in five minutes flat.
Of course, he only made it as far as the hallway of her condo building before he rushed back in and kissed her like a man possessed for about ten minutes, got her all hot and bothered, and then told her she needed to be patient, he’d be back in twenty-four hours. The man was evil, totally and completely.
She was contemplating her ceiling when her phone vibrated on the bedside table.
Frankie: Miss me yet?
Lucy: Nope. Totally starfishing.
The man had a big enough ego, he didn’t need her to be his fluffer.
Frankie: You got your legs spread wide and everything?
Was it weird that she heard the teasing in his voice in her head, and it sent a shiver down her spine?
Lucy: You’re incorrigible.
Frankie: Pretty much.
Lucy: Can we grab lunch tomorrow?
Frankie: Breakfast? Can meet you at your place after I get off shift.
Lucy: See you then.
Frankie: G2G got a call.
…
Frankie had six grocery bags hanging from his forearms when he got off the elevator on Lucy’s floor. Sure, he could have left half of the breakfast ingredients in Scarlett and taken two trips, but multiple trips was for wimps, and he was too ready to finally see Lucy again.
After smiling at the old lady who got on the elevator when he got off, he hustled over to Lucy’s door and lifted his hand to knock. The door opened before his knuckles even met the wood.
She stood there in a long gray sweatshirt with Boss Babe written across the front and a pair of yoga pants. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she was wearing those sexy red glasses of hers. Damn she looked good.
But that wasn’t what made him relax.
It was that feeling of coming home to her that eased the tension in his shoulders and loosened the vice grip on his lungs.
“Hey,” Lucy said, a nervous but excited smile playing on her lips.
He fucking hated that unsure smile. Without thinking twice, he dipped his head down and kissed it right off her face. When she let out a moan of appreciation, he followed up by sliding his tongue inside. It was so fucking good to touch her again, to be near her again, that he almost forgot that one of the bags he was about to drop had a dozen eggs in it.
He broke the kiss and looked down at her, loving that her smile was all smart-mouth Lucy again.
“Do you always answer your door that way?” he asked.
One of her eyebrows went up. “By kissing whoever knocked?”
“Technically, I didn’t knock,” he teased. “You opened it before I got a chance. I think you’re a little excited to see me again.”
She rolled her eyes. “That ego.” Then she took two bags from his grip. “You brought groceries?”
“I’m making you breakfast.” Okay, he’d gotten way more than they needed for breakfast, but he wanted to make sure to have a little bit of everything just in case she hated one thing or another.
“I made brunch reservations,” she said, leading him inside. “I’d figured you’d be tired after your shift and wouldn’t want to cook.”
He shut the door and followed her into her kitchen, setting the bags down on the island in the middle of the room. “When it comes to being with you, I’m never tired.” He leaned down and stole another kiss. “In fact, we’d get arrested for what I plan on doing to you after breakfast if we were in public. So, would you be cool staying here?”
Standing on the other side of the island, she cocked her head to one side and did the world’s worst impression of total innocence. “You have plans for me?”
“All sorts of them.” He gave her a wink and then started unpacking the bags. “But first, let’s make apple French toast.”
Lucy helped him unpack the bread and eggs, apples and real maple syrup, the milk, the OJ, the croissants, the bacon, the turkey sausage, the hash browns, the muffins, and everything else. By the time it was all spread out on her island, they were both laughing at the sheer spectacle of it all.
“So,” he said, looking at the huge spread. “I may have gotten a little too much for just the two of us.”
“Ya think?” she asked with a laugh. “Please tell me you know how to cook, because I’m shit at it.”
“Every firefighter knows how to cook.” He zipped around the island to her side and pulled her in close before kissing her again. “It’s part of what makes us so sexy.”
“Prove it,” she said, her tough talk undermined by the turned-on breathiness of her tone.
Oh, challenge accepted.
And that’s how he ended up teaching her to make French toast. She took over the whisking of the eggs while he peeled and sliced the apples so thin they were almost see-through. Next came the vanilla and the cream that she stirred into the eggs. After that it was an assembly line of dipping the bread into the egg mixture, laying it on the electric griddle, and adding the thin apple slices on top before flipping and letting that side toast.
“You sure you got this?” he asked as he looked over her shoulder while standing close enough behind her that it was just natural for his hands to fall to her hips.
“As long as you don’t distract me into burning them.”
That was just the kind of comment that needed to be responded to, but not with words. Instead, he dipped his head down and started kissing his way up the column of her neck to the sensitive spot behind her earlobe. As soon as he g
ot there, she almost dropped the spatula.
“Frankie,” she said in encouraging censure. “Don’t you have bacon to cook?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He nipped her earlobe and gave her a light smack on the ass before moving to the stove and putting the bacon into the pan.
They ended up skipping everything else but the juice and the scrambled eggs because by the time the French toast was done and stacked on two plates, both of their stomachs were growling. They hustled out to the balcony, where they sat at the tiny little bistro table and took in the Harbor City skyline, eating in companionable silence—unless you counted Lucy’s moans of pleasure when she took her first bite of the apple French toast.
It was nice, the lowkey ease of it. He’d never made breakfast with anyone who didn’t share his last name before. Like everything else with Lucy, though, it just felt…right.
He was trying to figure out how to put that into words when her phone buzzed and a photo of Lucy with her dad popped up on the screen. Looking down, she screwed up her mouth and flipped over the phone. Considering how close they’d seemed in Antioch, that was weird.
“Didn’t you want to take that?” he asked.
She turned her face toward Harbor City. “I’ll call him back after breakfast.”
Oh yeah. That set off every warning bell in his head. He’d thought Tom had liked him; hell, he’d seemed to practically give his approval for Frankie going after Lucy. Why the change? Unless he’d gotten it wrong. After all, he was the guy who’d never realized what all the women of Waterbury said about him behind his back until Shannon dropped her truth bomb.
“What is it?” He forced his fingers to loosen their grip on his fork. “He doesn’t like the idea of me dating his daughter?”
“Is that what we’re doing?” she asked, a teasing lilt to her voice.
“Yes.” Of that he had absolutely no doubts. Now, whether he could actually trust himself not to be his old man’s son, that was another thing, because for as much as he didn’t want to think he could, it was hard to ignore the family ghost that had been haunting him since high school. “I’d ask you to wear my class ring, but God only knows where my mom packed that away. So, what’s the deal with your dad?”