Evan nodded. “Yeah, a huge, blowout good time seems right up her alley. But—”
“But?” Cori asked.
“I wouldn’t say Cori isn’t good at very many things.”
“Oh?” Cori set her glass down, her palm suddenly feeling a little tingly. “What do you mean?” She was very good at kissing this guy, that was for sure.
“She’s very good at making the coffee guys feel welcome even when they’re completely underfoot. She’s very good at making you and Brynn smile. She’s very good at being absolutely exactly who she is, even when we’re all telling her to pull back. And she’s very good at winding me up tighter than any woman ever has, simply by laughing, or wetting her lips, or taking a drink of water.”
His gaze was focused on her mouth now, and Cori wet her lips without thinking as her heart pounded in her chest. His eyes darkened and he reached out for her hand, then tugged her close as he leaned in as if to whisper in her ear.
“In my dreams, your nipples taste like whipped cream,” he said softly, huskily, against her neck.
Shock—and lust—shot through her. Followed immediately by confusion. Before she could speak, however, he lifted a hand and traced his finger over the C tattooed behind her ear.
Oh.
She turned her head and put her lips against his. “Funny, your cock tastes like whipped cream in my dreams.”
He gave a soft groan and kissed her. Not deep and hot the way she wanted, but more like a promise of the deep and hot to come.
“When did you know it was me?” she asked, when he lifted his head.
“When you walked across the restaurant toward me.”
“Really?”
“You and Ava move differently. And…”
She pulled back to look in his eyes. “And?” she asked, arching a brow.
“The skirt is a little more snug on you than her,” he said, almost hesitantly.
“Dammit, I knew it,” Cori said. “I gotta lay off the pie.”
“Cori,” Evan said seriously, looking into her eyes. “You’re perfect. I love every fucking curve. And I’d like to love them even more. Up close and personal. With my hands and lips.”
She blew out a breath. “Well, I’d say all of this is much more convincing than what you and Ava were trying to pull off.”
“And I think I should take you home,” he said.
“Okay.”
“And fire up the gossips about how long we sat in the truck in your driveway before you got out with your hair messed up, your blouse buttoned wrong, and a very big smile on your face.”
She swallowed hard and nodded. “I can probably pull that off.”
“I can definitely help.”
They stood simultaneously and linked hands as they started for the door.
“Fuck.” Evan pulled up short all of a sudden.
“What?” Cori felt almost breathless and it wasn’t from the quick walk to the door.
“I should probably pay.” He gave her a sheepish grin. “Kind of got distracted there.”
She laughed and watched as he pulled his wallet out and headed for the waitress to settle the bill. She caught her sisters’ gazes. They looked amused. And happy. For her. And Cori felt a warmth in her chest. The shared looks, the knowing what they were thinking from across the room, the joke that the rest of the town wasn’t in on, the fact that they wanted her to be happy…it was all just really good. And it was thanks to being forced to be together. By their father.
“You ready?” Evan was back at her side.
She gave him a huge smile and linked her fingers with his again. “So ready.”
9
Evan worked very hard to drive carefully to the Carmichael house. But he cussed every single stop sign and other driver between the restaurant and their driveway.
By the time he pulled into the drive and parked just past the sidewalk, he was wound tight and had only three things in his mind: how Cori smelled, how Cori’s breast felt in his hand, and how she sounded when she moaned.
He turned off the truck and started to turn toward her, but before he’d even shifted an inch, she was already crawling toward him.
“Let’s steam up these windows already,” she said playfully as she started to lift her leg to swing it over his thighs. But she got stopped mid-swing. “Dammit,” she muttered, putting her knee back on the seat.
He reached for her, mostly because he had to touch her now, than because he thought he could be a lot of help with…whatever the problem was. His hand skimmed her side to her hip as she braced herself on all fours over his front seats. “You okay?”
“This skirt is too tight,” she said with a sigh.
He gave a soft chuckle. “Lose the skirt, Cori.”
She looked up at him. “Yeah?”
“Unless you don’t want me to put my hands where I intend to put them as soon as humanly possible.”
She wet her lips and, as always, the action sent aching heat straight to his cock. “I want your hands everywhere.”
“Then we are definitely on the same page.”
“Well, we have to do this,” she said. “for the sake of the neighbors.”
Holding her gaze, he reached for the zipper on the side of the skirt. Yeah, he’d made a note of where the skirt zipped up. A guy had to be prepared. The rasp of the zipper going down filled the cab as Cori’s breathing got faster.
She pushed back to kneel on the seat and slid the skirt down over her hips. Then shifting side to side, she moved out of it and tossed it on the floor. She started toward him, but then paused. She looked at the skirt, sighed, picked it up and then folded it over the back of the seat.
She caught him watching her with a smile and shrugged. “It’s Ava’s.”
“Right.”
Evan was grateful to the city of Bliss for positioning the streetlights where they had. And for whichever sister had turned on the porch light before leaving tonight. Along with the moonlight, they provided just enough light for him to see Cori’s face as she knelt on the seat in only her panties, heels, and the white silk blouse. She looked turned on, if not slightly hesitant.
He held out his hand. “What are you waiting for?”
“I was just thinking,” she said. “I’m not sure the last time I made out in a truck.”
He smiled. “That’s a semi-regular thing around here.”
“And I’m not sure the last time I did this with a guy I like as much as I like you.”
His smile died. There was suddenly an ache behind his breastbone and he wasn’t sure if it was because his lungs had stopped working or because his heart had just taken the hardest beat of his life. Evan cleared his throat. “I like you too.”
She nodded. “I know. That makes this different too.”
The happiness he felt knowing that she knew he liked her was strange. “I find it impossible to believe that the other guys haven’t liked you.”
“They liked what they knew,” she said. “But they didn’t know much.”
She was going to kill him. Just when he thought he might be at risk of dying of pent-up lust because of this woman, she made him realize that he might just die of wanting. And not wanting physically. At least not wanting just physically. But wanting everything. To be everything and give her everything and do everything she needed.
“Cori,” he finally said, aware that his voice was rough and that he probably looked like a man in pain, “I really need you to come over here.”
With a deep breath, she took his hand. As corny as it sounded, the moment their hands touched, Evan felt a shaft of need and this is perfect knife through him. He tugged her forward and she knee-walked across the leather.
This time when she swung her knee up, she had plenty of range of motion and she quickly straddled his thighs. Evan reached for the lever that would move the seat back, giving them extra room. Then his hands settled on her hips, the heat from her skin seeping into him from his lap and palms.
“Kiss me.” His voice w
as still rough, but he knew she could hear the raw desire.
She put her hands on either side of his face, looked him directly in the eyes, and said, “I really need to do more than kiss you.”
“Yeah?” He was definitely on board with that. Whether or not he should be. At the moment, with Cori Carmichael on his lap and in his hands, he simply couldn’t care about anything else.
“I’ve also never kissed a guy as much as I have you without doing a hell of a lot more,” she said with a smile.
That smile made things knot up in places Evan didn’t even know he could feel knotted up. “You shouldn’t say stuff like that if you want to get lucky tonight,” he said, trying desperately for teasing rather than going completely serious and deep. Because he sucked at serious and deep, and he was going to die if Cori climbed off of his lap before he’d seen and touched and kissed a whole lot more than her lips.
“No?” she asked, tipping her head.
Evan reached up and squeezed the clip that was holding her hair up. He tossed it on the dashboard as the long blonde tresses fell to her shoulders and he pulled his fingers through them. “It kind of makes me want to just keep kissing you,” he said. “I like being different for you.” On one hand, he wanted to consume her, to brand her, to make sure there wasn’t an inch of her that hadn’t been touched by every inch of him. But on the other hand, being the guy that she wasn’t immediately seducing sounded damn good too.
Though he definitely felt seduced. By things other than her amazing body and her playful daring in the bedroom. And he didn’t need to ask to confirm that Cori was playfully daring when it came to sex. That was as much a part of her as her laugh and her sassiness and her love for sweets.
“Evan,” she said, her voice soft and serious.
He felt his frown. Cori wasn’t soft or serious. “Yeah?”
“You are different. No matter if everything from here on out is stuff we’ve both done a million times. You’re different.”
His heart gave one of those almost painful whumps and he had to swallow before saying, “Thank God. Because I’m sitting here feeling like a regular, dumb-ass guy who just happened to rub a lamp and ended up with a goddess genie in his lap and I was hoping to get a really good taste of you before you figured out how much better you could do.”
The look on her face was a combination of amazement and disbelief and happiness and humor that seemed to reach in and wrap a fist around his heart.
“I thought this was going to be a wild and fast chance for us to both get rid of some of this crazy sexual tension,” she finally said.
“And it’s not?”
“Well, it might be that too,” she said with a smile. “But it’s also turning into…more.”
Fuck yeah it was. Then Evan frowned. Fuck. Yeah, it was.
Then she wiggled on his lap and all Evan could think was the yeah.
“Kiss me, Cori.”
This time she did. No more talking. No more making him wonder if his heart would continue to function adequately. Or if it had ever really functioned before this. Just her mouth on his, her hands on his face, his hands on her hips.
For about ten seconds. Then their hands began moving. She slid hers to the back of his head and into his hair. He ran his down her thighs—her bare thighs—to her knees and back up. She shifted in his lap and pressed closer to his cock. He gripped her hips and brought her down against his hard length. The feel of her against him was relief and torture at the same time. He slipped his fingertips under the edge of the scrap of silk that was all that covered her sweet ass and the wet heat that he was now grinding against his fly.
“Evan,” she gasped as his fingers stroked the bare skin of her butt.
“Unbutton,” he said hoarsely.
She sat back slightly, which brought her against his cock more firmly. They both groaned and she quickly went to work on the buttons of the blouse.
“Hurry up, Cori,” he said, his tone more commanding than he’d intended. Not that it seemed to bother her at all. “I don’t want to rip Ava’s blouse. But I fucking will.”
Her eyes flew to his, the heat there obvious. “Damn, Counselor, I do love that firm tone of voice you pull out once in a while.”
“Do you now?” he asked, sliding one hand higher on her ass and squeezing. “I can get a lot more demanding than that.” Several demands went through his mind in a heartbeat, in fact.
She parted the front of the shirt and then slipped it off, leaving her in panties and bra and heels only. She reached to drape it over the seat on top of the skirt. The motion pressed her breasts against his chest. He wanted to dip his head and take one of those tips into his mouth, but he held back. For now.
“I don’t know,” she said, sitting back, settling her butt against his thighs. “You’re such a nice guy. Born and raised in Bliss, Kansas. The guy everyone wants around for a good time, but nothing too serious. Right?”
He watched her eyes, miraculous with those tempting-him-since-day-one breasts right there. He was a nice guy. And he was a hell of a good time. But he knew that she didn’t buy the whole nothing-too-serious thing. And that made him want her even more. She saw beneath his everything’s-a-party façade. Because she was the same person. She was more over-the-top, bold and beautiful and bright than he was, but yeah, she got him.
Which was why this absolutely felt serious. And he knew she wanted him right here, serious as hell, about everything that was about to happen. “Well, I can be demanding and polite,” he said.
“Oh, yeah?” A teasing smile lifting one corner of her mouth.
“Oh, sure. You don’t think I can say things like “Miss Carmichael, wrap those gorgeous, sassy lips around my cock”?” he asked.
He watched her swallow hard, but she said, “You didn’t even say please.”
He lifted a hand to the back of her hair, threaded his fingers through it, and tugged gently, bringing her mouth against his, “You’re going to be the one saying please.”
When he kissed her, it was hungry, but he held her still, so that he was the one taking it all from her. Then he released her lips, and said gruffly, “I want to see your nipples.”
She licked her lips and reached behind her.
“The one time you’re actually wearing a bra,” he muttered as her back arched so she could undo the tiny hooks.
She laughed, quickly tossing the bra away.
And he was finally eyes-on with the breasts that had been haunting him since New York.
Then Cori tried to kill him again by lifting her hands and cupping the gorgeous mounds, teasing the tips with her thumbs. “I hate bras.”
“You should never, ever, wear a bra again,” he said, unable, in spite of being a nice guy, to tear his eyes away from her playing with her nipples.
She laughed, the sound shooting to his cock as surely as the sight of her naked from the waist up.
“On second thought,” he said, without much thought, really, “you should always wear a bra. Unless you’re with me.”
She paused. “That sounds a little…possessive.”
“Yeah,” he looked up. Should he tell her he was never possessive of women? Never jealous? Or should he lie and say that this was totally normal for him?
“I don’t usually tolerate that,” she said, almost thoughtfully.
“But?” he asked, knowing there was more there.
“With you, it feels…”
“Tolerable?” he asked with a slight smile.
“Good,” she finally finished.
He took that in. Then slowly nodded.
She started to drop her hands, but he said firmly, “Keep going.”
Cori squirmed on his lap as she rolled her nipples between her thumb and fingers. “I want you to touch me, Evan.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere. Everywhere.”
“Does that make you wet?” he asked, finally lifting his eyes. “Does playing with your nipples make your clit ache?”
She blew out
a breath. “Yes,” she said softly.
“Would having me suck on them make your pussy clench?”
“Holy crap,” she breathed. “You Kansas boys are dirty talkers, huh?”
“Well, you do think dirty talk is nice, don’t you?” he asked with a grin he was sure looked a little wicked. She did. He could tell in everything from the way her breathing quickened to how her nipples tightened to how she was looking at him.
“I love dirty talk,” she admitted.
“Then tell me how to make you come, Cori,” he said, his voice like sandpaper, his tone firm even without him consciously trying.
He was a dirty talker. It came naturally to him. And with Cori, hell, he had all kinds of things he could say about the things he wanted to do to her and how she made him feel, how he wanted to make her feel. But as he opened his mouth to say something about his tongue and her clit and the bed of his truck, he suddenly couldn’t say those words. It occurred to him that the things he wanted to say were more along the lines of worshipping her and that he needed a lot more room for the things he wanted to do and that she was going to need to let her sisters know she was going to be late to work in the morning. And none of that really felt dirty. He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted another woman, but it felt like…more. Damn, that was becoming the theme between them.
“Tell me how to touch you,” he said, focusing on her nipples. “Tell me exactly what you want.” There, maybe she could do the talking part.
“Your fingers,” she said after a second. “Ever since you took that caramel macchiato from me in New York, I’ve been thinking about your fingers curling around and holding that cup.”
Yep, he could do that. His fingers were practically itching.
“And I’m afraid I’m going to have to taste those sweet nipples. See if I was right about the flavor,” he told her.
She lifted herself slightly off of his lap, kneeling on the seat while straddling him. He leaned in and finally took the tip of one breast between his lips, licking, then sucking. She moaned and shifted impatiently, and Evan really had no choice but to run his hand up the back of her thigh, slip a finger under the edge of her panties, and slide over the hot, slick folds underneath.
Diamonds and Dirt Roads Page 19