One Taste

by Cari Quinn

  “I’m so ready. So wet.”

  “Fuck,” he muttered and dived deeper. He filled her with two fingers and sawed against the swollen tissues of her pussy. Turning his hand, he brought his thumb into play, rolling the tip around her clit until her breath kicked against her chest with each pant. “I want to see.”

  God, she wanted that too. She wanted to watch him explore her, but the dark was coming, and this wasn’t the time or the place to let him do that.

  She fumbled at his jeans, the zipper catching over the bulge of his cock. “Help me.”

  “Busy.” He added a third finger, stretching her wide and filling her up as his relentless thumb finally paused only to pulse under her clit. She punched the roof of the truck, arching up as he finger fucked her.

  His name was a scream and a shout with a prayer for good measure.

  “Christ, I can feel you squeezing me. God dammit, Kendall.”

  She heard his voice, but the weightless blast of her orgasm melted her brain. She gripped the seat and ground onto his hand even as part of her tried to shy away from the overwhelming pleasure.

  He reared up, his hand on her back as he tongued her nipple. His shirt was open, his jeans undone, and she could see his cock pressed tight against his belly, but there was nothing she could do but watch his fingers thrust inside her.

  She stilled over him, every muscle locked, her breath trapped in a vortex of the most painfully blissful edge of madness. He looked up at her, his mouth moving to her throat, and those soft lips gentled against her jaw. She turned her attention to his eyes and saw the intensity that was always there waiting for her.

  And she lost herself in him.

  God, she hoped she would survive this. Survive him.

  He held her tight as the shudders and the pleasure folded in on her until she was something totally different.

  She was his.

  In the cab of his truck as full night blanketed a field in the middle of Utah, she drew her first breath, and it was all Shane.

  She dropped her forehead on his shoulder and slumped against him. “Give me just a minute, and we’ll take care of you.”

  He smoothed his hand up her back until he found her braid, and another one of her ponytail holders was tossed behind the seat. He drew his fingers out of her and held her against him, his other hand busy unwinding her hair until it tumbled down her back.

  She found enough strength to lift her head. “I’m running out of hair ties.”

  “Good.”

  “No, not good.”

  He grunted as she fit a hand between them to mold the heavy line of his cock. His grunt turned to a hiss as she got to the velvety head peeking from his shorts. He stilled her hand.

  “What?”

  “We’re going to drive until I can’t drive anymore. Then we’re going to find a hotel, and I’m going to spread you out and fuck you until you can’t move.”

  Her empty pussy clenched at nothing, wanting that very much. “Can we have round one in the truck?”

  “That was round one.”

  She brushed her knuckle against the thickness of his shaft, up to the slightly narrower head. “Okay, round two sounds good to me.”

  “I don’t want a taste, Sunshine. I want to pound into you until we’re both unconscious. And I don’t want that in the cab of my truck.”

  “I like the truck.”

  The corner of his mouth tipped up. “Right now I hate my truck.”

  “Let’s find a hotel, then.”

  “Later. We’ve got to get some miles under the tires.”

  She ran her tongue up his neck and nipped at the edge of his jaw where his almost-beard led to his ear. The fleshy lobe was perfect to nibble on, so she did. He shrugged her off, but she simply bit him again and circled his cockhead with her fingers. “Just a taste?”

  “Fuck, Sunshine.”

  She leaned back and smiled. The lights of the dash threw his face into harsh shadows. “You can fuck me anytime you like.” He flexed his thigh muscles under her, and his shaft slid against her palm. “See, he wants a piece of me, even if it’s only my mouth.”

  His eyes glittered in the dense darkness, and she watched his jaw work as she shifted back down his thighs to his knees until her ass was high in the air and his scent filled her brain. She swirled her tongue around the head of his cock; the saltiness of his precum made her mouth water.

  The flash of a light and the sudden whack of metal on glass had him jackknifing into a seated position and her tumbling into the floor mat.

  “Son of a—” Shane shouted.

  “Are you fornicating on my lawn?” The bright light of a heavy-duty flashlight bounced around the cab of the truck, killing the moment. The offended face of a bearded man came into stark relief.

  She dragged her shirt down with a shocked laugh. The man whacked on the window again. “Get moving, or I’m calling the cops.”

  Shane hiked up his jeans and held up a hand. “Yes, sir.”

  She could hear the hysterical peal of her laughter. She stuffed herself lower in her seat and got her clothes situated but couldn’t see through the tears.

  Shane wrenched the wheel, and dust and gravel clouded the air as he backed up. “This is not funny, Kendall!”

  “Oh, yes, it is.”

  “Just get in your seat and put your fucking seat belt on.”

  She knuckled away tears, then held on to her stomach with one hand and the Oh, Jesus handle with the other as the truck careened down the dirt road and fishtailed onto the main road.

  “I’m glad you think this is so funny.”

  “Come on, Oscar. That was hilarious.”

  “We just got shooed away from an old man who probably saw more of me than he ever wanted to, and you’re laughing.”

  A guffaw of breathless laughter filled the truck. “Give it a minute, and you will too. Ah, there it is. I see your lips twitching.”

  “I’m going to kill you.”

  She laughed again and put her arms up. “Whoooeee. That’s an adrenaline rush.”

  “At least you got off.”

  “That I did, pal.” She swung her feet up on the bench and tucked her toes under his thigh. “Cheer up. That’s a story to tell over a beer next time you see Kain.”

  “Who said that was the first time I was chased off by an angry man in a field?”

  She kicked him and laughed again. He grabbed her ankle and tucked her foot back under his thigh. The quick flash of his grin in the darkness made her stomach flip. God, he was a pretty man when he let himself smile.

  “Tired?”

  He shrugged. “I’ll be okay for a few hours. Let’s get to Denver, and we can pull off for the night.”

  “Denver? That’s…” She trailed off and grabbed her phone and tapped in the city from their current location. “Six hours?”

  “We have time to make up.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “That will take us to midnight. Then we’ll get up early and get moving again.”

  “I need to get home, but you don’t need to kill yourself to get me there.”

  “I know.” He smoothed his hand up her calf. “Now talk and keep me awake. Tell me about Winchester Falls.”

  So she did. She dredged up any funny story she could remember about herself and Bells. The visitors who would stay at the Heron provided a few hours of conversation, and by the time they were well into Colorado, her voice was rough from the constant talking.

  He was an intent listener. His questions were specific, and he didn’t sound bored. They finally lapsed into a comfortable silence with Metallica as their sound track. The man did love his Metallica.

  Soon Boulder, Colorado filled the windshield. The backwash of the city glowed like hot coals under the cool blue of the Flatiron Mountains. She sat forward, both hands on the dash as the city grew closer and the mountains faded into the night.

  He’d shaved a good half hour off the time that her maps program had professed, and it was midnigh
t, as he’d predicted, when they pulled into a chain hotel. A shower and blissful sleep recharged them enough to power through Nebraska to Chicago and another night gone, with another five-hour stretch in a hotel bed.

  Chicago was alive with a mix of morning and holiday traffic. White and gray buildings speared into the sky, and there was a surprising number of waterways through the city.

  They stayed on 90 and hugged the topsides of Indiana and Ohio. It amazed her how fast they could fly through a state. Signs for Toledo, Ohio and Lake Erie drew out conversation again. It was late November, and the land was still fairly lush with greenery.

  “ARE THE ADIRONDACKS like this?” He was honestly interested. The skyline was so different from Monterey.

  “Winchester Falls isn’t nearly this citified. Where I live, on the outskirts, cabins carve out little niches in the trees. They’d rather blend in than stand out. Well, until you get to the resorts, anyway.”

  “And the Heron?”

  Her gaze slid back out the window. “Definitely more about the blending.”

  “But you have a dock and all those acres on the lake.”

  “Of course we do. Trails and more than enough boats to keep the travelers happy.”

  “Sounds really great.”

  “It is. Really great.”

  The bright and shiny Kendall voice was on. The one she used to manage people. He really wasn’t a fan of that voice.

  She turned back to him and patted his hand.

  He searched her face for a moment but saw nothing other than the usual friendly eyes and quirky smile. Maybe he was just imagining how weird she got when he mentioned the Heron.

  They took a break to gas up and filled a bag of junk food for his never-ending pit of a— Christ. What was she to him? He’d fallen in love with the woman in far too short a time. None of it made sense.

  And yet it felt right.

  Even with the end point of Winchester Falls, he didn’t know how to make Kendall line up into his plan. His plan had been blown to hell in the last three weeks.

  He climbed into the truck, unable to stop the grin when he saw she had her notebook open again, her head bent over her phone as he looked up information.

  What would it be like with her in a controlled atmosphere where there was a schedule and a life building? Would they lose this spark between them when the road wasn’t in front of them and a new town in their windshield?

  They were both quiet as he plugged in his GPS and let it lead him to the Heron. The direct route without the picturesque offshoots was a boring expanse of sleeping land. The mild winter didn’t give them snow to look at, but it had been cold enough to kill off all the vegetation.

  She swiped through the functions on her phone. Her attention was down on the small gadget instead of on him when her soft voice broke into the silence. “Tell me about your mom.”

  His heart gave a kick of surprise. “What do you want to know?”

  “What was she like?”

  “She was sweet and cheerful. Never had a bad word to say to anyone.”

  “How did she meet Lawrence?”

  The ache in his chest spread. How did he explain to her that Larry had come in and simply taken care of his mother? She’d been biddable and deferred to Larry. She’d always been head over heels for Kendall’s father.

  “She’d been a bookkeeper for one of Larry’s clients. I was really young when she’d first met Larry. Maybe five. I was too young to remember much, but I do remember her singing around the apartment. She was happier than I’d ever seen her. I had lots of babysitters when she went out on dates. I didn’t get to meet him the first time they went out.”

  “You were five?”

  He nodded. He’d done some of the math himself and realized his mother was having an affair with Larry. “From what I can figure, she saw him for less than a year, and then he was just gone. And my mom was never quite the same. She was so sad, and she cried every night for a good long time.”

  Kendall swiped a hand under her nose. “He was cheating on my mother with yours,” she said quietly.

  “I think so.”

  “I don’t remember that far back. I was a toddler.”

  Shane merged into traffic as they got on a main interchange, and he could finally go faster than the winding roads allowed. “The only thing I can think of is that my mom didn’t realize she was the other woman, and when she did, she tried to break it off.”

  “You lived in New York?”

  He shook his head. “When my grandmother was alive, she used to travel for work. And I think one of the places was in New York. I just don’t know where.”

  “I don’t know much about my father. Just that he was bicoastal for work. He traveled a lot. Evidently a perfect way to have more than one woman in his life.”

  The bitter edge to her voice sliced at him. “I don’t know, Kendall. I do know that he wasn’t a part of my life until I was eight. All of a sudden my mother said we were moving into this house in California. And she wasn’t sad anymore. The only thing I remember about the time Larry came into our lives was that my mom went to the hospital a lot.”

  Kendall looked up at him sharply. “Hospital? Was she sick?”

  “They never talked about it. I was a kid. How was I supposed to know if she was sick? She went to the doctors a lot, but it wasn’t cancer. She always seemed so frail to me, but then again, she was even tinier than you are.”

  Her voice quieted. “I was always afraid to ask my mother about Lawrence. She’d get so sad when I talked about him that I just stopped doing it. He never came back after he left that one day. He didn’t even say good-bye to me.”

  Shane popped his knuckles. Her voice was toneless. None of that made sense to him. The day he’d moved in with Larry, there had been only a booming laugh and kindness. He’d never felt like a burden. Hell, he’d ended up calling Larry Dad within the first six months.

  Had his mother’s sickness really drawn Larry away from his other family? Just how sick had she been? And why the hell didn’t he know about it?

  Larry had loved his mother; of that he had no doubt. They’d always been laughing, the two of them in their own little world. Sometimes Shane felt separate from them, but the love had been there. And when his mother died, all Larry’s focus had gone to him.

  It still didn’t explain why Larry had cut Kendall out of his life.

  “Even after my father left, my mother never stopped loving him. I heard her cry every night, but she smiled every morning for me. Eventually she stopped crying and we went on with our lives. There must have been some money coming in, or he’d left her with some, because she didn’t work until I was about ten years old.”

  Shane scraped his palm down his jeans. “We never wanted for money. Some years were better than others, but I couldn’t remember a time when Larry ever complained about finances.”

  “He must have stopped giving my mother money in the lean times, because she went to work while I was at school and started taking on boarders at the house. When I was sixteen, I convinced her to turn it into a bed-and-breakfast to earn extra money.”

  He tried to picture Kendall with strangers around her all the time. And he found that it wasn’t a stretch to imagine. She took people in and made them feel comfortable. She never lacked in kindness and never lost her temper with anyone other than him.

  They lapsed into silence, her attention on the landscape and the endless rows of trees in varying colors between gold and red. They pulled into a rest stop just outside the New York state line.

  While he refilled their cooler with sodas, ice, and a few sandwiches, she chased a puppy in the parking lot. Of course she’d made friends with a teenager, running the dog around between two lanky boys.

  Kendall didn’t even think twice about asking. And the good-natured sixteen-year-old boys had been dumbfounded when she’d turned her lethal grin in their direction. They probably would have handed over the dog to her if she’d asked.

  Shane was gl
ad the sadness was out of her chestnut-brown eyes. She fell into a heap in the middle of a small patch of grass as the exuberant puppy licked her face and neck. Her laughter rang out in the waning sun.

  He nursed a soda and watched her for a few more minutes before he waved to her. She waved back and jogged to him.

  “Sorry I got so morose in the truck.”

  “I’m sorry Larry dropped the ball so bad.” He tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear. “I wish you’d known him the way I did.”

  “As I said, I had a good childhood. What we didn’t have in money, my mom made up in creativity and love.”

  He cupped her face and dropped a soft kiss on her mouth. Instead of spiraling out into a hungry meeting of lips like they usually did, they kept it leisurely paced and sweet. A stiff wind blew across the flat landscape, and she burrowed into him.

  Her warm breath puffed against his neck, and he watched the clouds roll forward, heavy with snow if he didn’t miss his guess. “I smell snow.”

  “Oh, really? The California boy smells snow?”

  “Hey now, I ski.”

  She laughed, and the sparkle was back in her eyes. “Good to know. I can add that to the brochure.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “I don’t have the patience to teach people how to ski. You know that.”

  “You can learn patience.”

  “Doubtful.”

  She tucked her icy fingers under his shirt, and he hissed. “We’ll see.”

  “Let’s get on the road. Winchester Falls waits.”

  He opened her door and sighed, handing her his soda. She grinned and climbed up, her mouth already on the lip of the bottle.

  The rest of the drive was uneventful, but he still didn’t like the look of the sky. He hoped they could outrun the storm that was brewing.

  The lake effect dumped a good six inches of powder on them before they made it into Buffalo.

  Kendall worried the power cord to her phone. “Do you think we’ll make it home by Thanksgiving?”

  “If we can get away from this snow, we should be fine.”

  Kendall studied her phone with a frown. “I’m not sure we’re going to get that lucky.”

  He looked up at the clear skies. “Why?”