Fiancé leaving her alone with a ring on her finger for three years, then marrying someone else behind her back.
Tanner lying about their mutual explosion.
Then there were all the ways men hadn't screwed her: That fiancé.
Tanner when she'd asked so nicely.
"Hannah," he said softly. For the first time he realized her voice was like an exhalation. Just her name, Hannah, like that breathless moment of anticipation before a man saw a woman's naked breasts or touched a woman's wet, naked sex.
He made up his mind. "Hannah."
She continued staring out the window. "Yes?" There was a wealth of information in that syllable. Her throat was tight. Her nerves were shot. She was braced for rejection, or, more likely, already thought he'd given her his answer.
"Hannah, this time when I touch you, you're never going to be able to forget it."
Her head whipped toward him. And one look at her tender mouth, parted in surprise, and he couldn't figure out how he'd lasted this long without tasting it.
They'd find a bed later. But now, now there was only this.
He slid from under the steering wheel and down the leather bench seat until he could pull her into his arms and onto his lap. Her sweet little ass nestled onto his thighs and her hip pressed against his aching cock. The position yanked high the hem of that cinnamon-candy dress, and at the top of her endless legs he could see the tabs of a garter belt.
His heart slammed to a stop, colliding against his chest wall. One of his forefingers—Christ, was it trembling?—traced the stretch of matching crimson tape. Hannah jerked at his touch, her little gasp of desire reminding him of how it had been between them on New Year's Eve.
Instantaneous.
Undeniable.
She'd been so turned on, she trembled as he took off her shoes.
"I like garter belts," he murmured against her ear, fingering the little piece again.
She ducked her head, a bit shy, he supposed, yet jerked again as he dipped his finger under the strap to stroke her bare thigh with his fingertip.
"I—I've never worn one before."
"Never?" He traced the top of the stocking, and licked the delicate rim of her curved ear at the same time.
Now he felt that telltale quiver in her body and he smiled against her cheek. He ran his mouth toward her lips and felt her little sigh.
He lifted his head. "Okay?"
"I only wished I remembered," she said, a seductive little pout in her voice. "It isn't fair."
But it was getting fairer by the second, Tanner thought, because Hannah felt so right in his arms.
He grasped her chin and turned her face to meet his kiss.
So right.
Her lips opened beneath the pressure of his. He slid his tongue inside, just brushing the tip of hers with the tip of his in the smallest greeting. She pressed closer, but he retreated, even though she made an impatient noise in the back of her throat.
He soothed her by first kissing one corner of her mouth and then the other. When he lifted his head again, she chased his mouth and he let her do what she wanted. It was like that kiss at the bar on New Year's Eve—desperate.
Stroking his hand over her bare shoulder, he pulled away from her again. "I'll give you what you need, sweetheart, don't worry."
Her hands tangled in his hair and brought his mouth back down. "It's just so good to have someone want me," she said against his lips.
Oh, Hannah.
"Your ex," he muttered, anger and sympathy mixing inside him. "I could kill—" "Shh." She pressed her fingers to his mouth to stop his threat. "Don't say that."
"But—"
"Think about me." She snuggled closer, her hip pressing tighter against the base of his erection. He groaned.
"You said explosive. That's what I want. I want that again. I want that now."
No, no. He needed to warm her up, start slow, get her worked up—
But then she thrust her tongue in his mouth and he remembered this was Hannah, his New Year's Eve surprise of a prize, who had been so ready for him her pan ties had been wet before he'd done so much as look at her breasts. Which made him remember.
He'd never looked at her bare breasts. He had to see her breasts.
Sliding his tongue along hers, he ran his palm around the back of her dress, searching for a fastening. Please God, make this not one of those wiggle-in garments. He knew he wasn't capable of letting go of her for that long. When he deepened the kiss, she wrapped her arms around his neck and—bingo!—he found the side zipper.
Her mouth was wet as he lifted his away again. They were both breathing hard and her eyes were as dark and intimate as the rainy night. Fingering the zipper tab, he heard her suck in a breath.
"You should know this about me, Hannah." Sound grated as he took the zipper down, one tooth at a time. "I'm a breast man."
The dress had enough form to it that once he'd unzipped her to the waist, it stayed up on its own. But he liked that, because it made the anticipation greater, made it coil at the base of his spine and send arrows of heat up his back as he hooked a finger at the point of cleavage and drew down the garment so it pooled at her hips.
Revealing—oh God. Flames streaked up his back.
He brushed Hannah's long hair off her shoulders so he could take in the beautiful sight of her breasts, encased in strapless, low-cut, peekaboo red lace that wasn't a bra, it went lower than that, it went—who could tell?
"It's a Merry Widow," Hannah said, glancing down at the place where her breasts were served up like two delectable scoops of ice cream. "Desirée has some pretty amazing underwear."
He didn't want to think about Dez. "The pretty amazing part is all you." He let his fingertips trace the tops of the cups and felt her shiver.
Leaning down, he kissed the top of one plump form and then the other. "I want to get you out of this too."
He looked up, catching the flare of her nostrils and the way her lips were parted again. It wasn't mere hot talk that turned her on, he realized, though that wouldn't have surprised him in a teacher. A teacher would like words. It was the particular words he used that unlocked her desire. I want, he'd said to her, and those were magic. The key that released her inhibitions. Oh, yeah.
He rubbed his thumb over first one lace-covered peak and then the other, his gaze on her face. "I want to take your nipples in my mouth and I want to hear the sounds you make when I suck on them."
From the back of her throat came a half moan, half squeak. He smiled at the sound, loving it. "How do we get this thing off you?"
She swallowed. "It's kind of...kind of complicated."
But he was already pushing the dress down farther, and she lifted up so he could slide it over her hips. The red fabric pooled on the Mercedes's carpet, leaving Hannah—
Tanner choked.
The Merry Widow was merry as hell, all right. Not only did it prop up her breasts, but it curved along her torso and over her hips where it served as garter belt too. A matching scrap of red lace pan ties were worn over the garter tapes.
She was wrapped in red. On fire.
Devilish fire that he wanted to take into his mouth without cautious thought to safety or the burn.
Giving up on getting her out of the corset—hell, hoping she never wore anything other than that corset ever again—he took the expedient route by reaching his hand in one bra cup to enclose smooth, heated flesh. Pushing down the lace, he drew out Hannah's breast.
Hannah's perfect breast, full and round. He glanced up at her face, then back. Her nipple was tight with desire and was as berry-red as her swollen lips.
As he moved toward it, her fingers speared through his hair. Her back bowed as his wet mouth closed over her.
His eyes closed. With one hand gently kneading the plump curve, Tanner curled his tongue around her hard nipple, then sucked. She swallowed a sound and he sucked harder. He wanted her wild with sensation.
Four years, he remembered. He wanted he
r beyond wild.
His nose was pressed into her fragrant flesh and he drew in her scent, that rose-and-aroused perfume that he'd noticed the first time she sat on his lap. His All-American Rose.
But he wasn't thinking of flowers when he lifted her other breast free of the corset. Now he was only thinking of how he was going to hang on so he could wring out every drop of Hannah's pleasure.
She wiggled on his lap and he sucked her second breast harder and brought his palm over the triangle of lace that covered her mound. He opened his mouth wider over her nipple, taking in more of her hot flesh, and then he sucked again, pressing the heel of his hand against her mons in the same rhythm.
She was trembling, saying his name, a litany of girl-lust, and he was digging it, God so digging it, that he almost missed what happened next.
Her hips rose toward his insistent hand and her back arched to his mouth. Her body gave three little tremors, then one hard jolt. Hannah's personal little earthquake.
He couldn't believe it. He lifted his head. She was blinking, and another little tremor took her as he watched. His hands shaking, he lifted one to brush her hair away from her face. "Did you just come?"
Her head bobbed in a tiny nod.
"Oh, yeah," he murmured, glancing up toward God. "Life is getting fairer by the minute." His hand had just been near her switch. He hadn't even touched her there and she'd still gone off like one of Troy' s Marine incendiary devices.
Watching her face closely, Tanner drew one palm down her throat, over her damp breasts, and then down the center of her belly until he could slide his fingers under those red-hot pan ties. "Open your legs, sweetheart," he said. "I want to touch your sweet heat."
Her head fell back against his shoulder as her legs splayed wider. Then he found her, and it was sweet, and so freakin' hot that he almost singed his hand. And wet. So wet.
He pushed two fingers into her tight channel, then drew them up, to catch her clit between his knuckles. He gave it a friendly squeeze, then went back inside her again. Back out. Another squeeze.
With a cry, she came again.
Tanner froze. God. Oh, God. Locker rooms didn't cover this. Playboy or Pent house neither—not in any believable manner anyway. Did she have four years of orgasm stored up inside that sweet body just screaming to get out, or was she merely the most responsive woman he'd ever played with in the front seat of a car?
Car. Shit.
They were parked in a car in a public lot.
"Sweetheart. Hannah." He brushed her hair back again and kissed her slack mouth. She was awake, but looked as shell shocked as he felt. He kissed her again, and groaned as he felt her return to life. Her tongue licked his bottom lip and then bit there.
She was getting aroused again already, but he for damn sure didn't want to do the deed here. The first time with a man inside her in four years shouldn't be in a public place in a car that had been someone's grandmother's before he'd bought it and its ridiculously low mileage after leaving the Secret Service.
"We're going to leave now, sweetheart. We're going to go to my place."
Somehow he managed to scoop up her dress and get her zipped back into it, even as she found places on him to kiss. His chin. The side of his neck. His shoulder, which he felt even through the thick sweater.
Then he buckled her into her seat, thankful for the wide space between them because he was hard and hurting and so damn horny that he might just pull over and pull her over on top of him.
It took him too long to get to his place. Oh, God, really too long.
"Hell!" he said, slamming the side of his fist on the steering wheel as he came to a stop in the middle of the street in front of his house. He glanced over at Hannah. "One of my brothers is crashing here. That's Terry's truck in my driveway, which means his girlfriend has been throwing house hold goods at him again."
She bit her swollen bottom lip, all big eyes. "I...I don't know about bringing you to Desirée's suite. She's been so generous, but..."
"I'm with you there. That hotel is not an option." A dozen possibilities rushed through his yet unsatisfied brain—from finding a motel room to flipping her into the Mercedes back seat—but none of them sounded right.
None right enough for Hannah's first time in four years. For their first time together. With a sigh, he turned the car around and headed toward the Del.
"Where are we going?"
"I'm leaving you off at your hotel," he said.
"Tanner..." There was uncertainty in her voice and he hated hearing it.
He grabbed her hand and pulled it to his crotch, fixing her palm over his rock-hard erection. "Don't you dare think I don't want you."
Her palm moved in a soft caress. "But then—"
He pressed his ass into the leather instead of thrusting into that sweet touch. He was a saint. A saint! "I have my New Year's Eve memory to sustain me, sweetheart," he lied. "Until a time when we can be together alone."
Hadn't he said it from the beginning? The world just wasn't freakin' fair.
Chapter Fifteen
Hannah shared a late breakfast set up by room service on the balcony of Desirée's suite. Even a woman from California's farmlands was awed by the bounty: creamsicle-colored pieces of succulent cantaloupe, chunks of watermelon as juicy as a kiss, strawberries as red as a woman's love-swollen mouth.
Her mouth.
The fruit looked like Hannah felt: succulent, juicy, swollen by a man's kiss, a man's touch.
"I guess we both needed our sleep, huh?" Desirée asked, lifting her cup of coffee to her mouth.
"I guess." Though the truth was, Hannah had woken at her normal time—early—between the warm sheets, her toes seeking cool corners, her hands grabbing the headboard so she could stretch out the body that had come alive the night before.
After four years she was awake.
So she couldn't be ashamed of what she'd experienced with Tanner in his car the night before.
Shame was the way she'd felt for months in her hometown, as the whispers and the pitying looks followed her from school, to grocery store, to gym. To her own mirror.
What had she done wrong? How had she not been enough?
And then later, as she was forced to reexamine her life: How could she have allowed herself to follow choices everyone else made for her? She'd bowed to the pressure of her loving family, going along with decisions that made them feel happy and safe.
With decisions they thought made her safe.
But just as she couldn't be angry with Duncan, she couldn't be angry with them. "So your date was successful?" Desirée asked.
Hannah stuck to the party line, though she was a lousy actress. "I told you it wasn't a real date." Desirée smiled, the kind of smile that women who hadn't sat around for years waiting for a fiancé could smile. "It was a real red dress."
"I had fun." There was an understatement. She'd been slayed with plea sure, bowled over by sticky, yummy desire and then extravagant release. Hungover with the memories, she'd spent hours since awakening reliving every one.
"Tanner's a nice guy." Desirée speared a section of pink, peeled grapefruit.
Hannah's gaze fixed on the plump, glistening slice. It looked wet and wicked, luscious and ripe. A shiver rippled over her skin. Was everything going to remind her of sex for the rest of her life? "Tanner's a very nice guy."
That was the bittersweet aftertaste to the delicious evening. While she'd been thrilled to prove to herself she wasn't a dried-up prune of an old maid schoolteacher, her schoolteacher sensibilities had still scolded her. She taught the students in her class to treat others as they would like to be treated.
She'd treated Tanner with nothing. She owed him.
Desirée leaned across the table to fill Hannah's cup from the carafe of piping hot coffee she'd ordered. Hannah owed her, too.
"I'm going to move out," she said. "Tomorrow at the latest."
Desirée stilled, then carefully set the carafe back on the white tablecloth. She turned he
r head to look out at the incomparable view. Wide stretch of sand, blue-gray ocean, blue sky. The rain was definitely gone.
"Do you need to go?" the other woman asked, her face still turned toward the surf.
"I've imposed—"
"No." Desirée looked at her now. "I've enjoyed the company. Do you have sisters?" Hannah shook her head. Her sister had been gone a long time. "Two older brothers."
"I don't have anyone." Desirée made a face. "That sounds pitiful."
"No."
"You're kind." Desirée gave a little shrug. "It's just that this is nice. Eating breakfast together. Choosing clothes for a date. Talking things over."
Hannah's schoolteacher instincts were screaming at her again. "What do you want to talk over, Dezi?"
The other woman's gaze drifted off toward the surf again. "Maybe this is better than having a sister, now that I think about it. There could be competition with a same-sex sibling, right? You'd wonder which one was loved the most?"
You'd wonder if anyone ever loved you, for you.
Hannah jerked her mind away from the thought. "What do you want to talk over?"
"Last night I made money for the first time in my whole life."
Hannah wondered what that would be like. Weird, she figured, looking around at the banquet of food on the table and the banquet for the senses that was the view from the balcony, just two of the things that were Desirée's accustomed lot.
"It was the second best thing that ever happened to me," the other woman whispered.
"And the first?"
Desirée ignored the question to ask another. "Should I back off or go forward?"
It was obvious there was more to the story. Hannah didn't dig for it, though. How could she? Her ability to offer advice on such a subject was absolutely nil. She was twenty-seven years old and had only "gone forward" once in her life—with this trip to Coronado.
And even now she was already late if she thought to confront Caroline today in the park.
"Oh, never mind," Desirée said. "Let's forget all that. How about a spa day?"
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