Her hands paused a moment. Then she looked at him, her gaze unexpectedly direct. “Why are you doing this? I mean don’t get me wrong, it’s very nice of you, but I’m sure you don’t give every woman you meet a ride home. Why me?”
So, she didn’t protest about the apartment thing. This really wasn’t her place. For some reason her clear lack of trust rankled, even though he hadn’t given her any reason to trust him.
“Why not you?” Zee leaned back in his seat. “Or don’t you think you’re worth protecting?”
Color rose in her cheeks, but she didn’t look away. “You’re perfectly happy ferrying complete strangers around then?”
Women didn’t normally ask him questions like this one did. The girls who hung around the ring wanting fighters were looking for hard muscles and rough sex, not anything more. And he was fine with that. He didn’t want anyone trying to get to know him, trying to see past the curtain. He hadn’t spent a good ten years putting his past behind him and turning himself into someone else for nothing.
This woman though . . . There was a challenge in her question, even if she didn’t realize it herself. And the fighter in him wanted to answer it.
Bad move, man. Leave her alone.
He could smell her though, that expensive heavy, sensual scent. And he remembered the feel of her, the tense muscle of her thigh as he’d held it. She looked all class, sophisticated and cool, like fucking caviar wouldn’t melt in her mouth. But she hadn’t felt cool. Her body had been so goddamn hot it had nearly burned him alive.
She was still looking at him, watching him, so pretty and perfect in her designer clothes.
You know what happened last time you had a good girl.
A deeply buried grief shifted inside him, the edges of it sharp even after all those years.
“Get out,” he said shortly, because those edges still had the power to cut him right down to the bone. “And don’t let me see you wandering around Royal Road again, especially if you have no idea how to get yourself safely home. Christ, girls like you . . . You’re a fucking liability.”
Anger flared in her eyes. “Oh, don’t worry.” Her voice was stiff, cold. “I have no intention of going there ever again, believe me.” She fumbled again with the seatbelt. The thing had always been tricky to open and she clearly wasn’t having much luck with it.
He cursed. “Hang on. Let me undo that for you.”
“No, it’s okay. I can—”
Ignoring her, he leaned over to unfasten the clasp for her.
And then realized his mistake.
The scent of her hit him like a punch to the jaw, the drowned-flower smell now overlain with something else. Something like . . . musk. And damn, she was so hot. All the tugging she’d been doing had pulled the belt even tighter, which meant he was going to have to half lean over her in order to get it free.
She pressed herself into the seat as he did so, as if she were trying to escape out the back of it, and he could hear the sound of her breathing. Short, hard pants. And she was trembling. As if she was terrified.
He looked at her, unable to help himself.
But it wasn’t fear in her gaze.
It was something else.
Chapter 3
She didn’t know what the hell was happening to her. One minute she was furious, desperate to get out of the car and slam the door in Zee’s arrogant, scarred face. The next she was fighting for breath as that hard, muscular body of his leaned over her to get at her seatbelt. And it wasn’t anger lighting a fire in her blood, but a deep, dark hunger that had seemingly sprung out of nowhere.
Nowhere? Really?
Okay, not nowhere. The attraction to him had been pretty much instant the moment she’d seen him in the gym. But she’d thought she could ignore it, that she could keep it under control the way she kept everything else under control.
Yet now he was looking at her with those tarnished silver eyes of his, like blades so sharp there was no pain as they slid under her skin. And she didn’t know why that made her so afraid, because it wasn’t like the truth about herself was imprinted on her soul or anything. Sure, the eight years she’d spent applying herself, aiming hard for success, wasn’t nearly enough, but once she’d gotten a place at her father’s firm, once she’d realized the potential her parents had seen in her, then maybe it would be.
But Zee didn’t know that. Zee couldn’t see that. So why did the way he looked at her make her want to throw up her hands and shield herself?
“What?” she demanded, her voice hoarse, hating the strange desperation clawing up inside her. Hating the way she felt so vulnerable, especially in front of a complete stranger. God, how she loathed feeling so out of control.
He said nothing, only looked at her. He wasn’t touching her anywhere, but he had one hand on the side of the seat near her thigh, the other reaching across her to pull at the belt on the doorframe. And he was so freaking close, his face inches from hers.
“Stop looking at me.” She couldn’t get a breath. Why couldn’t she get a breath?
“You’re not scared.” It wasn’t a question, more of a flat statement.
“What? What’s that got to do with anything?”
“You’re trembling.”
Oh crap. So she was. “Because you’re leaning over me like an asshole. Unfasten the damn seatbelt and let me get out.” She tried to stop the little tremors shaking her, but it was impossible.
His gaze dipped, settling on her mouth for a moment before moving down, and in its wake she felt a wave of heat prickle all over her skin. Like he’d moved his hand over her, stroking her. Her nipples were getting hard, pressing against the fabric of her T-shirt, a hollow kind of ache gathering way down low inside her.
“I don’t think that’s why you’re trembling.” His gritty, husky voice was even rougher.
He was going to touch her. Oh God, he was going to touch her. And if he did . . .
You will burn.
“I have a boyfriend,” she blurted out, the words shaky.
His gaze lifted to hers again and, quite frankly, that wasn’t any better than when he’d been looking at her body. “Do you? He not look after you well enough?”
“Of course he does.” Robert looked after her very well. The last time they were in New York, he’d brought her roses and taken her out for dinner.
“Pretty girl”—Zee’s silver gaze searched hers—“your nipples are hard and you’re shaking. And I’m gonna take a wild guess here that it’s not him you’re thinking about right now.”
She could feel her cheeks blazing, embarrassment ricocheting through her. But she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of being right so she didn’t look away. “How would you know? You know nothing about me.”
“No, it’s true. I don’t. But I know when a woman’s wet for me. And you are, Tamara Lennox, I can smell it.”
Oh hell.
Tamara shut her eyes, as if by not seeing him, she could somehow pretend he wasn’t there. But the crude words were resonating inside her, calling to a hidden part of her, a dark part she’d thought she’d excised a long time ago.
And he was so close, so very, very close. The underside of his wrist nearly brushing her thigh. The wide stretch of his chest inches from hers, the black cotton of his T-shirt molding to his body so she could almost see the hard muscle beneath it. The dark, wicked spice of his scent. The way he was leaning over her, looking down at her, intimidating her.... No, intimidating wasn’t quite the right word. More like . . . overwhelming her with the sheer force of presence. And with the dirty, dirty things coming from his dirty, dirty mouth.
“I don’t want you,” she said, as if by saying it aloud that would make it true.
“Yes, you do.” There was heat in his voice, lazy and soft. “Boyfriend or not, I think you’re dying for me.”
“I don’t want to.” She opened her eyes, staring straight back into his.
He hadn’t moved, yet it felt as if he was even closer now. Inescapabl
e. Overwhelming.
Bizarrely, all she could think about was Robert saying good-bye to her at the airport, about how she’d waited for his usual kiss, but he hadn’t given her one. And she’d felt . . . relieved.
“I don’t wanna want you either,” Zee said. “But the way you smell is making me crazy.”
“S-so let me out.” Dammit, she hated that stutter. “Let me out and we never have to see each other again.”
He didn’t reply immediately, the silence becoming hotter, thicker.
Then he said, “Or, we could give each other a little relief first. Then you get out like you said and we never have to see each other again.”
A little relief . . .
God, yes.
She sucked in a breath. “Did you miss the part where I said I had a boyfriend?”
“I don’t give a shit about your boyfriend. Do you want me to fuck you? Yes or no?”
Such a crude word for it and yet now that he’d said it, she couldn’t get it out of her head. Getting in the backseat with him, having his hands on her, having him inside her . . . A hard, violent, scarred stranger, taking her roughly.
It was wrong and it was dirty, and most importantly of all, it was out of control. And it pretty much went against everything she’d been trying to do for the past eight years.
You want it. You want him.
The expression on his face was tight, his eyes all lit up with the same kind of hunger that was turning her inside out. A hunger she’d never seen in Robert’s eyes, not once. Her boyfriend didn’t look at her like this, like he wanted to eat her alive.
Even the last time they’d had sex it had been . . . perfunctory, for lack of a better word. And that too had made her glad, though at the time, she hadn’t been able to put a finger on why.
Because you didn’t want anything more from him. You never have.
She was conscious of a certain shock moving through her. She’d met Robert at a party given by her parents and they’d introduced her to him. They’d encouraged her to date him and she had because he was in all ways perfect for her and they liked him.
But he’d never been her choice.
When was the last time you made a choice about anything?
“It’s your choice,” Zee said, uncannily echoing the insidious thought lurking in her brain. “But you’d better choose soon. I’m usually a patient man, but I’m kinda not feeling it right now.”
Her body ached like it hadn’t been touched in years, her heart beating wild and fast in her chest. And she was scared. Not of him, she knew that now, but of herself. Of what she wanted. Of the restlessness pacing about inside her soul, a need to reach out and grab hold of the energy that crackled around him, take it for herself.
The need to not, for once, keep it under control.
You’d never have to see him again.
Tamara swallowed. “Make me,” she said, consciously imitating his earlier words to her.
Something flared bright in his eyes, the challenge she’d flung at him being accepted.
Then he lifted his hand from her seat belt and took her chin in his hand. The touch of his skin on hers was a shock that drove the breath from her body, made her go still in her seat. Then he turned her head to the side with a firm pressure. She trembled, unable to stop, staring out through the driver’s-side window as he kept her head turned, every single cell of her body awake and aware.
Zee bent and she felt his breath whisper over her skin, the heat searing. Then she felt the brush of his lips and the firm pressure of his teeth closing around the tendons of her neck.
She jerked against the restraint of her seatbelt, a sharp sob escaping her as a burst of sensation overloaded every nerve ending she had. And just before the bite crossed the border from pleasure into pain, he eased back, his tongue licking over her skin, rough as a cat’s.
Tamara shuddered, her breathing wild, his fingers holding her head to the side.
“Last chance to change your mind,” he murmured against her throat. “Before I take us somewhere more private.”
She shook her head, unable to speak. Because she wasn’t going to change her mind. It was too late for that.
Zee said nothing, releasing her chin and moving back to sit in his seat. He started the car again, pulling away from the curb, and five minutes later he’d found a dark little alley to park in.
Tamara tried not to think too much as he turned off the engine, then leaned over and casually pulled open the clasp of her seatbelt. But a raw and quite frankly terrifying excitement had her in its grip, and she didn’t know what to do with herself.
“Get in the back,” Zee ordered, his voice full of rough heat.
And she did, awkwardly and without grace in all likelihood, twisting until she was sitting in the backseat, waiting for him.
Then he was in the back too, his arm catching her around the waist and hauling her over to sit in his lap, her back to his chest, so she was facing the driver’s seat.
God, he was so hot, the feel of his body under hers hard and strong and powerful.
“Don’t wanna make this obvious,” he murmured, his arm tightening around her waist. “So let’s pretend you’re just sitting there, waiting for someone.”
She tried to nod, but then his mouth brushed over the back of her neck, sensitive skin left bare by her ponytail, at the same time as his hand moved to the button of her jeans, deftly undoing it. Grabbing the tab of her zipper and jerking it down.
“I’ve never done this before,” she heard herself say in a high, breathy voice, the words coming out of her before she could stop them. “With someone I don’t know.”
“Well, I have.” His hand was resting on her stomach now. “Don’t worry. I’ll make it real good, I promise.”
Maybe the fact that this was obviously not new to him should have bothered her. But it didn’t. If anything, it was a reassurance that at least someone here knew what they were doing because she sure as hell didn’t. And clearly she didn’t. Two hours ago she’d only just met him and had disliked him intensely. Now here she was, in the back of his car and she was letting him screw her.
She could barely believe it was happening, let alone that she’d agreed to it.
But then his hand moved, pushing down beneath the waistband of her panties and all thought, all her nervousness and doubt, vanished utterly.
His fingers found her clit, brushing gently over it, and she stiffened as jolt of intense pleasure knifed straight through her. “Oh . . . God . . .” Her hands gripped on tight to the hard muscles of his thighs beneath her. She felt like she was burning up, like she was sitting on an open flame.
His hand moved again, his fingers easing down over her aching flesh, finding the entrance to her body and pushing inside. And a hoarse noise escaped her, a choked sob, pleasure like a bonfire building high.
“I knew it.” His mouth brushed her neck again, his fingers easing out of her, then pushing back in again. “I fucking knew you’d be wet for me.”
Her hips were moving helplessly against his hand, and she didn’t feel awkward or nervous anymore. She felt desperate.
“Hold on to the seat in front of you and lean forward.”
She obeyed without thought, trembling all over again as he removed his hand from between her legs, then shoved her jeans down, taking her panties with them. There was another pause, the sound of fabric shifting. His breathing was harsh in her ear as the crackle of foil filled the car.
“Lift up.” The words were bitten off and taut.
She did so, shuddering. And then his hand was back, sliding over the bare skin of her butt and beneath her, between her thighs, spreading her, while the other hand rested on her hip, urging her back down onto him.
A long, low moan tore itself from her throat, the press of his cock stretching her wide. Because he was big and she was so damn close to the edge. She gripped tight to the seat in front of her, pressing her forehead against the headrest, and closed her eyes, her breathing wild.
“Ah . . . that’s good.” His voice was rough and raw, his hands on her hips now, holding her painfully tight, his cock buried deep inside her. “So fucking good.”
His hips flexed as if he was testing the fit of her and she groaned at the friction, so close to coming already all it would take was another movement like that and she would go over. “Zee . . .” His name a broken whisper. “Don’t. I’m nearly . . .”
He ignored her, flexing his hips again, and this time she did come, the orgasm crashing over her without warning, a rush of blinding pleasure that had lights bursting behind her eyes.
“Now,” he said, his voice dark, gritty, and hot through the roar in her head. “Let’s do this properly.”
And his hands tightened on her hips and he held her there as he began to thrust in earnest, hard and sure and deep, each one shoving her forward against the seat in front of her, making her cry out, her knuckles white on the leather. Because it was almost too much. Almost too intense.
Every part of this was wrong. The sounds of his flesh sliding into her and the rough, growling noises he made as he thrust. The raw ache in her pussy and the exquisite friction of his cock. The way her forehead kept being pushed roughly into the seat in front and the thick, musky smell of sex.
All of it was wrong and dirty and so not what Tamara Lennox of the Michigan Lennoxes would be doing.
And for some reason she couldn’t fathom, that made it perfect. Utterly perfect.
Her hands spread out on the leather and she began to shove back against him, meeting his thrusts with her own. He laughed, a low, dark sound that had heat prickling all over her again, her sex clenching tight around him. “Fuck, yeah. You like that, don’t you?”
“I can’t . . . I don’t . . .”
He leaned forward, reaching for one of her hands where it clutched at the seat and pulling it away. Then he pushed it down between her thighs, guiding her fingers to where he was seated deep inside her, hot and hard as steel. “Feel that, pretty girl? Feel me there?”
Dirty For Me (Motor City Royals) Page 4