She opened the email.
Meet me at 8:30 on Skyline exactly 6.9 miles north of Highway 9, left-hand side.
He wanted her to go up to Skyline? Skyline Boulevard traversed the summit of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Six-point-nine miles north along Highway 9? There was nothing there that she could remember, although she wasn’t sure whether that was past Woodside or not. Whatever. There was something there, and Rand had a plan.
“Yes, sir,” she typed back, mentally saluting. It was fun, a game, not knowing what to expect. Hopefully tonight he would take her all the way. So far, they hadn’t done much touching beyond that kiss. But what a kiss. Remembering, she melted all over again. He’d rubbed his semen all over her abdomen and breasts, but he hadn’t made her come yet.
She was just logging out of her email when a scuffle out in the factory caught her attention.
“You idiot.” Steve.
“It wasn’t my fault.” Matt.
“Then whose fault was it, kid?”
“I’m not a kid.”
“No, you’re a punk.”
What the…? With her office door facing the entry to manufacturing, Rachel could hear the yelling as if they were standing right in front of her.
Erin and Dominic were gone for two days, Yvonne was out for the afternoon, taking her daughter to the obstetrician, and Bree’s door was closed. That left only Rachel, and Erin had told her to hold the fort while they were away. Of course, Yvonne hadn’t liked that since she had seniority, but that didn’t stop Rachel from taking her duty seriously.
“You shouldn’t have—”
“I didn’t—”
They were yelling over each other. Rachel marched out of her office and through the big arch into manufacturing. Steve was jabbing his finger at Matt’s nose, and Matt’s face was red enough to explode like an overripe melon.
The rest of the five-man manufacturing crew—though one of them was a woman—had made themselves scarce, either running down between the inventory shelves pretending they needed parts or out through the roll-up door at the back. Which was open, while the overhead heaters were blazing, wasting all that energy.
“What’s going on?”
Neither of them listened to her. Honestly, they were like two big kids fighting on the playground, right in each other’s faces. Matt was taller, but he was fifteen years younger and probably a hundred pounds lighter. Steve, whose bald head, stocky, muscled build, and tattoos screamed motorcycle gang, could have flattened Matt. Steve could flatten her, too.
But Erin had left her in charge. “Hey,” she shouted over them. “If you two don’t stop right this minute, I’m sending you to your rooms without dinner. Do you hear me?”
Matt pulled back, his lanky hair falling into his eyes, and looked at her. “What?”
“Do I need to repeat myself?”
Steve tilted his head, like a pit bull finally noticing the little pussycat. “Did you just tell me to go to my room?”
She stood taller. In her high heels, she was almost as tall as him. “Yes. Unless you both want to tell me what’s going on.” She glared at them. “Without yelling.”
She thought she saw the wink of Steve’s gold tooth before he cut off any hint of a smile. He stabbed a finger in Matt’s direction. “This little asshole—”
“Language,” she warned. If they wanted to be treated like kids, that’s exactly what she’d do.
Steve’s gold tooth flashed again, but this time he grimaced. “This little miscreant put the wrong part numbers on all the transducers.”
Rachel knew their products somewhat. Put simply, the way Erin had described it to her, the transducers were the probes used to make the ultrasonic measurements that the gauges recorded. “So put the right numbers on them.”
Steve’s jaw worked. He was their quality control technician, inspecting the parts before they were either shipped or put into inventory. Matt, she knew, had taken over the manufacturing of the transducers, which, until recently, had been outsourced.
“It is not my job to fix his mistakes.”
“I didn’t make a mistake,” Matt jumped in. “We just had so many to get out today that I asked Fred”—their shipping and receiving clerk—“to put the part numbers on for me.”
“So you’re blaming Fred?” Steve got up in his face again.
Matt wasn’t backing off like a sensible kid. “No, I—”
“I said stop.” Rachel got right between them, pushing them apart with two hands like she was pressing weights. “Or I will put you in time-out.”
That was enough to cool them down again.
“I gather the parts have the wrong number on them, but they have to go out today, and someone’s got to fix it. You can worry about who’s to blame later. For right now, let’s figure out how to fix it.”
They glared at each other, then at her.
“I’m waiting,” she singsonged.
Steve huffed. “We have to stick the probes on a tester, figure out what they are, and re-mark everything. It’s easy, but it will take time.”
“How long?”
“All afternoon, but UPS is scheduled to pick up everything at four.”
She glanced at her watch. They had two hours. “So let everyone take some.”
“Susan and Tim have other orders to fill.”
She growled low in her throat, like Marge Simpson. “Then let’s put Matt, you, and Fred on it. I’ll do some, too, if you show me how to use the tester.”
They both stared at her.
“What?” she prompted.
“You’re not a technician,” Steve grumbled.
She narrowed her eyes. “Look, I can figure out exactly where to stick a probe.” He wouldn’t like where she put it if he didn’t start cooperating. She stared him down.
He was silent a long moment, then his eyes began to twinkle. He let out a sharp bark of laughter. “Rachel, you’re all right, you know.”
She smiled back at him. He’d never really given her the time of day, as if she was just a receptionist.
“And, Matt, we’re going to have to figure out what went wrong with Fred after we get the immediate problem fixed,” she said.
“I—”
She held up a finger. “Later. Right now, get Fred, and Steve can show us how to use the tester.”
“Yes, Rachel.”
The two of them scurried off to do her bidding. Amazing. She allowed herself a small triumphant smile. See, she wasn’t without skills useful in the workplace. Being a mom, she just happened to be great at conflict resolution.
10
DOWN IN THE TREES, IT WAS PITCH BLACK, BUT ABOVE, THE NIGHT along Skyline Boulevard was bright with stars and oddly warm, as if a storm was blowing in from the south. Warm was relative, though; it certainly wasn’t summer weather. Rachel had dressed in a long wool skirt, matching sweater, and knee-high suede boots she’d had for years and worn only a handful of times.
She checked the trip odometer she’d set when she turned onto Skyline. Another couple of miles.
The trees bordering the road fell away into a landscape of rolling meadows, illuminated in her headlights for brief moments as she flashed by. As the tenths of the miles rolled over, she slowed. It would be a left turn. She didn’t want to miss it.
Okay, six-point-nine. She pulled into a turnout and followed a dirt road as it sloped down to the left. Not far from the boulevard above, she saw Rand’s parked car, just a dark shape against a darker night. He leaned against the hood, staring into the night.
Turning off the engine and killing the lights, she climbed out. There was nothing but sky and stars and the dark blobs of the mountains.
“Come here.” He held out his hand.
Rachel took it, and he pulled her down to lean on the hood beside him. The metal was still warm from his drive.
“Look at that,” he said.
“I can’t see anything.”
He sighed. “All those people down on the flats, yet up here, there’s nothi
ng, no one, just us and an ocean of stars.”
Behind them, a car whooshed by on the road, its headlights cutting the same path she’d made along the ridge. “Not quite alone,” she answered. “Civilization still rears its ugly head.”
He glanced back at the dying taillights. “Someone could see us if they looked for us.”
With the car hood warming her bottom, it wasn’t terribly cold, but soon she’d have to ask him to wrap his arms around her for heat. “So, what are we doing here?”
He looked once again at the hills that rolled down to the sea. “Car sex.”
“Car sex?”
He smiled, and she thought she could see starlight twinkling in his eyes. “Yeah. Sex in a car. Didn’t you ever do it in the back of your boyfriend’s car?”
“No.” She was the girl who’d wanted to wait. Then she’d dated boys who already had apartments. It was much harder to say no in an apartment. Then there’d been Gary.
“Well, I thought we’d kill two birds with one stone. Car sex and sex outdoors.”
“You mean right here, right now?”
His teeth gleamed in his smile. “That’s exactly what I mean.”
“Isn’t there supposed to be some romantic buildup?”
“You mean where we fumble around in the backseat like teenagers until finally you say yes after I have my hand up your skirt?”
She laughed. “That’s not exactly romantic.”
He pulled away from the hood and stood in front of her. Then, in a flash, he pushed her to her back against the warm metal, and fastened his lips on hers. It was so fast, so carnal, she opened her mouth to him and wrapped her arms around his neck to mold their bodies together. He tasted fresh, spicy, hot, and he was already hard for her.
When she was dizzy, he backed off a fraction, and whispered against her lips. “Changed my mind. We won’t do the backseat. We’ll do it right here on the hood.”
“What if someone sees us?” No one would see them. But it made her hotter thinking that maybe, just maybe, someone on the road would glance down at the right moment, and see two writhing bodies on the hood of his car.
Sliding his hands down her flanks, he tugged her skirt until it was high enough for her to spread her legs and let him in. His jeans rubbed her bare inner thighs, his hard cock pressed to her center.
He cupped her butt in his big hands, pulling back a little farther. “Where are your panties?”
“At home.”
“Slut.” He dove in for a hard, hot kiss on her mouth. “Have you been thinking all day about fucking me?”
“No,” she said, stroking his hair, so soft. “I’ve been thinking all day about”—she hesitated only a fraction of a second—“sucking your cock.”
He pushed hard between her legs. God, she wanted to feel him without the jeans between them.
“You wanna suck me?” He slid a hand down between them and put his finger to her clit.
She simply sighed. It didn’t feel like the first time he’d touched her intimately. It was more like he knew every inch of her body and what she needed.
“I think it would be better if I licked you”—he bent to nip her earlobe, his fingers like magic between her legs—“then fucked you.”
She blew out a breath, mostly to cover her rising need. “I just don’t know how I could turn down an offer like that.”
He shoved his hands beneath her armpits and hauled her higher on the hood. Another car shot by on the road, but she didn’t care as he eased down between her legs to blow warm breath on her.
For a moment, she saw herself, spread-eagled, a man between her legs. She’d only arrived five minutes ago. He moved so fast. There should have been a progression: kissing, petting, touching her breasts, then heading lower. Yet he overwhelmed her. He put his mouth to her pussy, and she cried out, loudly, her voice filling the night.
He spread her lips with his fingers and licked her clitoris, sucked it, circled it.
There’d never been anything like this, no one like him. He treated her as if he’d been put on earth to do this to her, as if it were the only thing that was important to him. She reveled in how he made her feel, the pure down-and-dirty physicality of stretching out under a canopy of stars and letting him do anything he wanted, everything she wanted.
“Oh God, oh God.” She panted, twisting on the car hood still warm from the engine, or maybe from the heat her body generated, then she shoved her fingers through his hair and held him close. “Oh yes, oh yes.” She didn’t care that she wailed or moaned or chanted; there was just his tongue on her, his lips, his hot, wet mouth. Her husband had done it a few times in the beginning, but never like this, never like he loved licking her, like her pussy was ambrosia to him, her juice the sweetest of wines.
Then Rand put a finger inside her, taking her with his hands and his mouth, and Rachel shouted in total abandon. “Don’t stop, oh God, yes, please, don’t stop.” The sound of her own voice shot her higher, the cries multiplying the sensations, magnifying them, until above her, all the stars burst in the night sky, showering down on her, burning her up.
SHE TASTED SO SWEET. SHE CAME SO HARD, CRYING HIS NAME INTO the darkness. Rand didn’t want her to come down before he got inside her. He wanted her to climax again before the first orgasm ended. He made fast work of the condom, then rolled her to her stomach on the hood, pulled her down till her boots touched the ground, and shoved her skirt up over her shapely ass.
“Hold on, baby.” He didn’t need to test to know she was wet enough for him. He put his cock to her and pushed inside. She took him all the way. Then for a long moment, he rested on her, feeling the twitches of her body beneath him.
“Oh my Lord, that feels so good,” she whispered with tears on the backs of her words. “Fuck me, Rand, please. I’ve dreamed about it so many times. Please, please.”
Desperation. That’s what he needed. He moved inside her. “Like this?”
“Yes, please, faster, harder.”
A car flashed by on the highway, and he plunged deep. She stretched her arms out, curling her fingers around the edge of the hood along the windshield, and braced herself for him. An owl hooted, and he took her again. She moaned and pushed back, trying to force his penetration deeper. He held her hips and fucked her the way she wanted, buried himself in her heat. She smelled so sweet, and her moans were so fucking hot. The night rolled them in darkness and cool air, but their bodies created a fire to ward it off.
It didn’t feel like the first time. It felt like they’d been doing this forever.
He levered himself up on his arms and took her, her breath panting out with each thrust. Then, on the inside, she clenched around him, worked him with her climax until he could no longer hold off his own. The orgasm was hard, blinding, excruciating, stealing his awareness of anything but the contraction of his balls and the heat of her body.
How long he lay prone atop her, Rand couldn’t say. She didn’t tell him to move. Finally, her cheek pressed to the metal, she whispered, “Wow.” Then she pushed against him lightly and twisted her arm to see the glowing dial of her watch. “Fifteen minutes. I don’t think I’ve ever come twice in fifteen minutes.”
“I’m good.”
She elbowed him. “You mean I’m good.”
He wanted to gather her into his arms and cradle her in the backseat. But she was already pushing him off and trying to straighten her skirt. Bad man that he was, he littered, tossing the condom, then zipped his jeans. When he turned back, she put her hand to his cheek.
“No one’s ever done that to me before.”
“Fucked you on the hood of his car along the side of a road?”
“Wanted me, licked me, lifted my skirt, and taken me. Like you couldn’t wait.”
“I couldn’t. I’ve imagined fucking you for weeks.” He smoothed her hair. “Reality was better than fantasy.”
“Sweet talker.” She smiled. “You make me feel like a teenager.” Then the laughter drained away. “I needed that.�
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He felt the but wanting to come out at the end of that sentence, yet she didn’t add anything. “There are more surprises to come.” He’d spent far too much time making plans. “They’re going to be fucking hot. It’ll be good for you that I have to keep topping myself.”
“I’m sure it will.” Then she stepped away from his touch. “I’d better go. It’s late.”
He wanted her to stay. “I promise not to make you drive so far tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow night?” she echoed.
“Every night that your boys are gone. An orgasm a day keeps the doctor away,” he quipped.
She blinked. “I think it’s an apple a day.”
“You say apples, I say orgasms.”
She didn’t laugh the way he thought she would. “All right. Email me.” There was something in her voice. He wasn’t sure what exactly. Just that she was pulling away emotionally as well as physically.
He reached out to reel her back in. His hand on the nape of her neck, he held her close for a kiss, openmouthed, sweet, with a hint of the fire still burning inside him.
“I’ll follow you to make sure you’re safe.” He felt her stiffen and added, “Just till we get into Saratoga.”
In town, just at the bottom of Highway 9. “Right,” she agreed softly.
But he lied. When they hit Saratoga, he put some distance and a couple of cars between them and saw her home safely.
GOD, IT HAD BEEN RISKY AND SEXY AND INTENSE, OVERWHELMING. Closing the front door, Rachel slid to her bottom on the entry floor. She hugged herself. Her breasts were still sensitive, her body still humming. She felt completely carnal, a different woman in her own skin. It had been so fast, yet so devastating. She’d screamed, she’d begged. She hadn’t sounded or felt like herself out there, and it had been so good. He’d rocked her world in less than fifteen minutes. That wasn’t merely devastating, it was terrifying.
The stars had been bright over her as he took her with his tongue. Then his body had been hot and deep inside. She’d come so hard, her eyes were wet when he was done.
Yet it wasn’t enough. She’d wanted to beg him to take her again in the backseat, to tell him once wasn’t enough, that she didn’t think she could ever get enough.
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