Drive Me Wild

by Julie Ortolon

  They were neck and neck and nearing the finish line when Brent glanced into his rearview mirror and cursed.

  “What?” Laura twisted around. Flashing lights appeared behind them as she caught the faint whine of a siren. She whirled back and stared straight ahead. She wasn’t going to die tonight—she was going to be arrested! Her father would have to bail her out of jail. Everyone in Beason’s Ferry would read about it in next week’s paper. DOCTOR’S DAUGHTER ARRESTED FOR JOY RIDING, or reckless endangerment, or whatever they called it. Any minute Brent would pull over, and they’d slap the handcuffs on both of them and haul them away.

  Only Brent didn’t slow down. He pushed the car to go even faster. “Aren’t you going to pull over?” she shouted over the noise.

  “Are you crazy?” He spared her an incredulous look.

  “But there’s a sheriff’s deputy behind us.” She gave him the benefit of the doubt, in case he hadn’t noticed.

  “Yeah, I know!” They skidded sideways into another turn spraying Jimmy Joe with gravel. “Let’s hope he’s not driving one of their new high-speed pursuit cars.”

  “And if he is?”

  Brent didn’t answer. His eyes locked onto something up ahead. She followed his gaze to the Whispering Bridge, with its concrete guard posts.

  “Oh, my God.” From the corner of her eye, she saw the nose of the red Mustang. Both cars struggled for an extra thrust of speed.

  “Come on, baby, come on, baby,” Brent chanted as they flew toward the finish line. The Mustang struggled to take the lead, but Brent gripped the steering wheel, refusing to yield. Laura realized Jimmy Joe was going to hit the concrete posts rather than concede the race. Brent was going to win, but Jimmy Joe and Darlene were going to die.

  “No!” She screamed and covered her eyes as they plunged onto the bridge.

  “Yes!” Brent shouted in triumph.

  When no crash followed, she looked up. “What happened?”

  “I won!” Brent laughed as they reached Hangman’s Hollow at the far end of the bridge. A cheer went up from the men still waiting on the hoods of their trucks. She glanced behind them and was nearly blinded by Jimmy Joe’s headlights. At least he’d had the sense to brake instead of crash.

  They raced on through several more bends and turns, trying to outrun the patrol car.

  “Hang on,” Brent called, and in the next instant, his headlights clicked off. They careened sideways, off the paved road onto a gravel drive.

  Laura twisted in time to see the sheriff’s car whiz by in hot pursuit of Jimmy Joe’s Mustang. As Brent continued forward at a slow crawl through the darkness, a sense of relief swept through her adrenaline-charged body. Sliding down in the seat, she let her head fall against the headrest. Her eyes closed as laughter bubbled up inside her.

  She laughed between gulps of air, laughed until her sides ached. After a while, she felt the car roll to a stop. The engine went quiet. The silence of the night enveloped her. Still chuckling, she wiped the tears from her cheeks and opened her eyes. The sky arched above her, infinite midnight blue strewn with a wealth of glittering stars. A moment ago, she’d been a breath away from death. And yet she’d never felt so alive.

  Hearing Brent laugh, she turned toward him. He too had slid down to rest his head on the back of the seat. Then he glanced at her. Their gazes met. Their laughter stilled.

  For endless moments, he simply stared at her eyes, her face, her hair. She held her breath as her heart slowed to a hard throb in her chest, and she longed for him to close the chasm between them.

  She wanted him so badly, she feared she was dreaming when he leaned forward so his body loomed above her. He cupped the back of her head in his hand, and his face blocked the sky. She felt his breath and the heat of his body, and she yearned for the touch of his mouth on hers.

  The kiss, when it came, whispered against her lips as he retreated and returned. Please, she told him with her eyes. Please kiss me as I long to be kissed.

  He groaned deep in his throat, and all gentleness vanished. His mouth covered hers, moving, tasting, devouring. His tongue begged entrance, and she opened her mouth willingly, surging up to meet him. Fumbling with his seat belt, then with hers, he freed their bodies to move and entwine. His hands ran over her back, her sides, her breasts. The buttons on her blouse gave way, as did the clasp at the front of her bra.

  When his palms cupped her naked breasts, she arched upward. Desperate to feel his skin, she fought with the buttons of his shirt, then buried her fingers in the warm mat of hair that covered his chest. She felt his muscles flex and harden as he pulled her closer.

  Her leg bumped the gearshift. His elbow hit the steering wheel. With a muffled curse, he reached his hand down beside her seat. The seat back lowered slowly as he pressed her backward. With her fingers buried in his hair, he kissed her neck, then moved lower. His teeth nipped the rounded swell of her breast. A shiver shot through her as he soothed the flesh with his tongue. Mesmerized by the moonlight, she watched as his mouth closed over one taut nipple. Yes, she whimpered, and realized the sound came from deep inside her. She needed him to touch her. Anywhere. Everywhere.

  His hand ran downward, beneath her skirt and back up.

  “Oh, God,” he groaned as he touched the bare skin above her stockings. His breath came in labored pants as he rested his forehead against her breasts. “Do you always wear these?”

  “What?” she breathed, unable to think. She squeezed her thighs to try and ease the ache. Running her fingers through his hair, she longed to feel his mouth once more.

  “Stockings,” he rasped as he moved upward to hover over her. In the darkness, his eyes caressed her face. “Do you always wear stockings?”

  “Yes. I— They’re very comfortable and … they keep me from getting too hot.”

  A grin lit his face. “Are they keeping you from getting hot now?”

  Her eyes widened as she realized what she’d said. But then he took her mouth in a ravenous kiss. Beneath her skirt, his hand moved over the top of her thigh, making her muscles jump and her skin tingle. She squirmed, not knowing if she wanted more or less until the need inside her became a mindless thing, like a beast clawing to escape. She whimpered in fear of the very sensation she wanted to embrace.

  “It’s okay,” he whispered in her ear as his hand found its way around her damp panties to the core of her ache.

  “Oh, Brent, yes … please…” She wanted to tell him she’d never felt this building urgency. But his finger pressed inside her, and the ability to speak fled.

  She gasped as he stroked her with slow, sure thrusts, and her legs fell apart as she welcomed his touch. When his thumb found her sensitive bud, her world shattered; like a hammer striking glass, the pleasure slammed deep into her and splintered outward. She arched in wonder, then hung suspended for an endless moment before spiraling down slowly to earth.

  When she opened her eyes, she saw he’d pulled back. With his hand still buried beneath her skirt, touching her intimately, his body had gone utterly still. Shadows hid his face, but she could feel his shocked gaze sweeping over her.

  In the next heartbeat, he was gone. He clamored out of the car, not even bothering to close the door. She lay there for a moment with her blouse open, her legs apart.

  Cool air brushed her skin, sinking straight into her bones. Mortified, she scrambled to right her clothes. Her hands shook as she buttoned her blouse. She knew so little about sex, but apparently she’d done something wrong. She just couldn’t figure out what. If this had been Greg, he never would have stopped so abruptly, at least not until he’d satisfied himself. Not that he was a selfish lover, he was just, well, inept. Or so she’d thought. Maybe she was the inept one. It must be her. Why else had Brent practically leaped from the car to get away from her?

  As she righted her seat, she chanced a peek behind her. He stood a few yards away, silhouetted against the night sky, his back rigid and his fists clenched at his side.

  His shoulde
rs moved as he pulled great gulps of air into his lungs. He raised a hand to wipe his face but stopped abruptly to hold the hand before him as though horrified.

  A fresh wave of humiliation washed over her as she realized that was the hand that had been touching her moments ago. He balled the hand into a fist and dropped it back to his side. Without a word or a glance in her direction, he paced away from the car, halted, and turned.

  He was coming back. She hurried to tuck her skirt about her legs, then tried to look as nonchalant as possible. Her heart hammered as he climbed into the car and closed the door. From the corner of her eye, she saw that he was facing straight ahead, refusing to even look at her.

  “I, eh…” He cleared his throat. “I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

  “You didn’t?” she asked, then cringed at her inanity. Should she apologize? But for what? She didn’t even know what she’d done wrong—other than get more excited than she ever had in her life. She hadn’t even known it could be like that: like an explosion igniting inside her and rippling outward in a series of shock waves. She’d thought women who spoke of orgasms were exaggerating.

  They weren’t exaggerating. If anything, their descriptions fell woefully short. How could she apologize for feeling that, when she desperately wanted to thank him?

  He opened his mouth as if to speak, but closed it. After a moment, he sighed and started the car.

  They rode home in excruciating silence. When they pulled up in front of her house, she couldn’t even look at him. She wanted to jump from the car and run inside, but Brent had reverted to playing the gentleman. He collected her jacket from the backseat, then came around the car to open her door. After walking her up the front steps, he turned to her.

  “Laura, I…” Another awkward silence fell between them as she waited. Her legs felt strangely weak, and the longer she stood, the more her knees wobbled. If only he’d hand over her jacket, she could run inside and hide.

  Instead, she tried for a smile and a casual shrug. “Hey, look, it was no big deal, okay?” With a quick sideways glance, she saw his brow crease as if he were confused, or … insulted? She sighed in defeat. “Maybe it would be best if we just pretended tonight never happened.”

  He gave a mirthless laugh. “How about we pretend the entire day never happened?”

  She felt a twinge of hurt to know his homecoming had been that distasteful, and that she was the one who’d talked him into coming back. “I’m sorry,” she said. “About … everything.”

  “No, Laura, don’t—” He exhaled sharply. “Truth is, it wasn’t all bad.”

  She found the courage to look at him as she tried to decipher which parts he regretted and which he didn’t.

  A small smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. It was the smile she remembered from their shared youth. His secret friend smile. “If nothing else, I enjoyed seeing you.”

  She blushed, more from embarrassment than pleasure, for he definitely had seen her. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” His smile grew teasing. Only she didn’t want to tease, had never wanted to, really. Their banter had always been a shield, and she felt too weary to don it now.

  “Then I guess we’re still friends?” she asked, her throat aching.

  “Of course.” He held out her jacket.

  Something in the gesture squeezed her heart. As she took the jacket with the wilted mum, her eyes prickled. “Will I see you at the reenactment tomorrow?”

  “No, I…” He gazed off, in the direction of the highway. “I’ll be leaving first thing in the morning.”

  “Oh. Well. I guess this is good-bye, then.”

  “Yeah.”

  She turned toward the door but halted with her hand on the knob. In all her girlhood dreams, her dates with Brent ended the same way: here on the front steps, he’d take her in his arms, kiss her tenderly. Then he’d smile down at her and say: “Sweet dreams, my darling.”

  She’d flush with pleasure and say: “Always—when I dream of you.”

  “Until tomorrow, then,” he’d say, “I’ll see you in your dreams.”

  Only now, in the adult world of reality, she wouldn’t see him tomorrow. She might never see him again. She swallowed hard and forced a smile. “Good night, Brent. Take care of yourself.”

  “You, too.”

  She hurried inside, before the tears could fall. For a long moment, she stood with her back pressed to the door, biting her lip as she listened for his footsteps. At last they came, followed by the sound of his car door slamming. And then he drove away.

  Earlier, she’d said every woman needed one night in her life to regret. And yet in spite of everything, in spite of the pain in her stomach and the tears that coursed down her cheeks, she knew she would never regret her one night with Brent.

  Chapter 9

  A repetitive ringing sounded in Brent’s ear. Blind with sleep, he swatted at the nightstand to turn off his alarm.

  Instead of his clock, his hand hit a phone. He curled his fingers around the receiver and carried it to his ear. “Hello,” he muttered.

  “Brent?”

  “Hum?”

  “Jesus, Michaels, it’s friggin’ ten A.M. Drag your sorry ass out of bed, you jerk.”

  “Connie?” He blinked the sleep from his eyes and tried to focus on the digital readout of his clock radio. Only his radio wasn’t on his nightstand where it should be. Nothing was where it should be.

  With his producer’s voice grinding in his ear like a gravel truck, he glanced about the room. The ruffled curtains and quaint country accents brought everything back in excruciating detail.

  He was in Beason’s Ferry. Last night he’d taken Laura Beth Morgan to Snake’s Pool Palace, gotten her drunk on Johnnie Walker Red, then tried to jump her in the front seat of his car.

  Groaning, he covered his face. Erotic images taunted his memory of how she’d writhed beneath his slightest touch. Before the images could arouse his body as well he lowered his hand. But nothing could stop the echo of her parting words: Maybe we should just pretend this night never happened.

  Not that he blamed her. He’d behaved like some hormone-driven adolescent who forgot the meaning of words like restraint and respect the minute he became aroused. That he’d behaved that way at all was humiliating enough. That he’d behaved that way with Laura, the closest thing he had to a childhood friend, didn’t bear thinking about.

  “Michaels, are you listening to me?” his producer demanded.

  “No.” He rolled onto his back and dropped his forearm over his eyes. “Jeez, Connie, can’t I even go out of town for one lousy weekend without you tracking me down?”

  “Not when going out of town gets you plastered all over somebody else’s news broadcast.”

  “What?” His sluggish brain clicked fully awake. Had someone found out about the street race?

  “Actually, KTEX didn’t mention your name, thank God. All their anchor said, in a snide little voice was ‘A local Houstonian donated himself as the prize in a Dating Game show for a small-town fund-raiser.’ If their cameraman hadn’t caught a shot of you standing on the town square with the winning bachelorette, even I wouldn’t have known it was you.”

  “Oh, that.” He breathed a sigh of relief. At least he hadn’t ruined Laura’s good name with the community. Yet.

  “What do you mean, ‘oh, that’?” Connie’s voice rose steadily in volume. “I had three viewers call up and ask if you were leaving KSET. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, KTEX’s news director called to innocently ask why my hottest anchor was participating in a publicity stunt that we weren’t even covering!“

  “Give me a break, Connie.” Sitting up, he swung his legs over the side of the bed, then pulled the covers into his lap. Talking to his producer while sitting in the nude was not his favorite way to start a day. “My donating an evening of my time to an out-of-town fundraiser is hardly newsworthy in Houston.”

  “Get off it, Michaels.” He heard the click of a light
er followed by Connie’s deep drag off a cigarette. “Anything you do that smacks of ‘community spirit’ and ‘goodwill’ makes this station look good. On top of that, I hear this Bluebonnet Homes Tour thing draws a big crowd from Houston—and you never even told me about it. Christ, you’re the home boy on this team, and you made me look like some ignorant schmuck.”

  “The term is Yankee, Connie. Down here, we say ‘ignorant Yankee,’ not ‘schmuck’.”

  “Whatever. You cost me, kid. And you know it.”

  “Fine. Send a remote down for a couple minutes of footage then.”

  “You bet your sweet ass I’m sending down a remote. Now, give me a rundown on today’s schedule of events.”

  “Hell, I don’t know.” He dragged a hand through his hair and tried to think. “If they follow tradition, there’ll be a costumed reenactment of the Burning of Beason’s Ferry, followed by a barbecue at the city park.”

  “Perfect.” She exhaled into the receiver, and he swore he could smell the smoke coming out his end. “You can do a live feed for the six o’clock report.”

  ”Not likely. I’m out of here as soon as I get dressed.”

  Although if I stayed, I’d have an excuse to see Laura again. And do what? Apologize? Explain? He shook his head. “I need to get back to Houston. The sooner the better.”

  “To do what?” Connie scoffed. “Your laundry?”

  To get out of this town before I suffocate, he thought.

  “All right, all right,” Connie groused when he said nothing. “I’ll hump the spot up from two minutes to two and a half. But no more than that, so don’t start with me!”

  “Two and a half minutes for a fluff piece?” Brent scowled into the phone. “What is this, a slow news day?”