Harlequin Superromance May 2016 Box Set

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “I’m here, babe.” He tried to tuck her back in his arms, but she didn’t bend and he didn’t want to hurt her. “You’re not alone. I’m here.”

  “Ian.” Unexpectedly, she fell back against him, her chest heaving with great gulping sobs. “I don’t want to be alone anymore.” She continued to weep.

  “I’m here.” He held her as tightly as he dared and rubbed his hands up and down her back. “I won’t leave you. I promise.” He kept repeating it, too.

  This time, the storm passed more quickly than it had yesterday. After only a minute, her sobs trailed off and her body stopped shaking so hard. The nightmares must have been brutal, he decided.

  But that thought was erased right out of his head when Lacy’s fingers tightened on the front of his shirt. Suddenly, she went from crying on his shoulder to holding him.

  “I don’t want to be alone anymore,” she whispered. Her voice had a waver to it, but not the kind that went with crying. It was something different.

  And just like that, they were right back to where they’d been yesterday, bodies pressed together as he told her every single thing he wanted to do to her.

  “I’m here,” he whispered back. His hands slowed, and he took his time feeling her body against his, feeling how she was responding to his touch. “I’m right here for you.”

  “I don’t want to hurt anymore,” she whispered, shifting so her face was tucked against his neck. Her breath was hot against his skin—hell, her whole body was hot against his as she stretched and shifted.

  He went hard—so hard, he ached. “I can make you feel better,” he promised her. But he didn’t kiss her, didn’t do anything but keep rubbing her back in slow, sensual strokes. That’s all he could do. She had to be the one who—

  “Like...” She released her hold on his shirt. Her hand skimmed up his neck until she was stroking the stubble on his jaw. “Like you promised you’d do? Yesterday?”

  “Yeah.” Okay, maybe not exactly like what he’d promised—they were in the narrow confines of a truck cab instead of in a hotel room with a nice, wide bed. But he could work with this, if only she’d give him the go-ahead. “You and me, babe. Let me take care of you.”

  He couldn’t help it. He dug a hand into her mane of wild hair, letting the rough silk tangle around his fingertips as he shifted his hips against her. His dick throbbed with need, but he wasn’t going to—not until she—

  “I don’t want to hurt anymore,” she whispered, her gaze locked on him. Her eyes were wide, her pupils huge, and she was breathing heavily. “I want...” She touched her fingertips to his lips.

  Ian held his breath, his heart pounding. A curl sprang free and he brushed it out of her face. “Are you going to kiss me?” he asked, praying the answer was yes.

  “No,” she said, her voice a ghost from a dream. In the space between those two cruel little letters and what she said next, Ian was pretty sure he was going to die of sheer sexual frustration. But then she said, “I want you to kiss me.”

  “Done.” He cupped her face in both his hands and pushed her up to his lips.

  And he kissed her. Soft and gentle at first, because he wanted to make sure this was what she wanted. He wanted to show her he could take care of her, he could put her first—even when he wanted nothing more than to bury himself in her body and let the climax he’d barely kept under control run free. He let his lips settle against hers—soft and gentle.

  She pulled back and glared at him. “What the hell was that? Kiss me, dammit.”

  He couldn’t help the grin that took hold of his lips. “You sure?”

  “For the love of everything holy,” she muttered as she tried to straddle him—but she must have pulled her ribs because she grimaced. “Ow...”

  “Easy. Let me—” He picked her up and turned her around so her back was against his chest and she was facing the windshield. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

  “I want—”

  “You want,” he said fiercely in her ear, “exactly what I’m going to give you, don’t you?” And he finally, finally allowed himself to cup one of her breasts in his hand—the left one, so he wouldn’t risk hitting her busted rib. “You want me to touch you, don’t you?”

  Oh, yeah—she wasn’t wearing a bra. He pinched her nipple through the layered shirt. She gasped and squirmed, driving her ass against his dick.

  “Here,” he said, letting go of her long enough to pull the dusty blanket up over the both of them. The odds of someone walking by at this time of the morning and seeing them in the dim light were laughably slim, but he wasn’t leaving a thing to chance. She’d given him permission, and by God, he was going to make the most of it.

  Once he had the blanket tucked around her shoulders, he slipped his hand under her shirt and cupped her breast again. Heaven help him, her nipple was already hard.

  He could make it harder. He rolled her nipple between his finger and his thumb and was instantly rewarded when she arched her back, thrusting her breast up into his hand. “Oh, yes,” she moaned in a high-pitched voice. “Oh, Ian...”

  “You feel so good in my hands,” he growled in her ear. Then he wrapped his lips around her lobe and sucked lightly, still tweaking her nipple as he did so. “Do you want me to touch you? Touch your clit?”

  “You—you promised you would,” she said in short, hot gasps. “You promised.”

  “I keep my promises, Lacy.” He kept stroking her breast with his left hand while he let his right hand drift down over her gently rounded stomach, down over the front of her jeans. She tensed as he plunged his fingers between her thighs, skimming over the seam of her jeans. “You like that, don’t you?”

  She nodded. The disadvantage of this particular position was that he couldn’t see her face—and couldn’t kiss her while he was working on her body. He used his chin to push her hair to one side so he could at least press his lips to her neck. She made a high whimpering sound when his teeth nipped at her skin. “If we were back in the hotel room,” he whispered before he let his teeth work over her again, “I’d strip these jeans off of you and do this to your clit.”

  “Oh,” she managed to say as he bit down with a little more force. He pulled at her nipple and stroked at the seam in her jeans.

  “You like to hear what I’m doing to you, don’t you?” Even though it was buried underneath several layers of stiff denim and her panties, he could feel her warmth building under his touch. “I could get you off like this, couldn’t I? Just light little touches, rubbing right here, right...here...”

  He pressed his finger against her and she bucked in his arms. “Oh, yes, oh, please,” she said, her voice high and tight and so hungry for more that it sent his temperature spiking. The world outside the cab fell away until all that remained was Lacy and Ian and the way he touched her.

  “But you need more, don’t you, you beautiful thing? You need me right against you, don’t you?” Gently, he switched to her other breast, careful to focus only on the nipple, not on the underside. The last damned thing he wanted to do right now was hit her ribs and have the pain pull her out of the moment.

  “Ian,” she gasped and he heard the frustration in her voice.

  “Undo your jeans for me,” he ordered, lifting both his hands away from her body. “But don’t push them down.”

  “But how—”

  How were they going to have sex? “This isn’t about me,” he told her, stroking his hands down her thighs and back up over her hips. “Now undo your jeans or else.”

  He felt her shoulders tighten. “Or else what?”

  “Or else I won’t let you come,” he promised her. “I’ll work you up into such a state that you’ll do anything for the release, anything I want you to, and I won’t let you.”

  She paused for only a moment before she did as she was told, quickly undoing
her button and pushing the zipper down. “Like that?”

  “That’s a good girl,” he said, pushing the denim aside and sliding his hand over the fabric of her panties.

  They weren’t silk or satin, her panties—he hadn’t expected them to be. But they were soft and thin and already wet with her desire. “I feel how much you want me,” he whispered. He palmed her, thrusting his hand down as far between her thighs as he could. “God, you’re so wet already. You need to come so badly, don’t you, babe? Tell me how badly you need to come.”

  “So bad,” she whimpered, her hips shifting back and forth as she tried to grind down where he was cupping her. “Please, Ian, please.”

  He could find her hot little clit and press down and she’d fall apart, he knew. He could give her that final push.

  And then it’d be over. She’d come down off her high and probably do something foolish like start thinking again. And he couldn’t let that happen. Not when he’d promised.

  So instead of pressing down, he made a V with his fingers and stroked over the edge of her panties. He lifted his other hand back up to her left breast and circled her nipple with his thumb and finger.

  “You—are—killing—me,” she got out through clenched teeth as she closed her thighs, trapping his hand. “Ian.”

  “Such a prickly woman,” he teased. “I love that about you. Now open up for me and I’ll let you come.”

  “When?”

  “Soon, I promise.” He wedged his leg under hers and used it to spread her wide.

  “Soon isn’t—soon enough,” she moaned as he circled closer and closer to her clit.

  “Patience. You are so hot for my touch.” Then, as he kissed her neck again, he closed the V of his fingers and rubbed over the panties, pressing just hard enough that she shimmied but not hard enough for her to come. “I could keep you like this all day.”

  “Gonna—regret it,” she threatened as he lifted his fingers away from her silky heat and lightly tapped against her clit. It was the barest of touches, but she was so turned on it made her suck in air as if she’d been drowning.

  “How wet are you?” he mused, as if he weren’t as turned on as she was, as if he wasn’t on the verge of coming in his pants like a hair-trigger teenager. Keep it together, he scolded himself as he slipped one finger under the elastic of her panties.

  His finger tangled with soft, tight curls and, against his will, he groaned. “Lacy. You’re going to kill me.”

  “Ian,” she whimpered. She’d clamped her hands down on his forearms and was lightly pushing him.

  He’d worn number fifty-four in college. He’d racked up thirteen sacks his last season. When the hit had come, his femur had snapped like a damned twig.

  It was only the memory of that pain that kept him from exploding in his pants. Lacy’s ass was grinding against him, pushing his awareness of her body higher and higher. He didn’t know how much longer he could take it.

  He stroked over her curls. His eyes fluttered shut as her wet heat surrounded his finger. “Oh, so wet for me,” he whispered in her ear before he bit down on that place where her neck met her shoulders. “Show me your secrets, babe.”

  She made a high noise in the back of her throat and he wanted to kiss her, to taste her need. But they were still sitting in the cab of a truck with only a blanket for privacy. Later, he promised himself. Later he’d get them back to a bed and he’d start her up all over again.

  He traced the seam of her body and found her opening. Her body offered no resistance.

  “Oh, Lacy,” he groaned as he slid his finger into her welcoming body. “You feel so good.”

  “I do?” There was something uncertain in her voice.

  “So good,” he reassured her. He could not let this train be derailed right now. He had to keep her in the moment. He’d promised, by God—and it was a promise he’d keep.

  As he stroked into her, he slid his other hand under her panties, parted her curls and found her clit, tight and hot for him. “Let me take care of you,” he said as he rubbed her in small circles, timed to the movements of his finger. “Show me what you like. You like that?”

  “Oh—yes—” Her head thrashed from side to side on his chest, her wild curls springing everywhere.

  He was surrounded by Lacy. Her body bearing down on his hands, her weight on his chest, her hair around his face—the scent of her sex and the sounds of her pleasure filling the small space—all of this was her.

  He thrust two fingers into her and was rewarded with a moan of need. “Ian, please,” she begged as she tried to twist around, her hand grabbing for his jeans. “Please, I just—please.”

  “No.” He had to let go of her to grab her arms. She looked up at him with confusion in her eyes. “No, Lacy. I’m doing this for you.”

  “But... I owe you one.”

  He almost gave in to her right then and there. He almost jerked her pants down and unbuttoned his fly and pulled her on top of him and pumped into her until they were both shouting.

  And it would be wrong. It was the sort of thing he used to do all the damn time; quick and indiscriminate screwing in the backseat—or front seat—of a car.

  It was exactly the type of sex that had led to his son. And Lacy deserved more than to be knocked up and left behind.

  In his last desperate attempt to hang on to his self-control, Ian kissed her hard. He would subdue her one way or the other. She moaned into his mouth and he pulled away. “You can owe me two. I’m not screwing you in the cab of this truck. If I make love to you, it’s damn well going to be in a bed with a door and lock. Now turn around or else.”

  “Oh.” She was panting again. The confusion was still there, but she nodded and let him spin her back around.

  This time, he wasn’t slow or teasing or patient. Especially not that. He plunged two fingers into her body and rubbed her clit as if it was his last act of salvation. After only a few strokes, she was grinding down on his hand again. He curved his fingers forward inside of her and felt a tighter spot. Lacy’s body tensed. “That’s it, isn’t it, babe? That’s your secret spot. That’s what you need.”

  She made a noise of pure need, high and tight, and it drove him wild. “Come for me, Lacy,” he growled in her ear.

  He circled her clit one more time, and then pressed down on it, hard, as he twisted his fingers inside of her.

  She cried out as her muscles tightened down on him. Her thighs clamped shut, trapping him within her. He felt the spasms shake her as her deep, satisfying groan ripped free. He buried his face in her neck and kissed her as best he could while she rode the waves of pleasure.

  “So beautiful,” he murmured as the last of the tension left her body. “God, Lacy—so beautiful.”

  She went limp in his arms, her breath coming in heavy gasps. “Oh—Ian,” she said weakly. Her hips shifted and he eased free of her body’s embrace. “Oh, that was wonderful.”

  But he didn’t let go. He cupped her sex and breathed deeply. He was so close to his own climax he would have blue balls for a week. As it was, he was having trouble coming up with the kind of sweet pillow talk she probably needed. “Glad to hear it.”

  She snaked her left hand back between their bodies and rubbed at his dick. “Won’t you let me...”

  Outside, the noise of metal squealing cut through the air. It was followed by loud cursing.

  Lacy went stock-still. “Damn,” he muttered, pulling his fingers free of her pants. “Get buttoned up. Stay here. If anyone asks, you just woke up.”

  “I’m not stupid, you know,” she hissed back, sliding off his lap and fumbling with her zipper under the blanket.

  He didn’t respond to that. Instead, he opened the passenger-side door and slid out, landing softly on the hard-packed dirt. His erection was gone now, but the heightened awareness Lacy had
left him with worked in his favor. He moved toward the noise. Which was not the same direction as Lacy’s bulls. In fact, Ian was moving backward, away from her animals.

  He clung to the side of the truck and peered around the bed. Two cowboys, their shapes dull gray in the dim light, were staring at the side of a different truck. “Well, hell,” the shorter one said.

  “A-yup,” the taller one added.

  Ian knew those voices. He stepped out of the shadows and said, “Randy? Garth? What are you doing here?”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “AND YOU GUYS just got here?” The way Ian said it wasn’t a question.

  Lacy shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot and it had nothing to do with the sudden appearance of the two men. The movement wasn’t a smart idea. Every motion either pulled at her rib or made her jeans chafe at her crotch. Her clit, as Ian had so easily referred to it, was tender and throbbing and made standing damned near impossible.

  It would have been a good feeling—a great one, even—if she could have pulled the covers up over her head and let Ian’s hard muscles curl around her body. If she could have stayed lost in him for a little while longer...

  But no. Instead, she was standing in the early-morning light, listening to Ian grill two cowboys named Randy and Garth. Lacy couldn’t remember which cowboy was which.

  “Dude, seriously—we left Wisconsin last night after we got off work and drove straight through,” Randy/Garth said.

  “You can call our boss,” Garth/Randy confirmed. “We were at work until five. What’s this all about, anyway? Why are you two here at the butt crack of dawn?”

  At this, Lacy shot a worried look at Ian. It was a short leap from a man and a woman in an unexpected place alone and them being alone together. One wrong word and these cowboys would put one and one together.

  This was how rumors worked. Not that she’d figure that by Ian’s attitude. How could he stand there—leaning against the back of her truck, one foot kicked up, his hands in his pockets—when it’d been less than fifteen minutes since...