Take Me Back (Paradise, Idaho Book 4)

by Rosalind James

  “Now see what you made me do?” Jim said, gunning it again and leaving the group behind. “Probably get jumped tomorrow night. You better come visit me in the hospital.”

  “My dad’s going to kill me,” she said. “About leaving the car.”

  “That’s what you’re worried about? Do you realize what kind of trouble you were in back there?”

  He was driving fast, swinging around the curves at the bare edge of control, but he wouldn’t put it past those Roundtree boys to come after him.

  “I could have taken care of myself,” she said.

  “No. You couldn’t. Where’s Anthea? You don’t go to a kegger alone! Don’t you know anything?”

  “Well, how would I know that? Larry Dixon invited me.”

  Jim stared across the car at her for a split second, then turned his attention back to the road. “Because he wanted to get you drunk and get in your pants. Larry Dixon might be on the football team, but he’s an asshole. I wouldn’t let him within ten feet of my sister. And where was he?”

  “He said he’d meet me. I was waiting for him.” Before Jim could even start to tell her what was wrong with that, she asked, “And why does everybody go, then, if it’s so dangerous? There were other girls there.”

  “Because they know the rules! You take your girlfriend. You watch out for each other. Or you go with your boyfriend.”

  “If guys can’t control themselves,” she said, “that’s not girls’ fault. Girls shouldn’t have to change their behavior because guys are criminals. You act like girls are the ones who are wrong!”

  “No,” he said grimly. “I act like girls are the ones who are raped.” He was going faster than ever, headed around the mountain, the tires threatening to spin out in the gravel as he came to an intersection and headed up another road on the other side.

  “Watch out!” she said. “What are you doing?”

  “Waiting them out.” He bumped off the road into a cedar clearing, shoved the car into park, and exhaled.

  “Oh.” Her voice had lost some of the fight. “Back there. Do you really think they were going to . . .”

  “Maybe not. But I don’t think it would’ve been fun.” He tried not to think about what would’ve happened if he hadn’t come tonight. He almost hadn’t. Friday-night keggers had started to feel like never-ending high school, like a dead end.

  “I just wanted to . . .” she said. “Be normal. I mean, once. I didn’t think . . . I thought he liked me. Larry.”

  “You shouldn’t even be let out of the house by yourself,” he said, frustrated beyond belief. “What are you going to do when you go to college?”

  “I can take care of myself!” She flared right back up with the redheaded temper she hardly ever showed. “I’m not an idiot, and I’m not ten years old. OK, you told me. Now I know. Thank you very much.”

  “Have you ever had sex?”

  She gasped. “You do not get to ask me that!”

  He ignored that, and did his best to ignore the faint scent of her, too. Flowers and fruit, sweet and spicy. Perfume, he told himself. It’s just perfume. “I’m guessing no,” he said. “And I’m guessing your dad hasn’t told you a damn thing about guys, either. You’re too pretty, and you give off this . . .” He shoved a frustrated hand through his hair. “This vulnerability vibe. Like you don’t know. Like it’d be easy. You have to stop doing that.”

  “I do not do that. And I’m not that pretty, and you know it. Why would you even say that? How would you know what . . . vibe I give off? You don’t even like me!”

  She was sitting there, half turned in her seat, glaring at him across the console, her chest heaving under a V-necked, sleeveless yellow blouse that was just a tiny bit too tight and a tiny bit too low. “I know because I’m a guy,” he growled at her. “I know because I want to kiss you right now.”

  “You do not.”

  He was all out of patience. He reached for her, got an arm around her shoulders and another one behind her head, hauled her over, and took her mouth.

  Just like that, he was lost. His fingers were tangled in all those silky red curls, his head filled with the sweet smell of flowers. Her lips were much too soft, and the second he’d touched them with his own, she gasped. Gasped. Her mouth opened, and that was it. He was halfway across the console, his hip digging painfully into the emergency brake, and he didn’t care. Her hand came up to grab his shoulder, and she was making some noises. Little whimpers, tiny moans. She was killing him.

  He kissed her for a minute, or for an hour. His tongue was in her mouth, and she started touching it tentatively with her own, and he thought he was going to explode right there. He quit grabbing her shoulder, because she was doing a damn good job of hanging on all by herself, and let his hand go where it needed to be. Around the edge of her sleeveless shirt, and then cupping her breast, claiming the soft, sweet flesh that was surely the most perfect thing ever created for a man to hold.

  “Oh, God damn,” he finally broke the kiss enough to say. “Are you even wearing a bra?”

  “It’s a . . .” Her breath hitched, because his thumb had found a hardened peak, was teasing it. “Uh . . . soft one.”

  It was soft, all right. And she had her head back against the seat now, was breathing hard. His mouth was working again, had moved down to the side of her neck, and she turned her head to give him access and made that whimpering noise again.

  Somewhere in the dim back of his brain, a tiny voice was trying to tell him that this was Hallie Cavanaugh, and he shouldn’t—he couldn’t—touch her. But the message had absolutely no hope of making it to the surface, not when she was moaning like that and shifting under his hand. Especially not once his hand went inside her blouse and found that the bra wasn’t just soft. It was so skimpy, it almost wasn’t there. Her nipple was diamond hard, she was whimpering every time he squeezed it through the gossamer-thin fabric, and he was about to die.

  He moved again, trying to get closer, hit the seatbelt anchor with a part of him that he could’ve pounded nails with by now, and jerked back with a yelp.

  “What?” Hallie struggled to sit, her hand going to her hair. “What happened?”

  He was still sucking air through his teeth. “Never mind,” he gritted out. “Just . . . ah . . . got uncomfortable there. I can’t kiss you like I need to in here.”

  “Maybe we should . . .” she began, then stopped.

  “What?” he managed to ask. Give her a chance to tell you to take her home, the back of his brain said. Which was pretty damn noble of him, considering that every other bit of him was telling him to keep right on going until he was inside her.

  “Maybe we could . . . go somewhere else?” she asked in a small voice. “Where you could kiss me better?”

  Which punted Noble Brain all the way down the field.

  “Out of the car,” he said.

  Her eyes opened wide—he could see their whites in the moonlight—and she said, “What?” But he was already out himself and around to her side in about three steps.

  When he pulled her door open, she said, “Are you kicking me out?”

  “What?” he said. “Oh, no, baby. No way I’m kicking you out.” He took her hand and pulled her out, and she came straight up and into his arms.

  He was going to put her in the backseat. That was the plan. But he didn’t make it. His arms were around her again, her hand was in his hair, and he had her pulled up tight against him, all the way up on her toes, backed up against the car, so he could feel her body pressed against his. The moon was full, and he could see her out here, and he wanted to keep looking. So instead of putting her in the back, he walked her backward to the front of the car, lifted her around the waist, and set her on the hood.

  “Oh,” she said, and jumped a little. Cold metal against bare skin, he realized. But she didn’t get off.

  He put a hand on one of her bare knees and shoved it gently away from the other, then stepped between her legs, and if there were a better spot on ear
th to be than between Hallie Cavanaugh’s legs, he couldn’t think where it would be. He kissed her some more, drowning in her soft mouth, felt her tongue getting bolder, tangling with his, and lost a few more brain cells.

  When his hand started unfastening the buttons on that yellow blouse like it had a mind of its own, she wasn’t exactly protesting. In fact, she had her own hands under his T-shirt now, was running them over his abs, up to his chest. And when he shoved the edges of her blouse apart, stepped back, and finally got his hands on those soft, round breasts, she moaned.

  After that, he had no choice but to take off her blouse. But when his hand found the clasp at the back of her bra and unhooked it, her eyes flew open.

  “Let me see,” he said, somehow managing to form words. “Please.” He pulled the straps over her arms, and there she was. Her skin pale in the moonlight, soft as silk under his hands, especially where he was holding her. She’d never been touched like this before, he could tell, and knowing it was a rush he could hardly stand. He palmed both those luscious young breasts, then bent and took a strawberry-pink nipple in his mouth, and she was making those noises again.

  When he pushed her down on the hood of the car, she went. Her feet were on the bumper, her arms were wrapped around his neck, one hand was tangled in his hair, and he was eating her up. Greedy. Feasting on her silky skin. Her neck, her throat, those gorgeous breasts. Her hips rose and fell, but he didn’t need any urging. He was already there. Already gone.

  After that, unzipping her shorts was inevitable, because he was kissing a path down her belly and those shorts were in his way. He wrestled them down her legs together with her underwear, and she let him do it, let him pull them over the little sandals she still wore, and then let him put a hand on each knee, spread her legs apart, and prop her feet on the bumper again.

  He ate her out right there on the hood of his car while he knelt in the dirt, and she curled her fingers into his hair, moaned and yelped and cried out, and came like a rocket, like a redhead, all soft screams and pumping hips and sweet moisture. She was so wet he almost drowned, and he would’ve been happy to go.

  “Going to . . .” he managed to say while she was still shuddering. He stood up, his shaking hand went to his jeans, and he got them unzipped with some trouble, because it felt like he’d grown a couple sizes. He ached with an absolutely physical pain. He had to come, or it was going to kill him.

  Her eyes had opened, and now she struggled to her elbows and looked at him. At his face, and then . . . not. She sat up, put a hand out, and then her gaze flew to his again as she asked, “Can I . . . can I touch it?”

  “If you don’t,” he told her, “I’m going to die.” He meant it, too.

  She looked startled at that, and then her hand was on him, exploring so tentatively, and he closed his own hand over hers, was showing her how to stroke him.

  “I want to be inside you,” he managed to tell her. “I want it now.”

  Her eyes widened, and he thought she was going to say no. He should let her say no. He should ask her if she was sure. He was working up the effort to do it when she asked, “What do I do?”

  “You lie down. If you want it . . . you lie down.”

  She lay down.

  She was on her elbows again, and then on her back. And it was true. Hallie Cavanaugh was spread out naked for him on the hood of his car, her white body nearly glowing in the moonlight, and his finger was exploring the sweetest, tightest spot you could ever imagine.

  “This could hurt a little, baby,” he whispered. The only way he could possibly have taken his finger out of her would be for this. “We’ll go slow.”

  She didn’t answer, just moaned, her breath hitching.

  “You good?” he asked, because he had to.

  “Go on,” she said. “Do it. Please, Jim. Do it.” Which was pretty much the best thing anybody had ever said to him. And then, while she sucked in her breath, he was finally easing inside her.

  He was as careful as he could manage. He went slow, even though all he wanted to do was to pump into her hard until he exploded. He did his best for as long as he could. But finally, when she was moaning again, her hips were rising and falling, and her arms were flung out behind her on the hood, he lost it.

  He didn’t care that it was her first time. He didn’t care that he shouldn’t be doing this at all. He didn’t care that the whole thing was wrong. He had her hips in his hands, he was hearing her cry out with every thrust, and he was pounding it home.

  When he got his thumb on that button and started pressing it in little circles, she went straight up again, but this time, he got to feel her do it. The spasms of her orgasm squeezed him hard and worked him over until there wasn’t a single thing he could have done about it, because he was past thinking and past caring and almost past knowing.

  When the headlights came around the corner, he saw them. When they lit the car up, and himself and Hallie with it, he knew what was happening. But he could no more have stopped himself coming than a rocket could have stopped its launch. He heard the thud of the car door, he heard the man’s voice shouting something urgent, and he didn’t care. All he saw was Hallie’s body, all he heard was her gasping breath, all he smelled was the spicy scent of cedars and the sweet flowers of her perfume. And absolutely all he felt was the climax that ripped him from the earth and shot him straight to the moon.

  FACING THE MUSIC

  Hallie sat beside Jim on the couch, trying to tell herself she wasn’t aware of his shoulder pressing against hers, and not able to fool herself one bit. He wasn’t holding her hand anymore, and she wanted his hand back, and she didn’t. He was all her worst memories, and only one of her best ones. He was nothing but trouble.

  She hadn’t even been aware of what was happening that night until the man had been upon them. His flashlight had played over them, and Jim, who had still been gasping as hard as she was, had grabbed her under the shoulders, pulled her up, and stepped in front of her while she’d sat on the hood and tried without much success to cover her breasts and her crotch with her hands and arms.

  “Jim Lawson,” the deputy said, because that was who’d come to join them. “What a surprise. Who have you got back there?”

  “None of your business,” Jim said, yanking his underwear and his zipper up. That probably wasn’t the best answer, because the deputy shot an arm out, shoved Jim aside, and played the light over Hallie again while she shrank back, wanting to shield her eyes from the brightness, but unwilling to move one of her hands to do it.

  “Hey!” Jim said as the deputy took his time. “Knock it off. Give her a chance to get dressed.”

  The deputy spun again, put his hand on the butt of his gun, and said, “You. Hands on the hood. And keep them there.”

  Jim stood still for a moment more, and the deputy took a fast step around him and said, “Right now, asshole. Or I’ll pull you in for resisting arrest.”

  Jim glared a second more, then turned slowly around, bent over, and put his hands on the hood. The deputy kicked his feet apart for good measure and patted him down.

  This was crazy. What was going on?

  Hallie said, “No, wait. Stop. He didn’t do anything,” which the deputy didn’t even seem to hear.

  Where were her clothes? She couldn’t get off the car and search for them, not naked, not in front of everybody. Jim’s palm was right beside her thigh, and he had his head turned and was looking at her, his expression harder than she’d ever seen it. And she was naked.

  “He didn’t do anything? Not how it looked to me,” the deputy said. “Looked to me like he did pretty much the whole deal. You’re Hallie Cavanaugh. Bet your dad doesn’t know you’re out here. Did you consent to that?”

  “What?” she said. “Of course I did. I need my clothes, and you need to let Jim up and go away. We didn’t do anything wrong.” She tried to make it sound like her dad would say it, but her voice came out quavery and high, not right at all.

  “How old are you?
” the deputy asked.

  “S-seventeen.”

  “Right.” The deputy pulled out a pair of handcuffs, grabbed one of Jim’s wrists, and began to fasten his hands behind his back, and nothing Hallie could say stopped him doing it.

  The rest of it was a nightmare. Groping for her clothes on the ground, getting dressed under the deputy’s eyes, his flashlight on her, while Jim stood, his hands cuffed behind his back, and glared.

  “You bring her up here to do this?” the deputy asked Jim, whose jeans still weren’t all the way zipped. Hallie wanted to zip them for him, but it was too personal. She couldn’t. “How’d you get her into your car?”

  “He didn’t!” Hallie said. “He took me out of a . . . out of a party, because I was in trouble.”

  The deputy ignored her. “Get in the car,” he told her when she finally got her blouse buttoned again. “Front seat.” He had the back door of his patrol car open, his hand on the top of Jim’s head, and was shoving him, still handcuffed, into the back.

  “No,” Hallie said. “If he has to be back there, I’m riding back there, too. He didn’t do anything more than I did.”

  The deputy had already shut the back door, though, so Hallie had no choice but to ride in the front.

  “Take us home,” Hallie said when they got to the city limits sign. “Jim first. We didn’t do anything wrong. Take us home.”

  “Nope,” the deputy said. “Not how it’s going to be.” Jim didn’t say anything at all from his spot behind the grille in the backseat, and the deputy kept driving until he pulled up in front of the sheriff’s department off Main, and Hallie thought, This is really happening. I’m getting arrested. It didn’t seem real, and it felt much too real. The dread was a cold lump in the pit of her stomach. They were going to call her father.

  “You start screwing around,” he’d told her more than once, “and you just watch how fast you’re out of my life. Nobody’s going to be saying my daughter’s a slut. You keep your legs together if you want that free ride.”