“Wow,” he drawls as I collapse on the bed in hysterics. “You’re a real ego boost, you know that? No wonder you’re still single.” I hear him moving around and muttering to himself. “Swore off men. Probably more like men swore off you. I just missed the memo.”
Gulping air, I sit up, trying to calm myself down and wiping my eyes. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”
He casts a venomous look over his shoulder as he pulls up his jeans, the broad expanse of his back to me.
Standing, I move to him and slide a hand over the smooth skin, enjoying the way his muscles bunch and flex as he moves. I place a kiss between his shoulder blades. “I’m sorry. You were great. I shouldn’t have acted like that. My default defense mechanism is caustic sarcasm, and you didn’t deserve that. Not after giving me the fucking of a lifetime.”
He turns in my arms to face me, a T-shirt in one hand. “What are you defending yourself against?” He spreads his arms, my hands still resting on his sides. “It’s just me. I’m not going to attack you. Unless you ask me to.”
The heat in his eyes has an answering warmth shimmering down my body, puckering my nipples again and settling between my legs. As though I didn’t just have a fantastic orgasm like five minutes ago. He smirks when he glances down, but I ignore it and focus on his question instead.
“No one. I don’t know. Like I said, it’s a default.”
He steps back and pulls his shirt over his head, dragging his eyes up and down my body as he puts his arms in the sleeves. “Much as I enjoy this look, I think it might be problematic for leaving the hotel.” Taking one step forward, he reaches out with one hand and lifts my chin, bends, and kisses me on the lips. It’s soft and familiar, like we’re longtime lovers rather than road trip fuck buddies. When he pulls back his eyes are equally tender. “Get dressed. Let’s grab some breakfast, and you can tell me about why the phone call with your mom has you all irritated in the car. Okay?”
I nod. “What about showers?”
He shrugs and pulls his deodorant out of his bag, lifting his shirt to wipe some on. “Checkout’s in just over an hour. Plus, I figured if your parents are calling, we need to start making good time if you’re going to get to ice skate at Rockefeller Center before they either demand you come home immediately or call the police and report me as a kidnapper.”
“They’re perfectly aware that I came with you willingly.”
Another shrug. “Stockholm Syndrome’s a real thing.” He steps close and holds onto my arms to give me one more kiss. Then he turns me toward my suitcase and gives me a pat on the ass. “Now get dressed,” he says in a low voice right next to my ear, sparking a cascade of goosebumps from my neck down my chest, my nipples drawing tight again. “If you don’t, we’ll miss our checkout time. I can’t be around you naked without ravishing you.”
The defiant part of me considers resisting, but he’s right about needing to get on the road. So I pretend to ignore him as I pull on leggings, a bra, and a top.
He lets out a loud groan. “You’re killing me, Smalls. No panties? How’m I s’posed to stay focused on driving knowing you’re like that?”
I toss him a smile over my shoulder on the way to the bathroom to brush my teeth and hair. “Gives you something to look forward to when we get where we’re going.”
With another groan, he collapses onto the bed. Laughing, I close the bathroom door.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Brendan
“We still have like twenty hours of driving time.”
Lauren’s voice from the passenger seat momentarily distracts me from the frozen cornfields whizzing by out the windows.
“Yup,” I say after a long moment when she doesn’t add anything to her statement. “That’s what Google Maps said when I checked.”
She shifts in her seat, doing that thing where she talks to the window. “I was thinking we should maybe just drive straight there. Stop for food and gas and bathroom breaks, of course. But maybe, um, wait till we get there to get a hotel again.”
I turn on the windshield wipers, smearing the road gunk on the glass more than clearing the spitting sleet that’s started. After making use of the washer fluid, I make a mental note to check it the next time we stop. I’ve been using it pretty often this trip. Don’t want to run out.
“We could do that, I suppose.” I don’t want to, though. Knowing she’s not wearing anything under her leggings has been driving me crazy since she got dressed a couple of hours ago. The thought of not stopping till tomorrow morning sounds like torture.
“But?”
It’s like she can read my mind.
“Well, I was just thinking that we wouldn’t actually get more time in New York by not stopping. By the time we get there, we’ll be ready to crash. And most hotels don’t let you check in before three o’clock or so. We’d get there midmorning and have nowhere to go.” I glance her way to find her watching me, pink lips parted and begging for a kiss. Shifting in my seat, I refocus on the freeway running under my tires. “If we go more than halfway tonight, crash somewhere for a few hours, then get up early and do the other eight hours or so tomorrow, we could get there by four or five, check in at a hotel, get dinner, and go ice skating.”
She chews her lip, examining the horizon like it holds all the answers to the world’s problems.
“Hey.” I reach over and rest my hand on her leg for a second, giving her a reassuring squeeze. “What’s going on? Your parents bugging you more about coming home? We’re not that far from Chicago. If you need me to, I can take you to O’Hare and stick you on a plane home.”
She makes a face and shakes her head. “No. We’ve made it this far. It’d be stupid to fly home from Chicago and know I missed my chance to ice skate at Rockefeller Center.” She sucks in a deep breath and lets it out slowly while she looks out her window. Then she nods. “Your plan is good. You’re right.” She holds up her phone and wiggles it back and forth. “I just feel like I need to hurry up and get there before my mom calls and demands I come home.”
“Is she likely to do that?”
Lauren finally looks at me then, meeting my eyes when I glance at her again. Wrinkling her nose, she shakes her head. “You know, I don’t really know. I’ve never done anything like this before.” She drops her gaze to her hands in her lap. “That’s part of the reason they didn’t freak out before but are really freaking out now.” She flicks her fingers at me, turning her head my direction again. “They have no idea who you are. It’s not like I’ve mentioned you before. And suddenly we’re on a cross-country road trip when I was supposed to head home after my friend’s wedding. And the fact that my friend is now semi-famous in her own right and also married to a celebrity is already messing with their heads.”
Withdrawing my hand with one final squeeze, I nod. “I can see that. Why they’d freak out, I mean.” Raising a brow, I give her a sidelong look. “What are you going to do if they do call and demand you come home?”
She shrugs and stares out the window again. “I don’t know. Argue with them, probably. I guess it depends on where we are at that point.”
Somehow that statement seems to include more than just our physical location. But I swallow down the uneasiness that thinking about parting from her already provokes and act like she’s only talking about geography. Because it’s entirely possible I’m projecting and that’s all she meant anyway. God, I’m being a total chick right now.
“If they call sometime today?”
She flashes me a grin, then. “Well, I can always claim that we’re on the road and I don’t have service. It’s true at least part of the time anyway. And I was driving the other part of the time. My parents definitely wouldn’t want me answering the phone if I’m driving. So there are a few built in excuses to last us till we get to New York at least.”
“And after that?” I don’t know why I keep prodding. But I can’t seem to help myself.
Another shrug, this one accompanied by a deep sigh. “Probably fly home.”
�
��So we better make sure we go ice skating the first night then, I guess.”
She nods, her eyes still on her hands. “Yeah.” Her answer is almost drowned by the road noise.
We lapse into silence for a long time. I hate the despondent cast to her face, the way she’s curled into herself. And for whatever reason I’ve been compelled to help her from almost the moment I met her.
Rescuing her from the clueless douche at the reception. Whisking her off to fulfill her fantasy.
What other fantasies might she have that I could fulfill?
Suddenly the looming end to our fling feels too soon. It’s approaching too quickly.
If her parents are already wigging out and she can only put them off till we get to New York, that means we only have tonight and tomorrow night. And then I’ll have to put her on a plane and send her back to her family.
That’s not long enough. I feel like I just got to unwrap a Christmas present, and now I have to give it away after only playing with it for an hour.
I want to get my fill before I have to send her back.
I was supposed to get a few days in New York and then the return trip, either to California or to Washington, depending on how she wanted to play it.
“What’s the worst they could do if you refuse to go home when they call? You’re an adult. You don’t live at home, really.”
She gives me a long look but doesn’t say anything.
“Would they cut you off?”
“I don’t know. Maybe?” She wrinkles her nose again, shaking her head. “I don’t think they would, honestly.” She spreads her hands in her lap, palms up. “But I don’t know if I could bring myself to outright refuse. I mean, if the situation were reversed and it was your parents demanding you come home immediately, would you just blow them off? Tell them no and do whatever you wanted?”
I take my time answering, imagining how those conversations would go with my mom. Then my dad. Because I’d definitely be fielding calls from both of them. Hounding me until I gave in. I shake my head. “I don’t know. Maybe at first I could tell them no, but they’d call nonstop, and then they’d enlist my brothers to hound me too. So I guess probably not.” It’s my turn to release a deep sigh, thinking. Wanting to come up with some way for this road trip to go like it’s supposed to. Road trips don’t end with flights to go back home. You have to drive there and back again. That’s the whole idea.
Driving home by myself doesn’t have much appeal.
Especially not after laughing and bantering with Lauren. Making the return trip alone sounds distinctly … lonely.
“Is there anything I could do to help them be more comfortable with you being on this trip with me?”
That earns me another long look, this one thoughtful. “Maybe,” she says at last, drawing out the word. “If you talked to them, they might be more okay with me staying a few days.”
“What are the odds of them letting us drive back and hit Vegas like we talked about?”
She huffs out a humorless laugh.
“That’s not an encouraging sound,” I say wryly before she gives me a real answer.
Her crooked smile is better than no smile, her eyes are more lit up now, and she looks less despondent overall as she brings her feet up onto her seat, wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her head on her knees, looking up at me. “From the way they were acting this morning, I’d be lucky to get more than one night in New York out of them. And that’s only because I don’t think they’re heartless enough to demand I take a red-eye home after driving for four days.”
“Let’s try our best.”
The other half of her mouth ticks up, and she lifts her head. “Yes. Let’s.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Lauren
Something fundamental seems to have changed between us since we had sex. Brendan is more tender, wanting me always within reach. He doesn’t tease me all day on our third day on the road like he did on the second. But every time we stop, he holds my hand when we’re walking together, wrapping his arms around me from behind while we wait to buy snacks at convenience stores, kissing me at every opportunity.
We’re like a couple of love-sick teenagers. Or people in a newly-minted relationship.
And it’s hard to remind myself that this can’t go anywhere after this trip is over. Which will be soon.
I guess Brendan has decided to make the most of the time we have left, however long it may be. I might as well do the same.
So even though it feels like the start of something new, something real, I firmly remind myself at every opportunity that it’s not. That it’s just for a few days. And then I enjoy the way his hands slide over my skin, the way his lips feel on mine, the way his arms wrap around me.
And even though it’s late when we stop for the night and we’re both tired from a long day of driving, Brendan lays me back and licks me till I come all over him before flipping me over and driving into me from behind, riding me till we both come.
It’s hot and amazing and I’ve already decided that I’m going to cry when we say goodbye. I’ll try not to do it in front of him, because I know what this is. How things are. But I’ll definitely cry when it’s all over.
I’m going to miss him.
Which sounds really stupid since we’ve literally only known each other for a matter of days. But we’ve spent every minute in each other’s company for almost that entire time.
It seems weird to think that in a few days I won’t be waking up next to him. Won’t have his arms wrapped around me in my sleep. Won’t sleep the satisfied sleep of the well-loved.
Not that I’m doing that now.
Nope.
The well-fucked.
That’s what this is.
Anything else would be crazy and way way way too soon.
I don’t know why that L word even popped into my head.
Brendan kisses me awake in the morning, the room still dark, and not only from the blackout curtains. The sky outside is barely glowing with gray predawn light.
“Hey,” he whispers softly when he pulls back.
I blink up at him. “Hey.”
He grins, and the sight of his tousled morning hair and that sexy smile twists something in my gut. I want to kiss him again. To wrap myself in his arms and stay there all day.
“We should get on the road if we’re going to get to New York before the worst of rush hour.”
“Right. Yeah. Okay.”
I sit up, and Brendan’s eyes track the sheet falling down over my chest.
We take the time to shower this morning. Like a gentleman, he lets me go first. But he must correctly interpret the lingering look I give him before disappearing into the bathroom, because seconds after I turn on the water to let it warm up, there’s a light tap on the door and it opens, Brendan’s head poking through.
His gaze drags down my body and back up. I stand there naked and brazen, allowing his inspection. There’s no time for shyness, and it’s far too late for that anyway.
He steps inside quickly, pushing the door closed behind him, taking up all the extra air in the tiny bathroom. His broad shoulders fill my vision as he closes the remaining distance between us, then his hand is in my hair, his mouth on mine, and his hard cock pressing into my belly.
I want it pressing inside me.
He lets out a feral groan, both hands sliding to my ass and grabbing on. “Get in the shower,” he commands in a low voice.
Whatever cheeky resistance I might like to put up is gone this morning. He moves with me, right behind me as I push aside the shower curtain and climb inside, the warm water cascading over us.
He centers me under the spray, tipping my head back and running his hands through my hair to help it get wet through. Another rumble vibrates in his chest. “I’ve wanted to get you in the shower since we were in the hot tub the other night.”
All I can do is close my eyes and purr my happiness at the way he’s handling me.
“You like t
his, huh?” But when I open my eyes, it’s clear the question is rhetorical, his mouth tipped up in a tiny smile, his face relaxed and happy as he massages my scalp under the water.
“I can think of something I’d like more.”
His eyebrows lift, amusement passing over his face. But it falls away when I grip his cock, giving it a squeeze and rubbing up and down, his eyes darkening with lust.
“Oh yeah?” His voice is gravel. “I might be able to think of something too.”
Still gripping him with one hand, I put a hand on his hip and try to guide him under the water, but he’s unyielding as stone. “What are you doing?”
“Switch places with me. I promise you’ll like it.”
He gives me a long look, but when I pump him a few more times, he lets out a muffled grunt and does as I ask, holding my hips as we circle around. The water hits his shoulders and runs down his chest, trailing over the sprinkling of hair that starts on his sternum, getting thinner across the expanse of his belly, thicker and darker below his belly button in a silky treasure trail that leads to the thick cock I’m gripping in my hand.
Now it’s time to take advantage of the perfect opportunity that’s presented itself.
Dropping to my knees in front of him, I place a kiss right on the tip of his cock, enjoying the way he sucks in a breath and his abs contract as my pouty lips make contact. Then I open my mouth, gazing up at him as I suck him in.
He curses, his body shuddering as I slowly slide as much of him into my mouth as I can, stopping at the edge of my gag reflex and gripping tightly with my hand where my mouth can’t reach. But his eyes never leave mine.
Keeping my pace slow, I move back, then forward, working my tongue along his length, swirling it around the head, giving him the best blowjob I can manage. Always, always torturously slow, though, making sure he feels every inch as I cover and release it.
One hand slaps against the tile, bracing himself as I work him. The other one slides into my hair, gently pushing the wet, heavy mass off my shoulders, brushing stray strands off my forehead, his large hand cupping my head. Making me feel incongruously cherished while I suck him.
Overtones (Songs and Sonatas Book 6) Page 13