She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to regain order over her senses. But the image of that torn hem burned behind her eyelids, glowing as if she’d stared too long at a bright light.
When she opened her eyes their gazes locked—he had such gorgeous brown eyes that reflected maroon in certain slants of light—and she felt warmed throughout.
“I told you to call me if you ever needed anything,” he chided in a soft murmur, tracing one finger along the curve of her jaw. “Looks like you need a ride too.”
His words traced like a lit match head along her nerves.
“How did you get here?” She looked around, wide-eyed, feeling that if she didn’t focus on something other than him, she’d lose herself. Her vision was vertigo in Technicolor, and the strange slant of moonbeams did nothing to help her orient herself.
“I walked.” He captured her chin with two roughly padded fingers and kissed her lightly on the nose. “Silly.”
Angel felt the blood of her flush stinging her cheeks. He was just so intimate with her, as if they hadn’t only met once before. “No. No.” She pulled back from him with determined effort. “You didn’t come out here for a stroll, so quit acting so suave and casual.” She panted and saw the puff of white her breath made in the cold. “Where is your car? Your clothes are a mess and…Jesus, are you missing a shoe?” She gaped down at his very large, very bare foot peeking beneath the tattered hem of his slacks—so that was why she’d been so stuck on that one detail. It was a small relief to her that she hadn’t suddenly turned into a snob who’d scoff at worn clothes.
He waited a beat and the wind stilled around them, heightening his silence. His stillness. “Okay, so it was more of a hike than a walk. But here I am and it looks like you need me.” The dense fringe of his mink eyelashes veiled his gaze, but a mischievous glint escaped. “Do you need me, Angel?”
Every sexual sense she possessed screamed a resounding yes. Oh geez, yes!
“No,” she lied, backing away from him for her own sanity, only to lose a little more when he stalked after her. “The car is a loss and I’m waiting on a friend to come pick me up.”
He tilted his head and when the moon at last touched him, it revealed all the strong, hard planes of his face beneath smooth, too-perfect skin. “You’ve called this friend?” He sounded doubtful, as if he somehow knew she hadn’t reached Yancy yet.
Damn it. Angel had never been any good at lying and Otto was very obviously a man to whom even a practiced liar would give pause before spinning any yarn that wasn’t at least ninety-nine-percent true.
“My phone’s acting up,” she admitted finally, feeling the pout at her mouth but powerless to correct it. “But—”
“But blah, blah, excuses, excuses and you do need me after all, don’t you, Angel?” He sighed heavily, but there was a soft smile at his mouth, an almost fond expression he had no business sporting, seeing as how they were still strangers. Angel felt her spine straighten, a cool spurt of indignation spicing her throbbing pulse.
“Why don’t you let me take a look under the hood while you get inside out of this wind?”
But there was no wind. Not anymore. And there was no way Angel was going to let him under her hood—the car’s hood, she amended mentally, as if the distinction mattered. Why did every man assume that a woman couldn’t possibly know her way around an engine? “I’m a mechanic, Otto.” She snapped the fact out habitually. “And I know this car. If I can’t fix it then you sure can’t. Hell, you can’t even remember to put both shoes on.” She stabbed her finger in the direction of his bare foot for emphasis.
He held his hands up and danced a step back fluidly. “I wasn’t implying anything about your automotive skills. I just thought I’d take a look and give you a chance to get your friend on the phone.” His teeth gleamed behind a smile. “And for your edification, I remembered the shoe. I just lost it on the way.”
He lost it? How did one just lose a shoe while walking? Angel immediately felt her ire cool and her confusion regroup. Otto’s presence was hell on her reason. His voice reached out through the cold and warmed her like a small sun. His gaze made her feel at once vulnerable and infinitely desirable, and both feelings gave rise to her temper—she hated to feel out of control in any situation, especially this one. But she could bottle up all the crazy sensations Otto inspired, reconcile her temper and salvage her pride. With some effort. “Sorry. I can’t help but get all bent out of shape—”
“When men assume you’re the damsel in distress?” he finished for her with a chuckle that rubbed like warm damask cloth across her skin. “When men tease you and flirt shamelessly? Or is it just when I do it?”
The blood that filled her cheeks felt not so much like a blush as a blister. He was teasing her, flirting with her—and damn if she couldn’t keep a handle on her riotous emotions because it was just when he did it that she got riled up so.
He winked one raspberry-chocolate eye. “It is just when I do it, isn’t it, Angel baby?”
“Otto…” She found her voice again after a deep breath. “Be serious. My phone’s not working, okay? I think the battery may be dead.” She huffed. “Nothing ever works like it’s supposed to, you know? All these modern conveniences and they crap out on you right when you need them most, like they’re just waiting for the opportunity to piss you off.”
Suddenly she found herself smiling, almost laughing, but the answering grin that rode his face was too wolfish for her comfort, given the desolate night and his well-known shady dealings. Not to put too fine a point on it, Otto was a criminal and she knew nothing about him.
Except that he was incredibly sexy.
And he was a great kisser.
“Get in the car.” He motioned with a nod. “I’ll take a quick look—just to feel like I’ve done my manly duty by you—and then we’ll use my cell to call your friend and a tow truck.”
Angel rolled her eyes, but with a giddy joy bubbling within her chest. She did as he bade, not bothering to argue anymore. After closing her door she tried her phone again but it was still dark and lifeless, so she waited in the silence of the car. A minute passed, then three. The quiet deepened, thickened like cotton in her ears, and with the car hood blocking her view she could see no sign that Otto was still out there.
Four minutes ticked by.
So silent. So still.
Five minutes.
“Try to crank her up.”
Angel jumped in her seat. Damn. His voice was loud and clear, as if he’d spoken the words directly into her ear, even though he was still under the vehicle’s hood with layers of glass and metal separating them.
Willing to humor him, yet knowing there was no point in trying to start the Diablo, she did as he asked.
The engine immediately fired and the car purred like a slumbering lion. To say Angel was dumbfounded would have been an understatement.
Otto dropped the hood, walked over to the driver’s side—Angel noted he limped a little on his bare left foot—and opened her door.
“How in God’s name did you do that?” She gaped up at him.
He laughed in her face.
Wounded ego screamed for vindication, so Angel turned the car off, waited a beat and tried to crank it again, certain it wouldn’t. Once again the car started on the first turn and Angel’s ego deflated entirely. She sat heavily back in her seat and stared hard at the steering wheel, feeling as if the vehicle had somehow betrayed her.
The engine idled strong and steady.
“I didn’t see what was wrong…”
Otto seemed inclined to take pity on her though he still had a faint smirk playing with the curve of his lips. “It was just a fluke, I guess.” He shrugged his shoulder in a way that made her wonder what muscles prowled beneath his clothes.
Angel stepped back out into the night, leaving the car running, and surveyed the exterior. “That’s so weird. I could have sworn it was electrical.” The wind returned with a vengeance, whipping her hair into her face. �
��Must be the full moon or something,” she half-joked, still eyeing the car as if it had turned traitor.
Otto’s fingertips were cinders on her skin when he brushed her hair back behind her ears, and she gasped at the unexpected caress. Their gazes locked. “Actually,” his voice was far less serious than his touch, “the fullness of the moon is a big factor in so many things. And since you’re here—well, the moonlight suits you so. You look good enough to eat.”
The last few words were muttered in a near growl as his lips descended on hers.
His flavor was smoky darkness. And scorching light. The bubble in her chest tickled until it burst, filling her extremities with warmth and feverish anticipation. His lips were moist and as hot as boiling sugar. The press of his mouth was at once bruising and plush, but in no way gentle. His tongue flicked out and tickled the seam of their kiss, then lapped at her lower lip until she opened to invite a deeper taste.
As if he needed invitation. He was not the kind of man who waited for permission, nor was she the kind of woman skilled enough to lead him on with a denial—even one made in jest.
His lapping tongue delved and fled, probed deeper to run along the edge of her tongue, then retreated again. It was a wicked, tempting dance that made her fingers curl around his shoulders. Beneath her fingertips, as his tongue continued its lazy licking of hers, she felt the surprisingly large and dense bulge of his muscles through the material of his clothing.
Pressed against her belly was the most amazing erection she’d ever encountered. He was so damn big!
Angel felt the growl in his chest before it trembled past his lips and filled her mouth. The taste of his breath was at once sweet and spicy, as if she had breathed in a cloud of singed magnolia blossoms floated by an August breeze. Taking that exhalation of his need into her lungs bound her own need in razor wire, sharp and deadly, bleeding her pent-up desires into their embrace.
Since meeting him, she’d thought of nothing else but feeling this thrilling exuberance again.
It was stupid and it was naïve, but she’d known—absolutely and with feeling—that they would meet again. Their first kiss had not been their last.
Otto wasn’t yet finished with her any more than she was finished with him. Something had started with their first meeting, but only now was it safe for her to admit it. Secretly she knew her life had been set on pause and only now could it resume. Now, with his lips and body pressed against hers, everything seemed to speed up and play out perfectly.
Her blood thumped in her ears, pounded in her fingertips, tingled in her toes. His breath was in her mouth, hers shallow and unsteady in his. She fluttered her tongue against the ultra-slick inner flesh of his upper lip, feeling the sharp strength of his teeth as he playfully bit at her.
His big, hot hands were on her bottom, the fingers squeezing and kneading her buttocks. Their bodies shifted gracefully, like two dancers who knew their moves with practiced ease instead of two practical strangers mad with lust. His thigh, feeling way larger than it looked, worked between her legs and she rolled her hips fluidly to cradle him. His cock was hard and massive, pressing to her even more insistently, forcing her to acknowledge their need.
Stretching her fingers wide to feel more of him at once, she rubbed her palms against the wide breadth of his shoulders before tangling her nails in the hair at his neck. Instead of being cold and tangled from the wind and his hike, his hair was warm and smooth as satin, the strands caressing her skin as if they each had a will to do so.
His hands pulled her closer, his thigh lifted her so that her weight rested fully on it, and he thrust his tongue deeper into her mouth. His caresses turned rough, his hands petting her from ass to neck. Petting her. He encircled her throat with his hands and she felt a startling spark of fear. But he did nothing to hurt her. He paused there, as if to force the acknowledgement that he could.
The danger that lurked beneath his surface heightened her awareness, her arousal, and her breath caught.
His thumbs pressed up into the corners of her jaw and pushed her face higher, tilting her head back to arch her neck. His lips nuzzled their way to the hollow of her throat, leaving her free to gasp for air. She felt his teeth, felt his need swell like a shadow over them both, and her eyes flew open to see a rogue cloud drape over the moon.
The darkness did not close in on them. Instead it seemed as if the world grew larger in the black, became a massive space that housed them alone at its center. In that space Otto loomed over her, his height and bulk more noticeable, more pronounced. He caught her hand in his and moved it from his hair, down his chest, over his belly and pressed it tight to his cock, holding her there when she might have shied away with embarrassment.
He was so hard.
And Angel was soaking wet.
The material of his pants might as well have not been there at all—she could feel every detail of his sex. The outline was clearly defined beneath her fingertips. Thick as her wrist, it strained for her grasp and she could feel the many veins that sheathed him. She immediately envisioned a crankshaft—and all the strength left her legs so that if she weren’t already held suspended on his thigh, her back against the idling car, she’d have fallen in a heap.
“I’ll make it fit. If it takes all night, I’ll see that we fit,” he purred against her throat, reading her mind through the language of her body. “I can make you so wet you’ll be dripping for me.”
“Promises, promises.” She heard her sultry retort with an inner shock of surprise, amazed she had the voice and the wit to do more than drool.
A low, raspy growl forced his breath hot and hard against her skin. She felt the sharp strength of his fingertips dig into her skin as his hold tightened. The lone cloud in the sky moved to expose the moon, its light blinding and shrinking the world so that some of her former hesitation returned. Held trapped between Otto and her car, between two vibrating beasts, Angel moaned. And when he bent his black head to her breast, she heard the fabric of her shirt tear in his teeth.
Chapter Three
“Try to crank her up.”
Angel jumped in her seat. Damn. Otto’s voice was loud and clear, as if he’d spoken the words directly into her ear, even though he was still under the vehicle’s hood with layers of glass and metal separating them.
Wait.
What?
Angel shook her head, unable to throw off the feeling of déjà vu. What the hell? She put her hand to her temple and felt the world tilt to send her vision spinning.
“Hey, you okay?” Otto sounded genuinely concerned as he leaned into her open window and touched her shoulder. His breath was hot and clean, deliciously sensual as it kissed her cool cheeks. She looked up at him, dazed, seeing only his outline in the glare of the moon.
“What…” She could feel her own hard nipples beneath her clothes, winced at the bruised, wet desire in her loins and abdomen. Otto was silent as she gathered her wits, his maroon eyes watchful. “I’m sorry. I feel a little weird,” she admitted, knowing the words didn’t come close to describing the turmoil she felt.
“Maybe I should drive you home.” He opened her door and waited for her to relinquish her seat.
But…
“I don’t think it’s going to crank,” she managed with some difficulty.
“What’ll you give me if it does?” He chuckled, but a lurking ferocity in his tone robbed the sound of any humor.
She took a deep breath and let it out, trying to get a grip on reality, even as it continued slipping. “What do you want?” she heard herself say, voice quivering.
Those four words seemed so important.
Vital.
His eyes searched hers and she found herself unable to meet the intensity of his gaze. She’d give just about anything to make him stop looking at her like that, to get the chance to gather her wits and figure out what was wrong with her.
“It’ll crank,” he said with a certainty that made her heart stall.
Yes, it would. She knew
it would, just as he clearly did. Neither showed surprise when she turned the ignition key and fired up the sleeping vehicle.
They’d been here before, but this time it was different.
Angel felt her fingers shaking against the cold steering wheel and felt sure they’d only recently been hot and desperate against his broad shoulders.
She squeezed her eyes shut before crawling out of the car on watery knees. There was an aura of menace and danger about Otto now that filled her nose and mouth with the attar of cloves, spicy and sweet but too thick to breathe around. She was choking.
He caught her before she fell. His lips were at the shell of her ear. “Don’t be afraid.”
She felt the earth steady itself beneath her feet. She blinked away the haze that clouded her vision. “Otto, what’s happening?” Her voice was tiny, lost.
“I’m sorry.” He sounded sincere, but the brutal strength in his grip belied the words. “I’m usually so much more fun than this. I just need you to say the words now, Angel—you need to say them out loud so I can hear. We’ll get them out of the way—you’ll feel so much better.” His fingertips dug into her arms, bruising the surface.
“What words?” she cried, a tumult of confused emotions. “I don’t understand.”
He sighed heavily. “Damn you, you’re just so sexy.” He slanted his mouth over hers…
And they were naked on the hood of her car. The cold was banished by the heat of the idling engine beneath her, branding the demon decal onto her back as Otto’s hands spread her legs wide to accommodate his fluid hips.
She was wildly aroused, slippery with her need, but he still hurt her as he fit his cock into her tight, quivering flesh. His thickness was more than she’d bargained for. There was a restrained energy in his movements, as if he didn’t want to hurt her, but could only barely hold back from pounding into her nonetheless.
Angel found the glow of crimson fire in his gaze alight behind the shadows of his face and knew that this man could be savage. That he was savage. But that he fought, for whatever reason, to temper himself with her. As her body stretched to accommodate his incredible girth, she found herself grateful for his restraint.
Sexy Beast Page 2