“I feel the same way about cooking. I can do it. I’d just rather not,” he said as he finished, turned around, and held out his arms wide, presenting her with a fixed car. “There you go.”
She hopped off the dryer and wrapped her arms around his neck. She saw no reason to hold back in private, especially since her body was longing to be close to him. She hated that she had someplace else to be soon because all she wanted was…him. She planted a quick kiss on his lips, then patted the hood. “Thank you. I’ve got an appointment with another client at six, so I’m glad to know everything is working perfectly.”
His lips curved down, disappointment etched in his features. “Too bad. Because I was really hoping we were going to act out your fantasy from the other night. I’ve been waiting to hear what helped you sleep.”
A shiver ran down her spine. Admittedly, she’d been wanting that, too. Desperately. While there might not be time for all she craved, there was always time for a little something. She jutted up her shoulder provocatively, the move letting her tank top strap slide closer to her arm. “Why do you assume we can’t?”
“Maybe because you just said you had to go,” he said, his eyes now tracking the bare skin of her shoulder.
“I do need to go,” she said, trailing her fingers down his chest, across his abs, and to the waistband of his jeans. “But I’m pretty sure we can fit this in. I’m going to need you to close the hood on my car to do this right, though.”
He raised an eyebrow approvingly, as he closed the hood, letting it slam shut. “So your fantasy involves you, me, and the car?”
“Perhaps it does.”
He held up his hands to show the grease on them. “Just a second. Need to wash up so I don’t cover you in grease. Though, let the record reflect, you’d look completely hot as an auto mechanic, and I’d never take my truck to anyone but you, even if you put the headlights on the tires.”
She laughed as he headed inside to wash his hands at the kitchen sink. Henry was hanging out in the house with her dog. When Travis returned, freshly scrubbed, he parked his hands on his hips. “So what’s it gonna be?”
“You. Hood of my car. Now.”
He groaned in appreciation. “I do believe this might be something I’ve been thinking of, too.”
“Oh have you?” She walked closer, giving him a tap on his chest. He pretended it was hard enough to launch him back onto the hood.
“Possibly.”
“What do you think it is?” She climbed on him, straddling him on the green hood of her Mini Cooper, pinning him under her.
“Something that involves this, maybe,” he said, then brushed his fingertip across her top lip. She drew it into her mouth and sucked—a long, luxurious, decadent stroke.
His eyes rolled back into his head.
He breathed out hard as she swirled her tongue along his finger.
His lips parted, but no words came out, and she thrilled that this simple act was enough of a turn-on to render this man speechless. She couldn’t wait to wrap her lips around him, even though that wasn’t the fantasy she’d gotten off to the other night. But it was still one of her many dirty thoughts about him, so she wasn’t going to object to taking him into her mouth right now. Judging from the hard ridge of his cock pressed against her thigh through his jeans, he wasn’t going to protest one bit either.
As she sucked his finger, her hands traveled along the white cotton of his shirt. When she reached the waistband, she let go of his finger and pushed up his shirt to reveal his fantastically hard chest and carved abs. He pulled it over his head and tossed it on the hood.
“Now I get to admire you,” she said with a happy sigh, as she gazed at his gorgeous body—her playground for another week or so. Her real estate. Her temporary, gorgeous, handy, dog-loving man.
She danced her fingers across the hard ladder of his abdomen.
“I’m liking your fantasies,” he said, his voice rough and hungry. “Especially if they start like this.”
He took charge, grabbing the back of her head and pulling her close for a searing kiss, consuming her lips, claiming her mouth, and making her dizzy with lust. His lips were soft and he kissed like a fevered dream, hot and sultry, the kind of dream that made you wake up in a sweat. That made you ache between your legs. That consumed you with want. That’s how he kissed her—like it was some kind of exquisite surrender to kissing, even in her garage, even on the hood of her car.
Maybe that was why he was the one guy she couldn’t get out of her system. Because they didn’t need romantic backdrops. They didn’t require sunsets or summer rains for a kiss to be spectacular. They didn’t need moonlight or shooting stars. He kissed her like a shooting star, leaving a bright burning path across the midnight sky, as his fingers grappled with her hair, and his lips owned hers.
She ground against him, rubbing against his rock hard cock until he groaned so loudly he broke the kiss.
She clasped his face in her hands and stared him in the eyes. “I want to do other things with my lips now,” she said, and he pushed up against her, his steel length making her damp between her legs.
His eyes blazed darkly, the hungry look in them making her heart pump wildly with need for him. She bent her head to his neck, brushing her lips across his stubbled jaw as her chest pressed to his. “I’m going to suck your dick so good,” she whispered, half shocked and half thrilled that he brought out this naughty, dirty side in her.
“Now. I’m dying for you, now,” he said as he pushed her shoulders, guiding her down, down, down his body.
She unzipped his jeans. Her breath stilled as she gazed at the bulge in his black boxer briefs, savoring the outline of his erection. She’d seen him before, she’d tasted him, she knew the feel of his cock. But still, she wanted to relish every second of this unveiling of his hard length. She tugged his jeans down to his knees, then his briefs, and his erection sprang free.
Thick. Long. Beautiful.
Her mouth watered. She wanted him. In her. On her. Everywhere. Her hand wrapped around his dick, satiny smooth to the touch and hard and throbbing in her palm.
“I bet I can make you come in less than five minutes.”
…
Two minutes was more like it, given where his thoughts had been all day. All week. All year.
Hell, she’d made him come many times in his shower, or late at night in his bed when he took matters into his own hands. He’d jacked off to the image of her more times than he’d ever admit because he knew the wonders of her wicked tongue. He’d taught her how to give a blow job way back when—though taught wasn’t quite the right word. She’d asked him one night when they were teenagers to show him how he liked it, and he’d gladly obliged that request.
“Can I lay my bets on—” But the rest of his sentence was swallowed up in a growl as she wrapped her lips around the head of his dick, licking and swirling her tongue across him.
His eyed raked over her, imprinting the sexy pose she was in, her knees digging into the metal of the hood, her hair spilling across his thighs. One hand was pressed on the hood, the other was wrapped tightly around the base of his cock, stroking him as she sucked.
“That’s perfect,” he rasped out as he rocked into her mouth. She sucked harder, deeper, the head hitting the back of her throat. She wasted no time with teasing him. She went straight to work, moving this blow job up the scale quickly from a teasing tongue to full-on friction.
He drew a deep inhalation then traced her lips with his fingertip as she sucked. “Love that,” he murmured. “Love those lips. I love how sweet and pretty they look when you smile, but how sinful they are on me. Is this what you got off to the other night?”
She shrugged in a flirty way, briefly meeting his gaze.
“I’ve gotten off to this so many times. I fucking love the way you look right now,” he said, pleasure ripping through him as his eyes roamed her from head to toe, and the way she made it a full body blow job—moving her hips, rocking her mouth, and h
aving a field day with her tongue and lips. Heat sizzled through his veins as she wrapped her lips so tightly around him there was no goddamn give between her mouth and his shaft.
This was blow job heaven.
A groan escaped his throat.
Loud. Guttural. Animalistic.
The friction was intense, all tight, hot suction that had desire climbing up his spine, ratcheting higher and higher with each wicked stroke, each tantalizing lick. He dragged his fingers through her hair, pushing it away from her face so he could get a perfect view of her lips sucking his dick. “I’m imagining you on your bed, trying to fall asleep, but still all hot and wet, and your fingers start stroking yourself while you’re picturing taking me in your mouth.”
Her eyes glittered darkly at him, like she was saying that was exactly what she’d done.
She flattened her tongue on a down stroke, hitting him with such pleasure it was like a current surging through his skin. She took her hand off him and dropped it between her own legs.
“Oh god,” he groaned, losing words, losing thought, losing track of everything but the rush of watching her slide her fingers inside her shorts at the same time she took him deep.
“Cara,” he moaned, his eyes squeezing shut as the world blurred. His body jolted with each warm thrust of her mouth, as visions flashed before him—of her pleasure, her orgasms, her lush, sexy body that he wanted more than any man had a right to want a woman. He succumbed to the intensity tearing through his bloodstream, as his hands darted out to spear her hair, curling through the strands. “I’m coming,” he whispered, and then white heat exploded behind his eyes as his body detonated.
The pleasure rode over him in waves, like a tsunami, crashing, roaring, smashing into him. Taking him under.
A minute later, she was crawling up next to him, sliding alongside him, wedging her body next to his. Instantly, he wrapped his arms around her and tugged her in close. He wasn’t sure where the impulse to hold her tight after a blow job that torched his brain to smithereens came from, but there it was. He wanted nothing more than to have her in his arms, hear her heart beat against his chest, feel the whisper of her breath on his skin.
Well, he did want something more. He wanted all of her.
“What time is your appointment?”
“Ten minutes. I need to go,” she said.
He groaned, jamming a hand through his hair as he sat and pulled up his briefs and pants. “Why do we have the worst timing?”
“I don’t know that our timing is so bad. That was less than three minutes, so I’d say it was pretty good timing.”
He laughed. “I give you all the credit for rocking my world. I don’t even want to ask where you learned how to give a blow job like that.”
She swatted him. “Yeah, you don’t need to ask because you know,” she said, then scooted off him. “I need to go freshen up. But thank you for fixing my car. Since you don’t like to cook, maybe I can make you dinner to say thank you.”
“You don’t have to do anything to say thank you, but I’ll happily take dinner. Because I like food, and I like you,” he said, those last words slipping out in a tender voice that surprised him. Maybe it surprised her, too, because her breath seemed to catch momentarily.
He didn’t want to use that voice. That voice meant closeness. It meant more. They were having none of those things. They were simply having fun, so he recalibrated to focus on that. On the sex, and the elimination of distractions on the path to the sex. “What do you think about making sure we have no interruptions next time? Like making a date. Maybe a dinner date. Here at your house.”
She smiled, so wide and so bright that his heart tripped over itself. This damn heart was becoming a problem, too. He’d need to give it a talking-to later, and tell it to calm the fuck down around her.
“I would like that very much,” she said. “I have to drop some items off at the Sonoma animal rescue tomorrow afternoon and then I teach an agility class, but the next night is good.”
“That’s where I got Henry from. I’m supposed to send in his proof of vaccinations, so they know I’m being a good pet owner. Maybe I could drive you down there?”
“That sounds great. And, when we have dinner you should bring Henry to my house. He can hang out with Violet as we dine. Oh, and by the way, I wasn’t thinking about blowing you when I got off to you the other night.”
He arched an eyebrow. “You weren’t?”
She stepped closer, curled her hand through his hair. “I have this fantasy about walking in on you when you’re getting off to me.”
His eyes widened. They nearly popped out of his head. “Are you kidding me?”
She shook her head, a naughty grin spreading on her face. “I’m not kidding. I have this fantasy that it’s dark, I walk in and I find you in your bed or maybe the shower, totally unaware that I’m watching you as you pleasure yourself. And you’re picturing me. Your eyes are closed, and your hand is working yourself over, and you’re beyond aroused because you’re thinking of me. And I just find you like that. You open your eyes, and I tell you to finish, and you do, watching me the whole time like you want to eat me up.”
His dick rose to a mile high again. “Come by my house late one night and you’re bound to find that. I think about you so much, Cara. So fucking much. You are the sexiest, prettiest woman I’ve ever known.” He cupped her shoulders and looked her in the eyes, so she would know he meant every word. “And I’m glad you wanted to have this last fling with me.”
Her smile erased itself with that word. She dropped her hand from his hair.
“I mean, because it’s fun,” he added, as if he needed to explain.
She nodded, her lips fixed in a ruler-straight line as she spoke. “Totally fun. That was the point. Getting you out of my system, like we’re doing.”
“And it’s working?”
“Absolutely.”
But as she turned to go and he gathered up his dog, he wondered why she’d seemed so cold when he said last fling.
That was what this was, right? There was no way it could be anything else.
Chapter Twelve
The faded, lemon yellow Thanks for Visiting Hidden Oaks sign loomed a few hundred feet ahead of them—a weatherworn, oversize wooden billboard on the corner of the winding two-lane highway that escorted them out of town.
“Did you miss Hidden Oaks when you lived in San Francisco?” Travis asked as he drove along the curvy, concrete ribbon that cut through the rolling emerald green hills of the county. The blankets, towels, leashes, and collars that she’d collected to help animals in need—from clients and in partnership with the fancy dog store off the town square—were in the bed of his truck.
Briefly, she reflected on his question. Life was different here than in the city. There were benefits to both, but she knew where her heart lay. “I did enjoy all the restaurants, and the bike paths along the Bay are great for walking dogs. But it’s hard for me not to miss this town. I love it here, which probably explains why I came back a lot to visit my parents and my sisters.”
“You’re close with your sisters.” He said it as a fact, and she liked that he knew this about her. She was about to ask if he remembered Stacy quizzing him about his intentions on prom night, but she didn’t have to because he kept speaking. “Remember when Stacy opened the door on prom night, and pretty much grilled me about taking you out? First time I ever met her.”
Cara laughed as she lowered her window to let in some fresh air. “She gave you the third degree and then some.”
“I expected to find your father at the door. But there was the big sister instead, with a stern look on her face. I think we had just started dating a few weeks before and they didn’t really know me.”
“You’d already proven yourself to my father by fixing the car, and winning him over that way. But you had to pass the sister test, too. Good thing Sofie was still in college or she could have made you jump through hoops.”
He slowed the truck
as the light ahead turned red. “Stacy was so scary then. She had her hands on her hips, and her face was all serious, and she asked what time I intended to bring you home.”
She leaned in close and whispered conspiratorially. “Guess we tricked them when we answered that question.”
He smiled slyly. “Yes, we did.”
Cara laughed, smacking the windowsill with the memory. She’d told Stacy and her parents that she was sleeping over at a friend’s house, and instead, she and Travis spent the night in a tent on the trails at the end of Miner’s Road.
“Stacy was working in Calistoga at the time. Did you know she came over that night just to decide if she approved of you?” Cara said, as the light changed and they drove on, passing lush acres of vines, rich with row upon row of grapes opening up to the warm sun.
“Did she? Approve of me?”
“She let me go out with you, didn’t she?” Cara said, raising an eyebrow. “She’s a protective big sister. She’s let up a bit now that she has her own kids, but she still looks out for me.”
“And does she still have to approve of your dates?” he said in a teasing tone.
“Of course,” Cara said, with a straight face. “She comes over before every single one.”
Travis glanced away from the road, his eyes dark and intense. “Actually, let’s not talk about dates you’re going on,” he said through gritted teeth, a clear note of jealousy seeping into his tone.
“You sure you don’t want to hear about the checklist she has for me?” Cara said, egging him on. She kind of liked this side of him—the side that didn’t want to hear a word about other men.
“No,” he said sharply.
“Not even a teeny, tiny bit?”
He huffed out a frustrated sigh. “Fine. What’s her checklist?”
She drummed her fingers on the console, as if making a big pronouncement. Then she spoke her own truth. “Clever, kind, good with kids, good with animals, and treats me well,” she said, keeping her eyes on him the whole time as she listed her own traits. Stacy didn’t truly have a checklist. All Stacy wanted was for her little sister to be happy, and Cara knew what her own heart needed to get there—those five things.
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