Fast Lane

by Margot Radcliffe

  He sucked on her clit again, hard, and just like that she came against his mouth, his irreverent, demanding and downright sinful fucking mouth. He tongued her through all of it, the crest and all the residual little earthquakes she felt as her body slowly returned to normal again.

  “Thing is,” Cole murmured, licking his lips in the filthiest way possible before giving a regretful sigh. “I was in such a damn hurry to get here I did not pass go or collect two hundred dollars, which in this case would be condoms. Though right about now I’d pay a billion dollars for that magical slice of latex, because I’d like nothing more than to flip you over and fuck you, but I don’t think it’s going to happen right now.”

  The words echoed in her head like a doom gong, no condom, no condom, no condom until she could barely think straight for the avalanche of disappointment. But then, a light bulb appeared. What was the saying, necessity was the mother of invention? Well, the possibility of having Cole inside her again was going to turn her into the next Thomas Edison. “Nate’s office!”

  “Well, now, I don’t know that defiling your brother’s space is the answer to our contraceptive problem,” Cole said, scrubbing a hand over the back of his head.

  “No,” she grumbled, shoving at his shoulder so he’d let her up. “I think there might be a slim chance that he has condoms in there.”

  Understanding dawning, Cole moved back and scooped up her clothes, handing them to her to put on. When she was at the door, he called out, “I hope you’re coming back and this isn’t just some elaborate plot to avoid giving me a reciprocal blow job!”

  Blair shook her head. “Why would I do that?” she asked. “I love having you in my mouth.” Heaving open the door, she grinned and had one more thing to say. “It’s one of the only times I can get you to shut up.”

  Blair heard Cole’s bark of laughter through the door as she rushed down the hall to her brother’s empty office. After flying through all the drawers, there, in the very bottom one, inside a brown paper bag shoved in the back, was an open box of condoms. She had hit the jackpot.

  Running back to the storage room, an errant giggle erupted in her throat because she’d never even dreamed of having sex in the winery before and yet she was doing exactly that without any second thoughts whatsoever. She, Blair Sandoval, was someone a man like Cole Taggart wanted so badly they couldn’t even have waited until they were finished with the tasting to go back to her place. It was hard to believe, and yet, wonderful. To be so caught up in another person was heady and something out of a movie that she’d envied but never thought would happen to her. And she reciprocated the sentiment.

  She dashed back into the storeroom, the door banging against the wall as her nerves and excitement got the better of her. Cole’s eyes were riveted to hers, caring not at all about the commotion, or the responding thump of the door closing behind her. He stood against the table, hand on his cock, an eyebrow raised. He’d also managed to take his tobacco-leather loafers off, which meant he was completely naked, stroking himself as he waited for her. A flood of desire hit her hard.

  She lifted the condom up in the air so he could see. His responding grin was huge. Then he growled, “Clothes off and get the fuck over here.”

  She stripped in record time, her clothes making a scattered trail on the ground as she went to him. As soon as she was in range, he grabbed the condom, lifted her into his arms and spun her around, leaning her face down over the table.

  She heard the rip of the condom package, a brief pause, and then he was kicking her legs apart, and a sound of need escaped her lips.

  “Holy fuck, Blair,” he gritted, hitching himself against her, right where she wanted him to be. “I was about to lose my fucking mind.” He thrust inside, the stretch fast and delicious, and their simultaneous groans bouncing off the walls. He pulled out and thrust again. Another deep thrust that bottomed out and had her whimpering. “I will do any fucking thing you ask to be right here where I am.”

  She was sliding the table backward, the force of his entry inching the table across the cement floor with a resounding squeak, but he just kept going, stepping forward, keeping the pace. Her cries were loud and frenzied as her muscles clenched around him, accommodating, stretching, gripping him as if she never wanted to let go. Waves of wonderful and explicit pleasure tore through her and she feared she’d never feel so good again. Cole was taking her, using her, bringing them both to some higher plane of sensation and all she could do was accept it in this position. He was in total control and she’d never had a better master.

  “Fuck,” he growled again, grinding against her ass, his cock pushing up against her cervix.

  “Cole,” she gasped, swallowing hard, needing release, needing him to touch her where she wanted it most.

  “I love it when you say my name like that,” he gritted, shuttling in with short, staccato strokes, keeping them both on the edge, but far from where she wanted to be.

  “Cole, please,” she begged, her voice cracking. “I need—”

  His hands gripped her ass and squeezed, spreading her for his gaze and she felt more vulnerable than she ever had in her life. “You’ve got a pretty little ass, Blair,” he told her, his voice rumbly with the same need speeding through her veins like a freight train. “I’ll take that too, if you want. Anything you want.”

  “Touch me, please,” she croaked, so close to the edge after his allusion to anal sex, something she probably wouldn’t try, but in the moment felt incredibly provocative. She wanted to push the boundaries with Cole, felt wild and liberated with him.

  “Now, darling, I know you want me to, but the thing is,” he ground out, back to those short, maddening thrusts, “I don’t want to stop fucking you, and the minute I touch that slick little clit of yours, you’re gonna milk my cock so hard I’ll come right then. But this feels too good to end that quickly.”

  He gave her a big wind-up push then, taking both their breaths away. “Being inside of you is just too damn good.” But when she moaned again he lost it, pounding into her like he was a man on the brink of delirium, finally reaching around at the last second to run his finger over where she needed him, his rhythm fast and hot. Her cries as he invaded her rang out, he held her down tight against the table, his hand gripping her hair, pulling just the slightest bit and that little slice of pain sent her right over the edge.

  “Fuck me,” he growled, stilling against her back and letting go himself, his fingers digging into her hips.

  After several loaded moments, their breathing heavy in the quiet room, he gently pulled out of her. He smoothed a hand over where his fingers had indented her skin before pulling her up and turning her around. Their eyes met, the marvel she felt reflected back at her in his eyes. His kiss was ravenous as he crushed her to him, their lust banked but the emotions that they’d evoked in each other still raging out of control, the vulnerability of that need on full display. Clinging to him, she brushed his tongue with hers as he went deep, not able to lose the connection they’d just forged between them. It felt special and extraordinary but also so tenuous because she knew it couldn’t last, that two days were all they had together.

  The kiss ended slowly, reluctantly, with small kisses along her jaw until he eventually sighed and dropped his forehead to hers.

  “I know I have a habit of being overdramatic, but trust me when I say this, Blair. I’d like to die doing that.”

  She gave him a quick peck, taking a deep breath to try to get her own self under control. It was not possible that she was falling for a man she just met, but the way he held her, his smell, the corner of his mouth that always seemed to curve upward, like he was either about to say something outrageous or simply thinking it—she liked it. Liked all of it. A lot. Maybe instant connections like this did exist. Maybe all her other relationships had been forced. Either way, she felt more alive and valued in a way past boyfriends had never made her feel. Even
the way he was holding her now, close and tight, a hand playing with her hair, was nice, casually luxurious in that it felt like he cared about her, that she meant something to him. That was what she’d been missing before. Her most recent ex aside, she’d had semi-successful relationships with men who were her equals and treated her well, but no one had been madly in love with her. She didn’t really think she was the kind of person men went bonkers for, and yet, Cole had proven her wrong and she wasn’t going to be able to let that feeling go easily.

  “Maybe we’re already dead,” she murmured against his lips. “And this is us floating to our reward.”

  She felt his shoulders shake against her right before he lifted her up into his arms, as if she were nothing instead of a fully grown woman with a bad cheese habit. “If there’s a better reward than that, I don’t want it,” he told her, nipping gently at her lips before setting her down on the table.

  With a sigh, his gaze slid over her sitting there before he turned around to collect her clothing. When he returned he slid the bra up her arms.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, trying to take the bra from him so she could do it herself.

  “I’m just trying to help you out,” he said innocently, even though he was full of mischief. “I know you’re finding it difficult to stand up and your muscles must be complete jelly, so I thought I’d come in with the assist. You know, since I have rendered your body useless, stunned it into shock with my superior lovemaking skills.”

  She stared at him blandly but let him put on her bra even though she was sure he’d screw it up. But of course, he surprised her. “You’re good at that.”

  He adjusted the silky sage-green strap on her shoulder. “Full disclosure, I’m better at taking them off, but as I’m sure you’re already aware, I’m a man of many talents.”

  Blair snorted, even though her body was still very much aware of those other talents and she did feel slightly delirious and sleepy from what they’d just done. And in her family’s winery for heaven’s sake. Old Blair would never.

  She tried to pick up her T-shirt and put it on but he snatched it out of her hands. “Now, I hate covering you up, but unfortunately, I don’t think we can live in this storage room.” Then he opened the neck of the shirt and slid it over her head. “Arms in,” he directed and she glared at him.

  He ignored her ire completely, picked her up and put her on the ground. With her panties in his hand, he seemed to mull something over. “You know,” he told her, as if he was coming to some kind of long-sought-out conclusion, “I think I’ll keep these if you don’t mind.”

  “I do mind,” Blair squeaked. “What am I supposed to do all day without underwear?”

  “I’ll give you mine, if you’d like,” he told her, as if that was a thing women wanted. Just piles of used male underwear in a shoebox in their closet.

  “No!” she exclaimed. “Give me my underwear back!”

  Cole’s head tilted and his eyes met hers. “We’ll talk about it later.”

  And then he proceeded to pull her pants on, lifting her leg when she remained stolidly recalcitrant and refused to do so on her own. She watched as he zipped up the fly of her jeans, his eyes meeting hers as he pulled her T-shirt down over her hips. They shared a moment of something she couldn’t quite name, but he’d done her a service, one she didn’t particularly need or want, but it seemed to be important to him.

  Quickly, he dressed himself and held up the panties. “What if I say pretty please? Would you let me hang on to these, so I have something of you during my long, lonely nights of traveling? I promise I won’t share them with the other announcers even though anyone would like to get their hands on these.”

  “You’re an animal,” she groaned, but she didn’t want to argue with him.

  His head tilted as he shrugged. “That seems mostly accurate.” Then he added, “With the caveat that I’d be a nice animal, like a polar bear or a horse.”

  Blair didn’t bother to respond to his nice animal thread. Instead she inspected the room, dragging the table back to its original spot just in case anyone got any ideas about why it was moved. It was a pointless endeavor because no one ever came in this room for anything—it was just where extra furniture for events was kept—but now that Cole was no longer touching her reality had begun to filter back in. Blair Sandoval, a mild-mannered viticulturist who had, until very recently, never experienced the sort of mind-altering passion with a man and had been laboring under the assumption that she simply was not a very sexual person, had fucked a stranger right under what was kind of her parents’ roof and her place of work.

  She’d flat out lost her mind. So she scanned the rest of the area, looking for anything, a random button, a piece of ripped clothing fabric because who knew what they’d done in their rush to disrobe, some loose change that didn’t belong in the room. Blair didn’t know exactly what she was looking for, but if anything was here she’d find it and make sure no one had any clue what they’d done.

  “You okay there, Ms. Sandoval?” Cole asked, peering at her strangely.

  “Why do you sometimes call me that?” Blair asked, her head snapping up from its search for the condom wrapper she’d realized she needed to find. “But other times call me Blair?”

  “I don’t know,” Cole said, shoving his hands into his pocket. “But if I had to guess I’d say it’s because I’m from the South and we stand on a little ceremony as a rule.” His eyebrow lifted. “But it doesn’t seem appropriate when I’m inside you to call you that.”

  “Okay,” Blair said, holding up a hand. “How about we make a rule then, when we’re in situations that you find it more appropriate to call me Ms. Sandoval, we don’t talk about sex and stuff.”

  Cole grinned. “You got it, Ms. Sandoval, no sex and stuff will be asked about.”

  “I mean, this is, like, my grandfather’s house in a way,” she went on, lifting up an old yellowing tablecloth to look for the condom wrapper. “I just had sex in my grandfather’s house. That’s weird. I’m a sex weirdo now.”

  “I don’t know that sex weirdo is a medical term, but then again, I assume I am one so maybe there’s something to it,” Cole mused. Blair could tell he was smiling but she couldn’t look at him at the moment. His face reminded her of what they’d done and what she would do again with one word from him. Hence the reason for her keeping busy and not touching him. Good grief, would this just be her life now, finding ways to keep busy so she didn’t throw herself at a man who didn’t even live in the country for most of the year? She was going to have to take up a new hobby. Maybe something like lumberjacking, not exactly earth friendly, but definitely physically exhausting.

  “Do you want to tell me what it is you’re looking for?” Cole asked. “Or would you like to continue freaking out in silence?”

  She pulled up to her full height, hands on hips. “I am not freaking out.”

  He raised that infuriating dark eyebrow again. “Granted, we haven’t known each other for that long, so I’m not accustomed to your moods, Blair, but I’m not blind either. You’re tearing through this storage room like a starved raccoon in a dumpster.”

  Blair moved a chair back onto the stack she’d pulled it from and turned to face him. “I’m fine.” The words were said but even she could tell she’d delivered them from a place on the fringes of hysteria.

  “Of course you are,” Cole placated. “Dandy is a word I’d use to describe your present state of mind, in fact. So do you think you might at least tell me what you’re looking for?”

  “I’m looking for the condom wrapper. I don’t want people to find it.”

  Pulling his hand out of his pocket, he held up the torn and empty blue-foil wrapper. “I wouldn’t leave any evidence for the public to find.” He’d also wrapped up the used condom in a paper towel he’d apparently found, ready to dispose of it as soon as they left.

 
Blair pulled in a deep breath and let it out. Okay, so maybe she was freaking out a little. Because the quick palate-cleansing affair with an international racing star wasn’t supposed to be so good. She wasn’t supposed to feel anything for him, but she did. And it was a problem. A big one.

  “Is this about the fact that I want your undergarments?” Cole asked, meeting her eyes. “Or is it about the sex?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she admitted, not sophisticated enough not to just blurt out her feelings. “I—” she stopped, then started again “—I’ve just never felt this way before about sex with someone.”

  Cole’s head tilted, eyes melty, and he started toward her, pulling her into his arms. Her pulse slowed remarkably as she relaxed into his hold, the strong, solid body of a man who wasn’t afraid to show affection. “Yeah, it’s pretty fucking good with us,” he told her, dropping a gentle kiss on her lips.

  Blair’s heart was beating in her chest because it was good with Cole. It was really super amazing with Cole and even though she knew it wasn’t going anywhere and they lived two completely separate lives, she knew she was in danger. The sex wasn’t just about sex anymore for her.

  She must have telegraphed her worry because Cole peered down at her, eyebrows furrowed. “Hey,” he said, tapping a finger gently on her head, “what’s going on in there?”

  Blair took a deep breath because she didn’t want to say what she was going to say, but she needed him to know. For reasons great and small, but mostly because she wanted him to have all the information before he flew all the way back here again thinking that she was a good person, someone he might think he could be with for real. Because she wasn’t. She wasn’t the person he thought she was, and the moment he learned her secret he’d know it too, and it would end their fun. It would be the end of the happy Blair she’d been able to be with him.

  “My ex was married,” she admitted on a whisper. She avoided looking directly in his eyes at first, but then made herself do it, made herself see how disgusted he was with her. “That’s why I think all men should burn in a firepit.”