Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Lynx
“Reagan,” I whispered against her lips, hating myself for pulling back when I wanted nothing more than to strip her naked and bury myself inside her right here.
The woman was going to push me past the brink any second now. I had actually managed to keep my distance, even come up with a plan to ride this out for a while until she was ready. That plan hadn’t taken into consideration what would happen if she approached me.
Between the softness of her lips and the warmth of her hands still clutching my abdomen through my T-shirt, I was damn near ready to combust.
The second she’d walked into the shop, I'd been expecting her to let loose on me.
Only, this wasn’t how I'd envisioned it going down.
Knowing how independent the woman was, I'd been waiting for the shit to hit the fan. After all, the text I'd received from Ed a few minutes ago had been a warning. She’d stopped by the bar to find the charred remains being hauled into the dumpster, and evidently she hadn’t been happy about it.
Not that you could tell it by the way she was acting now.
“Can you take a break for a while?” she asked, pulling back and staring up into my face.
“For…?”
She shrugged. “Thought we’d go … somewhere.”
“Where?”
Reagan shrugged and a small smile pulled at her lips. “Maybe out to the lake.”
I knew this was a bad idea, but again, bad ideas were my calling card. I tended to gravitate toward them every chance I got. Didn’t matter if the repercussions were jail or, in this case, something a hell of a lot more promising, I couldn’t seem to resist.
“Yeah. Give me a couple minutes to clean shit up and we’ll head out.”
Reagan seemed to be eyeing me hard, and I briefly wondered what was going on in that pretty little head of hers. Whatever it was, I got the feeling it had a lot to do with the two of us naked, translating to: the bad decision I was referring to earlier.
Every man had his breaking point, and apparently, Reagan Trevino was mine.
Thirty minutes later, I was steering my truck down the dirt path to the lake, Reagan riding shotgun.
I had taken my time cleaning things up, fully expecting her to back out on me.
Hell, I might’ve been hoping she would. This thing between us had been building for years.
It was a pressure cooker ready to blow the lid off, and I wasn’t sure Reagan was ready for what came next.
In fact, I wasn’t sure I was ready. I wanted it, absolutely, but trying to wrangle a wild stallion was easier than convincing Reagan to take a chance on us.
“Thanks for havin’ those guys clear the lot,” she said, her tone soft, her attention out the window.
“They volunteered,” I told her. “Actually, a lot of people did.”
Reagan’s gaze shifted my way. “So, they just called you up and said … what?”
I grinned as I turned the truck around and backed it toward the lake, stopping beneath the shade of one of the big oak trees. “Okay, fine. I called them, but then they volunteered.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you doin’ this?”
I cut my eyes over to her quickly, processing her disbelieving tone. I wasn’t sure what I'd ever done to her to make her keep me at arm’s length, to have her thinking the worst of me, but clearly she did.
Reagan appeared to be waiting for an answer. Unfortunately, I didn’t have one, so I led with, “Do you really think I’m a dick, or what?”
Without waiting for a response, I got out of the truck, trying to rein in my temper. Why did it always seem that the woman wanted to jump up and down on my fucking nerves? It was as though she wanted to piss me off and I didn’t get it.
“Lynx!” Reagan hollered, the passenger door slamming shut.
She rounded the truck, coming to stand a few feet away.
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
No, actually, I didn’t.
Reagan put her hands on her hips. “With all the shit I’ve done, I—”
“We’ve got a new rule,” I interrupted, glaring down at her. “From now on, we don’t talk about the shit in the past. Not Billy. Not Tammy. Not any of it.”
“But I need to apologize,” she declared.
“No, you don’t. You need to stop dwellin’ on that shit and let’s move forward.”
“Is that how it is for you?” Her tone was hard. “You forget everything in the past and just look at the future?”
“In a way, sure.”
Reagan chuckled, but I could tell it was strained. “Explains all the women.”
I yanked my ball cap off my head, thrust my hand through my hair, and groaned, spinning on my boot heel and walking away. “You don’t fuckin’ get it, do you, Reagan?” I called back.
“Get what?”
Pivoting to face her, I locked my eyes with hers, the three feet between us not nearly enough to keep me from wanting to put my hands all over her.
“It’s always been you, Reagan. Always.”
“What’s been me?” she snapped.
“Do you remember when you started datin’ Billy?”
She frowned. “What the fuck does he have to do with anything?”
“He’s got every goddamn thing to do with it,” I yelled. “Since before you were eighteen, you’ve been with that fuckup.”
Reagan shook her head. “I don’t have a clue where this is goin’.”
I took a step toward her. “I have spent… Goddamn! For ten fuckin’ years, Reagan … I have wanted you. And then when you turned eighteen … I’ve spent the past eight years waitin’ for you.”
Her eyes widened. “You’ve got a funny way of waitin’. Fuckin’ every woman who crosses your path.”
“They were never you,” I growled, coming to stand directly in front of her. “No matter how fuckin’ hard I tried to get you outta my head, it never fuckin’ worked. And yes, damn it, I fuckin’ tried. Do you understand what I’m sayin’?”
She didn’t speak.
I took a breath, tried to get a handle on my temper. When I felt as though my head wouldn’t explode, I caught her gaze with mine.
“So, yeah,” I continued, taking a deep breath, “hold it against me for as long as you want. I fuckin’ deserve it. But it doesn’t change a thing. I can’t go back and do things differently, darlin’. Trust me. If I could, I would.”
“What would you change?” Her tone was softer now, her eyes imploring me.
I touched her face, tilting her head back with my thumb. “For starters, I would’ve told you that first time you broke up with that dickhead.”
“Told me what?”
Although the words hung on the tip of my tongue, I couldn’t say them.
If I did, I'd never get them back, and I knew Reagan wouldn’t believe me if I told her.
Loving her was something I'd done all this time without anyone knowing. And the first time I told her, it damn sure wouldn’t be when we were fighting.
So I said, “That I want you. That I’ve dreamt about gettin’ my hands on you, about pullin’ you beneath me.” I moved closer, lowered my voice. “Slidin’ deep inside you.”
I could feel her rapid breaths against my mouth.
“Fuckin’ you until neither of us knows our own names. That’s what I wanted, Reagan.”
“Past tense?” she whispered.
“Not by a long shot.”
She blinked, her eyes still locked with mine. “Then what’re you waitin’ for?”
And that was the moment she pushed me right over the edge, my breaking point now nothing more than a memory.
Reagan
It was a dare.
Of all the people in the world, Lynx Caine was not the man to dare because as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I saw the shift in his eyes, knew he was about to unleash on me.
The soft rumble in his chest was drowned out by the pounding of my heart when Lynx crushed his mouth to mine, jerking me to him. And when he lifted me off my feet, I wrapped around him and held on tight, legs around his waist, arms around his neck. And still I wasn’t close enough.
I heard the loud click of the tailgate releasing, then found my butt planted on the edge, Lynx standing between my legs, his arm banded around me as his mouth did crazy wicked things to mine.
God, he could kiss. Lynx knew just how to coax my mouth open, just how to work me into a frenzy with the devilish flick of his tongue.
“This what you want?” he growled. “You want me to take you right here?”
I figured why the hell not. After all, this was where it had started all those years ago. Why wouldn’t it be where we picked things back up?
When he pulled back and met my eyes, I didn’t even debate my answer. Instead, I slid my hands beneath his T-shirt and pushed it up, eager to get him out of it. Lynx grabbed a handful and yanked it over his head, tossing it into the truck behind me.
Then I was staring at all those tattoos on his chest, the beautiful designs that decorated so much of him.
I'd always loved those tattoos. Even back when they were nothing more than random designs. Over the years, they’d filled in, merged together until it required effort to make out the smaller ones from his teenage years.
The man was the sexiest thing I'd ever seen in my life.
Running my hands over the smooth ridges of his stomach, I continued upward, leaning forward and pressing my mouth to his skin.
When he growled roughly, my pussy clenched.
I didn’t stop touching or kissing him until he had my shirt up.
I only paused so he could remove it because I wanted to feel his skin against mine and I was tired of waiting.
It didn’t matter that we were outside, that it was probably close to ninety degrees in the shade, that I was sitting in the bed of his truck, or even that someone could wander up at any moment.
None of it mattered because I finally had Lynx all to myself.
My bra was the next article of clothing to go while I tugged at the button on his jeans.
“Oh, God,” I moaned, pulling my mouth from his when his rough hands cupped my bare breasts.
My eyes shot to his hands, but the tattoos there didn’t register.
No, I was watching the way he cupped my breasts, pinching my nipples with his thumbs and forefingers, his callused hands abrading my skin in the most sensual way.
The various sensations swirled together, escalating into something I'd never felt, an erotic bliss that had me wondering if I would implode.
“Fuck,” he hissed, lifting one sensitive peak to his mouth.
I watched as he pulled the hardened point between his lips, his teeth scraping gently before he sucked me fully into his mouth.
I clutched the back of his head, holding him to me while he alternated to my other nipple, driving me out of my mind with his lips and tongue.
I'd imagined this, but never had I thought it would be this good.
Hell, nothing had ever been this good before.
“Lynx…”
One of his hands dropped and I felt him working the button on my shorts free. When the waistband loosened, his hand dipped inside, sliding against my skin but not quite getting to the spot I needed him most.
He groaned, pulling back from me, and I whimpered when the heat of his mouth disappeared.
Relief swamped me when I realized he wasn’t stopping.
No, Lynx seemed to be focused solely on getting me naked, and I damn sure wasn’t fighting him. He tugged my boots from my feet, then yanked my shorts and panties down until my bare butt was on the warm metal.
“Lean back,” he commanded.
Placing my hands behind me, I nearly fell back when Lynx lifted my feet and placed them on the edge of the tailgate before his head dropped down between my splayed thighs.
When his fingers separated my pussy lips, I gulped in air, my head falling back as a strangled moan escaped my throat.
And when his tongue slid against my clit, I cried out.
I didn’t have time to react, to feel even an ounce of modesty because his mouth obliterated my thoughts, one glorious sensation overrode the next until I was panting and moaning.
It was an awkward position, but it didn’t seem to faze Lynx because he slid his hands under my ass and cradled me as his tongue did wicked things, thrusting inside me, then teasing my clit repeatedly.
I was desperate for release, hanging on by a fragile thread when he lifted his head.
Unable to help myself, I sat upright, reaching for him as he crushed his mouth to mine.
I tasted myself on his lips, once again clutching his head, holding him so he couldn’t get away.
I vaguely heard the crinkle of a wrapper, felt Lynx moving, knew he was sheathing himself. I wanted to watch, wanted to see his cock for the first time, wanted to take him in my mouth, but he seemed to have other intentions, and I wanted him so much I hurt.
“Reagan… Need to be inside you.”
“Yes,” I moaned in earnest, my lips sliding against his as we breathed each other’s air.
He shifted me back as he crawled up onto the tailgate.
He wrestled with his jeans, shoving them lower before settling between my thighs, his big body looming over me.
Then I felt the blunt head of his cock against my entrance.
When he pushed in, my breath caught in my throat, my body trying to accommodate him.
All of him. He was much bigger than I'd imagined him to be.
“Girl… Jesus fuck … this ain’t gonna last long.”
No, it wouldn’t. I was on the verge of climaxing already, my body strung tight as he pushed in slowly.
But I didn’t want slow.
“Fuck me,” I demanded, holding on to him.
His hips thrust forward and he was lodged all the way inside me. I drew in air as fast as I could, his cock filling me, stretching me. It was too much but not enough. The pain warred with pleasure, and I forced myself to relax around him, to let the pleasure win out.
“Please … Lynx…” I was on the verge of tears. I wanted him so much I ached with it.
“Hold on to me, girl,” he crooned, pulling his mouth from mine.
He propped himself up on one hand, his other hand dropped to my ass, and he held me tightly against him.
Then he was retreating, slamming into me hard.
My skin tingled as the pleasure consumed me.
And when Lynx began fucking me hard, drilling into me, I knew without a doubt that I would never forget this moment for as long as I lived.