Chapter Twenty-Five
It’s a twenty-minute drive from Okie’s to the hotel, but I make it in ten.
I don’t say anything. The woman has me too wound up.
Charli’s in the passenger seat, head resting against the window.
The knot in my chest loosens as I watch her.
The anger morphing into something else—jealousy, protectiveness, something I can’t quite name because I’ve never felt it before.
She keeps glancing over, like she’s trying to read me in the dark, but I won’t give her the satisfaction.
The parking lot is slammed, so I have to pull all the way to the back to find a spot. I cut the engine as she fumbles with her seat belt.
“I’m sorry.” The words are soft.
I sit there behind the wheel. My chest heaving as I let them wash over me.
She opens the door, but I catch her before she can climb out.
She turns to me. “Bryce—”
I don’t let her finish. “You were supposed to keep me out of trouble,” I tell her. The words come out harder than I expected, loaded. “Not get me into it.”
She starts to apologize again. “I—”
I cut her off, “You don’t let another man put his hat on your head. Especially not Porter fucking Lane,” I say, and I hear the ice in my voice. “If I ever see it again, I swear to God I’ll feed that hat to him and watch him choke on it.”
She gasps at my words, and I finally turn to face her.
“And another thing,” I say, “the next time you feel the urge to ride a bucking animal, all you have to do is climb on my lap and hold on.”
She’s on top of me in an instant. Her knees settling on either side of my hips.
She presses her forehead to mine. Her breath is hot and hurried. I move my hands to the small of her back and feel the tension there, feel how she relaxes under my palms. Her fingers find the hair at my neck and pull lightly.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers against my lips.
My hands cup the back of her head, thumb brushing the shell of her ear, and she makes a sound that’s part relief and part surrender.
“I’m sorry,” she repeats.
“Me too.”
When our mouths meet, it’s not gentle; it’s a collision. Hard and needy.
The rest of the world drops away—the scene at Okie’s, the flashing phones, the stupid hat, and the stupid little boys fighting for her attention, all of it.
Her hand trails down my chest to the bulge in my jeans. She caresses me over the denim.
I break the kiss and look around. I can hear the faint sounds of music drifting from the casino’s music venue, but there’s no people in the parking area, and we’re hidden from sight, tucked in the shadows at the back of the lot.
I tug her shirt loose and bring it up over her head. Then I squeeze her breast through the lace of her bra.
She arches her back over the steering wheel.
And my hand skims lower, clutching the hem of her skirt and hiking it over her hips. I feed my hand inside her panties to find her soaked.
My eyes stay on hers as I glide my finger through her folds and thrust it inside.
“Ry,” she moans as she rocks against my palm.
“I love how you’re always wet for me. Even when you’re pissed.”
Her eyes come to mine, and her body starts to tremble as I add another finger.
“Come on my hand, baby,” I command as I tease her clit with my thumb.
She lets out a strangled noise as I feel her flood my palm. Before I can even remove my fingers, she’s unbuttoning my jeans and tugging the zipper down, freeing my cock from my briefs before balancing her hands on the leather above my head.
My fingers are still moving inside her, but I pull them free as she circles her hips against me.
“Wait,” I say. Bringing my forehead to hers. Shit.
“What?”
“I don’t have a condom in here. We need to go inside.”
She shakes her head. “I’m on the pill. I want to feel you. All of you.”
Damn if that doesn’t undo me.
I’ve never had sex without a condom. Not once. And the thought of taking her without one awakens something feral inside of me.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she cries as she starts to move more urgently.
I take my erection in my hand and find her entrance. I circle her opening with the head, striking her little bundle of nerves before pressing inside. She sinks down, taking me deep.
I open her bra with a quick flick of the front clasp, wrap my mouth around a nipple, and suck it between my teeth.
“Oh God,” she gasps as I bite down.
She starts bucking wildly. Riding me hard and fast. I sit back and watch her face as she takes me in over and over again.
“You feel so damn good, wrapped around me bare,” I groan.
I start thrusting up to meet her hips, and she drops her hands to my shoulders, digging her fingertips into the muscle.
Thats when I lose all control.
I grab her ass and start pounding up into her as her cries grow louder and more desperate. My cock throbs as I pump harder and harder. I can feel the sting of her nails biting into my skin.
When I think I can’t hold on any longer, her sweet warmth tightens around me, and my name explodes from her lips.
I take her mouth with mine to absorb her cries, and I let go, spilling inside of her as she spasms around me. Milking every drop of my orgasm.
I’ve had lots of good sex—hell, I’ve had good sex with more than one woman at a time—but nothing has ever compared to this. To her.
Nothing.
I hold her close and kiss her eyes, her nose, her lips until she calms. All the anger from earlier gone. Replaced by something much more dangerous.
Mine.
The word roars in my head, but I don’t dare utter it out loud.