Chapter 11 #2
Suddenly, he was now where she’d been sitting, and she found herself on his lap, straddling him, their faces so close together that she could feel the warmth of his breath on her mouth. Her head spun from how quickly he’d moved her—or possibly from their close proximity.
“Wait,” she said, almost not recognizing her own voice. Surely that husky-voiced siren wasn’t her? “What about the guys searching for us?”
Without looking away from her, he lowered the passenger-side window, letting the brisk mountain air rush in.
Instead of clearing her head in a chilly wake-up call, the sweep of cold air just made everything more exciting and real.
Forcing herself to listen to the world outside the cab of the truck was a huge effort, but she managed—at least for a few seconds.
There was silence, only broken by an occasional soft breeze. Otherwise, the night was still.
“Did they give up looking for us already?” she asked as Kieran closed the window.
They’d broken into the compound and—if Charlie was interpreting the explosions properly—Fifi and Bennett had even blown up a goodly chunk of the armory.
Couldn’t the militia guys have spent more than five minutes trying to find the culprits?
“What kind of poor excuse for anti-government extremists are these people?”
“Doubt they even saw us leave the road,” Kieran said, still not breaking their locked gaze.
All this eye contact was making her skin buzz with adrenaline and something else—something less familiar but that she still could identify as desire.
“Probably still think they’re chasing us down Moose Peak Road.
Once they reach the highway, they won’t know which way we went.
We’ll just need to wait until they return to the compound. ”
“Hmm…” It was hard focusing on their conversation when the eye contact was all kinds of intense. “It’s still early. Should we meet Kiki and B for debriefing after all?”
“No.”
Her lips curved up at that flat negative, but before she could respond, his lips were on hers, and her entire body lit up like he’d set it on fire.
Her fingers, somehow still resting on his abs, curled into fists, grabbing handfuls of his shirt in a futile effort to ground herself.
He shifted under her, leaning closer, his fingers burrowing into her hair so he could cup her skull as if he was holding something precious and breakable.
Despite his gentleness, he kissed her with a barely banked ferocity that should’ve scared her.
Luckily, Charlie wasn’t easily scared.
She eagerly met each kiss with her own, almost giddy with the thrill of finally kissing this man on his scowling face, nipping at the lips that snarled grumpy things. Who knew that his kisses would be so sweet?
Jerking her head back, she sucked in a breath, just now realizing that she’d stopped breathing while they’d kissed. “Told you that you have a squishy center.”
His growl made her shiver and lean closer, eager to start the kissing again, but it was his turn to pull away. “Nothing squishy about me.”
Charlie wanted to argue, but she knew that would just prolong their kissing hiatus, so she held back the words for probably the first time in her entire life.
Instead, she just smiled at him and made a noncommittal sound as she pressed their lips together—or at least, she tried to press their lips together, but he held her back.
“What did that sound mean?” he grumbled, the warm air from his words hitting her damp skin, making it feel as if his voice could actually caress her.
She shivered again, wondering if there was a limit to how turned on she could be. Squirming in his lap, she tried to close that tiny distance between them, but still he held her back. He wore a stern expression which shouldn’t have pushed her lust buttons even harder, but somehow it did.
“Charlotte Calamity Pax.”
Even her hated full first name didn’t sound so bad in his growly voice. “Yes?”
“Why aren’t you arguing with me?”
Her laugh came out sounding husky, almost sultry. She wasn’t sure who she was becoming after having been exposed to lip-to-lip contact with him, but she kind of liked the sexy seductress—especially if her transformation meant more making out with Kieran. “You want me to argue with you?”
“Yes—no—argh.” It was so fun to see him all flustered like that. “You’re holding back just so I’ll keep kissing you.”
“Well…yeah.” Darting in, she nipped his lower lip and then retreated again, eating up his reaction, his indrawn breath and full body jolt. She loved the way she could affect him. “If I argued, this”—she bit lightly at that full lip again—“would be delayed.”
“Good point.”
Then his lips were on hers again, and he was kissing her as if she were the only source of life, and he’d fall over dead if he stopped.
That feeling of being irresistible and the reason he was going out of his mind with desire was intoxicating and addictive.
Who would’ve thought that she, Charlie Pax, would cause a man to lose his entire sanity with just the power of her lips?
At that point, she had to stop thinking, because his enormous, hot hands were sliding under her shirt and against her skin. Her nerve endings lit up until she was surprised the truck cab wasn’t glowing like an enormous firefly.
As his fingertips brushed the bare skin directly under her bra, she couldn’t hold in the tiny sound that escaped—a sound that was embarrassingly close to a moan.
Although it was muffled against Kieran’s mouth, she knew he had heard it, since his lips turned up under hers.
Even though she couldn’t actually see his small smile, she just knew it was obnoxiously smug.
Pulling back, she nipped his lower lip in retaliation, but by the way he chuckled, dark and deep, he didn’t find that to be any kind of punishment.
“You’re like a little Chihuahua,” he murmured, his mouth brushing against her throat.
That felt very nice, so she raised her chin, giving him more access to her vulnerable neck.
“All yappy and bite-y.” He set his teeth against her skin, pressing so lightly that all she felt was a pleasurable zip of sensation running up her spine.
The Chihuahua comment couldn’t stand, however, so she made a valiant effort to not melt into a puddle of goo at the sensation.
“Well, you’re a bulldog. All muscle-y and grumpy-looking, but a total sucker for scritches.
” Proving her point—and satisfying her deep need to touch him everywhere—she ran her hands over his head, letting her short fingernails lightly scratch at his scalp.
From his groan and the way his eyes went heavy-lidded, he liked her touch just as much as she loved touching him.
“See? I’m surprised your leg isn’t thumping the floor. ”
“What?” His eyes popped open, although she noticed he didn’t move his head.
“You know…” She kept getting distracted by how soft his hair was, despite the short cut.
“The twitchy leg thing a dog does when you find just the right itchy spot.” She gave him a scratch behind one ear and couldn’t hold back her laugh when he growled and wrapped his arms around her, squeezing her tightly against him.
“That isn’t my itchy spot,” he teased—actually teased—and she melted as she laughed even harder.
Wrapping her arms around his neck, she hugged him back. Although her body was still buzzing with unsatisfied need, she was surprisingly content. “Kieran Sullivan Byrne, I like you a lot.”
“Didn’t plan on it, Charlotte Calamity Pax, but I like you too.”
The gruff way he admitted it made her feel even more special, and her arms tightened around his neck until he gave a groan of protest and patted her shoulder.
“Did you just tap out?” she asked, giggling again as she loosened her hold.
This clingy-monkey behavior was not like her, but for some reason, she couldn’t seem to keep her hands off of Kieran.
“I did.” There was no shame in his admission. In fact, smug satisfaction was thick in his voice. “You’ve wrestled me into submission.”
“Hmm…” She studied his face in the dim moonlight. “What should I do with a submissive Kieran?”
So close to him, she saw his eyes spark with heat before lowering to half-mast. “I have a few suggestions.”
Ignoring the answering hungry flare in her lower belly, she pretended to think.
Despite all the times she wondered what it’d be like to kiss—and do more—with Kieran, she hadn’t expected the reality to be so explosive.
The intensity was new and bewildering, and as much as she wanted to continue their make-out session, another part of her needed to hole up in her room and just process.
It wasn’t a familiar sensation, since she normally was a huge fan of jumping in without a plan and letting any future consequences sort themselves out later.
The urge to retreat to think about her emotions felt almost as alien as her urge to stay on his lap until the morning sun peeked over the mountaintops.
Shoving the whole tangled mass of confusing thoughts into a corner of her brain to stew over later, she gave Kieran an impish smile and lunged for the driver’s seat.
“Nope,” he said, catching and returning her to his lap with an ease that made her even more attracted to him—a feat she thought was impossible.
At what point would her desire for him max out?
She was beginning to wonder if it ever would.
It would continue to build and build until her head—or other parts of her—exploded. “Not driving my truck.”
“But I haven’t done any off-roading in forever. Isn’t it my turn to take out the last half of the symphony?” She gave him her best puppy-dog eyes, a look she borrowed from her twin, since she didn’t have one of her own. All it did was make him laugh and hug her.
“No.” Sliding out from underneath her, he started to shift over to the driver’s seat but paused to kiss her—hard and quick. “Your on-road driving scares the crap out of me.” Reluctantly, he moved to the other side of the seat.
“C’mon,” she said, even as she pulled on her seat belt, knowing the argument was lost. It’d been a long shot anyway. “I’m a great driver.”
“I know.” He rolled down the window to listen once more, and they both were silent for several minutes. The only sound was the slight whine of the wind, and he closed the window before speaking again. “You’re good, and very fast, and like to push your car’s limits.”
Those all seemed like positives to Charlie, so she asked, “And?”
“You’d probably get us back to town safely, but it wouldn’t matter, since you’d give me a heart attack in the process. I’d be dead anyway.”
She rolled her eyes as he started the truck. “You’re a firefighter. Aren’t all you guys adrenaline junkies?”
“It’s different.”
When she realized that was all he was going to say about the matter, she huffed. “That’s not an answer. Why’s it different to be in a truck with me as I’m driving—very competently—down a mountain than it is for you to run into a burning building?”
He shot her a sideways look. It didn’t matter that the darkness made it hard to see his expression. She could positively feel the irritation in that glance. She didn’t care though—if he wasn’t going to let her drive his truck, he was going to have to explain exactly why.
“Hmm?” she prompted when he stayed silent.
“Because you’re in the truck with me.” He bit off the words like he was mad at them.
She stared at him, all sorts of emotions fizzing around in her belly. “So you don’t care about endangering yourself, but you’re worried about…me?”
He grunted an affirmative—or at least what sounded like an affirmative to Charlie. The butterflies in her stomach turned into huge pterodactyls, and she had no idea what to say in response to that. “Oh. Okay.”
Kieran snorted—one of his amused, choked ones. “That’s all you have to say about that?”
“Uh…” Her brain needed some time to chew on the fact that Kieran actually cared about her enough to worry when she was in danger.
It was one thing for him to say he liked her in the middle of making out, but a whole other thing to be protective.
Her sisters were the only ones who’d ever cared enough about her to worry about her, so his admission was a bit of a shock.
Her brain wasn’t quite back online, but he was still waiting for more of a verbal reaction, so she had to say something. “Um…thanks?”
Although he choke-laughed again, he didn’t press her for more, just started up the truck.
As he backed out of their hiding spot next to the large boulder, Charlie sank back in her seat as a pleasant feeling spread from the pterodactyl party in her middle until even her fingers and toes were warm with the knowledge that someone outside her family cared about her.
Despite the foreignness of the sensation, it was a wonderful feeling, and she sank into it like it was a warm bath.
I wonder if this is what it’s like to be…content.