Racers of Royal Oaks （Excerpt）
Linc was going to wear a hole in the fucking imported marble floor of the carriage house.
He’d been pacing back and forth in such a fury that Noah and Max had eventually both tucked tail and gone off in search of…
something. He hadn’t been paying any attention.
All he’d been thinking about was the unmitigated fury he’d felt when he’d watch that rich, polished asshole lean down and kiss Rochelle on the balcony.
And how she hadn’t stopped him.
It said way, way too much about how he was in over his head here, and how if he examined the feelings below lust and desire and nostalgia, he was going to find something there he really didn’t like, but anger clouded his vision and made it difficult to think about anything but her.
About claiming her, taking her, marking her as his own.
For what? The short term? The next few days?
Until the race was over and they knew she was safe and they could all just go ahead and move on with their lives like this had all been some fun fling.
He knew himself well enough to know it wasn’t going to go like that.
Hell, he’d known that since the beginning and it hadn’t stopped him from diving into this shitstorm with both feet.
There was a noise at the far end of the garage and Linc stiffened, all his attention suddenly on the back door. Maybe they’d be able to catch the bastard who had messed with her car earlier than expected and then he could get the hell out of North Kerrington and back to his life.
Though, of course, it wasn’t like he’d be able to just stop thinking about Ellie just because she was across town. That hadn’t worked the first time around, either.
As if he had summoned her with his thoughts, Ellie stepped through the back door and closed it behind her. And he stopped pacing dead in his tracks.
Because she truly was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life.
She looked fucking amazing in ripped jeans and an old tee, and he liked her even more with her panties pulled down around her thighs and her glistening pussy spread and open for him.
But here and now, she looked as though she were dressed for herself, for the woman she had become in the years since he had known her.
She wore a thin silk dress with an elegant vee at the neck that just teased at her lush breasts below.
It came down to her calves, and with her high heels on, they were closer in height, close enough that he wouldn’t have to bend down at all to kiss her.
And, damn his soul to hell, he wanted to kiss her.
“I brought you some dinner,” she said, stepping closer to him. She held up a bottle with one hand. “And champagne.”
Champagne that probably cost more than his car.
“Max is torturing my cousin West,” she continued, her tone almost nervous, as if she could sense the wild tension radiating off him. “But Noah said you were in a mood. What’s wrong?”
Linc stalked over to where she was laying out food on the countertop and stepped into her space.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. He backed her against the wall, unable to keep from crowding her, to keep from leaning over her and getting in her face.
“What’s wrong is that I had to stand here and watch you kiss another man, Ellie,” he said.
His voice was very tight and very low, and he was close to breaking apart.
What was it about this woman that continued to drive him so much to the edge?
“Linc, it’s not—”
“Not what, Ellie? Or is it us that’s not?
” He leaned down to growl in her ear, but that was his mistake.
Because she smelled good, fresh and rich and soft.
She smelled expensive, like she belonged with the polished Ken doll he’d seen her kissing on the balcony, and that only made him all the more angry.
She belongs with me.
It wasn’t a thought he had any intention of exploring.
“Things work differently here,” she said. “I have to secure my future.”
“It’s not the 1700s,” he bit back, knowing he was too close and knowing there was no way in hell he was going to be able to step away from her now. “You control your own life, Ellie.”
She shook her head and tried to squirm out of the cage of his arms, so Linc put her arms over her head and held her in place.
The sight of her restrained, even just by the circle of his hand, stirred something dark inside him and his cock throbbed.
He could step forward, just a little, and he’d be pressed against all the soft and smooth silk of her dress.
And the even softer and smoother woman below.
“It doesn’t work like that here,” she said, as if changing the subject from her unspoken goal of getting free. “This place, it is old-fashioned, Linc. I don’t have that kind of freedom.”
“So you need to marry some guy you don’t even like to secure your future.” There was absolutely no hiding the disgust in his voice.
“Who says I don’t like him?” she shot back. He loved that, loved to see the wildcat woman he recognized in her, loved to see the girl he knew so well hidden under the polished exterior.
“You do.” This, he growled into her ear, and he couldn’t keep from leaning down just a little farther and nipping at the sensitive skin of her lobe.
She tried to hide a moan, but he knew her far too well, was starting to know all those sweet tells that told him she was just as affected by him as he was by her.
“I saw your expression after you kissed him,” he continued, biting her neck none-too-gently this time.
“You were spying?” She tried to sound affronted, but it turned into a gasp when he dragged his teeth down the sensitive column of her throat.
“You were putting on a show,” he said. “And not a very good one.”
She arched against him, clearly losing the battle with her desire, and shot him a glare. The glassy, heated gaze in her eyes diminished the full effect, but it made his cock hard as fucking steel behind his jeans.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. He would never get enough of that soft, breathy sound she made when she was aroused.
“I know that’s not how you look when I kiss you,” he said, running his mouth along her collarbone.
“I know that when I kiss you, your head rolls back and your lips part and you let out this moan…” He bit down again, and she made the exact sound he described.
If he didn’t come in his pants, it would be a miracle.
“And I know that touching me gets you wet and slick and hot.”
He toyed with the hem of her dress and, ever-so-slightly, pushed it up her leg, inch by agonizing inch. She was so smooth beneath his finger, so soft and supple, and he wanted to bite and mark every inch of her delicious flesh.
“Fuck you,” she spat, but the words didn’t have quite the intended effect when accompanied with a soft growl of pleasure.
“See, I could,” he said, continuing his slow perusal of her thigh. “I could reach between your legs right now and find you ready for my cock. I could sink into you without even pulling your panties down and I think you would like it.”
He leaned into her ear and whispered low and dark, “I think you would love it, Ellie. I think you would beg me to take you harder and faster and deeper.”
He slowly teased at the lace trim of her panties, barely stroking her at all. But his Ellie was responsive and desperate in his hands, and he knew she wanted so much more.
His Ellie. Not a safe route to go down at all.
“You like to beg, don’t you, El? You would have gotten down on your knees and begged for my cock at the track. And it would have made you ache.”
She shook her head. “No,” she said quietly. “No. I don’t. You’re wrong.”
“Am I?” Because he had seen the desperation in her eyes the night they’d gotten so close to fucking against the wall, and he knew she craved the dark intimacies, maybe things she didn’t fully understand, but that called to some innate part of her. And an innate part of him.
“Tell me, El, are you wet for me?”
She shook her head, but there was a wild desperation to her movements that belied the truth.
“Tell me to stop,” he said.
She didn’t say a word.
“Good girl,” he murmured against her hot, flushed skin. “Now the fun can really begin.”
Rochelle didn’t move. She couldn’t move.
Because Linc was absolutely right. When it came to his touch, his mouth on her skin or his fingers sliding her dress up her legs, she was absolutely lost, wild and wanting in a way she didn’t understand, but craved all the same.
She shouldn’t. Everything about them was a neon sign of shouldn’t, but she was pulled to him all the same.
Because of that, Rochelle didn’t do the thing she knew she should.
She didn’t pull back or walk away or tell Linc to keep his hands to himself.
Instead, she said, “Kiss me.”
He pulled away from her neck and held her gaze, and she saw far more there than was safe. Behind the dark heat filling his eyes, there was something so much more intense, so wild and unbridled and desperate, and Rochelle couldn’t help but wonder if all that reflected right back at him.
“Say it again.” His voice was rough with desire and the dark edge made her nipples tighten and her pussy clench.
She had never craved a man the way she craved Linc Archer, and that made it all the more dangerous, all the hotter, and all the more forbidden.
He was a flame, and it would be more than worth it to burn herself on his touch for even a taste of the pleasure she knew he would deliver.
“Linc.” She pushed against the circle of his arms, but the protest was a feeble one.
There was something even more sinful about being bound by him, even in this soft and safe way, that made her body heat.
It made her think of all the other ways she could be bound, on her knees, in her bed, in his bed—which had her thoughts skittering and jumping, because God only knew what kind of pleasure could be found in Linc Archer’s bed. “Linc, I need...”