Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
The feel of Greer’s arm against his and the slide of her fingers against his churned through Alex’s blood. How was it this woman could affect him more with a simple touch than other women had by allowing him inside their bodies?
And what kind of control would he lose when he slid inside Greer’s?
“My dad used to haul us around on this thing for hayrides,” she said. “He’d hitch it up to his truck, throw a few small bales in the back. After my mom died—” he squeezed her fingers, “—we didn’t have a chaperone back here anymore.”
“You have a boyfriend in high school?”
“I was a cheerleader.”
Stupid question, dumbass. Better question was how many boyfriends. “Guess that means you and the quarterback enjoyed some quality alone time on this trailer.”
“Michael Alewine was actually a running back.” She raised her arm, pointed to the sky. “Can you see Orion? His belt always stands out to me.”
Alex had rarely paid attention to the stars until he moved to bumfuck Montana. City lights and city fights didn’t encourage stargazing. “I can usually manage the Big Dipper.”
“If you can find that, then you can always get the Little Dipper. The two outer stars on the Big Dipper point to Polaris, which is the end of the Little Dipper’s handle and always stays in same place in the northern sky.”
For the first time in years, Alex had the sudden desire to stay in the same place, right here with this woman.
When her arm came down, she shifted to her side, rested her palm on his chest. Cheesy or not, she was touching his heart. “If you’re not much of a star-watcher, then you’ve probably never made love outside.”
Made love. No, he hadn’t. He’d once had a raunchy bit of sex up against the back wall of a convenience store. “Not sure if you noticed, but we’re laying on wood. Don’t know about you, but I’m not a fan of splinters in my ass.”
She pushed up to gaze down at him, her eyes mockingly wide. “Oh, you mean you actually plan to get undressed?”
She’d already seen him in a towel, but the moonlight here made it brighter than he’d like.
He’d just have to keep her so damn busy she wouldn’t have time to catalog all the pictures on his body.
Normally, the women he slept with were so wrung out by the time he’d given them their share of Os, they didn’t have energy to do much more than stroke a limp hand down his back.
Yeah, that would work.
So he rolled Greer and pinned her against the trailer. “Fine, but that’s the only shot you’re calling tonight.”
She cupped his cheek and looked into him with that way she had. Unmanned him every damn time. “Whatever lets you sleep at night, Villanueva.”
And then she put her lips against his.
Fuck the stars. Just the sweet feel of Greer’s mouth on his was enough to set off twinkling lights in his head.
He’d been thinking about this woman since the day she pulled up to his broken-down car, but now that he was about to see every inch of her, he wanted to take his time.
Learn how she liked to be kissed, where she liked to be touched, how she liked to be loved.
But the slide of her sweet lips against his set off tiny detonations along his nerve endings, urging him to move in and deepen their kiss.
Gripping one curvy hip, Alex covered her, but all that smooth skin and supple muscle beneath him exploded into motion. Thump. Alex was once again on his back with the stars blinking down on him. But this time, Greer straddled his chest, using her thighs to pin his arms against his sides.
“What the hell was that for?” Because if she was able to move like that, she hadn’t been nearly as involved with his lips as he’d been with hers.
“Ever heard that saying ‘Begin as you mean to go on?’”
“A time or two.” He tried to twist his arms to cup her butt, but she apparently had bionic inner thighs, tightening them around him.
“I have a feeling if I let you have the upper hand tonight, I’ll never get it back.”
Alex forced back the smile that hovered at his lips.
Just a few weeks and she already understood him.
More than he could say for any other woman he’d had in his bed.
Others started out fascinated by his body, then they became determined to get all the way in his head.
But what they really wanted was to fix him. “I’m all yours.”
Her eyes went soft and dark. God, she really was beautiful. His mamá would love her.
Jesus, and what a thing to think of when he was about to fuck a woman. If he’d had a good bar of his tía’s lye soap, he would’ve washed out his brain.
“I like the sound of that,” Greer said, low and husky and so damn sexy, all the blood in Alex’s body did a one-eighty and drag-raced to his dick. She sat back a little, but not enough to allow his hands freedom. What it did was allow her access to his top few shirt buttons.
Flick.
First one down.
Alex hadn’t taken the time earlier to pull on a T-shirt in deference to the heat and the need to get his ass in gear. So his open shirt collar now exposed a small vee of his skin. Greer ran her fingertips over the hollow of his throat, lingering over his banging pulse.
“Your skin is so pretty,” she said.
“Guys aren’t pretty.” His skin was too tatted up to be pretty, but hers was a different story. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get his hands on her.
Flick.
Another one open. Greer eased his shirt wider, traced a path to his sternum.
“Remember, people will start showing up again at six tomorrow morning,” he said.
She glanced up at his face, her expression a little coy. “Are you worried I’ll keep you up all night?”
“Just thinking of all we can accomplish in seven hours. But if that’s your top speed, we won’t make it through half of them.”
“There’s no reason to rush this. It won’t be our last time. But two people only get one first time.”
Her soft words and gentle smile speared him mid-chest. Only one first time. Only one chance for a new beginning. Is that what he could have with Greer—a new start in his life?
After almost ten years, maybe Tejanos Pintados didn’t give a shit about him anymore.
Could it be that easy, to keep his mamá and younger brother safe in Georgia and live a quiet little life here in Prophecy?
He relaxed against the wood beneath him, let all the tension drain from his muscles.
If he even wanted to consider trying to make a new start with his work, and possibly this woman, he had to let down his guard a little.
Flick. Flick. Flick.
Greer parted his shirt to the waist, exposing his nipples and the designs over his left pectoral, and Alex sucked in his breath.
Rather than home in on his tats, she circled his other nipple, coaxing it to tightness.
God, he wanted to rip off her T-shirt and get his hands on her breasts. “I need my hands.”
Another circle and tweak of his nipple, and his hips bucked. “Why?”
“Because I want to touch you.”
“I’m busy.”
Yeah, well he wanted to get busy on her.
She abandoned his chest to the warm night air and cradled his face, met his gaze. “Let me see you, Alex. Really see you.”
She might as well have thrust her hands inside his chest and cracked open his breastbone. Did she have any idea what she was asking for? “You don’t want to see me. Because you won’t find pretty yellows and pinks. What’s inside there, it’s gray and dingy.”
“You don’t get to tell me how I should see you.”
Alex closed his eyes and knocked the back of his head against the wood. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
“I just told you.” She pressed her lips to his, sweet and simple, yet so damn complicated his head throbbed with it.
When she shifted back this time, freeing his hands, Alex left them lying by his sides. Then again, his nervous and muscle systems had short-circuited when she slid her sweet little ass down his hard-on. He couldn’t be held responsible for his inability to move.
“That’s more like it,” she whispered as she popped open his last button.
Her palms were like velvet fire, stroking over his chest to push open his shirt.
Again, she took her time exploring his right side, touching his unmarked skin with light strokes.
Strokes that had Alex’s eyes rolling back in his head from the pleasure of it.
His abs jumped under her nimble fingers. He sucked in his stomach with that age-old guy response to a woman’s hand that close to his cock. The physical prayer that she would slip her hand under his waistband and finally touch him.
But Greer took endless moments to circle his belly button, causing the muscles beneath to bunch even tighter.
She leaned forward to press a kiss to his shoulder and push at his shirt sleeves. Alex accommodated her by doing a half sit-up so she could work the fabric down his arms. The smile she gave him was full of gratitude and something else. Something that looked a hell of a lot like simple affection.
Mother Mary help them both.
Then she shifted so she sat across his lap in a reverse cowgirl position. God, yes, he would have her just like this. But not with his jeans strangling his dick like they were now. He reached for the button.
“Don’t even think about it.”
How the hell did women do that—see things from the backs of their heads? “How do you know—”
“Because I know you.”
She wouldn’t be here doing this with him if she truly knew him. She wouldn’t want to look at him.
Shut that fucking noise up, Villanueva. Thinking about all that shit’s a good way to lose the hard-on of your life.
So he blanked his mind to everything but the feel of Greer working his boots off his feet and pulling off his socks.
“Even your feet are good-looking,” she said, disgust clear in her tone. “It can make a girl feel intimidated.”
“Because of my feet?”
She turned again and sat back on his thighs. “Because this—” she waved a hand down his body, “—is a freaking work of art.”
Again with the effing tattoos.