Chapter Seven
Seven
Faith felt giddy. Drunk on her own bravery. Her head was swimming, arousal firing through her veins. She had never felt like this before. Ever. She had gone on a couple of dates, all of which had ended with sad, sloppy kisses at the door and no desire at all on her part for it to go any further.
She had begun to think the only thing she was really interested in was her career.
That men were irrelevant, and if men were, then sex was, too.
She had just figured that was how she was.
That maybe, when the time came, and she was ready to settle down, or ready to pull back on her career, she would find her priorities would naturally restructure and sex would suddenly factor in. But she hadn’t worried about it.
And now... It wasn’t a matter of making herself interested. No. It was a matter of life and death. At least it felt like it might be.
He took her hand to his heart, and helped her into his truck. She didn’t say a word as he started the engine and they pulled out of the parking lot.
Her heart was thundering, and she was seriously questioning her sanity.
To go from her first make-out session to sex in only a few minutes might not be the best idea, but it might also be.
..the only way. She was half out of her mind with desire, just from feeling his lips on hers.
Even so, she honestly couldn’t imagine wanting more than sex.
This man, her secret.
It had been almost funny when he had said something about taking a man home to meet her family. There would be no way she could ever take him home to meet her parents.
His frame would be so large and ridiculous in that tiny farmhouse. The ice in his veins, the scars on his soul, so much more pronounced in that warm, sweet kitchen of her mother’s.
No, Faith didn’t want to take him home. She wanted him to take her to bed.
And maybe it was crazy. But she had never intended to save herself for anything in particular. Anything but desire, really.
And this was the first time she had ever felt it.
What better way to get introduced to sex, really? An older man who knew exactly what he was doing. Because God knew she didn’t.
And for once, she wasn’t going to think. She wasn’t going to worry about the future, wasn’t going to worry about anyone else’s opinion, because no one was ever going to know.
Levi Tucker was already her dirty secret in her professional life. Why couldn’t he be her personal one, too?
Suddenly, he jerked the car off the highway, taking it down a narrow, dirt road and into the woods. “This isn’t the way to your house.”
“Can’t wait,” he growled.
“What’s this?” she asked, her heart pounding in her chest.
“A place I know about from way back. Back when I used to get in trouble around these parts.”
Get in trouble.
That’s what she was about to do. Get in trouble with him.
She felt...absolutely elated. She had gone out to the bar tonight to do something. To shake things up. She had seen riding the bull as a kind of kickoff tour for her mini Independence Day.
Oh, it wasn’t one she was going to flaunt in front of her brothers or anything like that. It was just acknowledging that sense of resolve from earlier. She was going to have something that was just hers. Choices that were hers.
It had all started with taking this job, she realized. So, it was fitting that the rest of it would involve Levi, too.
“Okay,” she said.
“Still good?”
She gritted her teeth, and then made a decision, feeling much bolder than she should have.
She moved her hand over and pressed it against his thigh.
He was hard, hot. Then she slid her hand farther up, between his legs, capturing his length through denim.
He was big. Oh, Lord, he was big. She hadn’t realized.
.. Well, that just went to show how ignorant she was.
Maybe he was average, she didn’t know. But it was a hell of a lot bigger than she had imagined it might be.
It was going to be inside her.
Her internal muscles clenched, and she realized that rather than fear, she was overcome completely by excitement. Maybe that was the perk of waiting twenty-five years to lose your virginity. She was past ready.
He growled, jerking his car off the road and to a turnout spot next to the trees. Then he unbuckled his seat belt and moved over to the center of the bench seat, undoing her belt and hauling her into his lap. He kissed her, deep and hard, matching what had happened back at the bar.
Her head was spinning, her whole body on fire.
He stripped off her T-shirt, quickly and ruthlessly, his fingers deft on her bra. She didn’t even have time to worry about it. Didn’t have time to think. Her breasts were bare, and he was cupping them, sliding calloused thumbs over her nipples, teasing her, enticing her.
She felt like she was flying.
She wanted him to take her wherever this was going.
She wanted him to take control. She was used to being the one in control.
The one who knew what she was doing. She was a natural in her field, and that meant she always walked in knowing what she was doing.
Being the novice was a strange, amazing feeling, and she had the sense that if she’d been with a man any less masterful, it might feel diminishing.
Instead it just felt like—like a weight on her shoulders suddenly lifted.
Because he was bearing responsibility for all these feelings of pleasure in her body.
He was stoking the need, and soothing it just as quickly.
But all the while, a deep, endless ache was building between her legs and she wanted. .. She needed... She didn’t know.
But she knew that he knew. Oh, yes, he did.
He kissed her neck, cupping her head as he moved lower, as he captured one nipple between his lips and sucked her in deep.
It was so erotic, so filthy, and she couldn’t do anything but arch into his touch as he moved his attention to her other breast. He was fulfilling fantasies she hadn’t even known she’d had.
She had just never...thought about doing such a thing. And here he was, not only making it seem appealing, but it was also as if she might die if she didn’t have it.
He pulled his own shirt over his head, tugging her heart against his chest, his muscles, the hair there, adding delicious friction against her nipples, and she squirmed.
He wrapped his arm tightly around her waist, cupped her head and laid her back, somehow managing to strip her of her jeans and panties in record time in the close confines of the truck.
Then he took hold of the buckle on his belt, and she heard the rasp of fabric and metal as he worked the leather strap through, as he undid the zipper on his jeans.
She jumped when he pressed his hand between her thighs, moved his fingers through her slickness, drawing the moisture up over that sensitized bundle of nerves, then slid his thumb expertly back and forth, creating a kind of tension inside her she wasn’t sure she could withstand.
“I’ll make it last longer later,” he said gruffly. “Promise.”
But she didn’t really understand what he meant, and when she heard the tearing of a plastic packet, she only dimly registered what was about to happen.
Then he was kissing her again, and she didn’t think.
Until the blunt head of his arousal was pushing into her body, until he thrust hard and deep, a fierce, burning sensation claiming any of the pleasure she had felt a moment before.
She cried out, digging her fingernails into his shoulders, trying to blot out the pain that was rolling through her like a storm.
“Faith...”
She tensed up, turning her head away, freezing for a moment. “Don’t say anything,” she whispered.
“Sorry,” he said, sinking more deeply into her, a groan on his lips. “You feel so damn good.”
And that tortured admission did something to her, ignited something deep inside her that went past pain. That went past fear. The scary part was over. It was done. And the pain was already beginning to roll itself back.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered, curling her fingers around his neck and holding on as she shifted beneath him.
It was strange, this feeling. His body inside hers. How had she not realized? How intimate something like this would be?
Everybody talked about sex at university.
Gave great proclamations about what they liked and what they didn’t, had endless discussions about the when, the why and the with who.
But no one had ever said sex made you feel like someone hadn’t just entered your body, but your whole soul.
No one had said that you would want to run away and draw closer at the same time.
No one had said that it would be a great, wrenching pain followed by a deep, strange sense of connection that seemed to bloom into desire again as he shifted his hips and arched into her.
She tested what it might feel like if she moved against him, too, and found that she liked it.
With each and every thrust that he made into her body, animalistic sounds coming from deep inside of him, she met him.
Until her body was slick with sweat—his or hers, she didn’t know.
Until that fierce need she had felt the first time he had kissed her was back.
Until she thought she might die if she didn’t get more of him.
Until she no longer wanted to run at all.
He growled, his hardness pulsing inside her as he froze above her, slamming back into her one last time. And then, a release broke inside her like a wave, and she found herself drowning. In pleasure. In him.
And when he looked at her, she suddenly felt small and fragile. Any sense of being resolute crumbled.
And much to her horror, a tear slid down her cheek.
She was crying. God in heaven, the woman was crying.
No. He wasn’t going to think about God. Not right now. Because God had nothing to do with this. No, this was straight from hell, and he was one of the devil’s chosen. There was no other way to look at it.