12. Andrew #3
Then she moved across the bench. “You’re going to have to learn to negotiate better.”
Her mouth met his before the sentence fully left her.
He had intended to hold still. Take the one kiss he had named, give it back with restraint, and put the truck in gear.
His hand went into her hair and found the pins.
One came loose. Another followed.
Amanda made a sound against his mouth and climbed closer, one knee coming onto the bench between them. The skirt caught under her. She pulled it free without breaking the kiss, silk sliding above her knee, and the sight of her bare leg beside his hip tore the last useful thought out of him.
He kissed her harder.
She answered with the same hunger.
Her fingers went into his hair under the brim of his hat. The hat hit the floor. She pushed his coat open, got her hands inside it, and pulled his shirt free at the waist with none of the care she had shown the room all evening.
Her palms found his stomach.
Andrew groaned into her mouth.
She drew back enough to breathe. “Was that you?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
He kissed her again.
She laughed into it, and the laugh nearly ended him.
He caught her at the waist and brought her across his lap. The steering wheel blocked her hip. She shifted, struck the horn, and the blast filled the turnout.
Amanda jumped. Then she buried her face against his neck, laughing so hard her shoulders shook.
Andrew shut his eyes.
“I have hated this truck for fifteen years,” he said.
“That seems ungrateful.”
“It has never helped me once.”
“It just announced your intentions to the entire mountain.”
“My intentions were quieter before you climbed on me.”
She lifted her head. Her hair had come half down. Her lipstick was gone. Her eyes looked dark in the dash light and entirely certain.
“You told me one kiss.”
“I was wrong.”
“There. That wasn’t so painful.”
“You have no idea.”
She kissed him before he could recover any sense.
His hands moved down her back, found the narrow place at her waist, then the silk gathered above her knees. Beneath it, the legs he had watched hold a horse, lift a calf, and carry her through twelve stalls were warm and strong around him.
He slid one hand under the dress.
Amanda’s breath broke against his mouth.
He stopped.
Every muscle in him objected.
“Tell me,” he said.
Her eyes opened. “Tell you what?”
“To stop.”
“That is not what I want.”
“Say what you want.”
A flush rose under the makeup Mary Jo had applied so carefully.
Then Amanda, who had spent the entire evening making composure look effortless, put her hand over his and drew it higher.
“You,” she said. “I want you. And if you stop again, Andrew Stevens, I may put this truck through another one of your fences.”
The sound that came out of him was low and rough.
He kissed her again and slid his hand higher beneath the dress. She was already wet, and the knowledge of it went through him with enough force to make his grip tighten at her waist.
Amanda shifted over him, fighting the narrow space between his body and the wheel. The silk bunched around her hips. She reached between them, pushed her underwear aside, and touched herself while he watched.
Two strokes.
Her lashes lowered. Her mouth opened.
Andrew nearly lost what remained of his control.
“Amanda.”
“Don’t you dare stop now.”
He got his belt loose with one hand and no grace at all. The buckle caught. She tried to help, their fingers colliding in the cramped dark.
“You’re in the way,” she whispered.
“You’re sitting on me.”
“That was your idea.”
“It was not.”
She laughed against his mouth, then reached down and freed him.
The laughter vanished.
Her hand closed around him, and his head went back against the seat. She looked at him as she moved her hand once, slowly, the certainty in her face doing more damage than the touch.
He caught her hips.
“Wait.”
“For what?”
He looked at her. “You’re sure.”
She rose enough to position him beneath her.
“I have never been more sure of anything involving this truck.”
Then she lowered herself.
The first inch stopped both of them.
Her fingers tightened against his shoulders. Andrew held her perfectly still, every muscle in his body drawn hard while she adjusted around him.
Her breath shook.
“All right?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He waited.
She moved again, taking him deeper, her forehead dropping to his. The tight heat of her closed around him by degrees until she sat fully across his lap, trembling.
Andrew shut his eyes.
“Look at me,” she said.
He opened them.
She lifted and came down again.
The movement was awkward at first. The wheel crowded her back. His knees had nowhere useful to go. The dress tangled around both of them. Amanda tried another angle and nearly struck the horn again.
Andrew caught her before she did.
“That thing has already contributed enough,” he said.
She laughed, breathless, and the laugh tightened her around him.
“Christ.”
“You liked that.”
“I did not.”
She did it again deliberately.
His hands closed around her hips.
The teasing ended.
He drove up into her as she came down, and the cab filled with the small rough sounds neither of them could control. She braced one hand against the roof and caught the back of his neck with the other. Her hair fell around them, shutting out the windshield, the road, the whole dark mountain.
Andrew pulled the front of the dress down far enough to bare one breast. He bent and took her nipple into his mouth.
Amanda cried out and rode him harder.
There was no rhythm at first, only hunger. Her knees fought the narrow bench. His shoulder struck the door. The old truck rocked under them while she moved over him with all the strength he had watched her build during the past month.
He put one hand between them.
Her body jolted.
“Andrew.”
He found the place that made her lose the next breath and stayed there, circling while she rode him. Her head tipped back. The hand against the roof curled into a fist.
“Let me hear you,” he said against her breast.
She shook her head once, still holding something back.
He pressed harder.
“Amanda.”
Her eyes opened.
“Let go.”
She did.
His name broke out of her, loud in the closed cab. Her thighs tightened around him. The first contraction caught him deep inside her, followed by another, and Andrew held her hips while her body took over.
She came with her forehead against his, breath tearing between them, every pulse of her drawing him closer to the edge.
He tried to slow her.
She would not let him.
“Again,” she said.
“Amanda—”
“Again.”
She rose and drove herself down on him, once, twice, her mouth open against his jaw. Andrew caught one breast in his hand and put his mouth to the other, and whatever control he had left went out of him.
“I’m close.”
“Good.”
Her answer nearly finished him.
He thrust up hard. She met him, her body moving with less rhythm now and more need, chasing something that had not fully released her the first time.
Andrew felt the second orgasm begin before she did.
Her whole body tightened.
“There,” he said. “Stay with it.”
She made a broken sound and came again, harder, collapsing forward as the pleasure tore through her. Her fingers dug into his shoulders. Her face pressed into his neck. She kept moving because neither of them knew how to stop.
Andrew held her through the last few strokes and gave way beneath her with a rough sound he could not have swallowed if the whole county had been standing outside the truck.
For several seconds, nothing existed except her weight across him and the hard, slowing beat of her heart.
Amanda’s breathing warmed his neck.
The engine idled beneath them.
The heater blew steadily at their feet.
She lifted her head, her hair everywhere, her face flushed and pleased.
“And you didn’t think I could ride.”
Andrew stared at her.
Then he laughed.
The sound surprised him enough that it became another one. Amanda smiled and rested her forehead against his.
“Do that again,” she said.
“No.”
“I like it.”
“That is unfortunate.”
She kissed him, softer now.
Andrew put his hand against her cheek. She turned her face into his palm, and the tenderness of it frightened him more than anything they had just done.
For a while they stayed in a heap, one body straddling the other.
The engine idled.
The heater breathed.
Wind moved through the firs beyond the glass.
Amanda sat across his lap with the green dress gathered around them, her hair down, her breathing warm against his neck. Andrew’s heart struck hard under her palm.
She raised her head first.
“Well,” she said.
He looked at her.