Chapter 8 Sloane
SLOANE
The heat is unbearable. My skin is on fire, flushed from three hours of drinking Mira's overly sweet mixed drinks and dancing in a crowded diner. The truck's heater is blasting, adding to the suffocating warmth, and I can't take it anymore.
I shrug off Dane's flannel and crank down the window.
Cold October air rushes in, shocking and perfect against my overheated skin.
The temperature outside has dropped—feels close to freezing, the kind of cold that promises snow before morning.
I lean toward the open window, letting the wind whip my hair around my face.
"Close the window," Dane grumbles in an angry tone. He's been that way since we left the diner, his grumpy old man act on point tonight.
"I'm hot." I lean farther out, letting the cold air wash over me. The stars are brilliant tonight, crystal clear against a gunmetal sky. The rush of wind and the hum of tires on pavement fill my ears.
"Sloane," he shouts, "get back in the truck."
There's that tone again, the commanding one that makes my stomach flip. It's the predator I know he is under the surface fighting to be seen, but if he wanted me dead, he'd just turn me loose. I grin at him and lean out farther, almost halfway through the window now, arms stretched toward the sky.
The alcohol makes me bold.
A hand grips my waist, hauling me back inside the truck before the window slides up, sealing us in together. Dane's jaw is even tighter now when I glare at him for locking me into the heat, a muscle ticking near his temple.
"What the hell are you doing?" His eyes stay on the road, but I can feel the tension radiating off him.
"Having fun. You should try it sometime." I'm pressed against the seat now, his hand still resting on my waist where he grabbed me. The touch burns through the thin fabric of my dress.
"You're drunk."
"No, I'm not… I'm fine." I shift in the seat, turning to face him. The dress rides up my thighs and I don't bother adjusting it. "You know what I think?"
"No, but I'm sure you're gonna tell me." His eyes stare straight forward, but I'd like him to look at me.
"I think you like being bossy, ordering me around, telling me what to do, keeping me locked up in your cabin." I lean closer, watching his profile in the dashboard lights. "If you're going to boss me around, you should at least make it fun."
His knuckles go white on the steering wheel. "Watch yourself."
"Or what?" The alcohol has stripped away my filter and my self-preservation instincts. All that's left is the attraction I've been fighting for two weeks, the awareness of him that I can't ignore anymore. "What are you going to do to me, Dane?"
He doesn't answer. He just keeps driving, that muscle still ticking in his jaw. And now there's a pulse in his temple too, throbbing in time with his heartbeat.
I let my hand drift across the center console, fingers trailing over his thigh. The muscle tenses beneath my touch, so I move higher, bolder, feeling the heat of him through denim.
"You like what you see?" I ask him, and I'm practically crawling over the damn console. "Been wondering if you've noticed me walking around your cabin in your clothes. If you've thought about what's underneath them."
"Sloane." Dane's growl is a warning, but it doesn't deter me. This man has driven me up a wall for weeks now with his bossiness. And when he walks around without a shirt, holy fuck, I have to keep my hands to myself.
"Maybe you want to find out?" My fingers trace higher, and I feel him respond. And there's no mistaking the rock under that zipper. "Maybe you want a girl in your bed tonight. Or am I too young for you?"
I can see the war happening behind his eyes—control versus lust, discipline versus desire.
My hand moves over the bulge in his jeans and he makes a sound low in his throat while his jaw works, tensing and tightening as he turns down the gravel lane that snakes through the trees in the final climb to his cabin.
"You're playing with fire." He's barely controlling himself, and I like that. I can uncage this beast by being just a little flirtatious, and I like that I'm getting under his skin.
"Good… I'm cold." I find his zipper, slowly pulling it down. The sound seems impossibly loud, and as much as I've had to drink, I'm amazed I have the coordination. "Maybe you should warm me up."
He doesn't push my hand away, so I work him free from his jeans, wrapping my fingers around hot, hard flesh. He's bigger than I expected, and touching him makes my groin throb and flush with heat.
I stroke him slowly, watching his face, watching the control crack. His hips lift slightly into my touch while his shoulders stiffen and his jaw tightens more. The truck swerves minutely before he corrects, but his focus is definitely not on the road anymore.
"You keep doing that and we're going to crash," he manages.
"Then drive faster." I increase the pressure, my hand moving in a steady rhythm. "Get us home so you can show me what happens when I misbehave."
His eyes are wild and dark with lust when he glances at me. "You don't know what you're asking for."
"Don't I?" I lean closer, lips near his ear. "I'm asking you to stop being so controlled all the time. I want you to use some of that angry, bossy energy and punish me for being bad."
Dane's hand leaves the steering wheel and grips my wrist, stopping my movement but not pulling me away.
"You're drunk," he says again, but there's less conviction this time. He's actually thinking about it, and it only encourages me that he's trying to stop me. Fuck, I'd wrap my lips around it if I didn't think he'd drive this old beater off a cliff.
"I'm aware of every choice I'm making right now." I meet his eyes, making sure he understands. "And I'm aware that you're once again controlling me, and I don't like that."
He releases my wrist, and I resume stroking him, feeling him get impossibly harder in my hand. The truck speeds up, eating the distance to the cabin faster than legal or safe. His breathing is harsh, controlled only by the thinnest thread of discipline.
By the time we reach the cabin, he's so hard I can feel him throbbing against my palm.
Precum drips from his head, slicking my movements.
He parks by the cabin and kills the engine, and I lower my body over the console as if I might start sucking him, but he grabs me by the shoulders and forces me upward.
"Sloane, you're beyond the point of consent…" His grip on my shoulders is almost bruising.
Looking him in the eye, I can see the final thread.
He's ready to break and take what he wants, and I'm ready to push him over the edge.
"Then get your phone out and record me saying how badly I want your dick inside me. When I wake up wrecked, play it for me so I remember this moment. But don’t leave me aching… "
This whole night, I've been on fire, dancing, watching him watching me.
I noticed the way his eyes drink me in and I felt how hard he was getting for his "sister" while we danced.
He thinks he's fooling me and he's not. He wants to fuck me as badly as I want him. I don't want to go to bed unsatisfied.
Dane slides out of the truck, leaving the keys hanging, and walks around the front.
I watch every step with a smirk on my face as he finds my door and opens it.
My ass is still in the air, and I look back over my shoulder at him as he reaches for me, pulling me out until the cold air kisses my skin again and he pins me against the side of the truck.
"You like teasing me?" he growls. His chest presses against my back, tits crushed to the cold metal as he gently closes the door.
"Who said I'm teasing?" I mewl, bucking my hips backward to make my ass grind on that cock still as hard as rock.
"I don't play nice." Dane's fingers grip my hips hard, and he pulls me against his body.
I feel the full length of his erection against my tailbone and it makes me groan when he bites down on my bare shoulder.
His stubble scrapes my skin and my core throbs with need.
"I'm gonna show you exactly what happens when you tease a man who's been holding back for too long. "
"So show me, then," I say, and I lean back into him.
Before I can even think, he has me in his arms as he marches toward the front door.
I cling to his shoulders and shut my eyes briefly as I allow the alcohol to swim in my head.
This feeling is incredible—of being drunk and so fucking horny, my body could fuck him all night long and never get tired.
And it's been building for weeks now, so close to exploding, I swear he'll touch me and I'll come on his hand instantly.
When he sets me down inside, it takes exactly a split second for his hand to slide up my back and knot in my hair. He pulls, exposing the column of my neck to his teeth for a satisfying love bite while he growls and grinds his pelvis against my thigh.
"God, woman, you're driving me insane."
"That's the point, right? Get you so worked up, you lose control and fuck me." I grin and let him pull my hair harder, and then his mouth finds mine and my jaw drops slack for his tongue to search my mouth.
The growl he makes is pure satisfaction.
He backs me toward his room where I've not been allowed to go until now, then he releases my hair and opens the bedroom door, guiding me inside with a hand on the small of my back.
The room is dark except for moonlight streaming through the window, giving just enough light for me to see him tearing his shirt off.
"Strip," he orders as he kicks off his boots, and he doesn't have to tell me twice.
I reach for the zipper of my dress, but my hands are shaking—from alcohol, from anticipation, from the sheer intensity of his gaze on me. I manage to get it halfway down before he loses patience and yanks the dress down. I hear the distinct rip of fabric before the dress pools at my feet.