She fiddled with the radio, cocked her head long enough to send him a feline, female smile, then leaned back again. Re-crossed her legs. The dress snuck up another half inch.
He worried he might drool.
Whatever she'd put on the radio came to him only in bass. Pumping, throbbing bass. The rest was white noise, static in the brain.
"You're risking lives here," he told her, and only made her laugh.
"I could make it more dangerous. I could tell you what I want you to do to me. How I want you to take me. I'm in the mood to be taken. To be used." She trailed a finger up and down the center of her body. "A few weeks ago, or longer than that, did you ever imagine taking me, Jack? Using me?"
"Yes. The first time was after that morning I saw you on the beach. Only, when I imagined it, it was night, and I walked down and pulled you into the water, into surf. I could taste your skin and the salt. I had your breasts in my hands, in my mouth, while the water beat over us. I took you on the wet sand while the waves crashed, until all you could say was my name."
"That's a long time ago." Her voice went thick. "A long time to imagine. I know one thing. We really need to go back to the beach."
The laugh should've eased some of the ache, but only increased it. Another first, Jack concluded: A woman who could make him laugh and burn at the same time.
He whipped the car off the road and onto the long drive of the Brown Estate.
There were lights glowing on the third floor, both wings of the main house, and the glimmer of them in Mac's studio. And there, thank God, the shine of Emma's porch light, and the lamp she'd left on low inside.
He hit the release for his seat belt even as he hit the brakes. Before she could do the same, he managed to shift toward her, grab hold of her and let his mouth ravish hers.
He molded her breasts, gave himself the pleasure of riding his hands up those legs, under that seductive red.
She closed her teeth over his tongue, a quick, erotic trap, and struggled with his fly.
He managed to yank down one shoulder of her dress before he rammed his knee into the gear shift.
"Ouch," she said on a breathless laugh. "We'll have to add knee pads to the elbow pads."
"Damn car's too small. We'd better get inside before we hurt ourselves."
Her hands gripped his jacket, yanked to bring him back for one more wild kiss. "Hurry."
They shoved out of opposite sides of the car, then bolted for each other. Another breathless laugh, a desperate moan, sounded in the silence. They stumbled, grappled, and groped as their mouths clashed.
She yanked and tugged his jacket away as they circled up the walk like a pair of mad dancers. When they reached the door she simply shoved him back against it. Her mouth warred with his, breaking only so she could drag his sweater up, nails scraping flesh before she tossed it aside.
The heels and the angle brought her mouth level with his jaw. She bit it as she whipped the belt out of his pants, and tossed that aside as well.
Jack fumbled behind him for the doorknob, and they both lurched inside. Now he pushed her back to the door, yanked her arms over her head and handcuffed her wrists with his hand. Keeping her trapped, he shoved her skirt up and found her. Just her, already hot for him, already wet. And her gasp ended on a cry when he drove her hard and fast to climax.
"How much can you take?" he demanded.
Breath ragged, body still erupting, she met his eyes. "All you've got."
He drove her up again, beyond moans and cries, storming her system with his hands, with his mouth. Heat sheathed her, slicked her skin as he dragged the dress down to free her breasts, to feed on them. Everything she wanted, more than she could imagine, rough and urgent, he used and exploited her body.
Owned her, she thought. Did he know? Could he know?
Want was enough, to want like this, be wanted like this. She would make it enough. And wanting him, craving him, she braced against the door and wrapped a leg around his waist.
"Give me more."
She consumed him, in that moment before he plunged inside her, the look, the feel, the taste of her consumed him. Then with a new kind of madness, he took her against the door, battering them both while her hair tumbled out of its pins, while she said his name over and over.
Release was both brutal and glorious.
He wasn't entirely sure he was still standing, or that his heart would ever beat normally again. It continued to jackhammer in his chest, making the basic act of breathing a challenge.
"Are we still alive?" he managed.
"I . . . I don't think I could feel like this if I wasn't. But I do think my life passed before my eyes at one point."
"Was I there?"
"In every scene."
He gave himself another minute, then eased back. He was indeed still standing, he noted. And so was she-flushed and glowing, and naked but for a pair of sky-high sexy heels.