There wouldn’t be a later. She didn’t want to trade secrets. The things they’d talked about tonight were already enough to leave her feeling raw and vulnerable. She didn’t need more. So Carrigan leaned down and kissed him. He growled against her mouth and shifted them, laying her down on the backseat. The new position shoved him even deeper inside her and she moaned. Yes. This. This is what I need.
He knew it, too.
James hooked her leg over his arm and spread her wider, so he could grind against her clit. “This is what you want, lovely.” He pulled almost all the way out and thrust hard enough that she had to reach over her head with one hand to keep from sliding into the side of the car. He jerked her back down and did it again. “You want my cock, you want the way it feels when I fuck you.”
Yes. Oh God, yes. But she clamped her mouth shut to keep the words inside. She wouldn’t give him more than she already had. “Stop. Talking. And. Fuck. Me.”
The bastard laughed. “Struck a nerve, didn’t I?” He dug a hand into her hair and held her close as he did exactly what she demanded. James fucked her like this was his heaven, like each stroke might be his last, like he’d never get enough. “And you damn well know how much I like to talk when I’m inside you.” He kept going, never breaking stride, though his voice had dropped an octave. “You make me crazy, lovely. You’re so wet and tight, and the noises coming out of your mouth make me never want to stop.”
She never wanted him to stop. She bit his shoulder. “Harder.”
“Hell, lovely, I’d give you damn near anything you wanted if you demand it in that voice.”
Take me away. Once again, she managed to stop the words before they left her lips. That wasn’t what this thing with James was about. He was here to make her forget for a little while. Not forever. There was an expiration date on what they were doing, and she’d be a fool to forget that. So she gripped his hair and held him tight. “Make me come, James.”
He kept up that delicious rhythm that had her spiraling closer and closer to the edge with each thrust. “Next time you’ll be coming against my mouth. I’m going to fucking worship your pussy with my tongue until you’re begging.” He slammed into her. “You want that.”
It wasn’t a question, but it didn’t matter. She answered anyway. “Yes. Oh God, yes.” Her mind shattered into a million pieces, scattering to the wind, and she clung to him as he kept going until his rhythm faltered and he followed her over the edge with a curse.
She slowly came back to herself one sense at a time. The sound of his rough breathing. The intoxicating smell of sex and leather. The way he held her like she was something precious. Her heartbeat picked up. I’ve just made a terrible mistake.
Everything had changed.
James rolled over, taking Carrigan with him, so that she was sprawled across his chest—as much as a person could sprawl in this backseat. She’d gone tense, so he figured it was only a matter of time before she bolted. Though, considering where they were, she wasn’t going to get far. He stroked a hand down her hair. “Breathe, lovely.”
“I am breathing.” She started to move off him but stopped when she must have realized there was nowhere to go but the floorboard. “You’re not going to toss me into the trunk, are you?”
Guilt threatened to choke him, but he forced it down. “Don’t throw that in my face. We’re past it.”
“You might be. Maybe I’m not.” She reached around and came up with her dress. “Please take me home.”
She was lying. Just like it had before, this thing that flared between them scared the shit out of her. He’d seen it on her face the first time they had sex, which was why he’d demanded her name—so he could find her again. How things played out after that…yeah, it was shitty. But she was past it. She wouldn’t have called him tonight if she hadn’t finally accepted that he never would have let his father and brother hurt her. Which meant she was in panic mode again right now. He could force her to sit here and talk it out.
Or he could let her go.
Really, it wasn’t much of a dilemma. If he’d learned anything about Carrigan, it was that she’d go for a person’s throat if they backed her into a corner. People had been putting her in cages her entire life. He wasn’t about to be one of them.
So he sat up. “Okay.”
She froze in the middle of shimmying into her dress. “What?”
“I said okay. I’ll take you home. Just give me a second to get my pants.” He didn’t want tonight to end with her running from him, because he wasn’t done with Carrigan O’Malley. Not by a long shot. James pulled on his jeans and shoes and then pushed the front seat up so he could climb out into the night. He offered his hand to help her out, but she ignored it. So that was how it would be. Fine. He pushed the seat back into place and held the door so she could take the passenger seat. It was going to be a long ride back if the way she crossed her arms over her chest was any indication. He’d need the distraction of driving.