Truth or Beard(77)

“Jess, you’re going to need to get off my lap and turn around. I can’t work these through the loops like this.”

She huffed, released a long, frustrated growl and shouted, “This is unbelievable!”

I pressed my lips together. I wasn’t going to laugh again, though I sorely wanted to. She was so angry and the cramped space of the car meant every time she twisted the elbow caught inside her dress nearly knocked me in the nose, forehead, or chin.

I had to help her off my lap and felt her eyes on me as I set her bottom on the seat to my side.

“I can’t believe you’re laughing. You’re still laughing.”

“I’m not,” I lied.

“You are!”

“It’s just,” I turned her around so I could see the row of buttons running down her back; I swear there were a hundred of them. “Why would you wear this? Who helped you button up?”

“No one. I used a mirror.”

“You must be crazy flexible.”

“I am.”

I stopped laughing.

“Hush, let me concentrate.”

I reached for the buttons again, but now she was laughing. And when she laughed she shook. But her laugh was also pure magic. I let my forehead fall to her shoulder, my hands dropping to her waist, and just listened to the sound while I breathed her in.

My earlier conviction surfaced again: our first time wasn’t going to be in a car. No. I wanted to be with her, make her laugh, make her crazy, take my time, take her time. Even if she didn’t care about the where and how, I did.

As her laughter receded, I withdrew and gathered a fortifying breath, zipping my zipper and searching for my shirt.

She glanced over her shoulder and I noticed she’d freed her elbow from where it had been trapped in her dress, pushing it back through the sleeve. A smile lingered on her lips, but her eyebrows drew together with a question.

“What are you doing?”

“Take off your boots,” I ordered gruffly, recovering my shirt and pulling it over my head.

She only hesitated for a second before I heard the zipper of her boots release and I glanced at her legs. Beneath the boots she’d been wearing long pink and black striped socks that reached almost to her knees. I dug my fingers into my thighs to keep from touching her legs, or rolling the socks down her sculpted calves.

“Duane?”

I lifted my eyes to hers, she was waiting for me to give direction.

“Take your panties off, Jessica.”

She hesitated, then asked, “What about the dress?”

I shook my head. “Just the panties.”

Her wide brown eyes studied my face for a beat and then she was lifting up her hips. I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to see her shimmy out of her underwear, but I imagined her sweet center exposed and I nearly reached for her. When she finished, I felt her hesitate next to me.

I opened my eyes, found her staring at me. Her cheeks were flushed. As I suspected, she was again waiting for me to give direction. The fact she was so willing and trusting strengthened my resolve.

“Climb on my lap.” My voice was softer this time.

She immediately did so, and reached for my fly at the same time.

I stilled her hands. “No. Leave it be.”

“But—”

“Shhhh…” I slipped my fingers beneath her skirt, savoring the skin of her legs. Her hands came to my shoulders for balance, and her eyes grew hazy as I brushed the back of my knuckles up her inner thighs.

“Duane,” she pleaded, both choking on and swallowing my name.

Lights from a passing car in the distance dimly illuminated the interior and I saw the Road Runner’s windows were completely fogged.

I stroked her with the tip of my middle finger and her thighs clenched, her eyes closed, and she stutter-sighed. Moving one hand around to her ass, because she had an amazing ass, I held her in place and touched her again, parting her, entering her once then teasing her with control and precision.

Watching Jessica was a revelation. Yeah, I was sporting angry wood at this point and my dick envied my hand, but how she responded to me, how she moved and sighed and pleaded, wound itself around my chest, filled my lungs. I experienced something akin to wonder.

She’d been right. It didn’t take long. When she gripped my wrist as she panted and rocked on my lap, her mindlessness at my hands made me want to give voice to my possessive and claiming thoughts.

Your body is mine.

This is mine.

You are mine.

I didn’t, though. Even as I felt her glorious body clench around my fingers and watched her come apart in beautiful waves, I swallowed the words.

Because she was mine.

But with an expiration date.





CHAPTER 15


“The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees only what he has come to see.”