Can't Shake You (11 page)

You’re never gonna last, man.

The woman had no idea what she was asking. No idea the fucked up thoughts in his head. Sure, it would be easy enough to give them what they both wanted and get off on her once again. After all, he’d had a hell of a time thinking about anything else this past week.

But she had to realize that giving in to their primal urges was wrong in every way imaginable. And the repercussions for getting involved again, if anyone ever found out, would be nothing less than nasty for both of them.

It had been good between him and Carissa. Damn good. But was what they shared that
one night
worth the risk of irreparably damaging a friendship that meant so much to both of them?

He also cared way too much about
her
to make her any more vulnerable as a result of what they’d done. Regardless of whatever this was—or had been—between them, he valued her friendship too.

“Josh...”

He swallowed against the need in his chest and shook his head. “I can’t do this, baby girl. I’m sorry.”

***

H
e shot her down. Not what she’d hoped for, but then she’d expected as much, hadn’t she?

Carissa watched as he stalked into the living room, overturned a five-gallon bucket and sat, elbows on his knees, head hung in his hands. He pushed his fingers back through his hair, the expression on his handsome face and the lines of his big, muscled body all tight and conflicted.

“You didn’t answer my question, hot shot,” she said, slowly following after him, her heels clicking one at a time against the floor, until she stood only a few feet in front of him.

“And I’m not going to. Christ, Carissa, you know this is a bad idea.” He covered his face with his hands and muttered an audible
fuck
.

“You think going on like we’ve been is any better? The way I see it, you and I have unfinished business. And it’s making every interaction we have together awkward as hell. Either we do something about it or this tension between us continues.”

“We do something about it,” he mocked her, “and we risk screwing things up even more. How could it possibly end any other way?”

“I don’t have any expectations, Josh. All I’m looking for is someone to help take the edge off. I haven’t been with anyone in a long time. And you know as well as I do that I don’t have a lot of options around here. With you, the damage is already done.” The unspoken
“How much worse could it get?”
hung in the air.

He folded his hands together and tapped his thumbs. One of his heels bounced anxiously in beat. “For you and I maybe. But not as far as anyone else is concerned, because no one knows what we did. When they find out—and odds are they will, Carissa, you know that—the consequences won’t be pretty. I’ve seen it before. I
lived
it. And I don’t want that for either of us.”

“This isn’t high school, Josh.”

“No, it’s not. But that doesn’t change anything.”

“We could try not to get caught.”

He grunted wryly. “It’s never that easy.”

Probably not. But there was plenty between them that
was
easy. And she’d be damned if she’d let him walk away without a reminder.

***

H
e didn’t have time to react when she came at him, swinging a leg around to straddle him and sink down into his lap. The position had her legs spread wide and the short hem of her dress sliding high, effectively wrapping him up in the cocoon of those hot, sexy thighs he loved so much. Goddamn.

A rush of scorching blood coursed through his veins, igniting his already twitching nerves and stiffening his cock. No, his self-control definitely wasn’t going to last,

“Carissa...” Her name was a warning on his lips, even as his hands went to her hips to hold her in place, because, Christ, the heat from her core pressing against his erection felt good. Too good.

“I want you, Josh. And I’m sick and tired of pretending I don’t.” Her airy whisper puffed across his face as she leaned in and folded her arms around his neck, her fingers a greedy temptation in his hair. The tip of her tongue slid across her bottom lip and her teeth sank into the corner as she eyed his mouth, a hunger he recognized and understood all too well brewing in those bewitching amber depths.

His fingers flexed into her soft flesh and all of his limbs shook. He could have her again, if he let himself. And he was pretty sure it’d be the most amazing experience he’d ever had. He’d only been gearing up for another opportunity with her for three years.

“But Fletcher...” he croaked, his mouth a hairsbreadth away from hers. Wanting. Needing. So tempted.

“This is about you and me, Josh. No one else.”

His breath lodged in his chest and a surge of that damn possession sluiced through him once again. Yeah, this was all theirs, wasn’t it? This crazy friggin’ chemistry that sizzled and sparked between them whenever they were even remotely close to one another. He’d felt the intense pull the first time they’d met and every other encounter they’d shared since.

“Kiss me,” she murmured and how the hell could he deny her with all that torture and longing her eyes?

He shouldn’t do it. He really shouldn’t, but...

He crashed his mouth up to hers, capturing her gasp and letting it fill him up like fuel, igniting the embers of desire that had lain smoldering for so long.

She fisted his hair and met every stroke of his tongue with ravenous ones of her own. Like she couldn’t get enough of him. Had to taste all of him right then. And feeling her desperation, knowing his lust for her hadn’t gone unrequited did amazing things to his ego.

The knowledge made his head spin. Made his pulse race. Made him want to tear away her panties and bury himself in her that instant, because that connection with her was the only thing that was gonna make him believe this was real.

Carissa. In his arms. Again.

She broke away from the kiss and her mouth was hot and wet on the underside of his jaw, licking and nipping at him like he was her first meal in a very long time. He knew the feeling, understood the urgency, and reciprocated by sliding his hands beneath her ass and digging his fingers into her soft, supple flesh.

She rewarded him with a sweet, delicate pressure on the side of his neck that would probably leave a mark. He didn’t friggin’ care. Instead, he shifted his hands up to her breasts, cupping and kneading the full, perfect curves, and cursing the sexy, but restrictive cut of her dress. He wanted her skin beneath his fingers, her hardened nipples against his palms. Her, whispering his name and begging him for more.

“Mmm, yes,” she moaned when he stroked his thumbs over the twin points tightened beneath the layers of lace. When he pinched, she gasped and trembled in his arms, involuntarily bouncing against his throbbing cock and damn near making his eyes roll back in his head.

“Jesus, woman,” he growled against her collarbone. He loved how sensitive she was and that she wasn’t afraid to let him know what she liked and what she wanted, but he’d been hard for her for so long, he’d embarrass himself before they got started if he wasn’t careful.

He captured her mouth again, desperate to draw out the moments, and she softened a bit too, kissing him with less urgency and more tenderness.

Ah, hell, he didn’t want slow and sweet either, because this wasn’t about affection and emotion. This was about alleviating raw need and years’ worth of pent-up desire. He may go straight to Hell for what he was about to do, but there was no doubt in his mind she’d be worth it.

Wrapping an arm beneath her ass, he pushed to his feet.

“You sure you want this?” he growled against her ear as she curled her legs around his hips.

He felt the wicked promise of her smile, hot against his ear. “Am I sure I want you to fuck me? Hell, yes. And the sooner you get me out of this dress, the better.”

***

“Y
ou’re gonna kill me, you know that?”

“Consider it payback for the past three years,” she said as his fingers dug into her bottom, clearly reacting to her blatant declaration.

“Pretty sure we’re already even on that front, babe.” He started to carry her toward the kitchen, but slowed up. “This place is not conducive to sex.”

“Blanket in the back bedroom. Brought some things over earlier.”

When he took off at near jog for the back of the house, she almost laughed. But neither of them was naked enough for that. She wasn’t taking any chances on him having time or motivation to change his mind.

She reached around his shoulder to flick on the bedroom light as he let her slide to the floor. She watched him snatch up the thick throw blanket from a nearby box and spread it out on the floor, before he turned back to her, his head low like a wild animal on the prowl.

“Take off your dress,” he demanded.

“I’d much rather you did that.”

His grin was completely feral. “Gladly.”

He stalked forward, roughly turned her away from him and yanked down the zipper. His rough, calloused hands slid in along her bare waist, one smoothing up to cup a breast over her bra and the other down into the front of her panties.

Mmm, yes. Apparently he wasn’t in the mood for wasting time either.

She shrugged out of the dress, clumsily inverting the sleeves and then losing her balance a bit as she slid it over her hips.

He caught her, a big hand splayed over her belly, and he lowered to a squat behind her, as he helped her step out of stretchy fabric.

“I suppose you want me to leave the shoes on.” She tossed a coy smile down at him.

Shifting those wild blue eyes up to her, he gave his head a single shake. “I don’t give a shit about the shoes. I’m much more interested in this.” And then he slid a hand from her ankle all the way up to the inside of her thigh, teasing the tips of his fingers beneath her panties and along the seam of her sex. “You’re wet. For me or for the lawyer?”

“You seriously need to ask that?” She shifted her legs apart to give him better access.

“Maybe I wanna hear you say it.”

Oh, hell yeah. “I’m wet for you, Josh. Only you.”

His free hand squeezed her ass, while the other continued to tease over her folds, barely dipping in where she wanted him most, torturing her with anticipation. “You know this will only happen once, right?” he said lowly.

She nodded, breathless with anticipation. “Once is all I need.
Please
.”

“P
lease what?” She felt the rough pad of his thumb brush across her sex as the tip of one of his fingers slid upward, purposely grazing her clit with a barely-there touch.

She jerked back against his hand, driving that finger harder against the greedy bundle of nerves. He met her moan with a low chuckle.

“Damn, baby girl. All you had to do was ask.” And then he was there, his fingers exactly where she needed them, rubbing and strumming her, tuning her up for what was sure to be the most amazing orgasm she’d had in a very, very long time.

She closed her eyes and bit her lip, savoring every caress and loving the slow, hot fire he built low in her belly. She felt his hot lips and bristly jaw brush over her hip and then the fleshy part of her ass, before he blatantly teased her with an open-mouthed kiss that made her whimper for more.

Another chuckle. This one wickedly close to where she wanted him, vibrating through her body, hitting her right at the center of her current universe.

“Josh, please...”

But he was one step ahead of her, pulling aside the lace of her panties and replacing it with his tongue. She collapsed forward, hands on her knees, fingernails digging into her own skin as she pushed herself back against his face.

She’d dreamed of this so many times. His mouth on her. So knowing and so eager to please. It wouldn’t take long. She knew it wouldn’t. It never did in her imagination and the real thing was so...much...freaking...better. His lips on her sex, his tongue along her folds, his fingers sliding in and out, mimicking what was to come.

She rocked back and he wrapped an arm around her waist to hold her steady. Just as well, because his magic mouth was starting to seriously make her legs shake and her head spin.

“Ooh, Josh, I...” She bit her bottom lip to keep from calling out as his lips and then his teeth fastened around her clit and sucked with the perfect amount of delicious pressure. She felt like she was floating up toward the sky, balancing precariously on a tightrope. Suspended. And then she crashed, bucking and convulsing against him as she came.

He slowed his ministrations, but kept at her until every last shudder escaped her body. When he slapped her ass, all the blood in her body surged right back to the apex of her legs.

“Turn,” came the gruff, masculine voice from between her legs. Then suddenly she was being shifted around, her panties and shoes stripped away in the process. Josh dropped to the floor then and, with an arm behind her knees and a hand against her lower back, he spread her out on the blanket.

He nudged her legs apart with his thighs and the rough rub of his shorts against her sensitive skin alerted her, in her hazy state of arousal, that he was completely overdressed. She jackknifed up and yanked his t-shirt over his head, her hands going a million different directions at once. All over the hard, smooth muscles and the light dusting of dark hair across his chest, down over his rippled abs and that fine trail of hair that bisected them from his belly button downward. She leaned in and licked at the collage of colors on his left bicep while he rid her of her bra, but then he wound a hand in her hair and guided her back, away from him.

“I’m not done with you yet,” he growled, following her down onto the blanket, his mouth on her neck and then her breasts, all tongue and lips, wet and scorching until she arched against him, panting and scoring his back with her nails. She felt him grin as he circled a lazy tongue around one nipple, his thumb on the other.

“You’re wicked.” Her groan turned to a soft laugh, as she covered her face with her hands, a little embarrassed at how easily he could work her into such frenzy. It had been like this before too and frankly a small part of her had wondered if she’d given the memories of his ability too much credit. She hadn’t. He was every bit as talented and in tune with her body as she remembered. Better even.