Revved (18 page)

“A day.”

“A day?” I say, aghast. I look back to him, my eyes wide with shock. All trace of my jealousy is gone.

“Yeah…” He lets out a wistful sigh, which punches me straight in the chest. “Her name was Payton Ahearn. Totally loved her, and she dumped me for fucking Tommy O’Connor, all because he got her a necklace. I never did get over it. She ruined me for all other women.”

My face creases in confusion.

“I was six.” He grins.

“You’re an idiot.” I giggle. I actually fucking giggle.
What the hell is wrong with me?

Aside from the fact that I’m turning into a total girl, I’d say it’s relief. I’m relieved because no one has held his heart yet.

Why, Andi? Because you want it, him, for yourself?

“I am an idiot.” The seriousness in his voice moves through me, bringing my attention back to him.

His eyes hold mine, and something unknown in them captivates me. But I want to know. And it’s how badly I want to know that is scaring the hell out of me right now.

Usher ends, and Rihanna begins singing “Diamonds.”

“I’m sorry about China,” he says the words so softly.

My eyes dip, right along with my heart. The grip my fingers had on his dinner jacket loosens. “I know.” I sigh lightly. “You’ve already said. And I already told you, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

His fingers find my chin, lifting my face to his. “Yes, I did. I proved to you that I’m everything you think I am. You stopped our kiss because you think I’m a player, that I use women.”

“You do use women, and you are a player. But that’s not why I stopped kissing you.”

His brows pull together as his hand moves back to my waist. “So, why?”

“Because I don’t get involved with drivers.”

“You say that a lot.”

“I say it because it’s true.”

“And why exactly don’t you get involved with drivers?”

“Aside from the fact that I work for them…for
you
.” I flash him a serious stare before looking away. “I have my reasons.”

“Ones you’re not going to tell me?”

My eyes come back to his, giving him my answer.

“And what if I wasn’t a driver? Would you have sex with me then?”

My body jolts at his words, and he feels it. And he definitely likes my response. I can tell from the smile touching the edge of his lips.

“Jesus, you’re so bloody…forward.”

“You don’t get anywhere in life by going backward.”

Does he have an answer for everything?

“Exactly how did we go from me not getting involved with drivers to you and I having sex?”

“We haven’t gotten to the sex yet. Trust me. When we do, you’ll know.”

“Yet?”

“Yes. Now, answer the question.”

How to answer?
It’s hard to focus with him so close—his scent filling my head, his hands touching me and clouding my judgment.

“You’re my friend, Carrick…” I let my voice drift, my words linger.

“That’s not an answer. And the reason you won’t answer is because you’re afraid.”

Afraid doesn’t even cut it. I’m terrified. Terrified of what this all means. Of what’s going to happen. Because if he makes a move, I know for certain that I won’t be able to stop him…because I don’t want to.

“Shall I answer for you?” His voice is low, decadent.

Licking my dry lips, I nod.

He moves in, his mouth so very close to mine. His breath blows over my lips, drying the moisture I just gave them, and his stare is doing all kinds of extraordinary things to me.

“Your answer is yes, you would. You’re afraid to say it out loud because you know, once you do, it makes it real—this thing between us—and then you won’t be able to stop it from happening. What, deep down inside, you know is inevitable.”

Is he a mind reader?

He tilts his head back a touch, so his eyes are level with mine. “How did I do?”

My eyes drift to his mouth. His full perfect lips.
God, I want to taste them again.

Focus, Andi.

I force my eyes away, and with a shrug of the shoulder, I say, “You did…meh.”

Meh?
Jesus, what the hell was that?

I’m dying right now.

Fucking dying.

I close my eyes on a long blink. When I open them, I see a smile has kicked up the corners of his mouth while his eyes continue to fuck the hell out of me.

“Meh?” Low laughter rumbles in his chest. “Jesus, Andressa. Well, deny it all you want, but you know it’s true. You want me to fuck you.”

“And you want to fuck me,” I fire back.

“Sure I do. I’m not the one denying it here.” He lifts his hand from my waist to cup my cheek, his thumb touching dangerously close to my lips. “So, what do you say?”

“To what?”

“Fucking.”

“I’d say you’re seriously overconfident about it.”

He throws his head back on a deep laugh. It makes me glow inside.

A smile is still touching his eyes when he says, “You say that now. It’ll be a different story afterward.”

“Won’t I be calling you a bastard afterward?” I refer to our earlier conversation.

“Probably. But do you care about that right now?”

Do I?

I shake my head before even realizing what I’m doing.

I see lust burst to life in his eyes, and I feel it in every part of me.

We’re still dancing, but I don’t feel so awkward anymore. Now, I just feel turned on like I never have before. I feel connected to him. So very connected. Attuned to his body.

My skin is burning hot like a furnace. My hands are itching to touch him in places I really shouldn’t.

His fingers slide into my hair, and it feels like heaven. He moves closer to me, leaving hardly any space between us.

“I love your hair down.”

There’s a low groan to his voice that makes my belly quiver, in turn making me want to pull him in the rest of the way. Bring him in to the point where I don’t know where he begins and I end.

He twists strands of my hair around his fingers. “From the moment I saw you in the garage, bent over my car with your hair tied up, I haven’t been able to get the image out of my mind of me unraveling it and getting my hands all tangled up in it while I fuck you—hard.”

Sweet Jesus.

“Carrick…” My fingers curl into the lapel of his jacket.

What am I going to say? Stop talking to me this way?

I’m not sure if I can because I don’t think I want him to stop—ever.

“I…this isn’t a good idea.” My voice is breathy. I don’t sound like me at all.

“The best ones usually aren’t. Now, tell me to kiss you.”

“I…”
Say no. No good can come of this.
“No.” But my voice trembles, betraying me.
Stupid voice.

“Stop fighting this…
me
…and just say it, Andressa.” His words are whispered, coaxing, and his mouth is so close to mine, a hairbreadth between us.

My lips are aching for his. The memory of our kiss in China explodes in my brain, kicking all my hormones to life.

But he’s my friend. And he’s a driver.

Do I really want to go there with him?

Yes, I really do. I’m tired of fighting my feelings for him.

I want him to kiss me. Actually, I want him to fuck me—for hours.

Rationality has left me. Gone. Buggered off. And I couldn’t give a shit right now.

If I lose my job, so be it. All I care about is having Carrick kiss me, touch me, and make me feel amazing, so I’ll forget all the reasons why I shouldn’t be doing this with him.

Which, I know he’ll be more than capable of the instant I let him.

“Carrick…”

“Say it.”

“Kiss me.”

I feel his chest jump on a breath. His fingers tighten in my hair. I close my eyes with anticipation.

His lips ever so gently touch the corner of mine, pressing a soft kiss there.

My heart is pounding.

I feel the tip of his tongue as it touches my lips, gently running across the seam, tasting me. My lips part, a soft moan escaping.

We’re both breathing heavily. His warm breath mixes with my own, the smooth scent of whiskey and his rich aftershave teasing my senses.

I open my eyes to find his blues burning into mine, so intense that his stare breaks me down until all that’s left is need.

Pure need.

It ripples through me. I’m now his for whatever he wants to do with me.

Everyone and everything around us disappears. All I can see is him.

All I know is how badly I want him.

I’ve never needed to be kissed by anyone as desperately as I need to be kissed by him now.

I slip my hand around the back of his neck. “I want you,” I whisper softly.

Something hot and intense flashes through his eyes. Then, his lips slam down on mine. His hand fists my hair, and his fingers grip my waist, holding me to him, as he devours my mouth in the most intense kiss I’ve ever experienced.

All of the built-up tension between us, from the moment I met him to our kiss in China and every moment since, is exploding right here, right now.

His tongue slides along mine, a groan vibrating through his chest, and I feel it between my legs.

The rough of his growing stubble is erotically scratching against my skin. His hand finds my bum, and he holds it firm as he presses his hips into mine.

Holy God.

He’s hard.

Really hard.

And I have to have him. Now.

Nothing but having Carrick inside me matters right now. The world could end, and I wouldn’t give a shit as long as I got to have sex with him first.

Honestly, it’s taking everything in me not to unzip his trousers right now and examine just exactly what I’m going to be getting.

We need to be in a room alone in the next few minutes, or I might actually die.

Carrick must be thinking the exact same thing because he breaks away from me, panting heavily, eyes blazing into mine. His gruff, sexy-as-hell voice asks, “You wanna get out of here?”

A smile teases my lips as my head tilts to the side. “Is that a trick question?”

He grins the sexiest grin I’ve ever seen, and before my knickers can excuse themselves from the party, he grabs my hand and practically drags me out of there and in the direction of his waiting car.

THE DRIVE BACK TO THE HOTEL
is fraught with tension—well, on my part anyway. I’m restless and arguing with myself in my head about what a bad idea this is versus what an awesome idea it is.

With Jason Derulo’s “The Other Side” playing in the car, the bad-idea theory is starting to win out.

If Carrick was keeping me busy right now and actually had his hands or mouth on me, then I wouldn’t be thinking about anything else, except for him, but that’s not currently the case.

Surprisingly, the only part of me that Carrick is touching is my hand, which is held firmly in his, and not in a sexy-fingers-linked way. No, he’s holding my hand like my mum used to when I was a little kid.

Add to that, our hands are resting on the leather seat—in the very notable gap between us—which he put there, might I add, and I’m left feeling like I’m on one of those awkward first dates. You know, the blind-date kind where the guy’s not really into you, but he feels like he has to hold your hand out of obligation while he counts down the minutes until the date is over.

Yeah, I’m kind of there right now.

I’m actually starting to wonder if this is
the
Carrick Ryan—famed womanizer—sitting beside me, or some testosterone-missing clone put in his place. He’s not behaving like the same guy I was just kissing at the party.

By the time the car pulls up outside our hotel, I’m about sixty percent sure that I’ll back out of having sex with him.

But…I just keep getting flashes of him kissing me, and I can still taste him on my tongue and smell his aftershave on my skin. It keeps swaying me back to keeping my mouth shut and to just go with the flow.

We climb out of the car. Carrick places his hand on my lower back, guiding me inside the hotel. Okay, here’s something. It might be the smallest of touches, but it feels like the most intimate.

And I’m right back to the awesome.

When we reach the elevators, he guides me into a waiting one. Once safely inside, he presses the button for his floor.