Suspended (13 page)

“So you keep saying.” He leaned back and crossed his legs.
“My mom took me here every year as long as I can remember.”

She looked down at her turkey club. Not sure she wanted to
know, but she asked anyway. “After she met Lawrence?”

“No. Not after Larry,” he said quietly.

She took a healthy bite of her lunch. The crunch of lettuce
and bacon with the kick of horseradish mayo made her groan. “Oh, man, that’s
good.”

He glanced at his sandwich. She laughed. Limp bread soaked
through with greasy mayo didn’t look nearly as appetizing as hers. She sat up
and held hers out. “Bite?”

She was expecting him to say no, but he leaned in and took a
large bite. “Hey!”

He shrugged. “You offered.” He rolled onto his knees. “Yours
is better.”

She pulled her arm back. “A bite, not the whole thing.”

He flipped her onto her back and clasped her wrist. His lips
brushed her fingers as he took the last bit of the quarter of her sandwich.
“Much better than mine.”

Their legs tangled, and she tried to shimmy back, but he
pressed his hips into hers. “Well, then. That good?” She laughed at the
definite ridge in his jeans.

He wiped the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand,
then caged her in. “Let me see.” He dipped his head, and her elbows dissolved
under her. He hooked her knee over his hip and lightly rolled his hips against
the V of her thighs as he took her mouth.

She slid her fingers into his short hair. The strands sifted
and teased around her fingers and wrist as she held on and accepted the slide
of his tongue along hers. She sucked on the tip gently, and the kiss went from
hard and fast to slow.

She reversed their positions until she straddled his waist,
her knees hugging his ribs. She laced her fingers with his and pinned them over
his head. The golden centers of his hazel eyes burned. She lowered herself
until there was little more than breath between them.

He lifted his head to bridge the gap, but she backed off.
“Uh-uh.”

He let his head drop back down with a growl.

She smiled and lowered her mouth. She flicked her tongue
along his lower lip. “You can just lie there and take it for once.”

He widened the space between their clasped hands and his
head so she had to come closer. “I don’t remember you being an inactive
participant.” He sealed his lips over hers, and she hummed into his mouth.

God, he was way too good at that.

His grip tightened on her as she lightly undulated against
his belly. The kiss spiraled out so fast she couldn’t drag in a breath between
the breaks of their lips. His tongue was a slice of pure temptation.

With a shiver she remembered how it felt inside her.

This angle was awkward and taxed the muscles of her
shoulders and arms. She tried to manuever his hands toward his head, but he
wasn’t budging.

Stubborn man.

She scooted up farther, and he broke their handclasp. “Keep
moving up, babe, and I’ll have my tongue between your thighs.”

His lips were berry red from her bites and nips. What would
they look like wet from her in the sunshine?

He dug his fingertips into her denim-clad ass. “You like
that idea?” He lifted her until she was balanced on her knees. He pushed up her
tank with his nose and licked around her belly button. “I want to taste you
again.”

“I—”

He tugged open her button with his teeth. “Say yes.”

She shuddered out a breath. She was always saying yes to
this man.

His hands slid around to the front of her jeans and unzipped
her. “Say yes.”

He dipped his thumb into the gap of her zipper. The skin
under her navel was downy soft. He moved lower to the fringe of lace along the
top of her panties. Incredibly tiny panties. Both times he’d gotten her naked,
they’d been quick to shed clothes. There was something infinitely sexy about a
woman’s lingerie.

The triangle of cotton and lace cupped the skin just above
her pussy lips. He circled the side of his thumb around the plump V. She jerked
under his hand. There was a tiny wet spot there. The baby blue darkened as he
gently swiped the flat of his thumb back and forth.

“Shane.”

His name was a shaky moan. God, he wanted to get his tongue
on her. He peeled her jeans back and over the sweet curve of her ass. Her apple
scent made his mouth water. He brushed the tip of his tongue along the wet
spot.

She looked down at him. Her teeth sawed her lower lip. Her
breasts swayed with each deep breath as he teased her. The stiff denim wouldn’t
go down any farther until she moved. He didn’t want her to go far. Couldn’t
bear to have her get up even long enough to get her jeans off. Instead he
lifted her.

“Off.”

Kendall was a quick study. She shimmied out of them and
flicked them to the side. She straddled his hips. Too far away. Not close
enough to touch or taste. He cupped her ass and slid her forward. His shirt
rode up, and her smooth calves hugged his sides.

His stomach muscles bunched as he closed his mouth over her
lace-covered mound. She gasped and fumbled to brace herself on something.
Finally settling for his shoulders, she leaned forward, and he relaxed back
onto the blanket. He tongued her pussy through the material. The first hit of
her taste and he wanted more.

He wanted to go slow, wanted to make it last. He gripped the
smooth muscles of her ass, and she flexed under his touch. Her thighs opened
wider. He tugged her forward again until her knees were jammed into his
underarms. “There,” he muttered. He used his teeth to peel the sopping-wet
material off her. The cotton clung to her swollen lips and the tight little
bead of her clit.

Her knees slid wider along his biceps, and she lowered to
his mouth.

He flicked his tongue either side of her clit. Her taste
burned through the lace and exploded on his tongue. Salt and the crisp tang of
her scent added to her musky flavor. He skimmed his fingers along the cleft of
her ass and widened her again.

She moaned above him. Her thighs quivered, and he clenched
his jaw.

She cupped his face. “So fierce, even doing this?”

He didn’t want to be so solemn, but the emotions she dragged
out him were too much to give over to smiles and laughter. They weren’t
laughter. They were more like the knife-edge of madness. Possessive,
exhausting, illogical—he’d only known her for a few days, and she was under his
skin. She overwhelmed him with her ability to lose herself in the moment.

He nudged one hand under the leg of her panties from the
back, and her pussy grasped the tips of his fingers. No.

Don’t rush.

He swiped the very tip of his tongue through the silky cream
that had drenched her panties beyond wear. “Fuck, Kendall.”

She tipped her head back, and the elegant line of her lithe
body shattered him. He was so fucking hard he could come in his goddamned jeans.

“Braid. Take it out.” He wanted to see all her sunlit hair
in his favorite place.

This was a place of happiness.

Not of death and misery.

This was his place, and he could have one last good memory
here before the crash of reality intruded.

She unwound the end, and the rest simply unraveled. Why she
tried to contain all the curls and life, he didn’t know. But he wanted to see
them fly free around her shoulders before he put his mouth over her.

The tiny triangle of downy-white hair unmanned him. He used
two fingers to push back her hood, found the stiff center of her, wrapped his
lips around her clit, and slid his tongue inside her as he sucked.

She bucked above him, and he gripped her hips.

He held her still and tried to listen for the cues to what
worked for her above the roar in his head. She tasted like autumn. Dark and
spicy and so addicting. He swallowed as she drenched his chin. His angle only
really allowed a taste. He wanted to fill her. To taste her as she came.

He shifted her until he could get his hand between her
knees. He delved two fingers into her swollen folds and pulled down, opening
her.

Her hips swayed. He knew she needed more, but he wanted
another taste.

The sweet, sharp keen followed by his name on a guttural cry
was his reward for patience. He’d heard that sound on that last night. He
rolled her onto the blanket and opened her wide, thrusting two fingers into her
as he circled her clit with his thumb.

He thumbed open his jeans and took himself in hand. All it
would take was a pump or two, and he’d be done. Christ, she was so unfathomably
hot.

She reached for him. Even as he locked her inside another
cresting orgasm, she tried to touch him.

He shook his head. “Shh. Don’t worry about me.”

She arched off the blanket and twisted her fingers into the
plaid flannel. He turned his hand, and the grasping clasp of her tissues around
him made his cock throb even harder.

God, he wanted inside her.

But it wasn’t about him.

Not right now.

He groaned. Her legs quaked and shuddered as she melted into
the flannel. He laid his cheek against her belly. The quivers inside her felt
like tiny aftershocks. He opened his palm over the slice of skin between her
navel and her hood and lightly massaged her.

The hiccuping moans finally faded, and she covered his hand
with hers. “Shane.”

“You’re so goddamn beautiful.”

She trailed the backs of her knuckles along his hairline,
her dark eyes soft and sated. “Every time you tell me I’m beautiful, there’s a
swear word in there.”

He opened his mouth to answer, but she traced her nail over
the dip at the top of his lip.

“I like it.”

He rubbed his bearded chin across the concave of her belly
and up to her ribs. She left him split open and frayed. The numbness was
easier. But easy hadn’t worked in the past. Easy had left him adrift with
nothing concrete to hold on to.

Their eyes locked as he pushed her tank up and revealed the
matching sky-blue cotton and lace of her bra. He sucked her nipple into
hardness under the cotton. He let it go, crowding over her. He hissed when her hand
slid around the base of his cock.

“Kendall. I told you—”

“I know what you told me. I want you inside me.” She flicked
her tongue under his chin where the scruff of his beard faded into skin.

He hovered over her, one hand beside her head, the other tucked
against her side. Her curls twisted around his wrist; her skin burned against
the other.

He eyed the bag at the corner of the blanket. He’d bought
condoms at the rest stop. It was going to look like an asshole move. That he
expected this. He just knew his willpower and Kendall didn’t live in the same
zip code.

She writhed under him and drew the tips of her nails along
the underside of his shaft. “Get the condoms out of the bag.”

He looked down at her. “I—”

“I saw you go back in for something when I was buying
lunch.” She tightened her grip at his cockhead and twisted.

He shut his eyes. “Fuck.”

She laughed. It was free and sexy as hell. Startled, he
looked down at her again. “Something funny about this?”

“Just that you feel guilty.”

“You don’t know what I feel.”

The growl in his tone seemed to tickle her even more. She
wrapped one smooth leg around his waist, pushing at his jeans with her foot.
“It’s a beautiful day, and you have a girl who’s willing to go”—she dropped her
voice to a whispery, over-the-top Marilyn Monroe voice—“all the way.”

He leaned down and nipped her jaw. “All the way, huh?”

She nuzzled her cheek against his, and his arms weakened for
a moment. She made him want to give her softness, but that was stupid. Then
again, nothing about Kendall put him in the smart column.

She reached over her head. “I can’t—”

Her breast lifted until the fullest part of her was an
offering. Small and perfect and cupped in the same color as the sky. His hips
circled in the haven of her thighs; the head of his cock grazed her slick
folds. The heat of her lured him closer. Skin to skin. He grasped his shaft and
groaned as she opened for him.

Madness crawled up his spine. Just one stroke inside her. To
feel that warmth.

Her dark eyes widened, and the naked need there had to match
his own. She dug into his shoulders. “Shane. The condoms.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to beg. To ask her to take
him without it. Would this finally break the numbness? If he got inside her
with no barriers?

He shook his head to fight off the gut-deep longing and
reached with his significantly longer arms. He ripped the box open and split
the packaging with his teeth. Protection for her. For him. He obviously needed
it even more than for its intended use.

He snapped it on and sank into her. The sun beat down on his
shoulders. He slid out but kept the tip of himself inside her. Her bra still
covered her, and her panties were still on, even if they were skewed to the
side. He reached behind his head and tugged his shirt up.

She smoothed her hands up his belly to his chest.

He stopped when she rose and the cross of his rosary slid
forward to swing between them. Her nails bit into his skin, and the tent of his
shirt put them into a weird little cocoon. She grinned up at him as the sun
filtered through the waffle texture of his shirt.

Simple as that, the ice inside him melted a little. She
pushed his shirt the rest of the way off and nudged the rosary aside to get to
his nipple. He cupped the back of her head and slid home again. She clasped around
his cock and locked her ankles behind his back.

Her slight little body was more muscular than he realized.
She grasped his shoulders and hauled herself up until he fell back on his butt.
With his jeans still half on and a lap full of Kendall, he barked out a laugh,
then a groan as she took him deeper.