The Great Escape (30 page)

That wasn’t a problem for him. Ducking his head, he closed the short distance between them, took what was left of the pretzel from her hand, and put it aside. “You make me crazy,” he said.

“Glad to hear it,” she replied, “but I really don’t want to talk now.”

He smiled his outlaw’s smile, settled into the cushions, and pulled her up with him into the point of the bow. Only the faintest light penetrated their cave, enough for her to see the brief flash of his teeth before he turned her beneath him and lowered his head to kiss her.

She hadn’t wanted his kiss in that ratty Memphis hotel room, and his guilt-filled kiss at the airport had brought only confusion, but this was perfect.

Her lips parted. Their tongues met in a dirty dance of thrust and parry—a delicious overture to sin. His hands were under her cami, hers under his T-shirt. She felt muscle and tendon, bone and sinew. He abandoned her mouth and used his teeth to torture her nipple through the thin cotton. He wedged his bare thigh between hers. She rubbed against it, locked her arms around him.

A crack of lightning hit too close, bringing with it a brief return to sanity. She moved her lips against his shoulder. “We can’t do this without a condom.”

His breath fell warm across her nipple. “I thought you didn’t want to talk.”

“Vasectomy or not, you need—”

“All taken care of,” he said in a husky rasp.

Did he carry them with him? The implication temporarily distracted her, but then he was kissing her again, and the question slipped away.

The thunder rumbled overhead. The boat rocked at its mooring. They pulled at their clothes, and when they were naked, explored. That night in Memphis had been as much about cutting her ties with Ted as it had been about sex, but this was different. Not an anonymous coupling with a virtual stranger. She knew her lover now, and tonight was inevitable.

Her breasts nested in his hands … His hips gripped under her palms … Their kiss deepened. He nudged her thighs open, and she didn’t consider resisting.

He parted her with his fingers. Unfolded. Searched. Invaded textures moist and soft.

She moaned. Let him play. And when she could stand it no longer, she became the aggressor, rolling to her side, using cheek, hands, and lips to savor the feel and strength of him.

When he could tolerate no more, he twisted her beneath him again. Fumbled with something. Mounted. He hooked his hands behind her knees, separating them, raising them. His body pressed to hers. The hard core of him, full and thick.

Smutty little words hoarsely uttered.

Soft, rough commands.

And he was inside her.

Outside, the storm howled. Inside, it raged just as fiercely. Finally it erupted.

H
ER SWEETNESS WAS TOO MUCH
for him. As she dozed in the dim light, he studied the fall of her dark lashes on her pale skin, made even paler by that black hair. He traced the curve of her cheek with his knuckle. Beneath all that tough talk, she was confused and vulnerable.

A warning siren fired in his brain. An explosion. The grit of sand, taste of whiskey, bite of memory. He shoved the darkness away.

She opened her eyes and gazed into his. “That was nice.”

Too sweet. Too good.

“Nice?” He dropped his arm over the side of the cushions and touched the bag of candy. One of the licorice sticks had fallen out. He picked it up and nudged her ear with his lips. “Get ready to retract that.”

“Why?”

He dangled the licorice in front of her. “You keep forgetting that I have a mean streak.”

She stirred beneath him, those green-flecked eyes alive with interest. “I guess I’m in trouble now.”

“Big-time.”

He nipped her bottom lip with his own, and then he whipped her with the licorice stick. Flicks at her nipples. The soft skin of her stomach. Her open thighs. Between.

“Evil,” she moaned when he stopped. “Do it some more.”

And so he did until she snatched the licorice away and returned the pleasure. Except he’d unleashed her secret dominatrix, and she wasn’t nearly as careful as he’d been. When he told her he’d had enough, she told him to beg, and what could he do after that but punish her?

He bent her over the cushions, gave her rear a soft smack, and exacted retribution. Or tried to. Because the whole episode was getting foggy in terms of who was doing the punishing and who was being punished.

Outside the boathouse, the storm began to calm, but inside, it had just begun.

Chapter Seventeen

L
UCY SNIFFED LIKE A DISAPPROVING
aunt. “That was way too perverted for me.”

“I could tell.” Panda tried to remember the last time he’d lost himself like this with a woman. They were wedged in the stuffy berth, their bodies pressed together, their skin sticking to the vinyl cushions, and even though he could feel her, it wasn’t enough. He extracted his arm, rolled to his elbow, and flipped on one of the small, battery-powered lights mounted in the bow.

She lay on her side, the naked line of her shoulder, waist, and hip forming a golden curve, her dragon tattoo alien on the smooth column of her neck. Her small nose, mercifully free of its nostril ring, wrinkled in disdain. “Don’t ever do that again.”

He touched her bottom lip, swollen from his kisses. “Midnight tomorrow?”

“If I don’t have anything better to do.”

“I hate it when a woman plays hard to get.”

She traced a vein that ran down his arm. “Really I just want your food stash. If I have to put out to get to your Cheetos, so what?”

“A pragmatist.”

“Stop using big words. It depresses me.” She bent her arm beneath her head, revealing the rosy side of her breast where his beard had abraded her skin. He wouldn’t hurt her for anything, but his dark side felt a primitive satisfaction in seeing the mark he’d left on her.

Her question shocked him out of his lethargy. “Where did the condoms come from?”

He should have known she’d latch onto that. “My pocket. You want some more chips?”

“You carry condoms around?”

“Not always. Sometimes. Who needs an STD, right?”

She pulled on one of her ratty pink dreadlocks. “So, you carry them in case you and Temple decide to add a little variety to your workouts?”

He hit her full force with his badass sneer, hoping to shut her up. “That’s right.”

“Bull. The two of you would eat nails before you’d screw each other.”

“Nice talk.”

She pinned him with those shrewd eyes. “You didn’t know I was coming down here tonight, yet you were ready for action. That leads me to believe that you actually do carry those things around.”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but you didn’t say why.”

Shit.
He gave up. “Because you drive me out of my mind, that’s why. I never know what the hell you’re going to do next. Or what I’m going to do. Now shut up about it.”

She smiled, lifted her arm, and tugged on a couple of his pain-in-the-ass curls, her expression tender enough to bring him back to cold reality. He was an ex-cop. She was the president’s daughter. He was scrap metal. She was pure gold. Beyond all that, he had a dead zone a mile wide inside him, while she bubbled with life. “Lucy …”

“Oh lord …” She rolled her eyes and flopped to her back. “Here we go. The speech.” She deepened her voice in exaggerated imitation of him. “Before this goes any further, Lucy, I need to make sure you don’t get the wrong idea. I’m a cowboy, wild and free. No little filly can ever tame a man like me.” She sneered. “As if I’d want to.”

“That’s not what I was going to say.” It was exactly what he’d intended to say—not so sarcastically, but she had the general idea.

“Let’s get this straight, Patrick.” The tip of her finger poked his bicep. “I may be screwed up about my future right now, but I know it includes kids. That rules you out, so all the complications your paranoia is conjuring up are a waste of your limited brain power. You’re for entertainment, Mr. Shade. The missing ingredient in my lost summer. And here’s what you need to understand.” She flicked his chest. “When you cease to pleasure me, I’ll find somebody who can. Clear?”

“Pleasure you?”

“I like the sound of it.” Her eyes grew serious. “This is about sex. Nothing else. You’d better be clear about that, or this stops right now.”

“Me?!” It was exactly what he wanted to hear—what he needed her to know—but he didn’t like her attitude. What had happened to the well-bred runaway bride he’d picked up? “When it comes to you, nothing can just be about sex,” he said.

“That’s what you think. I want sex. The dirtier, the better.” Her eyes landed on his crotch. “Got any more licorice?”

He should have flipped her to her back right then and given it to her, but her flippancy irritated him. “I’m tired,” he heard himself say, barely believing those words had come out of his mouth.

“Figures,” she retorted. “You’re a lot older than me.”

“Not a lot.” He sounded like a petulant asshole, but before he could decide what he wanted to do about that, she was sliding out of the berth, her bare skin squeaking against the vinyl.

“Thirty-six and going downhill,” she chirped. “That’s okay. I’ve changed my mind.”

He didn’t want her to change her mind, but she was already humming a happy little tune and pulling on what passed for her clothes. First, she tugged that skimpy white top over her head. The hem caught on one rosy nipple, hung there for a moment, then sprang free. Next, she took way too much time wiggling into the bottoms. When she reached the door of the cabin, she turned back to him.

“Get some rest, lover boy. I have big plans for you. Let’s see if you’re man enough to keep up.”

He smiled as she disappeared—happy, if only for the moment.

L
UCY SKIPPED UP THE STEPS
, so full of herself she could hardly stand it. The rain had cleared, and a sliver of moonlight tried to cut through the clouds. She’d never talked to a man like she’d talked to Panda. She’d laid out her terms, said exactly what she wanted to, and hadn’t cared a bit how he felt about it.

She dashed across the lawn, this time giving the horseshoe stake a wide berth. She couldn’t imagine Ted ever doing to her what Panda had done. Although she could imagine him doing it to Meg. Not that she wanted to. She grimaced and shook off the image.

She and Panda … Two mismatched people … One vasectomy … This was exactly what she wanted from her lost summer. A chance to be really bad.

As she stepped up on the deck, she thought about how people made bucket lists—everything they wanted to accomplish before they died. It occurred to her that she was working her way through a kind of reverse bucket list, doing things she would already have gotten out of her system if she’d been part of another family. Crazy hair, unsuitable clothes, tattoos. She’d dumped the perfect boyfriend, dropped out, and now she’d taken an unacceptable lover. She’d thought she didn’t believe in meaningless hookups, but had she only convinced herself of that because meaningless hookups were unrealistic for the president’s daughter? No wild monkey sex for Lucy Jorik.

Until now.

Could this be the key? What if doing all the things she’d missed was precisely what she needed before she could move on with the next part of her life?

She locked the sliding doors behind her, changed into dry clothes, and climbed into bed, but she was too worked up to sleep. A reverse bucket list …

She got out of bed and grabbed her yellow pad. This time she had no trouble finding the right words, and before she was done, she had a perfect list. This was exactly what she needed.

She flipped off the light and smiled to herself. Then she thought of the licorice whip and shivered. She turned into the pillow, got out of bed again, and unlocked the sliders.

No doubt about it. She’d gone bad. And it felt so good.

“R
EADING TIME
,” B
REE SAID, OPENING
the door to the cottage’s small front porch just as she’d been doing for the past two weeks, ever since she’d made up her mind about this.

“It’s summer,” Toby protested. “I’m not supposed to read books in the summer.” But even as he complained, he got off the living room carpet and followed her outside.

The porch was only big enough for a pair of ancient brown wicker chairs and a small wooden table. She’d set up a lamp from her bedroom so she could read after Toby went to bed, but she was so tired by the end of the day that she generally dozed off first. She had better luck keeping up with her new adult reading list between breaks from molding candles, painting note cards, or experimenting with a new beeswax furniture polish.

As she opened the book they’d been reading, she asked herself once again why she was putting herself through all this. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have enough to worry about. It was mid-July. She wouldn’t be able to begin harvesting this year’s honey until early August, if she was lucky, and as always, she was frantic about money. She’d been trying to create new products, but that took a financial investment for materials, and how many of her products would actually sell? At least she’d begun to see tiny cracks in Toby’s dislike of her, the same cracks that had formed in her own resentment toward him.