Twisted Up (4 page)

“I heard about your divorce. I’m sorry.”

His words had said he was sorry, and she didn’t doubt he meant them, but the look in his eyes, sincerity mixed with lust, did her in. She’d thought about him, fantasized about him often enough.

The night went on the way it usually did. For a couple of hours they all had drinks, bad-for-you bar food and played trivia games. She lost. Her mind was not on anything other than sex with Justin. He’d never said anything untoward, never even hinted at being interested in becoming more than friends until that night.

It was still raining when the bar closed and everyone had gone home. Only she and Justin were left standing outside. She wasn’t sure who was more reluctant to leave, him or her. He offered to walk her to her car in the garage around the corner, and she offered to take him to the hotel across the street until morning.

Before he could answer, she’d stood on tiptoe and kissed him. She’d meant it to be nothing more than a small, almost chaste kiss, but the minute she touched his mouth with hers, she changed. It was instantaneous. Who’d ever heard of a kiss changing someone? She hadn’t and she’d never experienced it. Until then. And if a kiss changed her inside, sex changed her everything, in every way.

And still, she had no idea why they’d ever really hit it off. Trivia nights had been fun. Sex was great. But he was right. It was more than sex. She liked to think it wasn’t more, but she knew better. By saying it was just sex was the only way she knew to protect herself.

They had nothing in common really. He was single and carefree. She was divorced and a stick in the mud. He was taking a summer off and having a good time with friends. She was staid and solid and kept to herself when she wasn’t traveling. He was laid back. She was a bit uptight. He liked country, and she liked rock and roll.

Ella smiled to herself and slid a glance in his direction. They both did like Elvis though and wished they hadn’t been too young to see him before he’d died. Well, she’d been too young. Justin hadn’t even been born yet. She tried not to groan at that realization.

Little by little, they forged a connection that had her staying up late at night talking to him long after she should have been asleep. “When did it change between us?” she asked suddenly. Would his answer be the same as hers?

“When did what change between us?”

She shifted in her seat, putting her back to the door and pulling a leg up, forgetting for a minute that she wasn’t wearing any panties. She ended up flashing him with a peek up her skirt before adjusting it. “When did we become more than friends?”

“Do that again.” He nodded his head in the direction of her lower body.

“No, you perv.” She laughed. “Answer my question.”

He shifted his gaze to her for a second, then back to the road, then back to her. “Flash me again and I will.”

She thought to refuse him, but the thought ended quickly enough. He was more stubborn than she was. She lifted the end of her skirt, flashing her pussy at him for no more than the length of a quick breath, then dropped the skirt back to her lap. She should have been embarrassed by it, but she couldn’t be, wouldn’t be. She wanted him too much.

“Your turn.”

“Can’t flash you while I’m driving, baby, but you could always lean over here and…”

“Dirty man. Answer my question.” There was no heat in her words, at least not the angry kind of heat. And there was a smile on her face as she’d said them.

“From the start, I never thought of you as just a friend. Maybe I should have, but I didn’t. I wanted more than that right away.”

“So it was just that easy for you?” Why was she so surprised? Her ex really wasn’t a good example of the typical man.

His turn to be surprised. “Wasn’t it for you?”

She was grown up enough to admit it, even if she didn’t want to. “It was.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

He sounded sincerely concerned, and she couldn’t blame him. It probably seemed that she was trying to borrow trouble where there was none. “I was married when we met, Justin,” she said softly. She’d learned how very far from perfect she was, despite how many years she’d told herself that she was, that her husband was, that her marriage was. Perfect was nothing more than a wish, a dream and an illusion in the face of reality. And reality sucked sometimes.

“You were separated and had filed for divorce. People have feelings for married people all the time. Not saying that makes it right or wrong, just that it happens. I didn’t act on my feelings. Having them isn’t a crime.”

Didn’t stop her either apparently. “I know you’re right.”

“It was crazy, yeah?” He glanced at her then back out the windshield and folded his hands over the steering wheel. “If someone had told me I would meet and fall for a woman so damn hard from the word go, I’d have told them they were full of horseshit. I just don’t, didn’t trust women anymore. I’d just come out of a relationship. Come up here to Birmingham to spend some time with my buddies. I had planned on it to be for a few months, but then I was asked to fill in at the bar one of them worked in until someone permanent could be hired. I never expected to walk into another bar and be invited to sit at a table with, well anyone, and then there was you sitting in the corner.”

“I was just a woman nursin’ a beer and really not wanting to be there, so I’m not sure what you saw in me.” She wasn’t fishing for compliments. She really didn’t know. She’d been sad and sullen and feeling like a complete and utter failure in the marriage department. Just because she had needs—or deviances as her ex put it—didn’t mean she couldn’t have tried harder.

But how do you tell your husband sex with him bores you? That was far from being the only thing wrong in her marriage, but it was definitely a contributing factor, especially when he wouldn’t do anything or try anything or even consider anything beyond missionary and darkness.

“You smiled.”

She focused on him. “What?”

“You smiled. The woman sitting next to you that first night leaned over and whispered something that made you smile. It was beautiful and I was hooked.”

“Oh please, Justin. That only happens in books and movies. It doesn’t even happen on television and it sure doesn’t happen in the real world.”

“I didn’t think so either, but I was a changed man that night. It’s why I kept coming back each week, you know.”

He blushed at his own words and that along with his confession only served to endear him more to her. “No, I didn’t know.”

His answer was to smile and nod his head.

“Regrets?”

“Nope. Not a one. I wouldn’t change anything that happened or the way it happened for anything. You?”

Her cell phone rang as he asked, and she was thankful for the distraction. He must have seen the relief on her face because he laughed. She stuck her tongue out at him and answered it. “Hello?”

“Ella? I just called the property in New Orleans and found out you’d changed your reservations to arrive on Wednesday. Is everything all right? Are you all right?”

It was her boss, Barb, and for some reason, likely the man seated behind the wheel, Ella hadn’t thought to call the poor woman and let her know about the changes. She wouldn’t have given Barb any specific details about her change of plans, but she should have called at least. “Yes, everything is fine. Something personal came up at the last minute.”

“Oh,” came the relieved tone of voice on the other end. “Do we need to reschedule the class? Do you need a few more days off?”

“No, I’ll be there. I just needed to take care of some other things instead of going early.”

Justin slid a glance in her direction and smirked at her. She smirked back. How else did one explain to their boss that they were headed off to have very naughty sex instead of showing up for work early? It’s not as if she was lying when she said some other things had come up and she needed to take care of them. He’d come up and she needed to take care of him.

Although, he needed to take care of her too. She still hadn’t forgiven him for leaving her as hungry as he had a little bit ago.

“That’s good,” Barb was saying. “Then I’ll just send this paperwork on to the hotel anyway and ask them to hold it for you.”

“Thanks, Barb. I appreciate it.”

“And you’re sure you’re all right? You know you can come to me about anything. I hope we’ve established that kind of rapport.”

Ella smiled at the concern and reminder of friendship. She usually wasn’t one who had last-minute things come up. She usually wasn’t one who had to change or wanted to change her work or travel schedule. She was one who liked the routine and the structure that she’d set up in her personal life over the last six months or so and understood how her sudden change would cause worry. “Yes, I’m sure. I’m sorry. I know I should have called you. I just didn’t have a chance.”

“Well, so long as you’re all right. I’ll talk to you in a couple of days.”

“Okay.” Ella hung up and looked over at the man driving, the one she’d had to step outside her normal routine for. “I hope you’re happy.”

“For the moment, yep.”

“For the moment?”

“I’ll be even happier when I get you in bed, naked and under me.”

Of all the answers she thought he might give, for some odd reason, that wasn’t what she’d expected and she felt heat creep up her neck and fill her face. She also felt a smile stretch her lips. She wanted nothing more than to be naked with him, and she didn’t care about their positions.

He gave her a matching smile. “You’re thinking about it too, huh?”

“Yep.” No use in denying it. “We could stop in Shreveport or something. My hotel has a new property there. We could—”

“No, we couldn’t. I want you in my house, in my bed. I’m not fuckin’ you until then.”

Ella slowly shifted her legs and lifted her skirt. “But Dallas is such a long way away,” she teased, followed by a yelp when he snagged her ankle and tugged her leg out straight across the console.

“Dallas is a very long way, but I intend to play with you some until we get there.”

She pulled against his hold but he wouldn’t let up. “Meanie.”

“Don’t even try that shit. You know I’m gonna keep my word. I’ll fuck you as soon as we get to my place and I can get you inside.”

“I don’t mean that. You’re planning on teasing me the whole way. Just like you did in my apartment. You’re going to tease me then leaving me hanging on the edge.”

“I didn’t say that, but now that you mention it…” He winked and let his finger caress the side of her ankle, up the side of her calf and farther up to her knee,

She did her best not to moan, but when his hand reached higher to her thigh, she couldn’t help it. The man had that magic touch. She remembered thinking about the old Heart song, “Magic Man”, when she’d driven away from him after that first night. He’d made her body do things, feel things no man ever had.

And since she’d seen him standing outside her door this afternoon, all she could think about was him getting his hands on her and his cock inside her. Everything about him caused everything inside her to zing to life. She wanted him and quite possibly more now than she had before.

She moved in the seat one more time and stretched her other leg out to rest alongside the one he already had. She leaned back against the door and tilted her head to lay it on the headrest. Slowly, he stroked her legs. He didn’t reach under her skirt, simply stroked to the hem and then down again to her ankle.

His touch was soothing and comforting. He still had the radio on, though turned down since her phone call and her eyes grew heavy, sleepy. She’d never been a good passenger on road trips, always falling asleep within a few miles down the road.

She tried to keep her eyes open, her gaze on him, but his fingers were lulling her to sleep and she gave up trying to fight it.

Chapter Three

“Justin, please.”

He loved reducing her to begging him for release. With her thighs draped over his shoulders and her muscles quivering, she was all but putty in his hands. He blew warm breath against her sex and squeezed her bottom in his hands.

She’d slept all the way through to Shreveport, even through him stopping for gas. The rest stop was fairly deserted and as soon as he had her creaming on his tongue, he’d set them to rights again and get back on the road.

She lifted up, or tried to lift her upper body, but the ropes tying her to the hooks in the bed of the truck only gave her so much pull. Her heels dug into his shoulder blades in an attempt to leverage herself closer to his mouth.

“Damn you, Jus… Please…” Breathless from arousal and winded from exertion as she tried to reach her goal, she sighed in frustration and relaxed.

Justin licked at her clit, slowly with the tip of his tongue, savoring the feel of her, the taste of her. A moan escaped her lips and the tremors in her thighs picked up again.

Lifting his gaze, he looked up her body. Her shirt was still on, though unbuttoned again, and he could see the swells of her breasts over the cups of her bra. The late afternoon sun was half hidden behind the trees and cast just enough light down on the bed that rays and shadows melded together across her stomach.

He dipped his head and slid his tongue inside her, pulling wetness out, enough for him to coat her lower lips and get her clit all silky and slippery. Her hands fisted, and she tugged against the ropes, helpless. He wanted control, and it hadn’t taken much for him to steal it from her.

Long, slow kisses as he’d walked her toward the back of the truck, left her clinging to his neck. He’d pulled the tailgate down and maneuvered her to a sitting position on it. She spread her legs willingly to allow him between them.

Years of working his parents’ ranch left him very, very good with rope, and he’d had her wrists tugged down from the back of his neck and bound before she’d ever known what happened. Her eyes hazy with lust and need, she’d only given token protest to being laid back and secured among the old blankets and soft quilts he’d brought along on the trip for this specific purpose.

He wanted her helpless and hungry. He wanted her control stripped and her desires to shine. He wanted what she’d given to him before. He wanted it back. He wanted
her
back, and he wasn’t above using her want of him to get it.