“Roni.” His voice was softer now, resonating with a power, a heated emotion that had her heart tripling in speed.
“Look, I don’t need any sweet little speeches,” she said as she fought to hide her humiliation. Damn, when would she learn to keep her mouth shut? “Why don’t you just take me home and we’ll forget I ever said a word…”
“Do you think I wouldn’t love anything more than to take you to my bed? To give you what I know we both want?”
She stilled. She whimpered. Oh God, that pathetic little sound did not come from her throat. She turned back to look at him, feeling the desperation that she fought inside her welling to the surface. It was there on his face. Heavy lines of regret, the hunger she only glimpsed occasionally in his eyes.
“But you won’t,” she whispered, her heart breaking. “Will you?”
“Look at you,” he said gently, though his voice was rough. “So innocent and sweet and you have no idea the animal you’re trying to set loose here.”
“You wouldn’t hurt me.” She knew that. Knew that if she gave herself to him he might break her heart, but he would never hurt her physically.
“You can’t be sure of that, Roni.” He lifted his hand from the steering wheel, reaching out to touch her cheek.
The warmth of his calloused fingertips, the touch of his thumb at her lips had a sobbing breath of need escaping her throat. She had to touch him, to taste him. Her tongue peeked out, swiping over his flesh as they both groaned. The sounds were hot, hungry, filling the interior of the truck with a tension that tightened every cell in her body.
“You make me ache.” She couldn’t hold back the words or the need. “Sometimes I can’t stand it, Taber, I need you so bad. I love you.”
They had been friends for years. His cabin wasn’t far from hers and he had been a presence in her life for so long that she wondered if she could survive without him. He swallowed tightly. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I’ve loved you since I was eleven, Taber. Ever since you carried me out of the damned mountain and took me back to your mother’s house. Don’t you know you own me?” She hated that thought. Hated how much she needed him, how much she ached for him. “Am I so terrible, Taber, that even you don’t want me?” Were the upright, uptight prudes who judged her forReginald’s actions right? Was she somehow tainted? Unworthy of love? The thought of that pierced her soul.
Taber’s eyes flared with hunger, as though her words had set loose something inside him he could no longer contain. Hope surged within her. Arousal heated further, searing the already moist depths of her cunt.
“Not want you?” he almost snarled then. “Dammit, Roni, it would terrify you if you had any idea what I do want from you.”
There was nothing he could ask of her that she wouldn’t give him.
“Then it’s yours,” she whispered as his thumb stroked across her jaw, drawing slowly to her lips.
“Anything, Taber. I would die for you.”
“You’re still a baby,” he groaned, his thumb pressing against her lips until she enveloped it in the heat of her mouth. “God, Roni…” She bit down on it, holding him there as her tongue raked over the rough pad. Roni had always hated her lack of control, the hungry needs that often pushed her to hurt herself, to reveal her emotions in ways that allowed others to hurt her. She was hungry, starving for Taber in a way she never had for anyone else. She needed him now worse than she needed the air that sustained her.
“Let go,” he whispered as his other hand pulled her closer. “Let’s see if I can’t fill your mouth with something a hell of a lot more enjoyable.”
Before she knew what was happening he had pinned her to the seat, rising over her as he jerked the handle under the seat to slide it farther back and allow him more room. Roni whimpered, staring up at him in dazed disbelief as he moved between her thighs, the hard, hot heat of his denim-covered c**k notching between her thighs perfectly.
“Taber…” Her womb convulsed then. Like a punch to her lower stomach it stole her breath, leaving her gasping.
“Feel me, Roni,” he ordered her hoarsely, grinding against her, his eyes darkening further as she felt the moisture spill between her thighs. Feel him? How could she do anything but feel him?
It was too intense. A broken cry escaped her throat as she arched to him, feeling her br**sts throb, her cl*t swell. Her hands gripped his arms as he braced himself above her, his expression pulling into a painful grimace as he stared down at her.
“I bet you’re so f**king tight I won’t last minutes inside you.” His voice was grating, exciting her senses in ways she could have never imagined.
“Find out.” She could barely breathe, let alone speak, but she forced the words from her lips, needing him now with a ravaging hunger she couldn’t dispel.
One touch. That was all it had taken. Just one touch from him to destroy any self-control she might have had.
Her hands went to his waist, clawing at his shirt as she jerked it from his jeans, desperate to touch him, to taste him. She wanted to run her fingers down his chest, test the hard packed muscles of his abdomen, loosen his jeans and see if his c**k was as thick and hard as it felt.
“Inside.” He lowered his head to her neck, his lips trailing down the side of it, his breath hot and heavy against her flesh. “I refuse to f**k you in the damned pickup like a kid.”
“I need to touch you.” Her hands flattened against his skin, her fingers curling against the heat of it, her senses overloading with the silken feel, the impression of small, downy hairs covering what she’d thought was a hairless chest.
He jerked against her, a pure primal growl issuing from his throat as her hands trailed down to his abdomen, then to the waistband of his jeans. Her fingers moved to the wide belt buckle, her gaze locking with his as she slid the leather of his belt through the metal loop.