Quick Study - By Gretchen Galway Page 0,8

whispered, and leaned back to open her pants.

The sound of the metal zipper sliding open filled the car. There was no question now of stopping, of taking it slow, of pretending they were strangers. They were going to take it all the way, wherever it took them.

The muscles along his jaw twitched, and he gave her a long, smoky stare of blatant lust. He jerked the car over into the slow lane with his left hand while his right reached over and dove down the waistband of her gaping jeans. Large, determined fingers thrust past the elastic of her undies and slipped deep inside her. She groaned and involuntarily lifted her hips to meet his hand. Nothing like this had ever happened to her. A man she barely knew, touching her, with the world driving by around them, looking in.

Hot, wet, reckless wanting overtook her.

Let them look. She was going to take what she wanted and let him take what he wanted.

He lingered just long enough stroke a deep circle, then pull his hand back out. To his face. Watching her with eyes almost black, he sucked his finger deep into his mouth, all hint of mockery or playfulness gone. The gaze was intense, a declaration of intent, and she shuddered as she recognized the primal satisfaction deep in her soul that he knew what he was going to do. And that whatever it was, he was going to do it to her.

“I don’t want to wait,” she said.

“I know,” he said, as though soothing a child. He reached over again and slid his hand back over her hot, needy sex, his palm flat and hard and sure. “Don’t be afraid of what you want.”

“I want a lot,” she said.

“I know.” He withdrew his hand, patted her between her legs, and moved his hand to cup the back of her neck. His thumb stroked along her nape, a tickle that sent shocks down her belly. She groaned and tilted her head to expose more of his neck to his touch.

“Almost there,” he said. His large fingers found a delicate band of muscle under her ear, traced the nerve with a fingernail, then retreated back to the steering wheel.

Bereft, Bonnie sighed and squeezed her eyes shut, imagining more. The car banked hard to the right and she looked out. Off the freeway now. They were driving away from the traffic, uphill into quiet, private roads and large homes shaded under twisted branches of giant live oaks and eucalyptus. He turned onto another road, narrow and steep, and they continued to climb.

She realized how rich he must be. Flatlanders didn’t even know places like this existed, they were so carefully hidden above the freeways and strip malls and riffraff. Big houses perched on cliffs. Gated driveways. Priceless views of winter-green hills and the valleys populated with millions of the less fortunate.

“One of the Haves, are you?” she said, not with bitterness, just surprise.

He stopped the car right there in the middle of the road, leaned over, and nuzzled her ear. “I sure am now,” he said, which was just what she wanted to hear, but his touch, nice as it was, was slowing them down from getting where they were going.

“Please keep driving,” she said, and he laughed.

“Don’t worry, Bonnie. You’ll get what you need soon.” And he drove the rest of the way with his hand between her legs, over the denim, but rubbing and squeezing and stroking until her head fell back against the seat and she gave up all pretense of control.

The car stopped.

He unbuckled his seat belt. They were parked in the driveway next to the detached garage, the main house on the other side quietly attractive and understated and probably worth a fortune, even these days.

These higher-brained thoughts were flimsy, distant things that she was only vaguely aware of, the bulk of her mind in a frenzy to guess what the man now walking around the car was about to do to her.

He opened her door and leaned down to look in her face, the hint of a smile on his lips. “Did you ask your neighbor about me?”

Surprised, Bonnie nodded.

“My sister knows her, right?”

She nodded again.

“Then you know I come from a nice, respectable family. One that I love and respect in return.”

“Why are you—”

“So you have nothing to fear when I tell you to take off all your clothes right now, before we go inside.”

She couldn’t breathe. “Here?”

“Will you trust me? I think you’d enjoy