Be Mine(39)
“I wish I could’ve seen it.”
“Saving lives is more important than watching me drive.”
“It was more like two hours of directing the public around the people who were actually saving lives. And the accident looked far uglier than it was, thank God.”
“Good.” She snuggled tighter against him with a sigh.
“And tonight’s defensive driving class?”
She laughed at the official way he said that. “Oh, that was a whole other level of exciting. I learned how to go slow and steady. Did you know that saves a ton on gas mileage?”
His teeth pressed her neck, and she was suddenly very aware of his body behind hers. The length of his cock branded her ass. “I’d like to know more about this. Slow and steady, huh?”
His hand slid down her hip and cupped her sex.
“What do you know about slow and steady?” he breathed into her ear.
“Oh,” she sighed as his fingers slid along her seam. “Oh, I...learned that I have to be...aware.”
“Mmm.”
She tried to ease her knee open, but his leg was holding hers down as he teased her. Keeping her closed up tight as he dragged his fingers over her sensitive flesh.
“Yeah?” he said. “What else?”
“I have to concentrate on what I’m doing and not get distracted by...” She tried to tip her hips up. His fingertips dragged over her clit. “Oh, God.”
“Distracted by what?”
“By...” She didn’t even know what he was talking about by that point. All her concentration was on his hand and the way it slipped over her, sliding easier and easier the wetter she got. God, if she could just get her legs apart, his fingers would just naturally slide right inside her.
“Oh, Jenny. I don’t think you learned anything at all. Shhh. Slow down.”
She rocked against him as he circled her clit. His other arm was tight across her chest, holding her in place.
“Please,” she whimpered.
“It’s okay. You can go slow, can’t you? For me?”
“No,” she panted. “No, no.” She was so close now. So close. He could say anything he wanted, as long as he kept touching her that way.
His hand slipped up, gliding over her belly.
“No!”
But he held her tight with his arms and his leg and he teased her nipples as if they had all the time in the world. She was sobbing. Begging. Almost angry by the time he touched her clit again. And she arched into him with a desperate cry.
“See how nice it can be to go slow?” He stroked her. Stroked her again. She was so close. So close. “See, Jenny?”
“Please,” she cried.
He finally let her loose. She twisted away, and he caught her and pulled her toward him as he turned to his back. “Now,” he growled, breathing almost as hard as she was. He gripped her hips and moved her to straddle him. “Show me how you felt at the racetrack.”
He gripped his shaft and pulled her down, and his cock surged into her.
She screamed.
“Show me,” he urged, his palm flattening to her belly as he thumbed her clit.
“Oh, God,” she cried.
“Show me how you learned to go hard, Jenny.”
She dropped her hips and showed him. And Jenny knew she’d found a better way to fly.
* * * * *
ALONE WITH YOU
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Harlequin HQN,
Angela James and Kim Whalen for the chance
to join Jennifer Crusie and Victoria Dahl in bringing
Valentine’s Day romance to our readers!
For Stuart. Chocolates and flowers are nice,
but nothing’s better than plain old everyday love.
Thank you for twenty years of it and counting.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER ONE
“ASHGABAT.” THE SEXY stranger’s breath blew warm over her neck as he whispered the word near her ear, and Darcy Vaughn chased a full-body shiver with a big gulp of martini.
“Ashgabat,” she repeated for the trivia host, since he hadn’t been wrong yet.
“That’s correct!” The other teams around the bar all groaned, and Darcy smiled sweetly at Kent and Vanessa, formerly the reigning know-it-alls of Tuesday-night trivia.
She and her sexy fountain of random facts were kicking butt tonight.
Her regular partner hadn’t called to cancel until after Darcy had ordered her margarita and nachos, so she’d left it to the waitress serving as trivia host to pair her with another customer flying solo. She hadn’t expected the guy rocking the scruffy, blue-collar look to raise his hand and join the academic fun, but figured he’d contribute on the sports questions. Despite working at a sports bar, Darcy wasn’t much of a fan.
But now she knew a few things about her trivia partner. His name was Jake. He had brown eyes the same shade as his close-cut hair, smelled delicious and had a body made for selling charity calendars. He also knew a little something about which capital city sat between the Kara-Kum Desert and the Kopet Dag Mountains. Being able to cough up Turkmenistan trivia was almost as sexy as the way he rested his arm across the back of her bar stool every time he leaned in to whisper an answer in her ear.
“Ten-minute break,” the host announced.
After hitting the restrooms, the teams eventually settled back on their bar stools to wait for the host, who’d disappeared into the kitchen. When the silence stretched toward awkward, Darcy turned to Jake. “So, let me guess. You’re taking a break from exploring the world after an expedition to Turkmenistan to find an ancient, possibly cursed relic went bad.”
His smile should’ve been illegal. “And that must make you the Russian spy sent to charm the relic’s location out of me with your knowledge of U.S. presidents and the Periodic Table of Elements.”
“I have ways of making you talk,” she joked, though it came out a little more suggestively than she’d intended.
“I bet you do.”
Darcy realized, with the way they were gradually leaning in closer to each other and the innuendo, they were in heavy flirting territory and she panicked a little. Guys didn’t usually come on to her in bars. At Jasper’s Bar & Grille, where she waited tables and occasionally worked the bar, most of the guys were looking at Paulie, who managed the place. She was tall, had a killer body—including great breasts—and knew everything and anything about sports.
Darcy was on the short side of average. Her breasts were on the small side of average. She pretty much ran just left of average overall. Her hair was nice, though. Dark and thick, with just enough wave to keep it cute in a ponytail.
“So, Darcy, what do you really do when you’re not answering trivia questions or charming Indiana Jones types out of their relics?”
“I wait tables.” She shrugged. “It’s a good cover. Lots of eavesdropping opportunities. What do you do when you’re not sifting through ancient ruins?”
“Some business consulting. Boring stuff.”
“Do you get to travel a lot?”
He shook his head. “Honestly, I don’t fly, so a few sledding trips to Canada and a really misguided summer in Florida during my youth are the extent of my travel. Not trusting airplanes to stay in the sky killed my dreams of being Indiana Jones when I grew up.”
“Yeah, well, my Russian accent sucks.” They were laughing as the trivia host stepped back into the horseshoe center of the bar and poured them all another round before continuing the game.
After Kent and Vanessa got an economics history question right and the next couple blew it on geography, the host turned to them. “What famous player, inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972, was known for the phrase ‘It ain’t over till it’s over’?”
As Jake leaned in to whisper in her ear, Darcy blocked him with her hand. “Wait. I know this one, dammit. Finally a sports question I know the answer to.”
“We should talk about it.”
“Why? Don’t you think women can answer sports questions?”
His mouth brushed her ear as his arm pressed against her back. “I just like having an excuse to whisper in your ear.”
“Yogi Berra,” she told the trivia host in a surprisingly normal voice, considering how on the inside she was a shivery, breathless mess.
A couple of drinks and a few rounds later, Jake and Darcy were declared the winners. The grand prize was nothing more than bragging rights and the his-and-hers puckered looks Kent and Vanessa sported as they went out the door.
“How are you getting home?” Jake asked as he held Darcy’s sweater so she could slip her arms in. Such a gentleman.