The Great Escape (Wynette, Texas #7)(74)

He didn’t pretend not to know what she was talking about. A raindrop hit her thigh. He saw it but looked away and reached into the cooler. “You’re probably not interested in this.” He pulled out the peanut butter.

“So wrong.” Even she wasn’t sure whether she was talking about the peanut butter or something more dangerous.

The boat swayed at its mooring, and a shift in the wind sent a wet blast through the open end of the boathouse. Drips from the leaky roof had begun hitting the deck and, more damaging, the food stash. “Come on.” Panda picked up the cooler and carried it to the boat’s cabin, ducking as he entered.

Their relationship had changed today, and following him was fraught with peril. She liked thinking of him as the bad guy, but today had altered that. On the other hand, his vasectomy, not to mention that incredible body, made him irresistible.

Viper followed him.

The cabin was small, with only a tiny galley and a V-shaped berth in the bow. Panda set down the cooler and sank into the navy-blue vinyl cushions. He gave her a lazy smile, then opened the peanut butter jar, scooped up a glob with a pretzel rod, and held it out to her.

Two consenting adults … One vasectomy … An ex-fiancé who, on this very night, was making love to her best friend … The stars were in perfect alignment.

Lucy accepted the pretzel and sat on the cushion across from Panda. “I don’t even like peanut butter very much.”

“It’s the deprivation,” he said. “It makes you want what’s forbidden all that much more.” The way he gazed at her across the narrow space—straight into her eyes—made his meaning clear.

She had the perfect smutty prop in her hand, a pretzel stick with a dollop of peanut butter clinging to the tip. Another woman might have made the most of it, but Viper didn’t feel like it. She snapped off the end between her teeth. “I’m the only one eating.”

“I got a head start.” He opened a bag of licorice whips but didn’t take any out. He simply gazed at her. Not at her legs or her breasts. Just at her, which felt even more intimate. His voice came to her in a husky vapor. “This isn’t a good idea.”

“I know.”

“I keep trying not to think about how much I want you.”

Her skin prickled. “How’s that going?”

“Not well.”

The cabin was too warm, too close, but she wasn’t leaving. Darts of heat zipped through her. She wanted this man with his tarnished eyes, inky hair, and powerful body. But she wouldn’t make the first move.

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.



HER 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.