Full Tilt (Full Tilt #1)(79)

“I was worried I’d crossed a line.”

“Not at all.”

“I heard faint echoes of my dad in your dad. Don’t get me wrong, yours is nothing like mine. It’s just I know how Theo feels.”

“Never good enough.”

“To say the least. Does he really want to open his own shop?”

“He does, but unless he gets a big chunk of cash for a down payment, he needs a co-signer on a loan. That’s a huge point of contention between him and Dad. My parents had to take out a second mortgage to help cover my hospital bills because my insurance only went so far.”

“Oh.”

“Theo would never complain about that, of course. It’s just our parents have always been one hundred percent supportive of me, and less so with him. The balance is horribly skewed.”

Jonah pulled into the lot of my apartment and parked.

“It must be so hard for him,” I said.

Jonah brushed his knuckles over my cheek. “I think you won him over a little tonight. And my parents loved you. I knew they would.”

“It was a good night,” I said. I unbuckled my seat belt and climbed into his lap, straddling him. “Let’s end it with a bang. “

“Literally or figuratively?” Jonah murmured, his hands sliding up my thighs as our mouths met.

“Both.” Our kisses quickly became more heated, even as a passing car lit up the interior of the truck and the steering wheel dug into my lower back.

“This isn’t as easy as it looks in the movies,” Jonah said, breathing hard. “Change of venue?”

I nodded. “Upstairs,” I said, then added in a husky Southern drawl, “Take me to bed or lose me forever.”

Jonah’s brow furrowed. “Body Heat?”

“Top Gun.”

“So close.”

In my bedroom, Jonah’s humor fled and he caught fire. I’d never felt so wanted by a man in my life. His kisses turned bruising, his hands stripped me of my clothing. His eyes were dilated, the deep brown of them almost black. I tore off his shirt, fumbled at the zipper on his jeans.

“Leave these,” he said, as he fingered the thigh-high tights I wore under my boots. “And the necklace.”

A white hot thrill skimmed through me at his rough-voiced need. His breath came hard as he stared at me, naked but for the black nylon along my legs, and the curved, silver horn between my breasts.

“Kacey…”

I let out a little sigh, my legs weakening. We grabbed for each other again and he backed me up against the bedroom wall, his tongue, teeth and lips mauling my mouth. I could feel him between my thighs, hard and ready. I fumbled in the nightstand next to me and blindly fished out a condom.

He gripped my hips, barely holding back while I tore the condom wrapper open and rolled it down over him. Then his hands slipped under me, lifted me, and I wrapped my stocking-clad legs around his waist as he groaned into my mouth. My arms went around his neck, my nails digging into his skin and my teeth biting at the slope of muscle between his neck and shoulder. Already, the sensation of him inside me was so intense, so dizzying and hot, I was delirious.

“I’ve never had it like this. I swear…” I said into his skin, clutching him, clinging to him.

“Me neither,” he said finding my mouth again. “All I want is this. You…”

His body moved against mine fast and hard. He filled me up, the heavy pressure stoking a sweet ache of pleasure into something that roared and consumed. I held him to me as tightly as I could, taking his thrusts deep while the glow of need in my belly burned brighter than molten glass.

My shoulder blades ground against the wall at the force of him. His name whispered out of my mouth, and then screamed from my throat as he drove into me again and again, until I came to the edge and plummeted over. My body shuddered and clenched around him. He let out his own masculine sounds of climax, deep in his chest and god, if that wasn’t the hottest sound I’d ever heard in my life.

Jonah’s grinding hips slowed. He released my legs, letting my feet find the floor, but his body still held mine to the wall, his hands closed around my wrists. Within the hard grip, his mouth turned gentle, soothing the burn of his stubble and the bite of his earlier kisses from my skin. Carnal need and tender care. Desired and cherished.

Loved.

Jonah makes love to me, I thought, kissing him back, my fingers soft on his skin where they’d scratched him. No matter how hard or rough we are, he’s still making love to me.

“You make me feel so good, Jonah,” I whispered. “Better than good. Like I can start all over again.”

“Kacey.” He held my face in his hands, his dark eyes intent on me. “You make me feel alive.”

He kissed me again, slow and soft, while I burned with hope, sure there weren’t thousands of moments left to us, but millions.

Millions.





“Have you ever been to a beach?” I asked Jonah. “Not a lakeshore, but a real ocean?”

We lay around in bed on a Tuesday night—typically our date night but we’d opted to stay in and fool around.

“Sure. Why?”

“I miss it. Growing up, the beach was such a part of my daily life. I used to ditch school in the mornings, and my best friend and I would go to one of the coffee houses along the boardwalk in Pacific Beach, or a breakfast place that had surfboards hanging from the walls. We’d hang out at the beach until after lunch, then go back to school so we wouldn’t miss last attendance. Sometimes it got us out of a trip to the Assistant Principal’s office. Most times it didn’t, but it was always worth it.”