Thrown Down (Made in Jersey #2)(10)

If for no other reason than to insert an object between Vaughn and her heart, River wedged a hand in at the top of her jumpsuit zipper. With a deep breath, she dragged it down, down, exposing her blue cotton T-shirt, a Giants logo at the center. Vaughn eased back just enough to reach out, his fingers shaking as he gripped the T-shirt’s hem. He lifted the material and tugged her jeans’ waistband down to reveal the thin red scar running low and horizontal on her abdomen.

His pained sound dotted the air between them.

“It doesn’t hurt,” she felt compelled to say, but it didn’t seem like he heard her because one second he towered over her, and the next, he’d fallen to his knees. “What…”

His mouth landed on top of her belly button, filling the indentation with warm breath. Lips, so familiar and so new at the same time, moved lower—too low—kissing along the scar with painstaking tenderness, left to right. River’s legs dipped, her back sliding a few inches down the car door. Had she moaned out loud? Yes…she had. When was the last time someone had touched her? Really touched her, skin to skin? Vaughn, ages ago, inside a stale motel room while a cheap clock radio played static-laced Snow Patrol.

She tipped her head forward and found Vaughn watching her intently, with undeniable heat—and something closer to an apology—as his mouth moved higher. His hands, too. They skated up her rib cage to fist beneath her breasts. “Vaughn, stop. You have to stop.”

“I’m sorry.” He laid his lips against her scar one final time and stood, those devastating hands still beneath her shirt. “I’m sorry for the pain that went into that scar. I’m sorry you did it alone.”

Don’t come any closer. She needed to say it, but the heat, the physical contact, was decadent after being cold and bereft so long. “I wasn’t alone,” she whispered. “I had Jasmine…my family—”

“You needed me, though.” Their foreheads met, and one muscular arm slipped between the small of her back and the car. “You needed me, and I was long gone. I’ll never make that up to you.” He tugged her up into his big body then pressed her against the car, so securely the vehicle swayed. “Can I comfort you now, Riv? For just a minute?”

Her gaze found his waiting mouth, so sculpted and masculine, a white scar at the right corner, courtesy of a bar fight. “If you think this will comfort me, you’re wrong,” she breathed, watching as his expression darkened, grew more like she remembered it. Restless. Hungry for her. Always hungry.

“You’re right. There’s nothing comforting about what happens when we touch, is there?” His thumb brushed her nipple, and she jerked between his body and the car, sucking air in between her teeth. “Will you settle for wet and worked up?”

River had no time to respond because Vaughn tilted his head a few degrees, those deep, brown eyes blazing, and went in for the kill. The impact of the kiss didn’t occur just at her mouth. No, she felt it square in the chest, deep in her midsection, closing in from all sides. Every single component of her being rose like a tiny phoenix and clamored toward the man who’d awakened her once upon a time, each ready to beg for another round. All of that took place with their mouths fused close, so tight, but not moving. And when Vaughn’s sturdy frame shuddered and he widened his lips along with hers, teasing the tips of their tongues together, her center of gravity tilted and dropped, right along with her belly.

He pulled back. “Your scar is beautiful,” he said, his low declaration shimmying through her fingers and toes.

And then he invaded her mouth like he owned it, like he’d never been gone, not for a second—as if they’d been suspended within the kiss for four years, just waiting to proceed. His hand closed around her breast, the opposite arm tightening at her lower back, pulling her against him. They groaned into the contact, thighs shifting in restless, writhing motions against one another, mouths beginning to move with feverish intent.

A jagged warning slashed in River’s head when his hips began to roll, one booted foot edging between hers to widen her stance. So he could take her outside, in broad daylight? Ahhh. Heat rushed between her legs, preparing, even as common sense attempted to intrude, reminding her a coworker could emerge at any moment. A car could—

Vaughn changed tactics, giving her a gasp-inducing upthrust, elevating her against the car, rocking the vehicle as he growled. “I don’t know what to do with this f*cking urge, Riv.” His words were agonized against her swollen mouth. “It’s like my body needs to thank yours for bearing our child. Just want to get between those legs and give. Give.”

River’s vision doubled before everything swooped back together. Reality was unwelcome when her body sang for more touching, more touching from this specific man, because apparently her hormones and her heart didn’t regularly communicate. And forget common sense—that traitor had taken a vacation. “No. No, Vaughn.” It took an effort to squirm free of his determined grip, but when she finally managed it, her hand moved of its own accord, cracking against Vaughn’s cheek. Any other time, she would have been shocked by her own violence, but anger built with a vengeance, leaving room for nothing else. When she spoke, her voice was whisper-thin. “How dare you kiss me like that?”

“Riv…”

She could see the scene play out behind his eyes, although she only knew it from her own point of view: Vaughn, dead-eyed and unfeeling, turning his back on her and walking out, leaving her in the motel room—their motel room—where she hadn’t moved until the manager booted her out two days later. Not that he knew it. Not that she would tell him. She didn’t need to. Not with the meaning behind her question hanging in the air like rotten fruit. How dare you kiss me like that when you left me shattered, without even glancing back over your shoulder?