He stood again. “So, look—I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, I mean it. I wanted us to get to know each other a little bit. I was going to tell you tonight. I would never try to trick someone into a relationship with me. It’s all public record. I have no control over that.”
“And you’re trying to start a business in Thunder Point,” she reminded him.
He shrugged. “If I’m lucky, my new customers won’t know I’m an ex-con until they’ve gotten to know me for the guy I am now.”
“I’m stewing the chicken,” she said.
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience. I should’ve told you last night. But damn, I just couldn’t. I was having such a good time. I wanted you to like me, I did.”
She stood up. She put her hands on her hips. “Go home and shower after work and come back. I’m making my mother’s dumplings. They melt in your mouth. I bought special coffee for you and special wine for me....”
“Laine, maybe we’re better off just letting it go right—”
“I’m not supposed to get involved with persons of ill repute, so you better have turned a corner. Because damn it, I’m stewing the chicken. And it’s a wet, cold night.”
“You sure?”
“Are you?” she countered.
He grinned. “As long as you promise all hat pins and corkscrews are out of reach.”
“Six,” she said. “I’ll drop the dumplings after you get here. They’re fragile. We don’t screw with dumplings. Don’t be late.”
Five
Eric felt the impulse to run away, something he hadn’t felt in many years. He wasn’t even sure how many years. This time it was for an entirely different reason—for once he wasn’t afraid of being trapped, he was afraid Laine wouldn’t give him a chance. He was afraid she’d come to her senses. That fear was torturously coupled with his overwhelming desire for her, and his willingness to take any risk to make it happen. It was undeniable. He wanted her. It was so new and hot, he didn’t even recognize the emotions.
His last girlfriend, Cara, had not inspired these feelings in him, not at all. He’d been fond of her. More than fond, really—she was adorable. Cute and funny. When they were together, which hadn’t been too often even when they lived together, they enjoyed each other. They had good sex and he’d been tremendously grateful for that. And when she’d told him they were over, he had barely grieved. It felt a lot like saying goodbye to a friend at the train station. Like, “Good luck, be safe, stay in touch if you can, take care of yourself, I’ll be thinking of you.” Even then he knew that the thought of her wouldn’t keep him awake at night. She was a sweet girl. He’d been lucky to have two nice years with her. He was all too aware Cara had never created a fierce hunger in him. They were like roommates with privileges, excellent privileges. Eric had thought that’s what it was supposed to be like.
But now, he ached for Laine.
All through the afternoon he did what he did best—buried himself in an engine and just let his mind argue with itself. He could do the noble thing and let this relationship end before it began because it was destined to be a disaster. Well, that was if Laine wanted him as much as he wanted her. She was the law, he was the reformed criminal. She came from an educated, mucky-muck Boston family. He came from a lower-middle-class background in which only his brother-in-law had attended college. She wanted to soar from great heights, he liked his feet firmly planted on the ground. And yet he was drawn to her like a moth to a flame.
Eric’s instincts told him it was a dangerous prospect to want someone with the kind of hunger he felt for Laine. It couldn’t work. He tried like bloody hell to turn back, to call her and say, “Look, let’s not be stupid here, we are not going to last through the weekend and we both know it. Let’s cut our losses.”
Instead, he asked Manny to keep the station open for Saturday evening, asked Norm to open Sunday morning, asked Justin to work with Norm.
“My mom usually needs me Sunday mornings. I have to take her to church,” Justin said.
Eric grinned. “You? Church?”
“My mother, church. Didn’t you hear me?”
“Jeez, I just got very excited,” Eric said. “Any chance you pick up pointers while you’re taking your mother to church?”
“Yeah. I don’t pick my nose in public anymore.”
Eric frowned. “Progress,” he said. “Norm can probably handle things in the morning. I won’t be too late.”
Well, look at me, he thought to himself. Trying to talk myself into running for my life before two perfectly innocent people get hurt, but instead I get people to cover for me in the morning like I’m already invited to spend the night. If she’s half as smart as I think she is, she’ll nip this idea in the bud.
He went to his motel to shower, shave and change clothes. At exactly six, he knocked on Laine’s door. She opened the door and just looked at him for a long moment. She looked at him like she hadn’t been expecting him. Then she pulled him inside, kicked the door closed and jumped into his arms. He lifted her off the floor and went after her mouth. Everything he thought about all day long was gone. He leaned back against the closed door and held her against him; he loved that strong, muscled, supple little body in his arms. Had they said hello? They hadn’t even said hello....
He held her tight, his hand running over her butt, his lips urging hers open, his tongue penetrating... He was getting ideas, which preceded getting hard by about three seconds. Her breathing was already rapid and somewhat labored and he was dizzy. He leaned his head back, breaking the lip-lock for a second. “Whoa,” he whispered.
“Double whoa,” she said. “You smell good.”
“You smell even better,” he said.
“I lit the fire upstairs.”
“I love a woman with a plan,” he said, kissing her again. Long and wet and deep and luxurious. She was delicious. She was willing. She was his.
“I didn’t have a plan,” she said. “I didn’t know I was going to do that. I’m not sorry. Let’s just go upstairs. Huh, Eric?”
“What about those fragile dumplings...?”
“Screw the dumplings—they’ll be fine. After we’re fine...”
He slid an arm under her knees and carried her up the stairs. “We’re crazy, you know,” he pointed out to her. “No way this works....”
“This is going to work just fine,” she said, unbuttoning the top button of his shirt. Then the second. Then she had to stop because he was wearing a heavy sweater over his shirt.
“I should’ve known you were a woman who had no trouble asking for what you want.”
“If you have other ideas, you better speak up,” she said.
He stopped in the middle of the staircase. Holding her with one arm, one foot on the next rising step, he rested her bottom on his raised thigh. “All I can say is thank you.” Then he took her lips again. “I’ve been thinking about your mouth all day.”
“Just my mouth?” she said, smiling against his lips.
“If I let myself think about anything else, I might’ve had an injury. How fast can you get naked?”
“Faster than you, I bet.”
He raced up those stairs like lightning.
He put her on her bed and she was up on her knees, shoving his jacket off his shoulders, lifting his sweater by the hem, over his head. He took care of the shirt he wore, disregarding buttons and pulling it over his head. Then he pulled off her sweater and she flopped back on the bed, kicking off her pants.
There he stood in his jeans and boots, looking down at her. “Ho, boy,” he said. “You’re gorgeous. And you’re very fast.”
“Come on, Eric. I showed you mine. Show me yours.”
He sat on the bed and worked off his boots first. “Patience.”
“I don’t have that,” she informed him.
He pulled a couple of foil packages out of his pocket, tossed them on the bedside table, then slid down the jeans. He put a knee on the bed and let her have a look.
“Holy guacamole,” she said. Then she opened her arms and he filled them.
He rolled with her so they were on their sides, locked together with their lips while he slowly caressed her breasts and back and belly. When his fingers moved lower, she grabbed his wrist. “Eric, suit up. The second you touch me, I’m gone. I’ll be way ahead of you.”
He grinned at her and gave her lower lip a gentle nip. “The first time, anyway. I can catch up, no worries.”
Eric wasn’t always great at following orders; he didn’t get the condom right away, as she instructed. He’d spent all day trying not to think about this and the last few minutes praying he wouldn’t be too fast. That became a nonissue right away. He slid a slow, easy finger into her, his thumb brushing against her clitoris, and she went off like a firecracker, clenching and throbbing and drenching him in liquid heat. “God,” he said. “Beautiful. Beautiful.” And then he kept her going for a long, long time until she collapsed beside him, flat on her back, spent. He kissed her cheek. “Can you do that again?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered weakly.
“If you give me two things, I can die a happy man.”
“Name ’em,” she said, her eyes still closed.
“Let me have a little taste, then do that when I’m inside. Let me watch your eyes while I’m there. Blow my mind. Kill me. I’m on a hair trigger.”
Her eyes opened a slit, but they sparkled. Her lips curved in a smile. She opened her legs for him.
He slid down her body, stopping to make sure her peaked nipples got the attention they deserved, then he went farther. He kissed the inside of her thighs, but quickly. He was anxious. He was ravenous. He was ready to explode. He gave her a few licks with a gentle tongue, then a little rougher, thoroughly enjoying her moaning and wiggling against him.
He went back to her mouth. “More later,” he promised. “Laine, you’re the sweetest thing I’ve ever had on my tongue and I want you so bad, I think I might pass out. Tell me what you want. You can have anything you want. You own me right now.”
“Just get inside me, Eric. Before I climb on you and just take the choice away from you.”
He didn’t make her wait—he slid in slowly, luxuriated for a moment, then began to move. He grabbed her hands in one of his, stretched them over her head and moved faster, then harder, then deeper and harder. She bit his shoulder, groaned, and let him have it, throwing another climax at him. So fierce, so tight, so powerful, he let it all go with a loud moan. She was unstoppable; she was hot as lava. He came until his brain was empty and she was a limp pile of moist flesh beneath him.
“My God,” she said.
“Yeah,” he concurred in a weak breath.
He held his weight off her until he could catch his breath, then with his arms gently cradling her, he rolled them onto their sides again. He kept his mouth on hers, just pressing his lips and tongue against her lips and tongue, holding her against him for as long as he could—he didn’t want to leave her body. He thought it was very probably the best sexual experience of his life. He certainly couldn’t remember anything to compare it to. He wanted to say something emotional, intimate. Something memorable. But all he could come up with was “Are you okay?”
“No,” she said. “All my bones melted.”
He chuckled. “A-plus?”
“Don’t get full of yourself. And don’t stop trying. God, Eric. Have you always been a sex god?”
He raised up on one elbow and looked down at her. He shook his head. “I think I can honestly say, you bring out the best in me.”