Flirting With Disaster (22 page)

Katie looked at him full-on, the impact of her smile enough to make his heart hurt.

Mine
.

But even as some primitive, senseless part of him claimed her, he knew rationally it wouldn’t last. Couldn’t. He was borrowing time.

“I don’t suppose you have a shovel in the back I didn’t notice earlier,” she said.

“Nope.”

“You have Triple A?”

“Nope.”

“Me, neither.”

Sean got his phone out, determined the location of the closest tow service, and gave them a call. Katie got off his lap and went back to her own seat, which was more comfortable but less enjoyable.

When he hung up, she asked, “A few hours?” She’d been listening to the call.

“They’re busy.”

“Any point in trying another place?”

“It’s snowing all over New York.”

“So probably not much point.”

“Probably not.” He could think of a lot of fates worse than a few hours stuck here with Katie.

“About those parameters,” she said, biting her lip.

Shit
.

“Yeah?”

“We’re going to have to talk them over sometime.” She leaned closer and grabbed a fistful of his sweater, pulling him close for a swift kiss. “But I’m fairly sure your car is a parameter-free zone.”

“Thank you,” he said, and he kissed her back, cupping a breast in his hand.

She smiled against his mouth. “I’m not doing you a favor. I expect you to make this worth my while.”

“I will, I p-promise.” He kissed her neck, her jaw, the space behind her ear. The last one made her shiver, and he filed that away. Useful information.

When his thumb found her nipple again, she inhaled hard. “The seats fold down, you say?”

“Mmm-hmm. And I have half a dozen c-condoms in my bag. Want me to show you all the nasty things I can do to you in a parameter-free zone?”

“Now you’re talking, Buster.”

Katie waited in the front while Sean worked out how to get the seats out of the way.

“Should I find the manual?”

One knee on the floor, wedged between the driver’s seat and the bench in the back of the SUV, Sean threw her a grin that made her dizzy. “I’ll ffigure it out.”

By the time she’d checked the gas gauge—near full, thank goodness—and turned down the heat slightly, hoping it would save fuel, he had the seats stowed. She marveled at the little oasis of clean, flat carpet he’d created.

“I didn’t even know they made cars that did that.”

“Gotta love Japanese engineering.”

He handed up their luggage so she could pile it in the passenger seat. After unzipping his own bag, he unearthed a ribbon of condoms, then handed the duffel over.

“C-come here,” he said, beckoning with the crook of his finger. “I’ve got a c-couple of adolescent fantasies you’re gonna make come true.”

“Is that so?” She made her way into the back and assessed the space. Sean was on his knees. His head brushed the ceiling, and she couldn’t see any way the two of them could both lie down in such a small area, much less fit their bodies together. She was game to give it a try, though. “What fantasies are those?”

He offered her his hand, and she took it and knee-walked closer. Sean wrapped his arms around her and kissed her, hot and wet and
oh, man
, she just wanted to fall into his mouth and live there forever.

Something about his arms made her melty in the best possible way. He was so strong, and she couldn’t quite get over the fact that he
wanted
to be holding her. He wanted her close, wanted to touch her, wanted to claim her. She wasn’t accustomed to feeling wanted. She liked it so much, it kind of freaked her out.

“My number-two teenage fantasy was sex in a car,” he said, his gravelly voice in her ear as his hands found their way back inside her shirt and began inching it up her torso.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. And I’ve never done it.”

“Why not?”

“Didn’t know any willing women at the time. Then when I d-did, I was a lot bigger, and the c-cars seemed a lot smaller.”

“It’s a fair point. I’m not sure how we’re going to make this work.”

“Lift your arms.”

She did, and he made her shirt disappear and eased her bra off. She shivered, crossing her hands over her bare chest. Even with the heat running, it was cool here in the back, the cold seeping through the windows on both sides and through the rear windshield. She and Sean were encased in a box of glass. With the dome light on, any passing car would get a good show.

“I think we’d better turn the light off.”

Sean took her hands and moved them out of his way, patiently but with enough force to make it clear he would brook no argument. “Sorry, Clark. The light’s p-part of my fantasy. Spread your knees wider.”

She started to tell him no, she wouldn’t spread her knees wider, not until he turned off the light, but he kissed her again, plunging his tongue into her mouth and using his own knee to open her legs. He leaned into her, pushing her down to her butt with his weight and then farther, until she was lying flat on her back and he was balanced over her, his cock heating up the cradle of her hips and making her achy.

“Want to hear my number-one teenage fantasy?” he asked with a dimpled grin.

“You’re kind of domineering,” she observed.

“Mmm. Want to hear it?”

“Sure. Enlighten me.”

“Sex with yuh-you.”

She shoved him, partly out of irritation and partly as a way to deny the pure, crystalline thrill he’d just given her. “Shut up.”

“I’m serious.”

“You’re full of shit.”

“I’m not. I’d never lie about my teenage dreams. I take them very sseriously. In fact,” he said, beginning to kiss his way down her throat, “I’ve already fulfilled most of them.” He eased his broad hands underneath her shoulder blades, the contrast of his rough palms to her soft skin,
his bigness to her smallness, making her feel feminine and desirable.

“I designed an undetectable rootkit, visited Africa, went sky-diving …” His mouth traveled lower, holding her where he wanted her as his tongue traced a lazy circle around one nipple. “… studied k-kick-boxing, hiked part of the Appalachian Trail …”

He paused with her nipple held gently between his teeth, and she whine-moaned in happy frustration. “Really, the only things I hadn’t done were the c-car-sex thing and you. Now I get to do both at once.”

He sucked and bit, and she died and came back to life.

“That’s so romantic,” she said when she could speak again. “Getting banged in the back of an SUV so you can check me off your bucket list.”

“Want a rose, sweetie? Should I recite you a p-poem?” He eased his way lower, kissing down her stomach. The heat of his breath on her cool flesh gave her goose bumps.

“No, thanks. Though if you gave me your letter jacket, I could spread it underneath me and make this a little more comfortable.” The carpet actually wasn’t half bad, though the stowhandle for one seat bit into her lower back.

“Sorry. I’d give you my academy blazer if I’d actually guh-gone to the academy.”

“I could never have sex on a blazer. It’s against my principles.”

Sean had made it to her waist, and he tugged at her jeans. “Get these things off,” he ordered. “They’re in the way of my annihilating your principles.”

She gave it a try, pulling her legs up carefully so as not to knee him in the crown jewels, then shoving and wiggling and cursing the tight denim while he kneeled over her and watched with that fantastic, world-rocking grin on his face.

When she finally freed her ankles, she was sweaty and breathing hard. Sean reached down, worked open the button on his jeans, and unzipped.

“You don’t even have to take those off, do you? Lucky bastard.”

He pushed down the waistband of his briefs and pulled himself out, studying her naked body as he made his cock harder with slow, lazy strokes. She could actually feel her throat turn pink, the flush of arousal radiating out from between her legs and washing her skin in heat.

“I’m p-pretty sure I’m the luckiest bastard alive,” Sean agreed. “Have you been wearing those p-panties all day?”

Katie raised herself up on her elbows and looked down. She’d forgotten about the
panties. There was a Union Jack on her crotch. The bra had the Stars and Stripes, but the bra was long gone.

“Why, are you an Anglophile?”

“I am now.”

His eyes had taken on a wild, predatory quality, and the thrill of being his object of interest amped up her arousal another notch. She hadn’t known what to expect sex with Sean to be like. Her experiences began and ended with one man—one and a half, if you counted what she’d done with Judah—but if she’d had to guess before she went over to Sean’s room last night, she would have predicted a certain amount of awkward fumbling in the dark.

She wouldn’t have imagined this ease with him. Couldn’t have known it would be quite so much fun.

He was different now than he’d been with her before, teasing and easygoing, but with all that hard, flinty control that so intrigued her.

She wanted to dismantle it. To make him lose his mind.

“Take off your sweater,” she said.

Sean pulled the thin wool crewneck over his head, shedding his T-shirt along with it. The harsh LEDs of the dome light turned his skin white as marble, but it felt hot under her fingertips. She rose to an awkward sitting position, bracing her weight on one hand behind her as she found his hipbone with her tongue.

“If a police car goes by, we’re going to get arrested,” she said. Her free hand circled the base of his cock and squeezed. “Public indecency.”

That they were visible to the night and whatever it contained only gave an illicit edge to her enjoyment. This was the torrid, inadvisable thing she’d been craving. She imagined what they looked like from outside, the snow swirling around the black mass of the car and their two bodies in the light.

She’d once been his fantasy. He wanted her, and she wanted him, and they were both stupid with it. She could hardly believe he could be so funny and sexy and kind, when just a few days ago she’d thought him cold.

She wouldn’t trade anything for it. This moment. The chance to be close to him.

It wasn’t smart, but it was real, and real felt better than smart tonight. Real felt like what she needed.

She dipped her head before she could stop to worry that she didn’t know what she was doing. All men were supposed to like this. It was a rule, one of Sean’s Man Laws.

As if in confirmation, his head lolled back as she took him in her mouth and teased him with her tongue. He smelled earthy and warm, like a forest in the summer, and she’d never wanted to do this for Levi in quite the same way she wanted to do it now, for Sean.

He made a noise that was sort of a hiss, and when she took him deeper he groaned. After that, she got distracted by his texture and smell and taste, and she let the sounds spill over her, the grunts and moans, the banked thrusts of his hips as he messed up her hair with his fingers.

She pulled away and asked, “How am I doing?” as she stroked his slick flesh with her hand. “Grade-A fantasy material?”

“You’re fffucking k-killing me.”

“In the fantasy, do you come in my mouth?”

She didn’t wait for his answer. Instead, she took him in as far as she could, and his helpless groan sent another surge of moisture between her thighs.

“Yes,” he said. “No. I don’t—You’d better stop that.” But he leaned in, putting one hand out to the side to brace against the window. She shifted so her back was against the side of the car and he could turn the rest of the way around and let his palm on the glass take more of his weight. “I c-c-c-can’t—”

She flicked her tongue, and he interrupted himself with another groan. Katie decided against stopping. His helplessness was such a fantastic drug. She’d never had the power to make a man lose coherent speech before.

Sliding her free hand inside his jeans to cup his ass, she dug in her fingers and guided his rhythm, telling him how deep he could go and how fast.

The last thing he said was, “Ah, fuck.” After that, it was only his breath coming short and harsh, his restless fingers on her head and her shoulder, and the jerk of his hips when he tensed and went still. His sharp inhale. His moan. Salty heat, and the shudder that racked his body afterward as he withdrew and she tucked him back in, licked her lips, and kissed his stomach.

Sean caught his breath with his forehead pressed against the glass, his hands braced wide on either side of the window. She scootched out from beneath him and knelt to run her hand over his sweat-damp back.

“I couldn’t tell if that was a yes or a no, so I just decided to do my own thing,” she told
him. “Hope I didn’t sully all your youthful dreams.”

Sean rocked his forehead side to side against the window. “I’m pretty sure if you’d done that to me when I was sixteen, I would’ve had a heart attack.”

“Good thing you’re made of sturdier stuff now.” She gave his bicep an experimental squeeze, but the experiment had such merit that she left her hand there, running it up and down his bent arms and over his shoulders. “What on earth do you do for this body, anyway?” she asked. “Is this from kick-boxing?”

He chuckled. “Not since c-college. I run a lot. Swim a little. Ride my bike. Sometimes I get busy and forget to eat.”

“It’s seriously working for you. You should write a book.
Geek Fitness: The Sean Owens Guide
.”

“I’m not a geek,” he protested, straightening up and fixing her with those liquid midnight eyes. “I’m a hacker. It’s different.”

“You said you
were
a hacker,” she reminded him. “Now you’re an upstanding security agent with too many gadgets.”

“You never stop being a hacker. It’s a sstate of mind.” Scanning her with narrowed eyes, he appeared to have noticed she was nearly naked and remembered he had things he wanted to do to her. “I have exactly the right amount of gadgets,” he said absently as his hands found her waist and pulled her in.

“For a three-day trip, you brought a smart phone, a tablet computer, a laptop, a GPS … Did I miss any?”

“An iPod, too,” he admitted, his grin sheepish and adorable. “B-but it’s for running. Geeks don’t run.”