Breathe Me In

He wanted to touch her. Oh, fuck, how he wanted to. And he damn sure couldn’t do it while they were driving around…at least, not the way he had in mind. His fingers ached to chart every inch of her.

“Let’s just go back,” she suggested. He could get onboard with that. A parked car allowed for many more opportunities than a moving one.

Dermamania was dark and deserted when they returned. The past few weeks he and his coworkers had been worried about a repeat attack, and they’d discussed taking turns staking out the place at night, relishing the idea of catching the a**hole in the act. But no one had seemed too enthused about doing it. There was a security system now, anyway.

“Crazy thing, isn’t it?” Macy asked after he’d parked and killed the engine. “Our friends causing all this trouble.”

“It isn’t like they caused it. I’m sure they didn’t have any idea it would lead to all this.”

“Do you think it’s worth it? I’m not sure I do. I mean…I don’t know.” She finished on a dejected note.

He’d had similar thoughts while staring into the destruction that was once his lively place of business. It was up and running again, sure, but something about it was…off. Like their happy little bubble had burst and there was no blowing another one so round and so perfect no matter how hard they tried. “I guess it doesn’t matter what we think, right?” he said at last. “Only they can decide.”

“I predict this separation won’t last long. Candace won’t last long. She’ll go back.”

“And he’d take her in a heartbeat. He isn’t the problem, you know. He’s willing to work through it. I guess he’s willing to throw everything away. His business, us… everything, if he has to.”

“Wow.”

“Right.” He thumbed the grips on his steering wheel, thinking of Brooke. How he’d wanted to scour the f**king earth to find her after she left him, no matter what she’d done. “I guess it’s worth it, then.”

“It seems pretty selfish to me.”

Macy’s voice had hardened, and when he looked over at her, he saw her mouth had, too. Usually those lips were generous and seemed to be hiding a smile like a precious secret; now they were tight and forbidding. “What’s wrong with being a little selfish sometimes?” he asked. “In the end, we’re the only ones looking out for ourselves. No one else is gonna do it.”

She stared at him for a moment, a light “Hmm” escaping her throat. “I guess you’re right about that.”

Jesus. She was perfection from her sleek, shiny hair to the white-tipped fingernails she lifted pensively to her lips. To those killer legs. And everything he couldn’t see…he was damn sure it was perfection too.

He was feeling selfish as hell right now. He hoped she was too. This was a moment, her gaze remaining steady on his, and he feared if he looked away, if he even f**king moved, he would break the spell and the moment would be gone forever. The moment she was thinking of kissing him.

But he wouldn’t kiss this girl. Not now. She would f**king own him then. Next time, next time…if she came back, if she wanted him again…he would kiss her then—

He was about to put that vow to the test. In one fluid motion, Macy leaned closer, caught his cheek in her hand, and moved in.

Never once, not once that she could remember since she started kissing guys at age twelve, had Macy ever been rejected when she was the aggressor.

Not once.

But before she could lose herself in the insanity of putting her needy lips on Ghost’s, he trapped her face between his palms, let his gaze sear darkly into hers for a heart-stopping moment, and—

He didn’t push her away, which she’d expected in that one half-second of panicked mortification. Oh, no, he didn’t. He tilted her head to the side and branded the side of her neck with his mouth, sucking the air from her lungs. Warm breath, firm lips, the gentle scrape of teeth… She’d always been a little ticklish there but not now, not with desire coursing a hot path through her veins. She only wanted to get him closer.

Why hadn’t he let her kiss him? She’d been stealing glances at those lips all night. She’d dreamed of them. Now there was nothing she wanted more than to taste them. Drink him up.

Well, almost nothing.

His hand skated down her arm. Hers ventured up his hard chest, finding his neck and holding him to her. Breath teased her ear; he nuzzled into her hair and inhaled. Groaned.

She managed to get both her hands on him then, caressing each side of his jaw with her thumbs. Pushing back, she went in for another try. He had to let her. He had to.

Determined hands clamped hard around her wrists, halting her. “What’s up with this?” he asked, the gruffness of his voice sending shivers through her entire lower body. His eyes glinted in the dimness. “Coming on to me just to shoot me down?”

“No, I…”

“No? You wanna f**k me?”

It was said with no wonder, no incredulousness, but with a rough edge of challenge.

Because that’s what this was all about, and she’d known it. He wasn’t up for anything less. Had he been anyone else, she might’ve been insulted. Not now, not when she’d known what she was getting into when she came here.

He was putting her to the test now, speaking so bluntly, moving closer and letting his mouth tease along her jawline, barely touching as he breathed on her skin.

“Yes.” The word just slipped out. Absolutely no uncertainty behind it. In fact, that little word might’ve been bouncing around the inside of her head ever since she first laid eyes on him. Yes. Oh, hell yes.

A grin flashed across his face as he leaned back from her. “I don’t think we have room up here. Climb in the back.”

Macy glanced back between the front seats into the shadowed, small backseat area. “We wouldn’t have room back there either. It looks…cramped.”

“It’ll be fine. Go.”

“But we could—”

“Come on. Live a little dangerously.”

“Climb back there? I’m in a skirt.”

The tip of his finger trailed along her upper thigh, raising gooseflesh. She felt that touch all the way up her spine. “And in about sixty seconds I’m about to be all up under it, or so you tell me.”

Jesus. “That doesn’t mean all modesty automatically goes out the window.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No.”

“You’re not a lights-out, under-the-covers kind of girl, are you? You’re too beautiful for that.”

Despite herself, a warm thrill coursed through her with the compliment, mixing with all the other warm thrills he gave her. “No. I’m just not… an ass-in-your-face-before-we’ve-even-kissed kind of girl.” She cocked a meaningful eyebrow at him.

He smacked his leg as if he’d just suffered a profound disappointment. “Dammit! I thought I’d finally found one.”

Laughing, she gave his arm a shove. “Remarks like that won’t get you laid, in this car or otherwise.”

“Get your sexy ass back there, killjoy.”

Go, go! her mind screamed at her, even as she probably would have sat and carried on the practically giddy banter until sunrise. Her pulse throbbed, her entire body burned…she wanted him, but nerves kept her planted to her spot.

Then he popped open the door. “Well, if you want me…I’m back here.”

She watched in amusement as he got out and pushed the seat up so he could get in the back, then pulled the door closed. He settled back as if he was getting comfortable, resting his hands on his knees and glancing around. “I’ve never been in the backseat of my own car before. Interesting.”

“Oh, so we’d be christening it?” she asked.

“I guess so. I will think of you from now on every time I get in.”

It was time to put up or shut up. Taking a deep breath to bolster her courage, she let herself out as he had done, then slid into the back beside him and closed the door. It was even smaller back here than it had looked.

Ghost reached over and gently pushed her hair behind her shoulder. She wondered if he could tell how badly she was shaking. If he couldn’t now, he probably would in a minute. When he began touching her. Really touching her.

Her pulse went from throbbing to thrashing. She could feel it everywhere, especially between her legs.

“I hope you know there’s no way we can do this back here,” she told him as he moved closer, hearing a high note of anxiety in her voice. “We should—”

“We can. I’ll make it work. Trust me.”

He pressed light kisses to her neck, under her chin, around to the other side. She sighed, rolling her head around to give him access, loving the light burn of his stubble along her skin. “Trust has to be earned.”

“Right,” he murmured, and continued his task. “But you’re here. You trust me a little already.”

“I don’t know why, but…yeah. I do.”

Her top and bra weren’t very substantial at all, so when his hand slid up her side to her breast, she felt it almost as acutely as if he’d touched her bare skin. Her hands flew to his shoulders; her nipple tightened under his palm. She couldn’t stop the sound that escaped her throat when he circled the tight peak with his thumb, and his answering groan elicited a flood of heat that left her trembling for more.

He shifted toward her until she lay back as far as she could, splaying her legs to give him room. There wasn’t much to give, but she managed. Her bare thighs gripped the rough denim covering his hips. She wanted to know what else it covered. He was so hard everywhere else, she could only imagine what he had in his pants right now.

And, for some reason, her unkissed mouth wouldn’t stop babbling. “In just a few minutes we could be at my place—”

“Fuck, Macy, I don’t think I can wait a few minutes.”

Oh, God, she was with him there. A few minutes and a cool-down and she might come to her senses, and she didn’t want to. If she didn’t have him inside soon…it didn’t bear thinking about. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this turned on.

He grasped the hem of her shirt and wrenched it upward. She started to raise her arms so he could remove it, but he stopped as soon as her br**sts were uncovered then dove to kiss the swells above her bra cups. Her breath hitched and his h*ps thrust between her legs, forcing them farther apart until her skirt rode up, baring her panties. The denim of his jeans abraded her cl*t through the thin cotton. She wished it were his fingers. Touch me, oh God, touch me…

He kept her waiting, content to kiss her heating skin until she reached up and pulled her bra cups down, exposing her n**ples. As soon as she did, he sucked one hard, the answering throb in her p**sy causing her to grind against his erection. She could feel it now—oh, God, yes—rock hard and straining damn impressively against the denim separating him from her needy core.

She needed that. She’d been needing it for a long time, she just hadn’t realized how much until this moment. And now that she was exceedingly aware of her need, she wanted it now. His breath caught when she reached for his fly, and she gave him a light squeeze through his jeans before she went to work on it. “Fuck,” he breathed, and when he shifted above her, it took a moment for her to realize he was digging in his back pocket.