Tattoo (Take It Off #7)(32)
Author: Cambria Hebert

But never mind her backbone and beauty.

Kissing her made me crazy.

So crazy that it was practically all I could think about. I was like an addict who only wanted their next fix. Just the mere thought of her lips, of her full bottom lip, turned my cock to granite.

I wasn’t lying when I said her father’s request was just an excuse. An excuse to be near her, to get in her. And I wanted in her. I wanted to bury myself so deep in her body that I couldn’t tell where I ended and she began.

But I couldn’t.

Not yet anyway. I had to wait until she was sure I wasn’t here because her father paid me to be.

So I followed her into the kitchen to eat some awesome-ass French toast. But her laugh got to me. Her closeness got to me. And the way she seemed to identify what I was feeling when I myself had no idea got to me.

That sounds lonely.

Yeah, maybe I was. Or maybe I was just tired of trying to be two different people. Maybe I didn’t know who I was at all. I kinda felt homesick… only I had no home to go to.

“Hey you wanna get out of here?” I asked as I fed her yet another bite of breakfast. I might not be able to go home, but I could go to the last place I felt relaxed.

“Where?” she asked, chewing thoughtfully. Just the movement of her lips as she ate was enough to make me contemplate bending her over the stool she was sitting on and taking her.

“Fishing,” I said, my voice husky.

I abandoned her fork and plate to get up and rummage through one of the hundreds of cabinets (seriously, what man needed this many cabinets?) for a coffee mug.

“You want to go fishing?”

I grunted as I opened yet another door to look.

“They’re over here,” she said from close by. Taylor opened a cabinet and reached in to pull out a white mug. When I reached out to take it, she yanked it back, stuffing it back into the cabinet.

“Hey…”

She grinned over her shoulder and then turned back. “I need up,” she said, pointing to the highest shelf in the cupboard.

I could have moved her aside and reached for whatever it was she wanted.

I didn’t do that.

Instead, I wrapped my hands around her waist, loving the supple feeling of her body under my hands. The sides of her waist dipped in like it was made just for my hands. “Up you go,” I said, easily lifting her and wrapping an arm around her hips to anchor her against me as she reached for whatever she wanted.

Her little giggle made my stomach flip.

After several seconds, she patted me on the arm. “Got it.”

Careful of her injured arm, I let her slide down the front of my body. When her ass hit my crotch, my hips moved without thought and thrust toward her, bringing my throbbing length right up against her.

The travel mugs she was holding fell onto the counter, and she melted back against me. I reached around her front and filled my hand with her breast, wishing her bulky shirt wasn’t in my way. She made a little sound of appreciation and I squeezed, kneading the mound with firm, confident strokes.

Taylor’s arm came up to snake around my neck. Her fingers slid up the back into my hairline, making little chills of need race all way into my toes. Keeping her hand around the back of my neck, she slowly pivoted around, her body brushing mine as she turned and looked up at me with darkened emerald eyes.

Damn, I fucking loved seeing that look on her face.

Like I was her entire world.

Her hand pulled me down so our lips could meet, could caress each other in a slow, lazy kiss. There was no tongue involved this time, but it didn’t matter.

Her nails raked down the side of my neck and over my chest, traveling down until it fell completely away. I pulled back, actually feeling fuzzy headed.

No girl ever made me feel dazed before.

“You pour us some coffee to go, and I’ll get the hot dogs.”

My brain was still operating a few batteries short. “Hot dogs?” I asked.

She gave me a half smile. “For the fish.”

Oh, yeah. We were going fishing. Who the hell came up with that idea? Sex was a much better way to pass the time.

“Brody?” The tentative way she said my name, almost like asking a question, drew me out of my dirty (yet satisfying) thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“Did you change your mind?”

“What would you say if I did?” I asked, lifting an eyebrow. I stepped toward her, reaching around to grab her ass. “What would you say if I told you I’d rather stay in?”

Her body swayed toward me and her chin tipped back. “I’d ask you what you would rather do.”

That was not the answer I was hoping to get. She was supposed to say she didn’t want to stay in. She was supposed to act like what I was proposing was dirty and offensive.

I liked dirty and offensive.

She wasn’t supposed to as well.

It made me want her even more.

I growled and gave her ass cheek another squeeze and then pushed back to go make the coffee. I was making damn coffee when I could be ripping off her clothes.

I was out of my damn mind.

A short while later, we were sitting in my old Ford, heading down I-40 toward Lake Crabtree. It was a hot day, but rather than turn on the AC, we rolled down the windows. At first I thought she might worry about her hair or something equally girly, but she didn’t. Instead, she laughed and stuck her hand out the window, allowing her fingers to play in the passing wind.

Wisps of cinnamon hair escaped the playful braids over her shoulders and caught in the breeze, tugging all around her head. Almost immediately after climbing into the cab of the truck, she discarded her shoes and propped her bare feet up on the dashboard. Her feet were dainty and her toes were painted pink.

For a woman I knew came from money, who had the best offered to her from an early age, she seemed comfortable in my old beat-up truck with fishing poles rattling around in the back. Country music came through the radio and neither of us spoke, but sometimes she would sing along in an off-key, enthusiastic voice.

About twenty minutes after leaving her house, we turned into Lake Crabtree County Park. Sweeping views of the five-hundred-and-twenty-acre lake sparkling in the sun was a welcome sight. After we parked and I rented a small rowboat, we threw two fishing poles, a tackle box, and the hot dogs onto the wooden floor.

I grabbed an orange life jacket and held it out. “In you go.”

“I know how to swim.”

“Humor me.”

She stared at me mutinously for long moments, but then she relented with a sigh and held out her good arm. “You want me to take off this sling?”