All Fired Up (Kate Meader) (11 page)

“I don’t really like spicy food, and I have some work to do at home. You go ahead.”

He hesitated just enough to send Cara’s heart to crypt level, but then his innate manners kicked in and he turned back to Maisey with a tip of his hat. “Next time perhaps.”

“Shane, you should stay.” Cara made a move to the door, every step like she was dragging through treacle. Evidently, he wanted to head out with the bubbly, interested,
normal
Maisey.

Behind her, she heard Maisey murmur, “Too stuck-up to eat with the help.”

Cara, you stupid, stupid girl. Did you think it would be that easy?

Unable to stop her shaking, she pushed through the exit and arrowed for the steps up to the street.
Run away, freak, run away.
Hot blood pounded in her ears and drowned out everything around her.

Except the harshness of her name on the warm night air.

She felt her neck prickle. With one foot on the lowest step, she turned and her breath trapped in her lungs at the sight of Shane silhouetted in the doorway, still wearing that hat slung low over his face. Gone was the boyish expression and playfulness. His face was hard, his jaw rigid, his gaze burning into her like a brand. Back to that other personality, the one that projected intensity and strength beyond his years. No matter, he would never be old enough for her.

“Don’t walk away like that,” he said, sharp enough to slice through her like a blade. “I thought you had a good time.”

“I did,” she pushed out. “I have to leave.”

“Is Maisey right, then?” Closer now, his body eclipsed the light from the hallway. His hat eclipsed his expression, but she knew without seeing that his eyes were wide with something. Anger, perhaps. “Are you too stuck-up to eat with your coworkers?”

Her mouth had stopped working, but who needed words when he continued to talk. To needle.

“Or maybe you just want to be alone with me. Is that it, Cara?” Amusement enriched his tone, as if he didn’t quite believe what he was saying.

Finally, she found her voice. “Sounds like you need a ladder to get over yourself, Doyle.”

He smiled, seemingly pleased at her answer but then tension crossed his mouth again so quickly she almost stepped back. With one long stride, he closed the gap between them.

“I think I know what the problem is.”

She’d bet dollars to doughnuts he had no clue, but she held her breath all the same.

“You’re hiding, Cara. There’s something happening here and you’re scared because it doesn’t fit into that neat box you’ve constructed. You thought you got the lid back on after Vegas but now the edges are straining and what you’re feeling in here”—he touched her forehead, then coasted his fingertip down her cheek, her jaw, her neck until he reached the top button of her shirt—“and in here is too big for that box.”

“Let me go,” she said, the words out of her mouth before she realized how ridiculously melodramatic they sounded. As if he were somehow keeping her prisoner on this step in this quasi-relationship. She was free to leave any time.

Then why couldn’t she move?

She backed up, but her heel caught on the step, and her vision filled with a wide-brimmed hat and shining brown eyes. Warm fingers hooked around the bare band of skin between her shirt and her jeans. His scent settled inside her, smoking through her blood.

Please, oh, please.

“Don’t hide from me, darlin’. I’ll just find you.” He brought his mouth down on hers and stole her breath, balance, and any chance she had of keeping that lid screwed on tight.

His tongue stroked hers hungrily, an insistent push that left her greedy for more. Had they kissed when they got married? Surely she would have remembered this warmth, this color, this feeling. Surely she would have remembered the bristled rough around his lips sparking her to life. Whatever happened, its imprint was lost in a sea of competing tastes and sounds from that craziest of nights. Now, she had time to savor, to taste, to enjoy a true consummation of hunger, unlike anything she ever felt for food. Who needed a full stomach when her heart was brimming to ripeness in Shane’s kiss?

Her improved dance moves stood her well as she pushed him back into the stairwell and then flipped against the wall of the church, the support of the brick necessary until the anchor of his body could kick in and hold her fast. Their slanting mouths twisted, mapping untrodden paths of pleasure. The push and pull of tongue-on-tongue ramped up her desire. His hard body pressed against her, slotting in from neck to knee, and she almost cried out at its perfect symmetry.

Skin. She needed to feel it. Just to check if those hard muscles contouring that henley were as defined as they looked. Yanking up his shirt, she trailed her hands across his abs and a corresponding thrill trailed across her skin as his stomach tautened under her touch. Maybe those abs were tight before but she liked to think her fingers were giving his muscles a nice workout.

At her exploration, he groaned a deep, chest-filling sound, which she took as an invitation to take things to the next level. Gripping his shirt, she tugged it higher. The shadows kept him safe from her grasping eyes, so her imagination filled in the blanks. Not an inch of fat marred that terrain. Her investigations ended at his nipples, already erect, inviting her to rub and stroke. And lick. Bending, she flicked her tongue across one stiffening bud.

So maybe she’d skipped a couple of levels.

Her gaze crept up to meet his, now trained on her mouth just scant millimeters from his chest. He was holding his breath, a forever breath she recognized because she was holding one, too. His tongue skated across his lower lip, a little puffy after their kiss.

“Please,” he rasped, needful and low.

Her hot mouth sealed over his nipple and sucked, her ears alert for his reaction, needing to know this felt good to him. When both his hands cupped the back of her neck and held her fast, she knew he liked it. When a very male sound escaped his throat, one he had been clearly shoving deep, she knew he loved it.

“Your mouth, Cara. God, your mouth.”

Now she knew he was hitching a ride to heaven right with her.

His rough fingers massaged the nape of her neck, and she moaned. And he moaned, a sound so heartfelt she felt its pulse between her legs. A feedback loop of pleasure. Gently, he drew her back and shaped her head to his palm, directing her up to face him. He was smiling, a big crescent of a grin. Making a guy smile during an intimate moment was not part of her usual skill set.

“Do you like that?” She’d always been a get-it-in-triplicate kind of girl.

His smile stretched wider. “You have no idea.”

Oh, she did. Good thing she was wearing a dark-rinse jean because her panties were so drenched she could feel the damp. He brought her in for a kiss, a long plundering one. Her blood bubbled like champagne. Drunk on him, her senses lurched toward chaos. Just like in Vegas, except tonight, there was no alcohol to blame, only an acute case of dirty lust outside a church.

Yes, she was on a fast train to hell.

Suddenly aware of the shocking inappropriateness of her behavior, her brain crashed and she pulled away, but it got her nowhere except the brick wall behind her. He was on her again, possessing her mouth, destroying her for all others. It was madness. Pure, unbridled madness, and she loved every second of it.

The basement door flew open, casting a wedge of light that penetrated Cara’s eyelids and forced her eyes open. Shane pushed her farther into the shadow of the stairwell just as a few class stragglers emerged, walking slowly up the steps before stopping to laugh about something. Cara recognized Maisey’s giggle.

Her head was crammed into Shane’s hard chest, her hand trapped at his navel as six feet of rock-hard muscle covered her like a granite curtain. They were exposed—a look their way would reveal their position—but Cara felt strangely safe. She managed to inch her head up until it was nestled in the crook of Shane’s shoulder. His breathing was serrated, and his abs pulsed in time with her heart. Against her hip, she felt the ridge of his erection. Maybe she could…no. Stop that.

She slipped her free hand into his back pocket, not because she was worried he might move away from her but because it was either that or she was going to cup his cock. The muscles of his hot Irish ass flexed against her palm. He drew his head back and gave her an eyebrow hitch of
naughty, naughty.
The voices faded out as she focused on his eyes, still big and lust-blown under the shade of his hat.

Unable to stop herself, she licked his throat. It was crazy, but that train had run express and she was only human. His skin tasted of salt and bread, man and desire. She could live here, be happy here, feel safe here. Alternating between kisses and licks, she moved her mouth and tongue over that rough swatch of territory and claimed it for her own.

All hail the conquering Cara.

He was struggling not to react, his throat convulsing under the velvet nap of her tongue. But he must have figured that the prospect of discovery was so arousing that it was worth it to play at her game. She had just registered the growing thickness of his erection as it stroked her hip when he brushed the side of her breast and rolled her already-primed nipple with his thumb.

It was so intimate. So sensual. So intimate and sensual that she moaned her approval.

“Hello?” One of the chatty trio on the steps turned in their direction. “Oh, sorry.”

Maisey’s mouth gaped as she took in the scene before her. Lit by the overhead security light, a flush of garish color rose to her cheeks. Shane stepped out of Cara’s grasp and his loud swallow cut through the silence. He pulled his shirt down to cover his exposed skin.

“Oh, it’s okay.” Maisey backed away, stumbled a little, and Cara felt a twinge of guilt. Only a twinge. She already had enough baggage; she wasn’t going to take on any more. She almost wished Maisey had blundered in while she was in full-on Vampira mode.

Cara, you are an evil, evil girl.

Maisey disappeared up the steps to the street with her friends following close behind.

“Ah, shit,” Shane said, adjusting his hat. “We upset her.”

Cara supposed she should be glad he wasn’t a complete asshole who cared nothing for the hurt feelings of a burgeoning crush, but she had never been one for conventional thinking. “She’ll get over it.”

A shadow crossed his face. “Yeah, I know.”

“Do you want to go after her?”

That hesitation again. “No, of course not. I don’t like to upset anyone, that’s all.”

She was mad to think this could work. That a toxic cynic like her could be right for a nice guy like Shane. His easygoing charm would only last so long in the face of her unbending personality.

“You and Maisey would make a cute couple. All that perk with your farm-boy shit.”

Pulse accelerating, she pushed him aside and clattered up the steps. A block east would take her to Broadway and a plethora of cabs and, most important, away from
him.
Panic clawed at her insides, fear sucker punching the confident woman who had almost jumped a hot guy’s bones outside a church. Because that wasn’t really her, was it? It was a facsimile, a hopped-up-on-hormones version who was letting her body call the shots again. Pleasure and guilt went hand in hand. If her body wanted it, then it was one hundred percent bad for her.

Indulging in Shane might make her feel good, but those empty calories would be a killer.

She scurried toward the busy street up ahead, praying Maisey wasn’t lying in wait behind a car with a tire iron.

A strong hand landed on her waist.

“Cara,” Shane said, turning her back the way she had come. “Talk to me.”

“About what?”

“About what you’re thinking.”

Oh, he didn’t want to know what she was thinking. Guys pretended they did but they couldn’t handle a woman’s truth. “I can’t do this again.”

“Which? The dancing or me?”

“Both.”

His hand splayed on her denim-clad hip, sending a dangerous ripple of pleasure through her. Could he not feel the sharpness of her bones jutting like a coat hanger through the rough fabric? Did he not realize that stroking her, no matter how gentle, might slash him to pieces? She was a barbed weapon, hazardous to the touch, a danger to anyone who dared to come close. And yet, when he had kissed her and held her in his arms, she didn’t feel the awkwardness that accompanied every fumble with previous guys. She felt those barbs inside her retracting, her body blooming into a voluptuousness she had never experienced with anyone else.

Shane’s hands scared the hell out of her.

He cocked his head, still magnificent in that hat. “Did you have fun tonight?”

“Yes—”

“So you have something against fun?”

“No—”

“You had fun tonight but you’d hate to repeat the experience?”

What did he want from her, other than to torture her and make her feel like the worst kind of fool? A woman who had no control over her life, a woman so needy she had jumped at a guy who was all wrong for her. Not that any guy was right for her. With all her hang-ups, she couldn’t inflict her crazy on any guy.

She let go of a long, dramatic sigh. It seemed easiest all round to play up her worst qualities. Cara, the princess. Cara, the Lemon Tart. Best to push him away so he understood what he was dealing with and that she was doing him a huge favor.