Hot and Haunted (8 page)

Chapter Four

“
W
HY?”

Shaken out of my thoughts, I shot Brody a look designed to make him feel even more naked than he already was, with his pants down around his ankles. Naked, and a little bit foolish too. Under my glowing gaze he hastily reassembled his clothing, hitching his jeans back over his hips, beginning to rebutton his shirt. I watched, calmly, as he struggled in the narrow confines of his seat.

“I like to read, too.” It took him a minute before he realized what I was referring to, that I was continuing our conversation from before . . . well, just from before. He made a noise of encouragement as he looked wistfully at the wine bottle. My eyes followed his, and I wished quite desperately for something cool and wet to ease the discomfort of my parched throat.

I supposed that I could just go stand outside and open my mouth if I got really desperate.

I wondered what he was thinking. Wondered if he was at all impressed by any part of this woman that I’d dreamed up. I was sure that he was perplexed—his face showed that clearly enough. And after all, who could blame him? One minute I was in his lap, writhing away; the next, I was attempting to engage in a fairly intellectual discussion.

He snorted, as if following my train of thought. I can almost hear the word that followed.

Women.

“Do you think your boyfriend will come back for you?” Brody was fidgeting so much by that point, the entire situation so strange, so unreal, that I was sure he was beginning to wish that I was gone and that he was once again on his way.

“Why?” I tilted the seat back and saw that it was still pouring outside, whipping droplets through the crack in the window, tiny beads that landed on my collarbone and mingled there with my salty sweat. Inside my head, I snorted with derision.

Kyle didn’t yet know that I was gone, and likely wouldn’t until he got home from his trip. Failure to communicate on any meaningful level during his absences was a habit of his.

“Anxious to get rid of me? Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am?” I laughed, mirthlessly, angry all over again. Having seduced this stranger hadn’t made me feel any better—not inside, at least. But the feel of his skin on mine had made me forget everything but him, at least for a few precious minutes.

I wanted more.

Shaking his head no in answer to my question, Brody placed a hand on my shoulder, a hand that I shrugged off irritably, disgusted with myself.

“I was only thinking that if your boyfriend comes back looking for you, maybe he can help us get the car out of the ditch.” I wanted to scream. It was true, I could see it was true, but it was only a half-truth. The full truth was that he really couldn’t handle my mood swings, and those, combined with my bizarre behavior over the course of the evening, had him wanting, desperately, to call it a night.

Almost as much as he wanted, perversely, to continue his evening with this fascinating woman. With me. Me, yet not me.

Well, I’d gotten my wish, all right. I was important to him. Just then, I was more important than anyone or anything else in his entire world. He wanted me, and he scared me. I aroused him, I excited him, and I terrified him.

No, he wouldn’t call me boring, he wouldn’t be more captivated by the next woman that he met, of that I was certain.

“And then you can get rid of me, right, and be on your way?” I didn’t actually want an answer. Really, I could have left right then. I’d accomplished most of what I’d set out to do, and the final scare wasn’t necessary. I wasn’t sure that I could do it, at any rate.

But, rather perversely, I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to fade from his memory just yet, nor did I want him to fade from mine. So I simply shifted restlessly on the seat, trying to find a comfortable position on the sticky vinyl.

It pissed me off that I was falling under his spell instead of vice versa. When I spoke again, it was with a deliberate huskiness intended to make his spent cock perk up and take notice again, despite his new wariness.

It worked.

“What’s the wildest thing that you’ve ever done, Brody?” My words were soft, sensuous, velvety. I watched as his words stuck in his mouth. He remained mute, but his traitorous cock decided to stand at full attention, a fact that didn’t escape my notice, tenting the front of his pants as it did.

Taking his silence for reluctance, and with new resolve stiffening my spine, I trailed a finger up his thigh, raised an eyebrow inquisitively. “Come on, you must have done something,” I prodded. “Something, anything. Snuck into the ladies’ locker room? Jerked off in public? Killed someone?” His thigh tensed at the last, and I just laughed, a joyless sound with a cruel, mocking edge, as my fingers traced patterns on the faded denim.

Finally fed up, his voice was deliberately harsh, “Some might think that getting a blowjob from a crazy stripper on the side of the road in the middle of a summer storm is pretty wild. Maybe not, though, you tell me.”

I was startled by the change in his personality though I shouldn’t have been. I’d been pushing him toward the edge all night. He continued, even as my nails dug into his thigh, a bit. “What have you done that’s so wild? There must be something, or you wouldn’t have asked the question. Come on, then.” He leaned back in the seat, apparently prepared to listen to whatever it was that I would come up with, but the posture and tone of voice smacked just a bit too much of Kyle’s reticent attitude recently—they landed perilously close to home. I sat straight up, sharp little daggers of temper shooting out of my eyes.

“You think I don’t have a story?” I spat out the words, tamping down my temper.

“No, I’m quite sure that you do. That’s why I asked.” His nonchalance threw me off track; wary, I lay back in my seat too, and began to speak, temper still simmering, just below the surface.

It was on. I wasn’t going to feel like this, no, not ever again.

“All right, then, but just remember that that you asked for it.”

He simply smirked, and it fortified my resolve. Licking a tongue that still tasted of salt and semen over my lips, I began to recount the story that I’d concocted earlier that day, when I’d stormed out of my house, revenge on my mind.

“For the past few years, after every big argument that my boyfriend and I have had, we go for a nice long drive. A makeup date night, I guess you could call it.” I paused for a breath, thought back to earlier that afternoon, and grimaced inwardly.

I continued. “We drive until it gets dark, until we find a nice back road, one that’s pretty quiet—but one where we know that a car will drive by at some point.”

I watched with my peripherals as Brody shifted uneasily, crossing his arms before uncrossing them, tugging at his shirt, readjusting his glasses.

“I get out of the car, and my boyfriend leaves. I don’t know where he goes; it doesn’t matter to me. But there I’ll be, dressed all in white so that I’m easy to see. When a car finally drives by, I step into the middle of the road. Sometime they get so scared that they’ll drive right into a ditch, and sometimes not, but they’ll always let me into their car since I’m just a sweet young thing who’s lost her way.”

His eyes swept over my white dress as I lounged on the seat in his car, and the firm muscles of his jaw clenched.

Even as he still wanted me, I was sure, he had to admit that I was one messed-up woman. Little did he know. I’d taken fistfuls of pills for years, just to keep myself from going insane, but with Kyle’s betrayal, my fragile hold on it seemed to have snapped.

“While we’re waiting in the car, waiting for help, I’ll seduce the person, male or female, it doesn’t really matter which. It helps to pass the time. Truth be told, it’s the only way that I can really get excited, sexually, you know? By knowing what will happen to the person later, even as I make them come.”

Brody’s mouth opened slightly, half with fear, half with lust as I strummed a finger over my nipple in time to the cadence of my voice.

“What . . . what happens to them later?” he stuttered, then muttered a curse under his breath.

“Well, after we fuck, and we’re lying there all satisfied, headlights will flash, and it’s always my boyfriend, coming back to get me. He loves me a lot, you see.”

“Then what happens?” I’d just bet he wasn’t sure he actually wanted to know.

“When he sees us lying there naked, still all sweaty from sex, he blows his cool a bit even though he knows what has happened. Even though he’s a part of the plan—he’s always had a terrible anger problem, you know. He’ll kill the person, right there as I watch, then he’ll cry like a baby because he knows that he’s done it again. That’s when I’ll have to help him. He’s so weak without me, you see. I’ll help him bury the body in the woods. By that point, he’ll be blubbering all over me, professing his undying love, promising me anything. And he’ll be a complete angel for a while, waiting on me hand and foot, until I get the itch again, until I start another big fight.”

There was dead silence as I finished speaking, a silence broken eventually by Brody’s rapidly accelerating breathing.

“That is sick,” he informed me. “Sick and twisted. What is wrong with you, that you’ll tell things like that to a stranger? You’re going to get yourself into a lot of trouble, someday.”

“Did I scare you, Brody?”

Certain that I did, I reached for his cock. I wanted to give him one last memory of me, having told my story, scared the life out of him, and ensured that I would forever be a part of his memory. And, hell, I wanted that memory for myself as well. Something about him tugged at me, had done so since he’d pulled over and picked me up, something entirely apart from the fact that my cunt was wet and my nipples hard and tight.

Something about this man drew me to him, and I couldn’t understand what. It made me wish that there was a real chance to explore what I knew that he felt too, but of course there wasn’t.

It was tonight, tonight and never again.

He caught my wrists and held them tight.

“Don’t.” His voice was low, dangerous. “Just don’t.”

I laughed humorlessly as I tried to free my hands. “Had you going again, didn’t I?” I tugged.

He didn’t let go.

I tried again.

He held tight.

Against everything that I’d come there to prove, I was more turned-on than I’d ever been in my life. More turned-on and, I had to admit, completely ashamed. What was I doing? He didn’t deserve the way that I’d treated him, any more than I’d deserved Kyle’s behavior toward me. Acting the way I had been for the past few hours made me no better than Kyle, and I knew that I should just leave, just get out of the car and keep on going. My own car was parked not far away—I could end it all right now.

The problem was that I really didn’t want to. There was a spark flicking fretfully in the damp, humid air, one that had been trying to ignite since I’d set foot in the car, one that had absolutely nothing to do with the act I’d put on and everything to do with chemistry between two people.

I knew that he felt it, too, but after how I’d acted, I knew that the next move had to be his.

I prayed, desperately, that there would be a next move.

There was. Brody had apparently decided that there had been enough games between the two of us and was ready for the real deal. So when I yanked again, instead of finding myself freed, I was dragged, once again, into his lap, where I pretended to struggle fruitlessly.

“Get out of the car,” I ordered, and in response, he gripped my hips firmly.

“No.” He pressed his face to mine. “It’s my car.”

Knowing that it was petty, I dipped my head and bit his neck, hard. As his breath hissed in, I muttered through clenched teeth, “Get out of the damn car!”

He bit me back, right on the tender curve of my neck, and I gasped the hot air of the car into my already burning lungs. Damn it, I was turned on, really turned on; my cunt was damp, and my nipples had contracted again into hard, tight pegs.

I had been teasing, earlier, playing out the game. But now, now that my temper was up, and my brain was telling me to get out of there before anything went further, my body was pressing against Brody’s, and the friction between us has the sweat steaming right off our skin.

I had never had this kind of chemistry with Kyle, never had it with Steve. Never had it with anyone else before this geeky yet somehow incredibly sexy optometrist had picked me up on the side of the road.

Maybe this heat could burn away my pain. I had to try.

I bit his lip, hard enough that he muttered a protest, and pulled on the handle of the door. He made a noise, but I clamped my legs around his waist and shifted my weight so that we were stumbling out of the car, into the night and the storm.

Slamming the door behind us, Brody rammed me against the hot metal of the car, metal that was slick with thousands of tiny droplets of water. The storm continued to rage, outer and inner, great forces of nature that neither of us could control.

His hands fisted into the material of my skirt, wringing water out of the cloth with each touch. I ground my body against his, my hand snaking between our bodies to search for his zipper. I used my teeth on his lower lip before spitting words out like raindrops. “Hard. Fast. Now.”

Instead, he leaned back so that he could remove his glasses and look me in the face.

“You’re beautiful.” This was murmured so softly that I could barely hear him over the noise of the storm. Panting, I shook my head, rocking my hips against his pelvis. I didn’t want words, I wanted action, and even if I had been inclined to talk, that’s not what I wanted to hear. I was afraid that I’d melt if he was sweet to me, melt like a piece of candy abandoned on the sidewalk in the summer. Then I’d be right back where I had been with Kyle. In his control, in pain every time he squeezed the heart that he held in the wide palm of his hand.

So I ignored his words, slipped off my shoes—the delicately heeled sandals that made me wobble—and wrapped my legs around his waist as he held me tight. I smelled the rain on him, rain and soap, a clean, masculine scent that I approved of. Purring as his hands slid over my breasts, kneading them through the dripping cloth, I felt my nipples tighten, answering his touch.