Hot and Haunted Read online

  “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.

  Slowly, even as I writhed against him, he lowered the zipper of my dress. Frantically I pawed at his belt, but he dipped his head, sampled my neck. “What’s the hurry?”

  I swallowed past the huge lump in my throat. If I didn’t leave, then I was a goner. But, of course, I didn’t go, choosing instead to slide down his body until I was standing barefoot in a puddle that was as warm as bathwater. I pushed the right strap of my dress down, down the curve of my shoulder, then the left. The lace fell until I was bare to the waist. Shimmying slightly, it fell, down to the ground, and I was left naked in the rain.

  Brody’s hands moved to the shiny glint of my lower lips and stroked. His fingers were rough, and I cried out in shock. He lightened his touch, then looked down, down at where his fingers were touching me. Smiling into my eyes, he whispered, “Maybe you’ll like this better,” and sank to his knees.

  Closing his lips over the tight rosette of flesh between my legs, he suckled gently, his teeth scraping lightly around the edges. I gasped in response. I didn’t usually let men do this for me until I’d been with them for a long time since it made me feel so exposed, but he had started before I knew what he was going to do.

  That, and his wet mouth on my wet clit just felt so damned good. The s