I nodded, biting my lip.

“Turn,” he said, lifting and rotating me to sit on his lap facing out. In the last row of the lot, the TA faced nothing but a rickety fence, tall weeds poking through the warped, splintered slats.

I laid my head back against his shoulder—missing his mouth on my throat, my lips, my breast—and I wanted to wail, How is this better? Then he unbuttoned and unzipped my shorts and thrust his hand right down the front of them.

“Ah, that’s it,” he murmured. “Right. There. One? Or two?”

I writhed and groaned, shutting my eyes to our surroundings and yielding control to his intoxicating words and searching fingers.

He chuckled. “Two it is.”

“Oh… God.” I panted.

He licked and kissed my neck at the pulse point just under my ear, his left hand cupping my right breast, pinching the nipple gently as if linking an erogenous connect-the-dots triangle.

“That’s my girl.” The vibrations of his voice rumbled through me, a grounding bass to the orchestral maneuvers of his hands and mouth. His thumb circled and pressed as his fingers thrust deep, curving and caressing. “I wanna watch you come, baby. That’s all I’ve dreamed about since the last time I was inside you—kissing you again, touching this sweet little body again, all warm and tight and wanting me to lay you down and fuck you deep and hard.”

I jolted and came apart, clapping one hand over my mouth to keep the people in the restaurant across the lot from hearing me. And possibly people on the beach, Lord help me.

Chapter Twenty-six

Boyce

One hand covering her mouth and the other gripping my forearm like locking pliers, she was a mind-blowing sight. I shocked the hell out of her, but she loved it because she trusted me, and every time I touched her I felt that surrender. This girl was all brainy respectability on the surface and blazing-hot daredevil underneath. I knew this. I’d known it for a long time. I was just too fucking stupid to comprehend what it meant—that she needed a man like me.

I couldn’t get enough of her, and I knew deep in my gut that I never would. I wanted to take her home and love her all night long, but I had to get my mother and her ignorant dickhole of a boyfriend out of my goddamned trailer first.

I heard voices nearby—a group of folks who’d just finished supper, lazily weaving through the lot toward their car. I zipped and buttoned Pearl’s shorts, pulled her shirt into place, and turned her on my lap like we were just sitting there kissing. A little naughty, but nothing like what we’d been up to two minutes ago. She was still trembling from that release, her head on my shoulder, her curvy little ass pressed against the raring-to-go length of my dick—sorry, buddy, not tonight—and her feet in the passenger seat, toenails painted blue as the deepest part of the gulf.

When the approaching voices broke through her awareness, she stiffened, glancing over her shoulder out the open window.

I tightened my arms around her and kissed her forehead. “No worries. We’re just two people sitting in a car having a right friendly conversation. They won’t pay us any mind.”

She relaxed, laughing softly, and tucked her head beneath my chin as if she was listening for my heartbeat, which was likely going lickety-split under her ear. “So about your gift…”

“Mmm-hmm?”

“I’ll need you Saturday morning through Sunday afternoon.” She paused.

“All right.” What in hell?

“Okay. Good.” Her fingers tickled back and forth over the forearm she’d just been hanging on to for dear life not five minutes prior, as if she was gentling me. As if any moment I might rear back and tell her no. “I’ll pick you up around eleven. Dress like you are now, and pack a change of clothes for Sunday plus whatever you’d bring for an overnight trip. You don’t need to do anything else.”

I wasn’t exactly experienced in overnight trips. Accidental overnights in somebody’s bed—yeah. Those involved condoms, re-wearing whatever I’d shucked off around two a.m., and hoping the girl had mouthwash in her medicine cabinet or at least gum in her purse. If I was planning on an overnight with Pearl, I’d bring clean clothes, a toothbrush, and condoms. Damn straight, condoms. Please God tell me I’m gonna need condoms.

“Where are we going?” I’d never been so curious in my life—and that was saying a lot, because I was born curious.

She leaned her head back on my arm, black eyes gleaming in the darkness and lips curved into a playful grin. “That’s a surprise, Boyce Wynn.” A welcome gust of wind off the gulf blew through the car, lifting one long curl across her face. It stuck on her lower lip and she reached to pull it away and I was knocked sideways by how much I loved her. She must have seen the realization cross my face, because her hand slowed. Her smile faded. “What?”

I smoothed one finger between her brows. “I have a surprise of my own is all. I’ll tell you this weekend.”

“No fair.”

I kissed her with every possessive, damn the torpedoes desire surging through me, my tongue sweeping through her mouth and caressing her shy little tongue, encouraging it to come out and play. When it darted out to tease my upper lip, I drew the tip into my mouth and gave it a soft, leisurely suck before allowing it to retreat back into her mouth. When I pulled back, she blinked up at me, winded and dazed.

“I never swore to play fair, sweetheart,” I murmured.

• • • • • • • • • •

Dr. Frank called me Friday to tell me that he, his accountant, Barney Amos, and my mother had met and reached an agreement for a cash purchase of the property and everything on it. “We’ll meet Monday afternoon to sign the papers and hand her a cashier’s check. She’s agreed that she and Riley will vacate the premises as soon as they have the check in hand.” What he thought of Mom’s boyfriend was plain, just in the way he spit that douchenozzle’s name. Like it left a rotten taste in his mouth.

I knew the feeling. “I’d feel better if she was getting the money without him, but I guess that’s her business.”

“It is. I agree that he’s a piece of work, but it’s her decision what she puts up with—unless you’ve seen his ill-treatment turn physical.”

Riley must’ve felt small, sitting there with a doctor, a lawyer, and an accountant—like he was the butt end of that joke. All it lacked was a bar and a punch line. When men like him felt small, they got meaner. He’d probably been all spit and swagger in front of them—lording over her.