Crazy Ride Read online

  No one here was a big shot. No one here would want to dig up other people’s property in the name of making money, either.

  She’d planned to offer him some cocoa, but since he was already communicating in two places at once, she decided to go ahead and make it anyway. Maybe cocoa wasn’t the fastest route to seduction, but she had to work within her comfort zone.

  When she came back a few minutes later with two steaming mugs, he was still tapping away but mercifully no longer on the phone.

  “Hi,” she said from the doorway.

  As he raised his head, she almost felt his effort to lift the weight. He was tired.

  “Hi yourself,” he said, closing the file and spinning her chair until he faced her. “Do you need your office back?”

  “No. I brought you some cocoa.”

  “Thanks.” He took the proffered mug from her, put it on the desktop and rose to stretch.

  Oh, he was nice. His shirt clung against elongating muscles and she found herself wanting to follow the lean lines with her fingertips.

  Before he could look down and catch her ogling his body, she shifted her attention to look out the window. As though there were anything of interest out there. A dark garden, a couple of floodlights that she’d placed to illuminate the garden and the parking area.

  One of the floodlights outlined the shape of Joe’s car, the one he’d be driving off in tomorrow.

  She saw a slight movement between the pink rhododendron bush and the wisteria. At first she thought it was Mae West rustling the branches, then a much larger – man-sized shape emerged.

  Hell’s bells, she’d arranged that Gregory Randolph was going to tamper with Joe’s car, but did he have to do it now?

  She’d assumed some quiet sortie in the middle of the night, not that he’d walk into her yard at ten-fifteen at night to vandalize a guest’s vehicle. She should have been specific in her instructions, but really, didn’t everyone know that car vandalizing was best accomplished between the hours of midnight and dawn? Probably, Gregory had an early start in the morning and wanted to be in bed at a reasonable time.

  If Joe kept working in her office, he’d see Gregory. She’d never bothered with drapes in this room and now she wished she had drapes, blackout curtains, California shutters, layers and layers of stuff to block the view. Well, she couldn’t do that, so she’d have to lure Joe away from the window.

  “Why don’t we take our cocoa into the front room? It’s a lot more comfortable.”

  He sipped from his mug, then licked the line of chocolaty foam from his upper lip. “This is great. Thanks. But I’m waiting for an email to come in. I should probably stay right here.”

  If he was trying to be polite and get rid of her, she was going to have to act as dumb as the man out there getting his vandalizing tools ready. He hadn’t even bothered changing into all black clothes, but tromped around in the white T-shirt and jeans he’d worn to the bingo hall.

  Didn’t the man have any respect for the profession he was temporarily entering? Or at least his victim? Never mind the victim’s hostess who was about to have a panic attack.

  “Okay,” she smiled brightly. “While you’re waiting, maybe we could sit right here and get to know each other better.”

  And please Gregory be fast with that car before she had to resort to her pediatric dental history.

  Joe was nobody’s fool. His eyes narrowed. “I’m leaving tomorrow, Emily. Isn’t it kind of late to be getting to know me?” He didn’t say so, but his tone implied that she could have got to know him intimately if she’d gone to bed with him last night. Typical male.

  She tried for an expression of hurt disbelief. “But you said you’d be back.”

  “It’s hard to say. I hope to be.”

  Oh, boy. Things must really be moving along if he felt ready to leave and not come back. Probably he had other harmonious, happy communities to destroy this week. Given a month, she bet he could devastate an entire state.

  “Well, we could start getting better acquainted now. You never know when circumstances will throw us together again.” Like a dead car tomorrow.

  He glanced at her and raised his brows a little. “Okay. I’ve got a few minutes now. What do you want to talk about?”

  “I don’t know. But I enjoy your company. It’s been nice having you in the house.” She was grasping at straws here and she knew it. How long could she drag out a pointless conversation? She thought about Lydia and Olive and took hope.

  The trouble with that theory, of course, was that both Olive and Lydia were female. Joe didn’t preamble but got right to his point. “Look, Emily, you said you’re not a casual sex type and I respect that. Since I’m leaving in the morning…”

  She let her natural annoyance bubble. Okay, if he didn’t want a pleasant conversation she could easily work up to a fight. No trouble at all. “So, you’re saying, what? That a conversation with a woman is pointless unless it ends in sex?”

  He pushed out his lips, stalling for time like a debater sensing a verbal trap. “No. I’m not saying that. Exactly. But when a woman’s young and beautiful and I’m incredibly attracted to her, then every conversation leads closer to sex, sure.”

  “But that’s absolutely ridiculous. What if I were your doctor, or your accountant or some other professional?”

  “I’d let you take my temperature and do my taxes, but unless you were married, I’d still be trying to have sex with you. It’s life.”

  “What if I were a nun?”

  Nothing on his face smiled, but his eyes did that wonderful crinkle thing at the corners. “Then we would not be having this conversation.” He looked at her with a puzzled expression. “Don’t you feel that way? I mean, assuming you find me attractive…?”

  She thought of the way she melted when he kissed her. “You know I do.”

  “Then don’t you think we’ll end up more frustrated if we keep talking and it doesn’t go anywhere?”

  “Well, last night would have been too soon, but now…”

  Now, what? He came up with an answer for her. “Now I’ve passed the Miss Trevellen school of larceny and good manners?”

  She laughed aloud. Out of her peripheral vision she could see that Gregory Randolph had the hood up now on Joe’s car. How long did this disabling business take? She was in a cold sweat, gulping her cocoa like it was courage-giving whiskey.

  Greg was bent over the open hood of the car, his white T-shirt gleaming against the darkness. Please let him get the job done quickly.

  A computerized ping broke the strained silence in the office and Joe said, “Ah, my email.”

  He started to turn his chair around to his computer, which faced the window, which looked out on a man screwing with his car.

  She had to stop him. No time to think. She stuck her foot out and stopped the chair mid twirl.

  “Emily, I need to get that,” Joe said, an edge to his voice.

  “But I need you,” she said, hoping that her voice sounded husky with passion and not strained by panic.

  He opened his mouth, no doubt to tell her to get a grip, or at least wait until he’d read his email. She couldn’t let that happen, so she launched herself at him, sloshing cocoa mug and all.

  “Whaa—“ he managed before her lips clamped over his.

  Blindly she managed to get her mug onto the desk top so her hands were free, then she plunged them into his hair, making a human vise to keep his head from turning. She opened her legs around his and snugged up tight onto his lap.

  It was a move born of desperation and if he pushed her off him, which she was pretty certain he’d do, she’d end up sprawled on her butt all over the rug and when he turned around, he’d view more than his email.

  She expected to go sailing through the air and hit the rug ass-first. She expected outrage when he caught sight of Greg out there messing with his car. What she hadn’t expected was that after a startled second of total stillness, Joe would kiss her back.

  Oh
, not only kiss her, but make love to her mouth.

  His passion exploded around her and in her, sparking her own. She nipped at his lips, grabbed the back of his head to pull him closer, felt his mouth so hungry on hers, on her skin, his hands in her hair, on her neck, racing over her back.

  “Want you,” he said and the echo of those words played over and over in her head. Want you, want you, want you…

  Heat began to build in the three point triangle of nipples and crotch. If Dr. Beaver was right, she had a dandy little electrical circuit running between those three hot spots.

  He moaned with hunger, or maybe that was her, hard to tell over the pounding of her heart.

  He pulled at the buttons on her shirt, fumbling open the top one, and then the second, while she waited in a fever of impatience. She forgot why she was doing this, forgot everything but the fact that she needed this man and she needed him now. He got the rest of the buttons undone, not smoothly, but fast then pushed the sleeves down her arms to her wrists, and stopped, so she ended up with her arms bound behind her, a circumstance he seemed to enjoy.

  With some wriggling she could easily free her arms but he looked so pleased with himself she let well enough alone.

  “I like you in this posture,” he explained with a devilish glint in his eyes. The fatigue had vanished and he pulsed with energy. “Your breasts thrust forward, and your busy hands still. No bread baking, flower arranging, cookie cooling. All you can do is sit there and let me touch you.”

  At his words, she shivered and he grinned at her then ran his warm hands up her stomach, traced the front of her bra and slid them around behind her to the fastening. In a second her breasts were free. Since her arms were stuck in her blouse, the silk and elastic of her bra ended up stretched across her upper chest, but Joe didn’t seem to notice.

  “Oh, honey,” he said, gazing at her breasts for a long moment.

  She felt naked, exposed, helpless. With her arms back like that, her chest was pushed forward, right into his face.

  “Annnnyyya,” she said, when he lifted a breast and brought his mouth down to kiss the tip. Her head fell back of its own accord so she would have overbalanced and fallen on her head if Joe hadn’t slipped an arm around her back to steady her.

  He sucked at the swollen nipple, flicked back and forth with his tongue and generally teased her until her entire body felt lust-engorged and needy.

  He sucked gently and she pulled herself upright anxious to press her torso more firmly against his wonderful, magical mouth.

  When she did she let out a cry that had nothing to do with passion. Gregory had abandoned tools and was standing there in front of the raised hood of Joe’s car staring at her with his mouth hanging open.

  Since she remembered well enough watching Joe from the garden, and thinking he looked like someone on TV, she knew she must look like the star of a porno flick. but she hadn’t planned on acting out Emily Does Joe for an audience of one.

  Fool! Bad enough Gregory Randolph was an utter failure as a criminal. Did he have to be a peeping Tom?

  Since she couldn’t use her arms, she jerked her head frantically hoping he could interpret get the job finished and get the hell off my property from a couple of head jerks.

  “Did I hurt you?” Joe raised his head from her breast and already she missed the gentle sucking that was driving her wild.

  “No,” she said. “I’m loving it,” and to prevent any more conversation, stuffed her nipple back into his mouth. By keeping her eyes closed, she was able to ignore the goings on beyond the window and concentrate on the far more immediate goings on in her nervous system.

  His tongue was working magic on her and her bound hands only added to the intoxication. She wanted to touch him and couldn’t, wanted to bring him pleasure as he was bringing her pleasure, but she was helpless. As she struggled to free her hands she only succeeded in wiggling her torso which was thrust unnaturally forward.

  There was a very nice bulge beneath her lap and her hands itched to have access. Since that was denied her, she made do with rubbing against him – her splayed legs allowing her to nudge her neediest parts against the enticing ridge. Her skirt was up around her thighs, and her thin panties allowed her to feel everything: the denim of his jeans, the hard line of metal teeth all of which got in the way of what she wanted to feel.

  “Open your zipper,” she begged.

  He hesitated only a second them slipped a hand between them. She hoisted herself up onto her knees and heard the slide of zipper, felt him fumble a bit and then felt the edge of his cock nudging at her. He guided it, rubbing at her through the silk panties. She sighed with pleasure as he rubbed back and forth over her clit, the silk scraping lightly between them.

  Of course, this wasn’t at all what she’d had in mind when she’d come in with an innocent cup of cocoa, but somehow she knew that the kisses between them would never have been enough.

  Her breath was coming fast, her heart pounding. She was so close. She wanted to grind herself down on him. If her hands had been free she’d have pulled her panties aside and impaled herself.

  “Emily,” he said with a huskiness that sounded incredibly sexy coming from crisp, waste no time, businesslike Joe, “We need to get upstairs and get a condom.”

  “Mmm.” They needed to get upstairs anyway. Bingo would be over soon. But this was too incredible, frustrating, amazing, erotic.

  “Honey,” he whispered in her ear, kissing the lobe, playing his free hand through her hair. “You know I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  Oh, no you’re not. But still his words acted on her like an icy shower. What had she been thinking? She couldn’t make love to the man she was manipulating so deceitfully. It wouldn’t be right. She almost wailed with pent-up frustration. Maybe this was her punishment for her crimes, to be left with her whole body throbbing with need, so close to orgasm she could tumble into it as fast as she could tumble into Joe’s bed.

  But it wouldn’t be fair.

  She struggled to get herself under control. “Right. Of course you are. I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking.” She tried to shrug her shirt back on but all she succeeded in doing was gyrating her breasts in his face like a lap dancer.

  He let out a breath that sounded more like a moan. “Maybe we can continue this when I come back.”

  “Yes.” She could barely think, barely focus her eyes. She was approaching a bad case of sexual-frustration-induced hysteria and no vibrator was going to cure her. Not when the real thing was so enticingly close.

  He cupped both her breasts and kissed each in turn rather sweetly before pulling her bra back in place, getting her shirt back on and buttoning her with quiet competence.

  Frustration thudded through her veins, but she knew he was right. Not because he’d be leaving tomorrow and she didn’t want a one-nighter, but because he wouldn’t be leaving tomorrow and she’d manipulated him into office chair hanky-panky so he wouldn’t see his car being vandalized. Somehow, such deceit didn’t seem like the basis for a healthy sexual relationship. Even a short one.

  She cast a quick glance outside but Gregory was gone, thank goodness, and Joe’s rental car appeared untouched.

  “I don’t know what I was thinking,” she said, scrambling off his lap so clumsily he winced.

  “Sorry,” she said, mortified, trying not to watch as he tucked everything away and re-zipped. She wanted to yell at him to stop. Maybe would have if she hadn’t seen the aunts coming through the garden path toward the front door. She could hear them arguing even through the window.

  The front door opened and then banged.

  “I did not insult you in front of all your friends. I said I thought a reality show in Beaverton was a stupid idea because it is a stupid idea, not because you thought of it.”

  “Yeah. Well, you could star in it. They’d call it The Blair Bitch Project.”

  “Ha, ha.”

  The two were so busy scrapping they stomped right by the office and di
sappeared into the kitchen.

  “Nice to see the older generation setting such a good example for us young’uns,” Joe said.

  “Well,” she said, giving her head a shake and trying to tamp down the lust raging through her body, “I guess the cocoa got a little out of hand.” Inside her bra, her nipples were still damp from his kisses.

  He gazed back at her with a sheepish expression. “Yeah. That stuff should come with a warning label.”

  Feeling increasingly foolish about the way she’d attacked her guest – even if it was for the good of the town – she backed out of the room. “I’ll let you get back to your email, then.”

  His eyes widened suddenly. “Right, the email. I forgot.” Since he didn’t seem the type to forget about work ever, she let herself feel flattered.

  “I’m making an early start in the morning, so I’ll say goodbye, and thanks for everything.”

  “It was nice to, ah, meet you.”

  He looked as though he’d say something, or maybe try to talk her into bed, and she was half disappointed when he only nodded.

  Feeling like a big idiot, she held out her hand.

  With a wry grin he rose and shook it solemnly. “It’s been a great pleasure meeting you, Emily. And it would have been an even greater pleasure to sleep with you.”

  “Or not sleep,” she said, remembering his little problem.

  “Sleep’s over-rated.”

  She nodded. “But it’s better this way.”

  “Is it? Is it better to walk away because you can only have one night with someone or is it better to have great memories?” His eyes were still dark with passion, his breathing not quite back to normal any more than hers was. She understood what he was saying all too well, but still she had the knowledge he didn’t that their time together extended beyond dawn tomorrow, whatever his plans. There’d be no single perfect night of love followed by him riding off into the sunrise. He’d be back eating her famous carrot-zucchini breakfast muffins and then the awkwardness would begin.

  So she gave him the one raised eyebrow treatment and said, “That is a great line. Two ships passing in the night and all.”

  “It isn’t a line,” he said, stepping forward so he could rest his hands on her hips and look down at her. “But I can’t make promises. I don’t know when I’ll be back. Or even if I’ll be back.”