Emergency Attraction (Love Emergency) Read online

  Could be he was thinking too loud, because she turned and caught him looking. Pink seeped into her cheeks. She dipped her head, and even with her eyes shielded by the glasses, he knew her gaze landed in his lap. His hard-on surged as if she’d actually touched him, and now his own groan threatened to fill the car.

  “You’re not sticking around,” she said under her breath, then crossed her legs tight enough to hook her instep around her calf, and resumed staring out the window.

  He turned his attention to the road, which grew windier as it climbed. A few seconds later, a hissing breath came from beside him. Sinclair shoved the glasses up and whipped her head around. Blue eyes narrowed on him. “Where are we going?”

  “Tomochichi Lookout.”

  Her back went up. “I’m not going to the Lookout with you.”

  He reached across the console to gently pinch her arm, and then pointed to the welcome to tomochichi lookout sign coming up on her side of the road. “I don’t know. Kinda seems like you are.”

  “I mean,” she ground out in a tone fueled by exasperation, “I didn’t agree to go to the Lookout with you.”

  He’d expected her objections, and prepared for them. “You agreed to six tours of my choice. What’s the issue, Sinclair? You always loved this place.” True enough. A decade ago, they’d put in quality time at the Lookout. Many hours spent barely noticing the legendary view. They’d been too busy focusing on each other—on the duel of tongues, the slide of skin against skin, her breathless little whimpers when he kissed the right spot, and his ragged curses when she used her curious and oh-so-daring mouth on him.

  “You told me you wanted to see the new developments. The Lookout has been here since…I don’t know…the last ice age.” She folded her arms and glared at him as he slowed the Rover to a stop. The windshield framed a postcard-worthy panorama of the sun hanging low over the valley. “There’s no reason for us to be here.”

  “I told you I wanted to get the lay of the land.” So saying, he unlatched his seat belt and tipped his head toward the view. “Can’t think of a better way than from here.” He deliberately waited a beat. “Unless you’d rather stay in the car?”

  She got out, slamming the door hard enough to scatter a couple of squirrels and send them to the shelter of a high-limbed pine. He approached the low stone wall protecting the drop-off and kept tabs on her from the corner of his eye. She wrapped her arms around herself and focused on the view.

  Hard not to. The endless, cloud-streaked sky tinged orange by the setting sun commanded attention, as did the expansive green valley cradling their town. After a few moments, she took a few steps closer, until she stood even with him. Well, more or less even. She left a foot of buffer between them.

  “I haven’t been here in ages. I’d forgotten how much you can see,” she said, her voice hushed even though they were the only people around. “Those two subdivisions are new.” She pointed to the tidy square parcels that would have been woods last time they’d shared this view. “And the community college. Oh, there’s the Whitehall Plantation.”

  He nodded and mentally overlaid the resort plans on the landscape. The developers intended to incorporate the historic main house into the hotel. An additional building would be constructed for the obligatory full-service spa, as well as an indoor pool. The outdoor pool would overlook a world-class golf course—thirty-six holes strategically planted on gently rolling former cotton fields bisected by the Tomochichi Creek.

  His eyes followed the line of the creek where it cut across the property, and a thought struck. More to himself, he murmured, “That’s a flood fringe.”

  “What? For the creek?” She stepped closer and peered down at the area in question. “The creek’s never flooded, as far as I can remember.”

  “I’m sure it swells from time to time, but right now there’s a natural overflow basin of unperturbed land, so no harm, no foul. If they install the golf course as planned, they’re going to want to build up the creek banks rather than chance flooding their five-million-dollar investment every time it rains.”

  She arched a brow at him. “Is fortifying the banks a problem?”

  He shrugged. “A little more engineering. Time and money. Nothing major.”

  They stared at their town for another long moment, watching lavender shadows blanket the valley as the glowing fringes of daylight disappeared behind the foggy blue peaks in the distance. Dry leaves crackled softly underfoot as she turned to him and sighed.

  “Be honest, city boy. Do you really see anything here that captures your interest?”

  He looked at her—straight into her eyes—just long enough to give her an answer, and let her back away if that’s what she wanted to do.

  She didn’t back away, thank God. Wide eyes locked on him as he trespassed into her personal space. And then he was pulling her into his arms, and she was lifting up onto her toes, and their lips collided.

  Ten years disappeared in one blinding instant. The feel of her, the taste—so sweetly familiar it nearly fractured his heart, but also intoxicatingly different. Stronger. Deeper. Hotter.

  A needy sound came from the back of her throat. He pulled her closer, so she couldn’t miss the fact that the need was mutual. Hands flattened against his chest, but she didn’t push him away. She leaned in, opening her lips to allow his tongue access to every part of her mouth.

  He reacquainted himself in a series of fast, hungry sweeps and long, deep plunges, desperate to devour everything at once like a starving man at a feast. Manners finally kicked in when she moaned again, this time a little desperately. He forced himself to slow down. Let her have oxygen. But she closed those plush lips around his tongue, applying suction as he withdrew, and he felt the pull all the way to the base of his cock. It slowed him down considerably. When he eventually lifted his head, they were both breathing heavy. He waited until she blinked her eyes open and focused on him.

  “Does that answer your question?”

  “What question?”

  He laughed, despite the brutal pressure in his balls. “You wanted honest, Sinclair. I can’t be more honest than this. Your turn.”

  Her gaze dropped to his mouth. She dragged her lip between her teeth, worrying the soft pink flesh until he thought he’d pass out from the blowjob those lips were giving him in his mind. But her eyes—they were the eyes of a woman at war with herself. So much so, she backed up a step, letting the cool air get between them. “What if I say I meant what I told you before, about how I’m not going to sleep with you?”

  I’d say you’re lying to both of us. But she wanted the lie, for now, and he played by her rules. Always. Which didn’t mean they couldn’t still play. He put his hands in his pockets and shot her a grin. “Slow your roll, baby girl. Last time I checked, there was a lot of road between all and nothing. And for us, the Lookout was always about the journey.”

  Chapter Five

  For us, the Lookout was always about the journey.

  The words echoed around Sinclair. Shane stood against the dramatic sky in his respectable white shirt and suit pants, with his hands in his pockets as if to suggest he posed no risk. No risk? Ha. The confident grin, the gleam in his eyes, and the assembly of hard, vital muscles covered by the facade of professional clothes told a different story. He was the very definition of risky. He always had been.

  And yet, damn her, she was tempted to take the journey. His mouth on hers produced a complicated set of responses—a shockingly strong rush of desire. Curiosity. Caution, because old feelings left a painful weight in her chest, as if she’d swallowed too much of something. God only knew what was going on in her head. More than she could unpack right here and now, so she took another step back and gave him a deliberately obtuse answer. “What journey? We both know where this road ends.” He could interpret that any way he chose.

  “You have a terrible memory.” He strode to the passenger side of the Rover and opened the door for her. “Get in, and I’ll refresh it for you.”
<
br />   How should she interpret that? It wasn’t lost on her that he’d shifted the burden of clarifying things back to her. She walked over, her strides unhurried, but her mind raced back to another time—a time when the sight of him standing by his truck would send her shimmying down the tree outside her bedroom window, hurrying across the moonlit front yard, and flinging herself into his waiting arms.

  She didn’t do that kind of reckless abandon anymore. These days she walked into things with her eyes open, and always, always, with a clear path for how she intended to walk out.

  Maybe tonight wasn’t so different? She could walk in easily enough. No explanations necessary, and nobody had to know. He’d take care of the exit. Despite what he said, she had no doubt about that. Only one uncertainty remained. Sex was off the table, so exactly what was she walking into?

  The flash of his smile dared her to find out, and she’d never been one to back down from a dare. Gathering every ounce of calm at her disposal, she stepped up into the SUV and settled herself in the passenger seat. He closed the door, came around, and climbed into the driver’s seat. And then, for a long moment, he just faced forward. She followed his gaze out the window. Lights in the valley below twinkled to life in the unfurling dusk. The top corner of the crescent moon shone from above a fringe of pine tops. Somewhere in the distance, an owl hooted.

  The call seemed to spur him into action. Nature hadn’t been the soundtrack of their nights at the Lookout. He hit the button on the dash to fire up the battery, and then tuned the radio until he found a station. Sam Hunt flowed from the speakers and warned some unnamed girl he was going to make her miss him.

  Shane turned to her, relaxed as could be with one arm braced against the steering wheel and the other resting on the back of the seat. Slowly, as if he had all the time in the world, he leaned in and kissed her again. “Remember now?”

  Of course she remembered. She remembered kisses so long and deep and melding she felt as if they’d absorbed each other. She remembered yearning to be even closer. Crawling into his lap to make it happen, and sighing with gratitude when he’d undone her blouse, peeled her bra away, and touched her breasts. He’d been the first boy to see them, much less handle them, but he’d been so reverently gentle, and then so exquisitely rough, her body still reacted whenever she thought of it.

  Another night, his hands had gone on to bring her another first. This one so overwhelming he’d had to muffle her bewildered cries of pleasure. And that had only been the beginning. His mouth…those patient lips and that tireless tongue, had driven her beyond pleasure. They’d introduced her to desperation right before they’d introduced her to an orgasm so shattering it had reduced her to tears. One of many. Nobody had ever made her lose herself the way he did.

  Would he still? Her heart pounded hard at the prospect, but glancing around the burled wood and hand-stitched leather interior of the Rover offered a big, bracing dose of reality. They definitely weren’t kids anymore, and letting a guy get to third base in a car was the kind of insanity reserved for sixteen-year-old girls who didn’t know what the fuck they were doing. “Are you serious? I’m twenty-six years old.”

  “Is there an age limit on vehicular necking?”

  “We did a hell of a lot more than neck.”

  His smile turned downright triumphant. “See?” He leaned over and nuzzled her ear. “It’s coming back to you.”

  Clean, expensive cologne teased her nose at the same time his lips teased her skin. “I’d do this…” He eased his body closer, surrounding her until he could run his thumb up and down her arm, brushing the swell of her breast in the process.

  Under her sweater, nerve endings tingled. Muscles in her abdomen tightened as heat centered there and then seeped lower. She squirmed in her seat. “That was a long time ago. We’re both experienced adults, and adults don’t do this. It’s more all-or-nothing after a certain age.”

  “Not tonight.” He switched his hold to the back of her neck and kissed the line of her jaw. “Tonight, we get reacquainted with everything in between. Starting here…” He covered her mouth with his and delivered another kiss—the kind of long, persuasive kiss that took what was offered and asked for more at the same time. The kind of kiss that said nothing was a foregone conclusion, because every moment was a destination unto itself.

  The kind of kiss she could never resist. She dug her fingers into his shoulders, and kissed him back. He used his lips to part hers, but then her tongue set its own agenda, racing along the edge of his teeth until he bit down, deliberately trapping it. Other parts of her body tingled in anticipation of the same treatment. His taste filled her mouth. Past and present blurred while she drank him in.

  Long, suspended moments passed while his mouth moved over hers. Eventually, he eased back just enough to let her breathe, but his hand at the back of her neck kept her close. So close their lips stayed in contact while she dragged in a lungful of oxygen. The touch-and-go brush of his mouth against her kiss-dampened lips took her back in time, while simultaneously holding her firmly in the moment.

  They’d left “nothing” in the dust as soon as he’d pulled into her drive. She’d taken “all” off the table before she’d gotten in his car and figured that would be that, but he was proving her wrong. And she didn’t want him to stop.

  He knew it. He sank his teeth into her lower lip, trapping it, bestowing a quick, hard bite and not bothering to hold back a growl of satisfaction when she grabbed two handfuls of his shirt front and silently begged for more. He gave her more, doling out similar treatment to her upper lip. A hungry sound snuck past her throat to reverberate around the confines of the car and brought his mouth slamming down on hers with renewed urgency. Need ignited her blood. She couldn’t keep still. Their kisses grew faster, hungrier, far less precise.

  He skimmed his hand under her sweater and along her spine. Fingers followed the line of her bra, a question inherent in the touch.

  Yes, some wild part of her responded immediately. She arched closer, hoping the gesture would be all the discussion required.

  “Use your words, baby girl.” He traced the elastic again.

  “Goddammit,” she muttered between kisses. She wanted more of this—the heat and the rush. What she definitely didn’t want was for him to say or do anything to slow things down and give her time to reconsider. Going with impulse, she tightened her hold on the front of his shirt and yanked.

  Buttons ricocheted against the dash, and the fabric gaped to the middle of his chest.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” he rasped. His hands came up to cover hers, stilling them as she prepared to take a second tug. Quickly, he pulled his shirttails free of his pants. “Go on. Do your worst.”

  Her second effort got the job done, but she didn’t spare a moment on the accomplishment. She claimed her reward, running her palms over the hard expanse of smooth, warm skin. She didn’t know where to touch first but found herself visiting familiar highlights like the lines of his collarbones and the shallow channel between his pecs. She lingered there, spreading her fingers and raking her nails through the dusting of hair now shading his chest. Would it tickle her lips? Her breasts? Before she could contemplate the questions too deeply, her hands discovered other terrain and veered downward to learn every irresistible contour of his abs. They rippled under her touch, and her mouth went dry.

  “My turn,” he growled and slid both hands under her sweater. The wool bunched up as he bracketed her rib cage. His fingers settled into the channel between her shoulder blades. His thumbs swept the smooth skin just below her bra. “Let me touch you.”

  She might die if he didn’t. With his big hands supporting her, she hung on to his strong arms and arched her spine. Her head fell back. Her breath caught as he nudged her sweater over her breasts and lowered his head. Warm breath teased her nipple through the mesh of her bra. Her heart thumped in response, so loud the sound seemed to echo around them.

  The noise came again, louder. Thump. Thump. Thump. S
hane let out a curse, and that’s when she realized the noise really was echoing around them. Before she could process that realization, he tugged her sweater down and dropped her into her seat. She was still trying to catch her breath when he lowered the fogged driver’s side window just enough to reveal Sheriff Kenner standing on the other side, the grip end of his flashlight raised to tap the glass again.

  “Is there a problem?” Shane asked, sounding more irritated than contrite.

  Kenner took them both in and rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to dignify that with an answer, seeing as how you’re both old enough to tell time. Get a room”—his calm, seen-everything stare switched to her—“or a barn. Just get. The park closed at sunset.”

  “Yes, sir,” Shane answered and started the car. Defrost blasting, they buckled their seat belts. Kenner backed up a few steps, waiting in the glare of the Rover’s headlights as Shane put the Rover in reverse. He executed one of those quick, efficient three-point turns that took a Y chromosome to pull off and steered the SUV past the thank you for visiting sign.

  Thank you for visiting, and don’t forget to retrieve your better judgment on the way out. When they hit the main road, she released a breath. “Well, that was fun.”

  Shane laughed and shot her a knowing look. “You had fun.”

  His rumpled hair, open shirt, and bad boy grin got the better of her. She felt her lips lifting. “Maybe a little.” Which sounded stingy when, in fact, she was a woman who liked her fun. She’d had plenty—with the chef in Manhattan, or the advertising exec in Los Angeles, or the photographer in Charleston—she simply preferred to keep her fun at a safe distance. Recent growth notwithstanding, Magnolia Grove was still a small town at its core. Gossip spread like wildfire, and people weren’t shy about stating their opinions. She liked her private life private.