Susan Phillips - The Great Escape

She stared at him. Long and hard. “Tell me you don’t really have a master’s degree.”

His smile turned into fake apology. “Only from Wayne State, not an Ivy.” He snapped a potato chip between his teeth, then bent down to flick off the music. “It’s one of those night and weekend degrees favored by us working slobs, so it doesn’t count in your world.”

That bastard. She glared at him. “Damn it, Panda. I liked you so much better when you were stupid.”

“Look on the bright side,” he said as he held out the chip bag. “I’m still no Ted Beaudine.”

“None of us are.” She reached inside and grabbed a handful. “He and my best friend are hooking up.”

“Meg?”

“How do you know M—?” She moaned as the salt from the chip hit her tongue. “Oh my god, these taste so good.”

“Meg and I had an entertaining chat at your farce of a rehearsal dinner.”

“I’m not surprised. You’re totally her type.” She stuffed more chips in her mouth.

“Meg’s my type, too,” he said as a clap of thunder shook the boathouse. “Can’t see her with Ted, though.”

But Lucy could, and right now that was all that counted. Rain began pummeling the roof. She grabbed more chips and curled her toes around the edge of the cooler next to his feet. “Do you have any other goodies stashed away down here?”

“I might.” His eyes were on her bare legs, and he didn’t seem all that happy with what he saw. They were tanner than usual, but there was nothing wrong with them, other than a bruise on her shin starting to turn yellow. She also had a small chip in the blue polish on her big toe from tripping over the horseshoe stake. She hadn’t worn blue polish since she was a teen. She remembered painting Tracy’s baby toes that same color when it was just the two of them.

His gaze moved up her legs to her striped sleep boxers. His frown reminded her of the bra and panties she wasn’t wearing underneath. “What are you offering?” he said, his eyes lingering on her thighs with that same expression of displeasure.

“Offering?” She tugged on the boxer’s soft cotton leg openings, unwisely as it turned out, because pulling them down showcased a fair amount of stomach. Or maybe she’d done it on purpose to retaliate for his attitude. She no longer knew what she was thinking when it came to Patrick Shade. She dropped her feet to the deck. “How many loaves of bread have I baked for you?”

“The bread covers your rent, not my junk food.”

“Says you.”

“I guess I could share.” His gaze was on the move again, skimming her body until he reached her collarbone, dropping back to her breasts, where the thin fabric barely hid anything. He no longer seemed quite so critical, and as another clap of thunder shook the boathouse, she felt something shift inside her, a treacherous vibration, a risky thrum that had nothing to do with the stormy weather.

His eyes met hers. He nudged off the cooler lid with his bare foot, a gesture that shouldn’t have been nearly so enticing. She broke his gaze and looked inside, but instead of seeing an icy nest filled with beer and soda, she saw a treasure chest of chips, pretzels, Doritos, licorice whips, malted milk balls, cheese curls, and a jar of peanut butter. “El Dorado,” she whispered.

“Forbidden fruit,” he replied, but when she looked up, he was staring at her, not at his stash.

The rickety old boathouse became a secret cave—dimly lit and seductive. A trickle of rain coming through the leaky roof splashed her shoulder. He reached out, dabbed a drop with the tip of his finger, and dragged the moisture into the hollow of her collarbone. Her skin pebbled. “Stop it,” she said without any conviction.

He didn’t pretend not to know what she was talking about. A raindrop hit her thigh. He saw it but looked away and reached into the cooler. “You’re probably not interested in this.” He pulled out the peanut butter.

“So wrong.” Even she wasn’t sure whether she was talking about the peanut butter or something more dangerous.

The boat swayed at its mooring, and a shift in the wind sent a wet blast through the open end of the boathouse. Drips from the leaky roof had begun hitting the deck and, more damaging, the food stash. “Come on.” Panda picked up the cooler and carried it to the boat’s cabin, ducking as he entered.

Their relationship had changed today, and following him was fraught with peril. She liked thinking of him as the bad guy, but today had altered that. On the other hand, his vasectomy, not to mention that incredible body, made him irresistible.

Viper followed him.

The cabin was small, with only a tiny galley and a V-shaped berth in the bow. Panda set down the cooler and sank into the navy-blue vinyl cushions. He gave her a lazy smile, then opened the peanut butter jar, scooped up a glob with a pretzel rod, and held it out to her.

Two consenting adults … One vasectomy … An ex-fiancé who, on this very night, was making love to her best friend … The stars were in perfect alignment.

Lucy accepted the pretzel and sat on the cushion across from Panda. “I don’t even like peanut butter very much.”

“It’s the deprivation,” he said. “It makes you want what’s forbidden all that much more.” The way he gazed at her across the narrow space—straight into her eyes—made his meaning clear.

She had the perfect smutty prop in her hand, a pretzel stick with a dollop of peanut butter clinging to the tip. Another woman might have made the most of it, but Viper didn’t feel like it. She snapped off the end between her teeth. “I’m the only one eating.”

“I got a head start.” He opened a bag of licorice whips but didn’t take any out. He simply gazed at her. Not at her legs or her breasts. Just at her, which felt even more intimate. His voice came to her in a husky vapor. “This isn’t a good idea.”

“I know.”

“I keep trying not to think about how much I want you.”

Her skin prickled. “How’s that going?”

“Not well.”

The cabin was too warm, too close, but she wasn’t leaving. Darts of heat zipped through her. She wanted this man with his tarnished eyes, inky hair, and powerful body. But she wouldn’t make the first move.

That wasn’t a problem for him. Ducking his head, he closed the short distance between them, took what was left of the pretzel from her hand, and put it aside. “You make me crazy,” he said.

“Glad to hear it,” she replied, “but I really don’t want to talk now.”

He smiled his outlaw’s smile, settled into the cushions, and pulled her up with him into the point of the bow. Only the faintest light penetrated their cave, enough for her to see the brief flash of his teeth before he turned her beneath him and lowered his head to kiss her.

She hadn’t wanted his kiss in that ratty Memphis hotel room, and his guilt-filled kiss at the airport had brought only confusion, but this was perfect.

Her lips parted. Their tongues met in a dirty dance of thrust and parry—a delicious overture to sin. His hands were under her cami, hers under his T-shirt. She felt muscle and tendon, bone and sinew. He abandoned her mouth and used his teeth to torture her nipple through the thin cotton. He wedged his bare thigh between hers. She rubbed against it, locked her arms around him.

A crack of lightning hit too close, bringing with it a brief return to sanity. She moved her lips against his shoulder. “We can’t do this without a condom.”

His breath fell warm across her nipple. “I thought you didn’t want to talk.”

“Vasectomy or not, you need—”

“All taken care of,” he said in a husky rasp.

Did he carry them with him? The implication temporarily distracted her, but then he was kissing her again, and the question slipped away.

The thunder rumbled overhead. The boat rocked at its mooring. They pulled at their clothes, and when they were naked, explored. That night in Memphis had been as much about cutting her ties with Ted as it had been about sex, but this was different. Not an anonymous coupling with a virtual stranger. She knew her lover now, and tonight was inevitable.

Her breasts nested in his hands … His hips gripped under her palms … Their kiss deepened. He nudged her thighs open, and she didn’t consider resisting.

He parted her with his fingers. Unfolded. Searched. Invaded textures moist and soft.

She moaned. Let him play. And when she could stand it no longer, she became the aggressor, rolling to her side, using cheek, hands, and lips to savor the feel and strength of him.

When he could tolerate no more, he twisted her beneath him again. Fumbled with something. Mounted. He hooked his hands behind her knees, separating them, raising them. His body pressed to hers. The hard core of him, full and thick.

Smutty little words hoarsely uttered.

Soft, rough commands.

And he was inside her.

Outside, the storm howled. Inside, it raged just as fiercely. Finally it erupted.

HER SWEETNESS WAS TOO MUCH for him. As she dozed in the dim light, he studied the fall of her dark lashes on her pale skin, made even paler by that black hair. He traced the curve of her cheek with his knuckle. Beneath all that tough talk, she was confused and vulnerable.

A warning siren fired in his brain. An explosion. The grit of sand, taste of whiskey, bite of memory. He shoved the darkness away.

She opened her eyes and gazed into his. “That was nice.”

Too sweet. Too good.

“Nice?” He dropped his arm over the side of the cushions and touched the bag of candy. One of the licorice sticks had fallen out. He picked it up and nudged her ear with his lips. “Get ready to retract that.”

“Why?”

He dangled the licorice in front of her. “You keep forgetting that I have a mean streak.”

She stirred beneath him, those green-flecked eyes alive with interest. “I guess I’m in trouble now.”

“Big-time.”

He nipped her bottom lip with his own, and then he whipped her with the licorice stick. Flicks at her nipples. The soft skin of her stomach. Her open thighs. Between.

“Evil,” she moaned when he stopped. “Do it some more.”

And so he did until she snatched the licorice away and returned the pleasure. Except he’d unleashed her secret dominatrix, and she wasn’t nearly as careful as he’d been. When he told her he’d had enough, she told him to beg, and what could he do after that but punish her?

He bent her over the cushions, gave her rear a soft smack, and exacted retribution. Or tried to. Because the whole episode was getting foggy in terms of who was doing the punishing and who was being punished.

Outside the boathouse, the storm began to calm, but inside, it had just begun.

LUCY SNIFFED LIKE A DISAPPROVING aunt. “That was way too perverted for me.”

“I could tell.” Panda tried to remember the last time he’d lost himself like this with a woman. They were wedged in the stuffy berth, their bodies pressed together, their skin sticking to the vinyl cushions, and even though he could feel her, it wasn’t enough. He extracted his arm, rolled to his elbow, and flipped on one of the small, battery-powered lights mounted in the bow.

She lay on her side, the naked line of her shoulder, waist, and hip forming a golden curve, her dragon tattoo alien on the smooth column of her neck. Her small nose, mercifully free of its nostril ring, wrinkled in disdain. “Don’t ever do that again.”

He touched her bottom lip, swollen from his kisses. “Midnight tomorrow?”

“If I don’t have anything better to do.”

“I hate it when a woman plays hard to get.”

She traced a vein that ran down his arm. “Really I just want your food stash. If I have to put out to get to your Cheetos, so what?”

“A pragmatist.”

“Stop using big words. It depresses me.” She bent her arm beneath her head, revealing the rosy side of her breast where his beard had abraded her skin. He wouldn’t hurt her for anything, but his dark side felt a primitive satisfaction in seeing the mark he’d left on her.

Her question shocked him out of his lethargy. “Where did the condoms come from?”

He should have known she’d latch onto that. “My pocket. You want some more chips?”

“You carry condoms around?”

“Not always. Sometimes. Who needs an STD, right?”

She pulled on one of her ratty pink dreadlocks. “So, you carry them in case you and Temple decide to add a little variety to your workouts?”

He hit her full force with his badass sneer, hoping to shut her up. “That’s right.”

“Bull. The two of you would eat nails before you’d screw each other.”

“Nice talk.”

She pinned him with those shrewd eyes. “You didn’t know I was coming down here tonight, yet you were ready for action. That leads me to believe that you actually do carry those things around.”