Fast & Loose by Elizabeth Bevarly (the giving tree read aloud .txt) 📕

scooted across the seat and leaned across Cole to look at the gauge on the other side of the steering wheel and saw what he himself already knew. That the red needle was firmly planted at three-quarters of a tank. When she turned to look at him, her mouth open to, presumably, demand to know what he was talking about, he met her gaze levelly and threaded the fingers of one hand through her hair. The silky curls wound around them in invitation, and he couldn’t help thinking it was a gesture he hoped the rest of her felt like offering, too.

Very softly, very tentatively, very hopefully, he said, “Kiss me again, Lulu. There’s no one looking now.”

LULU’S MOUTH WENT DRY AT COLE’S QUIET REQUEST. There was no demand in his voice, no insistence, no expectation. There was only petition, solicitude, and longing. It should have been easy to tell him no. He’d contrived this whole episode. He’d never been lost, and they had enough gas to drive to Cincinnati and back. She shouldn’t have any trouble returning to the other side of the big car’s long front seat—much bigger and longer than other cars and seats Lulu had found herself in and on as a teenager steaming up the windows in this very park. She wasn’t a kid anymore, she reminded herself, and she didn’t have to resort to parking at Chauffeur’s Rest to deal with adolescent hormones. She was a grown woman with her own home, and her hormones were totally under control. Or at least, they had been. Until Cole had told her to kiss him.

Damn her hormones anyway.

Because they were the reason she didn’t say no. They were the reason she didn’t move back to her side of the car. They were the reason she tilted her head toward his. And they were the reason she kissed him. It was all her hormones’ fault that she did that. It had nothing to do with how much she wanted to kiss Cole, too.

But kiss him she did, turning her body more fully toward him, lifting her hand to cup his rough jaw as her mouth covered his. He responded immediately, as she’d known he would, roping an arm around her waist and pulling her into his lap. He buried his other hand in her hair and tilted her head backward, filling her mouth with his tongue and her belly with heat.

She lost herself after that. Utterly and completely. One minute, she was Lulu Flannery, paid buffer, and the next, she was that nameless, faceless creature who lived inside herself. The one who shaped glass into sensuous colors and shapes. The one who arranged words into erotic prose and fantasy. The one who felt things Lulu couldn’t let herself feel when she wasn’t creating, for fear that they would overwhelm her.

And overwhelm her they did.

When she felt Cole’s fingers strum over her rib cage and his palm curving under her breast, it was like a great wave of fire crashed over her. She uttered a low sound that was needy and demanding as she arched against him, and he responded with a feral growl of his own as he moved his hand higher, covering her completely. She didn’t object when he began to tug at her dress, pushing the off-the-shoulder garment lower, down her arm and over her breast, until she felt the warm rush of his breath against her naked flesh. Then she felt his mouth replace his hand on her breast, his tongue flattening over her nipple as he held her more firmly in his hand. Again and again, he dragged his tongue over her, then he opened his mouth wide and pulled as much of her tender flesh inside as he could. The damp pressure was almost more than she could bear, and when she tightened her fingers convulsively in his hair, she didn’t know if it was to push him away or pull him closer.

Then he moved his hand lower again, over her hips and her thighs, finally finding the hem of her dress and immediately tugging it upward. Higher and higher she felt the garment rising, until she was shifting on his lap so that he could bunch it around her waist. He opened his hand over the curve of her fanny, rubbing his palm over the lace of her panties in wide circles, as if he were trying to imprint the pattern on his skin. When she instinctively pushed her body backward to greet his touch, he dipped his fingers beneath the lace, curving his palm this time over her naked flesh, and pressing his long middle finger into the delicate cleft of her behind. She gasped at the intrusion, but when he began to draw his hand away, she pushed her fanny back against his fingers harder, in the hope that he would do it again.

Where had this come from? she wondered wildly as he pushed his hand lower again. She had only intended to kiss him, not succumb to a passion completely beyond her control, a passion unlike anything she had felt for a man before. But when his petition and solicitude had turned to confidence and expertise, she hadn’t been able to help herself. She’d never been with a man who was more certain of his actions. What was truly her undoing, though, was that he seemed to be even more certain of hers.

As if proving that, he folded his fingers deeper into the cleft of her fanny again, scooting them lower this time. After pushing one long finger into the delicate opening he found there, only briefly enough to make her deliciously shocked and enticingly curious, he drove his fingers lower, between her legs, where she had grown damp and hot with wanting him. For long moments, he only fondled her wet, swollen flesh, something that made her rise from his lap to give him better access. Her new position put her breast at the level of his