“Jesus.”
“He’d probably be best left out of this.”
“You’re probably right.”
Silence settled over the car. Rhett thought he really did hear a cricket chirp from somewhere in the distance. The moonlight filtered into the car. The wind rustled the trees to the left.
“You know what, fuck it.” Bella unbuckled her seatbelt and lunged across the car.
It was a good thing he was ready because instead of letting her slam into the steering wheel or the shifter in the middle, he caught her in his arms and she fell into his face, or more specifically, his mouth, instead.
CHAPTER 11
Bella
Rhett had a really nice mouth. He had nice lips. A nice tongue. A nice everything. And he knew how to use it.
The kiss was so different than anything they’d done back at her hotel room. She wasn’t going to say it was sloppy, because it didn’t even come close, but this… this was nearly brutal. Brutally wonderful. Rhett’s mouth was firm and unyielding, doing something that felt pretty close to claiming hers, that was- if she wanted to be claimed.
Which she didn’t.
There was no room to be claimed by Rhett, or by any man. Every single time she’d fallen for someone, it ended up a disaster because every single man was always wrong or inappropriate. It might as well have been a syndrome. Wrong fucking man disease, and she’d caught it early on in life.
One large warm hand cradled the back of her neck. That hand held her face to Rhett’s while he devoured her. Devoured was the right word, and god, she liked it. Correction. She loved it.
His tongue lashing hers, caressing hers, stroking hers, sending all sorts of shivers up and down her spine. And straight to her lady bits.
Bella wasn’t sure what was going on with Rhett, because he broke the kiss and stared at her, panting. Her eyes flicked downwards, to the bulge in his jeans, and okay, maybe she did know what was going on with him.
“Backseat?” It was framed as a question but sounded more like a breathless, husky command.
“Is that an order? We’re really going to do this?”
“Not unless you want to give the house a try after all.”
“I…” her eyes flicked around the property. The grass was probably six feet tall. If they lay down on it, they’d probably get lost. Then there was always the chance there were snakes or mice in it, and she was honestly terrified of both. Not the nice pet store kind. The unknown, wild, biting kind. Or spiders. God, Bella hated spiders. Both the wild and not so wild varieties.
“Do I need to convince you?”
“How would you do that?” Her voice was thick and dusky. Maybe she liked the sound of Rhett trying to convince her.
“You don’t want to know. Maybe I made my money selling sex toys and I know a few ways of getting the job done.”
Bella blinked. It was hard to keep a straight face when at the moment the word sex toys sounded completely erotic and terribly naughty coming from Rhett’s lips. The air in the car was so thick and charged it could probably light up that house, and she was willing to bet the place had been dark and without power for a very long time. All they were missing were the wires and a way to bottle it. Give or take. She wasn’t an electrician.
“Well, if you did, I highly doubt you have one on you right now.” She gave him a once over. “Unless you’ve stashed it up your ass. In that case, I would be very, very tortured.”
“You haven’t seen my trunk.”
“Is that a pun?”
“It might be.”
It seemed that they were locked into a staring contest. She didn’t want to be the one to break first, but why not? She’d already made the horrible decisions to a, save Rhett from that church, b, have sex with him after, c, to give him her address when he showed up unannounced like a stalker at her work, and d, to get in this car with him and drive all the way outside with the express intent of torturing each other in all shapes and forms.
She had a chance to use common sense.
She didn’t want to then. She didn’t want to now. Maybe it was overrated. Her parents always told her to use her head when she was little. Her mom always said to use common sense and her dad told her to listen to her gut.
Therefore, it was perfect to go against both of those.
Her hand fumbled with the door latch until she sprung it and tumbled out into the still hot, a little moist and sticky, not as charged, summer air outside the car.
She dove into the backseat like her life depended on it. She wasn’t sure who set the better record since Rhett was halfway in when she dove back there, and they ended up mashing together in a way that was half sexy and half clumsy.