Going Under (Wildfire Lake 2)

“Hmm.” Her gaze lowers to my mouth, and she slides her tongue over her lower lip. “Let me show you my shop, where you can elaborate on what you might have been thinking.”

She leads, taking me by the front of my scrubs into a metal building. I swing the door shut behind me, and my eyes are immediately drawn to the walls, where pegboards hold supplies, nice and neat. Bright red four-foot-tall rolling toolboxes line one wall. Outboard motors line the opposite wall, all resting in metal stands. Engine parts sit on one workbench.

“This place is sharp.” I reach out and pull on one of the drawers in the toolbox, and I find what I expected, every tool clean and lined up in a very precise order. “This is as organized as the OR.”

“Gotta respect the tools. Precision work requires precision skills, setting, and equipment. My dad drilled that into my head early.”

She tugs on my shirt, so I face her again, then slides her arms around my neck, and her body stretches along mine. I’m already groaning when she pulls my head down, kissing me like she’s been thinking all the same things I have.

I wrap her in my arms and sink into the kiss with a growl that pours from my chest. She’s already open to me, licking into my mouth and lighting me on fire. My need goes from zero to sixty in a split second. She seems to have control over a switch inside me I never knew existed. I’m already hard when I lower a forearm to the small of her back and pull her hips against mine.

God, she feels so damn good. Warm and welcoming. I don’t remember the last time I felt this wanted. And, yeah, it feels raw too. Fatigue blurs the edges of my brain, and all my restraint vanishes. I slide my hands over her tight ass and pull her against me. This isn’t something I could have ever seen myself doing before this very moment. Yet it feels completely natural.

She echoes my moan, and I lift her off her feet. Her thighs wrap around my hips, and I turn, easing her to the top of a workbench. The space smells industrial with grease and metal. It’s completely foreign, yet seems to fit KT perfectly.

She breaks the kiss, unlocks her arms from my neck, and pulls my scrub top from my pants, then slides her hands under and along my skin. Her hands are cold, and my skin prickles. “How much time do you have?”

“Not enough.”

She makes a sound of disappointment and rests her forehead against my chest. She leans back and props herself up with her palms against the workbench. With her thighs still spread for my hips, it’s a dangerously sexy pose. A current hikes my temperature.

“I could get a babysitter.” I slide my fingers beneath the edge of her tee and stroke the warm skin of her tight belly. “Then I could take you to dinner.”

“We talked about this.”

“It’s just dinner.”

“It’s not just dinner, and you know it,” she says. “Now, if you want to get a sitter and come back to my boat, or even get a hotel room, that’s a whole different thing.”

I’m marveling at the tight, tanned lower abs, my fingers tracing the rises and dips. Her offer is too good to refuse, and it takes me a long time to finally shake my head. I don’t have any solid reason for saying no other than it just doesn’t seem right.

I didn’t realize I had a lingering distaste for random sex with an almost stranger until right now, but I know where it came from— Jana’s unfaithfulness. As far as I know, it was only once, but it was enough to create major cracks in our marriage. Cracks we were well toward repairing when she got sick.

“I can’t believe I just met you,” I say, marveling at how different this thing between us feels from anything I’ve ever experienced.

“Sometimes people just click.”

“Doesn’t happen like that for me,” I say.

“Does now.”

I laugh and lift my hand to stroke her cheek, but she turns her head and takes my fingers into her mouth. The warmth shocks me, then she sucks, and licks, and I moan. I pull my fingers from her mouth, grasp her jaw, and kiss her, hard and deep.

I don’t break the kiss until I need air, and realize I want to kiss her for hours. I can’t envision ever getting tired of that mouth. Or that face. Or that body. Or that mind.

But I’ve spent the time since I last saw her digging into every corner of this situation. If it weren’t for these limits she puts on dating and relationships, she could very well be perfect for me. “Are you seeing anyone else right now?”

She takes my hand and presses the palm to her lips. “No. Are you looking for reasons not to want me?”

“Yeah,” I say directly, seriously. “I am.”

Instead of getting pissed, she drops her head back and laughs. I can’t resist her exposed neck and lower my head, kissing the warm skin. One of her hands slides into my hair, and her pleasure vibrates against my lips. Then she lifts my head, and her mouth is on mine again, driving me out of my mind.

When we break the kiss, her lids are heavy, her lips swollen. “I think you’re going to have to try harder.”

I plant one hand at her hip on the workbench, slide the other into her hair and kiss her again. Long, slow, deep, erotic kisses that make her moan and arch against me. Make her hands fist in my hair or my shirt. God, she’s such an aphrodisiac.

I reluctantly pull back. “I need to get back so my sister can go home.”