Her Last Wild Ride

Her breathing got quicker, her breasts rising and falling rapidly. Good. Not half as reluctant as she was pretending to be.

Slowly and deliberately he rubbed a thumb across her bottom lip, exploring that cushiony, springy firmness. And then because he couldn’t stop himself, he slipped it inside and felt the dart of her tongue tip against him as if she couldn’t help that minute taste. His dick jerked in his pants, blood rushing south to harden the shaft of flesh. Jesus.

The heat haze on his vision cleared slightly when he saw comprehension dawn in those blue eyes, and he took his thumb out before she could bite down on him. He couldn’t resist putting it into his own mouth to taste her. Sweet and hot. Wet.

Sounding far less confident now, she stepped back and said, “I didn’t come back to New York for a hookup, Johnny. You should just go.”

Back from where? He ignored that question, too. It was harder than he liked to admit to step away and walk around her and go to the door, but he wasn’t going to push this now. The prospect of getting Ashling Sullivan to acquiesce to him was more erotic than anything he could remember in a long time.

He unlocked the front door, opened it and then looked back. She was framed by the huge bar, and for a second he could have sworn he saw something vulnerable, and his conscience kicked. But it was gone when she crossed her arms and arched a dark blond brow.

Resolve and lust tightened his gut as he said softly but with a definite hint of steel, “Lock up

as soon as I leave. I didn’t like the look of those guys who were in earlier. I’ll be back tomorrow, Ashling. You need my help so you’d better find me a T-shirt that fits.”

Chapter Four

Johnny had gone before I could react to that arrogant pronouncement. And his lock up as soon as I leave hit me somewhere ridiculously feminine. For long minutes after I’d locked up again and Johnny had left, pulling away from the curb in a low-slung vintage Buick, I was still trembling from an overload of emotion and sensations.

And I could still taste his finger in my mouth. I’d almost bitten down on it, and not in anger. In lust.

I went back to the bar and poured myself a generous shot of whiskey, cursing him for his unique and intoxicating brand of confidence and raw sexual charisma. When he’d disappeared out the door I’d had to restrain an urge to run after him.

I’d felt so exposed when he’d asked about Caitlin because I’d been all but ready to climb over the bar; it had reminded me a little too forcibly of how exposed I’d felt after Steve. Guilt pierced me again to know I’d even unwittingly been the other woman. That was why I was done letting anyone else close enough to scramble my brain. Clearly my judgment faculties were severely faulty at the moment.

But then I thought about Johnny hemming me in against the bar. I’d almost melted on the spot, completely forgetting everything. He had that cocky, confident arrogance that drove me in equal parts crazy and crazy with lust.

I scowled. The man was a lobotomist.

I forced my mind away from the very sexual promise in those dark blue eyes. Promising the seduction of oblivion and nirvana. It scared me because Steve had offered all those things, and yet, even though I’d let him in closer than anyone else, I realized now that he hadn’t actually made me lose myself entirely.

The subsequent painful fallout had been more hurtful for my pride than my heart.

The fact that meeting Johnny Ryan was precipitating this revelation was not welcome. Because it pointed to the fact that he’d effortlessly managed to sneak under my skin already.

I took another slug of whiskey, relishing the burn, as if that could sear away this intense lingering desire. No way would I give in to Johnny Ryan, for myriad reasons, and not just because my best friend and I were embracing celibacy so we could focus on our business and because we’d both just been royally screwed over.

No, I had come home for me, and not to service my very indiscriminating libido. I scowled at my reflection in the big mirror behind the bar and ignored my overly flushed cheeks. So Johnny Ryan could go and take a fucking flying leap if he thought I’d be waiting with open legs for him tomorrow. I could resist him. I could.

* * *

“Christ on a bike, who is that? I do believe my one straight cell just pulsed to life.”

I blatantly ignored Candy’s question and looked at her. “Christ on a what?”

But Candy, with her funky asymmetrical bobbed blond hair, numerous piercings, tattoos and generally fierce air was staring with obvious lust at Johnny Ryan where he was unloading bottles of whiskey out of a box. And she was one hundred percent out and proud gay.

She said now absently, “It’s one of Caitlin’s cute sayings. Like bollix and fecking eejit.”

I followed Candy’s gaze, as if it hadn’t been hard enough not to look. I mean, who was I kidding? Johnny was now putting bottles high on a shelf over the back bar, and every time he stretched up, his gray Sullivan’s T-shirt rode up and gave a tantalizing glimpse of flat abs and that dark trail of hair.

The healthy bulge in the front of his jeans made me break out in a hot sweat every time I saw it. His back was broad, tapering down to those slim hips.

“That ass...is assmazing.”

I couldn’t help but agree. It was only when that ass disappeared and a provocative bulge filled our eye-lines that I looked up, cheeks flaming. Fecking eejit, indeed. How old was I again? And how easily had I capitulated when Johnny had shown up today and come straight behind the bar and asked where his T-shirt was?

I’d put up the most pathetic of fights, asking him with what I’d hoped was derision, “How come you’re so available? Unemployed?”