Tori Carrington - Reckless Pleasures

He grinned and absently rubbed his chin. If not for the way her T-shirt emphasized her breasts, he might think she was one of the guys.

His gaze homed in on her mouth and he felt a strangely familiar tightening of his pants across his groin. Oh, no, even without makeup and a dress, there was absolutely nothing masculine about Megan McGowan.

“What?”

He blinked up into her blue eyes, realizing he’d been caught. “Nothing.” He pointed toward her mouth. “You’ve got a bit of sauce…yeah, right there.”

She wiped at the red dot with her napkin and continued eating.

“Good?”

“Huh?” She looked at the wing in her hand. “I didn’t even notice. I’m operating on automatic right now.”

Jason let the chair legs clunk to the floor. “Yeah, me, too.”

“They’re not bad, I guess.” She shrugged. “I’m not a big wings girl, really.”

“What kind of girl are you, really?”

She smiled. “A regular fried-chicken kind of girl.”

He chuckled and swallowed a good portion of his beer.

He wasn’t sure what he’d expected her to say. Given the direction of his earlier thoughts, maybe something like filet mignon or salmon.

Instead, she’d chosen what might possibly be an even sloppier and more fattening alternative.

This from the girl who had passed on fries the other night.

Of course, like him, she understood her body needed the calories. Running as they had that day, they could easily burn double a regular day’s nutrients.

“You’re staring again.” She laughed.

“I am?” He was.

Jason ran his hand over his face, watching as she checked her silent cell phone for the tenth time in the past ten minutes.

“Heard anything more?” he asked.

She shook her head. “You?”

“Nope. Figured you were lucky to have heard from him when you did. Lord only knows how long he’ll be out.”

He watched her frown.

In all the time Megan and Dari had been a couple, he didn’t think he’d talked to her as much as he had in the past four months. Or looked at her more than he had today. She was his best friend’s girl—period.

Yeah? Then what was he still doing there watching her eat rather than hightailing it back to his own room for some shut-eye?

“So…” he said. “You two talk about getting hitched?”

Her brows hiked up on her forehead. “Nah. Not seriously.”

“But you have talked about it.”

She shrugged noncommittally, her movements seeming to slow.

Finally, she put down the wing she was eating and wiped her hands.

“Well,” she said, looking everywhere but at him. “It’s going to be an early morning, so I think I’m going to hit the sack.”

Jason cleared his throat. “Yeah, me too.”

She began gathering the boxes and empty bottles on the table.

“Leave it. I’ll make sure the motel staff picks it up before five.”

“Thanks.”

She moved toward the door. Was it his imagination, or did she seem a little distracted?

“God. Where is my head?”

She backtracked to the table and picked up her phone.

She’d forgotten her cell?

“Well…good night.”

Jason cleared his throat and reached for another beer. “Good night.”

He stopped short of adding “Sweet dreams.” Truth was he was afraid his dreams tonight were going to be too sweet. And chances were high they were going to feature her….

MEGAN LAY BACK in the king-size motel room feeling as if sand coated her eyeballs. It was after two and she hadn’t been able to close her eyelids for more than a moment, much less fall asleep. Which was par for the course lately.

She reached over to check her quiet cell and then lie back again with a heavy sigh.

In recent weeks, she’d become aware of a sort of silent humming. Oh, she missed Dari with her head and her heart. But her body had been fine. Of course, sexting had probably helped. But now, now she felt as if she wanted to jump out of her skin it was so uncomfortably alive.

The sensation began at the tip of her toes, traveled upward to her inner thighs, making her nipples constantly hard, making her panties constantly damp.

An image of Jason chanced through her mind. She frowned, attributing the aberration to the fact she’d just seen him.

She groaned and rolled over onto her side, back to the nightstand and the cell phone on top of it. Despite the nonstop hum of the air conditioner under the window, it was still hot and she wore nothing but a white tank top and a pair of white cotton panties. She’d stripped the blankets back and was lying on the sheets. But the humidity was brutal and seemed to contribute to her sense of longing.

Without realizing that’s what she had in mind, she slipped her hand between her thighs so her wrist pressed against her damp crotch and then she squeezed her muscles together tightly. She groaned again as white-hot need shot through her every cell.

She’d been known to take matters into her own hands before. But certainly not since meeting Dari. He saw to every one of her needs and beyond.

But now that he was gone, she was all too aware she was a living, breathing female in need of release, preferably with a willing, skilled male.

Of course, her male was thousands of miles away in a sweltering desert just then, and her release was nowhere to be found.

She rolled back onto her back, shifting her hand so that it lay directly against her aching womanhood through the damp cotton. Heat shimmered up to her breasts and then sank back down to pool in her lower belly.

Yes…

It had been four long months since she’d felt Dari…right there. Touching her. Thrusting deep into her…

She stroked herself through the cotton and restlessly licked her lips, surrendering to what she was about to do and ultimately embracing it. Only, the connection wasn’t nearly intimate enough, so she edged her fingertips under the elastic of her panties, diving lower still until they met with her slick, shallow channel.

Megan stretched her head back and moaned, riding the delicious waves of sensation, a willing surfer bent on exploring deeper waters.

She ran her fingertips along the damp length of her swollen folds, working her middle into the tight pool for a dip. Her muscles immediately contracted, closing around the digit, begging for an even more meaningful meeting.

Her other hand trailed down her stomach until it, too, took up residence under the cotton of her panties. But where her left had focused on exploring dark, damp places, her right found her fleshy center, rubbing against it once, twice…

Megan gasped, her muscles contracting, allowing her the release she’d sought. She rode it out, welcoming every last spasm even as she clamped her legs together, trapping her hands where they were.

For long moments she lay there, absently stroking her pulsing flesh, curious as to why her cheeks were suddenly damp. She was surprised to find she was crying…

JASON SQUINTED UP at the blinding orange ball of the midday sun, thinking conditions couldn’t possibly be worse.

“Things could always be worse,” Megan said next to him. “There could be a hurricane heading this way.”

He stared at her. “Is there?”

“Nah.”

“Thank God for small favors.”

He blew out a long breath from between his teeth, staring at the clearing around them. Five minutes ago they’d both emerged to find the nonstop rain they’d woken up to this morning was being replaced by the scorching sun. It didn’t feel like a sauna—it felt worse.

Megan plucked the material of her T-shirt away from where it clung, soaked, to her stomach. He tried not to watch, but couldn’t help himself.

Another team member emerged from across the fifty-yard clearing in the middle of the forest.