Susan Connell - Reese - The Untamed

“How does it feel?” he asked, as enchanted with her as she was with the car.

“Like heaven on wheels,” she said, competently shifting down when a service van pulled out from a side road in front of them.

As she slowed the Jaguar, Reese angled his body toward her. He hadn’t seen anyone enjoy the simple act of driving a car as much as she was. She alternately stroked the wheel with her thumb and glided her palm along its curve. He imagined that same smile on her as a teenager with her first car. In typical American tradition, she’d probably named it.

When she began lightly tapping her fingers on the steering wheel impatiently, he nudged the side of her thigh. “Time to make a move, Beth.”

She gave him a quick questioning look, then returned her gaze to the road. “What do you mean?”

“It’s pretty much a straightaway for several miles.” He leaned closer, resting his hand on his knee near the gear shift. “Pass the van. I’ll watch you.”

Maneuvering the car a foot to the left, she checked up the road for oncoming traffic.

“Clear?”

“I can see all the way to Italy,” she said teasingly. Holding her hair away from her face, she added, “Now?”

Reese braced his hand on the dash close to the gearshift knob. “Now.” She steered the car smoothly into the opposite lane. “Excellent.” Glancing down the road, he could see a set of headlights cresting over a rise. “You’re fine, just give it more gas.”

Her chin rose a fraction of an inch, the only sign of her increased concentration. He could sense her excitement and rode with it like a tail wind. “A little faster.” At that moment the service van driving beside them began speeding up. Wrapping her hands more firmly around the knob, she stepped into the clutch, pulled back on the stick and missed the gear. The approaching car blinked its headlights in warning. His first instinct was to take over. “Get ready on the clutch,” he said, attempting to remove her hand from the knob.

“Trust me. I’ve got it,” she said, her voice steady, determined, her grip sure.

In that tense and vital moment, he found himself ignoring his first impulse. Something deep inside told him to let go. To trust her. He did, and a second later, she maneuvered the stick into gear, pressed down on the accelerator and slipped the car back into their lane ahead of the van. With only seconds to spare, the oncoming car whizzed passed them.

Several wordless moments passed, with only the purring motor and his thumping heart filling the silence. “ Ange polisson, you give a wild ride,” he said, before bowing his head in slightly exaggerated relief. After a respectful moment, he made the sign of the cross, then looked at her with mischief in his eyes. “I feel as if we should be sharing a cigarette.” Before she could respond, he pointed to a restaurant sign partially hidden in shrubbery a short way up the road. “The answer to my prayers. We’re here.”

Pulling into the parking lot, she parked the car and removed the key. Tucking the key ring into his hand, she closed her warm fingers over his fist.

“ Ange pollison? What exactly does that mean?”

“Naughty angel.”

“Well, this naughty angel thanks you for making one of her fantasies come true.” She smiled. “She owes you one.”

Over the past few days he’d been gathering a number of adjectives to describe his mystery lady, but they all fell in line behind his newest revelation. Spirited. Beth Langdon just might be the one to help him out of his bind with Duncan. He watched as she unhooked her seat belt, then turned to face him. Planting a hand on the edge of his seat, she leaned closer. Her lips shimmered in the parking-lot light.

“Didn’t scare you, did I?”

As much as he was tempted to lean over and kiss that smug little smile from her face, he wasn’t going to. Not until the plan forming in his mind was clear to him. Shaking his head, he touched one of her diamond ear clips, then traced the curve of her cheek to the corner of her mouth. “I don’t know a damned thing about you. Why you followed me, where you’re from, anything about your background—”

“Is background important to you?”

He held her gaze steady with his, but didn’t say anything for several seconds. “About that game you were playing with me last night at the casino—”

“The game I won?” she asked, cutting in again.

He shook his head once. “I’m not talking about roulette.”

“You’re not?”

“No, mon ange polisson, ” he said, moving his fingertip over her lips. “When you play roulette, you play against the house. I want to know about the game you were playing with me. ” Curving his hands around her rib cage, he urged her closer. “The one you’re still playing.”

“Why?” she asked, running her fingers through his curly hair, then spilling it over his forehead. “Because you don’t want to play with me?”

“I do. I just want to know the rules.”

Her hand suddenly stilled. “There aren’t any. But if you insist, we’ll make them up as we go along.”

“And then…?” He prompted her with a nod.

She didn’t respond.

Beneath his curved hands her heart began beating faster. He was definitely getting under her skin. “Then, Beth,” he said, “we’ll break them. Every one of them.” She opened her mouth, but before she could protest he added, “Starting now.” Pulling her close, he kissed her until she groaned. He was certain the sound had its origins in heaven. Shifting in his arms, she plowed her fingers into his hair and began to kiss him back.

National security be damned; she wasn’t sharing this discovery with anyone. Reese Marchand was a brilliant kisser.

Catching her by surprise with a series of masterful tongue strokes, Reese had taken her from a gasp to a groan in seconds. Tingling sensations streamed straight from his mouth to every erogenous zone on her body. Without warning he gentled his advance to nibbling her lips, then just as quickly went back to lavishing his expert attention in the moist warmth beyond them. Shivering against the delicious intrusion, she fleetingly wondered how any woman could not respond to such thoroughness.

Of course, self-control was possible, but with the soft pressure of his hands around her rib cage, highly questionable. His light hold had somehow turned into a teasing challenge to come closer. But that wasn’t going to happen. For the sake of her goal, she had to find a way out of this deepening maze of desire…just as soon as Reese stopped that nibbling he’d started again. Lord, help her. He was turning her into little more than a traitorous mass of dewy flesh.

His thorough and relentless technique had her toes and fingers curling, and she realized the only way she could straighten them was to return the pleasure. Generously. That still didn’t account for her ending up on the other side of the console and in his lap when they finally broke for air.

His deadpan look toward the empty driver’s seat and then to her in his lap ended in a slow, shared smile. Her hands drifted out of his hair and down to his chest. Beneath the fine pleats of his shirtfront she felt the pleasant definition of muscle, the steady thump of his heartbeat and the heat she’d help to generate. Without a doubt, he was the most handsome, most masculine, most desirable man she’d ever laid eyes or hands on.

As their connected gazes intensified, she knew she couldn’t help herself; she had to touch his lips again. As she traced her own moisture on them, he captured her finger in a quick, soft bite. The moment lingered between them, rich and heavy with promise. Before releasing her finger, he flicked his tongue over the tip of it, and it seemed over other parts of her, as well. If he only knew what he was doing to her…she pressed her thighs together.