“Jacob Donovan,” she murmured as he pulled from the parking lot and headed for her house. “You’ve just broken a major rule as I understand it. You’ve never been known to leave that bar, or any other, with a woman.”
There was no sense of triumph in her tone, if anything, she sounded slightly put out.
“I’m not the only one,” he reminded her quietly, glancing over at her. “Three years and not a single date. They probably have a betting pool somewhere on both of us.”
He didn’t know the half of it.
“As I understand it, yours somehow ended up with the Ladies Auxiliary, according to my friends. I’m rather scared to know where mine’s located.”
He shot her a look of surprise. “Ladies Auxiliary? Hell, my grandmother’s on the auxiliary. That can’t be true. Someone’s lying to you.”
She almost laughed at the confusion and denial in his voice.
“You seem to be a local legend in sheer self-control when it comes to the hometown women,” she pointed out. “Which in hindsight, perhaps we should have been more discreet.”
Or perhaps she should have given this more thought.
The need for touch was something she dealt with by ignoring it. If she hugged her pillow a little tighter at night and fought back the inner fury that her body was betraying her, then so be it.
“Discreet doesn’t happen in this town,” he told her. “Might as well show ’em you don’t give a damn to begin with.”
“I don’t give a damn.” She frowned at the thought. “But I’m not from here and I don’t have a betting sheet with the Ladies Auxiliary.”
“Think that matters?” he drawled, and the sound of his voice sent another pulsing surge of heat rushing through her body.
Her nipples ached now, her panties were wet, and she wanted him in a way that would frighten her later. She could feel her feminine moisture as it eased from her body, slickening her, preparing her for him.
She’d made her decision tonight, and she would stick to it. And she’d make memories she hoped would keep her warm once she had to run again. She couldn’t stay and she knew it. Sooner or later she’d be forced to run again. And she didn’t want the broken heart she was certain to have when he was finished with her.
It was far better to take a single night, to save it within her memories and hold it to her when the nights became cold.
She’d been here for three years, far longer than she’d expected to be when she first arrived. With a lot of luck, she’d finally managed to escape whoever had chased her since the night four years ago when she’d been forced to run from home.
Four years, she thought, staring into the darkness beyond the truck’s lights. She was only twenty-four, and sometimes, she felt eons older. Her life was being stolen, taken from her, one year at a time, and what had she missed the most?
She’d missed Jacob’s touch.
chapter two
Be bold.
Be daring.
Her mother’s advice went through Sallie’s mind as she watched the headlights cut through the dark on the empty country road. When Sallie moved to Deer Haven, Megan Dougal had smiled coolly and told Sallie to find happiness for a change. To be bold and daring and perhaps it would find her.
Bold.
Daring.
She released her seat belt, aware of his glance and the dark sensuality that lit his expression as she turned toward him. She moved closer.
“Start and I’ll end up fucking you on the side of the road,” he warned her, lifting his hand from the steering wheel as she moved in closer.
“No, you won’t,” she said, her voice low. “You’re renowned for your self-control under pressure. You’ll make it to the house.”
And if he didn’t, then she’d know she broke that control. If he pulled the truck over to take her rather than allowing her to take him, then at least she’d know she could still affect him.
His expression hardened when she gripped his belt buckle and released it, then loosened the metal tab and zipper straining over the heavy erection beneath.
Grimacing, he glanced at her, then back to the road as she drew the straining flesh free, trepidation building inside her at the wide, steel-hard flesh revealed.
The broad, mushroomed crest throbbed in her hand as she fisted it for a moment, the shaft straining as her grip slid over it, loving every single inch.
“Sallie, sweetheart, you’re playing a very dangerous game.” That warning slid through her senses. It was a challenge, a dare she wasn’t about to turn down. “You put your mouth on my dick, and you’ll find out how dangerous it can get.”
“Don’t hold my head,” she warned him, knowing it was more a dare. “If you do, it’s over.”
“You get my dick in that hot little mouth of yours and all bets are off, baby.” His body was tight with tension, with self-control. “So, take your chances.”
She wanted to. She wanted his flesh in her mouth again, wanted to taste him, to tease him.
“No,” she retorted. “You’ll take yours.”
Turning to him, she lowered her head between his body and the steering wheel, her tongue peeking out to taste him first.
And whatever dark hunger had gripped her in the bar surged forward with a force she was helpless against. A need she couldn’t deny herself.
He tasted like a storm and of midnight beneath her curious tongue. Clean and intoxicating. Her lips parted, spreading over the wide crest, a moan slipping past her lips as she gave herself to the twisting, shadowed needs she’d never realized were lying in wait for a moment’s weakness.
For a man as dark as the hunger that tormented her in the deepest parts of the night. A hunger he’d taught her to crave.
As the heavy crest filled her mouth, she was only dimly aware of Jacob’s hand smoothing down her back, tugging at her hip, urging her into a kneeling position. Once he had her where he wanted her, his cock moving between her lips as she knelt in the seat, his hand bunched in her skirt, tugging it to her hips.
“Fuck!” The exclamation was a rasp of dangerous desire, stroking over her senses as he pushed his hand beneath the band of her panties. “That’s good, baby. So fucking good.”
A second later she couldn’t halt her cry as her panties were torn from her, fragile lace rending and being tossed away. Her head lifted, nearly clearing the iron-hard flesh she held in her mouth.
“Don’t you dare stop,” he demanded, his hand smoothing over her rear. “Or I won’t do this.”
Broad fingers slid through the crevice of her rear to the silky glide of feminine juices coating the bare flesh below.
The stroke of his fingers between the swollen folds of flesh was incredible. Flares of heat and exquisite sensation raced over her clit, circled it, tightened it.
“That’s it, sweetheart.” He groaned. “Suck me deep and I’ll see if I can make you feel real good too.”
She hadn’t anticipated that. The way his fingers rimmed the entrance to her sex, stroked, urging more of the moisture free. His fingers played over the swollen folds, petted, slid through the thickening layer of natural lubrication, and teased around the hardened bud of her clit.
“Ah hell, your sweet mouth.” His voice was low, sensual need pulsing in the tone as she moved her mouth over the hardened flesh, her tongue licking with sensual delight as another moan slipped past her throat.