Page 49 of Clearly Charmed

‘Shit, sorry. My hands must be cold.’

He began to move away, and I placed my hand over his. Like that night in the clinic, we didn’t pull back but stayed mere inches apart. This time Bryce was the bold one, leaning in and kissing the corners of my lips. He whispered my name as his mouth glided over my cheek and slid to my ear. He murmured how soft my skin was. That my hair smelled like fresh straw and spring orange blossoms.

I shivered again, but this was not about the cold and wind seeping in the windows. It was about the wild need in his eyes. The eagerness in his grip as he reached out and pulled me onto his lap. How he adjusted me until I felt the delicious scrape of where he was already hard for me.

Taking his time, he kissed a path across my chin and down my neck to the hollow of my throat, where my veins pulsed out how much I wanted him. My fingers found the hair at the nape of his neck and I tugged him closer. He groaned against my skin. Tugged the canvas jacket off my shoulders and placed his hands beneath the hem of my T-shirt, tugging it over my head.

‘Beautiful,’ he murmured, leaning in to place a kiss over the lace bralette I was wearing.

The heat of his mouth made me arch, and he palmed my back, holding me steady. One by one, he nudged the straps off my shoulders and worked his tongue over my nipples, his warm breath turning them into stiff peaks.

‘I’ve been dreaming about this since that night in the clinic. How I wanted to stretch you out, see every inch of you, watch as you writhed beneath me.’

‘Too much talking.’ I pressed my mouth to the corner of his chin, gripping his shirt and begging him to take it off. He responded to my command, and I sucked in a breath at the curves of his biceps, the sharp edges to his chest and abdomen.

Teasing him, I ground down, and he released a low moan into the edge of my shoulder. His mouth carved a slow, sinful path down my body. He stopped and looked up at me with hooded eyes. ‘I want to touch you so bad.’

‘What’s stopping you?’ I said.

That wicked gleam in his eyes returned as he flipped open the button of my jeans and slid a hand inside my underwear. ‘Fuck. I love that you’re already wet for me.’

He teased me gently with his fingers, and the moan that spilled from my lips knocked around the inside of the truck. The lights on the dash lit up. I went still, afraid I’d hit something as I moved under his touch. His thumb stroked a rough path over my clit, and my breaths came hard and fast. I rocked against his hand, desperate for release. With a firm grip, he lifted me off his lap and laid me across the bench seat. He scooted back until he was flush against the door and pulled down my jeans. His hand teased the outside of my panties, and I bucked beneath him whispering out a low ‘please’.

‘Please what?’ he teased.

‘Your mouth. I need it.’

‘Where?’

‘On me. In me,’ I panted out. His fingers slid under the sides of my underwear and tugged them down.

‘All you had to do was ask.’

That devilish grin was back. He placed a searing kiss against my lips before using his tongue to lick a path from below my belly button all the way to my center. His mouth sucked and swirled until he used his finger to part me and slid his tongue inside. I gripped the sides of the seat and hitched my hips up, needing him deeper. Like he could read my thoughts, he placed his hand beneath my back and edged me in closer.

The sight of him between my legs, reddish-blond hair wet from the storm, was so hot I spread my legs wider, and he grunted his approval. A building warmth filled my belly as he reached down with one hand and began to touch himself, the rhythm mirroring the soft stroke of his tongue. Rain fell harder against the roof, and the dash lit up again under the power of the storm.

That link between us bloomed like the sun inching above the horizon, and although this was wild, me relinquishing every rational thought, doing this on the side of the road where anyone could find us, I gave in to my ravenous hunger.

I began to quake beneath him, and like he knew I needed that extra nudge, his hand returned to my center, and along with his tongue and fingers I gasped and slid right over the edge into beautiful oblivion.

He held me close as the orgasm vaulted through me, whispering ‘Unbelievable’ against my body as if he could etch it into my skin.

When my soul returned to earth, he tenderly redressed me and lifted my body back onto his lap. Wrapping his hands around my waist, he tucked me in close. He was still hard beneath me, and I reached for him. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘I just want to hold you. Breathe you in for a moment if that’s all right.’

Once again, he’d stunned me into silence. Max had been kind in bed. Sweet, but never emotional. The way that Bryce held me now, as if I was meant to be cherished, nearly broke me. I swallowed back the sob in my throat and buried my head deeper into his shoulder.

We stayed quiet as our breathing synced. His hands stroked the back of my head, and I eased into him, that buzzy tether between us tightening like nothing could sever what was growing between us.

‘I sort of think the universe wanted this to happen,’ he said quietly.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘A sudden storm. A flat tire. Feels like the fates wanted us to be together in this moment.’

I huffed out a laugh. ‘Be careful. You’re beginning to sound like a local.’

‘Is that so bad?’