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  He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tightly against him, reveling in the feel of her warm, pliant body smashed against his. He’d never felt hair so glossy, and it slipped through his fingers as if refusing to be captured. She moaned deep in her throat when he fisted a handful and claimed her lips again. When her hands slid down his back and grabbed his ass, his hips jerked forward, pressing his erection into her. Leila’s tongue went wild inside his mouth, spiraling and wrestling with his at a frenzied pace.

  Her flesh was hot beneath the thin red and white summer dress, and he skimmed it up her thighs, and whisked it over her head. He traced the delicate curve of her waist and brushed his thumb just beneath the bottom of her strapless bra. She shivered beneath his hands, made quick work of his pants, and began undoing the buttons of his shirt with a gleam in her eyes.

  A tug of fabric later, he stood before her in nothing but a pair of boxers that tented out in front of him from his painful erection. It was embarrassing how much he wanted her. He pulled her into a kiss, and gently rubbed up and down between her legs and felt how wet she was, and his embarrassment was crushed beneath the thick lust that filled the room and suspended them both. He nudged her legs open, lifted her, and wrapped her legs around his waist. She was so small it was like she was weightless. The tip of his cock pressed gently against her crotch and she sighed and bit his shoulder.

  He was surprised at how much he liked it. He reciprocated and nibbled her bottom lip, letting his hands wander all over the velvety soft skin of her upper thighs and ass. Her hips were delicious, but he reached up to unhook her bra and throw it to the floor. She unwound her legs from his waist and slid slowly to the floor, keeping her arms wrapped around his neck, trailing her hard nipples down his chest.

  He kissed from the sensitive skin behind her ear down her collarbone, swept her up, and laid her on the bed in one swift motion before gripping her silky white panties, and slowly walking them down to her feet. Grabbing a slender ankle, he moved one of her feet toward the middle of the bed and sat between her legs. He took her foot on the edge of the bed and threw it over his shoulder. Her thighs tensed as he kissed a trail up her smooth skin, and she sprang up with a cry when he teased his tongue up her wet center and around her tiny nub.

  How many times had she driven him to distraction at football games in that little blue and gray cheerleading outfit, flirting, smiling, calling his name, only to ignore him when the game was over? She’d made him feel like he was everything and nothing all at once. He worked his mouth a little harder, a little faster.

  “Ryan,” her voice was throaty and low. “You should swing around and let me return the favor.”

  He licked a vicious circle and she gasped and pushed her hips harder against his mouth. He pulled back. “I normally prefer sixty-eight.”

  “Sixty-eight?”

  “You do me and I’ll owe you one.” He pushed a finger inside her, almost losing it at how tight and wet she was.

  “Oh God.”

  “But you said you’ve had a bad day. And I’m going to make it all better.” He added a finger and adjusted slightly until her spine tensed and her breath left her body. Jackpot. Having found the sweet spot, he bent to her again and gave her his mouth, gently licking and sucking at her clit until her inner muscles gripped his fingers and she began pulling at his arm. The woman who’d been a total pain in his ass in high school was wet for him and wanting more.

  But he wasn’t prepared to stop yet.

  He continued his motions, though gentler, all through her first orgasm, and well beyond. She finally stopped pulling at his arm trying to get him to fuck her, and he reached up to take a nipple in his hand and knead it between his fingers in time with his tongue. He was painfully hard.

  “Mmm. That feels amazing.”

  He added a finger inside her and sucked harder, because if she could talk, she could think, and he wanted her incoherent with pleasure. Her hands fisted the sheets, and a long cry of pleasure leaked from her smiling mouth. Ryan was going for revenge by orgasm, but he was getting something too. The gratification all his one-night stands gave him. It had been a year since Mel had left. She’d crushed his ego, and he got it back in the screams, moans, sighs of the women he’d hooked up with since.

  They fed his need to feel like he was still a man a woman could lose her mind over.

  And when Leila looked at him, eyes black with lust, and threw her head back, something male and proud roared in his chest. She came again, fast, with a loud moan, and he couldn’t wait any longer.

  But when he sat up, so did she. And her hands had other plans.

  ***

  God help her, she wanted to reciprocate. She actually wanted to take him in her mouth and suck until he begged her to stop. He wouldn’t let her, only brought her higher, and then she did lose her mind with pleasure, becoming a sensate creature, writhing and moaning and loving every bliss-soaked minute. And when she came through the other side, and Ryan’s dark blue eyes were still so hungry, she knew a power she’d never before encountered. The power to take pleasure, then prolong it. Sex wasn’t something to rush.

  The “not worrying about what he thought about her” was dizzily freeing. It was just Ryan. She was supposed to hate him, or at least not give a shit what he thought. This was a pre-meditated, one-night thing. But the past came slamming back with shocking clarity, reigniting the forbidden feelings that had captured her all those years ago. Touching him was like taking the first deep breath after holding your breath for six years. She wanted him like her life depended on it. So she sat up when he did, took his hard cock in her hands, and began stroking the impressive length. Maybe it was because he was bigger than her exes, but she’d never seen a dick this size. His sharp inhale was hissed through clenched teeth.

  “Leila, God.” He pitched forward quickly, closing the space between them and leaning into the kiss. The faint taste of herself on his lips and tongue only turned her on more, and she gripped him harder and moved faster, loving how she was making his fists clench. Not getting the chance to be with him in school had been so unfair. She’d dreamed of him at night and pretended to hate him every day. He’d tied her stomach in knots back then. Now her hands were the ones driving him into a frenzy.

  She broke the kiss and leaned down to take him in her mouth. His hips bucked and his hands found their way to her hair, first holding it back from her face, then gripping it tightly when she started circling her tongue over the tip while stroking him up and down. Leilani was neutral about blowjobs. They made Leila wet and squirmy with pleasure.

  Leila was so much more fun.

  Ryan clenched his jaw. “Enough, I can’t take anymore.”

  “Good.” She smiled and licked her lips. His eyes tracked the movement and he bit his lip.

  “I, uh, don’t have any protection.”

  She thanked every deity out there that she’d had a couple emergency condoms in her purse for a few months, not that she’d ever had a sexy emergency before now. “I do.” She didn’t need to keep her voice seductive—it was already sultry from the lust wrapped around her core. She stood, for once not caring about how she looked naked and upright, and walked slowly across the room. She fetched the condom from her purse and handed it to him, loving the way his gaze never left hers on the way back to the bed. Maybe he’d wanted her all along too. Never had she felt so sexy, seductive.

  He opened it with his teeth, and her insides shivered. He rolled the condom down his cock and directed her to scoot up on the bed. She had a fleeting worry about his size but stamped the uncertainty into submission. No one had ever gotten her this hot, this wet before. Leila would make it work. He stretched out above her while she spread herself wide for him.

  And watched while his hard shaft slowly pushed into her.

  His moan was just as long as hers. “God, Leila, you feel so good.”

  She couldn’t speak. He filled her so completely it almost hurt. Almost. She could only breathe deep as he withdrew t
hen plunged in again, faster this time. He grabbed her wrists and moved them behind his head, and she clung to him while he gripped her hips and tipped them in a slightly different angle that allowed him to go even deeper.

  Now she was unable to stifle the cries of pleasure he drew from her with every long thrust. His thick shaft stroked places inside her that made her pulse roar in her ears, and spots danced before her eyes. Their mouths crashed together in a passionate kiss and she dimly knew she was scratching at his back, but all she wanted was for him to invade every inch of her body. She bit at his lip, sucked at his tongue, and smiled when he began wildly pounding into her.

  Perfect. He was perfect, so strong and hot for her. He leaned back and lifted her ankles so her legs were on his shoulders and he went so hard and deep she felt her breasts bounce.

  “You’re. So. Fucking. Hot. Ryan.” She could only manage one word per thrust because when he was inside her she lost the ability to speak.

  His hands found her breasts, grasping them, and rubbing her nipples. He shook his head. “You don’t even know what you’re doing to me right now.”

  “What am I doing to you?” Tonight, she liked dirty talk, wasn’t embarrassed by it.

  “I can’t even think.” He started thrusting slower and slower, dragging the moans slowly from her lips.

  “Mmm. What’s distracting you?” She grabbed one of his hands and slipped his finger in her mouth. He bit his lip and she bit his finger. His hips went wild.

  “You’re so tight. And wet. God, I could fuck you forever and it wouldn’t be enough.”

  Wow. Even without his cock rubbing that place right there, his words drove her closer to another orgasm. She raked her teeth along his finger as she slid it out of her mouth. “What else?”

  “You’re beautiful. Your body is gorgeous, perfect.”

  She pinched his finger with her teeth and sucked it while lashing it with her tongue.

  He gritted his teeth. “Your mouth, Christ, your mouth, Leila, I can’t.”

  Desperate lust entered his eyes, and she ripped her legs from his shoulders, allowing him to press closer to her, while she grabbed his ass and tried to draw him even deeper.

  “I’m the one doing this to you, making you forget everything but me.” His words were an echo of her thoughts. “Can you feel that? How fucking tight you are?” He circled his hips around and she cried out, stunned at the tight fit. “Your body is gripping me, not wanting me to leave. That’s how I know you’re going to come again. You’re so hot, and wet, and come so easily. Come for me.” He reached down and lightly, quickly rubbed her clit. Not even five seconds passed and she cried out, back arching with the deepest orgasm yet.

  He groaned and she felt him twitch inside her a second later, his arms tightening around her before rolling them so she was on top. He was still inside her.

  They stayed like that for a while, getting their breathing under control, and he traced patterns on her back. It was the sexiest experience of her life.

  She kicked him out of her room, with a grin and no phone number.

  After another round.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The last time he’d seen those legs, they’d been wrapped around his neck.

  Ryan shook the drops of water from his hair and face. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, but he’d still gotten damp on the short walk from his truck to the bar. Leila’s hair was loose and curled last night. Ryan decided he liked that better than the fussy up do it was in now. It had been gorgeous spread out on the pillow. The way it brushed down her bare collarbone, the silken texture of it when he fisted a thick handful and—

  “Hey, Ry. The usual?” Ronna paused from drying a pint glass and threw the towel over her shoulder.

  “Thanks, Ron.”

  The usual. Wasn’t that depressing. He had a high-stress job, but it wasn’t until things with Melanie fell apart that he’d started stopping by Glitters Bar after work a couple nights a week, needing a drink to unwind before going home with someone. Last night was the first time he’d felt something more with a woman in ages, the first time he’d thought about breaking his “one-night-only” rule. Being with Leila, smelling her skin, tasting her lips, burning inside the heat of her gaze, was the biggest adrenaline rush of his life.

  No easy feat for someone who ran into burning buildings for a living.

  His lower back still ached from the power of last night’s sex, but it was so worth it to make the former ice-queen melt beneath his hands. And mouth. He subtly eyed her from head toe while pretending to look at his phone. She turned and slipped into a booth near the back without seeing him. It was a relief.

  A woman that passionate was someone he wanted to know a lot better, and clearly her style was to be the initiator. But there was no way he’d chase after her and make her think it was something it wasn’t by appearing too eager. He could’ve stayed the night. Could’ve made her even more mindless with pleasure. But by the end of round two, there was such longing and vulnerability … and hope in her eyes, that he’d been just as eager to leave as she’d been to show him the door.

  No, it was probably better to leave the situation before it got messy.

  The door banged open beneath the hasty hand of a rain dampened, paunchy, middle-aged guy. “The river’s flooding! You guys might want to get out of here!”

  Ronna chuckled as the stranger turned and left the bar in a rush. “Kids.”

  But Ryan and everyone else moved to the window. A few inches of water seeped their way down the street toward the bar as the stranger peeled out of the parking lot in his car. Two people rushed out of the bar and followed suit. This part of town didn’t flood. Seeing the surprise in the eyes of the people around him, he realized Leila wasn’t there, and quickly strode over to the booth she’d slid into. She jumped when his hand gently touched her shoulder, and her eyes were cautious when she looked up. She pulled out her ear buds. “Yes?”

  “The town’s flooding.”

  She waved a hand dismissively. “It always floods this time of year.”

  “Not like this.”

  She frowned and turned to kneel on the booth’s bench so she could see out the front window.

  Already, the water had risen. Muddy water ran down the street, washed over the curb, and trickled closer to the bar. “What the fuck?” Her eyes were wide, gaze never leaving the street. “This part of town never floods.”

  “It flooded back in ninety-five.” Ronna moved to the window and peered outside. “That’s why we rebuilt on the platform. Mitigation measures. Insurance company was worried it would happen again, and wouldn’t cover us unless we implemented certain things. Of course, Bill went overboard. Smartass.” Bill was the owner. The bar was built on a three-foot-high cement slab, a source of constant irritation for drunks stumbling out of the bar, but right now, Ryan was glad for it. “But the water barely crested the sidewalk then.”

  Ryan returned to the window with Leila following at his heels. The water was just trickling over the curb and still rising.

  “Is this why it was so quiet in town today?” An older guy who’d been playing darts asked Ronna.

  “Yeah, Wallace. We got word that the river was going to breach sometime around eleven.”

  “Did they say when it’s supposed to crest?”

  Ronna shook her head. “And they obviously had no idea this was coming.”

  Leila leaned forward and looked down toward the direction of the river. “Williamsberg is going to be screwed.”

  “More than usual,” Ronna agreed.

  All six of them crowded by the window, looking out at the streets empty of people, but filling with water. A truck drove by, leaving a long wake, sending a wave over the sidewalk. If the flooding got worse and the driver swerved toward the sides of the road where the water was deeper, his engine would flood and lock up. Ryan noticed Leila’s gaze on him in the reflection of the window.

  Moving toward the back of the bar for some privacy, he pulled out his phon
e. A text would be better than a call to the station right now. The last thing he wanted was for any of the other five people in the bar to panic if they overheard something they shouldn’t, or misunderstood his half of the conversation. He texted Spence, feeling slightly awkward now that he’d slept with his buddy’s little sister.

  What’s going on? Sirens haven’t gone off. River’s flooding.

  A reply came right away.

  We know. Siren busted. Sandbagging like motherfuckers. Where you at?

  The siren was busted? Someone’s ass was going to get chewed for that. Ryan sent his reply, deciding not to mention Leila was at the bar. No sense panicking Spence when they were safe.

  Ryan: Glitters. Six inches of water on the street here. No one paged me.

  Spence’s response took about a minute.

  Spence: Bridge is out on Main. Stay there if safe. We’re good for guys. We’ll come when we can.

  K

  Damn. The bridge was out? That meant the town was cut in half right now, and going north was impossible. Even driving south, there was only the one highway and it ran parallel to the river. If it was flooding as badly there, the south was out of the question too. A large irrigation canal lay to the east, and the west half of town was bordered by a large canola field. Even if it wasn’t flooded, it would be a long walk through floodwater to even get there, never mind slog through, and driving a vehicle would be impossible if the water rose any higher. Doing it alone would be taxing; getting six people through it safely would be a near impossibility.

  “—stay or go?” One of the men’s voices seeped into Ryan’s consciousness.

  He walked back toward the group still standing by the window. “No one leaves.”

  A thirty-something guy with a faux-hawk flicked a glance at Leila, then took a step toward Ryan. “Who are you to tell us what to do?”

  This little douchebag really thought he had a chance with Leila while he was in the room? Not likely. Ryan opened his mouth to speak, but Ronna cut him off.