He was in a wicked mood, and God help me, I loved everything about it. I leaned an elbow on the table, my chin cupped in my hand, and batted my lashes twice. “I suppose that depends on your wish.”

The waitress arrived with the check and Boyce shoved three twenties in her hands without looking at it. “Keep the change,” he said, grabbing my hand and stalking to the door.

“Boyce—our bill was only like thirty-four dollars—”

“Worth it,” he said, not slowing. He shoved the door open and pulled me into the twilight-purple evening. The temperature had cooled from roasting to sweltering with the sun’s departure.

I stumbled over a rock in the gravel-strewn parking lot—flip-flops and I had a shaky relationship lately—and Boyce immediately turned and swung me into his arms. I slid my arms around his neck and stared up at his taut profile. “Are you mad? Did I say someth—”

“Not mad. Not mad at all.” He stared down at me, turning to thread through the haphazardly parked cars without slowing. “I have to kiss you. I have to touch you in very publicly inappropriate ways. Right now.” He leaned closer as I went molten from the center out, breath quickening, every individual part of my body pulsing fiercely all at once. “I wanna fuck you, sweetheart,” he murmured, setting me down against the passenger door of his TA and absorbing my shocked gasp with his mouth, his hands cupping my face as he kissed me. When his lips released mine, we panted, eyes locked, inches apart. “I’m afraid none of that made sitting in the Lodge in full view of a few dozen people a good idea.”

I shook my head. “N-no. Staying would have been… inadvisable.”

He chuckled, opening the car door and kissing me again. “Get in. No seat belt.”

I nodded and obeyed as he circled to his side, glancing around the lot. No one was near us, but the lot was far from deserted. The dusking sky caused streetlights pop on, but they cast a feeble amount of illumination. Oh my God, was I considering DOING IT in his CAR? That was disturbing and uncharacteristic and illegal and—and—so hot.

His door slammed shut and he lowered the windows partway. He shoved his seat back as far as it would go and reached for me, pulling me astride his lap. He kissed me, hands pushing under the back of my shirt and unhooking my bra. Lifting the hem just above my breast, he nudged one loose cup aside and took the nipple deep in his warm mouth, sucking and humming.

My head fell back and all I could hear was my own low moan and the pounding acceleration of my heartbeat. I pressed against his erection instinctively, squeezing my thighs on his hips and grinding against him, and he gripped me closer. His hand on the bare skin of my back was so hot he could have left a rosy handprint between my shoulder blades.

Releasing my nipple, he filled one hand with my breast and pulled my mouth back to his with the other. Our kisses were hungry and the humidity-heightened temperature in the confined space spiked. His lips moved down my throat and he murmured softly, “Goddamn, beautiful girl. Can I make you come for me like this?” Placing soft, sucking kisses at the base of my throat, he moved his hips, thrusting upward as though he were already inside me.

Damn. These. Shorts!

I gasped, clutching my thighs tighter. “I… I can’t…”

“Spread too wide without me inside you?”

I nodded, biting my lip.

“Turn,” he said, lifting and rotating me to sit on his lap facing out. In the last row of the lot, the TA faced nothing but a rickety fence, tall weeds poking through the warped, splintered slats.

I laid my head back against his shoulder—missing his mouth on my throat, my lips, my breast—and I wanted to wail, How is this better? Then he unbuttoned and unzipped my shorts and thrust his hand right down the front of them.

“Ah, that’s it,” he murmured. “Right. There. One? Or two?”

I writhed and groaned, shutting my eyes to our surroundings and yielding control to his intoxicating words and searching fingers.

He chuckled. “Two it is.”

“Oh… God.” I panted.

He licked and kissed my neck at the pulse point just under my ear, his left hand cupping my right breast, pinching the nipple gently as if linking an erogenous connect-the-dots triangle.

“That’s my girl.” The vibrations of his voice rumbled through me, a grounding bass to the orchestral maneuvers of his hands and mouth. His thumb circled and pressed as his fingers thrust deep, curving and caressing. “I wanna watch you come, baby. That’s all I’ve dreamed about since the last time I was inside you—kissing you again, touching this sweet little body again, all warm and tight and wanting me to lay you down and fuck you deep and hard.”

I jolted and came apart, clapping one hand over my mouth to keep the people in the restaurant across the lot from hearing me. And possibly people on the beach, Lord help me.

Chapter Twenty-six

Boyce

One hand covering her mouth and the other gripping my forearm like locking pliers, she was a mind-blowing sight. I shocked the hell out of her, but she loved it because she trusted me, and every time I touched her I felt that surrender. This girl was all brainy respectability on the surface and blazing-hot daredevil underneath. I knew this. I’d known it for a long time. I was just too fucking stupid to comprehend what it meant—that she needed a man like me.

I couldn’t get enough of her, and I knew deep in my gut that I never would. I wanted to take her home and love her all night long, but I had to get my mother and her ignorant dickhole of a boyfriend out of my goddamned trailer first.