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  “I’ve never been very good at doing the right thing, Quaid. Years and years of my dad having to pick up the pieces, of him being the one that rode to the rescue …” I shook my head at him and gave him a rueful grin. “It took its toll on my mom, not only because I was always into something I shouldn’t be, but because my dad never hesitated to dive in after me. I knew I was putting strain on their relationship, knew things were tense and that she was unhappy, but it never stopped me from screwing up. That makes me a pretty awful person, no matter how you look at it, Counselor. The evidence is compelling.”

  He continued to watch me. Then he was walking towards me and I was walking backwards as he advanced. We kept going until my back was pressed up against the hard wood of the front door and he was all I could see in front of me. He put an arm above my head and I had to tilt my head back to keep eye contact. He was a couple inches away from being pressed fully against me, but every single part of my body felt like it was straining to close that gap. My nipples peaked hard and pointed directly at him; every single inch of my skin pebbled up and practically vibrated as he hovered out of reach.

  “The evidence is circumstantial and prejudiced. You say you don’t do the right thing, that you can’t stop even though you know your actions are hurting the people around you, and hurting yourself time and time again. So my question to the defendant is … why? Why do you keep making the wrong choice and keeping hurting yourself and others? What’s the motive?” His breath whispered out and danced across my lips.

  I let out a startled little gasp at the touch of it. His words kissed me as his eyes devoured me. Even though zero parts of us were touching, I could feel him all over, including deep down inside of me, where all kinds of feelings were starting to boil and pop under my skin. I couldn’t hold back the urge to touch him anymore, so I lifted my shaking hands and put them on the center of his chest. Rock-hard muscle tensed at the light touch; my knees went a little weak at the contrasting texture of his soft cotton T-shirt and the cold brush from the unbending material of his leather jacket. He wrapped the hand that wasn’t braced over my head around one of my wrists, and for a second I thought he was going to pull my hands off of him. Instead, his thumb found the soft spot on the inside of my wrist, where my pulse was racing, and started to brush back and forth.

  “You don’t want to hear my story. Remember?” The words squeaked out as he lowered his head a tiny bit, his pale blue eyes raging like a winter storm as we watched each other unblinkingly.

  It was a story I never told to anyone, completely. My story was the opposite of a fairy tale, and I knew there was no way a happy ending was lurking somewhere beyond the ever present dead end. I was shocked that I wanted to tell him, wanted to explain to him, why I did the things I did. I wanted him to understand.

  His chin dipped down and suddenly that gap that was separating us was gone. The tips of his boots were touching my bare toes. He dropped my wrist so that his hand could fit its way in the large gap at the side of the overalls and sit on my hip. That was a lot of naked skin his palm landed on and I could see the awareness flare to life in his gaze. Considering my small stature and the size of his hands, if he spread his fingers out he would be both under the edge of my tank top and at the top of my underwear at the same time. God, did I want him to put his hands all over me.

  “I find myself wanting a lot of things I shouldn’t want where you’re concerned, Avett.” His head lowered until his lips were separated from mine by nothing more than a whisper. “Like that kiss you tried to give me the other day. I wanted it so bad, which is why I couldn’t take it. I don’t have anything to give back if I take what you’re offering. But I haven’t been able to stop thinking about how it would feel, or about how you would taste.” He exhaled and it made my lips part and my tongue dart out to try and capture his flavor and essence on the tip of it. I wanted to know how he tasted just as badly as he wanted to know how I tasted. His tone dropped lower, his voice rasping across sharp and pointy things deep inside of him as he told me, “I want the story and the kiss, Avett.” His lips touched mine in a featherlight caress that made time stand still. Made me wonder if I had been born for no other reason than to kiss this man. “You can decide what order they come in.” There was husky humor in his tone, but before he could close the final millimeter of space between us, I pushed on his chest.

  “This is a bad idea.” I knew it. I could feel it deep in my bones and the allure of letting go, of doing what I always did, and falling headfirst into disaster, was pulling at me hard. But I was supposed to be changing. I was supposed to actually be sorry, not just saying it and turning around into the next catastrophe. I knew kissing Quaid Jackson was going to lead to all kinds of sorry and sorrow. I knew it as much as I knew I didn’t care and that I was going to kiss him and chase this bad idea until it crashed and burned, like they always did.

  “You made a lot of them lately. What’s one more?”

  He was right. What was one more? Especially when it looked like him, when it smelled sleepy and expensive like he did, when it felt hot and hard pressed up against me. What was one more awful choice when it came with lips that were firm and demanding as they landed against mine? What was one more impending disaster, when it was attached to rough hands that brushed along my exposed rib cage and paused under the achy swell of my breast? What was one more bad decision on top of all of the other ones that had led this particular mammoth-sized bad decision to my door?

  I had plenty of time, tomorrow, to do the right thing, but now I was going to enjoy the hell out of the wrong thing as he pressed his mouth more insistently into mine, taking the choice of which came first—the kiss or the story—out of my hands. Maybe that was why I was so drawn to him, so attracted to everything there was about him. He didn’t give me the room or the chance to make any kind of choice, good or bad. He decided and I followed his lead towards victory or towards ruin … and this kiss felt like it had both of those things threaded throughout it.

  It was the first time in my life that a bad idea felt like the best idea I had ever had.

  CHAPTER 8

  Quaid

  I shouldn’t have my mouth on her.

  I shouldn’t have my hands on her.

  My dick definitely shouldn’t be hard and pressing painfully against my zipper as she whimpered into my mouth, as her tongue curled around mine.

  None of this should be happening, but neither my brain nor my libido seemed inclined to put a stop to it. As my hand wandered even farther up her side and under the hem of her tiny top only to encounter softer¸ naked skin and the heavy swell of a plump breast, I couldn’t be happier that my common sense decided to take the night off. She felt like a dream. Like a dirty, sexy dream that woke me up in the middle of the night hard and hurting. She felt like a dream that made me sweat and shake as I chased down something I couldn’t describe, and that I was sure I had never felt before. She felt like the dream that I was lost in and aching from right before she called me and woke me up.

  Any kind of logic and rationale had vaporized the instant I saw her number on my phone, and it didn’t stand a chance in hell of making an appearance after I heard the nervous tremor in her voice when she told me she felt like she was being watched. I should have told her to call the police, let them handle whatever new kind of trouble that had inevitably found its way to her, but all the things I should do where this woman was concerned got buried under the burning and pressing need to do all the things to her and with her that I shouldn’t do. Including running into the night to make sure she was safe and sound. For some reason, I needed to make sure she was okay with my own two eyes, and I needed to be a part of making sure she stayed that way.

  I’d been dreaming about her—the way she would feel and taste—when she called me, the panic and passion blended together in a complex mix of emotion that I couldn’t untangle or unwind. I knew there was no way in hell I was going back to my industrial-cold loft with its massive, empty bed without knowing, and w
ithout taking. She made me careless and greedy. She made me want things that I knew I could never give her back. And with all of that swirling in my blood, I told myself that I had to know if the reality of her was better than the dream.

  It was.

  Reality was so, so much better. She was sweet. She was soft. She was responsive as hell, and I wanted to devour her in one bite, instead of savoring her like the honeyed treat that she was. She was dressed like she was about to do yard work or maybe like she was going to go work on a car. Her outfit, messy hair, and makeup-free face should have served as a reminder that she was young, that we came from two very different places, but all I could see was the fact that she didn’t have a bra on under the bib of the baggy overalls and the hint of lacy pink at her hips. It was all making my blood heat up and my mouth water. She was teasingly tempting and I wanted to take her up on all the things I wasn’t even sure she knew she was offering.

  I pressed more fully into her, careful of her bare feet and small frame. I towered over her, but the way she made me feel—breathless and weak with need … I wasn’t foolish enough to think I was the one with the upper hand in this situation. I had her backed into the door and she had to stretch up on the very tips of her toes to get her arms around my neck. I had to bend down a bit to get our mouths lined up, but even that made the way she bowed and arched to reach for me a tantalizing caress. She was stretched taut all along the front of my body and every dip and curve of her lush little body was there for me to explore and memorize. I liked that she had tempting curves to wrap my hands around everywhere I grabbed her.

  I was so used to women that were hard. Hard bodies, hard minds, hard hearts, and unyielding souls. They pinged and bounced off my ever present armor, unaffected and uninterested in the man that lay beneath. Nothing about them ever gave.

  But here with this woman, and with my hands full of soft skin and generous curves, I realized that every single part of Avett Walker was giving. I liked that she was soft and pliable against my questing fingers. I liked the way she whimpered into my mouth and moved closer to me. I liked the way her fingers pulled at the short hair on the back of my head, letting me know I wasn’t the only one that was greedy and looking to take. And I really fucking liked the fact that she didn’t have a bra on, so that when I breached the hem of her crop top my hand was immediately filled with warm and willing flesh. I liked it so much that I dropped all pretense of keeping this a simple kiss that was going to be over before I started it, and curled my hand around the plump weight until her pert little nipple was stabbing me in the center of my palm.

  I wanted to see her. I wanted to know if the velvet point was pretty and rosy like her hair. I wanted it in my mouth. I wanted the little nub rolling across my tongue as she gasped my name. I wanted to get my hands inside those hot-pink panties she had on, and feel if she was as turned on as I was. There was no hiding the way my body was reacting to her. I didn’t bother to try. As I kissed her more fully, settled into her so that not an inch of her wasn’t covered by me, my throbbing cock found a perfect resting place against her stomach. I wanted the rough denim that separated us out of the way so my turgid and overheated flesh could rub against her supple skin.

  I never considered myself the kind of guy that had a quick trigger, but her mouth against mine, the heft of her breast in my hand, and the glide of her nipple across my palm, the way she strained to get closer … I knew if my aroused dick got to touch any part of her, there was a pretty good chance that that was all it was going to take for me to get off. I hadn’t been that responsive or that reactive to a woman since I started having sex back in high school. The way she panted lightly against my lips, the way she tugged me closer so she could kiss me back. All of it was infinitely more potent than any of the one-night stands I had been wasting my time with as of late.

  I grunted as her teeth dug into my bottom lip. A second later, the brush of her tongue was there to soothe the tiny sting. It was wild and it was sweet. Both parts of her that I was dying to experience, both parts that I wanted to capture and wrap myself up in. I shifted the hold I had under her shirt so that I had the pointed peak of her nipple trapped between my fingers. I gave the sensitive tip a firm tug to pay her back for the bite and she gave a little cry of pleasure that made my dick ache and had my mouth moving with even more hunger against hers. I wanted to eat her up. I wanted her wild to consume me, to burn and purge all the things that had long since turned sour and stale inside of me. I ached for her sweet to soothe me after we scorched through each other and were left in a heap in our own wreckage, covered in ash and satisfaction. Never had I been so affected or so irrational in my feelings towards another person. She made me forget who I was supposed to be now, and she made me forget the man I had spent a lifetime trying to bury. With her I was someone new, someone that didn’t feel fake or forgotten. With my hands on her and my mouth sliding down her neck so I could chase her pounding pulse with the tip of my tongue, I finally felt like a man that was real, a man that existed for more than what he had and what he could do for others.

  I swept my thumb over the crest of her nipple again and then pulled my hand out of her shirt. I brushed my knuckles along the ridge of her rib cage, pulling my hand out of the opening of her overalls so that I could tap the little buckle that kept the bib part up with my index finger. My lips were right below the delicate shell of her ear as our chests rapidly rose and fell together.

  “How bad of an idea do you want to make this, Avett?” I felt like we were already at the point of no return, that there would be no going back from this now that I knew how good she tasted and how addictive it was to get swept up in the storm that was Hurricane Avett. The rush of her, the urgency in my blood to take as much as I could before this moment was over. I wanted to fuck her, wanted inside that sweet little body more than I could remember wanting anything in a very long time, but I still had enough of my typical smarts floating around to recognize that this wasn’t the time or place to make that happen. I wasn’t going to have sex with Avett up against the front door of her father’s house, but I was going to have sex with her. After tonight, I knew that was a given. I knew I couldn’t not have sex with her.

  She blinked up at me and the different colors in her hazel eyes warred with each other as she tried to figure out what the right answer to my very complicated question was. It was a tough call because the right answer meant she had to commit to doing even more of the wrong thing, the wrong thing that just happened to feel more right than anything ever had.

  Her hands slid from around the back of my neck where she had been clutching at me to rest on my shoulders. The gold in her eyes gleamed and the brown turned to black as it darkened and swallowed the green. “I usually go all in when I make a bad choice. That’s why I fail so spectacularly at life over and over again.” Her voice was husky and it hitched a little as I popped the fastening on her overalls open and let one side flop open.

  I let out an expletive that sounded harsh and raspy when the fabric fell, revealing most of her torso and the gentle curve of her stomach. She was built the way smart men wanted women to be. She was pretty much perfect all rumpled and shoved up against the door. She was luscious and I really wanted to pull the lacy pink that was keeping the rest of her covered from me and discover all the different kinds of pleasure her body had to offer, all the different kinds of pleasure I was sure I could give her.

  I kissed her below her ear and lazily let my fingers trace random patterns on the quivering skin of her stomach.

  “This does not feel like failing at life.” It felt like winning. It felt like a prize I never even knew I needed to claim as my own, which was strange because my entire life had been nothing more than the pursuit of one reward and one accolade on top of the other. I had chased validation and approval since the first time I realized the other kids and teachers knew I came from nothing and had even less than that. My life had been about proving that it wasn’t where you came from that mattered, but where you ended
up. I couldn’t be happier about where I was right at this very minute, even if it was miles and miles away from where I should be.

  I hooked a finger under the top of her underwear and rubbed my knuckle in a long, smooth line between her hip bones. The touch made her jerk against me and had her tilting her pelvis closer to my own. I groaned as my stiff cock was pressed even more fully into the hollow of her stomach. She squeezed my shoulders and turned her head so that her mouth was pressed against the tense line of my jaw.

  “I thought this was about you taking what I was offering and not you giving. So technically, this is a failure.” She let out a very unpracticed and honest-sounding squeak as I dipped my fingers lower and encountered nothing but bare, silken skin. Skin that was hot to the touch and melted into glossy, liquid depths. There was nothing sexier than the sight of that hot-pink lace stretched around my questing hand. There was stretch in the fabric, but not enough that there was a ton of room to move. My fingers were held tight to her most sensitive places and my palm cupped around her like we were made to fit together. It was a pretty pink snare and I had zero desire to escape from it.

  I angled my head lower so I could capture her mouth with my own as I let my wandering fingers disappear inside her damp, velvet folds.

  “I’m taking your wild and your sweet, Avett. I’m going to know what it feels like against me. I’m going to remember how it tastes and how it moves so that when I’m inside of it, I won’t get swept away by it all.” A man could get lost inside the storm of feeling and emotion she created and I didn’t want to lose my way any more than I already had. Eventually, I was going to have to find my way back to reality, to the life I had spent so much time building.