Page 55 of Carrick
Another step, and I was close enough to feel the heat rolling off her skin, the scent of motor oil and citrus clinging to her like temptation. I braced my hand against the wall beside her head, the wood warm and rough beneath my palm.
Her eyes flicked to my mouth. Then back to my eyes.
And that was all it took.
“You’re playing a dangerous game,” I murmured.
“I’m not playing,” she said softly.
And then—I kissed her.
Hard.
All that tension, all the quiet wanting that had been stalking us since day one—it detonated. Her mouth opened under mine with a sound that wrecked me. A breathy little gasp I feltin my spine, soft and stunned, but not surprised. No hesitation. Justheat and hunger and the kind of invitation that made me forget my own goddamn name.
Her hands fisted in my shirt, yanking me closer with zero finesse, like she’d beenstarvingfor this. Like I was oxygen. She kissed me back with a kind of desperation that sent fire straight to my blood—deep, slow,possessive.
I dropped my hand to her hip, palm spreading wide over the curve of her waist. She was so fucking soft under the layers, her tank clinging to every curve, and I wanted more. Needed more.
She arched into me like she couldn’t get close enough. Like she wanted me totake.
And God help me—I wanted togive.
Something inside me snapped.
I shoved her back—not hard, just enough to press her into the wall. She gasped, head tilting back against the old wooden siding with a dull thud, but she didn’t pull away. Her fingers dragged across my chest, clawing at the fabric,challengingme.
I braced one arm beside her head, trapping her. The other found her thigh, squeezing through the thick fabric of the overalls, then sliding upward.
She wore nothing underneath the tank.
Nothing.
I could feel every inch of her heat through the thin fabric, and fuck if I wasn’t already half mad with it.
I dragged my hand slowly up her side, slipping beneath the edge of her shirt, grazing bare skin with my fingertips. Her breath caught, back arching into the touch, and a tremble ran through her.
“Carrick,” she breathed—already wrecked, already open.
That sound—her voice whispering my name like a promise—I could’ve died from it.
I kissed the corner of her mouth, her jaw, then down the slope of her neck. Found the spot just below her ear and bit hard enough to leave marks, just shy of a bruise.
She whimpered.
“You’re sure?” I asked, voice gone to gravel.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Don’t make me beg.”
And that was it.
Restraint, obliterated.
I dropped to one knee, dragging her overalls down past her hips in one swift motion, baring her legs to my hands, my mouth, the greedy press of my palms. Skin to skin. Hot, smooth,shiveringunder my touch.
No panties.
I growled—low, dark, andfilthy—against her inner thigh.
