Page 89 of Road Queens
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
An hour later, they were back in Prescott. Cass and Sidney decided to have dinner down the street from the Hobbit Hole; Amanda and Beane declined. When the others left, Amanda tugged Beane into her store and locked the door.
She looked up at him. “It’s been a stressful week.”
“It has. I’m sorry you and your friends have to relive so much misery.”
“Can you stay?”
“Oh, yes. I checked my mail yesterday, so I’m good to go. Plus, my niece’s birthday isn’t for another seven months.”
“Will you come upstairs with me and spen—”
“Yes.”
I can’t feel my legs.Sean was spread out on Amanda’s bed starfish style, staring at the ceiling. He would never move again. He would neverleave this bed. Eventually, he would die here. Which was fine and more than fine.
He’d wanted her. Badly. From the instant he first saw her. Why he’d fixed on her but not the other two was a mystery he had no interest in solving. And he never would have tried to get her into bed so soon; to say he was grateful for the invitation was to say chocolate tasted good: beyond obvious. He was in such a hurry to tumble her into bed that he’d nearly trampled her on the stairs. Which made her laugh so hard she would have fallen if he hadn’t scooped her up.
For all her petite frame, Amanda had been firmly in charge. From the kissing to the groping to the stripping, the way she’d gently but insistently showed him how she wanted him to touch, lick, suck, kiss. God, thesoundsshe’d made. And the taste of her: hot, salty honey. He thought he was fucked out, but his cock gave an interested twitch when he thought about her touch, her scent, and the amazing strength of her grip when she wrapped her legs around his waist and urgedmore, faster, harder.
He heard footsteps, and then Amanda booted her bedroom door open and came in, naked and smiling and carrying chocolate malts.
“Oh my God. That was amazing.” He managed (somehow) to find the strength to raise his head. “I was incredible.”
“No lies detected.” She leaned over him and pressed one of the chocolate malts to his belly
(Gaaaaah!)
and he scrambled away from it with the speed and dexterity of a stunned tortoise, then flopped over on his back again. “That was mean. Also, you’re incredible.”
“Correct.”
She took a slurp, waited until he struggled upright, and handed him his glass. “Consider this a reward for putting an end to my sex drought.”
“Consider my profound gratitude for letting me. And thanks for being really fucking great in bed. And out of bed.”
“Awwww.”
“No, don’t downplay. Gorgeous, brilliant, fearless woman fucks my teeth loose and then brings me a milkshake? Heaven. How are you still single? That’s not rhetorical. I really want to know. It seems impossible to me.”
She laughed like she thought he was kidding. “Deep emotional scars. And I might ask you the same. You smell great, you look great, you seem like a good guy. You’re ... reasonably intelligent. Why hasn’t someone been able to chain you down yet?”
Chain me down?“I’m going to ignore the pause between ‘you’re’ and ‘reasonably’ and take your question at face value. My folks split up when I was a kid, but not before years of fighting and stress and tension and tears.”
She set her malt on a bedside table, then clambered back into bed and snuggled up beside him, all naked and sweaty and wonderful. (He was just naked and sweaty.) “Let me guess: ‘We have to stay together for the kids.’”
“Nailed it. When has that ever worked? For the adults or the kids? And then ... you know. My sister. She was in such a hurry to get out of that house that she went with the first guy who asked her.”
“How’s she doing?”
“Great,” he replied with the happy relief that always came when he considered her vastly improved circumstances. “She loves her life and her new husband and her kid, and you’re in her prayers.”
“And you’ve been up to check on her.”
“Many times.”
“Because she didn’t confide in you before. Not until it was over. So you had to make sure she was okay this time.”
