Page 65 of Take a Hike
And that was enough.
Too soon—but not nearly soon enough—he sped up theirmovements, lifting her and then yanking her back down, his hips rising so he could drive that extra inch into her. All the pleasure building inside her grew until she knew she needed to either come or explode.
She decided on coming.
As she tipped over into ecstasy, she felt her body clamp down on Kieran, and his movements grew frenzied. His grip on her hips would’ve hurt if she were feeling anything except pleasure at the moment, and he slammed into her one last time before holding them together, his back arched off the seat. “Charlie!” His voice was guttural, almost panicked, and she clutched him tighter, despite her sated languor.
“I’m here,” she murmured, which she realized was rather a ridiculous thing to say, sinceobviouslyshe was here, since he was literally inside her at this very moment. It seemed to be the right thing, however, since he opened his eyes and smiled at her, his heavy-lidded gaze full of contentment and affection and other things she was a little too raw to think about too hard, so she didn’t. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight.
She let herself sink to his chest and just float, knowing he’d keep her safe.
***
Too soon, the rest of the world came rushing back. Without lifting her head, she groaned into his chest. His arms squeezed around her, which felt nice until they got a little too tight, and she couldn’t breathe. At her squeak of protest, he released herwith a grumble that vibrated against her cheek, making her smile.
Everything—her mom, the necklace, their ever-shrinking deadline—came rushing back, and she groaned as she sat up—or tried to, at least. Her pants around her thighs hobbled her, and she dropped back onto his chest with a laugh. “A little help?”
He scowled, but she was pretty confident his current crankiness was due to the fact that fulfilling her request would mean they wouldn’t be plastered together anymore. It was kind of sweet, really, that he was grumpy about the interruption of their snuggling. Despite his frown, he reluctantly returned both of them to a fully cleaned up and clothed condition before raising the seat with her still straddling him.
Charlie discovered she was just as reluctant to leave his lap as he was to let her go, but the beep of her phone made her huff out a breath and shift off him. Before she could fully dismount, however, he caught her hips. She froze, the feeling of his fingers pressing into the tender spots he’d formed making her want him all over again.
“Kiss me first.” His bossy voice made her shiver in a very nice, not-at-all cold way.
A smile curled her mouth as she obeyed.
Fifteen
“Oops.” She eyed the text message—well, messages. When Charlie hadn’t answered immediately, Fifi had sent more texts…alotmore.
“Emergency?” he asked, shooting her a frown.
Reaching over, she poked his leg. “Focus on your driving, mister.”
“Got it.” Despite his distraction, he did seem impressively proficient at backing up as he reversed toward the highway. “What’s the text?”
“Definitely not a crisis.” Charlie’s thumbs flew over the screen as she responded, although she didn’t say anything about what had kept her ignoring her phone earlier. Charlie wanted to keep that close to her chest for a while, to cuddle the memory and enjoy the newness of their secret. “Fifi’s just annoyed I didn’t respond. I told her you insisted on an off-road adventure.” She smirked at how very accurate that was as she pocketed her phone.
“Don’t blame me—it wasyourfault.”
“How was thatmyfault?” It was hard to put her fists on her hips while sitting in a pickup cab, but she managed the best she could.
“You’re the one who makes the world disappear. I can’t be expected to care about anything else when you’re kissing me—much less when I’m inside you.” He shrugged as if he hadn’t just said something so aggravating yet so romantic that it took her breath away.
“As if you don’t do the exact same thing to me,” she grumbled, trying to hide the fact that her cheeks were hot and her heart was racing. When he didn’t respond, she snuck a glance at his profile. She instantly regretted it when she saw the enormous, pleased smile on his face.
Happy Kieran was dangerous, but Charlie had always had a thing for danger.
***
An hour into their journey, her phone rang. “Hey, Lou. What’s up?”
“So,” Lou rushed out, as if the words had to escape or she’d explode. Although she sounded like that more often than not, her voice had even more urgency than usual, so Charlie sat up straight. “There’s a new deputy, Carl Crill, and he interviewed Rory about the whole shooting thing that happened at her shop—which you completely neglected to tell me about, by the way—and she asked a few questions, and apparently Deputy Carl Crill is more of a firefighter than a cop because he spilled e-ver-y-thing. All the tea.”
At her pause, Charlie made a get-on-with-it motion that Lou couldn’t see. “So spill what he spilled,” she urged, putting her phone on speaker when Kieran gave her a curious look.
“Apparently, Tank was trying to confess to Cobra’s killing, but the sheriff isn’t a dummy, so she realized he’s way too dumb to be the mastermind behind everything, plus his story had holes you could drive a car through. I mean, he couldn’t even carry out a simple assassination plot without getting shot in the butt with tranquilizer darts.”
“That’s true,” Charlie said, unsuccessfully trying to picture the beefy guy as an evil genius.
