Sailor groaned inside but pulled back, his chest heaving. “You want to go?” He didn’t normally pounce on women two seconds after meeting them, but in his defense, she was the one who’d done the initial pouncing.
Sailor liked to think of himself as a good guy—but he was still a guy. And she was the most erotically gorgeous woman he’d ever held in his arms. It wasn’t as if he were going to turn her down when she made the offer.
Big gray-green eyes held his, the pupils dilated. “Do you have a girlfriend, wife—”
“No.” Sailor wanted to put his hands all over her, wanted to trail his lips across her skin until it flushed a delicious pink. “I’m married to my business. She’s also my very demanding mistress. Doesn’t tolerate other women for long periods.”
The redhead looked toward the redbrick of the school building. “It’s light. Someone will see.”
Breath catching in his throat, Sailor said, “Back seat of my truck?” He hadn’t made out in a car since he was seventeen. However, for this sexy redhead who kissed like an innocent but had a body made for sin, he was game.
“What?” Her eyes went huge. “No.”
He kissed her again, her kiss-swollen lips too tempting to resist and her taste making him want to lick his tongue into other, more secret places. Only when he had her gasping for breath, her nails digging into his chest, did he say, “Windows are tinted, windscreen looks out toward the empty grounds. No one will see.”
Her chest heaved up and down even as the confusion and shock in her eyes tugged at his memories.
Then she said, “Okay.”
Hot damn!
Sailor pushed off her. “Let me just move some stuff from the back seat to the bed of the truck.” He didn’t want to give the redhead time to change her mind, but he hadn’t exactly been expecting a back seat make-out session. He had parts for a sprinkler system stacked back there.
He was halfway through his task and moving as quickly as possible when he heard the slam of a car door. Two seconds after that, the blue compact next to his truck backed out with a screech. The car raced down the drive the next second, taking his former partner-in-kissing with it.
Sailor just stood there, not sure just what had happened. His head was ringing, his cock was painfully hard, and he had the feeling he’d just been used and discarded by the cute redhead with the equally cute accent and curves made for his hands to plunder.
His brain went click.
Firelight hair. Moonlight skin. Gray-green eyes.
He’d thought she was cute seven years ago too, when Cody had brought her along to that party in the warehouse. Sailor had only had a short while to admire her before Cody turned into the asshole of the year and dumped her in front of the entire party. Sailor couldn’t remember the other male’s exact words, but he vividly remembered the pain and shock in the redhead’s eyes.
That night she’d disappeared without a trace into the night.
As she’d now disappeared down the drive.
Hands on his hips, Sailor narrowed his eyes at the long length of that drive. “I’m not sixteen anymore, Ms. Redhead. And I know where you work.” His lips curved into a deeply satisfied smile.
This wasn’t over yet. Not by a long shot.
4
In Which Devil ísa Makes Her Debut
“OH MY GOD! OH MY God!” ísa couldn’t believe what she’d done—and what she’d almost done.
She’d made out in the parking lot of her school. A stately and prestigious school known for its high standards and pristine reputation. Teachers attached to it did not go around accosting innocent gardeners and agreeing to crawl into the back seat of their trucks!
If anyone had seen her…
“Breathe, breathe, breathe,” she told herself. “It was only a kiss.” A hotly sexual kiss that had made her nerve endings sizzle and her thighs clench together in delicious, greedy want.
Clearly there was nothing wrong with her hormones.
If not for that piercing instant of blinding sense when she’d realized she was about to put her entire career in jeopardy because of a combination of Slimeball Schumer, Suzanne, Jacqueline, and a hot gardener whose name she didn’t even know, she’d be in the back seat of his truck right now.
Probably with her panties off and her mouth fused to the gardener’s.
Her thighs twinged, her core feeling hot and swollen. Ready.
Devil ísa sulked. And whispered, Go back. Get into that back seat.
“Stop it,” she told herself, horrified. “That was a moment of madness, never to be repeated.” ísalind Magdalena Rain-Stefánsdóttir did not accost random hot men on school grounds. While it was still light out!
And she definitely did not dig her nails into his sculptured chest and have thoughts that involved licking him up like her favorite ice cream.
“Argh!”
No way could she turn up to the board meeting in the state she was in. She had to calm down. Maybe have a few stiff drinks—and her head examined. Followed by a cold shower—because her body was not getting with the program. It wanted more of the hot gardener’s hard body, more of his ravenous kisses, more of his appreciative hands roaming all over her.
No man had ever touched her that way, as if she were a porn fantasy come to life.
Turn around and go back, Devil ísa whispered again, her horns shiny and red. Live a little. Or a lot. I’m easy. Be easy. I’m sure he’d forgive you for running away if you turned up and began to unzip your dress, all slow and sexy.
“Shut up,” ísa muttered to that lunatic part of her psyche.
Devil ísa shrugged and crossed her legs. At least then you’d have a wild and fun story to tell your grandchildren. Unlike the current scintillating tale of your life. A huge yawn. It’s like you’re a ninety-year-old trapped in a twenty-eight-year-old’s body. Booooooooring.
ísa’s eye caught on the street name she was about to pass. She made the decision without even thinking about it, turning left instead of going right. Heading down the main strip used by countless commuters through the day, she reached the busy section of boutique restaurants and trendy cafés where traffic was clogged up from dawn to midnight.
Who were these people who always had time to sit around sipping lattes?
Devil ísa had the answer. People who have a life of their own. Harlow’s seventeen. Catie’s thirteen. Not long before they don’t need you. What’re you going to do then, grandma?
“I have a plan!”
Woof, woof.
ísa wondered if this was what it felt like to go insane. Having an argument with yourself was surely not a sign of sanity. But she’d heard more than one author talking about the voices in their head, so at least she wasn’t the only one. It’s a creative thing, she told herself. It means my poems don’t totally suck.
Sure, granny.
The light changed.
Changed back before her car made it to the top of the queue.