But that won’t be easy.

First of all, Trick has never given me any reason to think he wants me there. He’s never talked about anything permanent with me. Actually, he’s never really talked about his feelings much at all. At this point, I’m only hoping there’s more between us than just sex. Really great sex.

But the fact is, if anything, Trick has tried to keep me out of his life in any romantic way. Not pull me into it. Until recently, that is.

Since meeting Trick, I’ve acted like some lovesick school girl—thinking about him all the time, pining away for him. All I lack is writing his name all over my fourth grade social studies notebook. But we’re not kids. This isn’t play. Our choices have real consequences. For both of us. And I don’t know if either of us is ready for that, if what we have is even worth it.

Even as the thought goes through my head, I look over at Trick and my heart screams so loud it makes my eyes water.

Yes, he’s worth it! You’re in love with him!

********

After we stop for lunch and I get my belly full of carbs, my eyelids start getting heavy. A Lizard’s CD is playing softly in the background and Trick is humming along with it in his silky voice, lulling me right to sleep. I turn in my seat and Trick looks over at me. He smiles and reaches for my hand. He laces his fingers with mine and whispers, “Go to sleep. I’ll wake you up when we get there.”

So I do.

********

Something brushing my neck wakes me. Before I even open my eyes, I smell his soap. It’s Trick. It has to be.

I’m lying on my side in the front seat and he must be leaning over me. I don’t stir. I lie perfectly still to see what he’ll do next.

I feel his lips. He rubs them back and forth over the bare skin of my shoulder. I want to turn over and kiss him. But I don’t. Quietly, I wait.

“Rise and shine,” he whispers, now close to my ear. Chills break out down my arms, but I remain still.

His hand pushes my hair to the side, away from my cheek. He’s so close I feel his breath on my lips when he speaks. “I know you’re awake. The question is, how long can you keep quiet? Stay still? Not make a sound? Not move an inch?”

I would’ve acknowledged him when he said he knew I was awake if he hadn’t added the last part. But that changed everything. I warm to the game immediately, excitement tingling down my spine.

His lips graze mine and then slide across my cheek to my ear. “I hope you can hold out. This is gonna be fun.” I feel his tongue as it draws the lobe of my ear into his mouth. He bites down lightly and then moves on to my shoulder. He kisses all the way down my arm, to where it’s folded across my waist. Gently, he picks it up and straightens it, laying it along my hip.

I feel the warm air hit my belly when he pulls up my shirt. It’s all I can do not to jump when he lightly bites the skin over my ribs, just below my bra line. I want to roll over and let him strip me down like a stolen car, but I don’t. I can’t. It’s just too much fun to do it this way.

My breathing has picked up by at least a multiple of three and I’m pretty sure it goes up another notch when I feel Trick tug at the drawstring that’s holding my shorts in place.

He loosens it and pulls my shorts down on one side, exposing that super sensitive patch of skin right beside my panty line. And that’s where he puts his lips. Right there, no more than a few inches to the right of where I want them.

Desire pools low in my belly and heat shoots down my legs. His tongue sneaks out, wet and hot, and licks a path from where my legs are pressed together along my panty line to my hip bone. And he nips me again.

I’m just about to melt when I feel the fingers of one hand tickling their way up the crease of my thighs and sliding under the edge of my shorts.

Without thinking, acting on instinct and passion alone, I raise my top leg so he can find what his fingers are searching for. What I want them to find. But they stop. He doesn’t move a single muscle.

“Damn, why couldn’t you have waited just a couple more minutes?”

My eyes pop open and Trick is smiling down at me.

It takes me a minute to realize what he means, what he’s doing. Or not doing, as it were.

“Are you serious?”

“I don’t make the rules. I just work here.”

“That’s so mean!”

I’m almost trembling I want him so badly. And knowing that he’s not going to finish what he started only makes it that much worse.

“You’ll thank me later,” he promises, giving me a peck on my stunned lips and then reaching for my hand. “Come on. Let’s go check in and get some supper.”

I gripe as I let him pull me up. “Well, I’m gonna have to change clothes now.”

“And why is that?”

“These seem to have gotten a little…damp,” I tease with a wicked grin.

Trick throws back his head and laughs. I mean, really laughs. Like a belly laugh. “God, you really are awesome.”

I blush, but try to play it off. “I try.”

When I’m on feet, standing beside him in the V of the open car door, he takes my chin in his hand. There’s still the ghost of a smile flirting around his lips. “No, you don’t. You don’t even have to.”

********

After Trick checks us in, he carries our bags to our room. He lets me in first and then sets our stuff in the corner. When I turn to him, all I can think about is finishing what we started. But there’s a knock on the door that comes almost immediately.

Trick slumps. Comically. The postural equivalent of Damn!

I smile. He winks. Then Jenna intrudes.

“Hey, you two, get your asses to this door and let me in!”

“Is she going to be interrupting us all weekend?” Trick asks quietly.

I laugh. “Probably. And I blame you.”

“Me?” he whispers indignantly.

“Yes, you. It wasn’t my idea to bring them.”

“She’s your friend!”

“Doesn’t matter. I didn’t ask you to invite her.”

“Oh, so that’s how it’s gonna be. Throw me under the bus.”

“Yep. All the way.”

“You know what I do to people who throw me under the bus?” he asks, walking toward me like a predator stalking prey.

“Wave with your good arm?”

He stops and hangs his head. Then he laughs. “I give up. Let’s go.” With a grin, he grabs my hand and says in a louder voice, “Coming!”

“Ew! I didn’t need to know that,” Jenna replies.

“Jenna!” I cry.

“Hurry it up, girl. We got some freak to get on.”

The four of us go to eat at a little seafood restaurant with a great ocean view. I think it’s strange when Trick asks to sit beside Rusty, across from me.

“I want to watch you eat,” he says by way of explanation.

“No, that’s not going to make me nervous at all,” I tease. But I’m not teasing. Every sip of water I take, every bite of bread I nibble, I’m aware of him watching me.

When the food arrives, it becomes obvious why he did it. I ordered crab legs. He did the same. As we crack and eat them, stuffing tiny pieces of meat into our mouths and licking lemon butter from our fingers, it I realize how erotic it is to watch Trick eat, especially something so messy. Rusty and Jenna talk the whole time. Neither Trick nor I say much at all. We simply watch each other across the table, over our hands, from behind our napkins. We hold an entire conversation without ever saying a word.

The food is probably the best I’ve ever had, but I’m sure it has much more to do with the company than anything I actually ate.

I’m ready to go back to the room right away, but Jenna starts begging us to come dancing with them for just a little while. I really want to say no, but I reluctantly agree. She is my best friend after all. And she’d probably do it for me.

Probably.

So we go.

The bar is not much more than a loud, smoky hole in the wall. Like most establishments of its kind, it has a dark interior and throbbing music. We find a table and a busty blond, gum-popping waitress in a teeny tiny top comes to take our order. We all smile at each other, each of us probably thinking the same thing—Ohmigod, we’ve stumbled into a cheesy porno!

Jenna speaks up before anyone else has a chance.

“Four shots of Patron.”

“You got some ID, Sweetie?” she asks in her Betty Boop voice.

We all produce our licenses and she glances at each of them. I’m pretty sure she can’t do the math without kicking off her stilettoes, but at least she asked, which no doubt makes the manager very happy.

“You want salt and lemon?”

“Yes, please.”

Her eyes make their way around the table, but she nods and winks at Jenna, watching her for several seconds before walking off to get our tequila.

“Ohmigod, have we stumbled into a cheesy porno? I totally thought she was gonna offer me a lap dance or something,” Jenna says.

I laugh at her voicing my thoughts almost verbatim.

“I could never be that lucky,” Rusty retorts. Jenna playfully pokes him in the ribs.

“Watch it, buddy. You’ve got your hands full now, but that can change in a hurry.”

“Why don’t we go see what you can put in my hands to fill ‘em up?”

Jenna giggles and they start whispering presumably naughty things in each other’s ear. When the waitress returns with the shots, we all lick and salt the back of our hand. Jenna grabs her tiny glass and holds it up for a toast.

“To a wild weekend filled with wild horses and wild rides.”

The guys heartily clink their glass to hers. I roll my eyes. Jenna winks at me. She’s a mess.

She eyes my glass until I raise it as well. “To a wild weekend filled with wild horse and wild rides,” I repeat obligingly.

Jenna whoops and we all toast, lick our hand, down our shot then suck on a lemon slice.

“Another round,” she calls to the waitress.

Five shots later, Jenna raises her hand to get the waitress’s attention and I have to say uncle.

“Jenna, I won’t be able to walk if I do another shot. Just water for me.”

She tips her head toward Trick. “I have a feeling I know someone who would gladly carry you to your room and take advantage of that.”

The room spins lazily as I whip my head around to Trick and back to Jenna. “Dude! Are you teeing me up?”

“I’m totally teeing you up. And Trick,” she says, turning a wink on him, “you’re welcome.”

“I don’t want her drunk. I want her lucid.” He looks at me, his smoky eyes dark in the low light. “I want her to remember everything.”

A pocket of lava bursts inside my stomach and releases heat throughout my lower body. His eyes, his words are like a touch. And I crave that touch. Once was not enough. I don’t know how many times it will take for me to feel satisfied.

Trick stands and holds out his hand. “Let’s go dance off some of that alcohol.”

I slide my fingers over his palm and he grips them lightly. He leads me to the small yet crowded dance floor where people are bumping and gyrating to the bass-laden club music. When he finds us a spot, he twirls me slowly then pulls me to him.

As I watch him move, as I feel his body shifting against mine, I realize something that makes Trick even hotter, something I really didn’t think was possible.

He has rhythm. Trick can actually dance.

It’s not that he’s doing anything elaborate. He’s not Chris Brown-ing on the floor or anything. Nevertheless, I can see it in the way he moves. It’s fluid and in perfect time with the beat. And it’s hot.

Very hot!

The music morphs into a slower, more sensual song and Trick steps closer. Pulling my body tight against his, he buries his face in my neck and we sway together. His hands roam my back and h*ps in long languid ovals. My head spins lightly and desire rushes through me.

As if sensing where my thoughts are going, Trick jerks away and turns me around, my back to his chest. He drags his hands up my sides and pulls my arms up as he goes, trailing his fingertips along the sides of my boobs. He winds my hands around his neck, leaving my body completely open to his roving hands.

With his hands now at my hips, he snugs me up against him. I feel his hardness as he grinds against my butt. Chills break out across my chest and I feel my ni**les tighten.

Losing myself to the music and the man at my back, I spare one quick look around us and find that no one is paying any attention. Everyone else is involved in their own bubble, their own seduction. That makes it easy to close my eyes and let go when I hear Trick whisper into my ear.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO - Trick

“Do you know what I want to do to you right now?”

I’m so close to Cami, I can hear the purr vibrate in the back of her throat. I’m weaving a spell for her, but she’s taking me under with her. I can’t stop it. And I’m not sure I’d even want to.

“If we were alone,” I say, running my hands back down her arms and sides, “I’d peel this shirt off you and watch your ni**les pucker in the cool air.”

Cami relaxes her head onto my shoulder, her fingers fisting in my hair. Her eyes are closed and I wonder if she can imagine the scene as clearly as I can. When I look down her body, I can plainly see the outline of her ni**les as they push against her shirt. Blood rushes to my little head, leaving my big head as second in command.

I let my hands slide a little further down, to her waist. “Then I’d pull this string,” I explain, tugging on the ties of her shorts for emphasis, “and I’d ease you out of these so I could check to see if your clothes are still…damp.”