Thrill Ride Read online

  I’ve barely spoken the single word when he pushes my head down toward his lap. I eagerly lick around the crown of his cock, lapping up the drop of moisture on the tip because I want to taste him.

  “Fuck,” Hendrix grunts, lifting his hips, urging me to take more of him into my mouth. And I do, parting my lips and opening wide enough for his cock to slide over my tongue before I pull back, applying suction.

  I’m so busy working him over that I barely notice him raising the back of my short dress, and then his fingers are between my legs, following the line of my thong from the crease of my ass to my pussy. When he penetrates me with two fingers, my moan is muffled around his shaft.

  “God, you’re so wet and tight,” he groans. “Stop sucking me and ride my cock, sweetheart.”

  I shake my head as my mouth keeps bobbing up and down on his dick. I’ve gone far enough as it is, putting him in my mouth. That’s all I can do until I’m certain…

  “Please, Libby,” Hendrix begs while his fingers bring me closer to a release, pushing all other thoughts and worries aside, and his other hand tries to pull my mouth off of him. “Fuck me, baby. I need you.”

  With the pressure of his fingertips to my clit, I shatter apart, my hips bucking in the air with the waves of pleasure. The explosive orgasm makes me work twice as hard trying to give Hendrix the same relief. It’s wrong and I shouldn’t have crossed this line with him, but now it’s too late, too good to stop.

  And I don’t want to.

  “Ride me, Libby. Slam this dripping wet pussy down on my cock…oh god…please, sweetheart, please,” he continues to plead until his shaft swells even more in my mouth and then jerks with the force of his powerful release pulsing down my throat.

  Once I’ve taken everything he gives me, I pull back and use my hand to wipe my mouth.

  In the silence of the truck cab, I wait for the embarrassment or shame to hit me, but both are thankfully absent.

  “Libby.” Hendrix cups the side of my face and brings my lips to his softly. “That was…unexpected,” he whispers between kisses. “But…fucking amazing. I’ve wanted you for so long.”

  His words soothe what little guilt about my tanking career remains like a healing balm, making my doubts all fall away.

  I’m unable to prevent the smile on my face as Hendrix grabs the sides of my waist and pulls me on top of him so I’m straddling his lap, just like last night. My arms go around his neck so our bodies are flush against each other, and it feels…so nice. If only, deep down, the guilt for lying to Hendrix wasn’t continuing to eat me up inside like an unwelcome parasite.

  I need to tell him the truth, about everything, but I’m not sure if he’ll ever forgive me.

  “You okay?” Hendrix asks, so attuned to me that he can even sense the shift in my mood.

  “Yeah,” I answer, beginning to realize, with all the things I’ve done with Hendrix, well, now I can’t ever go back to my old life. The biggest surprise of all is that I don’t think I would want to even if I could.

  I’ve started to care about Hendrix and I’m not sure when it happened—maybe when he risked so much by saving me in the bar the other night, or because I know that deep down, he is a good man.

  A good man who occasionally breaks the law and robs millions of dollars from banks.

  It’s probably crazy, but I don’t think it’s entirely impossible for me to believe that if Hendrix cares about me too, maybe I can convince him to leave behind the life of crime to be with me instead.

  I can’t tell him the truth yet, but maybe I can prevent him from making the mistake of hitting another bank. They must be planning to rob another one soon since he was talking about running out of time. If that doesn’t happen, the feds won’t get their evidence, I won’t get a job as an agent, and Hendrix’s father will still have ten more years left to serve in prison.

  Those are all things I can handle.

  “I’ve got a blanket,” Hendrix eventually says.

  And I realize that I’m wrapped around him like a second skin with my face buried in his neck.

  “How about we head to the lake and stretch out in the truck bed? Soak up some Mother Nature?” he asks.

  “Okay,” I agree because I want more of this with him. More of Hendrix’s arms around me. More of his hands on me and his mouth. More of everything even though I shouldn’t.

  In order to leave, I have to get off of his lap, so I start to climb off of him to go back to my side of the truck when his hands grip my waist to stop me. Then, I’m staring into his dark chocolate eyes just inches away. They’re no longer filled with heat and desire but something else that’s even more powerful.

  “I’m sorry if I got carried away. I didn’t mean to beg like that and pressure you. It’s just, I want you so bad. And maybe I thought that when you initiated things today, it may be the only chance we’re ever gonna get…”

  “That’s not the only chance,” I assure him, because whatever doubts I may have, I’m also certain that it’s only a matter of time before I give in. The once big, bold line gets blurrier the more time I spend with Hendrix.

  “Good,” he says with a grin. “Just don’t wear skirts until then. And we need, like, a code so that I know when it’s time…”

  “How about when I start taking your clothes off and tell you I want you inside of me?” I suggest with a smile.

  “Yeah, that should work,” he agrees before giving me another quick kiss and then lifting me off his lap and to the passenger seat.

  Hendrix drives the rest of the way to the lake in silence. When we get there, he backs up the truck toward the lake. Then, he climbs out with me following him, meeting him at the tailgate that he unlatches and pulls down. He steps up into the truck bed and offers me a hand to help me.

  Glancing around at the peaceful lake and surrounding forest, I take in a deep breath of fresh pine-filled air before letting it out.

  “It’s beautiful up here,” I tell Hendrix, who is shaking out a thick fleece blanket for us to sit on. Or lay on…

  “Yeah, it is. Perfect weather today too.” He takes a seat and then pulls me down onto his lap, my back to his chest. “Relax with me for a while?”

  “Sure,” I agree as he wraps his arms around my waist and I try to imagine all the tension in my body evaporating into the warm, summer day.

  Once it’s gone, I’m even more certain of my decision.

  I want a future with Hendrix.

  And it seems like such an important life decision that I feel the need to commemorate it.

  “Can I see your phone?” I ask him.

  “Why?” he questions even though he offers it to me.

  Opening the photo app and reversing the camera, I tell him, “I want a picture of us.” I hold the phone up until we’re both in the shot and snap three shots. Then I forward them to my phone.

  And god, his face next to mine looks too gorgeous to be real in the photos. There’s one of us both smiling at the camera, the next is him kissing my cheek while I’m still grinning like a fool, and the third with his lips on my neck and my eyes closed in bliss, never wanting him to stop.

  I may not have a clue on how to find my way out of this massive clusterfuck I’ve caused, or how I’ll be able to convince Hendrix not to make a mistake that will ruin his life, but those are problems for tomorrow. I refuse to let them ruin this incredible day with an amazing, sexy as hell man.

  Chapter 13

  Hendrix

  “What’s your father in prison for?” Libby asks, after we’ve been sitting in the peaceful silence for half an hour at the lake, her on my lap and me leaning up against the window of the cab.

  “Bank robbery,” I answer.

  “Oh. How long has he been there?”

  “Almost ten years,” I reply. “I was eighteen when him and my mom robbed a bank and she died in a high-speed chase.”

  “Oh wow. I’m so sorry,” she says, twisting around to see my face. “If she died and he went to prison when you we
re so young, what happened to you?”

  “I lived on my own, finished high school,” I explain. “They had enough money stowed away that I got by.”

  “Jeez. That must have been really tough.”

  “Yeah, it was. I doubt many other eighteen-year-old boys have to plan their mother’s funeral when they’re supposed to be planning for prom and shit.”

  “You’ve been through a lot,” she says. “And now you have your own successful business. That’s impressive, Hendrix.”

  “Like I said, my pop left some startup money, so it wasn’t all on me,” I reply, wishing I deserved her praise. What would Libby say if she knew that while the HVAC business is successful, it’s just a cover for how I really get paid the big bucks?

  “Don’t act so humble,” Libby teases with a smile as she leans her back against my chest again. “You impress me, Hendrix Blake. And at least you didn’t follow in your father’s footsteps.”

  I freeze at those words before I recover enough to respond. “I will never end up like him. They would have to kill me before I let anyone drag me off to prison.”

  “As long as you don’t do what he did, and no one finds out about Lester, you won’t have to worry about that, will you?” Libby asks.

  “Right,” I agree. Ready to change the subject, I ask her, “What about your parents?”

  “My mom is a, um, a private investigator.”

  “And your father?” I ask.

  “I have no clue who he is,” she replies. “My mom raised me on her own without him in our life. She struggled when I was younger before she found a stable job with better hours and a steady income.”

  “Sounds like you had it worse than me.”

  “Maybe. All I know is that I don’t ever want to end up like her either, so I guess we have that in common.”

  Libby doesn’t want to get knocked up by a deadbeat and be left to raise a kid on her own. Is that why she won’t sleep with me just yet? I would never be that careless with her or any other woman.

  “At least babies are pretty easy to prevent,” I point out.

  “I’m not on birth control,” she informs me.

  “Well, condoms cover all the bases, you know?”

  “Only ninety-seven percent of the time,” Libby says.

  “Those are pretty damn good odds, though.”

  “Says a man who will never have to carry a kid for nine months, birth it, and then raise it for the next eighteen years,” she mutters.

  “Point made,” I agree because she’s right. Those are things that women have to go through, not men. It’s easy for guys to walk away after a woman gets pregnant, leaving her to make the tough choice—to end the baby’s life or give up her own to raise a kid.

  Still, I hope to one day soon convince her to take that chance on me. To trust that I won’t sleep with her and run.

  Slipping my hands up her waist until both of my hands are cupping her breasts, I lean down to whisper in her ear, “What if I promise to use two condoms and pull out?”

  “I’ll, ah, take that under advisement,” Libby says, tilting her head to the side to give my mouth access to her soft skin on her neck.

  “Until then, there are plenty of other things we can do,” I assure her between brushes of my lips on the side of her throat.

  “What did you have in mind?” she asks, while squirming her ass teasingly on my lap.

  “How about we get under the blankets and I show you a few?” I suggest.

  “Sounds good to me,” she replies.

  Libby

  “Hendrix,” I hiss as his head disappears under the blanket covering me on the back of his truck. I thought we were going to kiss and maybe grope each other like teenagers, but apparently, he had bigger ideas. Ones that include pushing my dress up and pulling down my panties. I’m braced on my elbows, watching him squirm around, unable to see what he’s doing until I feel him…

  “Hendrix,” I repeat again as his hot, wet tongue swipes over my most intimate flesh, causing my head to fall back on a moan. After the first lick on my clit makes my hips bounce, he becomes relentless.

  “Yes, right there! Oh god!” I cry out as if he didn’t know that he was working magic underneath the blanket.

  Why have I never let a man do this before? Several lovers have tried in the past, but I would always get embarrassed and yank them back up my body before they got to the good stuff.

  Hendrix didn’t ask and wouldn’t take no for an answer despite my protests that this isn’t the time or place. Now I know why he was so persistent. And I am really glad he was.

  If my limbs were working right now, I would be holding his head to my body, not pushing it away, that’s for sure.

  And it quickly becomes clear why Jodie still remembers her one night with this man. No wonder she cried afterwards if Hendrix is as good at sex as he is with oral.

  The thought of all his previous women sobers me up faster than the fact that someone could see us out here. I finally do tug him back up by his arms, even though he’s reluctant to stop swirling his tongue inside of me at first.

  “Thanks, but, um, that’s all I can take,” I tell him when his dark, messy head finally pops free from the blanket.

  “You’re angry,” he says within seconds of looking over my face. “I know you enjoyed yourself, so are you still bothered about us being out in the open? There’s no one else in sight.”

  “No,” I answer. “It’s not that.”

  “Then what is it?” he asks while crawling up until we’re face-to-face, his head resting on his palm, those sexy lips even more swollen and damp from his incredible effort. Pressing his fingertip between my eyes, he says, “You’re thinking too hard about something.”

  “Jodie said sex with you was so good she cried,” I blurt out.

  “I remember,” he says gruffly with a roll of his dark eyes. “It wasn’t that great for me.”

  “That’s a rude thing to say.”

  “What?” he asks. “It was just sex. Same old.”

  “Same old?” I repeat. “Wow. This conversation isn’t really winning me over, convincing me to get into bed with you.”

  Reaching over to brush my hair from my shoulder and then run his hand down my arm, Hendrix’s eyes follow the path he’s made as he says, “Just seeing you gets me hotter than the first hard thrust inside of someone else. Being near you gives me more relief than any orgasm ever has. And kissing you is like a religious experience that sets my soul on fire. So, yeah, sex before I met you doesn’t even compare.”

  “Okay, you’ve convinced me,” I say, once I’ve blinked back the tears from my eyes because I’m certain that no other man could ever make me feel the things I feel for Hendrix. And I’m tired of fighting against the forces that are trying to bring the two of us together. Wrong or not, I’m falling for him. I’ll do whatever it takes to convince him to get out of the bank robbing business, even if it means he still wants to leave this city, this state, or this country.

  “Good, I’m glad you believe me,” Hendrix says with a grin.

  “No, I do believe you, but what I meant was that you’ve convinced me…to go with you wherever you’re going,” I explain.

  “Really?” Hendrix asks, his smile growing wider.

  “Yes.”

  He sweeps his still curled lips over mine, then says, “Thank you. I can’t give you any of the details but just…be ready soon, okay?”

  “Okay,” I agree, because I am ready.

  I just hope I can stop him from making a decision that will take him away from me forever.

  Chapter 14

  Libby

  “They’re hitting First National in Charlotte next,” Carter tells me as soon as I walk into the living room, dressed and ready to head to work on Monday.

  My mind is still reeling with this information as my feet freeze.

  “How do you know?” I ask him.

  Carter looks up from the laptop he’s typing on at the dining room table and excitedly say
s, “That’s where the tracker on the Blake Heating and Air truck went today.”

  “Oh.”

  “He was there for hours, and when I called the bank, they said they didn’t have any repairs scheduled today, just ‘routine maintenance,’ so that has to be their target, right?”

  Chewing on my thumbnail nervously, I say, “Yeah, I mean, that makes sense.”

  “He’s also gone to the same location twice in his personal vehicle in the past two weeks. It’s definitely their target.”

  “Which First National?” I ask. “The one on Main Street, North Gate, or Greene Street?”

  “Greene Street,” he responds.

  “And they’ve never hit that one before?”

  “No,” Carter says. “And if I had to bet, I think they’ll be going for it in a matter of days.”

  “Days? Really?”

  Shit. Am I running out of time? I need to back Carter off until I can talk to Hendrix. If I have to, I’ll even tell him the truth about everything to stop him from going through with another robbery.

  “Hendrix mentioned going out of town in a few weeks, probably right after the robbery,” I tell Carter.

  “Going where? When?”

  “I don’t know where, but I think he said the end of August,” I lie.

  “Dammit!” he exclaims, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. “This is why you need to wear a wire. We need absolutes, Libby, not guesses.”

  “Look, he doesn’t tell me much, all right? Every single night, he comes into the bar and then gives me a ride home, so when he tells me he won’t be there, or that he has other plans, we’ll know when it’s time and I’ll call you.”

  “So, you’re certain that it’ll be weeks from now?” Carter asks with his forehead creased in thought.

  “Pretty certain,” I answer. “Hendrix won’t ditch me. He’ll give me a heads-up, I’m sure.”

  “Okay. I’ll talk to the agent in charge and give them an update, tell them to be ready to move a SWAT team in a few hours’ notice,” Carter says as he picks up his cell phone. “We can have the bank beef up their security but not provide too much information to get them gossiping about a possible hit. We’re too close to catching these guys to risk chasing them off by alerting anyone to anything new. Besides, they never hit during the day, so no one is in any danger.”