Crash Lights and Sirens, Book 1 Read online

  He pulls her forward instead, right onto his cock.

  “Crap.” Taryn breaks away to pant, a full-body shiver rolling through her spine.

  Nick rubs up and down her back roughly. “Still cold?” Taryn shakes her head but he wraps his coat partway around her anyway, tucking her inside with all his body heat. “Don’t love the idea of getting naked back here,” he admits, tipping his skull back against the headrest. The dim light cuts a yellow slice across his forehead.

  Taryn grins. He’s hard enough that she can take his pulse through their jeans. “So? Who said anything about naked?” Her hand slips down to work at his belt.

  Nick narrows his eyes in the dark. “That’s a smart mouth you got on you,” he mutters, beating her to the punch and tugging down her zipper. Taryn stops what she’s doing as his palm slides roughly inside her underwear, this expression on his face like he’s trying to prove a point.

  “I’ve heard that, yeah.” She whimpers without meaning to as he cups her—just lightly, no pressure at all. Nick hums his agreement into her neck. He opens her up real slowly, sliding two clever fingers forward to investigate.

  “Jesus, Falvey,” he murmurs when he feels how wet she is. Taryn’s surprised too. It usually takes her a while to get ready. With Pete especially she was self-conscious about it, like she couldn’t always quiet her mind down enough for her body to do what she needed it to do.

  That is…not so much a problem right now. God, the way Nick’s spreading the slickness around between her legs, sucking at her throat like he’s aiming to put a mark there. He rubs hard at her clit and dips inside her—first one finger, then two, working them deep and dragging them out again until she whines. “That’s it,” he says when she gives in and starts to rock. His free hand starts working the buttons on her flannel. Taryn braces one shaky arm against the door.

  “Thought getting naked in the car offended your delicate sensibilities,” she teases as his knuckles trail up and down her bare stomach, her muscles jumping under his touch. “Huh?”

  Nick raises his eyebrows, twisting his fingers inside. “For me, not you,” he tells her, tugging down the satiny purple cup of her bra and lowering his mouth to her nipple. “For you I like it fine.”

  Taryn grins. “No fair,” she complains, sliding her own hands down inside the collar of his T-shirt. His upper back is smooth and warm. He’s stupidly good with his tongue, is a thing Taryn remembers from the night in his kitchen. He licks at the tip of one breast until she’s squirming on his fingers, then tugs hard enough that she yelps.

  “Shh,” Nick chides, even though there’s nobody around to hear them. Taryn hasn’t seen another living soul since they left the bar. It’s kind of a rush, truthfully, the idea that what they’re doing is illicit, that they could get caught any second by God knows who. She’s still got her arms in the sleeves of her flannel, her bra bunched crooked and messy underneath her breasts. The next time he curls his fingers, he rubs up against something electric and good inside her, and she muffles her cry against his neck.

  “Yeah?” he asks, boosting her with his free hand to find the angle again. Taryn nods and presses her face into his throat, concentrating. Her palms slide even farther down the back his shirt until she’s draped over him completely, sacked out how Caitlin and the boys get when it’s bedtime. Night of the fire notwithstanding, he’s still unfamiliar enough that she’s going to have to think herself into it a little, close her eyes and coach the orgasm along. He’s got such good hands; Taryn’s sure that if she can just stay here and private for a second she’s definitely going to be able to—

  Yeah, Nick isn’t having it. “Don’t get shy now,” he says quietly, nudging his cheek at hers. When that doesn’t work he makes a fist in her hair and tugs, not letting go until she’s sitting all the way up on him, no place to hide anywhere. “There.” His fingers keep moving over that electric place inside, insistent.

  Taryn bites her lip. “M’not shy,” she protests, working hard to keep her voice steady as he brings their foreheads together. She wants to turn her head.

  It’s no use. Nick holds her right where she is like he’s setting up to watch the whole production, so close she practically goes cross-eyed trying to read his expression. “Come on,” he murmurs, scissoring his fingers inside her. “Let me see.”

  “Oh my God,” Taryn gasps before she can stop herself, cringing when she hears how desperate she sounds. She squeezes her eyes shut to hide from the expression on his face. She wants to keep being smug with him—it’s Nick, God, with his maddening silences and his stubborn all-weather exterior—but it’s hard to come up with a smartass comment right now, the pleasure glass-sharp inside and out.

  He knows it too. “Good?” he asks, this tone that’s completely rhetorical. Taryn can feel it building deep in the cells of her spine. “Open your eyes,” Nick murmurs, working a third finger inside her. The added pressure is equal parts amazing and almost scary. “Come on, Taryn, you’re perfect. Open your eyes.”

  So. Taryn opens them.

  The orgasm breaks almost as soon as she makes eye contact, crashing through her like a tidal wave clear down to the tips of her fingers and her toes inside her boots. Nick keeps at her slippery body the whole entire time. Taryn presses her forehead against his as it’s happening, clenching hard and rhythmic around his fingers and watching the look on his face that says he can feel every single twitch.

  God. God.

  “Okay,” she says, before she’s even done, Nick still wringing the last of it out of her. The intensity of it is freaking her out, honestly (she thought it was a fluke, how insanely good it was the night of the fire, the hardest she’d ever—yeah). She wants to make them even as fast as she can. “Okay, you have to let me—” She wriggles until Nick eases his hand out of her panties, scooting back so she can get his dark jeans undone and his boxers around his thighs. Nick lifts his hips to help her out.

  “Have to let you what, Falvey?” he asks, breathless. He’s got a nice cock, heavy and thick against his stomach. He’s the one teasing her now. Taryn doesn’t know how she feels about that, but still when she ghosts her knuckles along the underside the skin is so velvety warm—and the sound he makes is so achingly desperate—she almost bends down and sucks until he loses it right there.

  But, priorities.

  “Have to let me,” she repeats, figuring he can put the pieces together on his own as she crawls back up his body, tipping her chin down for a messy kiss and brushing herself against his cock. Nick breathes in fast and ragged.

  “Taryn,” he says, once he’s swallowed. She reaches down to feel him out, wrapping her fist around him and spreading the liquid at the tip with one curious thumb. “We can’t… I didn’t—” Nick breaks off in frustration, skull thudding back against the headrest. She squeezes, just lightly, and he groans. “I don’t have a condom, Falvey.”

  Oh. Well. Taryn bites her bottom lip, thinks, Weren’t imagining bringing me back here. Takes a deep breath before she can chicken out. “I do,” she tells him bluntly, and reaches up into the front seat for her purse.

  Which—Jesus Christ. Nick stares at her as she roots around in her shoulder bag, a cheap-looking pleather that’s fraying around the straps. She is going to destroy him before they ever get off the ground. “You do?”

  Taryn flicks her eyes at him coolly, fishing out a strip of three foil packets and handing them over with a twist of her wrist. “Uh-huh.” Then she grins, sudden and startling as the sun coming out. “Like I told you, Kanelos. All the first moves.”

  Nick grins back, her pretty freckled face and a full-body flush from her orgasm. His fingers are still sticky from being inside her. “You told me,” he agrees, closing his fist around the condoms. “Figured we’d need three, huh?” he asks, as Taryn drops the purse and leans back in.

  “Mmm-hmm.” Falvey pats his closed hand condescendingly, ducking close for a kiss. “N’case you effed up.”

  Nick rolls his eyes and pulls away to te
ar one open, Taryn watching from her perch near his knees. Her eyes are very bright. “Come here,” he says once he’s sheathed, pushing that tight flannel shirt down her arms and off. The Tahoe is warm as anything now, their body heat plus the vents, the windshield starting to get just the slightest bit steamy. Falvey’s skin is damp underneath the band of her bra. Still, even with her naked to the waist, Nick can’t quite get at her the way he wants, jeans too snug around her hips. He clucks his tongue, nudging her onto the middle seat and swinging her legs up to work on her boots.

  “Your nudity rules suck,” Taryn tells him, letting her thighs fall open. The whole truck smells like her now, on his fingers and everywhere, vanilla mixed with salt. Nick hopes it sticks.

  “Yeah, well. Next time don’t wear such tight jeans.” He leaves her socks on in half-assed concession to where they are and strips everything else, shucking his own coat and tee so Falvey will stop complaining about being naked alone. She’s pretty, Jesus Christ, high girlish breasts and that neat rib cage, the pale curve of her hip so fine it could have been inked. Nick doesn’t know how he forgot, but he did.

  Falvey bites her lip. Her mouth has that smudged look from too much kissing, like it’s been erased and redrawn repeatedly. “Next time, huh?”

  Nick blows out a breath. He wants to lay her out across the bench seat but there isn’t room, small and skinny as she is. “Sure,” he says, pulling her back into his lap and shrugging. “Seeing as how we’re working on a twice a year tradition here.” He ducks his head to suck at a puffy nipple, not keen on waiting for her reaction.

  “Hmm.” Taryn curls her warm, bare arms around his neck and holds tight, reaching down between them to line him up. Her fingers are cold through the latex. “Maybe we won’t wait six months next time,” is all she says, and Nick doesn’t have time to answer because the very next second she’s sitting down on his cock.

  “Fuck.” She’s snug, something Nick knew from having his fingers in her—remembered from the night of the fire—but it’s different to feel, her head tipping back and those pale eyebrows drawing together. “You okay?” he asks when he catches his breath, petting up the ladder of her spine. She took him all at once without pausing, one fast slide home. Too fast, maybe.

  Falvey nods. “Fine.” She wiggles around, getting used to it. Starts up a rhythm after a beat. “You?”

  Nick closes his eyes against the tight drag of her body. “Yeah, Falvey.” He laughs, strangled. “I’m doing good.”

  Taryn hums to herself then, this low, pleased sound like she knows she’s getting to him. “Good,” she echoes, squeezing her arms around his neck as he palms up and down her rib cage.

  Nick growls quietly, how tight she is, how neatly her chilly ass fits into his hands. He’s only been with one other woman since Maddie, a private-school teacher from Great Barrington with blonde hair in a tidy knot at the crown of her head. Nick hadn’t used a condom since high school and the latex felt strange and impersonal, like he could have been with anyone and not been able to tell. He’s glad for it now though, how it cools him down a bit. Falvey looks like a Renaissance painting come to life, all that pale skin and fiery hair. If he isn’t careful she’ll end him way too fast.

  And she’s trying to, he realizes after a second, these dirty twists of her hips and a singularity of purpose he recognizes from when he’s watched her do CPR, laser-beam focus like she thinks she’s got something to prove here. Like she thinks she owes him one. Nick wonders about Falvey sometimes, her proud back and how she’s always offering him gas money. Wonders what it is about her specifically that makes an orgasm feel like a debt to paid.

  “Hey,” he tells her, nudging her backward so he can get to her breasts, thumb at her nipples and learn the weight of her. He wants to know every single detail of how she’s put together with an urgency that surprises him, how long it’s been since he’s felt anything like it. Whenever they next do this, he’s sure as hell going to take his time. “Relax.”

  Taryn’s eyes narrow. “You relax,” she retorts, but there’s no real heat behind it. She lets him slow her down anyway, this deep, fantastic arch and her head dropping back with pleasure. Nick shifts his hips to meet her stroke for stroke. He’s close, God, he’s so fucking close; when Taryn gasps, shoving down and then just staying there, one hand fisting in his hair, the groan he lets out is relief as much as anticipation.

  “I was imagining it,” she whispers in a rush against his mouth, right as she’s about to fall over the edge. “You bringing me back here. I was imagining it.”

  Well. That gets it done, all right.

  Nick clutches at her hips and loses it, closing his eyes for one second before wrenching them open to the mindfuck that is Taryn watching him get off, curious and focused even through her own orgasm. She stays pin-drop silent this time, teeth so deep into her bottom lip there are grooves when she finally lets go. Nick feeds his salty fingers into her mouth and watches her suck, her clever fox-face gone slack with satisfaction.

  “Okay,” she says eventually, pulling off. “Yeah. So—that happened.” She’s sweating, baby-fine hairs curling up at her temple.

  Nick huffs a laugh. “Like you imagined?” he asks quietly, not necessarily teasing. He’s pretty sure, two orgasms plus how slick she is down between her thighs, but he just—wants to check.

  Falvey wrinkles her nose. “Give you an A for effort,” she tells him archly, breaking off into noisy giggles when he lunges for her. Her teeth are wide and white. Nick wrestles her lightly for a minute, upper body only, to be careful of the condom, reaching down to grab at the base when he finally slips out.

  Taryn wiggles free and starts picking through her clothes as he ties it off. “Here,” she says, holding up a square of Kleenex she ferreted out of her purse. Nick takes it with raised eyebrows. “What?” she asks, hips in the air to pull on her underwear—purple to match the bra, he notices. “The tissues are in there all the time,” she promises. “Nothing to do with you.”

  Yeah, but Nick bets her lingerie choices were at least a little related. “Uh-huh.”

  Taryn rolls her eyes. “Oh, whatever, don’t get smug,” she scoffs, hooking her bra on backward and twisting. “You wanted me bad.”

  He did, Christ. Didn’t know quite how much until they started up again. “Yep,” is all he says, which sends Falvey to grinning. They’re both fully dressed in minutes, Taryn combing both hands through her hair until it’s lying relatively flat and neat.

  “’Kay,” she says, squaring her shoulders. “Take me home?”

  Like there was ever a question. “Sure.”

  They clamber out the back doors and into the front, Taryn retrieving her coat from the floor before she settles into the bucket seat. The ride is silent, mostly, something Nick can’t peg as a good or bad sign. Maybe neither. Taryn keeps glancing at him out of the corner of her witchy eyes.

  The last thing she says before ducking out into the night: “Let’s not make this awkward at work, okay?”

  The last thing she does: kiss him, quick and clumsy off the corner of his mouth.

  Nick can’t decide if one cancels the other out.

  Chapter Five

  It’s snowing by the time Nick drops her off, and when Taryn wakes up before the alarm the next morning there’s a couple of inches settled on the roof outside the window. The sky is still a murky black-gray. She lies there in the warm huddle of blankets for a minute, taking stock of her chapped mouth and the satisfying ache between her legs, feeling alternately pleased and embarrassed.

  Perfect, he said. Taryn, you’re—

  And whatever, clearly you can’t believe anything a guy says to you when you’re naked in the backseat of his car like some kind of horny high-schooler, but…

  Pete definitely never told her anything like that.

  Finally she reaches over and flicks on the clock radio to listen for school closings, quiet enough not to wake Caitlin on the other side of the room. She was still up and reading when Taryn go
t home last night, flashlight bobbing under the covers like she thought their mom or Jesse was going to come in and make her get some sleep. “How was pizza?” Taryn asked, holding her hand out for the book, Murder on the Orient Express this time, which Taryn knew she’d read at least twice already. She made a mental note to Google good books for fifth graders next time she got her hands on Jesse’s old laptop.

  Caitlin smiled, her strawberry-blonde hair all crazy from being under the blankets. Justin Bieber leered down from his post on the wall. “Good,” she said, yawning. “Did you have fun with your work friends?”

  Taryn turned away to pull some pajamas out of the bureau, barely resisting the urge to spill her guts about Kanelos to her eleven-year-old sister, his big shoulders and those dark, dark eyes. “Yeah,” she said finally, this stupid, uncontrollable smile stretching the corners of her mouth. “I had a lot of fun.”

  The kids are on a one-hour delay so Taryn tries to go back to sleep, winds up staring at the wall and grinning to herself like a loon. God, she really needs to slow her roll. It was just sex—really, heartbreakingly good sex, yeah, but still just sex, and with a guy she works with, who’s old enough to be a widower. She’s definitely not about to start doodling his name on her Trapper Keeper.

  Perfect. Jesus. Who even says that?

  Still, it is possible that Taryn would not hate hearing it again.

  Finally she gives up and gets out of bed, pulling a heavy cardigan over her pajamas—the house is freezing, which is annoying since she just sorted out a payment plan with the gas company—and heading downstairs to make coffee. She cleans up the kitchen while the machine gurgles, wiping crumbs and something sticky off the counter, washing out yesterday’s cereal bowls and setting them in the dish rack to dry. The letter from the bank she ignored last night is sitting on the kitchen table next to Connor’s reading workbook and a couple of Transformers, another late notice on the mortgage, probably, which she’s going to have to call and deal with. She’s practically on a first-name basis with the loan office, and this is the longest she’s let it go without paying. As of February, they’re a whole month behind.