Free Good Time Girl by Candace Schuler Page A

shoulders, dragging her across the console to sprawl awkwardly in his lap. She lay on her side, her upper body wedged between his chest and the steering wheel, her hip balanced on the console between the seats, her booted feet against the passenger door. His mouth came down on hers, hot and hard and ravaging. His hand went between her legs, rubbing her through the heavy seam of her jeans. That was all it took. She was already wet, already aroused, drunk on passion and power and the excitement of the new and forbidden. She came hard, her body arching, her nails digging into the hard curve of his shoulders, her thighs clamped tight over his hand. It didn’t stop his fingers from moving, though. He drove her up again, and then yet again, until she was quivering in his arms, until she was shivering and panting and making gasping little whimpering sounds, begging him to please, please fuck her. He brought both hands up to her head, then, cradling it between his wide callused palms, and gentled his kiss, going from ravager to protector in an instant.
    His lips plucked at hers, softly, moist and tender, raining kisses to soothe them both, easy, gentle caresses that fell on her lips and cheeks and eyelids, meant to cool their roiling passions and take them to a place where they could draw an even breath. She sighed tremulously, her breath catching like a child who’s cried too hard and too long, and melted into his arms, tucking her hot face into the damp curve of his neck while he stroked her temple with his thumb and drew soothing little circles on the back of her head with his fingertips.
    They stayed that way for several long minutes, just holding each other, quietly, coming down off the edge together, until an eighteen-wheeler rolled by, buffeting the little convertible with its passing, blowing a long, loud salute on its air horn. Roxanne put her hands against his shoulders and pushed, squirming backward into her own seat. Tom levered his hips up slightly, reaching into his back pocket for the bandana he always carried. He cleaned himself with it, then folded it and passed it to Roxanne to wipe her hands while he rearranged and rebuttoned.
    “It’s nearly lunchtime,” he said, after they had set themselves to rights. “You hungry?”
    “I could eat, I guess,” she said, without quite meeting his eyes.
    She was a little embarrassed, now that it was over. It was, after all, one thing to have wild raucous sex in the relative privacy of an anonymous motel room. It was quite another to jerk a man off in an open convertible at high noon on the side of the highway. She couldn’t help but wonder if she had crossed the line from good-time girl to, well…slut.
    “There’s a truck stop a few miles up the road, just the other side of Tucumari. Pete’s Eats. They’ve got great burritos. That sound okay to you?”
    Roxanne nodded. “Sounds fine,” she said, and leaned down, snagging her purse off the floor. She began rooting around in it, ignoring him.
    Tom knew by the way she was acting that he had fallen short somewhere. That he hadn’t done or said whatever the right thing was to do or say in a situation like this. But, damn, he’d never had a woman do that to him, not in an open car, speeding down the highway. Not while he wasn’t busy returning the favor. He hadn’t expected her to do it, either. His gesture had just been a tease. A dare. He’d expected her to give him a little squeeze through his jeans, a little pat, maybe make some risqué comment about holding his horses until a more appropriate time.
    But then she’d unbuttoned his fly and taken him in her hot little hand, and all his expectations were shot to hell in an explosion of panting lust and excitement that was fueled as much by how she did what she did, as what she did. She’d been avid and intent, her excitement as hot and palpable as his. He’d never had a woman give that way, completely unselfishly, focused on his pleasure alone and asking nothing