Chapter Two

      It was just shy of nine o’clock as they headed towards the church parking lot, Miranda sheltering under Simon’s umbrella. It was still raining, but it was a more moderate downpour rather than the pelting agony that had drenched her.

      Though still damp, Miranda felt warm and content with the cranberry scone washed down by creamy hot chocolate. Her cookies were in her bag, destined for breakfast the next morning.

      Walking in the murky twilight, Miranda longed to press closer to him. He smelled amazing, a mix of cheap soap and expensive cologne. It didn’t seem like such an outlandish idea to link her arm with his or even slip her hand into his pocket, but she didn’t.

      With every step that took them closer to his car, the urge to ask him home with her became more powerful.

      She didn’t care if it made her a hypocrite. She didn’t care that he’d probably take off as quickly as possible and avoid eye contact with her on the elevator if they ever met again, and she’d feel like shit for a while before the hate set in.

      None of that mattered now as the rain started to come down hard again and he wrapped his arm around her waist as they ran.

      She wanted Simon Reeve in bed with her.

      He held the umbrella over her as she got in on the passenger side, showing that chivalry he’d spoken about even as he cursed the stream that dripped from the slope of the umbrella down the back of his neck. She shifted on the seat, the poncho and her jacket now heaped at her feet, and shivered from the absence of his body heat as he scrambled to get the umbrella into the trunk and himself into the car before he was as soaked as she had been when the evening started.

      ‘God damn,’ he said, shaking the droplets from hair that had already begun to curl with the moisture. Hers had gone wild as soon as it dried, and when she’d combed her fingers through it she’d enjoyed the appreciation in his eyes.

      ‘Do you want me to reset the navigation?’ she asked as he tapped the face of his phone.

      He shook his head. ‘No, it’s still set. I just need to charge it a bit; the app sucks the battery.’

      He stretched his arm past her and popped open the glove compartment. Miranda bit her lip as he came closer than ever before, arm pressed against her knee as he tugged at a tangled white cord with a charger at the end. He quickly attached it to his phone, plugged the other end into the cigarette lighter, and then leaned in to close the compartment.

      Maybe if he hadn’t looked up at her she wouldn’t have kissed him. Maybe he had known she would, or planned to do it himself. Either way, as he began to straighten up again Miranda cupped his face and pressed her mouth to his.

      In the half-second that followed, in the dim light from the street lamp nearby, Miranda was struck with electric-blue panic that she had made a mistake, but Simon didn’t hesitate long before returning her kiss.

      There was nothing awkward about the way Simon Reeve kissed. He overtook her instantly, throwing his arm across the back of her seat and cupping her face with his other hand. She didn’t resist as he stroked the slope of her neck, or when he slipped his hand beneath the V-neckline of her shirt.

      She parted her lips and, with a flick of her tongue against his, she invited him in. Everything outside the cosy interior of his car vanished as he pushed her bra-strap down and thrust his hand inside the flimsy cup.

      ‘Thank Christ you made the first move,’ he said against her mouth as he pinched her nipple between the joints of two fingers, ‘because I sure as hell wasn’t going to do it and risk getting ripped a second arsehole.’

      ‘It was all the talk about your dick,’ she joked, and reached down to check on the progress of that appendage.

      Beneath the fabric of his trousers she felt soft becoming hard, and she went for his zipper.

      He let go of the seat and pushed her hand away. ‘I’m still trying to be chivalrous.’

      ‘Fuck your chivalry, and fuck what I said earlier about not giving a handjob.’

      He held her wrist tight to keep her hands off him, but his fingers pinching her hard nipple told her that it wasn’t his chivalry he was concerned with, but twisting her in knots. Worst of all was the way he watched her expression as he delivered one hot sting after another.

      This time, her efforts to shake free from his grip succeeded, but she didn’t abuse his generosity by making another grab. She slipped her hands behind his neck. The bristle against her palms raised gooseflesh all over her body. She closed her eyes as he twisted his tongue around and around hers.

      He drew her into the hot cavern of his mouth and Miranda moaned as he closed his lips around her tongue and sucked.

      The car seemed to shrink as he turned his attention to her other breast. The novelty of being confined with him had faded, leaving in its place a need to spread herself out before him, to urge him down her body until his hot tongue eased the ache he was creating.

      ‘Take this off,’ he whispered, tugging the hem of her shirt, and as soon as she leaned forward to oblige he shucked it over her head.

      He turned rough for just a moment, shoving her bra down past her ribs and trapping her arms in the broad straps. As he mouthed a wet trail over her chin and along her neck, Miranda twisted her fingers in his hair and fought to draw a full breath.

      She expected more sting from his teeth, but his mouth was surprisingly gentle compared to his fingers. He lifted her breast and the hungry noise he made as he suckled her raced in her blood and exploded into the stifling atmosphere. It was becoming harder and harder to breathe as he teased her, harder to stay seated rather than push him back against the driver’s seat and squash herself between the steering wheel and his hard body to straddle him. She took it as long as she could, until his attention turned to the other exposed breast and completed her transformation into pure liquid heat.

      She dragged his head back up and pressed her brow to his. ‘If you won’t take your cock out, then take my shorts off.’

      ‘There’s not a lot of room in here.’

      ‘Like that’s ever stopped anyone before.’

      She lifted her hips, and Simon hooked shorts and panties and dragged them down to her ankles. Then she took up the best position she could manage, leaning back against the door with her feet tucked under her ass on the seat.

      Simon quickly unbuttoned and unzipped, and shot her a lopsided grin in the semi-dark as he unleashed himself.

      ‘Don’t get too excited, I just don’t want to split my zipper.’

      ‘We could get in the back.’

      He