License to Thrill

“Cut it out, Mel. You’re just making this harder.” He tried not to focus on the way her breasts jiggled against his back and gave her bottom another squeeze. He grinned at her gasp.

“Is that what this is all about?” Her voice was raspy. Her movements stopped. “Are you doing this to cop one last feel?”

“Feel?” He opened the back door of the Jeep, thinking that touching her again would indeed be reason enough for him to kidnap her. “No, Mel.” He laid her across the back seat, causing the tight, short skirt to shimmy up her thighs, baring her legs and other more secret areas for his scrutiny. He tossed her shoes into the back, his gaze glued to the tiny scrap of material that masqueraded as underwear. It didn’t come close to disguising the soft, down-covered swell of sweet flesh it covered.

He concentrated on the tightening of his throat instead of the swelling in another area of his anatomy. Oh, how he longed to claim that mouth of hers with his, to skim his hands down her lush body, to trail a finger along the border of those panties, slowly, teasingly, watching as the silky material dampened with her reaction….

He reined in his thoughts. Speaking of groins, he’d be better off protecting his whenever he was on this side of her feet. The thought hit him just as she thrust her foot toward him.

He caught her ankle. Despite her actions, in her face he read the same longing he felt. He hadn’t realized how much he missed small moments like these. When everything but Mel vanished into the background. When just knowing how quickly he could make her come apart sent his blood pounding through his veins and opened a peculiar sort of weightlessness in his stomach.

He shifted his hand up her calf, the languid move hiding the way he shook inside.

“Marrying Craig will make me happy.”

Melanie’s words to her mother just moments earlier echoed through his mind. His hand froze as he slowly tore his gaze from her face. The feel of her warm, satiny skin beneath his palm made him fear it would take a crowbar to lift his hand.

A glance around the parking area reminded him where he was and what he was doing. Gradually, the sound of his heartbeat lessened, and the drone of cars passing on the nearby street increased. He finally moved his hand and swallowed…hard.

“Nice view,” he said, keeping his voice carefully neutral.

When he dared look at her again, her cheeks were flushed with color and she was avoiding his gaze. But it was the rough sound of her voice that betrayed her most of all. “Yeah, well, you might want to get a good look while you can.” Mel battled with the skirt, pulling on the hem until it somewhat covered her.

I don’t need to look. Everything about you is already burned into my memory.

Marc forced himself to reach for the handcuffs he’d left on the floor. He leaned toward her, careful not to let things spiral out of control again. Afraid it wouldn’t take much.

“I’m really sorry about doing this, Mel.” He grasped her wrist. He expected a struggle, but surprisingly he encountered little. He grimaced as he tugged her arm over her head. The metal teeth of the cuffs caught as he attached one side to her wrist, threaded the other through the handgrip above the window, then dragged her other arm up. He tried not to notice the way her chest heaved with every breath as he caught her legs under his weight. He took his sunglasses off and tossed them to the front seat. He was about to pull away when his gaze snagged on hers again.

God, it had been a long time. Too long.

Marc stretched his neck, thinking an ordinary man would be a goner with one look into Mel’s face right now. She looked altogether too kissable, too damned sexy. Luckily he’d never considered himself an ordinary man. He came from four generations of McCoys who had served in the military or law enforcement or both. He had once been a Marine. Nope, none of the five current McCoy brothers, if asked, would ever admit to knowing the meaning of the word ordinary.

Only problem was, the pep talk wasn’t doing diddly to douse his need to taste her lips….

Before he knew it, he was leaning closer to her, his breath mingling with her wine-scented breath. He eyed her mouth, groaning at the way she moistened her lips with a quick dart of her pink tongue.

“Marc, you better, um, not do what I think you’re about to.”

“Do what?” Get it under control, McCoy. “Kiss you?”

She made a sound that was somewhere between a whimper and a warning. It took Herculean strength to leave her mouth untouched, her lips slightly parted, no matter how much he wanted to claim both. Because of how much he wanted to. Instead he brushed his lips against the sensitive shell of her ear. “Remember when we used the handcuffs for reasons that were…not professionally correct?”

“That…that was a long time ago.” She fairly croaked.

“Not so long ago that you can’t remember.” Not so long ago that he couldn’t remember, either. Even now he hardened painfully at the images that slipped through his mind. Sex with Mel had always been intense. But, somehow, looking at her now, he found it hard to believe this prissily dressed example of upper-middle-class bliss could still be an inventive spitfire between the sheets.

He heard the click of her swallow as she moved restlessly beneath him.

Oh, she remembered, all right. He could tell by the way she arched against him even as she sought to put more distance between them. Impossible, given their current position.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for either of us to remember,” she said quietly, turning her head away when he would have pressed his mouth against her jawline.

He forced himself to pull back. “I think it’s the best idea I’ve heard in a long time.”

She turned her head toward him. “Just one of the many examples of how differently we think, isn’t it?”

He recognized the shadow of pain in her eyes. He’d seen it once before. The night before she was shot. The night they’d had their first and, as luck would have it, last argument. The night she had asked if he loved her.

Remembering the moment, Marc found swallowing almost impossible. But upon closer examination, he discovered there was something else in the depths of her eyes that was somehow unlike the pain she had so clearly felt then.

Before he could pinpoint exactly what, she moved one of her legs up, catching him off guard, though her stockings guaranteed her attempts were ineffective. He grimaced, thinking it was a good thing he’d tossed her shoes into the back or he’d have been in trouble.

“You’re getting rusty, Mel.” He patted her legs then reluctantly drew back. “I guess a dress and a couple months under Mother Wilhemenia’s roof will do that to a person.”

He watched the color return to her cheeks, though she still refused to meet his gaze. “And you’re still as reckless as you always were, aren’t you, Marc?”

“You used to tell me my…how did you put it? My adventurous nature was what you loved about me.” He cringed at the loose use of the L-word.

“What?” The cuffs clanked as she shifted to look at him. “I never said I loved that about you. That trait is exactly what made me—what made us so different.”

Marc eased himself out of the car and closed the door. He drew in a deep breath and worked his shoulders to loosen the muscles there. Yes, Mel had always appealed to him in a way he’d never wanted to examine too closely, but this… He thrust his hand through his hair, frustrated by his inability to define what he was feeling. One thing he did know was that he’d have to control it if he was going to protect Mel in the way she needed to be protected. And if he was going to get her back into his life.

He glanced toward the inn. Why didn’t it surprise him to find Mrs. Weber marching through the door? He grimaced, watching as she motioned to a man about his own age. Marc clutched the driver’s door handle. Mel’s groom, he guessed.

No, this wasn’t going as planned at all.

Then again, nothing with Mel had ever really gone as planned. If it had, she would still be with him and the division and she wouldn’t be getting ready to marry some other fool on Saturday morning, putting herself at more risk than she knew. And making him feel lonelier than he’d ever thought possible.

He climbed in and slammed the door so hard the Jeep rocked. He started the engine.

“Where are you taking me?” Mel asked again. The persistent clank of the cuffs told him she was examining them. He didn’t have to look. She knew as well as he did there was no way she could free herself. Not unless she carried a key in her bra. Something he doubted, but he had prepared for the possibility anyway by making sure she couldn’t reach it if she did have one.

“Just sit back and enjoy the ride, Mel. You’re not exactly in a position to do much else.”

She pushed at the back of his seat with her feet. Marc leaned forward. She might have gotten a little rusty, but she still packed a hell of a punch. And he wouldn’t put it past her to have enough strength in those long legs to send him flying through the windshield.

He should have brought some shackles.

Stick to the plan.

Just because the plan was off course didn’t mean he couldn’t proceed with the rest of it.

He thought back to a magazine article he’d recently read. When having problems, focus on the good things.

“Mel?” he said quietly.

A long silence, then a tentative, “What?” drifted from the back seat. He looked to find her still examining the cuffs. Marc faced the road again.