Brazen Read online

  Adam drew a deep, rejuvenating breath and reminded himself this was all for charity. Just thinking of the kids helped him gain a modicum of composure. Okay, he could do this. He could give her a small peck and then once the night was over he’d go find Cheri, or one of the other women who’d openly invited him home for a late-night rendezvous, and fuck her long and hard and well into the morning until he got Josie out of his system once and for all.

  “Adam,” she whispered, “I’m ready.”

  When their glances met, sexual energy arced between them and nearly knocked him backward. His dick jumped, his blood pumped faster, and a barrage of emotions tore through him and had his thoughts scattering in a million different directions.

  He took a deep breath, but before he could get his head on straight, her warm hands touched his cheeks, igniting a fire deep inside him. That first sweet touch of her lips to his damn near shut down his brain. As tension coiled inside him, she made a small sexy noise, one that had him conjuring up erotic images of their naked bodies coming together, over and over again, and it was all he could do not to climb over that booth and drag her home with him.

  Her kiss was warm, full of passion, excitement and something else, something he’d never felt before and couldn’t quite put a name to. Before he realized what he was doing, he widened her lips with his tongue and slipped inside for a deeper, more thorough exploration. At first the kiss was slow, sultry, but when he deepened it, needing in the most unfathomable ways to taste every inch of her, her mouth moved urgently under his, seeking, searching, demanding more than just his tongue.

  As her mouth pressed hungrily, pressure began brewing inside him, and his body pulsed with raw need. Oh God, how he wanted. His fingers began trembling, and then, as though moving of their own accord, his hands circled her head and he fisted her hair, pulling her impossibly closer. His muscles bunched, his cock ached and a deep growl of longing caught in his throat. In the span of a second, this beautiful, sensual woman caught him off guard and completely turned his world inside out.

  Then it suddenly occurred to him that his disinterest in those other women tonight had more to do with Josie than any damn prediction. The truth was, after crossing paths with her earlier that day, and after she’d tossed him that sweet yet sexy smile of hers, he’d been completely preoccupied with her, unable to get her out of his head, either one of them.

  Then another thought struck.

  Josie Wells!

  A shiver raced up his spine, and he slowly inched away. “Josie?” he asked in a strangled voice.

  Breathless, she looked at him, and the warm flush coloring her cheeks told him he wasn’t the only one rattled by that kiss. “Yeah?” she murmured.

  “Uh, what’s your middle name?”

  She gave him an odd look and said, “Caitlyn, why?”

  J.C.W. Josie Caitlyn Wells.

  Jesus Christ!

  He pushed back in his chair and tried to wrap his brain around this information. “No reason,” he choked out.

  Her brow furrowed. “Really? Because it seems like such an odd question.”

  As his thoughts raced a million miles an hour, Trent and Katy approached. Katy shifted her attention to Josie, and the two began talking. As they turned their focus to Katy’s growing stomach, Josie climbed from her seat and the two sauntered off.

  “Meet you in Town Square,” Katy called out to Trent.

  “What the hell was that?” Trent asked when Katy and Josie were out of earshot.

  “What the hell was what?”

  “Oh, come on, Adam,” Trent said, grinning like the crazy son of a bitch he really was. “I thought I was going to have to hose you two down.”

  When the festival’s chairman came up from behind, Adam grabbed the box of money and handed it to him, apologizing that he didn’t have a dollar count. Then he snatched his windbreaker off the back of his chair, tossed it over his shoulder and started making his way toward Town Square.

  Knowing he was unable to keep anything from Trent, he cast him a sideways glance and said, “She really was coming on kind of strong, wasn’t she? What do you make of that?”

  Trent rolled his eyes. “Geez, I wonder.”

  Adam took a minute to chew on Trent’s response. Was it possible that sweet little Josie wanted him as much as he wanted her? She knew his reputation as a playboy, so why was a nice respectable girl like her, a girl who’d openly admitted to wanting love, marriage and children, suddenly paying him so much attention? What the hell had gotten into her?

  They rounded the corner and spotted a crowd surrounding the fire truck parked in the center of Town Square. “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? Come on, Adam, you both clearly want each other. What’s stopping you?”

  “You know what’s stopping me.” Wanting to change the subject, Adam nodded toward the truck and asked, “What exactly is it we’re supposed to be doing anyway?”

  “Adam…” Trent began, refusing to let the matter drop.

  But Adam just shook his head and said, “You know I can’t, Trent. Not with her. Not with Josie.”

  Before Trent could respond, their captain Doug Simms called out to them and waved them over.

  “Get yourselves suited up,” he said when they approached, and that’s when Adam noticed his colleagues. All three were shirtless and wearing only their pants and suspenders. Confused, Adam wasn’t quite sure what the demonstration entailed or why they were doing it after dark. Most fire-fighting displays were done for the children and there wasn’t a child in sight at this late hour.

  After removing his own shirt and pulling on his pants, the captain lined them up. Adam looked into the crowd, and noted the excitement in the air. As his captain read off names, and five women came forward, one of them being Josie, he turned to Trent. “What the hell is going on?”

  Trent grinned and let his glance race over his wife Katy as she stepped up to him. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

  As Doug began to pair them up, and he found himself face-to-face with Josie, he had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that nothing good could come from this. He glanced to his left and spotted Josie’s friend’s Vic and Tabby cheering her on.

  He gestured with a nod as understanding hit. “I take it they put you up to this?”

  “Yeah,” she said, looking innocent and sheepish once again, and he also wondered if they were also the ones who put her up to the kissing booth.

  “Okay, when I sound the fire alarm, you begin to undress,” Doug continued. “With the help of your partners, of course. The first one to get out of their gear wins dinner for two at the Seafarer.”

  Okay, that seemed simple enough. Perhaps this wouldn’t be too bad after all.

  “But there’s a catch,” Doug went on to explain. “Neither one of you can use your hands.” When he added, “Bodies only,” cheers erupted from the crowd.

  Sweet mother of God!

  Adam had no idea what he’d done to deserve this kind of torture. He did a quick tally of the day’s events—first Madame M said he was going to fall in love with Josie, then the two shared a smoking-hot kiss that had him wanting to forget his vow to stay away from her, and now she was about to use that sexy body of hers and nothing else to help him undress. Adam had a sneaking suspicion that the fate gods were conspiring against him, trying to complicate his mission to keep his distance from the one woman who got to him in a way no other woman ever had. As he envisioned her wiggling that tight little ass of hers against him, his cock thickened and he groaned out loud.

  Adam swallowed hard as Josie looked at the competition. She had a mischievous grin on her face when she turned back to him and said, “I think we can beat them.” Her tone was light, playful, but he didn’t miss the desire smoldering in the depth of her pretty baby blues when they met his. Nor did he miss the tremble that moved through her body as the crowd gathered in for a better look. Tonight he was seeing another
side to sweet Josie Wells, and if Adam had to guess, he’d say this public display of intimacy was a turn-on for her.

  The second the alarm sounded, Josie stepped up to him, and the closeness of her body nearly had him shooting off in his pants, with the whole goddamn town watching. Fuck. Adam rolled his shoulder and tried to loosen the strap on his suspenders, but his efforts proved futile. When Josie twisted her head to glance at their competition, Adam followed her gaze in time to see Katy using her mouth to remove Trent’s suspenders.

  Josie turned her attention back to him and said, “Maybe I should try that.”

  Before he could respond, she put her mouth close to his neck. Her breath felt so fucking erotic on his flesh as she gripped the strap with her teeth and began to slip it over his shoulder, that he damn near dropped to the ground and dragged her along with him.

  She wiggled against him and suddenly Adam couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think with any clarity, because the way she was undressing him with her mouth had to be the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. With his own mouth agape, he stood there staring at her as she went to work on removing the next strap. Once complete, she stood back and her sensuous lips puckered as she gave consideration to his pants.

  He quickly moved his hips in an attempt to shimmy them down his legs before she got too close again, but in a brazen move she pressed against him, stomach to stomach, hip to hip, pussy to cock.

  Holy fuck!

  “Let me help you.” The crowd went wild, and when they started screaming encouragement out to Josie, cheering her on, Adam didn’t miss the heat in her eyes, the way her flesh suffused with color or the way her nipples hardened and pressed against his bare chest.

  Slowly, methodically, they began to move in sync, working their bodies together and creating friction as they dragged his pants to his ankles. When her eyes met his, her baby blues darkened and he could sense her mounting desire. Christ, seeing her this aroused became his undoing, and when she made a sexy little bedroom noise, it took every ounce of strength he had to remain vertical. Okay, he stood corrected. This was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.

  Everything in the way she moved, the way the audience seemed to turn her on, evoked a myriad of sinful thoughts and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to purify them. In no time at all impatience thrummed through him. Impatience to taste her, to touch her, to spread her long, silky legs and fuck her until she cried out in orgasmic bliss.

  When his waistband hit his ankles, he kicked his pants off and the crowd began to clap and whistle. As he stood there in nothing but his jeans and boots, his heart crashing hard against his chest, Josie’s hot glance skated over his body, then in the softest, sexiest voice she whispered, “See what we can do when we put our minds to it?”

  Except in this case, it wasn’t her mind she put to it, it was her body. A smoking-hot body that had him so hard he was certain he was going to do permanent damage. Since a reply was beyond him, he just nodded and continued to think about all the ways he wanted to undress her, all the things he wanted to do to her naked body.

  Once the applause settled down, the other guys disappeared around back to hang up their gear, and Adam worked to tame his raging hard-on before the entire town took note of it. Thank God it was nighttime and Town Square wasn’t lit up like a Christmas tree, the way the closed-off side streets were.

  When Josie went to get their dinner certificate from Doug, Adam stepped back into the shadows of the truck to use that time to get his head on straight. Needing a distraction, he gathered his gear, and by the time he walked around to the back of the truck to put it away, the crowd had dispersed, save for the few stragglers who continued to hang out near the monument honoring all the fishermen lost at sea.

  Knowing he needed to get the hell out of there before he did something he might regret, he grabbed his shirt and windbreaker, but before he could dress, and find someone to help him take the edge off, Josie’s sweet scent reached his nostrils. He spun around and gulped when he found her watching him with heated interest.

  “Josie…” he managed to get out.

  In a bold move she stepped close, too close. Her hot breath whispered over his skin and her voice was full of invitation when she said, “I wonder what else we can do if we put our minds to it?”

  Dropping his shirt and jacket, he raked shaky fingers through his hair. “Jesus Christ, you can’t say something like that to me.”

  She leaned against the truck, looking casual and innocent, even though everything in his gut told him she was anything but. Her laugh was edgy, churning with passion when she asked, “Oh, why not?”

  “Because it makes me want to fuck you, that’s why. Right here. Up against the truck.”

  The second the words left his mouth, a fire lit her eyes, and a strange noise sounded deep in her throat.

  With his dick throbbing and his body urging him to lift that flimsy dress of hers, and drive his erection all the way up inside her, he drew a heavy breath, put his hands on either side of her head and pressed against her, pinning her body between his and the truck.

  She tilted her head back, her eyes full of urgent need. “Adam.”

  He heard the impatience in her voice and everything in the way she breathed his name into his mouth spoke of raw, unbridled want. With his own body beckoning her touch, he pushed his cock hard against her pussy, letting her know in no uncertain terms what she was doing to him.

  Pressure brewed deep in his groin, and some small coherent part of his brain reminded him that this was a bad idea. But the other part of him, that part of him that wanted her so fucking badly, told him to give her what she wanted, to take her beyond her wildest fantasies, and deal with the consequences tomorrow.

  Her nipples pressed against his chest, her body calling out to him in ways that made him frantic with the need to fuck her. As he waged an internal war, he knew he needed this to end almost as much as he needed it to continue. Digging deep to gain a modicum of composure, he sucked in a fortifying breath, placed his hands on her shoulders and began to inch away, not wanting to do anything to hurt her, but when she wet her lips, her sultry glance dropping to his mouth, he knew he was done for.

  So totally fucking done for…

  As she slid her hands over his back, he gave himself a quick consultation. The truth was, everyone in town knew his reputation, and women only came to him for one reason and one reason only. Sex. And from the brazen way she was coming on to him, she clearly wanted him to fuck her. He might not be able to give her the other things she wanted, like love and commitment—not that she was asking him for it—but he sure as hell could give her the ride of her life.

  He was about to grab her by the hand and haul her back to his place, but when a noise sounded in the distance, she bit her bottom lip and a tremor raced through her. Adam grinned, reading her reactions and understanding exactly what they meant.

  Sweet Josie Wells got off on an audience.

  He couldn’t deny that he liked this adventurous, daring side of her, a side she clearly hid from the world. For a brief moment he wondered if any other guys had tapped into her secret fetishes, or if he was the first. Damned if he didn’t want to be the last.

  Moving with purpose, he slid his palms to her sides and gripped a handful of her dress. Gauging her reaction as he inched it higher and higher on her hips, he pressed them deeper into the shadows. When her tongue snaked out to brush over her bottom lip and she thrust her hips forward in a sexy, intimate move that nearly drove him mad, Adam knew everything he needed to know. Josie wanted him to fuck her right there against his truck, in the middle of Town Square where anyone could stumble upon them.

  Sexual energy leapt between them as he slid his hand between her legs, and when he felt her damp panties, he was pretty damn certain he’d died and gone to heaven. Her heady scent curled around him and he inhaled, pulling it into his lungs so he could savor it in its entirety later that night when they were done playing and he was alone in his bed, reli
ving every minute of this night.

  When she moved against his hand, he slipped a finger inside the satin material and scraped it over her aching clit. He exhaled slowly when he felt her silky softness and it took all his effort to speak.

  “Is this what you want, Josie? Is it what you need?”

  Before she could answer, he grabbed the scrap of material covering her pussy and ripped it from her hips. She gasped in surprise, but he pressed his lips to hers and swallowed the noise, not wanting anyone to overhear them. While he might be all about fulfilling her sexual fantasies, he really didn’t want the two of them to get caught. It might be fun and exciting for her tonight, but she had to think about tomorrow. Word spread fast in their small town, and he wouldn’t want to do anything to hurt her reputation.

  When he put his hand back between her legs and inched a finger into her hot opening and felt a small tremor, his blood began pulsing. “Jesus, girl, you’re already halfway there.” He pulled his hand away, purposely dragging his thumb over her clit before he gripped her slim hips.

  “Adam, please…” she begged.

  “Don’t worry, baby,” he whispered into her mouth before he moved his lips to the long column of her neck, fully intending to kiss his way to her pussy. “I’m going to give you what you want, but when you come for me, it’s going to be when my mouth is on you. I don’t want to miss a drop of your sweetness.”

  His words seemed to trigger a reaction in her. He felt something in her stiffen. He inched back, his heart pounding as his gaze searched her pretty face. Her blue eyes looked troubled and her lips pinched tightly together, a telltale sign something was wrong.

  His stomach plummeted as he inched back again, not about to do anything she was uncomfortable with. “Second thoughts?” he asked and brushed a strand of hair off her face to better see her.

  “No. It’s just. It’s nothing…” Her words fell off and she gave a quick shake of her head. “Never mind.”

  He felt a rush of tenderness as he put his finger under her chin, tilting it up to bring them eye to eye. “Hey, you can tell me. What is it?”