Test Drive (Watchers Crew) Read online

  Great.

  I was stuck out in the middle of nowhere with no help in sight. I was a wiz at identifying bugs and insects, but I had no clue how to change a tire.

  I reached into the passenger side dashboard for the car manual. Surely, there were instructions on how to change a tire. I was great at textbook directions. I opened the book, but the sound of wheels coming closer brought my attention up.

  Chapter Three

  Four cars pulled up in front of me in a choreographed move I’d only seen in car commercials. My heart thudded in my ears to think I’d be meeting my end in a rank part of town. But more troubling than my imminent demise was the thought that my beautiful car would likely be stripped down for its parts.

  My heart didn’t slow down in relief when the Vin Diesel look-alike emerged from the driver’s side of the Charger. It beat out an entirely different pattern.

  “Hey,” he called. His voice was deeper than the action star’s baritone. It grumbled in the same octave of his muscle car. “You all right, little girl?”

  I blinked. Little girl? I didn’t look that young. I was twenty, nearly twenty-one. Definitely legal. I’d been on my own for four years now, and I’d just bought this car with my own money and no help from my parents.

  Sure, my place was in a college dorm. And okay, so maybe I didn’t know how to take care of my vehicle in terms of changing a tire. But that didn’t make me an adolescent.

  “I’m fine,” I said crossing my arms over my shoulders in child-like defiance.

  I felt four pairs of eyes zero in on my chest. I brought my hands down to my sides.

  “It’s just a little car trouble.” My voice wobbled under their stares. “My boyfriend will be here shortly to help.”

  “Boyfriend?” Diesel’s eyes held a challenge.

  It was as though he saw inside of me; saw Jerry. This powerful man before me bent down and looked in my mind, saw my image of Jerry, looked him up and down, found my boyfriend wanting, and dismissed him all with a curl of his full lips.

  Then he looked down at the driver’s manual in my hand. His grin spread wider. He reached out his hand. It was a massive paw, like what I’d imagine a lion’s would look like up close. My head would fit easily in his palm with space to turn right or left and snuggle. He held out his giant, open palm and flicked his fingers in a beckoning motion. Something about the movement made me press my thighs together.

  “Give it here,” he commanded.

  I did as I was told. I handed him the manual.

  He tossed the manual back into my car. It landed on the passenger seat with a thud.

  “Eagle, Crow, come take a look at this.”

  I watched two other huge figures march over. It was the black guy and the blonde Adonis with the dimpled grin. Their eyes were on me. My heart beat so fast it skidded around the cavity of my chest. The disturbance clanged so loud the vibrations pulsed in between my thighs.

  The size of these men was overwhelming. I thought of Jerry with his lanky height. I’d seen him with his shirt off a handful of times when we were at the beach over Spring Break. He wasn’t flabby, but he didn’t have the definition I saw through these guys’ tight shirts.

  I should be freaking out right now. There were three massive guys surrounding me, and a fourth, the Asian one, leaned against one of the cars just watching it all go down. But then I remembered, that guy, the Asian guy watching, he was Shakira’s boyfriend or hookup or whatever. Surely they wouldn’t do anything to me if they knew I knew her. Or at least not if I could identify them in police photos. That is, if they left me alive.

  “It looks like a blow,” said the black guy.

  “Yeah, looks like it,” confirmed the blonde one.

  “She was trying to read the manual on how to fix it,” the Diesel magnet chuckled. His eyes never left my face. “You shouldn’t be out here by yourself. A piece of sweet meat like you would get eaten up real quick.”

  There was something in the way he said it that made the experience sound anything but scary. He smiled as though he sensed I wasn’t afraid. I felt like he was testing me, and surprisingly, it looked like I was passing the examination.

  “My boys’ll change the tire for you. Be quicker than waiting for your boyfriend to come and get you.”

  “My boyfriend’s not coming.” I blinked at my honest stupidity.

  He quirked an eyebrow.

  “I don’t even think he knows how to change a tire. I just said that so you wouldn’t think I was all alone.”

  “But you are all alone.”

  “Not anymore,” I said. “I doubt anybody will bother with me while you four are around.”

  “You think we won’t… bother with you?” He stepped in closer.

  I’d become excellent at observation over my years of studying insects under microscopes and in their natural habitats. I understood what the most minuscule of movements could mean. I watched this guy’s pupils dilate in the darkness. I watched him inhale his big chest to capacity. He straightened his broad shoulders bringing himself up to his full height. He was making himself appear bigger, trying to scare me away. The curious nerd in me wanted to understand why.

  I shook my head in answer to his question. “No. I don’t think you’ll bother with me. You would’ve already done that if you wanted to. You wouldn’t be fixing up my getaway vehicle right now if you wanted to do me harm. You’re trying to scare me at the same time as you’re giving me a way out.”

  His face lit up like a game board. He stepped into me, leaving me barely an inch of personal space. My butt bumped against the car door.

  “You’re wrong, sweet meat. I am going to bother with you.”

  He ran his fingers lightly across my forearm. My breath came out in tiny gasps at the sparks of electricity that ran across my arm where his fingers barely touched, raising the hairs there. Two of his thick fingers rested on my pulse at the end of my wrist. The beat raced a million miles per second.

  He continued down and unfurled my fingers. I heard a jangling sound. He freed my car keys from my clenched palm and tossed them to the two guys standing at the rear of my car.

  I looked over my shoulder to see the two big guys leaning against my trunk watching the entire exchange. Their gazes were hungry, but patient. My pulse sped even faster. For the first time tonight, I saw I was in real danger.

  The black guy came to the front of the car, popped the hood, and took out the tire from its compartment in the Beetle. He went back around and joined the white guy and then the two bent down and got to work. I turned my attention back to the man before me. He smiled down at me, still watching my every move. Still trying to see if I would scare away.

  “Aren’t you guys missing the race?” I asked.

  “I won the race ten minutes ago,” he said. “I always win. We were headed back to collect the winnings when I saw you on the side of the road.” He leaned his forearm on the hood of my car, trapping me in on one side. “You know you’re gonna have to pay for this tire change.”

  “Of course.” I made to turn around to grab my purse, but he stopped my hand on the car door.

  “I don’t want your money.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Two kisses.”

  “Kisses?” I frowned. “From me?”

  He nodded.

  “Why? Why would you want to kiss…me?”

  “You ever been kissed before, sweet meat?”

  I frowned at the name he kept calling me, certain it was an insult that I didn’t understand. Then I thought about his question.

  Jerry and I kissed. Lots of times. They were really nice kisses. I looked forward to them, especially now that he was using his tongue.

  “I’m gonna take that as a no if you have to think about it that hard,” he said. “And if you haven’t been kissed properly, I’m going to take it that you’ve never come before.”

  I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. I knew he saw my embarrassment in the dim light. But I also knew he w
as trying to rile me up again, trying to scare me away. He only blocked me in on one side. I could escape if I wanted to. He was toying with me like a predator did his prey.

  “Untouched and curious. Fresh, sweet meat just waiting to be lit on fire.” He practically purred. “You’re exactly my type.”

  A small group of fireflies glowed in the distance approaching us in the dark street. The street lamp flickered off at that moment, casting us into dark shadows.

  “How about it? Will you let me kiss you? Two times? I promise it will be done properly and thoroughly.”

  He was giving me a choice. I could say ‘no’ if I wanted to. I pressed my legs together. My one knee slicked off the other from the dampness that had gathered from his proximity and suggestions. The light above us blinked again, on and then off, casting us in bright light and then darkness.

  The light blinked out again, leaving only the moon’s glow. With the night to cover me, I tilted my head up in answer.

  Chapter Four

  It was just a kiss -two kisses.

  Two proper kisses all at once. He’d probably use tongue. No, he’d definitely use his tongue. And probably not just a chaste flick across my lips, or a tentative swipe at my tongue. He’d go all in. No waiting for months. No minding some long ago courting calendar.

  Two kisses from a guy I wasn’t likely to see ever again after tonight.

  Why not?

  I was out in the dark. No one would see. No one would know. He could be my big, dark secret that I thought about from time to time when the lights were all out, and I was in my three-story home, with my two kids, and my one husband. I could think back and remember the time I kissed that guy… I didn’t even know his name.

  I was about to ask him when he leaned in a fraction. He hovered above me, not touching me, not not-touching me either. His fingers whispered over the hairs on my wrists. His lips hovered over mine until only a layer of breath existed between us.

  “Fuck, sweet meat. You want it bad, don’t you? You need it.”

  He was right. I did. I didn’t know how bad I needed it until this very moment. This feeling of excitement. This feeling of my pulse racing. This feeling of freedom that was available in the middle of the night.

  All my life things came to me easily. I got good grades. I got into the college of my choice. My career studies came easily. The perfect guy for me showed up one day and asked me out.

  Everything was going according to some plan written out in a manual for good girls that I had never cracked open. I had never said this was the life I wanted. I’d never been given the opportunity to choose.

  Until now.

  He hovered over me. Waiting. Watching.

  I leaned into him. I felt the denim of his pants brush against my exposed knees and felt completely naked. I let out a whimper. And, as though that were his cue, his tongue slipped out of his mouth. That same tongue I’d watched trace around his lips as he’d looked at me like he wanted me, like he wanted to do the same to me. And then he was doing the same to me. His tongue traced the outline of my upper lips. It climbed the hill that was the right side of my mouth, rested in the divot at the top, and made a slow descent down.

  His tongue was warm, wet. He only gave me the tip, and he only gave it lightly. I felt disappointed that he went no further than my boyfriend.

  But then I felt him smile against my lips as though that had been another test. I must’ve gotten that challenge right too because I felt his breath enter me as he traced the pattern of my desire across the underside of my lip. He sucked that spot behind the divot at the crest of my upper lip.

  I opened wider, signaling he could take more.

  He didn’t.

  He reached the corner of one side of my mouth, then changed the direction of his tongue and slowly swept the bottom of my lip. I was trembling by the time he got to the center.

  He took small licks, like he was licking up the drippings of an ice cream cone. God, was I drooling?

  He was almost at the other end when a devastating thought hit me. He’s about to finish. When he reached the other corner of my mouth he’d be finished and it would be over. I wanted to launch a formal protest. This wasn’t a kiss, not a real, proper kiss.

  No sooner than I thought it did he pull away. I groaned in protest, lurching after him. But he didn’t go far. I lost my balance and crashed into his chest.

  He put his thumb under my chin and lifted my face to his. There was a spark of triumph on his handsome face. “Was that a yes?”

  I frowned. “A yes to what?”

  “Being kissed.”

  “You mean? You mean that wasn’t the first kiss?”

  He laughed. “Baby if that’s what you think a proper kiss is then you need to dump your boyfriend.”

  He pushed my hips back into the car with a thud. Not rough, but not gentle either. He boxed me in this time, both hands caging me in. Without warning his mouth came down on mine. There was no preamble. His tongue swept into my mouth and set about claiming every corner of my being.

  His body pressed into mine. His hands pushed me into the driver’s side window of my Bug. His hips pushed me against the door. And, oh god, I felt his erection at my belly. I’d never understood that when I read it in romance novels. Wouldn’t the heroine feel the hero’s erection pressed against her thigh when they kissed? Nope, not when the hero was well endowed and erect.

  My legs pressed together as more arousal leaked out of me. He lifted me up into the air, just a foot off the ground. When I came back down his knee was right in between my thighs, right where I needed it to be.

  I gasped at the impact of sensations. Then I groaned. I’d broken the kiss. Did that mean I only had one left?

  His mouth was on mine again. His hand was in my hair, fingers digging into the base of my skull. He gave a tug arching my head back and delving even further with his tongue. His other hand rested just under my breast. I couldn’t decide where to concentrate.

  He rubbed his knee between my thighs in a circular motion. Then I realized that wasn’t him making that tight circle. That was me. I was shamelessly humping the leg of a man, a street racer, whose name I didn’t know, out in the middle of the night, in the middle of the street.

  “Fuck, you need it, don’t you? So fucking sweet. That’s it; rub your sweet cunt on my knee. Get your juices on me.”

  His words were a punch to my gut. I should be offended that he’d said the C-word. It was disgusting, dirty -and I loved it.

  I sat down on his knee then, trying to relieve the sweet pressure that was building there. He was right; I’d never had an orgasm before. Jerry hadn’t ever tried to go down there. I’d never touched myself. But now all of my attention was focused on that spot. I was going to do it. I was going to have my first orgasm. I was going to come, from my cunt, right out on the street.

  The clanging of metal jerked me back to my senses.

  “Fuck, Crow,” he said. “Seriously? Can you handle your goddamn tool?”

  I hopped down off the knee between my legs and closed my thighs. I’d completely forgotten we’d had an audience. I couldn’t see the two guys fixing my wheel, but I’d heard them. On the other side of the street I saw the Asian guy still leaning against his car in the same pose, eyes still watching me with cool interest.

  What had I been thinking? I’d gotten so hot and bothered I’d nearly let a group of guys see me orgasm.

  Chapter Five

  “What’s the matter, sweet meat?”

  The man before me had removed his knee from between my legs, but he still had his body pressed up against mine. He held my chin in his thumb and forefinger, bringing my face and attention around to him.

  “My name’s Ellie.”

  “You still owe me another kiss, Ellie. Or did you change your mind?”

  I hadn’t changed my mind. I wanted that second kiss. Just not so public. “Could we… go somewhere?”

  “I don’t know you, Ellie. You could take advantage of me in some
dark corner if I went off with you.”

  It was so ludicrous I laughed in his face. I was 120 pounds in heavy boots and a parka. He had to be at least 220 of muscle and bulk.

  He ran his fingers over my brow. His eyes looked at me in wonder. “Man, you’re so fucking sweet. Let me have another taste of you, Ellie?”

  “What about your friends?”

  “My boys? They won’t touch you unless you invite them to. We like our women willing. Personally, I like them begging for it.”

  “But they can see.”

  “That bothers you?”

  I could see it was another of his challenges.

  “You were about to come, weren’t you Ellie? Your heart was racing, your blood was pumping. And that was before you remembered they were there. When you realized they were there your heart rate sped up even more, didn’t it?” He ran his hands over my racing pulse. “Imagine how hard you’ll come with that thought in the back of your mind.” He grinned in mock sadness. “Wait, you can’t imagine it because you’ve never come before.”

  And then he stepped away from me.

  I nearly fell after him.

  “Tell me you want it, Ellie. Tell me you want to come.”

  “I…”

  He watched me again, trying to see if he could intimidate me. Trying to see if he could make me flee. But I saw it in his eyes, he wanted me to stay. He desperately wanted it. I wanted it too.

  “You gotta ask for it, baby.”

  “I…,” I stammered. “I don’t know your name.”

  He smiled. I felt like prey caught in his trap. “It’s Hawk.”

  “Will you make me come please, Hawk?”

  The streetlight came on full bright, but the look on his face was brighter. “So. Fucking. Sweet.”

  He boxed me in against the car again. He was on me with a deeper hunger this time. I tried to get my hips closer to his. I even lifted my leg. He caught my thigh in his massive hand and hooked it over his hip. Then he did the same with the other. He angled me so that his erection pressed just where I needed it to.