Demon Night

feel sorry for myself again, so—”
    Two feet of bench seat was apparently nothing when a man had a reach as long as Ethan’s. His hands slid around her waist and he hauled her against him so quickly that she prepared herself for an onslaught on her mouth, but the first touch of his lips was soft and searching.
    That sweet heat slipped through her again, warming and melting her from the inside, leaving her skin hot and tight. He groaned, and it sounded like a denial, but then his big palm curved up from her stomach, and the light brush of his fingers over her breast was followed by a possessive stroke of his tongue past her lips.
    And it imploded, the burning ache sweeping from her skin to her core. His fingers tangled in her hair. He shifted, turned until he was half-lying on top of her, never relinquishing her lips. The seat cushioned her back, but there was nothing soft about Ethan’s body above hers.
    She could hardly breathe, he was so heavy and he was practically fucking her mouth with each deep lick, and then blazing a hot trail of need to her womb when she returned the penetrating thrust and he caught her tongue in a suckling kiss.
    Jesus. Excitement tore through her in an erotic wave, pushing her hips up, arching her back. Her fingers clenched on his waist. He was tilted awkwardly, his legs still beneath the wheel, but she pushed her foot over his thighs to grind closer, trying to kick and pull and do anything to have him big and hard between her legs.
    A flat, loud honk split the air. Ethan jerked his head up and away from her, turning to check each of the windows.
    “The horn,” Charlie gasped. “I hit it.”
    His eyes closed and his head dropped forward. His hips rocked toward her, giving her the pressure she’d wanted so, so badly, in just the right place.
    “God Almighty,” he groaned as she pushed her foot against the door and rocked him again. “I just meant it to be a little kiss. But I’m so fuzzy I can’t keep my hands—ah, not like that, Charlie—”
    “Then how?”
    His lids were heavy as he stared down at her, his fingers cupping her jaw and his thumb running across her moistened lips.
    She rolled her hips beneath him. “How?”
    “Not like this.” His scar whitened as he pressed his jaw tight. “Not this at all.”
    He had to be joking. But he wasn’t; he sat up and began untangling her legs.
    Her stomach aching, she shook off his hands and scooted away. “I don’t understand you, Drifter. You tell me not to want you, not to rely on you for anything but protection, that I’m too needy, and then you kiss me here and in the house and in the bar, knowing how much I—”
    She couldn’t continue. Hurt was ripening into anger and she began thinking that the knuckles of her left hand could use a good taste of his face, too.
    The window beside Ethan’s head shattered. Oh, fuck fuck. Her heart thundering, Charlie jumped for her door handle and turned to look, expecting vampires and demons and anything but the steel door crumpled around his elbow and hanging drunkenly in the frame.
    Ethan was staring straight ahead, frustration in every taut line of his body, in his hard profile.
    Goddamn him. It was one thing if he didn’t want her, but he was breaking doors and had an erection the size of a tree. “Why don’t we just fuck and get it over with? I’ll bend over the tailgate, and it’ll be done, and I swear I won’t ask for anything more from you and you won’t be sitting there with your dick busting through your pants.”
    He didn’t say anything, didn’t look at her. She picked up her milkshake and threw it at him. If he wouldn’t acknowledge her then he sure as hell wasn’t worth the pain of hitting.
    Ethan simply plucked the cup out of the air and set it upright on his knee without turning his head. “Now, Charlie, let me just ponder that image for a minute.”
    You bastard. But the words wouldn’t pass the constriction in her throat. She quietly pushed open her door, certain she’d never felt so stupid and dismissed in her life. The air was pungent with the fragrance of pine needles, the fresh scent of the lake, but she couldn’t breathe it in deep.
    Metal screeched behind her; then Ethan stood in front of her, blocking her exit from the cab. The edges of his lips were pale. “That was a damn fool thing to say. I meant to set you laughing, and then lay it out straight. Not put a hurt on you like this.”
    Her fists clenched. “Are you in my head?”
    “No.