Page 62 of Bonds of Shame, Bonds of Lust

His hand ran down my back. Slow. From between my shoulder blades to the small of my back and lower. I should have stopped him at the small of my back. I didn't.

His hand settled on my ass and pulled me into him. The hard line of him pressed against my belly. I knew that cock. I'd had it in my mouth. I'd had it inside me.

"Ricardo."

"Mmm?"

He kissed me properly, open-mouthed, and the desire went from request to demand, and I stopped pretending to myself that I was going to walk back to the car.

Oh no. I'm one of those women now.

He dropped to his knees faster than I expected. I'd braced for a slower negotiation, the kind where I got to keep pretending I was choosing. His mouth pressed against me through the fabric of my shorts and I gasped and took his head in both hands.

"Ricardo. Stop. Not here."

I didn't push him away. I pulled him closer. My mouth was telling him to stop and my hands were telling him to stay.

He breathed hot through the cotton. He kissed me through it like it wasn't there. I held him to me and stopped saying stop.

Then he pulled back on his own. "Wait," he said, breathless. "Wait."

I stood there keyed up so far past anything I recognized that I couldn't have walked the twenty feet to the trail if I'd wanted to.

Ricardo was opening the backpack.

He took out a blanket. A real one, thick, navy, the kind you buy for a beach. He'd folded it small and packed it in the bottom of the bag and carried it on the run.

He'd planned this. From the moment he texted me back he'd planned all of it.

I also noted that I wasn't turning around and walking to the car.

"Come," he said. "Come."

I sank to my knees and kissed him.

He lay back on the blanket, the afternoon sun coming through the leaves in pieces across his face and across his chest where his shirt had ridden up. He looked up at me like he'd been looking forward to the view for a week. He stayed on his back, hands light on my hips, content to watch. He liked to watch.

I straddled him. The thin damp fabric of my shorts against the thin fabric of his was the only thing between us, and I lowered myself onto the hard line of him through it.

Oh God. I need him inside me.

His hand slid into my shorts and his finger found me, and I came down on it in a small uncontrolled way I hadn't authorized.

That was when I heard it. Panting. The crunch of shoes on dirt.

I ducked against his neck. "Ricardo. Stop."

He didn't move. His hand stayed where it was. Two runners came down the trail, one just behind the other, twenty feet away, close enough that I could hear them breathe. Close enough to call to. They watched the path ahead of them. They watched their pace. They passed, and the crunch faded, and Ricardo started laughing into my neck.

"Oh my God," he said. "That was amazing."

His finger curled inside me. They'd been twenty feet away. They hadn't looked, and they could have, and the thrill of it was bigger than any I'd let myself have.

I want to be seen. God help me.

My hands were at his waistband before I decided to put them there. I pulled it down. He was hard, the head already wet.

"Tell me there's a condom in the backpack."