Page 22 of Unlocked Dive

“You’re gripping that steering wheel so tight, my cock is getting jealous, and I can hear your jaw grinding from here.”

“Jesus. Can you stop talking about your dick for five minutes? Save it for someone your own age.” I put all the derision I can into the words and let myself meet his eyes. Instead of backing off, he tilts his head, studying me.

“Someone like Josha?” he asks after a beat.

“You two seemed to be getting along.” It’s meant to sound casual, but it comes out through gritted teeth. I can’t keep sitting here, exposed, while his eyes dig through my defenses like our ages are reversed. “Please just get in the car?”

He laughs then and opens my door, reaching between my legs for the lever that slides the seat back.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting in the car.” And then he climbs up to straddle me while I’m still reeling from his hand on my thigh and the sight of his midnight neon hair in my lap.

My hands fly to his hips, locking him in place before he can shift forward and feel my rapidly growing erection. Undaunted, his fingers slip beneath the hem of my T-shirt to skim over my abs and trace the line of hair running down from my navel.

“This is not what I meant,” I choke out, anger evaporating like oxygen as my brain scrambles to adjust to the turn of events.

“You think I want a blushing virgin?” he asks, his lips against my ear. “That’s never been my style.” He leans back with that arched left brow, daring me to ask the obvious question. For once, Gabriel’s specter is no more than a far-offflicker.

“Then what is?” Apparently, on top of losing the ability to formulate a coherent thought, I am also now a slave to his wicked mouth.

“I like to take guys who think they’re in charge and show them that they’re not.” There’s a hint of confession beneath the smolder, perfectly tailored to slink past my rapidly crumbling barriers. “Breaking them is almost as much fun as fucking them.”

I can almost see it—the banter and the battle of wills and the inevitable triumph—That Echo. Cocky and reckless and chasing the same.

“Sounds more Narcissus than Echo,” I observe, “and it doesn’t sound like I’m your type either. No one’s ever accused me of thinking I’m in charge.” Notaccommodating, considerate, carefulByrd.

“I think my tastes are changing.” He slides his hands up my chest and laces them at the base of my skull before running his thumbs through the scruff of beard along my jaw. “The only part of you I want to break is your self-control.”

On the last word, he rolls his hips, bringing the hard ridge of his cock against mine, and the groan that escapes me sounds like surrender.

“Echo.” It’s a warning. A desperate plea. My hands are clenched around the firm slope of his ass, and my hips rock helplessly under him. His lips are on my throat, blazing along my rocketing pulse.

“Break for me,” he breathes, and I feel the last of my sanity siphoning into his storm.

“So you can fuck me?” The words are thrown out like fingernails scrabbling for purchase, heedless of the cost.

It works. He rears back, eyes wide with shocked heat, and his body goes still.

“Would you let me?” he asks.

No. Yes. Not in the car.Nothing comes out but a shuddering breath. Understanding ripples across his features.

“How many guys have you been with?”

“Three.”Don’t ask me about them. Especially not him.

“Have you ever bottomed?” This time, he punctuates the question with another rock of his hips, as if testing my resolve.

“No.”I have to tell him.I can’t touch him like this with Gabriel’s shade between us.

If you tell him, he’ll never let you touch him again.

That’s the whole point.

Is it?I shake my head a fraction, and something flashes in his eyes.

He answers my denial with a kiss, twining his arms around my neck and pressing all the lethal lines of his body against mine. I forfeit the internal battle on a groan—my hands are under his shirt, sliding over his sleekly muscled back to grip his shoulders, and his mouth is melting, I’m melting, the world is melting.