Page 23 of Race With The Devil

My scalp cried, come back! You’re not done! I hated whoever had texted him, whoever was important enough to ruin our idyllic time. Even though I was lying nearly flat, I could still see this person annoyed him, and he slid the phone into his back pocket without responding.

I squirmed out of sheer horniness when he squished detangling product on my hair and returned with the warm water hose. My nipples under the push-up bra stuck out like bullets. My body advertised its wares without consulting with me.

But the first millisecond Tanner’s rough fingertips slid across my scalp, I wasn’t sure I could take it. Especially when he got near my nape with his firm but tight little squiggles, unnecessarily circling over and over the same most sensual spot, well, I actually felt a drip roll down between my thighs.

Talking would fill in the uncomfortable erotic void. “Who texted? Seemed to be someone important.”

His body heat at crotch level slammed me in the shoulders. He stroked my scalp with long, drawn out and almost painful slides of his fingers.

“Joy,” he muttered.

“Who?”

“Joy. Ex.”

“Oh!” It was hard to describe at that moment how my heart sank lower than the curb.

Of course he had an ex. He may have been locked up for ten years, but he no doubt more than made up for it when he got out of the big house. “You’re . . . trying to stay away from her?”

He snorted, and now I felt the tension through his fingertips. He was rinsing my former braids, smoothing them out between his fingers as one would feel spun gold. I had the most boring dark brown hair color, so I’d always jazzed it up with at least highlights, sometimes giant curly swirls of pigtails that looked to have been made over beer cans.

“Like Tesla tried to stay away from Edison.”

I just knew that Tesla was a car, so I said, “Like Robert Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.”

“Good one.” He sounded like he was grinning as he disentangled the last of my braids. I had to close my eyes and breathe deeply, thinking of what was next.

The shampoo.

The moment might be too sexual if I didn’t talk over it. He seemed to be back there, sniffing products, selecting one. “Why are you trying to stay away from her?”

He didn’t answer right away, not until he found the correct scent. I heard him sensually mush two palms full of the stuff, and the scent wafted to my nostrils. Sort of a grapefruit and amber. He plunged his hands into my hair and rapidly began rubbing my mastoid, behind my ears. Tanner’s hands were so close to my . . . neck.

“Why’d you tense just now?” he asked. “Don’t like your neck being touched?”

“Exactly,” I croaked, an obvious lump in my throat.

“Ah,” he said, as though he knew Gary Gregario had habitually enjoyed “breath play,” a cop-out way of describing strangulation. I hadn’t asked Lyric if he’d done that to her. Details had a way of bringing everything back. It was enough that I’d helped save her. “I’ll stay back here, around your skull. How’s that?”

I smiled with satisfaction. “So, Joy is texting you, wanting to get back together?” I tried to sound casual. Lord knows I did. But my overt interest sang out like an aria.

Tanner politely pretended not to notice. “Yeah. I have no interest in that.”

“Oh, she broke up with you the first time? A bruised ego is hard to mend.”

He didn’t answer right away. Boy, he was a hard nut to crack. “I guess now I’m a hairdresser, I need to gossip like the rest of them.”

I dared to speak my mind. “Well, don’t fall for it again. You can never go home, right?”

I can’t even describe how great Tanner was making me feel. His fingertips made squiggly, soapy circles on my skull. Each sexy squirm zapped my inner pussy, making me tremble to the core. It was like jumping in a cool stream after a sweaty hike—refreshing, rejuvenating. Why did life bother waking me up? I could just float at the mercy of Tanner Principato’s hands forever.

“Did you love her?”

Tanner snorted, an erotic caveman sound. Was it my imagination, or was his dick plumping up? The heat near my shoulder seemed fit to burn me. He always had a nice, beefy package anyway. But now I had the instinct that I could turn my head a couple inches and be faced with a juicy cock. I had better not turn my head. “Yes. That makes it harder to leave, doesn’t it?”

Was he asking me a question? The image of Evan’s face flashed through my brain. I fucking hated when that happened. Evan was a professional photographer I’d run into at HempCon. Glamor photographers were just giant sleazebags, but Evan seemed different. His intimate sessions with me made me feel special, like he wasn’t into it just for T and A. He draped me in items that actually covered my nipples, for example. “Yes. I was in love once. I hope it never happens again.”

“Don’t say that, darlin’. Love is the most powerful emotion on the face of the planet.”