Rather than the angry retort he expected, she responded with a gleam of defiance in her eyes. “Maybe you should.”

In the blink of an eye, the tension in the car transformed into a thick canopy of heat.

With a low growl, Reed leaned over the center console and captured her lips in a hard kiss. Then he pulled back slightly, hissing a warning against her mouth. “You’re trouble. Go home and put some ice on your cheek.”

“No.” She smirked at him.

“Darcy…”

“I don’t feel like going home yet. So whatcha gonna do about it? Punish me?”

Sweet baby Jesus. No woman had ever aggravated him this much. And for someone who worked in an environment that revolved around enforcing rules and following directions, Darcy sure as hell didn’t subscribe to her own teaching philosophy.

All she ever did was argue with him, challenge him, and at the moment, he was torn between yelling at her again, and ripping her clothes off and screwing her into silence.

Reed slowly released a breath. “Get in the backseat. Now.”

It was almost comical how fast she scrambled. Her excitement incinerated the air, and he was surprised that the windows didn’t fog up from all the heat she was radiating. But he didn’t expect them to stay transparent for long. The temperature spiked by about a hundred degrees as he climbed into the back with her. It was hard to maneuver in such a cramped space, but luckily they didn’t require much room for what he had in mind.

Slow and methodical, Reed undid the top button of her jeans, his gaze glued to her flushed face. Her lips had parted, the anticipation in her eyes so powerful it seared right through him and turned his c**k to granite.

“Next time I say wait here, you’d better goddamn listen.” His voice was tinged with danger.

“Yeah, and what if I don’t want to listen?” Darcy shot back.

He pushed her jeans down her hips, then freed one silky leg from the denim. Her black bikini panties were so skimpy they barely covered her mound, and his mouth filled with saliva as he stared at her creamy thighs.

“Then that would make you a bad girl, wouldn’t it? And do you want to know what I do to bad girls?” Reed dragged his own zipper down, the tick-tick-tick of metallic teeth being released echoing in the car. “I f**k them. I f**k them hard.”

“Oh God.” Darcy squirmed beneath him, her arousal surrounding him like a seductive mist.

He cupped her damp panties with one hand and discovered that she was soaking wet. His c**k pulsed, a jolt of need drawing his balls up tight. Christ almighty. He needed to be inside her more than he needed his next breath.

He eased his pants lower and released his c**k from his boxer briefs. He paused to slip a condom packet out of his pocket, tore it open with his teeth, and sheathed himself. A second later, he drove his aching c**k into her tight channel, so deep that the force of his hips had their bodies sliding toward the door and Darcy’s head bumping the handle.

She didn’t seem to care—her arms came around him, grasping the back of his head to bring him down for a kiss. Their mouths locked as he pumped inside her, over and over again, each unforgiving thrust stealing another piece of his sanity, another shard of his self-control.

“I couldn’t handle it if something happened to you,” he choked out, startled by the desperate note he heard in his voice.

Her eyes widened, lips parting in surprise. “Oh.” She visibly swallowed as their bodies went still. “I’m fine, Reed. I really am. You don’t have to worry about—”

He kissed her before she could finish, the adrenaline from the fight and the panic from seeing Darcy get hurt still burning like jet fuel in his bloodstream. Christ, he didn’t want to think about any of that right now. He just wanted…needed…her.

Groaning, he resumed the frantic pace, determined to send both of them over the edge.

“Don’t stop. Don’t ever, ever stop.” Her agonized pleas tickled his lips, and when she shifted her head and sank her teeth into his shoulder, Reed growled in pain and thrust harder.

He filled her with his cock, squeezing her br**sts over her shirt as adrenaline and anger and concern and lust mingled together to fuel a furious tempo that set off a bone-melting release that spread through his body like waves of lava. He couldn’t control it, couldn’t wait for Darcy to reach that same earth-shattering apex, but fortunately she wasn’t far behind, and his dick remained rock hard as he f**ked her through her climax despite the fact that his own had turned his brain and body to jelly.

Darcy rocked beneath him, her body trembling as she rode out the orgasm. Her hot sheath squeezed him so tight his c**k jerked inside her again, pulsing with pure, unadulterated ecstasy.

Groaning, Reed collapsed on top of her, doing his best not to crush her with his weight. Again, she didn’t seem to mind, holding him close as she ran her fingers through his hair.

“I think I need to piss you off more often.” The words shuddered out on a laugh. “Because I’m totally digging your choice of punishment.”

Now that he’d come down from the orgasmic high and his brain had started functioning again, the feeling of deep betrayal returned.

“I was the one who hired him,” Reed mumbled. “Of all the stupid, irresponsible decisions—”

“Hey,” she said firmly. “You didn’t know what he was up to. You were just helping out a friend.”

A friend. Ha. More like a fellow troublemaker from his f**k-up days.