Her breath hitched. “Gage?” she whispered. “What are you doing?”
“I’m finding you irresistible,” he confessed, and nudged a shoulder strap off the slope of bone. It fell like the stem of a wilted flower against her upper arm. He did the same on the opposite side. “I need to look at you again, Skye. Will you let me?”
Instead of answering, she went wide-eyed and very still. Taking that as a yes, he inserted his forefinger at the center of her straight-cut bodice. Anticipation curled in his belly and his skin tightened against his bones as he tugged on the fabric, slowly working it below her breasts.
With a charged sort of bemusement, she stared down at his hand as if his touch enthralled her. She still wasn’t moving; there was just the finest trembling beneath her skin. Clearly she wasn’t immune to him, either, and in fact he thought she might be entering the same dreamlike state that he’d suffered from earlier that day.
He’d say he took cold-blooded advantage of it, but his blood was running hot, boiling even, burning through his veins and making his pulse jump.
“Skye,” he whispered, his tone reverent, as his gentle tugs and pulls resulted in her breasts popping free. It seemed they both held their breath then while they watched her nipples tighten on their own to stiff points.
“I...” She swallowed, as if needing to lubricate her dry throat. “Funny how short a time it takes to get accustomed to exposing more skin.”
It sounded like a little joke, but her expression was flat-out serious. He brushed the back of his knuckles against the jutting tips of her breasts. Her breath hitched as he took one between his fingers with a tender pinch. “It’s because you trust me,” he said.
“I do.” She seemed to be marshaling some thought, even as she stared, fascinated, at the hand that toyed with her breast. “But...but you can trust me, too.”
“Mmm.” He leaned forward to press his mouth to her temple. Affection and sexual ache had never been a twosome in his mind, but when it came to Skye, he felt both in equal measure.
“Wait,” she said, sounding almost fretful as he dropped kisses across her forehead. “You’re making me forget. I had something I wanted to talk to you about. Ask you.”
He hardened his touch on her nipple and she gasped. “Ask away,” he murmured against her ear, then traced the curve of the rim with his tongue.
“Something...” Her word ended on a groan as he bit her lobe.
“Something?” he prompted, smiling against her cheek. God, how he loved her involuntary, shivery reaction to him. Her whole body responded to his touch. He could feel the goose bumps rising, the heat infusing her skin.
Her head turned, her mouth seeking his.
He withheld the kiss, drawing back, teasing out the desire. “You wanted to ask?”
Her hands clutched his biceps. She was clearly dazed. “What?”
“Your question, baby.” He was hard and throbbing everywhere, but how sweet it was to have the power to subvert her thought processes. “What do you want to know?”
She blinked a couple of times, her gaze going from bleary to semiclear. “I...I want to know what happened to you,” she said, her voice low and still husky with desire. “Because something did. Something bad happened right before you came back.”
Gage froze. Shit. He wasn’t yet home free. Another person was after his secrets tonight. “No, Skye...”
Her mouth went mulish and she brushed his hand away to right her bodice, yanking it upward. The interior of the car seemed to cool by several degrees. “Trust goes in both directions,” she said, sounding more determined by the second. “You know you can tell me.”
But telling would do no one any favors, not that he would admit to even that. So it came down to redirecting her focus, right here, right now. Perhaps if she hadn’t started pressing for answers, he would have marshaled some second thoughts about pursuing more intimacy. Perhaps he would have settled for appeasing the devil on his shoulder with a mere few kisses before letting her go. But now there was only one guaranteed diversion.
To begin, he leaned close again and kissed her.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
GAGE’S MOUTH WAS HOT and his tongue slid into Skye’s, stealing her breath and taking her wits right along with it. She’d managed to drag herself out of the sexual spell he’d cast over her for a brief moment, but now he threw her straight overboard again. The fact that he’d avoided her question barely registered.
Her hands clutched at his biceps, trying to stay afloat, but she was sinking fast, her mind going dizzy as prickling heat broke out everywhere—on bare skin and clothed skin, sensitizing private places that swelled and throbbed along with her heavy heartbeat.
Protest was a flickering thought, like the TV’s light against the wall in a darkened room. She closed her eyes, ignoring it to ride the rising pleasure. It felt so good to be touched, to have his warm, male presence beside her, both secure and exciting. She’d worried that trying a full-on sex act with him wouldn’t work, but everything seemed to be full speed ahead, so why not go with the flow?
His lips crossed her cheek and angled down her throat. Her head fell back and he speared his hand in the back of her hair to hold her in place. He feasted on her skin and she felt her blood rising to the surface to meet his kiss. Her breasts ached, pushing against the bodice of her dress, and she moaned, grabbing blindly for his hand so he could provide some relief with a firm, masculine touch.
He smiled against her skin and let her press his palm to her fabric-covered chest. But he didn’t knead her skin or test the fullness. Instead, he merely let his heat transfer through the material, adding kindling to the fire already inside her. “Maybe we should change the venue,” he murmured.
Change the venue? The phrase sounded too technical for her brain, reduced as it was to primitive, primal reactions. “I don’t know what that means,” she said, then whimpered as he moved upward to suck on her earlobe.
His laugh was seductive in its arrogant surety. She should dislike it, she thought, but in the state she was in and because of her tenuous hold on her sexuality, she was grateful that he seemed certain of exactly how to proceed.
He could be the one in charge, she thought. No problem. Please. And then she whispered it, her voice breaking in desperation for something more. “Please, Gage. Please.”
He laughed again, soft and indulgent. “Let’s go inside.”
She fumbled with the handle of the door, but her fingers were clumsy. Gage had it open before she did, and then she realized she’d forgotten she’d toed off her sandals. Leaning over, she reached for them, but Gage was again first. The crushed shells on the driveway crunched as he squatted and took up her shoe, then slipped her foot inside. His fingers brushed her bare skin as he made quick work of the fastening. Then she felt his mouth against her ankle.
She sucked in a startled breath at the hot wetness of the kiss, shuddering with the unexpected delight. He placed a second on her shin, then another on her knee, sending a hum of bliss up her femoral artery and from there to the rest of her body. Placing his palm over that damp third kiss, he spun her on the leather seat so her legs dangled out the opening. Her left shoe was buckled as deftly as the first.
Trembling, she waiting for a second set of kisses, and he didn’t disappoint. His mouth brushed her ankle, the sleek skin of her calf, the cap of her knee. Then, sliding the blades of his hands inward, he nudged her knees apart. The hem of her dress, caught at his wrists, rose with the movement, almost to the bottom edge of her panties.
Cool air washed her hot skin. Skye stared, captivated, as he lowered his head and the rasp of his evening beard teased the soft inner skin of her upper leg. Her hand tangled in the silky dark locks of his hair, but she didn’t have the strength to push him away. Or the will. She could only quiver as he gave a tiny bite to the vulnerable flesh, moan as he sucked there, hard. The sweet, stinging delight hadn’t abated before he left a second love bite on the other inner thigh.
Desire was cr
ashing her nervous system and she was certain she couldn’t walk as his hands curled around her waist to draw her to her feet. “I won’t be able to stand,” she protested.
“I’ll help,” he promised. “C’mon, honey.”
Her body swayed as her weight landed on her feet and he had to slide an arm around her hips to keep her upright and against him. “Told you,” she said, leaning into his chest.
He kissed her cheek, her ear, her temple. “You should come with a warning label.”
“What?” She frowned up at him.
“‘Combustible,’” he said. “I expected you’d be a lot harder to warm up, lady.”
“I am hard to warm up! I’ve always been hard to warm up, even before—” She broke off, not wanting to voice the thought. It had no place here, not now. Not tonight.
Not when he was laughing at her again, in that indulgent, arrogant way he had. “It’s just me, then, I guess,” he said, looking smug.
She was too grateful, too needy, to argue with him at the moment. Lifting to her toes, she fitted her mouth to his and kissed the superior smile from his face. He cupped the back of her head with his palm, and their mouths worked at each other, finding angles and tasting surfaces, until Skye broke away with a gasp.
Clinging to Gage, she sucked in great lungfuls of air. “Oh, God.”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, his hot breath stirring her hair. “This is going to be so good.”
It was going to be everything she’d worried she’d never have, she thought as he led her toward Beach House No. 9. He continued to drop random kisses on her face and hair as they approached the door, as if he couldn’t stand not to have his mouth on her. She gripped him in turn, one hand fisted in the shirt at the small of his back.
They climbed the short flight of steps and then he fished for the keys. She leaned into him as he unlocked the door and pushed it open. Their hands entwined, he drew her inside.
Where lights blazed.
Blinking against the harshness, Skye felt as if she’d been slapped awake. Her heartbeat slowed and the simmering desire cooled a little. She glanced over her shoulder, at the dark night. People kept insisting there was magic at Beach House No. 9, but to her it had been outside—in the shadows, where he’d stoked her desire with burning kisses.
“What’s wrong?” Gage asked.
“It’s...bright.”
An odd expression crossed his face and she couldn’t decipher it, although there was enough illumination for intricate surgery. “Yeah,” he said, then lifted his free hand. He tucked her hair behind her ear, rubbed the pad of his thumb across her lower lip. “Let me dim it down a bit...or would you like to go home? Has it killed the mood?”
The strong lamplight had something going for it—it clearly displayed the rugged good looks of the man still holding her hand. Much of the time when she thought of Gage, what occurred to her first was his voice in the letters he’d sent to her, or his view of the world that she glimpsed through the photographs he took. But now there was no missing the rugged, masculine splendor of him. In a pair of barley-colored, heavy linen pants that he wore with a white, loose-weave shirt, he appeared both elegant and exotic. He might have stepped from an isolated jungle bar where he’d just met with a reclusive warlord. Or perhaps he was bound for a small South American country via single-prop airplane.
There was an aura of relaxed expectation surrounding him, as if he was ever prepared for a rebel uprising or a knife fight with a local thug...but was sure as hell going to enjoy himself until that eventuality actually came to be.
As she continued to study him, his piercing, turquoise eyes narrowed, and he gave her a quizzical glance. “Honey?” he said, brushing his thumb over her mouth again. Her lips began to throb and her heart thudded painfully against her ribs, its tempo once again speeding up.
Dark or bright, she still wanted him.
He was angled cheekbones and male ego, black-pepper whiskers and searing kisses. She tightened her fingers on the hand holding hers and wrapped the others around his heavy wrist to draw him close, feeling her temperature rise to fever level. “I want you,” she said fiercely, because it was true and the opportunity might never come again. “I want this.”
His forehead touched hers. “Go outside on the deck for a minute,” he said. “I’ll pour you some wine, turn down some lights.”
Excitement flowing like kerosene into her already burning bloodstream, Skye obeyed. She kept her back to the house as she stood outside, her gaze on the surf. Still, she was aware of lights going off, others dimming. In a few minutes, she felt the wooden planks beneath her feet reverberate with his footsteps.
She shivered in anticipation, quivering harder when his hand cupped the nape of her neck, beneath her hair. He turned her and placed the stem of a wineglass in her hand.
Flickering candlelight caught her gaze. She angled her head toward the house and saw that the living room was dark now, except for the fat pillar candles that sat on the mantel and on the coffee table. She wondered if he’d lit the others that were in the big master bedroom downstairs. There was one on the long bureau, she knew. A second and third on the small tables that flanked the bed.
Where she would lie with Gage, the two of them tonight, naked together. Swallowing hard, she looked back at him. “I—” A sight over his shoulder gave her sudden pause. “Oh, no,” she said.
“What?”
“Oh, no.” She pressed her palm over her heart, which was thudding for an entirely different reason now. “They’re back,” she whispered, her body going cold, desire abating. “They’re back.”
Gage glanced behind him. “Who’s back? Honey, what—”
“The men,” she croaked out. “That man.”
“What are you talking about?”
Her finger shook as she pointed at a cottage up the beach. “The Rutherfords are supposed to be gone. They went up the coast for a few days. There’s someone in there—you can tell.”
“Maybe they decided to postpone their trip.”
She shook her head. “I waved at them as they drove off. Mary Rutherford called when they were an hour out and asked me to go in and check that the iron was off. I know I locked up behind me.”
Gage had turned fully around to inspect the cottage in question. Lights were on in the windows, and there was movement behind the drawn sheer curtains. “I’ll go check it out. You stay here.”
She clutched at him. “No! It’s dangerous. We should call the police, or...”
“And I will,” Gage said gently, “if I think there’s a problem. You go inside No. 9 and lock the door. I’ll be right back.”
Once he left, her stomach roiling with anxiety, Skye paced around the beach house’s living room. She turned on the overhead light, and while both the front and sliding deck door were locked, fear kept a stranglehold on her throat. Gage was out there, putting himself at risk. Cold at the thought, she grabbed up the crocheted throw hanging over the couch and wrapped herself in the fabric.
The act of covering up calmed her a little, and she sat on the edge of a seat cushion, rocking back and forth. The sound of the surf was loud in the room, and she tried breathing along with it, but nothing calmed her churning belly or her hyperactive imagination. It spun a dozen scenarios.
Trying to hide from them, Skye pulled the woolen throw over her head. She pressed her forehead to her knees and whispered to herself over and over and over. “It will be all right. It will be all right. It will be all right.”
At the rap of knuckles on glass, she jackknifed up, swallowing a shriek. Her brain hiccupped before she recognized Gage, standing on the deck. She scurried to the slider and fumbled with the locking mechanism. “Sorry,” she called, her voice anxious. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, honey,” he called through the glass. “Take a breath. Everything’s okay.”
When the door finally snapped open, she didn’t have the muscle power to slide it wide. Gage took over, then stepped inside, bringing the scents of
salted air and wet ocean with him.
Her gaze ran over him. “Was it them? Did you call the police?” She darted around him to once again flip the lock. “Did they see you?”
“Skye.” He touched her shoulder.
She jerked at the contact, then whirled, her shoulders pressed to the glass. The fight-or-flight response tasted bitter on her tongue, and she stared at him, her bones rattled by tremors.
Gage went still. “Easy, easy. It wasn’t anything you’re thinking.”
“What...” She swallowed, trying to ease her dry mouth. “What...who...exactly was it?”
“Monica Rutherford, and a handful of her teenage friends.”
“Monica?” She was seventeen years old, going into her senior year at high school. The girl, her parents and her younger siblings had been spending a month at the beach for the past few years, an escape from the summer heat in the nearby San Gabriel Valley. “Her mom said she was going to be staying with a school friend while they took their short trip.”
“Monica and company thought it would be more fun to escape adult supervision by overnighting at the beach house.”
Skye let out a shaky breath. “Uh-oh.”
“Our young friend Monica has a healthy guilty conscience, however. The minute I arrived and mentioned you expected the house to be empty, she and her buddies couldn’t jump into their car fast enough.”
“Were they—”
“I didn’t see any signs of drugs or alcohol. They promised they were heading straight back to Pasadena.”
Skye stumbled to the couch, dropped onto it.
“I made sure the place was locked up tight,” Gage added. “That’s the end of it. They won’t worry you like that again.”
Eyes closing, she rested her head against the back cushion, feeling both weary and resigned. “I don’t think that’s the end of it.”
“Sure it is,” Gage said. “You have my personal guarantee.”
She rolled her head to look at him. “Until the next time something unexpected but perfectly innocuous turns up. Then I’ll have another freak-out. Face it. I’m crazy.”
Almost Paradise (Book 4) Page 15
