Justice

by Karen Robards

  Jess was just getting ready to listen to them when the kitchen light came on, startling her so much that she gasped and whirled. In the process, her elbow caught the glass. It crashed to the floor and shattered, showering her feet with an explosion of cold milk and glass.

  “What the …?” It was Mark, of course, who stood in the doorway staring at her. Stumbling back, Jess registered that he was wearing only boxers and looking as hot as only Mark could look, when he barked, “Don’t move.”

  But the warning came too late as Jess’s foot came down hard on a dagger-like shard of glass.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Ow!” Her face twisted with pain.

  “Damn it, I said don’t move.”

  “You scared me to death!”

  Having fallen back against the counter, she shot him an accusing look even as she lifted her foot to check the damage. What she saw made her wince. A sliver of glass about half as long as her little finger stuck out of the ball of her foot just below her second toe. Blood welled around it. She was going to have to pull it out, and she was just bracing herself to do it when Mark, barefoot and maneuvering carefully to avoid both the glass and the spilled milk, reached her.

  “Here, let me see.” Scooping her up in his arms, Mark stepped back out of the mess with her, then deposited her on the counter a safe distance away. The smooth white Corian felt cold and alien against the backs of her bare thighs, giving her a moment of acute self-awareness in which she registered that the lavender sleep shirt she was wearing was all she was wearing, and it had ridden up to dangerous heights.

  With Mark wrapping his hand around her ankle and lifting her wounded foot so that he could inspect it, there wasn’t a whole lot she could do on the order of yanking her hem down. A quick glance reassured her that she was at least minimally decent. All that was on display were her slim bare legs.

  He touched the ball of her foot with a gentle thumb.

  “Yow. Be careful.”

  “What the hell were you doing in the kitchen in the middle of the night anyway?”

  “I couldn’t sleep. I got some milk.”

  He rolled his eyes. “You ever hear of turning on the light first? Then maybe I wouldn’t have had to get up to check what all the stealthy activity going on in the kitchen was.”

  “Are you blaming me?”

  Blood ran across her foot to drip toward the floor now. Just looking at the piece of glass sticking out of her flesh surrounded by all that welling blood made her feel a little light-headed. Wrapping her hands around the smooth edge of the counter for stability, she leaned back against the cabinets behind her and closed her eyes.

  “Hold tight.”

  That was all the warning she got before the grip on her ankle tightened and the glass was yanked out of her foot.

  “Ow!” She jackknifed upright. Her eyes flashed open. Her glasses slid down her nose, reminding her that she was wearing them, that her hair was twisted up for sleep, that she had on no makeup except for a little ChapStick. In other words, a sex kitten she wasn’t, which was all to the good. Given that the half-naked guy in her kitchen was Mark, she did not want to go there. Pushing her glasses firmly back into place, she looked down at the blood now flowing from the slit in the bottom of her foot, then up at Mark. He was already putting the bloody shard on the counter. Feeling as limp as a soggy noodle, she leaned back against the cabinets again and watched as he grabbed some paper towels from the holder, then pressed them to the bottom of her foot.

  “That hurt,” she added belatedly.

  “I’m sorry.” Cradling her foot in one hand, he stanched the blood as best he could, then lifted the wad of paper towels away to inspect the damage, then stanched some more.

  “Just so we’re clear, this is all your fault. If you hadn’t startled me, I wouldn’t have knocked over the glass.” Her breathing was normalizing now, and some of the wooziness was starting to fade.

  “Fine. I take full responsibility, okay?”

  That took the wind out of her sails. “You know perfectly well it wasn’t your fault.”

  “Yeah, I know. Does it still hurt?”

  Jess almost said no out of habit, but then she opted for honesty. “A little.”

  His mouth thinned. “You’re lucky it’s not too deep. Do you still have that first-aid kit in your bathroom?”

  “Yes.”

  Looping more paper towels around her foot in rough approximation of a bandage, he said, “Let’s go.”

  He scooped her up again, which didn’t surprise her because that was how Mark operated, taking advantage of her lack of size to cart her around pretty much at will. She curled an arm around his neck as he carried her down the dark hall toward her bedroom, then she found herself disturbed by how automatic the action seemed. She was feeling recovered enough by this time to notice again that he was naked except for his boxers, and all those firm muscles covered in warm flesh felt just exactly the way she remembered them.

  Sexy as hell.

  He smelled sexy, too. Warmly masculine, with the merest hint of Grace’s gardenia-scented soap.

  Completely against her will, Jess felt her heartbeat quicken.

  “Hit the light, would you?” he asked, and she realized that they had gone through her dark bedroom to the bathroom beyond. Her hand brushed the cool tile wall as she did as he requested. The resultant brilliant illumination gave the phrase “blinded by the light” a whole new meaning, but she welcomed the brightness as an antidote to her sudden acute awareness of him. Or at least, she thought it might serve as an antidote until he sat her down on the vanity’s wide counter and she looked up at him.

  He met her gaze, his eyes very blue in the unforgiving light. His hair was ruffled with sleep, and stubble darkened his jaw. The magenta boxers he wore rendered him minimally decent, but they left way too much of him bare for her peace of mind. Broad, well-muscled shoulders loomed above her, and if she refused to look at them she could instead let her eyes rest on a wide chest with a thick wedge of light brown hair, or sculpted arms, or a truly impressive six-pack punctuated by his belly button and, just an inch or so lower down, bisected by the boxer’s waistband. Lower than that she refused to allow her eyes to wander, although she knew without needing to look what was there. Lean hips, long, powerful legs, well-shaped feet.

  I want him.

  The thought came out of nowhere. Jess set her teeth. But there was nothing she could do about her pulse, which was going crazy, or her body, which was starting to heat.

  He turned on the faucet, then pulled the paper towel swaddling off her foot.

  “Put your foot under the water.”

  Scooting around, glad of the distraction, she did as he told her, thrusting her foot beneath the rush of cool water shooting into the sink while he opened the medicine cabinet. Tugging at her shirt again, Jess got a good look at herself in the mirror on the open cabinet door while he rummaged around inside. Her glasses were big and black, their coke-bottle lenses slightly magnifying her eyes, and they dominated her small face. Her hair was falling down from the twist she had pinned it into so that wavy blond tendrils caressed her cheeks and neck and all but covered the bruise on her temple. Her mouth was pale and soft from the ChapStick. The hollow of her neck and her delicate collarbone were just visible above the neck of her sleep shirt, which was loose fitting and comfortable and that was about it.

  The blond hair helped, she supposed, but the sad truth was, smokin’ hot wasn’t the first descriptive phrase that came to mind when she looked at her reflection. Try kinda cute, sorta wholesome, and more than a little bit nerdy.

  Ouch. Facing the fact that he was the beauty in the room hurt more than her foot.

  “Does it feel like there’s any glass still in there?” Mark shut the cabinet door with a snap, turned off the water, and picked up her foot again. Luckily, the bleeding seemed to have slowed to an ooze.

  “No. Ow. You know, I can do this myself.”

  That “Ow” had come as he’d u
pended a bottle of hydrogen peroxide over the cut. They both watched white foam bubble up.

  “You just want me to go clean up the mess you made in the kitchen.”

  Jess would have smiled if she hadn’t been battling a severe reaction to so much half-naked masculinity. “Seriously. I can. If you’ll get out of here, I will.”

  “You know how to do a butterfly bandage?”

  “No.”

  “Then sit there and let me do it.”

  He patted her foot dry with the discarded paper towels as he spoke. Left with nothing to say, Jess watched, wincing a little, as he dabbed antibiotic ointment on the cut, then pulled the edges together by deft use of a pair of Band-Aids. His hands looked big and dark against her pale foot, but his touch was gentle. Leaning back against the cool hardness of the white tile wall, she absorbed the concentration in his expression, the play of muscles in his arms and chest as he moved, the smooth tan of his skin.

  And her stupid, stupid heart beat faster yet.

  “How does that feel?” He looked up, caught her staring. His eyes took on a gleam that she recognized with alarm. The problem was, Mark knew her too well. She glanced hastily down at her foot.

  “F-fine. Better.”

  “You’re going to be limping tomorrow.”

  “I know. Damn it.”

  Determined to be done with this, Jess swung her legs around in preparation for scooting off the counter. The problem inherent with that became evident only after she had done it: the movement brought her way too close to Mark. Her arm and shoulder butted right up against his warm, bare chest, her hand, which was gripping the edge of the counter, came in contact with his boxers, and her legs and dangling feet brushed his legs. All this unwanted sensory stimulation burst on her without warning. As she registered the soft tickle of his chest hair against her arm, the smooth texture of his boxers against her knuckles, the hard strength of his legs against her calf and foot, her body tightened deep inside in a way she remembered all too well.

  Oh, no.

  “I think it’s the glasses.” Mark’s tone was thoughtful as with his index finger he pushed her glasses, which had once again slipped down her nose a little, back into place. She could feel his gaze on her face.

  “What’s the glasses?” Barely daring to glance up at him for fear of what he might read in her eyes, Jess stealthily inched away from him along the counter. Once she’d put enough distance between them, she would slide down and run—no, hop, which she feared might lose something in the execution—away.

  “That do it for me.”

  It took Jess an instant to process that. Then, caught by surprise, she looked sharply up at him.

  “Tell me you’re not coming on to me.”

  His expression turned equal parts rueful and amused. God, he looked good standing there. Damn genetic predispositions anyway.

  “I guess that depends on what would happen if I am.”

  Her heart knocked against her ribs.

  “I don’t have time for this.” Her tone was astringent, her eyes hard, but she didn’t slide off the counter. She’d even quit inching away. “Enough. I have to go to bed now so I can get up and go to work in the morning.”

  This time he smiled right into her eyes.

  “Going to bed works for me,” he said agreeably, and without any more warning than that leaned over and kissed her.

  It started out as a gentle kiss, soft and testing, but then he parted her lips and licked into her mouth and she went up in flames. After a single deep, shuddering breath that served as the last dying gasp of her resistance, her hands clenched around the edges of the counter, her head relaxed into the big hand that came up to cradle the back of her head, and her mouth molded to his. She kissed him back like she was starving for him, which, she realized deep inside, she was. Wrapping her arms around his neck, meeting his tongue with hers, she responded to the heat and hunger of his mouth with a blazing passion of her own. He kissed her like he was dying for the taste of her mouth, hot deep kisses that made her go all light-headed and weak-kneed and shivery inside. When he moved, shifting positions so that he was standing in front of her, his hip bones nudging her knees, she opened her legs to let him get closer still. Then she went dizzy at the feel of the hard contours of his hips against the soft insides of her thighs. His hands closed on her bottom—which, she noted dazedly, was still covered by her nightshirt, probably because she was sitting on the hem of it—and pulled her against him. Shivering, she felt the hard urgency of him brushing her nakedness, with only the crisp cotton of his boxers between them. She nestled more firmly against him, and the resultant searing heat made her bones seem to melt.

  “Ah, God,” he said, lifting his mouth from hers. Jess only became aware that her eyes had been closed when they blinked open to take in the hot glitter in his and the deep flush that had risen to stain his cheekbones. His face looked taut and hard, his mouth sensuous, and her blood turned to steam just from looking at him. An electric tension arced between them, and suddenly she was breathless. When she realized that he was tugging at her nightshirt, pulling it out from under her, she had one stark moment of clarity in which she knew she was going to regret this, knew she was going to be sorry—and then she helped him, lifting her arms so the garment could come off. When whisking her nightshirt over her head knocked her glasses askew, she took them off and laid them on the counter, out of harm’s way, with unsteady hands. When she turned back, he was slightly blurry, which was good because what the tiny part of her mind that was still functioning wanted to do was pretend this was only a dream, one of the hundreds of sexual fantasies she’d had starring herself and Mark since she had first laid eyes on him all those months ago. What was happening wasn’t real, she wasn’t this stupid, she couldn’t make this big a mistake again: that’s what she tried to tell herself, only she couldn’t.

  Because Mark was right there in front of her, solid and strong against her and hard with wanting her and absolutely real. She was real. The dark, pulsing thrill that was building inside her was real.

  God, I want this.

  That was the sad and simple truth: she burned for Mark. Burned for sex with Mark.

  He was looking at her body, a long, lingering look, taking in her small, high breasts with their dainty pink nipples and her tiny waist and her slim hips as if he couldn’t get enough of looking at her, and from the set of his mouth and the heaviness of his lids she knew that he was as turned on as she was.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  Jess blinked in surprise, but his hand gently touching her side answered the question before she had a chance to ask it: he was reacting to the bruise on her rib cage.

  “I’ll live,” she told him. But the sudden huskiness of her voice carried a separate message, too.

  His eyes came up to meet hers. They were bright with desire, aflame with wanting her.

  In response, her body quaked and clenched and she felt a dazzling rush of heat.

  “You know what else does it for me?” His voice was thick now. His eyes holding hers, he fondled her breasts, his hands warm and possessive.

  Jess shook her head. “What?” She could barely get the word out. He cupped a breast, then bent his head until his mouth hovered just a warm breath above her nipple, which was already pebble-hard from his ministrations.

  “Your pretty tits. Your sweet …” He broke off as he drew her nipple into his mouth, but his hand sliding between her legs gave her an explicit demonstration of what he meant. Jess closed her eyes and clutched his shoulders and cried out as he touched her where she yearned to be touched, the way she yearned to be touched.

  The thrill of it was indescribable. It made her pant. It made her wet.

  “Oh.”

  “Tell me how much you like it.”

  She felt heat flood her cheeks. Trembling, knowing he was watching her, she kept her eyes closed as he did it again. But telling him was exciting, too.

  “I like it—a lot. Oh.”

  The thing was,
he knew what turned her on. He had her squirming, and gasping, and arching her back for him, and kissing his mouth when it wasn’t busy elsewhere, and planting little urgent kisses along his bristly jawline and neck and across the broad expanse of his shoulder when it was. She was helpless with desire, totally his, totally responsive as he sucked and delved and played. Then, when he replaced his fingers with himself and came inside her, huge and hard and hot, she cried out at the pleasure of it even as his mouth closed over hers and stopped the sound with his kiss.

  What they were doing felt so good, so incredibly, satisfyingly right, that she was lost to it, abandoning all inhibition in the throes of the fierce, primal lust that had her wrapping her legs around his waist and digging her nails into his back and responding to each urgent thrust with hungry movements of her own.

  She let him take her like that, naked on her bathroom counter, his mouth everywhere, his hands everywhere, his body possessing hers completely, and reveled in every erotic thing they did together. Her body clutched and burned and throbbed and spiraled ever higher, ever tighter, as she gave him back kiss for kiss and caress for caress.

  In the end, when he had her absolutely mindless with ecstasy, when he rocked into her with fierce, deep thrusts that drove her over the edge, she came with a fiery urgency that made her body convulse around him and skyrockets burst in a series of brilliant explosions against her closed lids.

  “Mark, Mark, Mark, oh, Mark.”

  “Jess.” He groaned her name, came deep and hard inside her one last time, and found his own release.

  Nirvana lasted about a minute. Okay, maybe two. Then reality hit, her eyes came open, and the situation became horribly clear.

  Wrapped in his arms, she was clinging to Mark as if he’d been a tree and she’d been a monkey and there had been a hurricane, and they were sweaty and sated and still joined together and …

  He was looking at her.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN