BOUND TO HAPPEN

by Alison Kent

  When he moved to cover her with his body, she welcomed him with a joy she hadn't known existed, with all the warmth she had to offer, with silent tears that told her she'd never done anything so right.

  * * *

  8

  « ^ »

  "Can you believe this?" Hands in the pockets of his khaki fatigues, Anton shook his head as he took in the ancient temples surrounding the two plazas of which the archaeological site was comprised. "Two thousand years and so much of it is still here. The materials, the workmanship. It's absolutely amazing."

  Standing beside Anton at the Mayan ruins of Altun Ha, Lauren found herself equally awed—but awed by the man at her side. His passion for his profession was evident in so many of his endeavors, but was especially palpable here and now, witnessing similar labors undertaken by some of the world's earliest architects.

  She knew he didn't recognize the extent of his passion even as she knew his inner fire played a big part in the attraction that continued to draw them together. That fire was her perfect complement, emotional, as well as sexual, yet for some reason, in both arenas, he held his deepest self in check.

  She wanted to knock that self-control into another dimension, she thought, smiling indulgently. More than anything, she wanted to make him let go. Selfish of her, she supposed, wanting to be there, wanting the experience, wanting to feel what happened when he finally did.

  Of course he didn't think he was overly controlling, just as she didn't think she was overly sexed. A typical relationship tit for tat, she supposed. Though they weren't going to have a romance to tit or to tat if they didn't work on finding a solution, a compromise, or both.

  Which meant they each had to face the other's criticism with an open mind.

  Lauren wasn't sure that was possible.

  They'd rented an old Jeep in Belize City and had spent the morning navigating the narrow winding road to the area's most extensively excavated Mayan site. The ruins were a big part of the Central American country's attraction, and organized tours were regularly scheduled.

  Anton, however, had insisted they set their own timetable. He didn't want to be rushed. He wanted to see the sites in his own time and his own way. Lauren could hardly object. The privacy was something they needed.

  "Did you always want to be an architect?" She glanced from the man back to the sixty-foot-high ruin. During their too-short time living together, he'd told her about his studies, his internship, the struggles of establishing the firm with Doug. But he'd never shared the beginnings of his dream. She wondered if she hadn't invited the confidence, or if he'd thought she wouldn't care.

  A smile brightened Anton's face, softening his features, erasing so many of the lines and reminding Lauren of the face she'd fallen in love with, a face that seemed to have lost the ability to smile. She was glad to see she was wrong—even though he hadn't smiled for her.

  "Only since I was about four or five and had enough Legos to build barracks for all my G.I. Joes." The corner of his mouth quirked up farther, but after a moment spent in private thought, he reset his mouth into an unyielding line.

  Lauren found that she'd balled her hands into fists deep in her pockets and had to force herself to relax. As Anton started walking toward the Jeep, she followed, casting a quick look up at the darkening sky after a drop of rain splashed against her cheek. "I don't think you ever told me that. About the Legos and G.I. Joes."

  "There are a lot of things I've never told you." He tossed the comment at her defensively almost, as if he'd taken her remark as an accusation. "Things that never came up in conversation. It's not like I've been hiding anything."

  Lauren ground her teeth. At times she really felt as though she couldn't win for losing. "I didn't mean to imply that you had. What I meant is that it's fun to hear that type of thing about you. I don't know if I've ever thought of you as a little boy with building blocks before."

  She visually measured the breadth of his shoulders as he led her from the plaza. "I'll bet you were cute."

  Anton stopped walking, turned and glanced back as if wondering what it was she had on her mind. He frowned, but his mouth did break into a grin. This time, a grin meant for her.

  "Cute as a bug in a rug, or so I was told over and over and over and over," he said, rolling his eyes.

  Lauren grinned back. "With big blond curls?"

  He shook his head so that the curls bounced. "Even bigger and blonder than the ones I have now. Pretty damn sissy-looking, if you want to know the truth."

  Maybe then. Now he was anything but, with his chiseled features and the everyday stubble that followed the line of his jaw and chin. Lauren knew intimately the texture of his sexy, barely there beard. As well as the feel of his hair as her fingers slid through it.

  She suppressed a rising shiver. "In all the time I spent at your parents' place, I don't think I saw any pictures of you as a kid. They were all more recent."

  He looked at her for a long moment, blinking slowly, though his frown never fully returned. "Where are you going with this, Lauren?"

  Hands in the pockets of her cotton walking shorts, she shrugged. "I don't know that I'm going anywhere. I was just realizing how many things about you I don't know. And I'm sorry I never got to know you better when I had the chance."

  "I didn't exactly make it easy for you." He looked toward the sky, looked back again with an expression of regret. "I can be pretty single-minded."

  "Is that the same as hardheaded?" she teased, hoping to dispel what she was afraid was his impending acceptance that things between them were over. She didn't want them to be over. Not yet. Not this way.

  "You're cute, you know that?" He tugged on a lock of her hair, tucked it behind her ear. His touch lingered, slowly caressing. Then with his gaze holding hers, he trailed the back of his fingers the length of her neck.

  Lauren closed her eyes and shuddered. God, she had missed his touch. True, they'd slept close together the other night, and that casual connection had given her a sense of security, a grounding she desperately needed.

  But it was nothing compared to this simple touch, a touch that to Lauren's mind defined the intimacy she'd been missing.

  So when Anton suddenly pulled away, she looked up.

  His expression appeared to be a strange mix of sadness and confusion. "Why do you do that?"

  "Do what?" she asked, and frowned. Why did she react to his touch? Was that what he was asking? How could he not understand? Especially after all this time? "Why do I enjoy the way your hands make me feel? Is that what you want to know? Do you think I shouldn't enjoy the way you touch me?"

  "No, I'm not saying that at all. I'd be surprised if you didn't enjoy having me touch you," he added, lifting a sardonic brow. "You've told me more than a few times how you feel about sex, and I certainly have enough experience to draw on."

  "Why is my sexuality such a problem for you?" When he didn't answer, Lauren hung her head. Then she looked back. And then she looked away. "I never understood why my getting into our physical relationship made you so uncomfortable. It was like you held back."

  This was what she hated to ask, but what, more than anything, she needed to know. "Did you? Hold back? Because of me?"

  He all but shuffled his feet. "What do you want me to say, Lauren? Do you really want me to be honest? Okay, then. Here's your honesty. I held back because I didn't know if what you were feeling was real. If you were real. If you were feeling for me, because of me … with me. Or if you were just … feeling. For the sake of feeling."

  Of course sex was about physical feeling. But that was not all it was and Anton knew that. He had to know that. He couldn't really believe she hadn't involved her emotions. Not after all this time.

  Rain began to fall steadily, but Lauren didn't care. "I'm not about to deny that I love sex. And I'm not going to deny myself that enjoyment. But it's being with the person you love … it's me being with you that makes it work. That makes it good. I can't believe you don't know that."

/>   He didn't answer. Not with spoken words or with body language or with an expression she was able to read. The only thing he did was grab her hand and pull. "Let's get out of the rain. Then we can talk."

  Her preference would have been to stand in the rain and let the water wash away her building disappointment. She so did not want to get into a fight. Not after the way things had been going so beautifully between them the past several days.

  But Anton's hand and pace were both insistent and so she set off at a brisk jog behind him. They reached the parked Jeep just as the first cloud burst. And between fumbling with the keys and struggling with the doors, both were more than a little wet by the time they climbed inside.

  Lauren was glad she'd put her hair in a braid. She slicked her palms up her forehead before the water beaded there ran into her eyes. She shook off her arms and, with nowhere to wipe her hands, finally settled on her cotton tank top, which was a wasted effort because the material had absorbed all the water it was going to absorb.

  The emotional overload hit her and she looked up and laughed. She laughed until she saw the fire burning in Anton's eyes, and then her giggles died in her belly, replaced by an anticipation she hadn't felt for what seemed like ages. Like forever. Since the day she'd walked away and left him swimming laps in his pool.

  The heat was one that came from a place deep inside him, a place he'd rarely shared. It was the fire she longed to see, a fire burning for her. The emotion she'd so seldom been able to tap when she'd nearly broken her heart trying. Hope flared, along with desire.

  She remained sitting sideways in her seat, one leg crooked beneath her, the other on the floor, and dropped her hands to her thighs, where her fingers squeezed. She did her best to keep her expression and her tone level when what she felt was upside down. "What is it? What's wrong?"

  Slowly he took a deep breath, released it with a muttered curse, then looked away. "You make it hard."

  "Make what hard?"

  "Saying no. Staying away." He turned back to her again. His expression had softened but desire still reigned. "I don't think you have any idea how sexy you are. The things that come to mind when I look at you. The things I want to do. It's crazy. Nothing else…" He shook his head. "No one else has ever gotten to me the way you have. The way you do."

  Not the words of a man in love, were they? For a moment all Lauren could do was sit and stare and try to get past the hurt of what he hadn't said. Humidity and confusion enveloped her, and perspiration replaced the drops of rain on her skin. Thoughts raced through her mind, leaving her to think that this wasn't about her, after all.

  Maybe he wasn't battling demons of her making but demons of his own. Maybe he couldn't trust where her passion, her love, were coming from, what she made him feel, because that trust would mean betraying the truths he believed about himself. Just as denying her sexuality would be her own self-directed lie.

  What was it he believed about himself that kept him at such a distance? And how in the world were they going to find a middle ground?

  Before she could think of where to begin looking, Anton reached out and touched her, running fingertips over one breast, then the other, brushing one nipple, then the other, both well delineated by the wet cotton fabric of her top.

  Of all the times to go braless, she thought, doing her damnedest to keep her face passive, her breathing even, her heartbeat from running away.

  The one thing over which she had no control, the one reaction that would show Anton exactly what he was doing to her, was also the most obvious to a visually oriented man. And so he continued his caress until her nipples drew into tight gumdrops and she would've done anything to have him taste her candy.

  She wanted desperately to reach for the hem of her tank top, to pull the thin fabric over her head and off, to bare her body for his enjoyment, one in which she would share. But she didn't. She sat still. And instead of closing her eyes and giving the experience over to the rest of her senses, she forced herself to keep her gaze trained on his face.

  He held the weight of her breast in his palm. Tension showed in the set of his mouth, in the tic of his pulse at his temple. He looked up … from beneath his downcast brow, he looked up. The angle gave him the appearance of great impatience, gave Lauren the sense that he was losing the battle of restraint.

  "Take it off."

  Three simple words, and her hands started to shake. Yet, more than the words, it was the tone of voice, husky, raspy and rattled. As if he no longer had control over a thing so simple as the sound that rolled from his throat. What had been anticipation slipped quickly into anxiety, apprehension even, as she reached for the hem of the shirt. She'd never felt more vulnerable.

  While she pulled it up and over her head, Anton moved his seat, sliding it all the way back and away from the steering wheel. He leaned across the console then, reaching for and releasing the lever beneath hers. Her seat shot back and bounced against its mooring. As Anton climbed across the console, his expression intent on having his way, Lauren scooted over to give him more room. The door handle jabbed mercilessly into her hip until, hands at her waist, he lifted her onto his lap. Facing him, she straddled his thighs, her knees barely fitting around his hips on the narrow seat.

  He closed his eyes, shook his head and shuddered. Lauren felt the tremors in his body, his powerful attempt to hold himself in check. Powerful, but unsuccessful, because when he once again met her gaze, the expression on his face told her things he'd never said with words, things he'd rarely said with his body.

  A fiercely turbulent emotion sizzled between them, and now there was no going back. She didn't want to go back. She wanted to give this man all she was. She wanted to convince him how good they were together and how far they could go when their two became one.

  "What do you want me to do?" she asked even as his hands went to the fly of his fatigues. The zipper's metal teeth grated all the way down, and Lauren trembled.

  She raised herself on her knees and leaned toward him. He took her breast into his mouth as she worked her shorts over her hips and off one leg, settling back onto his lap even as he raised his lower body and tugged his pants to his thighs.

  His erection pressed hard against her bare sex and bare belly. Her dampness spread and she whimpered as he moved his mouth across her chest, dragging the flat of his tongue from one mound of flesh to the other, drawing hard on her nipple even as he wrapped one hand around her back and worked his fingers down to squeeze her bottom.

  His other hand he wrapped around his cock. Lauren could feel his fingers there as he held himself, squeezing the base of his shaft. She couldn't believe he was already so close to coming, but the physical evidence, the bulge of flesh pulsing told a truth he couldn't deny.

  His excitement heightened all that she was feeling. She looked down, seeing the hair-dusted flat of his belly beneath the rucked-up hem of his tobacco-colored T-shirt, his abs crunched and his fist pushed down into the nest of dark blond hair. His penis was beautiful, rigid and ripe, plum red and swollen. She wanted to take him in her mouth.

  But their close quarters restricted movement and so, instead, she leaned back, bracing her elbows on the dashboard. Anton rubbed the head of his penis between her folds, both of them hissing in a breath at the contact, both of them watching the sex play between their legs.

  She wanted to take him deep inside. Instead, she let him explore, separating her with his fingers, rubbing his penis over the tight knot of her clit, spreading her open and pushing forward and upward, inserting a crooked finger and finding her G-spot. She squirmed in his lap, especially when his finger delved deeper between her legs.

  She pulled in a sharp breath at the invasion, forcing herself not to grind down into his hand. Not yet. She couldn't come yet. Not when the sight of his erection was taking her arousal to incredible heights. She had never in her life wanted to get off as badly as she did right now, in this steam pit of a car, with the man she loved making her body weep with want.

 
With her legs spread wide, she dropped her head back until she hit the windshield glass. Anton teased her, with his thumb and his finger and his penis, pulling the latter through her slick folds and back, over and over, back and forth.

  She couldn't help it. She began to writhe, to grind her hips in a circular motion, to pump up and down. She began to pant, steaming the already steamy air. She began to come, and she stopped herself, with shudders that racked her body. And then she lifted her head.

  Anton's face was flushed, his hair in ringlets falling over his forehead, his mouth a tight line and his eyes on fire. His voice came from the pit of his soul when he whispered, "Yes?"

  "Oh, God, yes!" She cried out as he entered her in one long, smooth stroke. He'd been gone so long and she'd missed him so much and she'd wanted him like this forever.

  She came apart, rocked from her toes to the roots of her hair. She shuddered and she shook and she shivered, sliding her fingers down into her sex and squeezing hard before rejoicing in the tactile proof of their bodies joining.

  She loved touching Anton where he filled her with his penis. She looked at his face and she smiled. His head was thrown back, the tendons in his neck standing in rigid relief. He grimaced, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, his mouth open as he blew out short choppy breaths.

  And then he surged upward, crying out as he filled her with the warmth of his seed. She pulled him in as deeply as their awkward position allowed, pushing him to reach for more.

  A quiver throbbed the length of his body and he finally shook it off, finished and completely spent. His eyes were closed, his head back against the seat. Lauren waited, holding him deep inside, hating to let him go. Leaning forward, needing to feel the emotional connection stirred by their physical joining, she brushed his lips with hers.

  He kissed her back, briefly, lightly, a token gesture of affection that had nothing to do with the heights they'd just reached with their bodies. She tried again, sweetly sucking his lower lip. He let her continue the kiss, let her tease him with the tip of her tongue, the gentle edge of her teeth.