Rugged Loner

by Bronwyn Jameson

  She took another sip of champagne but all she tasted was her own anxiety. “Awkward, huh?” she said into the lengthening silence. “This. Us. Standing here wondering what to do next.”

  A muscle jumped in his jaw.

  “How about we go into the bedroom? At least that’s a first step.” When he didn’t answer, she turned and started to walk in that direction.

  “Angie.”

  She whipped back around, caught him watching her in a way that made her heart thunder like a bronco let loose on the northern plains. Heat and fear; fear and heat.

  “Don’t expect too much,” he said stiffly.

  “I never do.”

  That was a straight-out lie. Seven years she’d been waiting, wondering, ever since her coming-of-age party. Tonight she had expectations, and Tomas had no one to blame but himself.

  He’d asked about her nerves. He’d insisted on the truth. No bull, he’d said, and wasn’t that a load of it!

  Disgusted in himself, he dragged a hand through his hair. She even remembered the damn dress, when all he remembered about that night was meeting Brooke. The only woman he’d ever loved; the only woman he would ever love. The only woman he’d ever taken to bed.

  How the hell was he going to do this? How was he going to walk through that door and take off his clothes and lay down with another woman? What in blue blazes had made him think that doing it with Angie would be easier than with a nameless, faceless stranger?

  And if he wanted honest, no-bull truth between them, why hadn’t he told her about his lack of sexual experience?

  Jaw set, he fought to contain the icy spread of fear through his tense body. Struggled to take the first steps toward the bedroom door, left open like an invitation to sin.

  Only sex, he reminded himself. Sex with a lush, sensual woman who kissed like she loved everything about the whole man-woman intimacy thing. He imagined she wouldn’t be too shy to use that mouth in all manner of ways. He imagined she wouldn’t be afraid to take the initiative once he walked through that door. Maybe he should just take her advice: Lie back, close your eyes and think of Kameruka.

  How hard could that be?

  About as hard as the pounding of his pulse, he thought ruefully. And like a nagging toothache it would only get worse the longer he stood here thinking about it. Better to suck up the fear and dread of the dentist’s chair and march right in there and get it over with.

  If he didn’t think about the intimacy, if he just concentrated on the mechanics of undoing buttons and stripping off clothes, if he focused on the part of him that cried out for a woman’s slick warmth in the dead of night, the part of him that was sick of his hand providing its only satisfaction, then he could do this.

  As long as she didn’t expect too much.

  On the threshold he paused, eyes fixed on the king-size bed that half-filled the room, covers turned back to reveal an expanse of pure white sheets. Twin bedside lamps cast a pale glow that did nothing to warm the starkness of that bed or to prevent the breakout of sweat, cold and sudden on his skin.

  And Angie? His gaze swept beyond the bed and found her standing in front of the dresser, stalled in the act of brushing her hair. Their eyes locked in the mirror, as she slowly lowered her arms and put down the brush. The soft clunk sounded preternaturally loud in the stillness and he realized that her music had stopped. That the silence was so intense he could hear the thick thud of his heartbeat. Too loud, too hard.

  “Damn moisture,” she said, turning to face him. “Once it gets a sniff of steam, I can’t do a thing to contain it.”

  Her hair. She meant her hair. But stupidly it took him a moment to get past the reference to moisture and steam and containing it.

  “I like your hair like that.” His voice sounded gruff and rusty, his compliment about as stiff as his body. “The other way, this afternoon, it was too…sleek.”

  “Really?” She paused in smoothing the thick mass behind her ears—a pointless task since the curls sprang free as soon as her hand dropped away. “You don’t think sleek is a good look?”

  “Hell, no.”

  “You prefer the wild look then?”

  “On you,” he said simply and her lips tilted at the corners in the tiniest hint of a smile. That probably would have relaxed him a notch, that connection, if her gaze hadn’t drifted off to the bed—that endless stretch of cold, clinical white—before slowly returning to meet his.

  “I intended taking off the robe and being all laid out on the bed waiting,” she said softly. “But I couldn’t do it.”

  “You could have left the robe on.”

  “I could have, if being naked was a problem.” Three slow steps, three thick pulses of blood in his lower body, and she stopped in front of him. “Being naked alone was.”

  “You want me to get undressed?”

  Dark and luminous eyes lifted from his chest to his eyes. She moistened her lips. “Do you mind if I do it?”

  Not if you do it real quick.

  That answer lodged in his throat when her silky female knuckles grazed his abdomen. When he sucked in hard, she got a firmer grip on his shirt and pulled it free of his trousers. Before he could think holymotherofmercy she’d un-threaded every button and pushed the sides of his shirt apart.

  Maybe it was his vision, his thoughts, his whole body that trembled…or maybe it was her hands as they slowly traversed his bare chest, grazing his nipples, fingering the thick growth of hair, tracing the line of his collarbone. With growing confidence, her palms slid over his shoulders and down his biceps in a long, slow caress that peeled his shirt away until it dropped to the floor at their feet.

  “Undo my robe,” she whispered, so close that her breath sloughed over his skin and seeped into his blood. He watched her lean forward and kiss his chest. Watched her eyelids flutter shut and that sight—soft and engrossed and sensual—brought on a surge of lust so intense his knees all but buckled.

  He needed something to hold on to, to ground him against the dizzying roar of heat, and he found her robe, her sash, and a simple knot that came apart in his hands. She made a husky sound of approval as the thick toweling fell open. He made a rough sound of unscripted awe as her breasts came into view.

  Full, luscious female things of beauty, with wide tawny aureoles and tips that seemed to tighten and darken as he watched—and, hell, he couldn’t stop watching until he feared his mouth was watering, until he had to swallow to stop from drowning. Behind his fly, his body pulsed with an ache to reach for her, to drop to his knees and draw those distended nipples into his mouth, to take her down onto the bed and bury himself without preliminary.

  Except he’d be lucky to last a minute and he owed Angie better than that. Only sex, he told himself, didn’t mean it had to be bad sex.

  The hands that itched to shape her body lifted instead to cup her face and he leaned down to take her lips, closing his eyes to shut out the lush appeal of her body. Their thighs brushed and her nipples grazed his chest as she came up onto her toes to meet his kiss. Restless, impatient, her hands shimmied over his ribs and sides before settling against his back and drawing their bodies into perfect alignment.

  Heat billowed, a furnace of desire in his chest and his thighs and everywhere in between. Especially in between. In a slow, deep sweep his tongue stroked over hers and retreated. Her complaint was a rough sound that vibrated low in her throat and her hands tightened their grip on his back, forcing him to take notice, driving him past the edge of his control.

  He kissed her harder, tasting her lips, drawing on her tongue, forcing himself to ease off when he wanted to devour. Only sex, he told himself, only lust, and that was okay. It had been so long, too long, since he’d indulged his male nature. It was understandable that he should feel so primitive, so carnal, so desperate.

  Especially when she met him kiss for kiss, biting at his chin when he drew back for breath, sliding her hard-tipped breasts down his chest as she dipped lower and reached for his trousers. He sucked
in another quick ragged breath but that oxygen didn’t make a lick of difference when she undid the waist button and started on his fly.

  The accidental brush of her fingers against his erection completely zapped his synapses, and before the red-fire haze cleared she was ducking lower, her hair a dark whisper of sensation across his stomach. For one gasp of a moment he thought she was going to take him into her mouth, and in his explosive state that would have been too much, too soon.

  Thinking about that hot, moist suction was damn near enough to bring him to embarrassment.

  He backed away abruptly, and sat on the edge of the bed.

  “Sorry.” In the low light her eyes gleamed dark and hot. “I was just helping with your trousers.”

  The way she was looking at him didn’t help a bit. Especially with his trousers. Finally he managed to extricate himself from the rest of his clothing, and she was still watching him with a powerful hungry intensity.

  “I bought condoms,” he managed to say, amazed that he remembered the earlier shopping expedition. “I’ll get them.”

  Something in her eyes darkened, as if with a sense of purpose, and through the shimmering haze of lust Tomas felt a pang of misgiving.

  “You could,” she said, her gaze not leaving his. “Or we could leave them right where they are and try to make a baby.”

  Six

  “According to the book, this is my prime conception time.” Sure and steady and dark as the night, Angie’s eyes held his. “Do you really want to waste this chance?”

  Deep inside Tomas felt a keening cry of resistance. No, he couldn’t do this wholly naked. He needed protection, a barrier in any shape or form, some sense that he could hold himself apart from the intimacy of their bodies joining.

  And how will you make a baby then? How will you keep Kameruka Downs?

  His heart raced erratically, sweat sheened cold on his skin, and without a word he stood and stalked from the bedroom. Halfway across the sitting room he stopped suddenly, and for one numb second he couldn’t think what he was doing or why he’d come out here.

  The condoms.

  His gaze closed on the box he’d tossed onto the bureau earlier, when he’d come through the door and heard the music and realized that she was here. When it really struck home that sex with Angie was going to happen.

  Do you need birth control? Do you really need this bedroom session as a trial?

  Obviously he wasn’t going to have any trouble functionally. Obviously Angie had made up her mind about having a baby. He could get this over with now. If luck was on his side he wouldn’t have to go through this feverish ordeal of wanting and not-wanting-to-want ever again.

  All you have to do is go back in that bedroom, shut down your mind and follow the lead of your body. It knows what it wants. It’s not having any problem with intimacy. It wants inside Angie, naked, now.

  With a grim grunt of determination, he turned and followed where that leading part of his body pointed.

  Several things hit him right in the face when he walked back into the bedroom. The shapeless form of her discarded robe, stark against the wine-red carpet. How the white sheets no longer looked cold and clinical, not with Angie’s darkly sensual beauty spread across them. And the fact that no amount of rubber or latex or reinforced steel could have protected him from the impact of her lying there naked.

  Sucker-punched, he watched her roll up onto her knees, all tumbled black hair and perfect smooth skin and wildly generous curves. Her gaze had fixed on the highly functional and grossly underprotected body part that had lead him right back to her. He felt it thicken and pulse. Saw her moisten her lips and then move on to study his empty hands.

  “You couldn’t find the condoms?”

  “I found them.” Slowly he walked to the bed. Her eyes arrowed back for another up-close look, probably to see what he was wearing. Or not. “I left them where they were.”

  Heavy-lidded eyes slid up to his. Something flickered in their dark chocolate depths. “Are you sure?”

  “That I left them there? Yes. That I should have? No,” he admitted, honest for once.

  “If that’s because we haven’t talked about STDs and such…I want you to know that I’m good. I had tests done when I last gave blood, and I haven’t been with anyone since.”

  He swallowed the spontaneous question—how long since someone else?—and looked away. Irrelevant. Too personal. None of your business. And in his mind that justified not telling how long he’d been without. Instead he just nodded and said, “I’m clean.”

  There was an uncomfortable moment as their gazes connected and a measure of the unasked personal and intimate shivered between them. She made a rueful sound, half sigh, half laughter. “Okay, and now we’re back at the awkward stage.”

  “Us, standing here wondering what to do next.”

  She smiled, appreciating his recall of their earlier conversation. “Except this time we’re already in the bedroom.”

  “Naked.”

  “All over.”

  To illustrate her meaning Angie’s gaze dipped, and the mood took on a new sultriness, as if a blanket of heat billowed high before descending to settle heavily over their bodies. One silken finger traced the length of his nakedness. Her breathing hitched. His, more so, as she cupped and stroked him more firmly.

  Nope, he wouldn’t be having any trouble functionally. Not if he made it inside her body before embarrassing himself. And if she kept touching him like that, and looking at him with her eyes kinda hazed and her lips softly parted, then that was quite on the cards.

  “Enough,” he bit out sharply. Then to take the edge off he tried a laugh, a laugh that came out all raw and strained. “It’s been a while.”

  She let him go and for a long silent moment she watched him with unsettling intensity, as if she was delving inside and grabbing hold of his fears and laying them out for open examination. Oh, no. No, no, no. Reflexively he slammed down the shutters on the tiny window of vulnerability he’d unintentionally revealed.

  No more private stuff, no expectations, no emotions.

  Something of the unspoken must have shown on his face, because her expression slowly transformed from I-have-questions intensity to now-where-were-we? teasing. Settling back on her heels, she pointed at an erection that didn’t need any pointing out. “I thought you told me not to expect too much.”

  Okay, so this was better. This he could play along with. Frowning, he pretended to inspect himself. “Too much?”

  “Guess there’s only one way to find out.”

  Despite the sexy banter, there were no smiles and her eyes flared with dark heat as their gazes connected. “I guess so.”

  Slowly she reached out and touched his forearm in a barely there caress, then her hand slid down to link fingers, and slowly, inexorably she tugged him down onto the bed.

  They came together in an unchoreographed duel for position. It wasn’t elegant, but it was so hot Tomas swore he heard the slow sizzle as their limbs parried for optimum sensual contact. One of his thighs settled between hers, and he couldn’t stop himself pressing into her heat.

  She responded with a deep hum of satisfaction.

  For a second their gazes collided and he felt such a jolt—a left-right combination punch of need and fear and dread and desire—that he immediately ducked down to her mouth. They met with lips and tongues, with teeth and passion, and Tomas closed his eyes against the onslaught.

  He closed his eyes and thought, yes! I can shut it all out. I can dive into the carnal delight of French kissing, I can shape my hands over these curves and immerse myself in the pleasure of all the scents and textures of a woman’s body. I can absorb the throaty sounds of a woman’s enjoyment and I can stand the roar of need in my ears.

  I can handle the rush of lust because that’s all it is. Only sex.

  His hand shaped one breast, his thumb rasped across the nipple and she sucked a breath from his mouth, an act so intimate he felt its effect raw and deep i
n his gut. He jammed his eyes closed tighter and breathed more deeply, until the indelibly delicious scent of her skin filled his lungs and his veins.

  “What the hell did you bathe in?” he breathed huskily near her ear.

  “Cinnamon and honey-milk.”

  And he gave a half-grunt of laughter because that’s what he’d been about to ask. Honey-milk. She tasted so sweet, her skin was so soft and pliant. Unthinking he opened his eyes and saw her roll her head back against the sheets, her dark curls a wild and wanton spread against the white.

  “That’s what the bottle said.” She blinked slowly. “Do you want to taste me?”

  “Later,” he growled because even the thought of going down on her damn near brought him undone. He could feel a rawness gathering inside, a desperation he didn’t want to contain.

  Her mouth tilted into a sultry smile. “I can hardly wait.”

  “Right now,” he said, repositioning himself to settle thickly between her thighs, “It’s this way.”

  “Okay,” she whispered on a broken murmur of breath.

  Okay. That’s all this would be, he told himself as he deliberately drew out that initial slide of entry. This would be okay. Not wonderful. Not wild and untamed. Not earth-shattering or mind-altering. Just okay. All he had to do was take it easy, maintain control, keep his focus on the wall or the pillows or on visualizing the twisted thread of his restraint. He wouldn’t look into her eyes, he wouldn’t indulge in sweet words or tender kisses, and he wouldn’t think about the incredible moist pleasure of her body molding to accommodate his penetration.

  Slowly. Take it slowly.

  Sweat broke out along his back and on his forehead as he stopped himself giving in to what his body craved. To just plunge into her, hard, fast, wild. He sucked in air through his teeth, stared harder at the beige wall, and then he felt the tremulous touch of her hand on his face.