His thumb stole across her lip. “Maybe we can learn to be romantic together.”
He was going to kiss her and she was going to cave, to forget everything and pretend they could exist in a heated hot-tub world.
“Let’s get out of here, my skin is wrinkling.” She stood up and gasped as the arctic wind blasted across her slick breasts. Her nipples felt like she’d taken a cheese grater to them and goose bumps rushed over her arms and neck. Her hair froze.
A shocked howl ripped out of her mouth. Dropping back down into the hot tub, she tipped her head into the warm, frothy water to defrost. Gasping, trying to calm her jolted body, she said, “Oh my God, we’re trapped in here forever.”
And here she’d been trying to exit gracefully and prevent further intimacies. Having to yell for help so the neighbors could toss them overcoats wasn’t going to help her maintain an emotional distance from Wyatt.
Neither was rubbing up against him to steal his body heat. She shivered and showed no shame, wiggling into his warm chest.
Wyatt placed his hand square on CJ’s ass and enjoyed her jerky movements, her slippery skin connecting with his in lots of interesting places. He’d been regretting not having thought ahead far enough to bring out towels or robes, but now he was reconsidering. CJ had been on the verge of making an escape, and now he had her in his arms again.
But they did have to get out of the hot tub eventually, and maybe if he played the hero he could earn a few extra points. He certainly needed all he could get. “I’ll go get some towels.”
He nudged her aside.
CJ shook her head. “You’ll die if you go out there naked. I’m serious.”
Scoffing, he said, “What’s a cool breeze? I’m an FBI agent.”
She rolled her eyes right back at him. “So am I, you goof. It’s freezing out there.”
Wyatt sucked in a breath and stood up, walking toward the step to climb out. The shock of the cold air made him want to moan, but he clamped his lips shut. No way in hell was he going to let her see him squirm. When his feet touched the ground, he moved fast, afraid his skin would stick to the flagstones like tongue on metal.
But he refused to run, refused to bend over, and refused to make a sound, even though it was possible his nuts had just frozen off and dropped to the ground. He sure in the hell couldn’t feel them anymore.
When he reached the door, he turned and winked at CJ, who was watching him in awe. Then he ran like hell.
In his bedroom, he allowed himself a much-deserved whimper before grabbing a towel and wrapping it around his waist. He stuck his feet in sandals, then grabbed a couple more towels and the blanket from his bed. He dropped the blanket by the door, braced himself, and stepped back out into old man winter.
“Holy crap, I need to stick a dome over top of this patio,” he told CJ as he approached the hot tub, where she waited with only her nose and eyes out of the water.
Her lips broke the surface. “It didn’t seem this cold before.”
“That’s because I was keeping you busy.” He stood there, numb in all his extremities, and urged her, “Stand up, I’ve got a towel.”
CJ closed her eyes, then stood up in a rush. She moved up the steps while he wrapped one towel around her, not even taking the time to appreciate that her nipple was level with his mouth. He scooped her up into his arms, losing the second towel in the process, and carried her, dripping, shivering, and moaning, to the door.
Where he promptly tripped over the metal doorjamb in his sandals and tumbled them both to the floor, where they landed on the blanket, naked and wet, looking like they were attempting to enact the Kama Sutra.
“Close the door,” CJ said, her face stuck in his armpit.
He kicked it shut with his foot, then grabbed her and rolled until they were snug in the blanket, cabbage-roll style.
“We’re in,” he said, getting one hand on her back and the other on her smooth, cool behind as they both lay on their sides facing each other.
She blinked up at him, shivering, then suddenly, without warning, she laughed. Her whole face changed, her eyes softened, her cheeks got round, her lips curved, and he saw her small, white teeth.
Wyatt had never seen CJ laugh before. Never. She had scoffed, glared, snorted, then tonight had smiled and moaned and begged, but just an honest light laugh he had never heard. There was joy in her face, in that sound, and wham, it hit him, robbing him of all thought.
Damn, he’d gone and fallen in love with her.
Or maybe the sex had just made him stupid.
“I’ve never seen you laugh before,” he said, as her breath tickled his chin and her fingers danced across his sides, giving him goose bumps.
“You’ve never been quite this laughable before,” she said with a grin.
Nope, it wasn’t the sex. He really was in love with her. Shit.
“Here I almost froze to death saving your ass from hypothermia and you’re laughing at me? Some thanks.” He kissed her nose. “Some parts of me may never work again.”
“Which parts?” Her laughter cut out, and she opened her eyes wider, the little witch.
He shrugged. “Just the parts that stick out.”
CJ’s little fingers started to wiggle under the blanket, moving lower. Oh, yeah.
“Maybe I can warm them back up.”
“Maybe you can.” Their combined body heat had already taken the chill from his skin and her words about set him on fire.
She found him, semi-erect, and went to work, squeezing and rushing along him until he fell back and moaned, enjoying the feeling but knowing it was too soon.
“Jesus, CJ, I don’t think I can again... .” It was embarrassing to admit, but hell, he’d come twice in the last hour and a half. Three might be pushing it.
“It’s okay, I just want to play with it.”
Fuck. His dick swelled the rest of the way.
And when her head disappeared as she burrowed down into the blanket, he decided he most certainly could come a third time. In just a minute or two.
Her cool lips closed over the head of his cock and she sucked hard. Shudders wracked his body and he muttered, “Damn, I like the way you play.”
Her movements weren’t practiced or remote, but were ravenous, tugging, like she’d never tasted anything so good in her life and it had him growling, not wanting to burst too soon. His thighs were on fire, her damp body pressing against him, and he lifted the blanket to peek down at her.
The top of her head was visible, as was her little button nose and her pink, slick lips moving over him, shiny and wet, her cheeks collapsing as she drew half the length of him into her mouth.
“Can you breathe under there?” he thought to ask, aware that the temperature in the blanket had risen rapidly.
“Mmm-hmm,” she said, muffled, her mouth too full to talk.
Teeth scraped him gently, fingers massaged his testicles, and he lost it. Reaching down to cup her head, he warned, “I’m done, baby, stop.”
Devilish eyes met his. She sucked harder, making a suction sound on his cock with her lips, her tongue flicking out to lick the length of him.
It seemed she had loosened up quite a bit since she’d walked in his door earlier.
He was strung too tight, enjoying her too much. He loved her, he really did, and it seemed natural to stay there, to trust her to tell him what she wanted. Her iron grip and smiling eyes told him to go ahead and explode, and so he did, pulsing into her mouth and nearly ripping the wall-to-wall carpet off the floor.
She held him until he was done, lying back spent, and when she pressed one last kiss on his head, he let out a strangled laugh. “CJ White, you are one hell of a woman.”
Fingers trailing across her moist mouth, she said, “Your parts seem to be working just fine, not frozen after all.”
Amen to that.
Six
CJ was toasty warm, enough so that it didn’t bother her when Wyatt let the blanket fall open, his fingers running across her
ribs, tickling her.
Just that little bit of contact, along with his lips pressed to her temple, had her body stirring to life yet again. It was unbelievable the sexual glutton she had turned into in the course of one evening. By morning she wasn’t going to be able to walk, and her heart was going to thoroughly belong to Wyatt.
If it already didn’t. Which she suspected it did.
“Witchcraft” was playing on the stereo. They had never turned the music off and it had just rolled around to play the same Sinatra CD over and over again. CJ would never be able to listen to Frank again without wanting to tear her clothes off.
“Appropriate song, don’t you think?” Wyatt murmured, rubbing his chin into her hair. “You’ve seduced me.”
If she could have moved a muscle, she would have shot him an incredulous look. “I think you’ve got that backward. You with the tux, and the dress, and the dinner—you seduced me, Maddock.”
She was big enough to admit it, especially with his hand brushing across her pubic hair possessively.
“I think we just both acted on what we’ve wanted for a long time.”
“That could be true.” It felt so good in his arms, snug in the blanket on the floor, the steam from the uncovered hot tub fogging up the outside of the glass door in front of them.
“I want more, CJ.”
There he went again. “I heard you the first two times, Wyatt.”
“Well?”
She closed her eyes and said, “I’m thinking. It’s complicated.” Like the fact that she had a child who needed constant care and Wyatt wasn’t the kind of guy who struck her as eager to be saddled with that much responsibility. And she would never just parade a man through her son’s life unless she knew it was serious, and she honestly didn’t know how serious Wyatt wanted this to be.
It was time to tell him about Sam, talk it out.
“Hey, what’s this?” His finger slowed down, right at her bikini line.
“What?” Distracted, she glanced down. Wyatt was bending over, studying the puckered skin there.
“This scar, what’s it from?”
Whoops. Dread filled her. The time to tell Wyatt was more than past due. She didn’t think his reaction was going to be good. But she had never once denied her son to anyone, and she wouldn’t now.
“It’s from my C-section.” Wyatt had been retreating from the idea of transferring. This might make him reconsider that, which was really for the best.
Too bad her stomach churned at the thought and her heart squeezed painfully.
His head snapped up, wide eyes met hers. “C-section? You had a kid? I’m sorry, CJ.”
That confused her. “Sorry for what?”
“Well ... something must have happened, since you never said anything. Did you give it up for adoption? I mean, it doesn’t live with you, you’re not a mother.” He watched her, his brows drawing together. “Are you?”
She nodded, tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. “Actually, yes, I am. My son does live with me.”
“What?” His expression of horror told her how he felt about that. “How old is your son?”
She had known he wouldn’t want to have any part in dating a woman with a child. But hearing his distaste felt worse than she could have imagined. “Sam is five.”
Wyatt sat straight up. “You have a five-year-old son and you never bothered to mention it to me? We work together, I’ve known you for nine months, and you never said a word! You don’t have any pictures on your desk or anything.”
She stiffened and pulled the blanket over her bare body. “My personal life is just that—personal.”
“Oh, man.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “This is unbelievable. You’re lying here with me, sharing what we did tonight, and you don’t even tell me something like that? Damn, I’m an idiot. I should have known better.”
And she should have, too. “Look, I didn’t lie to you, I just didn’t see what that had to do with anything. I came here tonight for one night of sex, then you were supposed to ask for a transfer. None of that has anything to do with my having a child.”
He shook his head. “It has everything to do with you having a child. I wanted more, CJ. I wanted you. But I just don’t know now.”
Wyatt couldn’t believe what he was hearing. How could CJ have neglected to tell him that she was a mother? To a five-year-old. He didn’t care that she had a kid. In fact, it made her all the more appealing, in his eyes. Some of that crusty apprehension she’d shown had made sense. Who knew what had gone on in her marriage, but clearly she was wary of dating, and intent on protecting her child.
The thought of her cuddling up with a kid made his chest inflate with all kinds of embarrassing emotion.
“I expected that from you,” she said coldly, propping herself up with her elbow. “Maybe that’s why I never told you.”
“Expected what?”
“You to react this way. I can’t imagine you wanting to date a woman with a child. It would cramp your style.”
He saw red. “I don’t have a problem with kids, and maybe if you had fucking asked me, I could have told you that myself, instead of you just judging me. If you think I’m such an asshole, what are you doing here with me?”
Naked, sharing the best sex she’d ever had with him.
“Why do you think I’m here? I came here for sex,” she said so bluntly that he was sorry he asked.
His gut clenched in pain, he had trouble swallowing.
“I haven’t been with anyone since my ex-husband left, and I had an itch. You scratched it.”
“Glad I could help,” he said with dripping sarcasm.
CJ’s lip was quivering. Wyatt saw hurt in her eyes, and thought to wonder what the hell had happened to the ex. He had an idea. “Your ex blew the kid off, didn’t he?”
She took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. Her eyes were fixed on the door behind him. “If you have to know, yes, Scott hasn’t seen Sam in three years. When we found out Sam was autistic, he toughed it out for a whole two months, then bolted. He said he couldn’t deal with a kid who wasn’t normal.”
Wyatt heard her pain, felt it shake and shatter deep down inside her, and he reached for her. “Oh, baby, he was just an asshole.” He didn’t know a damn thing about autism but he knew it couldn’t be easy raising a child like that alone.
But CJ twisted out of his reach and stood up. “I can’t do this, Wyatt. I can’t pretend that we have a future when we don’t. I wanted to be free tonight, to just let go for once, and I never pictured you wanting more. But my priority is Sam, and you don’t fit what I have in mind for a husband and a father.”
If she had been looking for a way to hurt him the most, that was it. It cut so deep, he couldn’t think of a single thing to say. It just told him she knew nothing about him. Nothing.
CJ was naked, her skin still flushed, her hair snarled and standing every which way. “I got what I wanted here tonight and I think it’s time for me to leave.”
He could argue that he was good father material, that he was adored by his nieces and nephews, and that though charming he may be, he was also about as staid and responsible as they came. He didn’t drink, he managed his money well, and nothing would make him happier than being woken up on a Saturday morning by warm little bodies bouncing on his bed.
He had just been waiting for the right woman. He had thought he’d found her.
Now he wasn’t so sure.
CJ took Wyatt’s silence as an indicator that her leaving was fine with him. Turning on her heel, she took off for the bathroom, tears threatening. That had been about as fun as an earthquake, and only slightly less damaging.
She hadn’t meant to criticize Wyatt, she just needed him to understand that she had responsibilities that she didn’t take lightly. It had been a mistake to come here tonight and pretend otherwise.
Trying not to look at herself in the mirror, she pulled on her own sensible underwear that came up practically to her nose and her bagg
y pants that were about as big of a turn-on as a stint in the dentist’s chair. Likewise for her sweater, and bulky as it was, she decided there was no point in putting her bra back on. It was two in the morning and no one could possibly tell anyway.
The tears were winning the fight and she swiped at them angrily. Pushing up her sleeves, she left the bathroom and headed straight for the front door, scooping her bag and coat up off the easy chair on her way by. She had only one goal—get out before she lost it and blubbered like a baby in front of Wyatt. That would make Monday at the water cooler even better than it promised to be right now.
“Do you really think I’d make a bad father?” Wyatt said, his voice hard but vulnerable, laced with pain.
CJ stopped, her hand almost on the front doorknob. She turned and he was standing there, big and tall, light brown hair falling in his eyes. He was naked except for his watch. His tux and the dress he’d bought for her were still crumpled up in front of the couch and she ached in an agony of indecision.
“No, Wyatt, I didn’t mean that.” He was a good man, she’d seen that—different from her, but caring, concerned about his coworkers, always wanting to take down the bad guys. He was noble and responsible and she had never meant to hurt him. Couldn’t have imagined she even had the power to do so. “I just meant that I can’t take any chances with Sam. I can’t let you into our lives, then have you leave in six months.”
Sam couldn’t take it, and hell, neither could she. And if Wyatt didn’t want to leave, well, she still couldn’t have any more children since she’d had her tubes tied. Wyatt deserved to have a family if he wanted one, and she couldn’t give him that.
“I love you, CJ.”
Her heart wrenched. He stood there, hands on his hips, a stubborn set to his jaw as the tears leapt out of her eyes and rolled down her cheeks in twin rivers. Could he make it any harder? Why didn’t he just kick her in the knee and steal her purse while he was at it?
How dare he tell her exactly what she wanted to hear—but couldn’t.
Without another word, she grabbed the dress off the floor, opened the door, and bolted.
Bad Boys In Black Tie Page 15
