She snorted. “My foot, you didn’t notice. It had to be deliberate; you never pay that much attention to me. What do you think tipped me off?”
“Hey, wait a minute. That’s not true. I’m always conscious of you when you’re in the room.”
“Yeah, so you can take the appropriate tactical defense posture.”
That did it. He surged to his feet. “That’s a load of crap!”
“Is it? Then why are you presenting your weak side to me right now?”
He looked down at himself. Jesus, she was right. He was standing in such a way as to protect his sidearm from being captured, if he’d been wearing one.... Wait a minute. How’d she know ‘weak side’? And why the hell was she so mad at him? He was just trying to help her extract the memories.
She stepped closer and he automatically moved sideways. “See?” she accused. “Protecting your personal space. And look at your stance. Feet apart, one in front of the other....”
“All right, all right, dammit, I get your point. “But there’s a reason for that. It’s a little thing we like to call officer safety. It has to be automatic, ingrained. Dammit, Grace, it’s what keeps a cop alive.”
“And in control of your environment. All the time.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean.”
“What do you think it means?”
“You think I try to control you?” How had this escalated?
“Us,” she corrected. “I think you use your damned self-control and your damned command presence and all your other little cop tricks to control how things are between us.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Is it?”
She took a step closer and this time he managed to control the urge to step back to preserve his safety zone. Barely. He felt sweat break out on his brow.
“Why don’t you ever come home after a really good shift?”
He knew what she meant by ‘good’. Anything a civilian would call bad. Adrenaline-pumping, mouth-drying, exhilarating action. A car accident or a chase or a drug bust. Never failed to leave a guy horny.
“I do come home. Did. I always came home to you.”
“Not right away, you didn’t. And you sure as heck never came home like the other guys.”
He scowled. “What would you know about the other guys?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, wives talk, Ray. I think some of them look forward to the busts and the raids more than you guys do. Best sex they ever get, to hear them talk about it.”
“Grace, listen—”
“They exchange their little notes, then turn to me expectantly,” she continued. “I just duck my head, and they laugh. Poor Grace. Too shy to talk about that stuff. But you and I know the truth, don’t we, Ray? The truth is, I don’t have anything to talk about.” She emphasized her point by jabbing him in the chest with her finger. “Do I?”
Ego smarting, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her close to his face so she could read the anger in his eyes.
“Think you were missing out on something?” he ground out. “Is that it, Grace? Is that why you found yourself another man? To get laid good and proper?”
He expected her to recoil from his deliberately ugly words, but she held her ground.
“Yes!” she hissed, her eyes shooting fire at him.
His hand slackened on her wrist. “So, you remember.”
“No, I don’t remember anything.”
“But you said—”
She glared at him. “I meant yes, maybe I did feel like I was missing out on something. And if I couldn’t get it from you, then maybe it stands to reason—”
Before he knew his intent, he grabbed her, pulling her hard up against his chest. “You wanna know what you’ve been missing? Is that what you’re telling me?”
She lifted her chin, her eyes glittering. “What if I do?”
“Then I guess I’ll have to show you.”
He had time to see a brief flare of alarm in her eyes before he took her lips in a crushing kiss.
Chapter 11
GRACE’S HEART, ALREADY POUNDING from their charged exchange, took a crazy leap when Ray crushed her against his chest. Alarm stiffened her limbs when his mouth crashed down on hers, but only for a few seconds. Only as long as it took for his tongue to push past her teeth and sweep into her mouth.
Hot and fierce and impossibly arousing, it was like that day in the car outside the motel. Elemental.
Yes, he was angry; she could feel it in his coiled muscles, taste it in the demand of his mouth and the bite of the hand cupping her head. But it didn’t matter. Anger was honest. Anger was real. Right now, she’d take it.
Ray’s hand raked up under the hem of her loose boxers to squeeze her bottom and she arched into him. Oh, yes, she’d definitely take it!
For long moments the only sound in the room was their ragged breathing as they strained together. Then something changed. The hands roaming her body became a little less fevered, the mouth a little more deliberate. It wasn’t a softening of his anger. It was more of a subtle shift, a distancing.
She tried to pull back to search his face, but he pushed her down on the bed and came down on top of her. Under his weight, her disquiet was forgotten in a surge of raw lust.
Ray, sweetheart, it’s been so long.
Then his hands were at her waist. The t-shirt came over her head. A second later, he dragged her boxers off. Feeling exposed by the rapid stripping, she sought reassurance in his eyes but found only hard-edged hunger. Then he came down on her again, crushing her doubts.
His clothes had come off somehow, too, because she felt his erection pressing into her belly and the crisp hairs of his chest abrading her breasts. She wanted to cradle his hardness against her softness a while, savor the anticipation while they took each other higher with lips and mouths and tongues. But when she tried to pull his mouth back to hers, he levered himself higher. She found herself looking up into the face of a man who might be a stranger for all the emotion she read in those carved planes.
She shivered. “Ray?”
His answer was to nudge her legs apart with his knee. Then she felt his hand on her sex, shocking in its sudden insistence.
She seriously thought about stopping him then. And he would stop if she told him to. She was utterly certain of it. But she’d deliberately goaded him in an effort to finally crack that damned self-control of his. She couldn’t turn coward now, couldn’t retreat to the safety of their old roles.
Besides, if she put on a display of maidenly vapors at this juncture, it would only serve to prove the problem was hers, and she refused to accept sole responsibility.
He slid two fingers inside her and she shuddered.
“Is this what you like, Grace?”
He stroked her deeply while using his thumb to stimulate the nub of nerves buried in her slick folds. The pleasure was almost unbearable, but it was tainted. His talented hands were too deliberate, too calculating, as he ruthlessly propelled her toward physical release. Heaven and hell met, merged.
“Is this what you wanted?”
She dragged in a breath, which seared her throat. “I want you.”
It was a cry from the heart, a plea for him to join with her in real intimacy. For a fleeting second, she saw her husband, the man she knew, a man who understood her plea. Then the stranger’s face was back, a man who chose to construe her appeal on a more literal plane.
With an alarming speed and economy, he covered her body again, urging her legs apart. One powerful thrust and he was home. Pleasure warred with shock. Then he was moving inside her, establishing an insistent rhythm. Inexorably, despairingly, her excitement rose.
Propped on his arms, he seemed more focused on the way her breasts bobbed with each rocking thrust than on her face. Again, she tried to pull him down, face to face, heart to heart, but he closed his eyes and plunged on. She heard his breathing grow harsher, felt his climax approaching.
Why, then, did she feel
so alone? Like she could be any woman under his straining body. A faceless partner. An inflatable goddamn doll.
He slipped a hand between them, his fingers sliding into her folds. Helpless, she convulsed around him, contracting, coming apart in a violent orgasm. He followed, pumping his seed deep into her.
Seconds later, he rolled away to collapse on the mattress beside her.
Limbs trembling, she lay there, feeling the aftershocks of her orgasm shudder through her. She glanced over at him to see that he lay with one arm cast over his eyes. She watched the heaving of his chest recede to a normal rise and fall, but still he didn’t speak.
Damn him.
Ray wished he could take it back. He wished he’d held onto that stupid temper of his. He wished he never had to open his eyes again.
Dear God, she’d all but begged him to love her and he’d banged her.
After a couple of minutes, he heard Grace move away. Lifting his arm, he glanced at her. She was staring at the ceiling, her face unreadable in profile.
“You okay?”
“Fine.”
Aw, hell. Her voice was tight and she didn’t even look sideways at him, which made him feel lower than the worst skell. Dammit, she’d asked for it. Literally.
Except you didn’t have to be so ... impersonal. Hell, he’d viewed porn performances that were less insultingly clinical.
He blocked that train of thought. What he needed here was a good defense. Unfortunately, he couldn’t think of one. So he said, “Don’t get all huffy. You’re the one wanted to know what you were missing.”
She turned her head toward him, her gaze liquid, blue and withering. Then she looked back to the ceiling. She made no effort to cover herself, either. Her flushed, naked body lay there like an accusation. His face burned.
Levering himself up on one elbow, he said, “Hey, don’t take it out on me, you don’t feel so great about it after the fact. I just gave you what you flat out said you wanted.”
Her gaze seemed to be trained on a stained tile on the ceiling. “You gave me nothing.”
Nothing? Nothing?
Okay, he’d been a bastard about it. But what about his feelings? He’d vowed to stay out of her bed for his own peace of mind—hell, for his sanity—and then she comes along and goads him right into it. Then she says it was nothing?
But you didn’t have to humiliate her just because she handed you the means.
Flopping back on the pillow, Ray pressed a hand to his forehead as though he could hold the voice in his head back, but there was no stemming it. To drown it out, he spoke, though his voice sounded funny coming from a chest gone tight. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
She said nothing for a moment. He lifted his hand to see that she’d turned those eyes on him again.
“I feel,” she said, “exactly like you wanted me to feel.”
“Yeah?” Again, he closed his eyes to escape her cool gaze, pressing a thumb and forefinger into his lids. “How’s that?”
At her silence, he lifted his head, reading the answer in her eyes. The answer, unfortunately, was a word a woman like Grace would never say aloud.
She rolled off the bed. Scooping her nightclothes from the floor, she stalked naked to the bathroom, her head held high.
Ah, hell. Way to go, Morgan. Aren’t you just the man?
He heard the shower come on. Trying to wash away the traces of him, no doubt. Too bad a shower couldn’t wash him clean.
There’s not enough hot water in the world for that, buddy.
He crawled out of Grace’s bed and re-made it. It was the least he could do to wipe out the reminder of what they’d done, what he’d done. Then he retreated to his own bed. Punching the pillow into shape, he lay back, closed his eyes and let the self-loathing wash over him.
The room was in darkness when Grace finally emerged from the bathroom. She’d stood under the stinging spray until her skin protested the scrubbing and the motel’s seemingly-endless supply of hot water started to wane. Now there was nothing for it but to try to escape into sleep.
She stood there a moment, letting her vision get acclimatized. There he was in his own bed, a dark shape looming under the blankets. Thank you, Lord. It would be hard enough to face him in the morning. She sure didn’t want to do it now, tired and achy and tearful.
She crept to her bed, fumbling with the bedding a few seconds before realizing Ray had re-made it. That made tears sting her eyes. Blinking rapidly, she peeled the covers back and slid in.
“Grace?”
Her heart lurched. In the gloom, she could see he was sitting up, the covers pooled in his lap. “What?”
“Can I come over there?”
She tried to say something, but her throat closed up.
“I just want to hold you.”
God, it hurt. Her throat. Her heart.
“There’s such a howling in my head. If I could just hold you ... if you’d just hold onto me....”
Unable to speak, she threw the covers back. He covered the distance to her bed in seconds.
The arms that came around her were strong and urgent, but she felt a tremor run through him as he gathered her close, tucking her head into his chest.
“I’m sorry.”
Fresh tears welled. “It’s okay.”
“No it’s not,” he rasped, his ragged breath stirring her hair. “I’m so sorry....”
“Hush.” Her tears spilled then, falling hot between them. “Don’t lets talk about it now.”
He tipped her head up, using his thumb to dry her cheek. Then he kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her nose, and then, very gently, her lips. His tenderness pierced her, opening the floodgates anew.
“Ah, Grace.” He kissed her wet face, then pulled her close again.
She went blindly, one hand pressed against his chest, palm open, the other sliding around his back to draw him closer.
Oh, the warm musk smell of him, so familiar. And the wide expanse of his chest, smooth here, hair-roughened there, the breadth of his shoulders, the thrum of his pulse beneath her ear. Lord, she’d missed it all. But most of all, she’d missed the absolute and complete security she felt in his arms.
“Don’t let go.” His words were muffled by her hair.
As if she could. She tightened her grip on his back. “I won’t.”
He drew the covers up over them, settling her more comfortably against him.
Though her face was still wet, Grace smiled in the darkness. With his shoulder for a pillow, she closed her eyes. Not that she was going to sleep. Not with this unexpected gift of genuine closeness to be inhaled, savored, memorized....
When Grace awoke, someone was showering in the unit next door and the grey tinge of dawn had begun to invade the room. But it wasn’t the sound of the running water that woke her. Nor was it the fingers of light creeping under the drapes that caused her to stir in her sleepy, warm cocoon.
It was the hand on her breast. It was the wanting in her belly, so fierce she thought she might die of it.
Ray.
She opened her eyes slowly. With her head tucked into his shoulder, she had an excellent view of his hand, which shaped and kneaded her left breast through the thin t-shirt she wore. The sight of his tanned, blunt fingers moving so cleverly on the white fabric was almost as stimulating as the actual feel. Almost. He dragged a thumb across her tightening nipple. She moaned, then moaned again when his fingers came back to pinch the small crest into a hard point.
She tipped her head back to find him waiting for her. In the rapidly lightening room, she could read the hunger in his eyes. Not that the impressive erection jutting against her belly left much doubt about the matter.
“Let me make love to you.” His voice was thick, with need. “Please, Grace. Let me do it right this time. I’ll make it good.”
She swallowed a lump in her throat. “You always made it good.”
He held her gaze. “I hear a but in there.”
But what? His lovema
king had always been considerate, tender and oh-so-skilled. She knew women who’d crawl over broken glass for what Ray gave her.
“Grace?”
She grimaced, searching for the best way to express it. “I guess I wished you’d let me climb down from my pedestal once in a while.”
His fingers closed around her breast. “You’re my wife. I just wanted to treat you with respect.”
“The highest respect you could pay me would be to share yourself with me. Your whole self.”
She saw something stir in his eyes and held her breath, but he dropped his eyelids, his hands going still.
“I don’t think I’m any good at this.”
“I just want you to let me in. Here.” She touched his temple. “And here,” she added softly, touching his chest.
He opened his eyes, and they burned with uncertainty. “Oh, Grace, honey, you don’t know what you’re asking. There are ugly parts, so many of them. Parts I don’t even want to think about, parts I wish I didn’t have.”
“We all have those parts.” She touched his face then, smoothing his brow, then trailing her fingers down his beard-roughened face. “You think I imagined I’d married a saint?”
He caught her hand. “What do you want from me, Grace?”
That was easy. “Everything.” She wanted to touch his chest, but since he held her hand prisoner, she insinuated one leg between his legs, delighting in what it did to his breathing. “I don’t want you to hold anything back. I don’t want you to be so careful with me all the time.”
“Grace....”
“I want you to give me as much as I can take, and then I want you to give me more.”
“Like I did last night?”
His voice was rough, laced with self-disgust. God help her, she’d never loved him more.
“Last night could have been wonderful, if you’d been there with me. Really there.”
Desire blazed in his eyes again, hot enough to singe her. She pulled her hand free from his, sliding it beneath the covers to encircle his erection. His flesh leapt at her touch and he surged against her hand, but again he checked himself.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he gritted.
Saving Grace (Serve and Protect Series) Page 15
