“I’m a little surprised you’re accepting this so easily,” he said, leaning down for another kiss, because she was there and he could.
“Yeah,” she whispered just before his lips touched hers again. “So am I.”
The ocean had washed away Hope’s worries, at least for a while, and once she’d let everything go she couldn’t stop thinking about Gideon and what had happened that morning. Together they stripped off their wet bathing suits and stepped toward the master bathroom. She was sandy and salty, and she tasted Gideon on her mouth. Work was done, at least for a while, and for the moment she wasn’t worried about anything but getting into the bed and staying there for a while. She felt almost wanton, which was unlike her.
Hope Malory was cautious where men were concerned, and though she’d always tried to be just like the males in her profession, she had never been aggressive in the bedroom. It was the one place where she was truly shy, where she sometimes felt reserved to the point of prim. She didn’t feel at all prim now, as she gently pushed Gideon into the shower and followed him inside, stepping under the warm spray and letting it wash the last of the salt water from her skin and her hair.
“Do you ever get tired of living here?” she asked.
He ran a hand over her wet breast, almost casual and definitely familiar. There was such warmth in that hand, and she wanted more. She had a feeling she could never get enough of this man.
“Only when I get too much company,” he answered. “When that happens, I just toss a few grains of sand into the bed each night, and eventually they go home.”
She moved her body closer to his, unable to stop herself, not wanting to stop. “If I overstay my welcome, are you going to toss sand in my bed?” she teased.
“Not likely,” he said, his voice soft and uncertain.
She wanted to ask him, What are we, Raintree? A couple? Coworkers who have sex on the side? Friends? But she didn’t want to ask questions she knew he didn’t have answers for. He kissed her under the shower’s spray, and his hands wandered. So did hers. She wanted him here and now, but there was no condom nearby, and she wasn’t about to let go of him, not yet. This felt too good, the spray of the water, Gideon’s mouth and his hands, and the way her body responded to both. It didn’t matter what they called themselves, not yet. Maybe one day it would matter, but for now, this was enough.
She closed her eyes while Gideon spread her legs and touched her intimately. She could have sworn a spark entered her body, teasing her, arousing her, fluttering through her like a little bolt of lightning. Maybe it did. At this point, nothing seemed impossible.
Her body began to quiver, she wanted Gideon so much.
Instead of leading her from the shower, he pressed his palm against her belly, low, where she felt empty and shuddery.
“I’m gonna cheat,” he whispered into her ear.
“Okay,” Hope whispered breathlessly, eyes closed as everything she had was focused on touch, and touch alone.
She cried out as the orgasm washed through her with an unexpected intensity, and if Gideon hadn’t been holding her up, she probably would have fallen to the shower floor. But he did hold her up. He held her wet, slick body against his, as release whipped through her like lightning.
As the orgasm faded, Gideon whispered, “Open your eyes.”
She did so, slowly. There was an odd glow in the shower, and it didn’t come from Gideon. It came from her. Her aura, a literal afterglow, danced along her skin with little sparks of electricity. Gideon’s eyes shone with a touch of green light, just a touch. The rest of the glow came from her.
He smiled. “Water is a great conductor.”
He had been tempted to take Hope in the shower, condom or no condom, but Emma’s frequent appearances and promises of coming soon had made him opt for another method, at least for now.
Besides, it wasn’t as if they were finished.
They dried one another with a fat gray towel, then walked toward the bedroom and the bed that awaited. Hope’s skin still glowed, but the luminescence was quickly fading. She didn’t have the power to keep the electricity fed, as he did.
He tossed her onto the bed, and she laughed as he crawled onto the mattress to join her. She stretched beneath him, naked and damp and touched with magic.
“So,” she said, reaching out to caress his face with gentle fingers. “What do girls normally say when you turn them into your own personal flashlights?”
He stroked her throat with the back of his hand. “I don’t know. I’ve never done it before.”
Her smile faded.
“I usually have to hide everything, remember?” He didn’t tell her that the glow was special, that she was different, that she was so unlike other women she stunned him.
Hope shifted her body, making herself more comfortable against him. There was something most definitely different about the way his naked flesh and hers came together, something he didn’t want to think about. He didn’t want to think with her. He wanted sex. A few laughs, maybe.
“Don’t hide anything from me,” she said.
It was such an unexpected and startling thought, that any woman could know everything about him and stay, that Gideon almost flinched. He couldn’t bare himself in every sense to anyone. Bare bodies, yes. Bare souls? Never.
He didn’t want to talk about anything beyond the physical, so he spread Hope’s thighs and stroked. She sighed and wrapped her fingers around him, gently, but not too gently. She caressed, and he closed his eyes and left everything behind to get lost in sensation. This was sex. It was good and right and powerful, but it was still only sex.
By the time he reached for the bedside drawer, neither of them were thinking about explanations for what this might be. It just was.
Sometimes a rabbit is just a rabbit.
ELEVEN
She should have been able to sleep like a baby, but that hadn’t happened. Not yet. Her mind was spinning with a thousand questions. When Hope became so restless that she began to worry about waking Gideon, she left him sleeping in his bed while she quietly roamed the half-dark bedroom.
Moonlight from the uncovered window and a hint of illumination from a night-light in the bathroom made it easy enough to see. Gideon was a bit of a minimalist, without a lot of unnecessary stuff in his house. There were family pictures on the walls here and there, but no flower arrangements or useless knickknacks on tabletops. She ran her hands over the dresser in his bedroom. Carelessly discarded on the surface was a ceramic dish for coins, a silk tie he’d dropped in a heap, a small piece of turquoise and what she recognized as another protection charm. She ran her fingers over the small silver charm attached to the slim leather cord. A week ago, if someone had told her that something so innocent and unimportant as a piece of silver could carry the power to protect, she never would have believed it. Now she knew that many of the things she’d once believed were wrong. She lifted the charm and placed it around her neck, where it lay close to the one Gideon had given her. Tabby was out there somewhere, and besides, her heart needed all the protection it could get at the moment. Was that kind of protection even possible? Or was it too late for her?
She grabbed a T-shirt Gideon had dropped onto a chair near the dresser, pulled it over her head and very quietly walked onto the deck that overlooked the Atlantic. The sound of the surf, together with the gentle light of the moon, soothed her, and she definitely needed soothing tonight.
It wasn’t like her to get deeply involved with anyone or anything so quickly. She studied all new enterprises from every angle before committing herself in any way. She always remained coldly and totally detached from any situation until she knew without doubt that a move was the right one. She’d been that way since the age of eleven, maybe even longer. She didn’t make rash decisions. Not anymore.
And here she was, deeply involved with Gideon Raintree. Through the sex, his secrets and the case they were working together, she was involved to the pit of her soul.
She hear
d the door behind her open but didn’t turn to look at Gideon. His bare feet padded toward her, and a moment later his arms encircled her. Those arms were warm and strong and wonderfully embracing. It was a nice feeling, to be held this way. She liked it. Maybe too much.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she whispered.
“Two nights together, and I wake up because you’re not where you’re supposed to be,” he responded with a touch of displeasure in his voice.
She leaned her head back and relaxed against him. “I’m not exactly accustomed to needing anyone, either.”
He slipped his hands beneath the oversized shirt she wore, raked his palms against her bare skin and cupped her breasts with familiarity. His fingers teased the sensitive nipples until she closed her eyes and swayed against him, her body responding quickly and entirely. She shouldn’t want him now. She should most definitely not need him this way, with an intensity that drove away everything else. But she did.
His hands feathered over her breasts. Was that a touch of unnatural electricity that seeped through her skin and shot to her very core? Or was what she felt so intensely simply the response of a woman to a man? Gideon had such nice hands, charged or not, and he touched her as if he owned her, as if he knew exactly how to make her his in every way. He leaned down and kissed the side of her neck, familiarly and gently and amazingly arousingly. Her body quivered.
She turned in Gideon’s arms, lifted her face and kissed him. Her mouth against his, she slipped her hands around his waist. He’d walked onto the deck naked—not that anyone would be on the beach to see them at this time of night, in this near-dark—and she boldly ran her fingers against his back, his hip, his thigh. If it was true that he could make her his, then it was just as true that she possessed a part of him, at least for tonight.
He kissed her deeply, arousing her and demanding more with his lips and his tongue and his hands. Her body clenched and unclenched, quivered, and quickly spiraled out of control. So did Gideon’s. She felt it in every caress of his hands; she tasted it in his kiss. Moaning low in what sounded like frustration or maybe impatience, he easily lifted her off her feet. Her legs wrapped around his waist. He was close, so close.
“Don’t you need a—” she began breathlessly.
“Already thought of that,” he said, his voice husky.
She shifted her body to bring him closer, to guide him into her. “You came out here wearing a condom? Pretty sure of yourself, weren’t you?” she teased.
“I was overcome by optimism.”
The tip of his erection teased her entrance, and she began to lower herself onto him, anxious and wanting in a way that still surprised her. She’d had more sex in the past twenty-four hours than she’d had in the past five years. And she had never had sex like this before, all-consuming and powerful and beautiful, without awkwardness or disappointment. She had never felt a moment’s disappointment in Gideon’s arms.
“I’m glad you woke up,” she whispered, her mouth resting against his ear. “I’ve never made love in the moonlight before.”
Gideon went still. His entire body tensed, muscles tightening. “Moonlight.”
He lifted her away from the railing she was partially balanced against, and carried her into the deep shadows against the house. No moonlight touched them there, and there was no railing to lean against. Gideon held her; she held him. The wall was against her back, and she felt grounded and afloat at the same time.
They were lost in complete and utter darkness when he pushed inside her, deep and hard. Hope didn’t care where they were. Moonlight or daylight, darkness or sunshine. Under the covers or beneath nothing but the moon and the stars. As long as Gideon was with her, as long as he was holding her, she didn’t care where they were. Instinct called her to him, but there was more than instinct here, more than intense physical need.
She hadn’t thought herself in love for a very long time. Her mother, her sister, her nephews, that kind of love was all she dared to believe in. Romantic love was filled with pitfalls. She not only didn’t wish for that emotion, she did her best to avoid it. Love was a trap, heartache just waiting to happen. This unexpected rush of emotion she felt for Gideon right now, while he held her and filled her and brought her closer to release, surely it was just the power of sex.
But as he made love to her, with her back to the wall and her arms and legs wrapped completely around him, she couldn’t imagine any other man but Gideon making her feel this way. She could love him. She could wrap her entire world around this man and change who and what she was, who she had become. Ghosts, light shows and all, she could love him. Scary stuff.
They came together with a cry and a moan that were lost in a deep kiss. With the sounds of the surf in their ears and the moonlight inches away, with her body trembling, there was a moment of perfection when those words crossed her mind again. I could love you. Lost in darkness, the gentle glow of Gideon made her smile. I love you tugged at her lips, but she bit the words back. It was too soon for such a confession. It was also too risky.
He carried her inside the house and placed her gently on the bed. After disposing of the condom, he returned to the bed to lie beside her. She kept his T-shirt on. She liked the way it felt against her skin, this worn cotton that still smelled vaguely of Gideon.
“I’m going to get up in the morning and go to the Cordell crime scene to have a look around,” he said, his voice like gravel and silk.
“You mean we, right?”
He hesitated. “I want you to stay here.”
She rose slightly. If she hadn’t just been thoroughly exhausted and satisfied, if I love you weren’t still niggling at the edge of her brain, his words might have made her angry. Instead she smiled. “No way.”
“There are other case files that need to be examined. I need you here.”
“Put the top up and I’ll read the files in the car.”
He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her body against his. “Can we argue about this tomorrow?”
“Sure.” Her eyes drifted closed. Maybe now she could sleep. “I like arguing with you,” she said beneath her breath. “You’re really cute when you get mad.”
Gideon snorted, and then he laughed. “You’re one of a kind, Hope Malory.”
“So are you, Gideon Raintree.” It was as close to I love you as either of them were willing to get.
Gideon woke not long after sunrise, which was normal for him. Waking with his arms around a beautiful woman was not so normal.
His sexual relationships in the past had been brief. Even in those that lasted a few weeks or even a few months, he maintained a certain distance. He didn’t spend the night elsewhere or ask women to spend the night here. It was too dangerous.
Sleeping with Hope didn’t feel at all dangerous. It felt right and good and natural, as if they had been sleeping together for a thousand years. And that was truly dangerous. It was so dangerous that last night he had almost forgotten Emma’s words and taken Hope right there in the moonlight. He’d been wearing a condom, but no kind of protection was a hundred percent effective. Moving into the shadows before he’d buried himself inside her had simply been a precaution.
He lifted her shirt, his shirt, and laid his mouth on her flat stomach. Damn, she tasted good. She felt good, so warm and silky. He kissed her there, drawing the essence of her into his mouth, trailing the tip of his tongue up and down, sucking against her skin until he felt her hand settle in his hair.
“Good morning,” she murmured, her voice sleepy and satisfied.
He answered by lifting the shirt a bit higher and pushing his hand beneath the soft cotton. The chill of her protection charm brushed against his hand as he uncovered one breast and took the nipple deep into his mouth. Hope’s fingers threaded more thoroughly into his hair, and he suckled her deeper. He tasted her and savored her until one of those little moans caught in her throat.
This morning he wasn’t in any hurry. He would make her come a time or two, make lo
ve to her long and hard and then leave her sleeping soundly. When she woke up and found that he was well on his way to the Cordell crime scene, she might be pissed for a while, but she would forgive him. He knew exactly how to make her forgive him.
He spread her legs and ran one finger along the tender skin of her inner thigh. Her skin was soft, the muscle of her thigh gently shaped and utterly feminine. “You have the longest legs,” he said as he lifted one and laid his mouth behind the knee. She shuddered and wrapped that leg around him as his mouth moved higher. Her leg hadn’t seen much sun. It was as creamy pale as any skin he had ever seen, and it fascinated him. He ran a finger up from her knee, allowing a little bit of electricity to escape. Hope laughed and twitched.
“That tickles.”
“Does it?”
“Yes,” she said with a sigh.
He wasn’t anywhere near finished with this woman. Would he ever be? While the morning came alive, he tasted her everywhere. He made her quiver and lurch; he made her moan. After she came against his mouth, she all but threw him onto his back, determined to have her way with him, as well. Determined to make him moan. And she did. With her mouth and her hands, she studied every inch of him.
Knowing that he was as ready as a man could possibly get, Hope pulled away from him and drew the T-shirt over her head. Gideon reached for the drawer where he kept the condoms. He would have to stop by the drugstore on the way home tonight. He was almost out. And no matter how much he liked Hope, no matter how right and close and true she felt, no matter that she made him glow in the dark, he wasn’t ready to go any further than this. They had great sex, but there was no guarantee that it would last. Not much in this world was truly lasting.
Hope sat on the bed, smiling and flushed and breathing hard all over again. Her black hair was mussed around her face. Perfect Hope, so carefully put together, was utterly gorgeous when she was mussed.
Mussed and naked…and wearing two charms around her neck.
Raintree: Haunted Page 14
