“Strangely enough, that’s not the first time I’ve been told that.”
And suddenly, the whole situation seemed incredibly, stupidly funny. Hilariously funny. Sitting-on-the-curb, holding-your-sides funny.
When she could talk, Julie rubbed at her watering eyes and said the first thing that came to mind. “You do realize, of course, that we are absolutely pathetic?”
“Hey, we passed pathetic with that picture and bank brochure thing.”
Julie hit him. “Don’t tell me you drew this picture yourself.”
“Seriously, Aaron drew it. And he’s right proud of it, ma’am.”
Julie looked at it again. “Well, then, I’m appropriately flattered, and I’ll thank him and hang it on my refrigerator.” She smiled again at the loving crayon tribute to her. But then she smelled a rat. Frowning at him in a sidelong glance, she accused, “Why didn’t you just bring it with you to Mom’s today?”
He pulled back and looked at her. “What? And miss this Kodak moment?”
Julie laughed with him, but refused to be sidetracked. “You’d better tell me you didn’t know beforehand that Aaron was going to stay over.”
He crossed his heart. “Swear to God, I did not.”
Julie grinned. He looked just like a sincere little boy. Except he was this devastatingly handsome and sexy man. “All right, I believe you. And, Mike, I owe you an apology for last Wednesday. I mean, here you were being a nice guy and asking me to dinner, and I acted like this big jerk—”
“Forget it, Julie. It’s no big deal. And, hell, I wasn’t just being nice. I wanted to see you as much as Aaron did. Speaking of that little turkey, he says you’re his girlfriend now.” Mike stared right into her eyes. “He really likes you, you know. I mean—a lot.”
Julie smiled, feeling all warm inside. “Aaron is special to me, too. Just like his daddy.”
Then the moment stretched out, got serious. Mike reached over and took her hand in his. Looking into her eyes, he asked, “So, what do we do now?”
Julie could barely breathe, much less make a rational decision. His touch was so…welcome. That was the best word she could come up with. Whenever he touched her, it just felt so darned right. What was she going to do? Well, she’d come this far. No sense chickening out now. Like Tennyson always said, “’Twas better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.” ‘Twas also better not to think at all at this point. “Well, the way I see it, we decide on your place or mine.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Yeah? I vote for both.”
He was teasing. She knew that. But still, there it was. This thing between them. They were right on the edge. Was it just a matter of one hormone calling to another? She looked over at him. How was it possible that he was even better-looking in the moonlight? No, what she felt for him was so far beyond simple lust that it scared her. Given that, could she allow it to be dragged through the dirt? Well, she had warned herself not to think. Her mood slumped right along with her shoulders. “We can’t do this, Mike, can we?”
“No, we can’t.” He said it quickly enough, but then he frowned. “Why can’t we?”
Julie bit back a grin. There it was again—that little boy look of his. “Because you and I. we’re not just us.”
Mike looked off toward the tennis courts and nodded. He sat with his knees bent and spread apart, his elbows atop them, with his hands folded in between them. He finally brought his attention back to her, resting his chin on his biceps. His eyes were glossier than the night. Points of moonlight danced in them, giving off silver reflections. “I sure don’t have any answers for you, Julie. Hell, I don’t even know the questions. All I know is I’m not playing, and I want to kiss you again. But all over, this time.”
Julie sucked in a ragged breath. “Mike, don’t say things like—”
“And then do it again…slower.”
“Please. You’re—”
“What I am is on fire for you.”
Oh, God, he was pursuing her, just like she’d wanted him to, not more than five minutes ago. He hadn’t moved a muscle toward her, but already her body was opening up for him, making ready to receive him. One or two more words from him, and she’d slide right off the curb into the gutter. For real.
And yet he still didn’t move a muscle. He just held her gaze. There were fifty reasons why they shouldn’t do this. And only one overpowering reason why they should. As if to second this, an arc of sexuality sparked from him to her and back again. Julie realized that her mouth was open and that she was breathing in half measures. Panting. She was panting for him.
Mike stood up with one graceful, athletic move and held his hand out to her. “Julie, I can’t walk away from you tonight on my own. Either tell me to go away, or come with me now. It’s your decision.”
Julie stared at his hand. She wanted him. She’d already told herself that she loved him. Now was the time to find out. Her hand clutched almost involuntarily into a fist at her side. What about Caroline? Well, he didn’t look too concerned with his fiancee. Why should you be?
Why, indeed. Then, right or wrong, it was settled. She was going to do this. Slowly, after two half starts and after she laid aside her sweater, purse and Aaron’s picture, she finally put her hand out and grasped his. Lightning should have rent the night when she touched him. Thunder should have boomed overhead. The heavens should have split. But none of that happened.
Except inside her. Mike pulled her to her feet and into his arms. He was kissing her, and it was all that mattered. Until they heard the friendly hooting and encouraging catcalls of their neighbors on their balconies. Mike pulled back from her, grinned down into her face, and then turned slightly to hold her hand up with his in a victory salute to their audience. Applause broke out Julie wanted to hide under a bush, but Mike still had a firm grip on her. Grinning hugely, he looked back down at her. “This is a little too public for me.”
“I’ll say.” Not a brilliant comment, but it was all she could manage with no air in her lungs and Mike’s kiss still wet on her lips. Sucking in a few gulps of air, she added, “Let’s go to my place. I don’t think I could—I mean, Aaron’s stuff is there, and Caro—”
“Stop right there—please.” He stopped rubbing his hands up and down her arms to grip her tightly. “Tonight, just think about us. We’ll go to your place. But I still have to go to my apartment first.”
Julie frowned at him.
Mike rubbed a hand over his mouth. His expression could only be dubbed self-conscious. “Um, okay—straight out. I have to get a condom. Or two. I’m not like a lot of guys who carry them in their wallets, thinking they might get lucky at work or at the grocery store.”
Had he not been holding on to her with one hand, Julie would have walked off into the overgrown vegetation at the back of the complex and kept on going until she died from embarrassment. Say something. You’re a woman of the nineties. “Well, I guess I should be glad, huh? I mean, that proves you weren’t so sure of.the outcome. Or of me. Or of yourself. Or—” Okay, that was good. Now, shut up.
Mike made an I-see-your-point face, and then grinned, probably thinking he’d come off looking pretty good. “Yeah. I mean, no, I wasn’t. Oh, hell, I never have been able to convince myself to carry the damn things around with me. Guys like that—well, you know.”
Maybe. “Do you want me to just go on to my—” she indicated the direction of her apartment “—or should I go with…?”
His hesitation vanished. “You’re going with me.”
He said it so adamantly that Julie had to laugh. “Afraid I’ll change my mind and lock you out?”
“Yes. And I don’t want to be the subject of tomorrow’s headlines because I had to break down your door to ravish you. Wouldn’t the bureau love that?”
“Ravish me? Would you?”
“In an Oklahoma minute, sweetheart,” Mike assured her, managing to look a little satyrlike. He picked up the picture, her purse and sweater, and handed them to her.
/> Julie clutched them tightly. A tittering thrill of sexual awareness swept over her. “Oklahoma minutes? Are those any different from Florida minutes?”
He pretended to think about that as he took her elbow and started walking toward his apartment. “Maybe. But those Oklahoma minutes can have you roped, tied and branded before you can blink.”
“Well. When you put it that way, it sounds like fun.”
“You’re about to find out just how much fun, baby.”
6
JULIE STARED UP at the ceiling in her bedroom, but she wasn’t seeing. Instead, she saw trumpeting angels and harpplaying cherubs. She saw scudding clouds and windswept cliffs, thundering herds of powerful horses, a Roman orgy. And all because Mike DeAngelo had touched her body. Oh, God, had he touched her body. She was a changed woman. It was all she could do not to jump up in bed, naked as a Thanksgiving Day turkey, and belt out a chorus from the musical Oklahoma! Oh, baby, let those winds sweep on down the plains.
She returned to earth when Mike shifted his sweatslickened weight. Breathing a little more normally now, he lay on his stomach with an arm and a leg draped possessively over her. He raised his head up to give her a look hot enough to scorch the wallpaper. Then, with purely sensual calculation on his face, he bent and captured her nipple. Julie arched in moaning encouragement, clutching desperately at his thick hair as he mercilessly swirled and sucked at the already swollen and tender peak.
She nearly passed out before he took pity on her and quit, but only so he could pull himself up over her more fully and capture her lips. A jolt of desire rocked her. His mouth tasted of her own musk. Completely surrendered, Julie flung her arms around his neck and gave him full access to plunder her mouth. Oh, what that mouth of his could do. Her nipples weren’t the only parts of her that were swollen and tender. As if naming themselves, her hips bucked against him with a will of their own.
Mike broke their kiss. Julie opened her eyes. His passiondarkened face wasn’t more than three intimate inches from her own as he supported himself on his elbows. He held her pinned under him while he reached out with his fingertip and ran it over her face with wonder, as if he were a blind man using his sense of touch to see her. Julie could barely breathe as she in turn memorized his handsome, chiseled features. The moment was so magical, so fragile. What did he see when he looked at her?
He cupped her chin, forcing her to look into his eyes. “I want to love you until you make that little sound at the back of your throat again, Julie.” He bent his head to kiss her earlobe, her jaw, her neck.
Julie sucked in a ragged breath. “I’d die if you didn’t.”
Mike raised his head and smiled. A smile that told of pleasures to come. “Well, now, we wouldn’t want that. Good thing I picked up a handful of condoms at my apartment, instead of just two, huh?”
Julie pinched his arm. Or tried to. Rock-hard muscle just wasn’t pinchable. “A handful? Piggy.”
He chuckled, just enough to shake the bed, and her with it. “Piggy? Damn. And here I thought I was the big, bad wolf.”
Julie grinned right back at him. “Be real careful right here, buddy. If you’re the wolf, does that make me a pig?”
He studied a point just above her head and pretended to think about that. For some reason, a slow grinding of his hips against hers seemed to help his efforts. He looked back down at her, leering intently enough to earn himself instant membership in the Lecherous Wolf Society. He reached out to capture a thick lock of her hair and tug the red curl into her line of vision. “No, ma’am. You’re Little Red Riding Hood, of course.”
Julie nodded slowly. “Oh, you’re good. That was good.”
“You’ve already told me that. You don’t want all your nice words to go to my.head, now, do you?”
Julie wrenched her arm free so she could shove at his shoulder. “Oh, DeAngelo, that was cheap.”
“Hey, you get what you pay for. You through talking yet?”
She raised her head and nipped at his chin. “Through talking.”
“Well, yee-haw.” With that, he rolled them both over until Julie was lying atop him. “I am all yours, ma’am. Be gentle.”
Julie sat up, straddling his hips and squirming sensually until her softness snuggled firmly over his hardness. Bracing her hands on the warm granite wall of his chest, she leered down at him. “Be gentle? Like hell I will.”
He started to say something, but his words died an impassioned death as she slid down him and hunched forward enough to cover his nipple with her mouth. The strangled gasps coming from him fueled Julie’s efforts to please them both. Swirling her tongue and nipping at his skin, never letting her mouth lose contact with him, she worked her way over his chest, his collarbones, up the column of his neck, and then down the thinning line of black hair that bisected his rigid, muscular belly. Her nails raked over his skin, reveling in the feel of him everywhere her lips weren’t.
Never before had she been so bold. The man was magnificent, just as she’d known he would be. Just as she’d feared he would be. How would she ever let him go after tonight?
When she slid down lower on him and took him in her hands, Mike jerked spasmodically and dragged her back up the length of him. “No, not again. Don’t even think it. We may need it later.”
Julie laughed out loud. “Can’t take it, huh?”
Mike tried—and failed—to look properly macho. “No, I can’t. Not after that last time. I can’t control—well, you know. You were here.”
Julie chuckled softly, feeling warm, loving and maybe even a little heartbroken. “Yes, and I’m here now, too, Mike. And I need you. God, how I need you.”
He reached up to stroke her face. “Julie.”
She grasped at his hand, bringing his fingertips to her mouth, kissing each one in turn. His hands were so strong, so capable. She cupped his palm to her face and closed her eyes, afraid she was going to cry.
Mike stilled under her and then pulled his hand loose. Julie opened her eyes. Mike trailed his hand down her neck, across her shoulder, down her arm, stopping at her hip. “Come here, honey.”
With that, he pulled her to him and rolled them over, covering her from chest to toes with his hard body. With tender kisses he outlined her face. With caressing hands, he fired her desire. With softly murmured words, he sealed her love for him. And then he slid down the passionslickened length of her until he could take her in his mouth. Julie arched and groaned, grabbing behind her for the brass rungs of her headboard. No other man had ever touched her there before. And never would she want another man to hold her in his hands this way. Only Mike.
Desire peaked, rocking her and rippling her, like a kite tail in the wind. Rhythmic contractions rippled out from her center, tingling every nerve ending. And still Mike loved her. Head flung back, knees bent, toes dug into the sheets, her hands now clutching at Mike’s thick hair, she lay suspended in time. Satiation robbed her of all but the present moment. She didn’t even open her eyes when she felt Mike pull himself up and away from her. After a moment marked by the tearing of a cellophane wrapper, he came back to her and stroked her heated body. Needing him desperately, Julie clutched him to her, forcing him over her. As if he were a lifeline, she flung her arms and legs around him and clung to him as, with one slick, deft movement, he sheathed himself in her.
Julie heard her own guttural cry of carnal pleasure. Mike answered with soft words of desire, harsh words of need, low rasps of labored breathing as he rocked his hips against hers in the most primal of all acts between a man and a woman. Julie met him thrust for thrust, greedily seeking her own pleasure, even as she gave back to him in equal measure. When Mike’s tempo increased, when his thrusts threatened to tear her asunder, when he swelled to fill her more completely, Julie feverishly raked at his muscled back, feeling her own need ready to burst yet again. And when it came for them, the moment tilted on its axis, taking her over the edge with Mike, completely content to fall in his arms, no matter the depth.
M
ike collapsed heavily on her. She held him to her, accepted his weight, rubbed her hand up and down his back. With his head on her pillow, his breath came hot and labored on her cheek. Julie closed her eyes and smiled. Never in her life had she ever been this happy, this content. This.loving between them was so right. For her, he made the world fade away. He lit up the night with his smile. His laugh sent goose bumps romping over her skin. How could she ever let him go? She hugged him to her tightly and kissed his glistening forehead.
“Not.again. I.swear…you’ll…kill me.” Mike sounded like he was begging for his life. Or for oxygen.
Julie chuckled. “Oh, please? Just once more?”
Mike pulled up on an elbow and looked down at her. Eyes narrowed, he snatched up a pillow and playfully bopped her with it. Julie giggled, which turned into a screech when he yanked her to him with a growl and turned her back to his chest. She settled immediately when he put a muscled, tanned arm around her torso and held her to him, like two nestling spoons in a silverware case. “Be still, Red Riding Hood. We have to rest now. No one makes love all night long. That’s a myth men put out to make themselves look good.”
Julie grinned. “I suspected as much.”
“Um-hmm, I’m sure you did. Now, let me hold you for a while, and then I have to go. Before I fall asleep.”
Would it be so awful if you stayed over? Julie frowned, feeling cheap, somehow. But still she pulled Mike’s arm more securely around her and nestled against him. She closed her eyes, squeezing them shut, as if doing so could keep the truth of their lives away.
JULIE JERKED TO INSTANT wakefulness. What? Who?
She heard it again. Someone was knocking on the door. Good Lord, what time was it? She glanced at the clock on her nightstand, rubbed her still sleepy eyes and looked again. Nine-twenty. Please. She flopped back over on her back and lay there, staring up at the ceiling. Nine-twenty? Oh, geez, her parents were supposed to be here at.oh, God, nine-fifteen. This was awful. Okay, Julie, get up and answer the door. Start there.
A Man In Demand Page 8
