Suzanne Brockmann - Team Ten 10 - Taylor's Temptation

by Suzanne Brockmann

  "I'm glad," he whispered. "Because I liked it, too."

  Time hung as she gazed into his eyes, as she lost herself in the warmth of his soul. He still wanted her. He wanted more, too.

  But then he looked away, as if he were afraid of where that look was taking them.

  Guilt, he'd said before, and she knew if she didn't act quickly, he was going to walk out of her apartment and never come back. At least not without a chaperone.

  "Don't move," she told him. She pushed her chair back from the table and stood up. "Stay right there."

  She was down the hall and in the bedroom in a flash, grabbing what she needed.

  Bobby turned to look at her as she came back into the kitchen, still sitting where she'd commanded him to stay. He quickly looked away from her, and she realized that her robe had slipped open even farther—the deep vee now extending all the way down to her waist.

  She didn't adjust it, didn't pull it closed. She just moved closer, so that she was standing beside him. Close enough that she was invading his personal space.

  But she didn't touch him. Didn't even speak. She just waited for him to turn his head and look up at her.

  He did just that. Looked at her. Looked away again. Swallowed hard. "Colleen, I think—"

  Now was definitely not the time for thinking. She sat on his lap, straddling him, forcing him to look at her. Her robe was completely open now, the belt having slipped its loose knot.

  He was breathing hard—and trying not to. "I thought we decided this was going to be a one-night thing. Just to get it out of our systems."

  "Am I out of your system?" she asked, knowing full well that she wasn't.

  "No, and if I'm not careful, you're going to get under my skin," he admitted. "Colleen, please don't do this to me. I spent the night convincing myself that as long as we didn't make love again, I'd be okay. And I know it's a long shot, but even your brother might understand that something like this could happen between us—once."

  His words would have swayed her—if he hadn't touched her, his hands on her thighs, just lightly, as if he couldn't stop himself, couldn't resist.

  She shrugged her robe off her shoulders, and it fell to

  the floor behind her, and then there she was. Naked, in the middle of her kitchen, with daylight streaming in the windows, warming her skin, bathing her in golden sunshine.

  Bobby's breath caught in his throat, and as he looked at her, she felt beautiful. She saw herself as if through his eyes, and she was beautiful.

  It felt unbelievably good.

  She shifted forward, pressing herself against him, feeling him, large and hard beneath his shorts. No doubt about it. He still desired her. He made a sound, low in his throat. And then he kissed her.

  His passion took her breath away. It was as if he'd suddenly exploded, as if he needed to kiss her to stay alive, to touch as much of her as he possibly could or else he'd die. His hands were everywhere, his mouth everywhere else.

  It was intoxicating, addicting—to be wanted so desperately. It was almost as good as being loved.

  She reached between them and unfastened his shorts as she kissed him, taking him into her hand, pressing him against her, letting him know that she wanted him desperately, too.

  She still held the condom she'd taken from her bedroom, although the little paper wrapper was tightly scrunched in her hand. She tore it open, and Bobby took it from her, covering himself and then—oh, yes!—he was inside of her.

  He tried, but he couldn't keep from groaning aloud, from holding her close and burying his face in her breasts. She moved slowly, stroking him with her body, filling herself completely with him.

  Making love to Bobby Taylor was just as amazing in the daylight as it had been last night.

  She pulled back slightly to watch him as she moved on top of him, and he held her gaze, his eyes sparking with heat beneath heavy eyelids.

  She couldn't get enough of him. She pressed against him,

  wanting more, wanting forever, wanting him never to leave, wanting this moment never to end.

  Wanting him to fall in love with her as completely as she'd fallen in love with him.

  Oh, no, what had she done? She didn't love him. She couldn't love him.

  She must've made some kind of noise of frustration and despair, because he stood up. He just lifted himself from the chair, with her in his arms, with his body still buried deeply inside her. Even deeper now that he was standing.

  Colleen gasped, and then had to laugh as he carried her—effortlessly, as if she weighed nothing—across the room, her arms around his neck, her legs now locked around his waist. He didn't stop until he'd pressed her up against the wall by the refrigerator. The muscles in his chest and arms stood out, making him seem twice as big. Making her seem almost small.

  Still... "Don't hurt your shoulder," she told him.

  "What shoulder?" he asked hoarsely, and kissed her.

  It was so impossibly macho, the way he held her, her back against the wall, the way he possessed her so completely with his mouth. His kiss was far from gentle, and that was so exciting, it was almost ridiculous. Still, there was no denying that she found it sexy beyond belief, to be pinned here, like this, as he kissed her so proprietarily.

  She was expecting more roughness, expecting sex that was hard and fast and wild, but instead he began a long, lingering withdrawal, then an equally deliberate penetration that filled her maddeningly slowly.

  It was sexier than she could have dreamed possible—this man holding her like this, taking his time to take her completely. On his terms.

  He kissed her face, her throat, her neck as if he owned her.

  And he did.

  She felt her release begin before she was ready for it, before he'd even begun that slow, sensuous slide inside of her for the third heart-stopping time. She didn't want this to end, and she tried to stop herself, to hold him still for a moment, but she was powerless.

  And she didn't mind.

  Because she loved what he was doing. She loved his strength and his power, loved the fact that he was watching her with such intense desire in his eyes.

  Loved that even though he was pretending to be in control, she knew that he wasn't. She owned him as absolutely as he owned her. More.

  She held his gaze while she melted around him, while she flew apart from wave upon endless wave of pleasure.

  He smiled, a fierce, proud, fairly obnoxious male grin. It would have made her roll her eyes a day or so ago, but today she found she loved it. She loved being pure female to his pure male. It didn't mean she was weaker. On the contrary. She was his perfect match, his opposite, his equal.

  “I loved watching you do that last night," he murmured as he kissed her again. "And I love it even more this morning."

  He was her first real lover in the physical sense of the word. And he was also the first man she'd ever known who liked who she was—not merely the promise of the person he could mold her into becoming.

  "I want to do that to you again," he said. "Right now. Is that okay with you?"

  Colleen just laughed.

  He lifted her away from the wall and carried her down the hall to her bedroom, kicking the door shut behind them.

  Chapter

  Bobby was floating.

  He was in that place halfway between sleep and consciousness, his face buried in Colleen's sweet-smelling hair, his body still cradled between the softness of her legs.

  So much for willpower. So much for resolving not to make love to her again. So much for hoping that Wes would forgive him for one little, single transgression.

  Ah, but how he'd loved making love to her again. And no red-blooded, heterosexual man could've resisted the temptation of Colleen Skelly, naked, on his lap.

  And really, deep in his heart, he knew it didn't matter. Wes was going to go ape over the fact that Bobby had slept with Colleen. Realistically, how much worse could it be to have slept with her twice? What difference could it possibly make? />
  To Wes? None. Probably. Hopefully.

  But the difference it made to Bobby was enormous.

  As enormous as the difference between heaven and hell.

  Speaking of heaven, he was still inside of her, he realized, forcing himself to return to earth. Falling asleep immediately after sex was not a smart move when using condoms as the sole method of birth control. Because condoms could leak.

  He should have pulled out of her twenty minutes ago. And for that matter, he should also have been aware that he was still on top of her, crushing her.

  But she hadn't protested. In fact, she still had her arms tightly wrapped around him.

  He shifted his weight, pulling away from her and reaching between them to...

  Uh-oh. "Uh, Colleen...?" Bobby sat up, suddenly fully, painfully, completely alert.

  She stirred, stretched, sexy as hell, a distraction even now, when he should have been completely nondistractible.

  "Don't leave yet, Bobby," she murmured, still half asleep. "Stay for a while, please?"

  "Colleen, I think you better get up and take a shower." Condoms sometimes did something far worse than leak. "The condom broke."

  She laughed as she opened her eyes. "Yeah, right." Her smile faded as she looked into his eyes. "Oh, no, you're not kidding are you?" She sat up.

  Silently he shook his head.

  Twenty minutes. She'd been lying on her back for at least twenty minutes after he'd unknowingly sent his sperm deep inside of her.

  Was it possible she already was pregnant? How quickly could that happen?

  Quickly. Instantly—if the timing was right. In a flash, a heartbeat.

  In a burst of latex.

  "Well," Colleen said, her eyes wide. "These past few days have certainly been full of first-time experiences for

  me, and this one's no exception. What do we do about this? Is a shower really going to help at this point?"

  Count on Colleen not to have hysterics. Count on her to be upbeat and positive and proactive in trying to correct what could well be the biggest, most life-changing mistake either one of them had ever made.

  "Probably not," he admitted. "Although..."

  "I'll take one right now, if you want me to. I'm not sure where I am in my cycle. I've never really been regular." She was sitting there, unconcerned about her nakedness, looking to him for suggestions and options and his opinion, with complete and total trust.

  That kind of trust was an incredible turn-on, and he felt his body respond. How could that be? The disbelief and cold fear that had surged through his veins at his discovery should have brought about an opposite physical response— more similar to the response one had from swimming in an icy lake.

  And his mental reaction to a broken condom should have included not even thinking about having sex for the next three weeks without shaking with fear.

  But there was Colleen, sitting next to him on her bed, all bare breasts and blue-green eyes and quiet, steadfast trust.

  Right now she needed him to be honest about this. There was no quick fix. No miraculous solutions. "I think it's probably too late to do anything but pray."

  She nodded. "That's what I figured."

  "I'm sorry."

  "It's not your fault," she said.

  He shook his head. "It's not about fault—it's about responsibility, and I am responsible."

  "Well, I am, too. You were coerced."

  Bobby smiled, thinking of the way she'd sat on his lap, intending to seduce him, wondering if she had even the

  slightest clue that his last hope of resisting her had vanished the moment she'd appeared in the kitchen wearing only that robe.

  "Yeah," he said, "as if that was really hard for you to do."

  She smiled back at him, and his world shrank to a few square feet of her bed—to her eyes, her smile, her face and body.

  "It was another one of those first-time endeavors for me," she told him. "I was proud of myself for not chickening out."

  "You're a natural." His voice was husky. "But that's not what I meant. I meant it wasn't hard because when it comes to you, I'm a total pushover."

  Just looking into her eyes like this made him want her again—badly enough that he wasn't able to keep it any kind of secret.

  Colleen noticed and laughed softly. "Well now, there's an interesting, hedonistic approach to this problem." She crawled toward him, across the bed, her eyes gleaming and her smile filled with the very devil. "You know that old saying, when a door closes, somewhere a window opens? Well, how about, when a condom breaks, a window of opportunity opens?"

  Bobby knew that wasn't necessarily true. He knew he should stop her, back away, stand up, do anything but just sit there and wait for her to...

  Too late.

  Colleen sat up. "Oh, my God."

  "Mmph," Bobby said, facedown on her bed.

  It was :. Fifty-five minutes to make it to her law school in the Fenway from Cambridge. Without a car, on the T. "Oh, my God!"

  Bobby lifted his head. "What's the—"

  She was already scrambling for the bathroom, climbing directly over him, inadvertently pushing his face back into the pillow.

  "Mmmrph!"

  "Sorry!"

  Thanking the Lord—not for the first time today—that Ashley was still on the Vineyard, Colleen flew down the hallway stark naked and slapped on the bathroom light. One glance in the mirror and she knew she had to take a shower. Her hair was wild. And her face still held the satisfied look of a woman who'd kept her lover very busy all morning long.

  She couldn't do anything about the face, but the hair she could fix with a fast shower.

  She turned on the shower and climbed in before the water had a chance to heat up, singing a few operatic high notes in an attempt to counteract the cold.

  "You all right?" Bobby had followed her in. Of course, she'd left the bathroom door wide open.

  She peeked out from behind the shower curtain. He was as naked as she was, standing in front of the commode with that utterly masculine, wide-spread stance.

  "I have to take a tuition check to my law school," she told him, quickly rinsing her hair, loving the fact that he was comfortable enough to be in the bathroom with her, feeling as if they'd crossed some kind of invisible, unspoken line. They were lovers now—not just two people who had given in to temptation and made love once. “The deadline's noon today, and like a total idiot, I pushed it off until the last minute." Literally.

  "I'll come with you."

  She turned off the water and pulled back the curtain, grabbing her towel and drying herself as she rushed back to her bedroom. "I can't wait for you," she called to him.

  "I'm literally forty-five seconds from walking out the door."

  She stepped into clean underwear and pulled her blue dress—easy and loose fitting, perfect for days she was running dangerously late—over her head, even though she was still damp. Feet into sandals.

  "What do you know," Bobby said. "A woman who can go wheels-up in less than three minutes." He laughed. "I feel as if I should drop to my knees right now and propose."

  Colleen was reaching for the tuition check, which she'd hidden for safety in her complete collection of Shakespeare, and she didn't freeze, didn't faint, didn't gasp and spin to face him, didn't let herself react at all. He was teasing. He didn't have a clue that his lightly spoken words had sent a rush of excitement and longing through her that was so powerful she'd nearly fallen over.

  Oh, she was so stupid. She actually wanted...the impossible. As if he really would marry her. He'd told her just hours ago that staying single was part of his career plan.

  She made herself smile as she turned around, as she stuffed the check and a book to read into her knapsack, as she checked to make sure she had money for the T, then zipped her bag closed.

  "It's going to take me at least a few hours," she said, brushing out her wet hair as she headed back into the kitchen to grab an apple from the fridge. He followed her, followed her to t
he door, still naked and completely comfortable about that.

  Colleen could picture him trailing her all the way out to the street. Wouldn't that give little old Mrs. Gibaldi who lived downstairs an eyeful?

  She turned to face him. "I'd love it if you were still here when I got back. Wearing just that." She kissed him, lowered her voice, gave him a smile designed to let him read

  her very thoughts. "And if you think getting dressed in three minutes is fast, just wait and see how long it takes me to get undressed."

  He kissed her, pulling her into his arms, his hand coming up to cup her breast as if he couldn't not touch her.

  Colleen felt herself start to dissolve into a puddle of heat. What would happen if she didn't get that check to the office on time?

  She might have to pay a penalty. Or she'd get bumped from the admissions list. There were so many students waitlisted, the admissions office could afford to play hardball. Reluctantly, she pulled back from Bobby.

  “I’ll hurry," she told him.

  "Good," he said, still touching her, looking at her as if she were the one standing naked in front of him, lowering his head to kiss her breast before he let her go. "I'll be here."

  He wasn't in love with her. He was in lust.

  And that was exactly what she'd wanted, she reminded herself as she ran down the stairs.

  Except, now that she had it, it wasn't enough.

  The phone was ringing as Bobby stepped out of Colleen's shower.

  He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around himself as he went dripping into the kitchen. "'Lo?"

  He heard the sound of an open phone line, as if someone were there but silent. Then, "Bobby?"

  It was Wes. No, not just "It was Wes," but "Oh, God, it was Wes."

  "Hey!" Bobby said, trying desperately to sound normal—as opposed to sounding like a man who was standing nearly naked not two feet from the spot where mere hours earlier he'd pinned Wes's sister to the wall as they'd... As he'd...