Dangerous Ladies

by Christina Dodd

  Great, fabulous, wonderful, earthshaking, marvelous, dick-building sex.

  “Be careful,” he called. “Don’t run into anything.”

  “I won’t!”

  If she was going to race around in the moonlight every night, he would have to order the lights turned on. Or perhaps he should keep her in bed at night through whatever means he had at hand.

  He shook his head. He had to stop thinking of sex or he’d knock that vase off that table and lift her up there and—

  Did he have no sense of propriety? Was he like his father after all? He’d worked so hard to develop the moral character that his parent had so obviously lacked. Now he’d broken every rule he’d set himself about women and about life. He could have created a baby with her, and he remembered all too well how miserable his childhood had been as the one bastard offspring of the Fitzwilliams.

  Which brought him to Bradley Benjamin—what had happened to his plan to use her for revenge against Bradley?

  He had, of course, and thoroughly enjoyed Bradley’s attack of angina.

  But now Devlin had spent an hour ardently enjoying her body to the point of madness. He slept with a liar, and one of the hated Benjamin clan.

  Worse, he wanted to do it again.

  Meadow got ahead of him. He heard her feet patter up the stairs, and like some creaky old man chasing a two-year-old, he pursued her, calling, “Don’t trip.”

  She turned the corner at the top of the stairs. “I won’t!” Her voice floated back, full of devilry.

  Shit. What was she up to now? By the time he reached the top of the stairs, she’d disappeared.

  “This way,” she called.

  Shit. He ran down the corridor toward their room. The door was closed. The light shone beneath it. He flung it open, fully expecting the sitting room to be empty. And it was. Except for her bathrobe pooled on the Oriental rug.

  In the bedroom, he could see her nightgown tossed on the floor.

  Did the woman ever keep her clothes on?

  But it wasn’t annoyance that made his blood surge and his subsiding erection stir.

  She was naked again.

  He shut the door behind him. He locked it. He walked into the bedroom—and through the open bathroom door he heard the shower running.

  For a long moment he shut his eyes. Water . . . sluicing down her body. Her copper red hair . . . getting wet and turning auburn. Her hands . . . caressing her breasts, her arms, her stomach, between her legs, leaving a soapy trail of bubbles.

  He found himself standing in the doorway, staring at the glass shower enclosure.

  The view was even better than he imagined. She stood with her head tilted back, her arms up, rinsing the shampoo from her hair. Dense white bubbles slid off her shoulders and down her chest, and one small batch broke away to perch on her nipple. She was pale and starkly bare against the claret tile, and so beautiful his eyes blurred, probably because all his blood had left his head and rushed to his dick.

  As if she sensed his heated stare, her eyes popped open. In a laughing voice, she asked, “What took you so long?”

  22

  “ And I was afraid I would be too quick,” Devlin said ironically.

  Meadow’s grin disappeared. Just like that, with a few words, he turned her from a merry water nymph into a woman who hungered . . . for him.

  She popped the door open and gestured invitingly. “Let’s test you out.”

  He glanced at the drawer by the sink. He kept condoms in there. There were condoms by the bed. Just in case, he needed to put some in the desk drawer in the sitting room. . . . Then somehow he found he had his clothes off. He stepped into the shower.

  The multiheaded Hydra of a shower shot water onto their heads, into their backs, and vibrated their buttocks.

  He told himself he was in here to do the responsible thing. He squirted shower gel on his hands and rubbed them together. “We have to talk. What we did in the garden was reckless.” He rubbed her shoulders, and the combination of water and bubbles made her slickly erotic. “We can’t allow passion to sweep us off our feet and onto whatever horizontal surface is available.”

  “Why not?”

  “We’re going to get caught.” His hands trailed down her arms. His fingers entwined with hers, and he slid up and down each finger, then stroked the palm of her hand.

  She leaned against the wall. “By who?”

  “By security personnel. By one of the maids.” He watched Meadow draw short, shallow breaths, then used another splash of shower gel on her chest. “By your ob-gyn, who will announce you’re pregnant.” He rubbed the soap into a lather, then used it to wash her breasts.

  “W-wrong time of the month.” Each word sounded like a moan.

  “If I had a nickel for every kid conceived at the wrong time of the month, I’d be rolling nickels for the rest of my life.” Was he trying to convince her or himself?

  She slid her feet apart, put her hands against the wall, braced herself as if he were trying to knock her down, when all he was doing was washing her. “Nickels or nipples?”

  “What?” He loved the texture of her boobs—the dense, warm, heavy flesh, the soft skin, the responsive tips.

  “I’m trying to ask if you’re planning to wash anything but my boobs.”

  “They can never be too clean.” And he supposed he was acting like an obsessive tit man, when actually he was more of a butt man. It was just that Meadow’s tits were so fine.

  He slid his hands around her and rubbed her back with the lather, then moved closer and rubbed her body with his. She clutched his shoulders while they slipped across each other in a slow, warm, slithering ballet.

  Gradually the soap washed down the drain.

  With his lips, he followed the bubbles on their descent. He kissed her shoulder, her breast, her stomach, her hip. . . . She moaned as he pressed his mouth to the small froth of hair over her pubis. He was on his knees now, and the scent of her—lavender soap and clean woman—made him hungry for more.

  With his fingers, he parted her nether lips and tasted her with a long, slow stroke of the tongue.

  She whimpered, and when he glanced up, she had her fist pressed against her mouth and her head back.

  Because she screamed when she came. He knew that now. And she wanted to muffle the sound.

  Good luck to her. He intended to make her scream again.

  He wrapped his hands around her bottom to hold her still, and licked her again. The flavor of Meadow imprinted on his senses, and he knew no matter how hard he tried, he would never forget this night. With his lips he found her clit and carefully drew it into his mouth.

  “Devlin!” She jerked as if he’d given her an electric shock.

  He sucked on her, used his tongue to drive her over the edge, and in only a few moments she arched—and screamed. He fed her sensations, reveling in her pleasure, until her knees collapsed and her cries died down to whimpers.

  He drew away, intent on standing, sweeping her into his arms, and taking her to bed.

  Instead she shoved him down to the floor of the shower. She followed him down. She straddled his chest.

  The showerheads splashed down on them. The tile was hard as hell. But one glance at her face revealed a woman intent on getting exactly what she wanted from him.

  “Wait—” He wanted that condom.

  She took his very, very erect dick in her hands and rubbed it up and down.

  “My God!” All the synapses in his brain exploded like popcorn.

  She took him in her mouth.

  His muscles gave way. He fell back against the floor.

  She sucked hard.

  He shuddered, so close to climax he was willing to promise anything, reveal any secret, for one more stroke.

  She had different ideas. “No, you don’t.” She sat up on his groin and adjusted his dick and her vagina until they met, and then performed the kind of wiggling, panting, forceful ravishment he’d always imagined being forced to endure.
>
  But he’d never met a woman who shared his dreams—until now.

  He’d never met a woman whom he trusted to take charge—until now.

  Until Meadow.

  She took him inside her inch by inch, rising and falling as she pulled him in, and the sweet, hot friction broke his will. “Please. Meadow. Please.” He didn’t care that he sounded like a boy, that he’d lost his control as well as his mind, as long as she gave him the kind of pleasure that made him die and resurrected him, all at the same time.

  She braced her hands against his shoulders and rode him with an expression of furious need, her lips open, water trickling into her mouth and eyes.

  The shower rained down on them, drowning him, pushing her sopping hair into her eyes. Her desire burned his skin, his heart. Need, desperation, put him in pain . . . or was it pleasure? He was lost in the labyrinth of time. He braced his feet against the floor and thrust as hard as he could, meeting her, trying to reach the center of her being, as if that would somehow make her his.

  And he did it.

  Or rather, she did it. She drove herself onto him, a wild girl obsessed with her needs, and at some white point of fusion, their passions melded and became one. He came so violently he lifted her with his body, while inside her he felt the spasms of her orgasm sucking him dry.

  Finally he was dry. Empty. At last he came to rest.

  She withered down on top of him, and he experienced a savage gratification that she was as replete, as exhausted as he was.

  He wrapped his arms around her and held her. Just held her. Opening his mouth, he let the water flow in, trying to replenish himself for the next bout—which his every instinct told him would be soon.

  Very soon—or at least, as soon as he could guarantee that, out of pure repletion, he wouldn’t flow down the drain. As soon as he could lift himself off the floor and somehow resume the character of the man he had been . . . only a few hours ago.

  He felt her chest rise and fall in a sigh. Bit by bit she inched into the sitting position. She looked down at him and smiled, a wobbly smile quite unlike her usual impish grin. She lifted herself off him and sat on the floor, her knees raised, her hands resting limply on them. “That was wonderful,” she whispered.

  “Yes.” He knew he should say something meaningful. Something that expressed how earthshaking the night had been. But he didn’t know what to say.

  From the moment they’d met they’d been lying to each other, playing games as each sought some unknown goal. He didn’t know how to tell her the truth—or even what the truth was. Somehow, tonight, the truth as he knew it had changed.

  He didn’t know what he wanted anymore.

  But he did know they’d once again had sex—without protection.

  “Son of a bitch!” Devlin surged to his feet.

  Meadow looked up curiously. “What?”

  “We did it again!”

  “I noticed.” Her voice was mellow, exhausted, pleased. “Do you want to lodge a complaint?”

  “We did it without protection.”

  “I don’t have any diseases. I swear to you I don’t.”

  His mind, once so sharp, veered away from the subject at hand and onto the obvious track. “You’re not active.”

  “You could make that sound a little more like a question.”

  Then the charade they were playing caught up with him, and he snapped, “How can you swear that when you don’t remember your past?”

  “Do you have a disease?”

  A smooth counterattack. He appreciated her cleverness even as he answered, “No. But I am fertile, and I can hardly claim it was the moonlight again. What excuse can I use in the shower? It’s the soap?”

  She lowered her head and bit her lip to subdue a smile.

  And with that smile, so beautifully provocative, he remembered the feel of her beneath his palms, her skin slick with bubbles. . . . Temptation struck him like a blow between the eyes. Not the temptation to take her again, although the urge hovered close. He actually wanted to admit that he knew she was lying about her amnesia, ask her her real name, beg her . . . beg her for what ?

  Kicking open the door, he stepped out.

  He had come this close to saying, You’re not my wife.

  But damn it. No!

  He wasn’t the one who should step forward. Let her tell the truth. Let Meadow reveal herself, and then he would see if she was worth taking a chance on.

  Meadow woke slowly and, without opening her eyes, inhaled deeply.

  Devlin smelled so good. Like that peculiar man scent composed of strength and stubbornness, and with a hint of girlie lavender soap—or maybe Meadow was smelling herself with his scent on her.

  Because she’d slept deeply last night, exhausted from her midnight adventures, but always she had been aware that Devlin held her as he held her now—tucked tightly against his body, her back against his chest, her butt in the cradle of his hips.

  Devlin.

  She hadn’t believed a man could be what he was. A challenge. A lover. An enemy.

  It was the stupidest thing she’d ever done in her life, wanting him, taking him. Yet she wanted to roll onto her back and wiggle like a puppy when she remembered the raw, wild passion between them.

  Groping behind her, she slid her hand along his flank. He was tall, and each part of him was long and muscled. Last night he’d ridden her hard, and she’d returned the favor.

  This morning she ached between her legs. In her life she’d been with one man, and maybe he’d been a peewee. She didn’t know. She knew only that the length and breadth of Devlin was echoed in the size of his penis. Last night had taken its toll. Her body couldn’t easily accept him again.

  But knowing he would cause her discomfort didn’t stop the wanting.

  If she had the choice between forgetting last night and saving herself the inevitable pain, and reliving it, she would relive it.

  His breathing was slow and easy, and with great care she turned in his arms.

  His eyes were closed, his face lax. He looked like a man worn to exhaustion by too little sleep . . . and unexpected pleasure.

  She believed that all things happened for the good, and surely he had come into her life now for a reason. And how could that reason be anything but good? He was, after all, Devlin.

  Never mind that he made her feel restless. Panicky. Unlike the Meadow she had always been. Something in him called to her, and she responded with such lust. . . .

  She stroked his chest, then pressed against one shoulder and pushed him onto his back. Sliding her hand down across the taut skin on his belly, she reached his groin and closed her hand on his erection.

  His temperature went up five degrees.

  She smiled. Maybe he was asleep. Maybe he wasn’t. But either way she made him wild with greed.

  He was so afraid of raw, brazen sex—unprotected sex, he called it. He wanted that rubber as a barrier between them during their most intimate moments. Grudgingly she admitted the good sense of his precautions, for all the reasons, but at the same time she liked to feel his flesh in her flesh, his come in her womb.

  Probably she’d be a lot more perturbed if she thought there were a danger of repercussions, but they were safe. Last night was time out of mind.

  More important, the time of the month would keep her safe.

  Leaning over him, she lightly kissed his mouth. Then his shoulder. His nipple. His stomach.

  He was definitely awake now.

  His hip . . . she slid beneath the blanket. Under here the sunlight was muted and the air was warm and dense with their mingled scents. She teased him with tiny kisses down one thigh. She circled to his other leg, his other hip. Deliberately she allowed the ends of her hair to trail across his groin, and chuckled when his whole body went rigid.

  He clamped a hand on her head, holding her in place.

  From the end of the bed, a woman’s soft Southern voice asked, “Darling boy, what’s this I hear about your marriage?”
/>   A woman was in their bedroom? A woman had violated the sanctity of their privacy? A woman asked about their marriage as if she had the right?

  And he dared to indicate he wanted Meadow to remain hidden?

  She sank her teeth into his thigh.

  He flinched. His fingers tightened on Meadow’s neck. In a loud, emphatic voice he said, “How good to see you, Mother.”

  23

  The ringing phone made Four jackknife up in bed. He stared at that instrument of torture, then at the clock.

  Nine in the morning—again.

  Was it him?

  Of course it was him. Mr. Hopkins. Who else could it be?

  Four didn’t want to answer. He felt ill with whiskey . . . and fear. But the ringing kept on and on, as if the man knew for sure that Four was in his room. And that was just what Four feared.

  Cautiously, Four hit talk. “Hello?”

  “Four. I’m very disappointed in you.” That familiar, gentle, demonic voice made Four want to retch. “You’ve been drinking when you should be searching.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Four, lying won’t get you out of trouble. Not this time.”

  “I’m not lying!” Down, boy. Don’t snap at Mr. Hopkins; you might piss him off. “I drink a little, then pretend I’m drunk. But can you think of a better ploy to search this place than to stagger around every night like I’m lost?”

  The short silence that followed made Four break a sweat. Then Mr. Hopkins said, “Why, Four, I’m impressed with your ingenuity. My kudos on taking one of your many failings and putting it to good use.”

  Even his compliments were carefully designed to make Four grovel. And Four could grovel with the best of them.

  “Yet still, you’ve completely failed me, and after I did you the favor of buying stock in your company,” Mr. Hopkins said. “Remember that company? The company you embezzled from?”

  Four sat on the edge of the bed, his throbbing head in his hands. “I remember.”

  “Do you remember also that I didn’t prosecute you when the theft was discovered?”