by Ann Major
A heartbeat passed. “Such as?” she said, sucking in a deep breath.
She wet her mouth with her tongue. The scent of her—of woman and violets—drifted to him. She sucked in another breath that pushed her breasts up.
“Don’t flirt unless you mean it, darlin’.” His tone was low and hoarse now.
When she seemed unable to pull her eyes away from his, he turned her cell phone off and slowly placed it in the center of her palm. “Now we won’t have any more unwanted calls from Mom tonight.”
Lowering her long lashes, she nodded, her expression anything but demure as she took the cloth from him and soaked it under a stream of warm water from the faucet again. Then she was back, stroking his brow, standing too close to him, stirring every male nerve until he felt wired and fully aroused. A furious pulse began to beat in his neck as he stared down at her golden wavy hair, at her long, graceful neck, at the shapely curve of her shoulders. His gaze lingered on her lips. More than anything he wanted to pull her into his arms.
When she leaned closer to pat his brow, the softness of her breast grazed his chest.
“I think I’d better call a cab.” He shuddered.
“You can’t go until we’re sure you’re okay.”
“I can’t very well stay, either. Not alone like this with you.”
“You could have a concussion or something.”
“I don’t.”
“I don’t know what got into me. Ever since my birthday, I keep having these weird feelings, like I can’t go on, like I’m flying apart inside. Then I met you, which was a mistake because you turned out to be someone I’ll be working with closely in the coming months. And yet sometimes I get the crazy feeling…we’re meant to be.”
“So you feel that, too?”
“On some level. And now I…I’m terrified every time I think about what could have happened to you tonight.”
“Then don’t think about it.” His voice was gravelly, intense. “We’re both very much alive,” he whispered.
“So what are we going to do about it?” she teased.
Her low voice was so husky, her slanting eyes so provocative, a storm tide of desire surged inside him. Still, somehow he made his voice light. “You’re not going to take advantage of me in my weakened condition?”
“Says who? I’m wild, remember?”
“Oh boy, do I ever! But first we need to talk.”
She shook her golden head as if bemused. “Later. I have a better idea for now.”
“But—”
“I need you, Steve. I need you so much. I’d never needed anybody more than I needed you on my birthday. And there you were. And here you are now, and I need you more than ever. More than that night. I’m scared. So scared. Of what I’ve done. Of how I feel about you. I think you know that. My feelings keep growing. I can’t seem to stop them.”
“I said don’t flirt unless—”
“Shhhh.” Her smile softened her features. “I’m not flirting. I’m real serious, cowboy.” She flung her arms around his neck, closed her eyes, pulled his head down to hers and kissed him hard on the lips. “I want you so much.” She kissed him again.
When she came up for air several long, wet kisses later and opened her long-lashed eyes, her gaze was so hot and dark, his mouth went dry.
His heart thundered. Feeling wild for her and yet consumed by gentleness and awe, as well, he slowly threaded his fingers through her hair, sifting through the shining strands as if they were more precious than gold. He brought the silken tresses to his lips and breathed in her delicate floral scent.
“I’ve thought about you all the time ever since I met you,” he said, feeling weak and hard at the same time.
“Me, too.”
“This is more than sex,” he murmured.
“I know.” He felt her shaking just as he was.
“It’s more than anything I’ve ever had before,” he muttered.
“Me, too.”
“I’m afraid it’ll seem like a dream tomorrow.”
“Me, too,” she whispered. “It’s scary to start wishing your wonderful dreams might come true.”
“It’s a whole lot scarier not to.”
His hands wound around her waist and slid up her back and then down her spine again, molding her breasts and hips to his lean body until she shuddered, and he felt a whole lot hotter. His head dipped toward hers again. Then his mouth found hers, and instantly his tongue was inside. She kissed him back with unfeigned delight.
He fused her body to his. Slowly his hands moved down her waist to her hips, which he cupped and shaped against himself. She sighed and gripped him tighter. Then his mouth left hers, and he trailed kisses down her neck to her throat. His head moved lower. Tenderly he kissed each breast through the thin fabric of her halter top. Last he kissed the tiny little L tattooed above her left breast.
On a shudder, she drove her fingers into his hair and clasped his head tightly to her breast. Beneath the slippery material of her halter he felt her heart pulsing as fast as his.
“Where’s your bedroom?” he muttered savagely as he swung her into his arms.
“Over there.” She pointed in the direction of a hallway, and he headed blindly toward it.
“End of the hall,” she whispered.
Inside the small dark room moonlight streamed through the windows. He put her down. His breathing grew faster as he watched her trembling hands slide her jacket off.
When she untied her halter top, the red silk slipped from her small, pointed breasts. The sight of her demure tattoo and her dark nipples instantly made his heart race faster. Urgency surged through him like a white-hot current.
He forgot to rip his own clothes off. Striding to her, he folded her in his arms again and began to kiss her throat and her creamy shoulders and then each of her warm, lush breasts, cradling them in his hands.
“You are so beautiful.”
“I can’t breathe when you kiss me there,” she said.
“Your nipples are as hard as little rocks.”
“Your fault.”
He laughed. “Take off your skirt, darlin’.”
A shiver ran through her at his command, but she complied, unzipping the filmy garment. She shimmied and then stepped out of it one leg at a time.
“My turn,” he said, his voice sounding husky in the dark as he hooked her bikini panties with his thumbs and slid them down her long legs.
Except for her red high heels, she was naked. She drew a shy, shallow breath and then stood perfectly still as his eyes raked her with the adoration of a man worshiping a naked goddess on a pedestal. Her gleaming beauty in the silvery moonlight was a sensual delight that heated his blood and filled him with awe.
“Your turn,” she said in a low, shaky voice as her hands glided lower, down his belly. He caught a breath when her fingers swept inside the waistband of his slacks.
When she hit pay dirt, he gasped. Then quickly he ripped off his shirt. Stripping out of his pants, he gathered her into his arms and carried her to the bed, where he laid her down before covering her with his own hot-as-fire body.
She pushed him back a little, her hands and eyes reveling in his lean, tanned frame as much as he reveled in her soft curves.
Her hair fell away from her face, revealing her darling ears.
“I love your ears,” he said, leaning over her and kissing each one of them.
“What? I hate them.”
“They make you more adorable. Like my very own real live Tinkerbell.”
“My mother wanted to have them pinned when I was a kid, but Daddy wouldn’t let her.”
“Good.”
With splayed fingertips she traced the contours of Steve’s muscular arms and ribbed torso, making little circles in the nest of black hair that covered his chest, before her hands drifted around to his back and she pressed herself into him as tightly as she could.
He gasped when she placed her lips against his throat, kissing the pulse beat just beneath his
skin. Then their mouths met again and again. He kissed her closed eyelids, held her face in both hands, brushed his lips against her temple.
He’d thought he’d lost her. It amazed him that he could care so much about this woman he’d known for such a short time. But right from the first, she’d touched him deeply.
He caught her to him with increasing urgency. When her hand slid against his shaft, he groaned and positioned himself above her. Then he slid her legs apart. Leaning into her, he buried himself deeply inside her. For a long moment he didn’t move, giving her body time to adjust to him.
Her gloved warmth saturated his mind with intense pleasure. If he lost her now, he would almost wish he hadn’t been granted this second miracle.
Almost. He would die first before letting her go now.
When he continued to clasp her, she stirred restlessly beneath him and then rose up to meet him.
“Temptress.” Chuckling hoarsely, he nipped her bottom lip softly with his teeth. Then, with a deliberately slow rhythm, he began to rock back and forth, taking his time at the end of each stroke to hover and thereby prolong their pleasure.
“Steve. Oh, Steve….” Her fingers clutched his head, her fingernails digging lightly into his scalp.
“Easy, darlin’,” he whispered, wanting the heated magic to last. But he couldn’t stop her explosion any more than he could stop his own.
Shuddering, he murmured her name and clung to her for an endless moment.
Gradually her fingers eased away. Only when his muscles relaxed and his taut, perspiring body began to cool did he roll off her. She snuggled up to him, and they lay nestled together in the dark, their damp foreheads touching, their breaths mingling, their curled fingers joined. Over her shoulder he made out the red numbers of a large digital clock on her dresser.
“It’s close to midnight,” he said. “Do you want me to go?”
Her hand slipped down his torso and fisted around his erection. Giggling against his throat, she began to stroke him. “I want you to stay. I want—”
“I think I know what you want,” he muttered fiercely, tugging her closer and kissing her on the mouth again.
“I feel insatiable,” she purred.
“My kind of woman.”
She squeezed him so hard he yelped.
“Do you think I’m bad?”
Instantly aroused again, he ran a finger lightly down her belly and then inside her. “No, darlin’, you’re fun. More fun than I’ve ever had before.”
Without another word, he rolled her on top of his body so fast she let out an exuberant little cry when she found herself straddling him. She leaned forward gently, her golden hair brushing his neck, her hands guiding his fully aroused erection between her thighs.
He wanted to hold back. Instead he pushed upward into her with a force he hadn’t used the first time, letting her ride him and control him. She closed her eyes as her body began to rise and fall on top of his. He watched her radiant face, loving the wildness that played across it as she moved faster and faster and ground him ever deeper into the soft mattress.
When he exploded, she clung to him, shaking and spent.
“Darlin’, it’s like you’re made for me.”
“It’s sweet you think so.” Folding his hand in hers, she pulled him into a sitting position.
“What next?”
“We shower together. Then we sleep together.”
Squeezed into her tiny shower together, he bathed her face. He ran shampoo into her hair and washed it for her.
She sighed as his big hands dug into her scalp and suds ran down her shoulders. “I can’t believe we did all that.”
“Who says it’s over?”
When he was done washing her hair, she took a washcloth and washed his body with warm soap suds until he got so hot and hard again, he had to have her there and then.
Grabbing her, he kissed her hard. She wrapped her legs around his waist and he took her against the slick, wet wall of her shower with the warm water and soap bubbles racing down their bodies. He was shaking violently, and she was kissing him with a completeness that wiped all doubt from his mind until there was nothing but her and the warm water falling over them and the enveloping dark passion into which they both sank ever deeper.
She came violently, screaming, clawing. Afterward he carried her to her bed, her legs still circling his waist, her hair and body dripping wet. They fell down beside each other, covered themselves and slept, wrapped in each other’s arms like two exhausted animals after a long, wild run.
When he woke up the next morning, he wanted her again. This time he wanted her to take him in her mouth. But when he reached for her, she was gone.
If it hadn’t been for the scent of violets lingering in her honey-colored bedroom, he might have thought last night was a dream.
Then he smelled coffee and heard the clang of pots in her kitchen and realized she hadn’t gone after all. He sprang out of bed and began to sing “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”
He’d had a lot of false starts when it came to love. He didn’t want this to be another one. Remembering her wild driving through the hills of Austin last night, he wondered who had hurt her.
He had to find out. She could have killed them both.
They had a lot to talk about. He had to help her find a way to forgive herself, because he hoped with all his heart that he could build something wonderful with this very special woman.
Ten
Amy was sipping hot coffee and watering her ivy by the kitchen sink when her bedsprings creaked in the next room. She nearly dropped her watering pot when he started singing “The Yellow Rose of Texas” at the top of his lungs.
When the bedroom door opened, she gulped hot coffee so fast she burned the roof of her mouth. Instinct told her to run.
Very deliberately she set her coffee cup down on the counter and her watering pot in the sink. She took a couple of deep breaths. After she lit a gas burner, she went to the fridge and pulled out a carton of eggs along with some Canadian bacon. She started to make him scrambled eggs.
By the time he strolled down her hall, she told herself she could do this. Then he was in her kitchen, with his dark hair sleep tousled and his white shirt unbuttoned and hanging open. How could she have forgotten how gorgeous he was?
The awesome power of his tall, muscled form sent unwanted quivers through her. She caught her breath, remembering the thrill of being crushed beneath him last night. For a numbed moment she could only stare at his arched brows and his seductive dark eyes. For no reason at all her gaze lingered on the curve of his sensual, kissable mouth. It was all she could do not to fling herself into his arms and kiss the bruises on his brow and underneath his right eye.
So this was how it would be to wake up with him every morning.
Then he moved closer, and she jumped back, scraping at the eggs so violently, bits of scrambled egg flew from the frying pan onto the countertop.
“Oops,” he said in that deep, sexy baritone of his. His smile carved deep lines beside his mouth as he leaned forward to kiss her left eyebrow.
She backed out of his reach and tried to calm down. “I’m sorry about your black eye.”
“It was worth it,” he muttered, his voice grim as if he sensed she was wary of him again.
She felt the heat and energy of his big, bronze body and remembered too well the wanton pleasure she’d found in his arms last night. As he watched her with that keen, male interest, her knees began to feel wobbly.
“I…I fixed you something to eat,” she whispered.
“Looks good. Smells good, too.” He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down at her little table with a view of the pool and limestone mansion.
When she set a plate before him and then backed quickly away, he put his fork down and leaned back in his chair. “Aren’t you going to join me?”
“I ate a cup of oatmeal earlier.”
“All right, then.” A muscle jerked beneath his jaw as he lowered his
head and stabbed a hunk of scrambled egg with his fork. “You ready to talk about last night?”
She swallowed.
“You gonna tell me how come you drove like a bat out of hell?”
Making her voice falsely light, she said, “Why does it matter, if I’m not going to do it again?”
He stared at her, and she forced herself to look down at his hard, handsome face and his bare chest. The bruises on the right side of his face really got to her. It was a struggle not to throw herself into his arms and confess everything.
“It matters,” he said, his voice low, raspy.
She ran her hands rapidly through her hair. “Sometimes my mother just makes me feel like I’m trapped in a cage and I have to break free. I do wild and crazy things.”
“Just don’t get in a car when you feel that way.”
She tried to smile, but her face felt too stiff.
“You’re not a kid anymore,” he said.
“You make it sound so easy.”
“Sometimes the hardest things are the easiest things.”
Again she fought to smile and act as if she felt normal. When she didn’t say anything more, he picked up yesterday’s paper and snapped it open. His thick brows pulled together. When his whole body went rigid, he leaned over the paper, reading with such frightening intensity she was filled with dread.
Something was wrong. Her heart began to knock. Too late she remembered her mother mentioning something about an article in the paper.
Quietly she slipped behind him and began to read over his broad shoulder. As soon as she saw Lake Mondo mentioned in several bold headlines, her heart began to race.
The lead article was about the body bearing the Fortune birthmark that had washed ashore on Lake Mondo. When she read that the police suspected foul play, she caught her lower lip with her teeth and began to speed-read with a vengeance.
Her mother had tried to warn her at the restaurant. No doubt that was why she’d called. The police made it sound as if Ryan Fortune was refusing to cooperate. They thought he was hiding something, and they were leaning on him.
