One-Click Buy: September 2010 Harlequin Blaze

by Lori Wilde

  Not a bad way to spend a day. If only he could stop his brain from thinking. Five minutes on his own without distraction and Olivia was there, filling his mind, tightening his gut, making him want to tear the world apart.

  When beer alone didn’t work its usual magic, he’d showered and pulled on a pair of jeans and a clean T-shirt and walked to the pub. There was more beer to be had there, of course—but the real lure was Elizabeth Mason. She of the sweet behind and soft, lily-white skin. In all the weeks he’d been holed up on the island, she was the first person or thing that had successfully distracted him from the mess in his own head long enough to offer any relief. He wasn’t sure what it was that fascinated him so much. The apparent contradiction between her prim, conservative demeanor and the way she’d moaned in his arms? Her clipped British accent? The flashes of vulnerability and uncertainty he saw in her eyes?

  She was a mystery. Perhaps that was all it was. An unknown quantity, an exotic, pale, well-spoken stranger in a world of nut-brown bodies, flat vowels, and sun and surf. Whatever. The important thing was that when he was with her he wasn’t thinking about anything or anyone else.

  She was sitting in the far corner with her English friends from the previous night when he entered the bar. She had her hair up again, neatly bound as though she was about to take dictation or chair a charity meeting. She was sitting straight, her posture perfect, with not even an elbow resting on the table. He smiled to himself as he ordered a beer. He bet she never slouched. Probably never swore, either, or jaywalked, or ate dessert before finishing her vegetables or cheated on her taxes.

  Her head came up and her gaze searched the bar as if she could feel him watching her. Their eyes met and locked. He reached into the front pocket of his jeans and tugged out a couple of inches of the scrap of pale blue silk and lace she’d left behind this morning. He raised his eyebrows in question.

  “Yours?” he mouthed.

  He had to bite back a laugh at her response. She jerked in her seat, then a rich tide of red rose up her chest and into her face. Her hands gripped the edge of the table, then she shot to her feet as though she was rocket propelled. He watched the bounce of her breasts as she marched toward him.

  “You are disgusting,” she said as she snatched her panties from his pocket and screwed them into a tight ball in her hand. “How dare you?”

  He’d meant to tease her, but he could see that she was genuinely upset.

  “Hey, Betty. Steady on,” he said. He reached out to touch her arm but she jerked away from him.

  Her hand was white-knuckle tight as she clenched it around her panties.

  “I trusted you. Which makes me a fool, I see now. I thought last night was something private, between the two of us. How very naive and stupid of me.”

  “I’m sorry, okay? Don’t get so hot under the collar. It was a joke.”

  “To you, perhaps. But now all the people in the bar know I slept with you last night. God only knows what they think of me.”

  Nate frowned. It had been a joke. A tease. No way had he expected her to react so strongly. Then he thought about her modesty this morning and realized that perhaps he should have. Clearly, she was a woman who worried about things like appearances and reputation. He bet himself a thousand bucks that she’d messed up her sheets this morning so that the hotel staff wouldn’t guess she hadn’t slept in her own bed. She’d probably been agonizing over where her panties were all day—then he’d walked in and teased her with his little show-and-tell routine.

  “Relax, okay? Nobody saw, and nobody’s thinking anything about you. They’re all too busy getting pissed and trying to find someone of their own to shag to give two hoots about us.”

  She stared at him, her face stiff with tension. “What was I thinking? I must have been mad.”

  She said it so quietly he almost didn’t hear her. Then she turned on her heel and pushed her way through the crowd until she reached the stairs. He watched her take them two at a time, her back stiff with tension.

  “Shit.” He took a mouthful of beer. Not in a million years had he meant to hurt her. He’d wanted to make her laugh, get that martial light in her eye, provoke her into insulting him some more in that hoity-toity way of hers.

  He turned to face the bar, resting his elbow on the scarred wood. Next time he saw her, he’d apologize. Once she’d had a chance to calm down, she’d understand.

  He tried to push the incident from his mind, but ten minutes later he glanced over and saw a waitress deliver a round of meals to the table where Elizabeth had been sitting. Her English friends looked confused and he could see them searching for Elizabeth as the waitress stood with an unclaimed burger and fries.

  Great. She’d abandoned her dinner because of him.

  Damn it.

  He pushed his beer away and crossed the bar.

  “Elizabeth wasn’t feeling so great,” he explained to her worried friends. He took the plate from the waitress. “Thanks, Sall. I’ll take this up to her room for her.”

  “Sure. Thanks, Nate.” Sally gave him a quick smile before heading back to the kitchen.

  He left the table before Elizabeth’s friends could ask any more questions, stopping by the bar for a quick detour before heading upstairs.

  The barman had given him Elizabeth’s room number and he balanced the plate on his raised knee as he knocked on her door.

  There was a short pause before a voice answered.

  “Who is it?”

  “Room service.”

  Another pause. Then the door opened.

  “I didn’t— Oh. You.”

  Her face was still flushed and a few strands of hair had escaped from her neat hairdo.

  “You forgot your burger.” He lifted his other hand. “And I thought you might be thirsty.”

  Her gaze fell on the Pimm’s and lemonade in his outstretched hand.

  “I’m not hungry. Or thirsty.”

  He shouldered his way past her and put down the plate on the bedside table, placing the glass beside it.

  “Better eat it quickly before it goes cold.”

  “I’m not hungry,” she repeated. “And I’d very much appreciate it if you’d leave my room.”

  He studied her a moment, wondering how to get past her to-the-manor-born outrage. “Elizabeth. I’m sorry, okay? It was dumb. Really dumb. I was trying to be funny, not humiliate you. Okay?”

  “Funny? Clearly your sense of humor and mine are vastly different, because making a public display of something that should be a very private matter is not my idea of amusing.”

  “Look, if I could take it back, I would. But I can’t. And your burger is getting cold, and I don’t want that on my conscience, as well.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not going to choke down food I don’t want simply because you’ve suddenly developed a conscience.”

  She started to say more, but he reached down and grabbed a couple of fries and put them in her mouth.

  She spluttered, but she was far too polite to spit them back out. He watched as she chewed furiously.

  “You really are an absolute pig, aren’t you?” she said once she’d swallowed.

  “Maybe. Want some more?”

  “No!” she said. Then her tongue darted out to lick a salt crystal from the corner of her mouth.

  He laughed and she looked hugely chagrined. “Busted,” he said. He offered her the plate again. “Going hungry isn’t going to punish anyone except yourself.”

  “You think you’re so clever and charming, don’t you?” She snatched the plate from him.

  She sat on the bed and rested the plate on her knees.

  “Actually, no. I don’t.” He straddled the battered wooden chair by the window and rested his forearms on the back.

  “Yes, you do. You think you’re irresistible, but you’re not. You didn’t charm me just now, and you didn’t charm me last night. I slept with you for my own reasons, not because of anything you did or said. And I’m eating
my dinner because I paid for it and I’m hungry.”

  She picked up her burger and took a big, screw-you bite out of it.

  “Whatever floats your boat, Betty.”

  She frowned at him ferociously until she’d swallowed and could speak again.

  “Please stop calling me that. My name is Elizabeth.”

  “You’re right. You’re not really a Betty.”

  “Thank you.”

  “More of a Lizzy.”

  She sighed heavily, rolled her eyes and took another bite of her burger.

  “Mind if I have one of your fries?” He didn’t wait for her to respond, simply grabbed a handful.

  “Have you ever seen the movie Greystoke?” she asked.

  “I think so. That’s the fancy Tarzan one, yeah? With Christopher Lambert? Why?”

  “You put me in mind of a certain man who was raised by wild apes.”

  She looked pretty pleased with herself for getting a shot in, and he rewarded her with a laugh before helping himself to more fries.

  “Nice one, Lizzy.”

  She tried not to smile, but her lips kept curling up at the corners.

  “How’s that burger?”

  “Very nice. Thank you,” she said grudgingly.

  “I meant to tell you—I left a message with Sam today. Hopefully he’ll get back to me soon.”

  “Oh. Can I ask what message you left?” She looked worried.

  “If you’re asking if I left a voice-mail message telling him about his long-lost, possibly unknown daughter, the answer is no. I simply told him he needed to call, stat.”

  “Well. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Are you going to eat the rest of that burger?”

  “I suppose I should be grateful you didn’t grab it from my hand,” she said as she offered the plate to him.

  She drank her Pimm’s while he polished off the burger.

  “I suppose you’d like me to leave you some of this, too?” she asked, arching an eyebrow in inquiry.

  “Lizzy, I’m happy to say it’s all yours. Foul stuff.”

  “Have you even tried it?”

  “Yes. Once. Which was more than enough.”

  “It’s very refreshing.”

  “Sure it is.” He stood and dusted his hands down the front of his jeans.

  She swallowed the last of her Pimm’s, then stood, as well.

  “We okay?” he asked.

  She nodded briefly. Ever so gracious, as always. As always where she was concerned, he couldn’t help smiling.

  “At least wait until you’ve left before you laugh at me,” she said primly.

  “I wasn’t laughing at you, Lizzy.”

  She walked past him and opened the door.

  “Thank you for my dinner. And the apology.”

  He walked toward the door but stopped when he was in front of her.

  “Don’t I get a goodbye kiss?” he asked, his eyes on her full lower lip.

  “I don’t think that would be a very good idea, for a lot of reasons.”

  “So? It’d be fun, at the very least.” He leaned toward her.

  She put her hands on his chest. “Is fun all that you ever think about?”

  An image of Olivia flashed across his mind. The blood on her face. Her fear-filled eyes.

  “No,” he said, then he closed the last, small distance between them and kissed her.

  She tasted sweet and tangy from the Pimm’s. He slid his hands over her shoulders and down her back to cup her ass. Her peachy, round ass. She made a low sound in the back of her throat. He stroked her tongue with his and pressed forward with his hips, instinctively seeking the heat and softness of her body. He was hard—had been half-hard the whole time he’d been in her room, simply from smelling her perfume and being close to her—and a small shudder of anticipation rolled through his body.

  He slid one hand from her backside to smooth it up her ribcage to her breasts. Her nipples were already stiff, poking through the soft fabric of her sundress. He flicked one shoulder strap down, then the other, and her breasts were bare and he was filling his palm with warm, resilient flesh.

  He plucked at her nipples, teased them, but he wanted to taste her, the way he had last night. He broke away from her mouth, kissing his way across her cheekbone, lingering at the soft skin below her ear, and continuing to her breasts. Her nipples were a pale shell-pink, small and pretty. He tongued first one, then the other. Elizabeth’s hands slid into his hair, holding him against her breasts.

  As if he wanted to be anywhere else.

  He slid a hand down her thigh to the hem of her dress, sweeping beneath it. She spread her legs eagerly as his hand slid up her thigh and into wet heat. His cock ached as he remembered how tight she’d been last night, the fierce pull of her body on his.

  He stroked her through the silk of her underwear and suddenly he couldn’t wait a moment longer. One hand still on her mound, he lifted his head from her breasts and pushed her two steps backward until she was flattened against the wall. She watched him through heavy-lidded, smoky eyes as he fumbled at his waistband, dragging his fly down. He found a condom and slid it on with urgent hands. He was too impatient to wait for her to pull off her panties; he simply pushed them to one side, then he lifted her knee so it hooked over his hip and slid inside her.

  She closed her eyes and moaned. Man, he loved the sounds she made, the little gasps and sighs.

  He grasped her hips and started to move inside her. So tight. So hot. So damned good. He hitched her other leg up and she hooked her ankles together behind his back and thrust her hips forward to meet his strokes.

  He could feel her excitement rising, the tension ratcheting tighter and tighter inside her. He lowered his head and licked her breasts, left, then right, pulling on her nipples until she gasped his name. Her fingers dug into his back and she held her breath, straining, almost there…then she pulsed around him, arching away from the wall.

  He kissed her, swallowing her cry of release. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the slick heat encasing him, the warm brush of her breasts against his chest, the flex of her hips beneath his hands as she kept his rhythm.

  There was nothing in the world except for her and him and the slide of their bodies and the sound of their breathing. Perfect peace. Absolute oblivion.

  Too quickly his climax found him, tightening to a point of white heat and need until he pressed his face into her neck and thrust inside her one last time to shudder out his release.

  He kept his face pressed into the soft skin of her neck for long moments afterward, regretting the loss of mindlessness, begrudging the return to reality.

  Without releasing his grip on her hips, he pushed away from the wall and carried her to the bed. He stayed inside her as he lowered her onto the bed.

  Then he started kissing her again, seeking that moment of peace once more.

  5

  ELIZABETH WOKE TO THE soft snick of the door closing. She opened her eyes and propped herself up on one elbow, disoriented in the dark of the room. For a moment she didn’t know where she was—her bedroom in Mayfair, Martin’s apartment, the hotel room in Soho. Then the languid heat between her legs and the slight soreness of her breasts brought it all rushing back: Nathan, his visit to her room, sex against the wall.

  She was in Australia. And she’d just spent her second night in the arms of the sexiest man she’d ever met.

  She thought about all the times she’d lain beneath Martin, yearning for something other than his gentle, careful lovemaking. She hadn’t known what that something was until she’d found it on the beach and against the wall in her hotel room. She’d wanted passion. Desire. Animal lust. She’d wanted sweat and grabby hands and panting and undeniable need.

  She rolled onto her side and stared at the crack of light seeping beneath the blind on the window.

  A few days ago, she’d never had sex anywhere except in a bedroom. She’d never experienced any other position except missionary. She’d ce
rtainly never been slammed against a wall and had her lover so desperate to be inside her that he hadn’t even bothered to remove her underwear.

  It was just sex, of course. Bodies rubbing against each other because it stimulated nerve endings and satisfied some primal urge. But if she hadn’t seen her birth certificate, if she hadn’t confronted her grandfather, if she hadn’t acknowledged almost too late that there were fundamental problems in her relationship with Martin and that she was shoehorning herself into a future that suited everyone except herself, she might have married him. She might have made her vows and settled into a life half-lived. She might have gone on denying herself and her needs and never known the joy, the freedom of being able to express her desires. Better yet, to pursue them.

  So, yes, it was just sex, but at the same time it felt like much, much more than that. As though she was on an archeological dig, searching for herself, and her sexuality was the first truth that she’d uncovered.

  Memories from the night washed over her as she lay drowsing. Nathan’s body, so hard and strong beneath her hands. The firm, deeply satisfying thrust of him inside her. The way he’d barely let her catch her breath and come down to earth before he started kissing and touching and torturing her all over again. He was an insatiable lover. Driven. Intense. Almost desperate, it had seemed to her more than once during the night, like a drowning man clutching at passion and desire to keep him afloat. The look in his eyes, the fervor in his caresses…

  Elizabeth let out a huff of laughter at her own melodrama. Nathan Jones was a surf bum with a fabulous body and a talent for sex. There was no need to read anything else into his admittedly intense lovemaking. In fact, there was no need to overanalyze it at all. It was meaningless and pleasurable and wonderful, and she was content to leave it that way.

  A knock sounded at the door, drawing her out of her thoughts. Since she knew only a handful of people in all of Australia and only one of them knew where she was staying, she thought it was safe to assume it was Nate.

  A slow smile curled her mouth. She’d thought he’d gone home, but perhaps he’d simply ducked out to buy a bottle of water or make a call or buy a newspaper or something and now he was back to put in an encore performance.