Oh, Jesus help me.
“Steak and beer,” he said inanely, lifted a hand toward the food in a vain attempt to do the right thing. She needed food not sex. And right now, he needed a brain, not a dick.
Com. part. men. tal. ize.
He moved a step away, feigned concentration on retrieving napkins. “Hope beer’s okay. It’s actually cheaper than water.”
Silence. Blue eyes watching.
“I get the sense that the city is just winding up, not down. Place is alive with neon and people. Could be NYC if the signs weren’t in Spanish.”
Damn he wished she’d quit looking at him like that.
“I asked at the restaurant. Seems dinner is usually served around eleven or midnight. Then the drinking and dancing start.”
Drinking. Good idea. Maybe that’s what he needed. He snagged a bottle of beer. Tipped it back, drank deep.
Then chanced a look.
She was smiling. And looking damn smug with it.
What the hell was up with that? Why wasn’t she taking the hint? Why wasn’t she letting him be heroic here? Why wasn’t she just letting him feed her then get her to bed? Her on one side. Him on the other. Neat. Tidy. Done deal. The way his life would never be with her in it.
You waiting for Miss Perfect or what? Well, guess what? One of these days, some not so perfect woman is gonna knock the pins out from under you, brother mine. And I, for one, can’t wait for that day.
Why his sister, Eve’s, all too recurrent taunt trundled through his mind at this particular moment, he didn’t know.
And he didn’t want to think about it. What he had to think about was keeping Amy safe.
One room had been unavoidable. No way was he letting her out of this sight. And she, it seemed, was determined to keep him in hers.
She reached for his beer, lifted it to her lips and sipped. Savored. A sexy sort of languor on her face as she swallowed.
Deeper and deeper.
She made a little “umm” sound. He’d heard that sound once. Hell, more than once. In his bed. Flat on his back. And every muscle in his gut clenched at the memory.
Then she licked her lips. He’d licked those lips. Wanted to do more than lick them again. And damn if she wasn’t offering them to him.
Okay. Subtle wasn’t doing the job. It was time to swing the hammer and nail this thing head on.
“Amy…you and I both know that as good ideas go, this would never make the list,” he warned, yet even as he said it, he felt his blood hike south from his big head to his little one. “What happened in West Palm…it was…well, it was amazing…but it was wrong. Two people reacting to acute stimulation and too much adrenaline.”
“Hm,” she said. Just hm. What did that mean?
And then he found out.
“Are you afraid of me, Dallas?” She moved closer, leaned into him, rubbed up against him. “Is that what this is about?”
Cee-rist. She was actually baiting him.
“Amy—”
Two fingers touched his lips, demanding silence. “Or are you afraid for me?”
He closed his eyes, tipped his head back and tried to think about programmed assassins, paid killers, slit throats. But all he could think of was her. Fragrant and warm. Soft and real. Willing and wanting. And those damn sexy freckles.
“Hell yes, I’m afraid for you. You heard Jones. You’re a marked woman.”
“That’s not what I mean,” she persisted. “Are you afraid for me…in bed?”
Hell. Why couldn’t she just let it go?
“Look.” He swallowed around the desire clogging his throat and thickening his cock. “Like I said…what happened between us. Earlier. That was…hell. It was—”
“Amazing. Yes, I know.” She wrapped her arms around his waist.
Melting. He was melting. “Yeah. Yeah. It was amazing. It was unbelievable.”
She worked his t-shirt free of his pants. Warm fingers tunneled up and under, stroked his bare back. A surge of desire ran down his spine, riding the sensual glide of her hands.
“You are killing me here.”
“I’m not going to break, Dallas.”
But he remembered her broken. God, he remembered her broken and battered and bruised. And he had no right. No right at all to forget about that.
“You’re still on sensory overload,” he pointed out again, trying to make her see their situation clearly. “Your adrenaline is ratcheting off the charts.”
Talk about adrenaline. Her amazing hands worked around to his chest, slid downward, making his abs clench tight as sailor’s knots. Then she started to work on his belt buckle.
He sucked in air through clenched teeth when she reached inside his shorts and touched him. Surrounded him. Stroked him. He almost came in her hands.
Rougher than he’d intended, he gripped her by the shoulders. Pushed her away. Held her at arm’s length. Battled to get control of himself.
How did he do this? How did he tell her he didn’t want her this way? That he’d already taken her when she’d been on the downside of disaster and that placed him off the charts on his own personal creep-o-meter? How did he do that when he wanted her more than he wanted his left nut?
“It’s because of them, isn’t it?” She asked in a quiet voice. Tentative now. Not nearly as certain. “Because of what they…did to me? Because of the way they…used me. Because of what they made me do.”
Her eyes grew watery as she searched his.
“You can’t be with me, can you? And not think about…about them…making me dirty.”
His heart actually sank. He felt it drop. Dive straight to his gut and shatter on impact at the anguish in her voice. “God. Oh, God. No. Jesus, Amy. Not for a minute do I think that you are less because of those bastards.”
Anguish transitioned to confusion. “Then what is this about? Is it medical? Are you afraid they gave me an STD? I’m fine. Medically, miraculously, I’m fine.”
“Amy. Think. You are in the thick of a goddamn dangerous situation here, okay?”
He’d shouted. Damn it, he’d shouted at her. But somehow he had to make her understand. “A situation I should have talked you out of. You were stressed. Exhausted. Not capable of making wise decisions. And that made me a lesser man for taking advantage of you. I’m not going to do it again.”
Her brows knit together. She gave a little shake of her head. “Is that what you think happened in West Palm? You think you took advantage of me?”
She just didn’t get it. “Hell, yes, I took advantage!” It hadn’t felt like it at the time. At the time, it had felt like heaven. Like a present on Christmas morning. One he’d dreamed about and wished for and never really expected to find.
So no, it hadn’t seemed like he’d taken advantage. But in retrospect he couldn’t spin it any other way.
He was miserable with guilt. And hell if she didn’t look amused.
“So…you don’t want to make love to me.”
God save him. And damn her. She was baiting him again. “That’s not what I said.”
“Look. Dallas. Let’s get something straight, okay? I may be tired. I may be stressed, but there’s something you need to understand about me. That person you dragged off of Jolo? That wasn’t me. That was a victim, in victim mode. Beaten down. Scared. Cowering.
“Wait—” She cut him off when he would have told her that she’d had damn good reason to be all of those things. “Let me finish.”
Frustrated, he propped his hands on his hips. Buttoned it. Focused on the wall behind her. Anywhere but on her face, her mouth, the breasts that were clearly loose beneath his t-shirt.
“That woman,” she continued, “never existed prior to Jolo. And that woman doesn’t exist now. I went through hell. I had issues to deal with. I am dealing with them.”
She paused, implored with her eyes. “I’ll probably always be dealing with them on some level. But that’s my cross to bear. Not yours. To the point, how I deal with them are my decisions to mak
e. And so we are completely clear on this—you did not take advantage of me. If anything, it was the other way around.”
Say what? She had his full attention now.
“I needed to know. I needed to know if…if that part of me, the part those bastards did their worst to destroy, had survived. I needed to know,” she repeated, holding a balled fist between her breasts. “And there was no one I trusted to show me the way back but you.”
He closed his eyes, tipped his head toward the ceiling.
“You and Ethan. Nolan and Manny. You didn’t just save me from certain death on Jolo. You saved me from torment and torture. I was a stone’s throw away from letting the dark side take me. And I was certain that if I survived the rapes and beatings, the fevers and the starvation, I’d never be a whole person again. Never have hope again.”
She touched her palm to his jaw. He couldn’t help but lean into her caress.
“But you…you amazing heroic men gave me back more than my freedom and my life. You gave me respect. You gave me dignity. You didn’t look at me as if I were damaged goods.”
“You’re not.”
“No. Not to you. You…you even looked at me in a way I’d never thought I’d want a man to look at me again. Don’t you see, that was the biggest gift of all…that and making love with you. Don’t take that away from me. Not now. Not after you’ve brought me so far.”
Man. Man, oh, man, she was getting to him. With those big blue eyes, with that firm, self-possessed posture that was doing as much to convince him as her words.
“I need to get on with my life, Dallas. And you’ve helped me. More than you will ever know.”
He watched in wonder and awe as she moved into him again, smoothed her hand around his jaw to his nape, pulled his face to hers.
“You don’t have to take care of me, Dallas. You don’t have to be my moral compass. You don’t have to be my voice of reason, or decide what I can and can not handle.
“All you have to be,” she whispered, rising up on her tiptoes and touching her lips to his, “is you. All you have to take care of,” she said, nipping his lower lip while she slid a hand down and caressed him through his pants, “is this.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
He was rock hard and wildfire hot in her hand. Amy felt power in that. In knowing that despite his misguided good intentions, despite his iron-willed determination to live up to some personal code of honor, she held the key to breaking him.
And when a strong man like Dallas Garrett broke, when he finally gave himself permission to give in to the need, the speed at which he fell was blinding. The fervor in which he embraced his downfall was electric.
And he’d lied. He’d lied when he’d said he wasn’t going to let it happen again. The proof was in the pack of condoms she discovered in the pocket of his pants. Even when he was determined to stay away from her, he’d been thinking ahead to protecting her.
Oh, yeah. He’d wanted this to happen again. And when she kissed him, long and wet and deep, he gave up all pretense of denial.
Greedy hands slid down her back, paused at her waist to squeeze and lift then lower to her hips, to part her thighs and guide her legs around his waist.
Heat, power, unrestrained desire. He surrounded her with it. Overwhelmed her with it. No silken surrender to her control this time. No tender kisses and tentative touches and letting her set the intensity and the pace.
This time…this time he devoured her. His mouth ravaged and bit and licked and sucked, demanding her tongue, then teasing with his. He walked them to the bed, lowered her to her back and covered her. The full, pulsing length of him. The wild, reckless joy of him. He rocked his pelvis against hers, his erection proud and thick and pulsing against her abdomen.
“Tell me.” He strung wet, biting kisses along her throat, shoving his t-shirt off her shoulder and nipping bare skin. “Tell me if I scare you.”
“I’m not scared,” she whispered, breathless with need as his splayed fingers forked through her hair and he angled her mouth back to his.
“Well, I sure the hell am,” he growled and sat up abruptly. Straddling her hips he tugged the t-shirt over her head. “Because you scare me to death. This…what you do to me…it scares the hell out of me.”
She touched her hand to his face, smiled. “Don’t worry…I won’t let you get hurt.”
The smile on her lips transitioned to wonder as he bent over her, his biceps bulging as he braced his hands on the mattress and caught her nipple in his mouth. Sucked. Feasted.
She loved it. Loved his dominance. His wildness. His demands that she yield to him, as he had yielded to her.
His hands…his hands were everywhere. On her throat, on her breasts, between her legs, setting her on fire as he finessed and stroked and upped her level of sensation beyond the breaking point.
He claimed her in ways she had once thought would shoot her into a panic. Losing control, giving up this much power…she’d never dreamed it could be liberating. Never imagined it could be healing.
“Dallas.” She breathed his name on a sigh when he sat back on his heels, watched her face as he touched her there, where he’d made her wet and swollen and pulsing with an aching longing for him to fill her.
She reached for him, her fingers stretched toward him. He clasped her hands in his, laced their fingers together then lowered their joined hands to her pubis.
“If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it all. I want it all, Amy,” he whispered sweeping his thumbs over her mound, separating the folds of her lips. Exposing her, opening her then sliding down the bed to take her with his mouth. “Need it all.”
Liquid fire. Aching heat. Electric sensation. She lost herself in the lush, hungry strokes of his tongue, in the deep sounds of satisfaction rumbling in his throat as he selflessly gave her pleasure, selfishly indulged in the giving.
Lost. She was so, so lost, in the heat of his mouth, the depth of pure pleasure and mindless greed. She cried out at the joy of it, the unbridled wonder. Was desperate for him to go on and on and on…yet frantic for release. It came on a rush, hot, heady, insanely intense, profoundly physical.
Her entire body trembled as he kissed her there, one last time, then sheathed in a condom, entered her deep.
And the sensations began again. He pumped into her like a man possessed, like a man lost in a profound moment. A moment so profound, she was aware of every minute detail. The shadowy light spilling across the bed from the lamp on the table. The dampness of his hair beneath her fingertips. The blue, blue eyes that bore into hers as he filled her. The smooth skin at the small of his back where her ankles locked to hold him close. The tremor in muscles hard as steel and strained to the limit.
Yes, she absorbed it all along with his scent, musky now with the heat of their sexual energy. And when he took her mouth as he took her body, she tasted herself, and him, and the wonder that he had claimed a part of her that was most vulnerable.
She held him close when he came, thrusting into her hard on a deep masculine sound of supreme satisfaction. Smiled into the night, overjoyed, overcome with the delicious knowledge that in giving over her trust, in bending to his will, she felt more empowered than she’d ever felt in her life.
Dallas lay in the dark, wasted in the aftermath of hot, sweaty, amazing sex and marveled at the woman spread out on top of him like butter on bread. And fought another bout of guilt.
She was awake, he could tell by the cadence of her breathing.
Was she waiting? For him to say something? For a declaration of love?
No. Not going to happen. Even if that deck of cards were on the table, he wouldn’t play them.
Couldn’t play them. Not because they were too different from each other, but because they were so very much alike.
Both of them were damaged. Both of them fought to keep it together on a daily basis. She needed a man who could give her stability, pull her back to the light when she headed into the dark. How could he possibly help her?
Hell, he couldn’t keep himself from plunging into the black hole. The big bad “hero” couldn’t even win a battle with his own demons. Or the battle with his self-control.
So much for his grand gesture of not taking her to bed again.
Christ. He’d buckled, big time. Taken advantage—again—although she wouldn’t want to hear it and would never let him cop to that in this lifetime.
Yeah. He should say something. And now that his heartbeat had settled and he could breathe without gasping, he ought to be able to manage…something.
“Our dinner is way past cold,” is what came out.
The soft, sweet hand that had been sweeping up and down his arm stilled. She pushed up on her elbow, met his eyes. “Okay, good thing we got the good stuff done up front, ’cause I’ve got to tell you, Garrett, your pillow talk sucks.”
She grinned at him. Actually grinned at him. “So, this is your idea of tender moments after?”
Lord. She was totally at ease with this and he was twisted up like a pretzel.
“Tender would be the operative word.” Unable to stop himself, he lifted a hand and brushed that glorious fall of blond hair away from her face. “I was rough with you. I’m…hell. I’m sorry.”
Her smile faded, became a frown. “You really have this hero thing bent out of whack, you know? Stand down, marine. I liked it. I liked the way you made love to me.”
She pushed herself to her knees, sat back on her heels and folded her hands together on her thighs. Her skin was all rosy and pink, her lips and nipples swollen from the way he’d ravished her. Her hair—a sexy, sweet tumble—fell all the hell over the place. She should look used and abused. What she looked was lush and sated and pretty damn pleased with herself.
“Don’t take this feeling away from me with apologies.”
Strong, amazing woman. “You liked being man-handled?”
“I liked knowing that you wanted me. That you were wild and rough and intensely needing me. And I liked knowing that all I had to do was say one word, and the control would be mine again. Thank you for that. For all of that.”
Cindy Gerard - [Bodyguards 06] Page 12
