Jesse turned around to face her, his eyes glowing with intensity. “Me walking away from you is as likely as a blizzard in hell.”
Smiling, she unwound the scarf from his hands. “Be careful, Jesse. After all, it was a Texan blizzard that brought you to me.”
Chapter Nine
What the hell is she up to?
Elias shifted on her bed, trying to figure out what was taking her so long in the bathroom. Last night, they’d been too frantic to even make it to the bed for the first three or four times, and now she wanted him to sit here and wait while she primped.
God, I need a drink. A couple of shots of whiskey would take the edge off, mellow him out so he didn’t fall on her like a raving lunatic. That’s the only way he’d survived three whole months without her. And of course driving by like a lovesick fool to make sure her place was secure. Sometimes he’d even sat outside in the wee hours of the morning in his truck, just watching, remembering.
If he’d used his key and come to her one of those dark nights, would she have forgiven him for walking out? If he’d called, just once, instead of sitting in his empty apartment staring at the phone all fucking night?
Or did it take a half-starved, homeless kid to bring us back together?
The bathroom door opened, and Elias damned near choked to death because his heart tried to crawl up his throat. He couldn’t breathe as Vicki came near her bed.
She wore a filmy, white negligee that tied beneath her breasts and fluttered about her hips, oddly demure but so damned sexy he couldn’t remember his own name. Her dark hair fell loose and soft about her shoulders and her molten chocolate eyes shimmered in the candlelight. She picked up an opened bottle of wine on the bedside table and calmly poured two glasses of red. Still silent, she handed him a glass and sipped hers, watching him with those dark, mysterious eyes.
He tipped his head back and drained the whole thing, even though he hated wine.
“What do you think?”
It had to be a trick question. Narrowing his eyes, he tried to make a joke. “Did we get married and I forgot about it?”
Her eyes caught fire and she slammed the fragile wineglass down so hard he feared it might shatter. “I told him this was a stupid idea.”
“Jesse?” Elias fought to keep an even voice. “What the hell does he have to do with…with…?” He swept his hand at her negligee, fighting not to fist his fingers in that transparent material and rip it off her.
“He swore you’d like it.”
“So what, now you’re letting your cabana boy pick out sleazy underwear and babydolls? For me?”
“At least I’m not wearing it for him.” She whirled away. “Forget it, Reyes.”
Jumping up, he whipped out his arms and caught her, drawing her back toward the bed so he could sit back down. She jerked away and fought his grip, but he wrapped his arms around her and held on until her ire faded.
When he saw the tears on her cheeks, he cursed beneath his breath and held her tighter. He’d forgotten that sometimes anger from her hid her true emotion: hurt.
“I never should have worn this thing. I hate it.” She sniffed, a tiny little sigh of her breath, which in another woman would have been full-blown wailing and sobs. He tucked his head close to hers, even if she skull-slammed him. “I told him it was a stupid idea. Just forget it.”
“How could you hate this babydoll when I’d like nothing better than to rip it off you and ravish you senseless?”
She shook her head, so he drew her harder into the cradle of his thighs, pressing her against his erection. “That doesn’t mean anything. I bet you had a hard-on as soon as you walked into my bedroom.”
“It wasn’t this big, babe, this hard, this painful.” He lowered his voice and nuzzled her neck. “I’d like to think that you might say ‘I do’ to me someday.”
“You’d have to ask me first,” she retorted.
She had him there. He’d thought about it, sure, even when she was still an attorney. Even if she had to stand between the law and the very criminals he was putting away. But then his bigger head had started working again and he’d remembered how quickly a marriage could go down the shitter when he worked his kind of hours. “I can’t stop being a cop.”
“And I can’t give up Jesse.” She whispered, but her voice rang like steel. “If you love me at all, don’t ask me.”
Not even for me? The words thundered in Elias’s head, but he refused to voice them. He did love her, and he’d had his chance. He’d fucked it up and walked out three months ago. That she’d let him back in this far was more than he deserved. He had no right to demand her whole heart for himself.
God forgive him, she’d already given up her career. Maybe not for him, not in so many words, but he couldn’t ask for anything else. It was his turn to sacrifice to be with her, and the only damned thing he had was his own fool pride.
His stomach churned like he’d swallowed a fist full of razor blades, but he said nothing.
Nothing at all.
Why couldn’t he give just an inch? Would it kill him to say that he loved her?
Her heart thudded so heavily in her chest that she couldn’t breathe. She wanted to double over and wrap her arms around herself and moan in agony. Why did she let him tie her up in knots like this?
Loosening his grip, he sat back on the bed, giving her space to withdraw. She curled her hand into a fist, aching to turn around and just belt him in the chin. But that’s what she always did. When they argued, she fought, challenging, refusing to back down. Wasn’t that their greatest difficulty?
Slowly, she uncurled her fingers. She wouldn’t give him a fight. Not this time. But I won’t retreat either.
He smoothed his palms up and down her arms, hesitantly at first as though he, too, expected her to whirl around and sock him a good one. His lips brushed her shoulder, his breath warm and moist on her skin. Her spine arched and her head fell back. They’d made love countless times, but she couldn’t remember him ever being so gentle. So hesitant and unsure of his claim on her affections and her body.
Just as carefully, she turned in his arms to face him. Any other time, she probably would have shoved him flat on his back and attacked him, but she was on a roll tonight for trying the unusual. It felt strange to stand there between his knees and let him stroke her, the barest glide of his fingertips and mouth over her skin. Her entire body hummed, vibrating with sweet tension and arousal.
He slid his hand up her thigh beneath the filmy negligee and he groaned against her mouth. She’d taken Jesse’s advice and gone commando. Nothing kept Elias from feeling her heat and desire.
“Here you are wearing this nightie he picked out for me. That’s pretty fucked up, Vik. What does your boy get out this?”
Her cheeks flooded with color and his eyebrows climbed higher. He let out a rough, low laugh, sliding both hands up to her waist to lift her astride his hips. Still torturously slow, he slid inside her body, drawing a desperate moan from her throat. She wanted fast, hard, no thoughts, no talking, because she didn’t want the truth to come between them.
Damn Elias’s bloodhound cop senses, but that’s exactly what he wanted. Truth. And the best way to get it was to drive her insane with need.
“Is he listening, imagining that you’re riding him instead of me? Is he down there beneath us, jacking off?”
She shook her head wildly. “No, he’s not.”
“He’s not imagining his cock is in you instead of mine?”
Air, she needed air. She opened her mouth and sucked in a lungful, but her face still felt hot and tight. “He’s not jacking off.”
“How do you know, Vik?”
“Because I told him not to.”
She felt the slight jerk in his thrust, that telltale little hesitation that said she’d surprised him. Judging by the size of his erection filling her up until she couldn’t think, he didn’t seem mad. She dug at his shoulders, grinding her pelvis against his, trying to drive him harder.
Sweat slickened his chest, his breath rasping in his throat, but he didn’t lose that fierce control. “What do you mean, you told him not to?”
“He…” This was so wrong, so weird, to be talking about Jesse like this, but she was going to explode into a million pieces. “He’s listening. Waiting for me to come. But he won’t touch himself.”
“Why?” Elias growled, arcing up off the bed to push deeper into her without giving her that long glide that would push her over the edge. “Why won’t he touch himself, Vik?”
“I won’t allow it.”
“So when he hears you scream…”
So close, she was shaking, trembling with the spiraling need. When Elias clamped his hand over her mouth and rolled her beneath him, she was too shocked to struggle. Especially when he slammed so deep she saw a thousand stars burning in her mind. Screaming beneath his palm, she shook with the force of her climax, but all she heard was a muted, strangled sound mixing with his deep grunt of release.
He shifted them both up deeper into her bed and she made no protest. Her mind was reeling. She’d told him about her little “arrangement” with the other man and he wasn’t bellowing at the top of his lungs. He wasn’t storming down to his truck and peeling away from the curb. In fact, he tucked her face into the curve of his neck and simply held her.
He smiled against her forehead, a smug curve of satisfaction that also echoed in his voice. “We’ll give your boy something to hear in a bit. That one was for me alone.”
Chapter Ten
Days and weeks blended together in a blur as Vicki worked to get her line ready for the commercial and the upcoming show. She lost count of the long hours she and her seamstress spent on the signature gown and the new men’s shirts, but through it all, Jesse was there.
Not constantly, thank goodness—for she would have lost her sanity and succumbed to temptation long ago. Long sessions with the therapist Victor had recommended kept Jesse out of sight, and the work helped keep him out of her mind. She went once a week herself, even though she couldn’t really spare the time with the show only weeks away. Some of the questions were hitting too close to home.
Why don’t you like to talk about your relationship with your mother? What’s keeping you from a committed relationship with Elias?
She knew on both accounts. She just didn’t like to talk about it, which evidently was the whole point.
Speaking of Elias, she hadn’t seen him in several nights because of a major drug case he was working on. He didn’t even have time to stop by for a quickie or a shower, but he did make a point to call every day. Although absent, he was connected, unlike their previous separation, but his solid presence wasn’t there to keep her attention occupied. His body wasn’t there to keep her distracted, and her libido was set on a constant rumbling roar.
Even the work, while frantic and stressful, was welcome, because it kept her hands busy with something other than Jesse.
He stood still and quiet as she buttoned the fitted turquoise shirt up his chest, helpfully tilting his head back so she could fasten the high collar. Even while she tied the neck cloth about his throat, she didn’t really let herself see him. When she finally stepped back and let her gaze take him in, she couldn’t tear her eyes off him.
His eyes glowed like living jewels, perfectly set off by the color of the shirt. With his hair tumbled about his shoulders and the tight black breeches she’d borrowed from VCONN’s costume department, he looked like a young well-to-do lord from the nineteenth century. Nipped in tight at his waist but long and full in the sleeves, the shirt managed to give him elegance and old-world charm without making him look too feminine.
And his eyes. Damn it. She couldn’t escape his eyes.
He said nothing. He didn’t have to. The results from his first trip to the doctor had been clean except for some kind of intestinal parasite he’d picked up, combined with general anemia and malnutrition. He’d gone back after a round of antibiotics, and he’d put on twenty pounds and cleaned up his stomach.
Nothing would keep her from taking him.
Nothing but sheer desperation to keep him at arm’s length as long as possible.
She heard the therapist’s calm, clinical voice in her head. Jesse is fully committed to you and he articulates very clearly what he wants and needs from your relationship. He’s not conflicted. You are.
Swallowing hard, she stepped to the side and waved a hand at the full-length mirror. “What do you think?”
He laughed softly. “I don’t even recognize myself. I never thought I’d wear silk let alone something handmade by the most…”
He allowed the words to trail off and didn’t finish the sentence. He must have seen the ragged tension in her body language, reflected back a thousand-fold in the mirror. Dark and solemn, his eyes said what he couldn’t voice. They spoke of need, agonizing need. Elias hadn’t spent the night in nearly a week, but it wouldn’t have made a difference for either of them.
Jesse needed something her lover wouldn’t…couldn’t…give either of them.
Shame knotted her stomach. If she wasn’t such a coward, she’d be meeting his needs. He depended on her for housing and his job as her model, despite the five-thousand-dollar check she’d put into a bank account for him with the promise of a percentage of the shop’s earnings going forward. More, though, he depended on her for his physical needs. Needs that no one else understood, let alone could actually satisfy.
No one but me.
She knew it. He knew it. Hell, even Elias knew it. Ignoring the vicious ache of need clenching every muscle in her body when she looked at him wasn’t fooling anyone.
Least of all myself.
She turned away from those haunting eyes and pretended interest in the sketches he’d done for her on the high worktable. In the mirror, she watched his shoulders droop with disappointment. “Take off your clothes except for my shirt.”
In a second, he snapped from despondency to desperate, boundless hope. Without a single question or hesitation, he stripped off the tight pants, taking whatever underwear he might have worn along with them. It took all her self-control not to turn around and gobble him up with her eyes. Instead, she clutched a pen in her hand so hard her fingers hurt. She still wasn’t exactly sure what she was doing.
What she was going to ask…no…tell him to do.
That’s what he needs most of all.
“Slowly…” She cleared her throat to loosen the tightness that was trying to strangle her. Still clutching that pen like a talisman, she sat in her wheeled office chair and faced him. Luckily, the shirt was long enough to give her a moment to collect her thoughts, because she had the feeling that once she saw him naked she was going to have a hard time remembering her own name. “Unbutton the shirt, starting from the top.”
His chest rose and fell so rapidly she could see each fluttering breath. He lifted shaking hands to the turquoise silk. Leaving the tight, high collar bound at his throat, he worked the tiny buttons loose, each one making her breath come faster, her pulse thundering in her head. He peeked at her from the curtain of tumbled hair hanging in his face, and his eyes cut her to the bone. So much hope. So much love. And terror, yes, because he was so afraid that she’d come to her senses and run like hell.
She wanted to, oh, she did. She wanted to flee. She wanted to throw him up against a wall. Or fist her hand in his hair and drag him down to torment her with his tongue.
Clutching the arm of her chair with her left hand, she forced herself to watch the show he was giving her. Inch by inch, he bared his chest, the flat planes of his stomach, the line of slightly darker hair down his belly drawing her gaze inevitably to his groin. Framed in the turquoise silk tails of his shirt, his cock rose hard and painfully aroused.
He’d waited so damned long for this, and so had she. But staring at his obvious need, she still wasn’t sure what to do. Her mind felt frozen. Her eyes burned, not with sadness or regret, but such need, her heart so heavy in her ch
est that it felt like boulders crushed her ribcage.
She jerked her gaze up to his face, seeking a clue, a hint to what he expected her to do. If he wanted humiliation or pain, she’d probably crack or burst into tears. Mal had said something about dogs, collars, leashes, whips and flails.
Some Mistress I’m making. God, if that’s what he wants, I don’t think I can go through with this.
Seeing the panic in her eyes, he dropped to his knees in front of her and pressed his forehead against her thighs. “Let me touch you, just a little.” His whispered voice shook as badly as her hands. “Please, Vicki, please. You don’t have to do anything. Just seeing the way you look at me is enough.”
“No,” she forced out. The roughness of her voice shocked her and made him cringe harder against her legs. Desperate, he clutched her, wrapping his arms around her thighs like she was his last hope. “No, it’s not enough. You need more than me looking at you.”
She released her death grip on the pen, letting it fall to the floor so she could fist her hand in his hair. None too gently, she jerked his head up. “And so do I.”
Jesse closed his eyes a moment, trying to hold back the flood of emotion and need. He didn’t want to terrify her with demands and hopes and fears, not so soon. She’d taken that first step, and he knew what it’d cost her. He knew she was scared. Odd, but he’d never expected he’d be the calm, confident one when it came down to their relationship. Not as the bottom.
It was liberating, though. He’d always been forced, the victim whether unwilling or not. He’d never had the opportunity to think about what he’d ask for, how he’d guide someone into getting what he needed while still taking the bottom, but that’s exactly what Vicki gave him. It was like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, only to discover it also held every single hope and dream he’d ever had in his entire life.
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