Calling His Bluff

by Amy Jo Cousins

  She took a shaky breath.

  “I don’t know if I like it, how you always seem to see what’s in my head,” she muttered. “But it’s clear that you do.”

  J.D.’s dark eyes didn’t look away from hers for a second. “I know you, Sarah. You surprise the hell out of me sometimes, but deep down, we still know each other better than you think.”

  She turned her head to look at the doors far behind them that led from the ballroom back into the rest of the hotel, and then drew them back to meet his even gaze.

  She knew she’d already decided.

  And as simply as that, she steadied. She still felt the blood pounding through her veins, but now its pulse was slow and deep, instead of fast and thready. The surge of wanting him lifted her until she smiled and tossed back the rest of her drink.

  Linking hands with him, she tugged until their tangled fingers rested heavily in her lap.

  “So, are you guys going to win this award soon or not?”

  He was already rising from his seat.

  “I’m not making this mistake twice. They can tell me about it tomorrow.”

  Chapter Seven

  She was dying of thirst, every molecule of her body vibrating with a bone-deep need and she was frantic to swallow him up.

  The door to her room was still closing as J.D. spun her around and pushed her back against it, his hands racing over her body, yanking her leg up to curl around his waist. She dug her fingers into his hair and pulled his mouth to her, bruising her lips against his teeth as their mouths opened and fought to deepen the kiss. He slid a hand up the bare length of her thigh through the slit in her dress and cupped her butt, his fingers reaching to press against the heat of her.

  She felt his shudder as he found her wet with wanting. Arced her hips to press harder against his hand.

  Uncoordinated with the desperate need to feel his bare skin beneath her hands, she pushed his suit jacket halfway down his arms and then fumbled with the buttons on his shirt for a moment before frustration took over and she yanked the shirt up. The muscles of his back were tight beneath her palms as she slid her hands around him and tried to pull him close enough to erase her aching need.

  She needed him closer, inside her. Now.

  Tearing her mouth away from his, she panted out the words.

  “Help me. I can’t—” And then she was kissing him again, his mouth open and hot against hers as he tugged the straps of her dress off her shoulders, pulled the fabric down until he freed her breasts and covered them with his hands. His fingers felt like fire against her skin, her nipples hard and aching, and then his mouth lowered, closing over the peak of one breast, and she knew a new definition of fire.

  J.D. wedged a thigh between hers and she sank against it, thrusting her hips in small circles against the hard muscles of his leg as his mouth tugged at one breast and his hand stroked the other. When he closed his teeth in a sweet bite on her nipple, she grabbed his hand and dragged it down, burying it between her legs. Her dress was already pulled up around her hips.

  “J.D., touch me.” She heard her own voice break on the words. “Please.”

  His fingers slid beneath the narrow strip of fabric that covered her and found the swollen, slick heat of her.

  “Your body kills me. You respond so fast every time I touch you,” he said.

  She was helpless to do anything else. She had wanted him nonstop for days. He flicked his tongue against her nipple, thrummed his fingers against her, and she exploded, every muscle in her body stiffening as she let out a cry, the orgasm ripping through her in a swift blaze that only left her wanting more.

  She threw her head back so hard it banged against the door, and she laughed out loud. She felt flushed with power, strong and incredibly sexy. Linking her arms behind J.D.’s neck, she jumped up on him, wrapping her legs around his waist as he lifted her.

  “That ought to hold me for about two minutes.” She grinned at him, their faces level with each other as he turned and strode over to where the bed was just visible in the light spilling in through the windows from the glow of the Las Vegas Strip. She wiggled her feet out of her heels as he walked and heard them thump on the floor.

  “You won’t even have to wait two minutes if we leave your dress on,” he said and dropped her onto the bed.

  She looked up at him through her tangled hair and smiled.

  “Oh, no. Naked. Now.” She slid off the bed and stood up, facing him. “Race you.”

  With a zip and a shimmy, the pricey dress hit the floor and she kicked it to the side with her toes. She hooked her thumbs under the straps of her G-string and paused to dance back a step as he reached for her.

  “No fair.” His clothes continued to hit to the ground as he protested. His eyes were locked on her nearly naked hip. “Jesus, that tattoo is fucking hot on you.” Then he reached out and caught her, his hands closing on her wrists as his mouth found hers and she gave in, her tongue dancing with his in a furious kiss that left her breathing hard as she stepped away again.

  “You’d better catch up,” she said and slid her underwear down her thighs until it, too, dropped to the floor.

  Then he was naked and the feel of his skin against hers was glorious, hot and soft and wonderful, and she felt the surging need for him again, wanting to be closer to him until he engulfed her. They fell on the bed, rolling over each other until he lay on top of her. She could only see the shadow of his face as he looked down at her.

  She felt the stretch in the tendons of her inner thighs, the weight of him settling between her legs as she circled them around his waist, hooking her ankles behind his back. Pressing her heels into him, she arched up against his strength.

  “Wait, Sarah.” J.D.’s voice was muffled in her shoulder as he dropped his head down to the mattress for a moment. “Just wait a second.”

  “I’m on the pill and haven’t slept with anyone since my last checkup. Any chance you’ve been tested since your adventurous ex-wife?”

  “Yeah, at the hospital. I’m good. But Sarah, if we do this—”

  Aw, hell no. Not again. No ifs. She snaked her hands down his back and curved them around the firm muscles of his butt. Enough talk.

  “I know. No annulment.” She shrugged against him and smiled in the dark. “It’s going to cost us either way. I figure we deserve a little something for our trouble, no?”

  Then she pressed her mouth to his and the taste of him on her tongue, sweet and smoky, with lingering traces of the twenty-year-old scotch he’d been drinking, was a steady stream of fresh air over the banked coals of her desire.

  J.D. pulled his head back far enough to nip at her lower lip and scrape his teeth lightly along her jawbone and down the column of her neck.

  “I’m so glad you feel that way.” His voice wrapped around her in the dark as his hands lifted her hips and he surged into her.

  For a moment, discomfort held her still. The size of him and the length of time since she’d last made love broke the grip of her wanting. But then the tiny flames of desire licked through her system, her body eased and he started to move.

  She felt herself climb, tension pushed higher and higher with each stroke, until she was clinging to the edge of a precipice with her fingernails scrabbling to hold on. She was ready to fall and burn, but she wanted this moment to last forever.

  With her name on his lips, J.D. captured her mouth on one final thrust and she felt herself go over.

  Waves of heat rippled through her entire body as her reflexive rocking against J.D.’s hips slowed and the weight of him slowly settled on top of her.

  After a moment, he rolled onto his side with his arms still wrapped around her, pulling her with him in a tangle of duvet and sheets that he managed to tug up to more or less cover them in the cool, air-conditioned room. Her legs were still wrapped around him and his head rested on her upper arm until he lifted it to search for her mouth with his own.

  The light brushing kisses soothed her bruised lips. Between
them, warm breaths mingled as pulses slowed, chests rising and falling in a gentler cadence. J.D. pushed her sweaty hair back from her face and traced the line of her cheekbone with one finger.

  “Well, well, well, Mrs. Damico.” She could hear the smile in his voice, even if she could barely see the curve of his lips in the dark. “You are, as they say in the Amazon, en fuego.”

  “Shut up. They do not.” She pushed at his shoulder and felt her cheeks lift in a grin that ignored the flutter she felt in her stomach at the words Mrs. Damico. He was only teasing. On fire, indeed. Of course, it was another Mrs. Damico who’d been in the Amazon with J.D., but she was determined to ignore that. She felt so loose she was sure she could bend herself into a pretzel and simply enjoy the stretch. She settled for reaching her hands high over her head and pointing her toes at the bottom of the bed as she arched her back. “But I certainly am.”

  The rumble of his laughter shook silently through him. Rolling farther onto his back, he wedged his head deeper into the pillows and with a tug here and a push there, maneuvered her until she was snuggled half against him and half on him. Her cheek was resting on his chest, and she could hear his heartbeat beneath her as she struggled to keep her eyes open.

  “You were pretty en fuego yourself,” she managed to get out before an enormous yawn cracked her jaw wide open. She settled back against him with a low hum of pleasure at the skin on skin contact she hadn’t known she was missing.

  “Mmm.” Their bodies sank into a slow, easy peace that wrapped muffled blankets of sleep around them. “Fire catches.”

  She drifted off to sleep, her last thoughts an incoherent wonder that she should feel so comfortable and the question, forgotten by the time she awoke, of which was more dangerous: that fire or this peace?

  In the morning, she awoke to sunlight streaming through the windows at an angle much too high to mean anything other than they were dangerously close to missing their 1:00 p.m. flight. After she grabbed the alarm clock, which she’d forgotten to set the night before, of course, and gasped at the time, she smacked J.D. on his very fine ass before jumping out of bed and racing to the bathroom.

  “Get up, boy-o! We’ve got thirty minutes to get dressed, packed and to the airport or we’ll miss our flight,” she called out before shutting the door and cranking on the shower. She squished toothpaste onto her brush, jammed it between her teeth and started raking toiletries into her travel kit with her free hand. She blushed when she felt the ache between her legs. Maybe they could just pretend none of this had happened.

  The roar of the powerful shower drowned out all other sound. She didn’t know J.D. had followed her into the bathroom until she lifted her face from spitting a mouthful of froth into the sink and caught him staring at her in the mirror. Unbuttoned slacks hung low on his hips, his wrinkled shirt draped open over a bare chest. She scraped the back of her hand across her wet mouth and watched him advance on her.

  When he stopped behind her, he wrapped his arms low around her waist in a tight squeeze, nudging her hair aside with his mouth to plant a kiss on her neck. She closed her eyes for a moment before opening them to watch in the mirror as the two dark heads leaned against each other, the man tall and broad behind the woman whose lean length he surrounded.

  “Hi.”

  His voice was scratchy with the sleepy grit of someone who didn’t wake up until his third cup of coffee.

  “Hi.”

  She reached up with one hand and stroked his hair.

  “Cab. I’ll call,” he managed to get out. She lost her view of the two of them as he turned her around in his arms and framed her face with his hands. His eyes were barely open, but he looked straight at her, unblinking, until she nodded yes to whatever it was he wanted her to acknowledge. Pressing his lips to hers, he paused for a moment before straightening and leaving the room.

  “Lobby. Fifteen minutes.”

  So much for pretending that nothing had happened.

  Refusing to analyze why that thought made her smile, she slung her toothbrush into her kit and hopped into the shower.

  In the end, she crammed everything she’d brought with her any which way into her suitcase, except for the two dresses. Wrinkled as the Dior was after spending the night lying in a heap on the floor, she still managed to spare sixty seconds to call the concierge before heading down to the lobby with it and the red halter dress on a hanger over her shoulder.

  Cash and a high level of personalized customer service had guaranteed that a newly purchased garment bag was waiting for her at the concierge’s desk.

  She wasn’t about to fold an $8,000 evening gown into a wheeled carry-on.

  Before she could blink, she and J.D. were shuffled into a cab and speeding to the airport.

  The commercial flight home was short enough that between takeoff, beverage service and landing, there wasn’t much time for anything other than just traveling. She could feel J.D. shifting restlessly in the seat next to her and avoided looking at him. She spent the flight buried in a book.

  There was no sense in tempting fate. If she just sat there staring at the seat back in front of her, he might feel the need to start talking to her. And since Sarah had absolutely no idea how she felt about any of this, let alone what she was going to do next, she did her best to avoid any sudden confessions or questions.

  Not until the limo that met them at the airport sped past the expressway exit that should have taken them to her home did she sit up and open her mouth.

  “Actually, that was my exit—” was all she managed to get out, tapping J.D.’s elbow, interrupting the call he’d made on his cell phone as soon as they settled into the hired car.

  “Just a second, George,” he paused and put his hand over the phone. “Sorry, do you mind coming with me? That damn cat was dropped off at my place this morning by the kitty day care people and I don’t know if she’s about to pop. Can you check her out? I’ll have the driver take you home right after.”

  Rock. Hard place. Sarah.

  All she wanted was to get back to her place, crawl into some flannel pants and a sweatshirt, curl up on her couch and figure out what her odds were of getting divorced from her brother’s best friend without said brother finding out.

  Slim to none, she was willing to bet, but she knew it would at the very least require the plotting skills and mental acuity of Machiavelli.

  The fact that her brain turned to mush around J.D. meant that the sooner she got herself out of his presence, the better.

  “Sure,” she heard herself answer. “No problem.”

  See? she scolded herself. Mush.

  When they reached J.D.’s warehouse of a home, she strode through the door, med bag over her shoulder, as soon as he unlocked it. No sense dillydallying. Find the cat, give her a quick exam and get out. She heard J.D. talking at the door with the driver, who would no doubt spend the next ten minutes entertaining himself with the Wall Street Journal or internet porn until she emerged for her ride home.

  She got as far as the enormous leather couch in front of the fireplace without spotting the cat. Hesitating, she took another step into the room and then stopped again. She’d only been in J.D.’s home that one evening, and she felt oddly awkward walking around the cavernous space. Surely there was more to the place than this. Well, he’d told her that his bedroom was up the spiral wrought-iron staircase. And all the photography equipment piled in the entryway indicated that there was a studio, too, but she didn’t feel like she had a right to go exploring and opening doors on her own. Not with J.D. hard on her heels and sure to be watching her every move.

  The realization brought her back to earth with a thump.

  As much as she’d shut her brain down and insisted on thinking of nothing but what the next legal step would be in untangling this mess she’d landed in with J.D., she knew that a tiny little corner of her consciousness had spent the entire day imagining a completely different scenario.

  The dreamy, impractical part of Sarah that secretly w
ished fairy tales were true shivered each time J.D. called her “Mrs. Damico” and insisted on picturing a Hollywood happy ending for their weekend, where the hero and heroine rode off into the sunset together.

  On a white horse. Through the rolling surf of a deserted beach.

  Nowhere in this scenario, however, was the heroine stuck standing awkwardly in the middle of a room because she didn’t feel comfortable enough to show herself around her hero’s condo.

  In the fairy tale, J.D. would have brought her here because he couldn’t stand to be separated from her for one night. Not because he wanted her professional opinion of his cat. She should have stuck with her gut instinct. Going home wouldn’t have made her feel like an asshole.

  “Hey.” The hands on her shoulder squeezed her out of her daze. She hadn’t heard him come in behind her. “You look lost.”

  Her laugh was shakier than she wanted it to be.

  “Lost. Yeah.” She blinked hard. “That about sums it up.”

  He gave her a little shake.

  “Relax. We’ll find her.”

  That he actually believed she was thinking about the cat was just a sign of how far they really were from understanding each other.

  She ducked out of his grasp and started circling the open space, a bright smile plastered on her face.

  “So, where do you think she’s hiding? Should I look,” she waved her hand vaguely about, “anywhere in particular?”

  J.D. had moved over to the open hearth of the fireplace and was crouching there. Pulling sheets of newspaper from the stack held by an iron box, he crumpled the pages into loose balls and pushed them beneath the waiting logs. A tall container of extra-long matches stood next to him and he struck one against the bottom of the container before he looked up at her.

  “Don’t worry, she’ll come to us.” He rested his weight on one heel and grinned. “I’ll deny it under oath, but I’ve gotten to know her pretty well. Two minutes after this fire gets going, she’ll be curled up right in front of it. Worst case, we break out the can opener, and she’ll come running.”