“Bathroom. In the medicine cabinet.”
For some reason that surprised her. “Really?” she said. “Not in the top drawer of your bedside table, next to your water bed?”
He had to laugh. “I hate to break it to you, but I don’t have a water bed.”
“No lava lamp?”
He shook his head, grinning at her like an idiot. “And nary a single black light, either. My apologies. As a bachelor pad, it’s definitely lacking.”
She took it in stride. “I suppose not having a water bed is better than not having any condoms.” She was naked and so incredibly beautiful as she stood there, looking down at him. “As appealing an idea as it is to get it on right here on the kitchen floor, do you suppose if I went into your bedroom via a quick stop in the bathroom, I could convince you to follow me?”
The bedroom. The bedroom suddenly made this all so real. Lucky had to ask. “Syd, are you sure…?”
She gave him her ‘I don’t believe you’ look. “I’m standing here naked, Luke, about to fetch a condom from your bathroom so that you and I can have raw, screaming sex. If that’s not an unequivocal yes, I don’t know what is.”
“Raw, screaming sex,” he repeated, his mouth suddenly dry.
“Wildly passionate, deliriously orgasmic, exquisitely delicious, savage, pounding, rapture-enducing, sweaty, nasty, scorchingly ecstatic, heart-stopping, brain-meltingly raw, screaming sex.” She gave him a very innocent smile. “You up for it?”
Lucky could only nod yes. His vocal chords had seized up. But his legs were working.
Somehow she managed to beat him into his bedroom. She tossed the condom on his bedside table and knelt on his bed, her gaze skimming his nearly naked body. She looked rather pointedly at his briefs. “Are you planning to keep those on?”
“I didn’t want to scare you,” he said modestly.
She laughed, just as he’d hoped she would.
“Come here,” she said.
He did, and she kissed him as she pulled him back with her onto his bed.
The sensation of her naked body beneath his, of the silkiness of her legs intertwined with his was one he’d fantasized about often. Lucky had been with many, many women and found fantasy better than reality. But that wasn’t so with Syd. In his fantasies about her, he hadn’t even scratched the surface of how good it would feel to be with her this way, because it went so far beyond mere physical pleasure.
He loved the way her eyes lit up, the way she smiled at him as if making love to him was the most fun she’d ever had in her entire life.
He ran his hands down her back to the curve of her rear end. She was all his, and he laughed aloud as he touched her. He couldn’t get enough of touching her.
He parted her legs with gentle pressure from his thighs, and as he kissed her, he ran his hand from her breasts to her stomach and lower, cupping her, touching her lightly at first. She was so slick and hot, it was dizzying. She opened herself to him, lifting her hips and pushing his exploring fingers more deeply inside her.
“I think now would be a very good time for you to lose the briefs,” she breathed, tugging at his waistband.
He helped her peel them off, and she sighed her approval. He shut his eyes as her hand closed around him.
“I guess you don’t scare easily,” he murmured.
“I’m terrified,” she told him, lowering her head and kissing him.
Her mouth was warm and wet and so soft, and sheer pleasure made fireworks of color explode behind his closed eyes.
And Lucky couldn’t wait. He pulled her beneath him, cradling himself between her legs, his body so beyond ready for her that he was trembling.
Condom. Man, he’d nearly forgotten the condom. He reached for it on the bedside table, where she’d put it, tearing open the wrapper as he rolled off her and quickly covered himself.
But he didn’t get a chance to roll back on top of her, because Syd straddled him. With one smooth move, she drove him deeply inside her.
If he’d been prone to heart attacks, he’d be a dead man.
Fortunately, his heart was healthy despite the fact it was going at about four hundred beats per minute.
Wild, she’d said. Passionate. Delirious…
Lucky couldn’t tell where he ended and Syd began. They moved together, perfectly in sync, kissing, touching, breathing.
Delicious, savage, pounding…
He rolled them both over so that he was on top, so that he had control of their movement. He moved faster and harder and she liked it all, her body straining to meet him, to take him even more deeply inside her, her kisses feeding his fire.
He was slick with sweat, her body plastered exquisitely to him as they rolled once more, bringing Syd back on top. She pushed herself up so she sat astride him, her breasts glistening with perspiration, her damp hair clinging to her face as she threw her head back and laughed.
She looked down at him. “Is it just me, or is this amazingly, incredibly good?”
“Good,” he managed to say. “Amazingly…”
She was moving slowly now, and each stroke took him closer and closer to the edge.
She was smiling at him, and he reached up and touched her, her face, her throat, her breasts, and he felt the start of her release. She held his gaze and breathed his name on a low, throaty sob of air that was without a doubt the sexiest sound he’d ever heard.
He pulled her close and kissed her as his own release rocketed through him.
It was heart-stopping. It was brain-melting. It was rapture and ecstasy.
But it wasn’t sex.
It was making love, because, damn it, he was in love with her.
Chapter 12
“Nothing’s changed,” Luke said, tracing circles around her belly button, head propped up on one elbow as he and Syd lay among his rumpled sheets.
They’d slept for about five hours, and the sun was high in the sky. Luke had put in a call to the hospital—nothing had changed with Lucy’s condition, either.
“I really don’t want to use you as bait,” he continued. “I honestly don’t think I can do it, Syd.”
His hair was charmingly rumpled, and for the first time since they’d met, he was in need of a shave. It was amazing, really, but not entirely unexpected—even his stubble was golden.
She touched his chin, ran her thumb across his incredible lips. “So what do we do?”
“Pretend to break up.”
“Pretend?” she asked, praying that he wouldn’t be able to tell that her heart was in her throat. She couldn’t bear to look at him.
“I don’t want this to end,” he told her. “But I need you to be safe.”
It was an excuse. Had to be. Because, like he’d said, nothing really had changed. Breaking up with him wouldn’t make her any safer.
“Look,” she said, pulling away from him and covering herself with the sheet. She tried hard to keep her voice light. “I think it’s pretty obvious that neither of us expected this to happen. We’ve had a tough couple of days and things just kind of got out of hand and—”
Luke laughed in disbelief. “Is that really what you think this was? Things getting out of hand?”
Syd staunchly forced herself to meet his gaze. “Wasn’t it?”
“No,” he said flatly. “And as far as neither of us expecting this, well, I sure as hell did. I planned for it. I counted on it. I wanted it.” He kissed her hard, on the mouth. “I wanted you. I still want you. But more than that, I want you to be safe.”
Syd was dizzy. “You planned…”
“I’ve been hot for you for weeks, baby cakes.”
“We’ve only known each other a few weeks.”
“Exactly.”
Syd was looking into his eyes, and she believed him. My God, she really believed him. I’ve been hot for you for weeks…. She had no idea. Except for all the times he’d kissed her. Playing the pretend girlfriend game, he’d called it. Those kisses had seemed so real.
“I though
t you were making up some stupid excuse to break up because you didn’t want me around,” she admitted. “I thought…”
He knew what she’d thought. “That this was just a onenighter?” He flopped back on the pillows, staring up at the ceiling. “You honestly thought I’d do that to you? After you told me about…the football player who shall remain nameless because the mere mention of his name enrages me?”
“Well…”
He lifted his head to look at her, his eyes suddenly sharp. “Did you mean for this to be a one-nighter?”
“I didn’t think it would ever really happen,” she told him honestly. “I mean, until it was happening, and then…” She didn’t know what to tell him. “We probably shouldn’t have done this, because it’s really going to screw up our friendship. You know, I really like you, Luke. I mean, as a friend…”
Oh, brother, could she sound any more stupid? And she was lying, too, by great big omission. Yeah, she really liked him as a friend, but she loved him as a lover, too.
Loved.
L-O-V-E-D.
As in, here, take my heart and crush it into a thousand tiny pieces. As in, here, take my heart and leave me here, emotionally bleeding to death as you move on to bigger and better things. As in, here, take my heart even though you don’t really want it.
It was stupid, really. She was stupid. She’d realized it when she was having sex with the guy. The fact that she was having sex with the guy should have been a dead giveaway that she’d fallen for him in the first place. But, no, she had been too dumb to realize that those warm feelings she felt every time she looked at Luke O’Donlon were far more than feelings of friendship.
She’d gone and let herself fall in love with a Ken doll. Except, Luke wasn’t really plastic. He was real, and he was perfect. Well, not perfect perfect, but perfect for her. Perfect except for the fact that he didn’t do serious—he’d warned her about that himself—and that his usual girlfriends had had larger bra sizes back when they were twelve than Syd had now.
Perfect except for the fact that, if she let him, he would crush her heart into a thousand tiny pieces. Not intentionally. But it didn’t have to be intentional to hurt.
“I like you, too,” he told her quietly. “But as more than a friend. Way more.”
When he said things like that, lying back in his bed, naked and gorgeous, all blue eyes and golden hair and tan skin, it was like playing her older sister’s Mystery Date game and opening the door to the picture of the perfect, blond, tuxedo-clad young Mr. Right. It was like finding the “win a free year’s supply” coupon in her bag of M&M’s. It was like living the perfect Hollywood movie, the kind of romantic comedy that ended with two complete opposites in each other’s arms, locked in a kiss. The kind of romantic comedy that ended way before the divorce two years later.
Divorce. God, what was she thinking? It wasn’t as if Luke had asked her to marry him. There was a long, long road between, “Honey, I like you as more than a friend,” and “Will you marry me?”
Syd cleared her throat. “It won’t make any difference if we pretend to break up,” she told him, “because our guy has gone after ex-girlfriends, too, remember? He’s not picky. I wouldn’t be any safer.”
“You would be if you left town,” he countered.
She was dumbstruck. “You want me to leave town?”
“Yeah.” He was serious.
“No. No way. Absolutely not.” Syd couldn’t sit still, so she leapt out of bed. “I’m part of this task force, part of your team, remember?”
She was standing there naked, glaring at him, and she grabbed the sheet from the bed and wrapped it around herself.
Luke was trying not to smile. “I don’t know,” he said. “The argumentative stance worked better for me without the sheet.”
“Don’t change the subject, because I’m not leaving.”
“Syd, baby, I’ve been trying to think of another way this could work and—”
“Don’t you dare baby me! Sheesh, sleep with a guy once, and he thinks he’s got the right to tell you what to do! Sleep with a guy once, and suddenly you’re in Patronizing City! I’m not leaving town, Luke, baby, so just forget about it!”
“All right!” His temper snapped, too, and he sat forward, the muscles in his shoulders taut as he pushed himself up. “Great. I’ll forget about it. I’ll forget about the fact that the thought of you ending up in a hospital bed in a coma like Lucy is making me freaking crazy!”
He was serious. He really was scared to death for her. As Syd gazed into his eyes, her anger instantly deflated. She sat on the edge of the bed, wishing she could compromise, but knowing that this was one fight she had to win.
“I’m sorry,” she said, reaching for him. “But I can’t leave, Luke. This story is too important to me.”
“Is it really worth risking your life?”
She touched his hair, his shoulder, traced the definition of the powerful muscles in his arm. “You’re a fine one to talk about risking your life and whether a job is worth it.”
“I’m trained for it,” he said. “You’re not. You’re a writer.”
She met his gaze. “And what if I never wrote anything that I thought was important? What if I always played it safe? I could be very safe, you know, and write copy for the back of cereal boxes. Do you really think that’s what I should do for the rest of my life?”
It was hard for him, but he shook his head, no.
“I have a great opportunity here,” she told him. “There’s a job I really, really want as an editor and staff writer of a magazine I really, really admire. Think Magazine.”
“I’ve never heard of it,” Luke admitted.
“It’s targeted to young women,” Syd told him, “as kind of an alternative to all those fashion magazines that tell you that you need to make yourself beautiful and thin if you want to win Mr. Right’s heart—and also send you the message that you’ll never be beautiful enough or thin enough.”
“Is that your dream job?” he asked. “To write for this magazine?”
“My dream job is to write a book. I’d love to be able to afford to take a year or two and try writing fiction,” she admitted. “But at the rate I’m saving, I’m going to be ninety before that happens. I either have to win the lottery or find a patron. And the odds of either of those things happening is like four billion to one. This job with Think is the next best thing.” They’d somehow gotten off the topic. “This story,” Syd said, steering them back onto track, “when I write it, is going to help me get that job. But that’s just part of why I don’t want to leave, Luke. You need to understand—the other part is intensely personal. The other part comes from knowing that I can help catch this guy. I can help!”
“You’ve already helped,” he told her.
“If I leave, you’re back to square one. You’ve got to start from scratch. Establish a new relationship—with whom, Luke? Some policewoman? You don’t think that would look really suspicious? You don’t think this guy pays attention to things like that? A guy who probably follows his victim around for days, searching for patterns, learning her schedule, watching for times when she’s all alone…?”
She had him, and she knew it, as he flopped back onto the bed, put his arm over his eyes and swore.
“He’s probably too smart, too suspicious to come near me anyway,” she told him.
He lifted his arm to look at her. “You don’t believe that any more than I do.” He reached for her, pulling her close, holding her tightly. “Promise me you won’t go anywhere by yourself. Promise you’ll always make sure someone from the team is watching you.”
“I promise,” Syd said.
“I’m talking about running down to the convenience store for some milk. It doesn’t happen until we catch this guy, do you understand? I’m either right here, right next to you, or Bobby’s breathing down your neck.”
“I got it,” Syd said. “Although, personally, I’d prefer you breathing down my neck.”
“T
hat can definitely be arranged.” He kissed her, hard. “You will be safe. I’m going to make damn sure of it.”
He kissed her again—her throat, her breasts, her stomach, moving even lower, his breath hot against her skin. That wasn’t her neck he was breathing down, but Syd didn’t bother to tell him. She figured he probably knew.
She closed her eyes, losing herself in the torrents of pleasure that rushed past her, over her, through her. Pleasure and emotion—thick, rich, deep emotion that surrounded her completely and made her feel as if she were drowning.
When it came to the things Luke O’Donlon could make her feel, she was in way over her head.
Sounds of laughter rang from Lucy McCoy’s hospital room.
Hope expanded inside Lucky as he ran the last few steps and pushed open the door and…
He stopped short, and Syd, who was right behind him, bumped into him.
Lucy still lay motionless in her hospital bed, breathing with the help of a respirator.
But she was surrounded by her friends. The room was filled with women. Veronica Catalanotto sat by Lucy’s bed and held her hand. Mia Francisco sat nearby, using her enormously rounded belly as a table for a bowl of raw vegetables, her legs propped up on another chair. Melody Jones, Cowboy’s wife, was perched on the windowsill, her feet bare, next to Mitch Shaw’s wife, Becca, who’d kept on her cowboy boots. It figured they’d sit together, be close friends. They both looked like something out of a very wholesome country music video.
Melody waved at him. “Hey, Lucky. I was just telling Wes that my sister, Brittany, came out here with me. She and Andy, my nephew, are watching the kids, so that Ronnie and I can both be here. I was just suggesting that as long as Brittany’s in town, we try to set her up with Wesley.”
Lucky realized that Wes Skelly was in the room, too, sitting on the floor by Lucy’s bed, next to Nell Hawken, Crash’s wife. They both had their backs to the wall.
Wes rolled his eyes. “Why is it always me?” he complained. “Why don’t you women torment Bobby for a change?”
“For a change?” Bobby deadpanned. He was there, too, sitting cross-legged in front of young Tasha, who was putting his long black hair into dozens of braids of varying sizes.
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