"Fine. You make that call. Give me time to list the house and store and move out because Linda will make my life a living hell after you do."
"Maybe I can prevent that." He was playing with fire here. This woman could turn him on with just her voice, but he knew he was dealing with problems well beyond his ken. Sliding his palm up her firm calf under her khakis, he couldn't fight the pressure building beneath the unforgiving denim of his jeans. But wanting Cleo and having her were two entirely different equations, and he didn't know how to solve either.
"Too many super-hero comics, boy genius," she taunted.
"Yeah, I know. I've got this complex that makes me think I can save the world. No wonder everyone laughs at me." He didn't entirely know what he was doing here. He wasn't a man who got involved—with women or kids or politics or anything else. He scribbled his irritation with the world's foibles into his comic strip upon occasion, and he sometimes wished for a stronger platform from which to launch his opinions, but he'd never actually got off his butt to do anything. Everything had always come so easily, he'd never bothered to work hard at anything.
He dearly wanted to do something now. He craved Cleo's respect, and his own, when it came down to it. He wanted to save those kids.
He wanted Cleo, in more than just the usual way.
So he stayed where he was, massaging the tension from her muscles, letting her become used to his touch much as a horse whisperer calmed a nervous mount. Bad choice of words, McCloud, he corrected. His chances of mounting Cleo were pretty close to nil, he figured. Seduction wasn't his department. Women generally came on to him, not vice versa. He always slid by, never really needing to try hard.
He was trying now, but he thought his chances hopeless.
"I'm not laughing," she said tensely. "Let me go."
He glanced up with interest at her tone, his thumb pressing into the muscle of the one leg she allowed to hang over the edge of the couch. She looked pretty grim and wild-eyed with her auburn hair practically standing on end, but from the way she crossed her arms over her breasts, he judged she was holding herself back with a thin thread.
"You know we could work things out much better if you'd quit fighting me," he said thoughtfully. "Together, I think we'd be a formidable force."
"Yeah, together, we could destroy each other instead of just ourselves," she mocked. "We'd make a great pair."
"You plan on spending the rest of your life behind the closed walls of your mind, never risking anything?"
Ire flashed briefly across her expression, her nostrils flared, and she regarded him with all the intensity of her passionate soul. Here was the depth he didn't possess, and he just might drown in it.
"You figuring we've got a few days to kill and we ought to do it in bed? That the kind of risk you have in mind?" she demanded.
Well, he'd certainly never have to read Cleo's mind. That might make life more difficult, but he was ready to take her on any level she preferred.
"I had a physical not too long ago," he answered with equal bluntness. "I'm clean. I've got condoms. That the kind of safe risk you want?"
The way she flinched, he thought maybe he'd hit her too hard, but she rallied quickly enough. Pure malicious devilment lit her eyes. "I quit screwing around when I walked out on my husband. My head's messed up, but the rest of me is just fine, thank you."
Excitement hit his veins like a shot of adrenaline at the possibility that they were finally operating on the same wavelength. Caveman instinct told him to grab and claim her while the opportunity beckoned, that once he breached her indestructible walls and possessed her, she was his for a lifetime. But he liked to fool himself into believing he was a little more evolved than a Neanderthal. Not much, maybe, but enough to let her reach her own conclusions.
He was taking a chance that she would conclude he was a waste of time.
"Your head works from my viewpoint, and the rest of you is way more than fine," he agreed, not releasing her leg now that he'd made this much progress.
"You think so?" she asked with raised eyebrows that didn't indicate doubt in herself so much as doubt in his honesty. Before he could answer, she cut him off. "As long as we're distracting ourselves by discussing body parts, if you won't let it go to your head, I think you have a mighty fine ass."
"I assure you, my head is the last place that's going," he said dryly, wondering where she was heading with this and interested enough to follow.
Abruptly, without any warning signals, Cleo swung from the couch to straddle his already too-alert lap. Her trouser-clad legs clamped his knees together and her flannel-shirt pressed against his nose, but she smelled deliciously of woman and weighed almost nothing, despite all those rich curves just within reach. Jared contemplated drooling as his hands itched to reach for what she so temptingly offered, but he forced his palms flat against the floor.
"If this is a test, I'm about to fail it," he warned.
His eyes practically crossed as she slowly began unfastening her shirt. He'd seen her in a tight tank top. He knew what she hid under there. He wanted to touch so badly that he thought he'd explode with the need, but he damned well wouldn't be one of the creeps in her life wanting to cop a feel for a pack of cigarettes, or whatever else in hell she wanted now.
"Think we can do this just once and not again?" she asked with a definite taunt in her voice as her fingers continued down the front of the shirt.
"Nope. If that's what you want, you can stop that right now." He hoped his voice wasn't as strangled as it sounded. One part of his anatomy was quite willing to take up her offer.
"What about twice?" she jeered. "Just for the duration of a hurricane, maybe?"
The shirt came undone, and she shrugged it off her shoulders, letting it fall over her arms. She wore a knit top with only thin straps to hold it up, and nothing under it. He could lean over and nibble the tight points of her breasts and have her under him within seconds. All the blood in his head rushed south, but he continued obdurately clenching the floor. Not an easy object to grab, not nearly as easy as the ones he wanted, but he possessed some hidden strengths.
"That may be all you want," he warned, "but it's not what I have in mind."
"It never is. A free ride for life is what you all want, no matter how civilized your veneer." She dropped the flannel shirt completely and flung it across the room. "I want to touch you," she declared unexpectedly. There was nothing predictable about Cleo.
She unfastened his shirt buttons as easily as her own. Jared had to hold his breath as her heated hands slid beneath the fabric to stroke his skin. She might as well have heaved a stack of kindling on the fire. His body roared with flame.
"Don't do this if you don't want it all," he cautioned. "I'm not anywhere near as civilized as you're pretending. Right at this moment, I don't give a damn about once, twice, or forever."
"Good, because all I live in is the moment." She caught his nipples between her fingers and stroked, then leaned forward to press her mouth against his.
Jared twisted her knit top in both hands and ripped it over her head.
Chapter 22
Cleo gasped as Jared broke their kiss, yanked off her tank top, and flung it to join the shirt she'd already discarded. She'd meant to push him over the edge. She hadn't planned on him taking her over with him.
Or doing it so abruptly. Her breasts gravitated toward his bare chest with a will of their own. The brand of his skin against hers sapped any will to fight. She slid her hands over his shoulders, shoved off his shirt, and raised her head for his kiss.
He still didn't grab her, but took her mouth with a possessiveness that robbed her of breath. Hard male lips covered hers with a controlled hunger she couldn't remember ever experiencing. So, this was what it was like with a real man, she thought vaguely, even as his hands finally circled her waist and lifted her from his lap to place her squarely on the floor beneath him.
She knew better than to do this, with this man or any other. But this tim
e, her self-destructive tendencies were in full control, and she did nothing to rein them in. She wanted his hot breath searing her lips, and she opened her mouth to take him deeper.
Bliss. Oh, the sweet bliss of capitulation to uncontrolled male animal lust. She dug her fingers into the muscles tensing in his back, took his invading tongue and entwined it with her own, wanting this more than she had imagined possible. The psychology books could call it a primal need to mate, but this was the total surrender of self no drug had ever given her.
Jared slid his kiss from her mouth, down her jaw, to nibble at her ear, jarring her back to some sense of reality. She was on the floor. In her living room. About to do something she'd sworn never to do again.
As if sensing her tension, Jared propped himself over her, then bent his head to lick at her breast.
Cleo almost came off the floor. Heat shot through every cell and pore and found its target between her legs. She would have exploded had he touched her there. He didn't.
Instead, he wrapped one arm around her waist and lifted her shoulders to the cushion he'd abandoned earlier, then returned to plundering her breasts until she quaked with need and sought to lift her hips to his, to feel his need as well as her own.
She ought to say something, offer some token protest, a sarcasm to prove this meant nothing, but words had fled her brain. She wanted, and he offered. Simple.
Insane.
His kiss moved upward again, giving her time to breathe, while his hand continued what his mouth had begun. Cleo tried to just feel, not to think, to accept the moment as it was and not go beyond.
But he wouldn't leave it alone, wouldn't let her pretend he didn't exist as more than a source of sexual satisfaction. Resting on one elbow, Jared teased her breast with one hand, and forced her to look up at him.
The one uncontrollable hank of hair fell across his forehead, but she hadn't the strength to lift her hand to push it back. His face had a lean toughness to it, a determined tautness of muscle over cheekbone that said he wasn't the clown he portrayed, but a man with needs and goals of his own. She wanted to be afraid of that man, but she couldn't. She waited, quivering with need yet refusing to admit it.
"I won't let you shove me out of bed when I get too close," he told her. "I've got brains enough to know when I'm holding someone special, and strength enough to take whatever you throw at me."
She didn't really believe him. He was just saying what she wanted to hear, disturbing all her hard-wired responses, interrupting her peaceful slide into oblivion. She always reacted to fear with offensiveness. This time wasn't an exception.
She tore open his belt buckle and reached for his zipper. Vaguely, she knew the storm railed outside, that branches ripped at the roof, wind howled through the chimney, and torrents pounded the windows. No hurricane could compete with the tempest swirling her willpower into shattered particles of need and desire and fear. "Don't preach," she warned. "I want this now, not tomorrow."
"Now, and tomorrow." He opened the zipper for her.
His promise inflamed her as much as the sight of him did. Jared wasn't any skinny hairless youth from her past, no pot-bellied lout looking for an easy lay. No wonder she'd been able to swear off sex so easily. She hadn't known its full power until now.
He rolled over and produced a packet of condoms from his back pocket, proving he'd come prepared for this. She admired his annoying tenacity as much as his responsibility, but her interest fixed on watching him tug off his jeans and underwear. She quivered a little as she delighted in the length and strength of him. My dear heaven, he was long all over. Long, powerful limbs emerged from the chrysalis of clothing. Long torso turned and stretched taut as he persuaded her back down on the pillow again. And for the rest...
Cleo reached for her trousers, but long fingers beat her to them. He unsnapped and unzipped and slid them over her hips as she arched to give him access. She kicked free of the hampering cloth, and lay stunned and naked, waiting, robbed of the ability to take the offensive again.
He kissed her cheek and waited for her to focus her gaze on his. "Did you know you have a dimple below your belly button?" he teased, delight illuminating his eyes and pulling at the corners of his mouth.
Oh, lord in heaven, don't make her laugh now. She couldn't bear it. She didn't want to like him and want him both. She was already wet and eager and he was almost where she wanted him and she couldn't bear a minute longer...
"I intend to kiss it," he informed her solemnly. "And then I think I'll ravish you. Do you have any last requests?"
He may as well have said "rash requests." This whole thing was insane. She didn't know how to go about this when it included talking. She just wanted him to do it and get it over and move on. The infuriating man had other ideas.
"Speechless, hmm?" He raised his eyebrows and without waiting for agreement, dived down to her belly and began nibbling and kissing until she reached for his hair but didn't know whether to pull or shove.
He knew. He wrapped his hands around her thighs and held them firmly apart as he grazed his teeth across the sensitive underside, then soothed the nibble with his tongue until she writhed and heaved helplessly in his grasp. Only then did he move higher and attack the place that most needed attention.
Cleo bit back a scream just in time. They couldn't do this in the middle of the living room floor. She shouldn't do this at all.
She erupted without any further effort or thought of her own. Fell apart, shattered, became one with the universe and Jared's marauding tongue. He wouldn't let her fall apart alone. He held her down and worked her until she whimpered and lost control over and over, until she was a weeping, sodden puddle of honey and tears begging for more.
And then he didn't give it to her. Instead of filling her as he ought, he covered her with his length again, and began all over, nibbling her ear, caressing her nipples into sharp, aching points, kissing her until she groaned and kissed him back with all the stunted instinct left in her.
Only when she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, desperately followed his tongue for more of the same, and voluntarily lifted her knees to offer herself to him did he act on his own impulses. With a swiftness that halted her screams, he filled her.
He hadn't left her mindless but aware and aching for more. Determined to give as much as she'd taken, she held nothing back, allowing him full access, encouraging, and then meeting him with frantic, grinding thrusts that drove them both straight to the top. He took her nipple in his mouth and pitched her over again, but this time, she brought him with her. Jared muffled his cries in her shoulder and pounded into her with all the force of a male animal determined to stake his claim.
* * *
They woke and rolled over and began a more gentle exploration of naked bodies and trigger points until they had the sense to pick themselves off the hard floor, gather their clothes, and collapse on Cleo's bed in the darkness of the stormy night. The wind hurled rain as if in a fury for not gaining entrance, but it seemed a far distance away in comparison with the heated proximity they shared.
"How long will it take before you admit you want me?" he murmured in her ear as his fingers returned to their expert game-playing.
"I want you," she admitted without complaint, arching her hips to the evidence of his equal desire.
"Progress. Now, admit that you need me."
"Never. I don't need anyone." She said it without anger though. It felt oddly freeing to let loose of her anger. Peace flowed through her, and she stretched languorously beneath him, teasing him with brushes of her body. She'd never really surrendered to the sensuality pouring through her now, but she liked it. Temporarily.
"You need me," he said with irritating confidence. "And I'm afraid I'm in danger of needing you."
"Don't. I'm not reliable. Let it go, McCloud. Just let this happen and don't fret it to death."
"Jared. Call me Jared." He stopped touching and lifted himself on bulging arms so their bodies no longer connected.
"Yeah, but once they learned I could get them back with my twisted wit and caricatures in the school paper, they stopped. I was never a model student. Not in educational matters anyway." He proved his power of learning with a kiss to a strategic area that had her aching for more. "You'll learn soon enough that I can't be stopped. It's impossible to tell me no."
She was terrified that he was right, but that didn't stop her now. He refused to offer her oblivion, but he offered something far better. She gripped his biceps, lifted herself to lick his nipples, and laughed as he rolled over and pulled her on top of him. Laughed. She didn't think she could do that anymore.
"I'll wear you out and throw you away like a used carpet," she warned. "I won't have to tell you no."
"Have fun trying." He grasped her hips, lifted her over him, and pulled her down.
Cleo bit back her shriek as he reached a place she'd thought untouchable, and she surrendered all over again.
This was not going at all the way she planned it.
* * *
She rode him as if he were a wild stallion, doing her best to break him to her velvet saddle, and Jared gloried in her effort, even if he knew she couldn't accomplish it. Despite her claim to experience, she had none. She'd been bruised and battered, but she'd never been loved. He could do that for her.
As she rocked in the first throes of pleasure, Jared rolled her over and took her up again. She climbed easily, thrilling him with her responsiveness. For her, it was just the sex, he realized. She didn't know what to make of it, didn't understand the deeper connection behind it, but it was there, a starting place. It was up to him to lead her forward.
He only prayed he had sufficient wisdom to proceed slowly and not drive her screaming behind her solid defenses again.
He let his body take over for his mind, let her drive him to that state of bliss where he needn't "fret it" as she said, and surrendered to the flood of their desires with the joy and passion of newfound love.
Imperfect Rebel Page 18
