A Little Less Conversation

by Rhyannon Byrd

And maybe…if I can work into it slowly and manage not to blow it with my damn cock, I’ll be able to convince you to take a chance on a guy like me for something serious. Something that’ll last.

  They neared the quaint seaside building that housed her upstairs apartment, pausing at the slim stairway that hugged the side wall, leading up to her own little private balcony. She turned to him, the expression in her shuttered gaze difficult to read in the pale moonlight, the mellow glow of her outside light not quite reaching her feminine features, leaving her face in soft shadow. “Have you had a good time tonight?”

  “You know I have,” he answered in a low voice, struggling not to grab her and pull her against the hungry urgency of his body. His dick restlessly disagreed with his response, and he silently snarled for the damn thing to shut the hell up—then wondered when he’d started having conversations with a prominent body part.

  One growing more prominent by the second, he realized, thinking of her apartment so very near. Her bedroom…and a bed that would smell of Melanie. Of the wicked, wonderfully intimate things he could do to her in that bed.

  Desperate to distract himself, he searched for something safe to say. “You’re very easy to talk to,” he murmured, but the second the words left his mouth, he knew they weren’t the ones she’d wanted to hear. And the temptation to tell her what he really wanted burned so fiercely in his gut, he felt twisted with pain.

  “Hey, what’d I do?” he rasped, when she looked away, pulling her face back toward him with the gentle clasp of his callused fingers against her chin. “I’m trying not to screw this up, but I keep getting the feeling that I’m saying the wrong things here, Mel.”

  She sucked her lower lip through her teeth. “Do you…do you want to come up for some coffee?”

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  I’d sure as hell like to come, but without the coffee. Better yet, I’d like to take you upstairs, lay you out over the first available surface, and shove myself so far inside you, you can feel me pumping against the pounding beat of your heart.

  Mark shook his head at the dangerous thoughts, ready to strangle his damn libido, if he could only get his hands on it. “You know, I’m not sure that would be a good idea, Mel.”

  “Why not?” There was an off note of frustration in those two little words, but with her expression in shadow and his head fuzzy with lust, in was difficult to determine the problem. Did she think he was ditching her? Or was it something more than that?

  “I…uh, really should probably head back to the bar now to help get the kitchen closed down before Cain makes a wreck of it.”

  And before I totally lose it and fall all over you like a rabid dog.

  It was a lame excuse, and they both knew it—but he didn’t have a hell of a lot to work with here. His hard-on had sucked all the blood out of his damn brain.

  Her downstairs neighbor turned on an indoor light, the golden glow of a lamp sneaking out like a thief from the edges of their vertical blinds, gently illuminating her face. She studied him through eyes that suddenly looked far older than her years. They were too disillusioned. Disappointed. “Why won’t you come upstairs, Mark? I…I’d like to know the truth,” she said quietly. “It’s Friday night, and I know you keep the kitchen open later than usual.”

  “I think you know why,” he grated out in a low rumble of words, silently cursing, and he knew she understood when her breath caught. “I had a great time tonight, though,” he added lamely, inwardly wincing over the banal comment. “The conversation was…er…great.”

  He watched as her eyes closed, the long curl of her lashes casting shadows against the creamy perfection of her freckled cheeks. When she looked back up at him, there was no mistaking the thick wave of desire roiling through her cinnamon gaze. It nearly took him to his knees then and there, and he felt a flash of anger at everything—fate, 50

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  her, himself—for the temptation he was forced to fight. It was a tight, aching throb of pain in his gut, making him sweat…making his jaw grind as he struggled not to take her to the ground and cram himself inside her in a frenzy that was all about slaking that burning, raw ache of lust. He didn’t trust himself, because he knew there’d be no controlling it. She was probably daydreaming about slow and easy, smooth and gentle, when he knew there wouldn’t be a goddamn thing easy about the way he’d take her.

  He felt like a man hanging by his nails, the crumbling ledge of a rocky mountainside his last lifeline…and any second now he was going to go crashing over the edge.

  He took two deep, hard breaths, grasping for a hold on the slippery surface of his control, and tipped his beer up to his mouth to distract himself from his carnal fantasies, when she floored him by slowly licking the sexy curve of her upper lip with her pink little tongue in an act that screamed seduction. A mutinous expression washed over her features, and she said, “Yeah, talking. Conversation. That’s my specialty.” Her voice was breathless, her tone throaty and low. “I’ve always been so bloody easy to talk to.

  But would I be easy to have sex with, too, Mark?” He choked on his swallow of ice-cold beer and could have sworn that the chilled liquid nearly shot out his nose. “What? ” She climbed the bottom stair, bringing her closer to his height, and turned to him, the fierce color in her face evident now in the glowing arc of moonlight, painting her fey features in an ethereal, otherworldly glow, glinting off the soft honey of her hair.

  “You’re right about this being a small town and people talking. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t heard rumors of your legendary reputation with women. Mark Logan never, ever takes a woman out without giving her mind-blowing orgasms at the end of the night. So despite what you said about not looking for that when you kissed me earlier, I’m wondering if you’re going to—”

  “If I’m going to what?” he asked, not sure whether he was more shocked or angry or disappointed, and unable to sort his way through the tangle of conflicting emotions suddenly crashing down on him. He should have thought this was heaven, Melanie 51

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  Green looking up at him with raw hunger smoldering in those big brown eyes, apparently asking to come, but now he felt strangely like a fool. And a cheap fool at that. She made it sound like she’d singled him out for stud service, and here he’d had stars in his eyes the entire damn time they’d been together.

  For the first time in his life, he’d actually enjoyed getting into a woman’s head before he made his way into her pants—only to find that it’d meant nothing to her. The companionship and shared secrets. Holding hands and laughing with one another.

  Hell, he sounded like some kind of wimped-out, maudlin fool, but there was no help for it. She’d worked a major one on his head, all right—and despite the one-night-stand reputation he knew he was famous for, it made him sick to think of sinking into Melanie Green, becoming an intimate part of her, penetrating her with his body…and then just walking away. He’d fallen too hard for the entire package, instead of just her sweet little body, to be able to do it.

  But then, maybe she wasn’t really who he’d thought she was. No, he’d had his head up his ass and let himself get taken along for a ride. It was like some kind of cosmic payback for the women he’d so casually taken to bed without a second thought. In a move he’d perfected like a pro, Melanie would screw him tonight and forget him tomorrow, getting from him exactly what she thought he was good for.

  She licked her lower lip, took a deep breath, and when she spoke, a husky tremor of physical hunger shivered through her words. “I’m not asking you up to talk, Mark.”

  “S’that right?” he asked softly, while a hard, cynical smile twisted his mouth.

  Disgust and disappointment for the whole gut-twisting situation filled him, but shouldn’t he have known he had this coming? Why in hell had he ever thought a woman like Melanie Green would seek anything worth more than a fast, furious fling with him? How fucking stupid could he get? “You’re ju
st wondering when you’re going to get the fuck, aren’t you?” he asked, angry with himself for sounding so damn surprised by the situation.

  She opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out.

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  “Yeah, that’s it, isn’t it?” he said with a slow nod, studying her through narrowed, piercing eyes that he wished could peel away the layers of soft, sweet innocence surrounding her, one by one, until he could get down deep and see what really made her tick. Discover what she was really after here, despite those soft eyes…and even softer mouth. “You agreed to go out with me tonight so you could get some hard cock and a couple of creamy orgasms, didn’t you, Mel?” Instead of answering his question, she shook her head at the new ugliness of his tone…at the suddenly hard set of his face and asked one of her own. “Why do you sound so…upset, Mark? Are you actually angry at me for asking you upstairs?”

  “Oh, I’m not angry, angel,” he drawled with a slow, mean smile, lying through his teeth as a cold, brutal fury burned through his veins, all of it centered on himself for being such a damn fool. “Tell me, is this why you’ve been staring at me across the street every goddamn day, whenever you didn’t think I was looking? Were you just wondering when I’d finally come sniffing around and you’d get the chance to take a ride of your own? Check out my reputation firsthand?” A strange expression washed over the delicate features of her face at his taunting words, and she seemed to harden, all that beautiful softness dulled by disappointment.

  “Would it come as such a shock?” she asked softly. “Is it so ridiculous? You said that’s not what you were looking for from me, but then you’ve spent the entire evening flirting with me. All those slow, wicked looks and brushes of your body against mine.”

  “Just what did you have in mind, sweetheart? A go at it upside the wall? Should I take you right here on the stairs? It might be a little rough, but then you might like it like that,” he rasped in a smoky tone that rumbled like thunder, moving closer, crowding her with his size. “Honestly, baby, you should have explained this to me at the beginning of the night and then I wouldn’t have wasted my time trying to figure out how to get inside your pants without scaring you off. But I guess those innocent little looks are just that, aren’t they?” he asked, tilting his head as he studied her, his free hand reaching out to tuck one honeyed curl behind the delicate shell of her ear. “No, 53

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  they don’t do justice to the hot, hungry little wanton living inside. Just tell me what you were looking for, Mel. Never let it be said that I didn’t live up to my fucking reputation,” he drawled with a cold, taunting smile. “Or should that be my reputation for fucking, sweetheart?”

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  Chapter Five

  Melanie met Mark’s taunting stare with a twisting, sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. She hadn’t meant to come right out and blurt her frustrations in his face, but everything had suddenly built up like a pressure cap inside her and she couldn’t control it. One second he’d been telling her what a “great” time he’d had, and in the next, she was exploding all over the place like an emotional rocket.

  Oh god. She swallowed hard, struggling to keep herself together, but there was a pain in her heart that hurt like all get out. He’d been ready to leave her at her damn doorstep with a smile and maybe, if she was lucky, a platonic kiss on the cheek, when every other woman got the full, mind-blowing treatment of incredible sex. And there was no way in hell she was settling for less.

  The whole thing hurt so much more than a mere sexual rejection, because she honestly cared for this man. If she hadn’t already believed herself in love with him before tonight, she would now, after having spent the evening with him, laughing and smiling—and of all things…talking. And yet, talking with Mark had been like its own kind of foreplay. Their conversation had been vivid, taking on a life of its own, instead of the self-absorbed drivel that men usually poured out to her. Each word had been like a seduction, the string of sentences like an invisible line drawing them closer together, leading up to the ultimate moment where he’d actually admit that he did want her for more than talk, more than mere conversation.

  But she’d been wrong—blinded by lust or love or who knew what—only to realize now that her initial conclusions had been right all along.

  Maybe it was like a sickness. Even the most virile of men who came into contact with her became sensitive souls looking for nothing more than warm companionship and a great gal to talk to—saving all those savage urges for the women who made them 55

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  burn. The frustration of it made her want to pound her fists upon that solid, mouthwatering chest, the details of which she could so easily make out beneath the thin cotton covering of his soft T-shirt.

  And damn it, she wasn’t going to stand for it. She wanted to toss him to the ground and show him just how wrong he was about her. If she could only have him for a friend, then by god, she at least wanted one night of knowing what it felt like to be taken. She deserved it! Mark Logan was every bit as fun and entertaining as she’d known he’d be, and she knew she was already in far too deep for emotional safety. When you threw in the heart-tripping sexual attraction, hunger so sharp it cut, it was enough to make her want to lay him out on her bed and ride his bad boy ass until neither one of them could move.

  A single night. Just once. Was that really so much to ask?

  He stared down at her, the dark heat of his gaze sending a shiver through her watery limbs, and took her still half-full beer bottle from her trembling fingers, setting it on the end of the step behind her, along with his own. Then his hands lifted to the sides of her face, long fingers sliding up through her hair until he held her head between the controlling pressure of his palms.

  “What are you doing?” she gasped, as he tilted her head back at an angle that had her looking up into the hard lines of his ruggedly chiseled face, and for the first time ever, she realized how dangerous he could be. Not that she was afraid of him. No, she knew, no matter how angry he might become, that he’d never physically harm her. But there was a danger about him all the same. An electric, sizzling force that rode the powerful lines of his long body, thrumming beneath her fingertips as she pressed her hands to the hard muscles of his broad shoulders.

  “I’m getting ready to give you a taste of my reputation, sweetheart. Isn’t that what you wanted tonight?”

  She swallowed, struggling to sort out the tangled, hazy mess of her thoughts.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

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  “Now why would you think anything’s wrong? I just wasn’t reading your signals right, Mel. If you wanna come, you gotta open up and let a guy know before he gets blinded by those big brown eyes of yours and is afraid of going too far. If you’d told me up-front what you were looking for, I could’ve saved you the trouble of dinner and dealt with this hours ago.”

  “Mark,” she said carefully, blinking up at him. “I don’t think you understand.”

  “On the contrary, honey,” he disagreed in a silky, seductive drawl, “I think I’m finally figuring it all out. Now either tell me to get my hands off you and walk away, or shut up and put that mouth to better use.”

  The look in those brilliant, smoky green eyes was almost frightening, smoldering with the sharp, dangerous edge of anger, shimmering and wild, like…like the predatory eyes of a leopard gleaming out from between wet green leaves after a violent summer rain in the jungle. There was something very wrong here, but the second his mouth touched hers, she couldn’t grasp onto anything long enough to put a name to it.

  He didn’t gentle her into a kiss, but took her with a full-fledged, consuming hunger that wiped her brain clean and sent her body tumbling into a frantic, sexual urgency that had her kissing him back in ways she didn’t even know she was capable of. Her lips moved against the ro
ugh-silk of his delicious mouth, his masculine, devastatingly male flavor drugging her mind with erotic images of that powerful body moving over her, within her, holding her down and making her scream out her release over and over and over again.

  He broke the kiss to trail his mouth over her cheek, the sensitive column of her throat, and there was something so wonderfully erotic about the feel of his lips moving against the damp heat of her skin, while one calloused hand suddenly gripped her ass through the thin fabric of her skirt. His touch was hard and possessive, fingers bold and greedy, rubbing through the sensitive crease of her cheeks. Back and forth they stroked, making her gasp into the brutal, vicious heat of another kiss as his mouth slashed across hers and his hand moved lower. His fingers dipped, stroking over the cloth-covered 57

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  heat of her sex, and she nearly died. Nearly came from the stroke alone. From the sheer sensation of having Mark Logan touch her body.

  A sharp, husky cry broke free from her throat and he swallowed the sound with a stifled snarl, fitting his mouth more tightly over hers, sealing in the sounds of their lust as it broke out of them in raging, ragged bursts of sound. Strong hands lifted her hips, turning and pressing her against the smooth wall of her apartment building, the weathered wood feeling startlingly cold against the warm flames of fire he’d sent licking across her fevered skin, teasing her, urging her on. Her legs trembled as her feet touched the grainy surface of the concrete, and then those strong, rough hands moved to her thighs, pushing them apart as he pushed up her skirt. She swallowed a soft, sibilant sound of surprise, and then he was touching her flesh to flesh, those long fingers digging into the giving cushion of her thighs, his rough calluses dragging over her tender skin in a blatantly male touch that made her inner muscles clench. Her sex felt heavy and swollen between her legs, hungry for whatever mind-blowing, sexually powerful things Mark Logan could do to her.