His fingers tightened on her thighs, digging in as he searched for control. He wanted to drag off his pants and bury himself in her, wanted to rise over her, pin her to the tub’s edge and pound into her, claiming her as his own.
Slow down. Hold it together.
He said it over and over again in his head, clawing himself back from the brink as he held her, kissed her, touched that glorious skin where it slipped and slid against him.
Her robe came loose. His free hand found a breast, and she arched into him. He cupped her for a moment, relearning the feel of a woman’s body, learning the feel that was hers alone. Then he slid his thumb up and across, and caught her moan in his mouth as he brushed across a peaked nipple. He kissed her cheek, her jaw, took her earlobe in his mouth and got a raw kick of pleasure from her throaty gasp and the texture of the three diamond studs that were so elementally
Gigi.
She reared back and peeled his shirt away. His balance teetered in slow motion, the two of them buoyed by the pulsing water that now touched his bare torso.
He let momentum carry them into the shallows, then sat where a curve in the hot tub wall formed a soft niche. It was just right for a man to sit, for a woman to ride. She straddled him, bore him back against the edge, and rose over him as they kissed.
She was naked now, her robe lost somewhere to the water, freeing him to shape the flow of her spine, the flare of her waist and the tight curves of her rear.
His head spun. His body pulsed. For the first time in an eternity, he was entirely inside his own skin and in the moment. He wasn’t thinking or worrying, wasn’t numb. He was
feeling.
He felt the scrape of her teeth along his throat, the press of her lips on the puckered scar atop his shoulder, bringing mingled arousal and absolution.
Then she straightened and, with an impish smile, disappeared beneath the bubbles. “Don’t—” he began, then groaned at the brush of her hair against his stomach, the touch of her lips along the second, larger scar, and the sensation of her fingers at the button of his fly, and then inside.
He hissed and arched into her touch, his vision graying as her hand closed around him fleetingly, then released so she could work his pants off.
As the clinging cloth finally came free, leaving him naked in the bubbles, she surfaced with a gasp, her eyes bright, her cheeks flushed. He reached for her and she slid up against him, so they half reclined, touching along the lengths of their bodies with her legs alongside his, her arms around his waist, the two of them locked in a kiss.
Then she rose up over him, poised above him. They traded whispered words about safety and protection, and dealt with the necessities. But his entire attention was on need and sensation, the touch of skin on skin, and the way his flesh surged up toward her opening, seeking her. He surged against her, started to shift them and reverse their positions, but she pressed his shoulders back, her lips curving in an expression that was so wholly feminine it made his chest ache.
She leaned in and whispered close to his ear, “How about you let someone take care of you for a change?”
Then she shifted down and back, and he hissed out a breath as his hard tip nudged against yielding flesh and eased inside.
“Ah,” he breathed, the noise rattling in his chest. “Tight.”
She murmured something against his throat, then found his lips with hers, letting him control the kiss as she controlled their union. She slid down on him inch by torturous inch, until she was finally seated against him, wringing a deep groan from him that felt like it came from his toes.
His whole body stung with pins and needles now, reawakening to pleasure at a level he had never known. His hands flexed on her hips, drawing her closer, settling her astride him until she gasped against his mouth, shuddering as he hit a spot that was sweet, tight and right.
Her inner muscles pulsed around him, waking every neuron and tickling pleasure centers he had long forgotten. Then she began to move, in just a small, wavelike motion at first, following the rhythm of the water surrounding them. Even those small shifts had him throwing back his head and bracing, trying to slow himself down.
Some part of him said that he should be doing the work and making sure she came before he did, but then she picked up the pace, and chivalry lost out to “oh, hell, yeah” as everything started coming together inside him.
Water splashed between them, around them. He let go of her hips and slapped for purchase, found hand-holds and dug in with his heels, which gave them an anchor but left him effectively bound spread-eagled in the water.
Heat flared where she twined around him, moved against him. He sought her mouth, felt her shudder and clutch as they hit that sweet spot together, and then, too quickly, the pins and needles were racing through him, coalescing, speeding up, threatening to detonate.
He reared up and caught her by the waist, bracing her against the side of the tub as he plunged into her once, twice, a third time, and heard her cry out as he cut loose. Bowing into her, he rode out the orgasm, emptying himself into her in a rush that blew his mind and shifted something deep inside him.
He shuddered against her, pulsed into her, and then held her close as things leveled off and the intensity of their union eased. He kissed her cheek, her temple, wanting to say something, but unable to come up with the right words. Restless, edgy energy shifted inside him; he wasn’t even close to sated.
The room suddenly seemed very quiet, with only the hum of machinery, the pop of bubbles and the soft throb of jazz in the background.
It had been a long time since someone had wanted to be there for him, even temporarily, rather than the reverse. She cared for him, made him feel alive again, and he should be satisfied with that. But he found that he couldn’t uncoil, couldn’t relax, because deep down inside, he knew he hadn’t gotten all of her just then. In controlling their lovemaking, she had held part of herself in check.
Don’t complicate things,
he told himself.
She doesn’t want more than this.
He wasn’t sure he did, either. But the edge remained.
She curled against him, her head in the crook of his neck, her arms linked loosely around him, their legs tangling as they drifted into deeper water.
“Nice,” she said, turning her face into his throat. “Never would’ve guessed you were rusty.”
That elicited a surprised snort out of him. And it gave him an opening to take what he wanted in a way she could understand.
“That’s it,” he growled. “Those are fighting words.” In a rush, he shifted her, got her over his shoulder and charged out of the hot tub, headed for the bedroom.
She squeaked and squirmed wetly. “What are you doing?”
“Getting us someplace drier where I can do this my way.”
“You’re
complaining?”
“Hell, no. But you got to go first. Now it’s my turn.” And this time he would take more. He wanted her to be right there with him in the crazy, illogical space they made together, the sizzle and spark that had forced him out of his comfortable routine and opened old wounds. After tonight, he didn’t want to look back and know they had taken it only partway.
Tonight he wanted all of her. No regrets.
Chapter Twelve
Somewhere in the back of Gigi’s mind a warning pinged, saying that this was a bad idea, that they should keep it in the hot tub, on the couch, the bolsters, hell, up against the wall. Those were places where sex stayed fun, where they were just two people burning off steam and enjoying each other. Bedrooms were more serious places.
Or did the shimmer of nerves come from the change in him? His grip had gone firm and commanding, his voice no-nonsense, and he was suddenly doing rather than checking first. He was the über-cop, the super-ranger, the guy who, when he had burned out on saving one chunk of the world had retreated to protect another.
She was a liberated female, a warrior, the best she could be. And as he carried her into a simply furnished bedroom lit by a dimmer light turned low, tossed her on the bed and followed her down to cover her moisture-slicked body with his own, she was hotter for him than she had ever been for any other man, under any other situation.
His muscular bulk made her feel small and delicate, and when he levered himself up on one elbow to look down at her with fierce heat in his eyes, her blood leaped right back to boiling, though they had had each other only minutes earlier. His look was a challenge, a dare, and it had her reaching for him.
He caught her wrists and guided her hands to the spindles of the headboard. “Not this time.”
She would have argued, but he kissed the words away, traced a finger down the center of her body and made her arch into him, helpless beneath the sudden heat, the maelstrom of sensation brought by his tongue and his touch, and the leashed strength she sensed him containing as his legs twined with hers.
Her better sense told her to let go of the spindles and give as good as she got, keeping them on the same level with each other. But the inciting stroke of his fingertips teased her senses and the promise that lit his eyes when he broke the kiss and moved down her body held her in place.
He cupped one breast and had her arching against him, then took her nipple into his mouth, wringing a moan from deep in her throat. Her body heated and throbbed. Pleasure coiled inside her as she tightened her fingers around the headboard spindles and hung on for the ride.
The soft bedspread had bunched up beneath them; he pulled it free and stroked her with it, blotting her face and pushing back her wet hair, then moving down her body, alternately drying and kissing her. All the while, he whispered hot praise and dark suggestions that stirred her to the point of madness.
The sun had set, turning the world dark and making it feel as if they were the only two people on Earth. Danger still lurked outside, but the need for him—and the temptation to let him take charge—was far more immediate. He reared over her, settling back on his haunches to scrub a corner of the bedspread through his thick, dark hair, down across his shoulders and broad chest, and down farther, to where his shaft emerged from its nest of dark curls, ruddy and engorged.
She feasted on the sight of him, shifting almost without volition to rub her thighs together as he tossed the bedspread aside and bent over her.
Her senses spun and her insides clenched when he kissed her stomach, her navel, the point of her hip. Someone moaned—she thought it might have been her, but couldn’t be sure. She wasn’t sure of anything anymore; her whole world hinged on the touch of his lips and tongue as he moved down and settled himself between her legs.
The sight of his dark head down there made her breath go thin and the contrast of his skin against hers shot flames searing through her. Then he slicked his tongue through her folds, and every part of her clenched in a sudden surge of pleasure that had her bowing back on the mattress with an inarticulate cry.
He rasped something low in his throat—a curse, maybe, or a plea—and did it again. And again. When she strained against him, trying to move, to speed things up, he held her in place with his weight and strength, and kept going—licking, lapping, nuzzling,
taking.
The breath backed up in her throat as he stripped her defenses and broke through to a place of pure sensation. She responded to him without inhibition or boundaries, no thought of yesterday or tomorrow. He brought her to the edge of release again and again with his mouth and hands, until the pleasure burned her, consumed her, knotted her body tight and left her sobbing with pleasure.
Her hands cramped on the spindles; her body burned for his. She was gasping, babbling pleas and demands that went unheeded until, finally, he looked up at her, his eyes sharp, bright and a little wild. Voice rattling in his chest, he grated, “Now.”
“God, yes, now.”
He moved up her body. His skin was hot on hers; his scent had become theirs, and was laced with sex.
She was tight all over, needy and greedy. And when he came down atop her, pressing her into the mattress with his hard, solid weight, she couldn’t take it anymore. She tore her hands from the headboard and dug her fingers into his hips as he positioned himself at her center, the thick head of his erection just nudging her opening, which was slick and wet, and pulsed for him.
He kissed her long and deep, then broke the kiss, pressed his furnace-hot cheek to hers, and whispered her name as he thrust home, filling her in a single strong, possessive surge.
In an instant, his hard flesh was seated far more deeply, more intimately than before. He surrounded her inside and out, pinned her, possessed her.
Then he fixed his eyes on her and she found herself trapped in their green depths, laid bare by their intensity as he withdrew slowly, then thrust home. The first plunge wrung a gasp from her, the second had a groan rattling deep in his chest. He dropped his head, pressed his cheek to hers, slid into her with delicious friction.
She was laid flat and open beneath him, but moved when and where she could, digging in and meeting his thrusts. His breath was a roar, hers a sob. If she had been on the edge of an orgasm before, now she leaped to a new plateau entirely, one that was huge, breathtaking and scary. Nothing existed except the two of them and a bed behind bulletproof glass as he drove her up toward an impossible pinnacle, one she had never before glimpsed.
She clung to him, anchoring herself to his shoulders, pressing her lips to the scarred indentation where the bullet had gone in. Misplaced terror flashed at the thought that he could have died, that she wouldn’t ever have known this, known him. That brought a warning buzz, quickly lost beneath the enormity of the breathless pause that presaged orgasm.
Her body tightened, sensation rushing inward to gather at the place where he stroked her inside and out. He touched all the right spots at once, their joined flesh slick with excitement, and…and…
The world paused. Held its breath.
And she went over the edge.
A shuddering cry escaped from her, mirroring the all-consuming, wrenching fist of her orgasm. It defied logic and boundaries. She bowed into him, gasped against his sweat-slicked flesh as the radiating throbs of pleasure went on and on, sent higher by his harsh groan and three quick thrusts, then higher still when he stiffened against her and came whispering her name in a voice that was filled with awe, approval and satisfaction.
He shuddered, and bucked as her flesh milked him, the echoes of her pleasure prolonging his.
Then, even after things leveled off and their bodies began to cool, they stayed wrapped together, her arms around his shoulders, her ankles locked behind him, their faces pressed together.
Then he backed off and looked down at her, and where before there had been a challenge in his eyes, now there was only a profound tenderness that shifted something inside her.
He opened his mouth to speak, but then just stopped and shook his head. “Later,” he whispered, and dropped a kiss to her brow. He rearranged them, nudging her onto her side and fitting her into the curve of his body, then pulling the bedclothes up and over them.
She let him fuss, ignoring the nerves that churned over how far she had let him in, how much she had let go. Instead, she told herself to enjoy the moment, and the man. She would deal with the rest of it later. Tonight was tonight…and for tonight, she wanted to belong entirely to him.
T
HE NEXT MORNING,
G
IGI
awoke from a fractured jumble of dreams and plunged directly into sensations that were entirely different yet equally terrifying: body heat behind her, an arm across her waist, the pleasurable ache that came from a sex-filled night, her feet pressing atop those of her lover…
Her lover.
Matthew H. Blackthorn. Oh, God.
The dreams—an amalgam of the crashed Jeep, the fleeing truck and the imagined scene of a furniture truck slamming into his mother’s minivan—cluttered her mind as she rolled to face him.
He woke when she moved, going tense and alert for a second and then easing, cracking one green eye with an expression that said,
Ah, it’s you. No threat.
But although she might not be on his threat radar, she couldn’t say the reverse. Because as she lay there with her head pillowed on his arm and her feet still pressed atop his, she badly wanted to snuggle into him, tuck her head beneath his chin and pretend the world outside didn’t exist. More, she could already feel herself storing away the small moments, the details that didn’t matter when the sex was just for fun.
She knew how his eyes went dark when he was aroused, how his voice rasped on her name when he climaxed. She knew how he smelled and tasted; how he moved with animal grace one moment and a cop’s blunt get-it-done attitude in the next; how he drove like a maniac but would always keep his passenger safe, or die trying.
“No regrets,” he said quietly, his eyes steady on hers. It wasn’t a question; it was an order. And part of her wanted to go along with him. Because if she could convince herself there was nothing to regret, that she hadn’t truly given herself over to him last night, then everything would be okay.
She closed her eyes and whispered inwardly:
You’re fine. You’re whole. You can handle this.
But instead of confidence came the images of the Jeep, the truck speeding away, brake lights flashing.
It repeated in slow motion: the…truck…speeding…away.
Shock seared through her as she realized what she had seen, what her brain was trying to tell her. Her eyes flew open. “Holy crap. I didn’t see it before, but now that I’m more relaxed,” she rushed on, not waiting to look hard at the source of that relaxation, “I’m seeing the truck driving away… And I caught a partial plate number.”
He stared at her for a three-count, expression unreadable. Then he nodded. “Call it in and let’s get moving.”
And just like that, their night was over. It was tomorrow, and they had a case to solve.