He whispered in her ear exactly what she was going to do with him.
"You think so, huh?"
A dimple formed in his cheek. "Know so."
"And why is that?" She stretched against him and ran her fingers through his long hair.
He purred softly, liking the feel of it. "Because I'm going to give you reason to…"
"What could you possibly do to entice me to do that?"
"I'm going to make you wild," he promised in a husky whisper. "All night long. Until you can't take it anymore…" His velvety lips skimmed hers in a bare, scalding prelude. "And you can have me… any way you want."
She drew in a quick, shaky breath. Yep, that would do it. The thought of this man making her wild was already making her wild. She grabbed his shirt collar in her hands and pulled it open, sending the buttons flying. "Go to it, Doc. Surprise me."
He growled, "Oh, I will."
Like every promise he had ever made her, his word was as good as gold…
He took her shirt between his hands and ripped it open, as she had done to him. The buttons flew across the bed and onto the floor. Zanita didn't want to even think what Mr. Crypt was going to think about that when he came to clean the room. At least they weren't getting maple syrup all over the sheets as they did at the Marble Manor. Although from Tyber's piratical expression, anything was possible.
His index finger slipped between her breasts and lifted the center of her bra. "Front or back?" he rasped.
In her dazed state, at first Zanita wasn't sure what he was asking; then she realized he wanted to know where the bra hooked. "Front," she croaked.
He raised an eyebrow and gently unclasped it. "Too bad," he murmured. "I would have liked to turn you over to do it."
She flushed slightly. "When has that ever stopped you?"
He chuckled low. "True. It might not even stop me now."
His long, nimble fingers went to her jeans and unzipped them. His large palms slid inside her pants and underwear, cupping her derriere. His fingers splayed against the round globes and squeezed the pliant flesh, bringing her up against his naked hardness.
"Tyber, you feel so good."
"Not as good as you do, baby."
He pushed the jeans down to just below her hips and left them there. She started to try to scoot out of them but he stopped her. "Uh-uh. I want them right there."
"Oh." She bit her lip, trying to think up the endless ways a talented man could torture a woman when she was bound up in her jeans. "Should I be worried?" She put her arms around his strong neck.
"Yes," he answered decisively.
"Oh." Her lips parted slightly.
He slipped inside the low opening of her pants where they gapped between her thighs and brushed his member back and forth against the tender inner skin.
She sucked in her breath.
"You weren't kidding, were you?"
He just smiled slightly, those infernal dimples of his popping into his face.
She instantly moistened for him. The dew covered him as he rubbed her making him slick and even harder. She moved her hips in and out on him, trying to get him to lose a little of his control.
A gust of air escaped his lips, but other than that he maintained his own direction.
"It's not going to be that easy tonight." He bit the tender spot under her ear and traced his mouth over her throat, sipping and suckling as he went, taking tiny pieces of her skin between his white teeth to deliver a series of sharp, erotic stings.
Her breath came out in a shaky stream.
Silken lips swept over her collarbone. He suckled at the skin between her breasts, causing her to rear up. "I'll never get enough of you." His words were wet and humid against the dampened skin.
He was going to erotically slay her tonight; she knew it. She didn't even try to stop the sound of pleasure coming from deep within.
A hot, wet mouth covered the tip of her breast. The flat of his tongue swiped the hardened peak over and over. He drew on her sharply, strongly while the hands that were still cupping her bottom, half inside the jeans, lifted her tight to him.
"Oh-my-god." Zanita became breathless.
He kept toying with her, his mouth going from one breast to the other and stopping occasionally in between to press in the valley and draw on her. Bringing her to rapid simmer.
The peaks of her breasts were so extended that they were almost painful. Almost. It was an excruciating pleasure.
Her small hands pressed in on his shoulders, bringing her wild lover closer to her embrace. She wanted this man. Now. Forever.
There would never be another love for her like Tyberius Augustus Evans.
Deep down, she had known that from the day she met him. He had told her he had known it from the instant he set eyes on her. He called it an absolute force.
He was right—love was an absolute force. In a six-foot-plus package.
With eyes that made you feel the beauty in every second of life. Eyes you could watch for endless lifetimes.
"I love you so much, Tyber," she cried.
"Oh, baby." He fastened his mouth on hers to give her a soul-robbing kiss. "You know you aren't going anywhere without me, because I'm going to be right beside you forever. Tell me the challenge is off. Right now."
Her mouth parted. Challenge? Who had been thinking of the challenge? Tyber, that's who! Once a pirate, always a pirate! "You artful little maneuverer!" she snorted and tried to push him off.
It didn't work.
"Maneuverer? I don't think that's the right word, baby." He tsk-tsked as he grinned down at her, very much in the superior position. "And you being a journalist."
"I don't care if it's in Skunk and Blight! That is exactly what you are!"
"What did I do now?" he drawled languidly.
"You tried to use my infatuation with you to win your challenge!" Her chin nodded up.
"No, I didn't. I meant what I said, and you know it." Her eyes narrowed. "Well… perhaps there was a little strategy used—"
She guffawed.
"But you expected that from me. Tell the truth, Curls."
"That's it! Get out from between my legs!"
He could not help the huge grin that crossed his face. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me. Off!" She bucked her hips.
"No. And you know as well as I that this challenge is a phony, so quit the false outrage."
She stopped and stared at him. "A phony?" she squeaked in a tiny voice.
"Yep."
"Wh-what do you mean?"
"I mean you trumped up this ridiculous so-called challenge so that I would go merrily on your ghost investigation."
"Oh! How silly!" She wet her lips. "What could possibly make you think that?"
He slowly shook his head. "Zanita. Zanita. Zanita. Did you really think I'd believe for one minute that you didn't want to marry me because of some outlandish fear of us becoming Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public?"
"Yes, that's what I thought."
He gazed down at her shrewdly. "What if I tell you we aren't really married?"
"What? What do you mean, we aren't married?"
He smiled like a shark. "You seem awfully upset for someone who was dragged into it kicking and screaming."
"Oh, shut up!" Her head flopped back on the pillow.
He laughed.
"Why do you have to be this smart anyway? It's not healthy for one person to have all those brains."
"You love them brains." He blinked. "What the hell am I saying?"
"It's a draw, then."
"No way."
"It is! You still haven't convinced me of the unexpected—eeee!"
One large hand pinned her wrists to the mattress over her head. "I haven't? I can remedy that right now."
"What are you going to do?" She watched him warily.
His other arm reached up to the lace canopy and dragged it right off the bed.
"Tyber!"
"I told you I liked this lace." He spread the lacy coverlet next to them and slowly dragged it over her, letting the intricate material scrape across her breasts.
"Oh, dear."
"Mmm-hmm."
His lips fastened on her right through the lace. The combination of his scalding tongue and the soft roughness of the material almost sent her over the top.
"I'm going to pay you back for this," she gasped, squirming on the bed.
"Good." He spoke around her nipple.
She tried to reach down on him, but he wouldn't release her hands.
"Later." He bit her through the cloth.
She screamed. Then belatedly croaked, "I hope Mr. Crypt's mausoleum is on the other side of the inn."
He grinned against her. "They heard you on the Vineyard with that one, baby."
"This is so undignified!" she burst out.
He roared with laughter. "Undignified? Hell, I'll show you undignified…"
He brushed the lace over her nether curls, his fingers twining in the material to work against the dewy folds.
Zanita squirmed. "I don't think you should do that."
"Why not?"
"Because I am going to scream louder if you continue—that material is very… provocative."
"I know," he whispered roguishly.
"You can't just use the canopy like this! It's not—"
"Don't worry. I'll purchase the canopy from Crypt. I have plans for it at our house."
She tried to wiggle away but couldn't. "Don't you dare bring that thing home!"
"Mmmmm-hmmm." He slid her jeans off and covered her whole body, including her face, with the lacy fabric. Tiny ecru roses dotted the netting, bathing her in a sea of flowers. "God, you look beautiful."
He kissed her through the cloth, leaning his entire naked weight on her.
He tasted so sweet. She trembled. "Let me loose so I can feel you," she groaned.
"You can feel me." His hips dipped into hers, pulling the material taut. She moaned.
She could feel the long, hard length of him draped in lace scraping against her thighs and lower belly.
"God, Tyber, please…"
"I am going to please you…" His voice was raw with his passion. "More and more…"
The fingers of his left hand strummed over her body, feeling every nuance of her through the lace. Every spot he touched hummed, alive with pleasure.
"Let me touch you!"
"No "
His teeth caught the fabric and tugged it over her curls. Soon his tongue replaced his fingers as he loved her with his mouth—lace and all. Ground zero. "Nuclear fusion reaction," she managed to mumble between gasping sighs.
"Uh-uh. This is pure fission, baby." He lapped her with his tongue. "Much higher intensity." Then he suckled on her lace-draped nether lips, causing scream number two to rattle the house.
Without giving her time to recuperate, he lifted just the material between her legs and entered her with a powerful thrust. Sinking deep.
Zanita sobbed his name as he quivered inside her, remaining motionless for a few moments.
He whispered, a hint of hot breath in her ear. He told her how she felt; how he felt; how he wanted to stay that way with her eternally, joined as one.
Then he began to move in her. Slow, even strokes that cascaded on and on. Still he held her hands above her head, enveloped in the folds of lace—as he was enveloped in her. He flexed inside her, rotating his hips, driving her wild yet again.
"Oh god, Tyber, release me!" she sobbed, totally undone by every sensation he was giving her.
"Not yet…" His mouth covered her lips again, robbing the moans from her.
His free hand squeezed her buttocks, then moved her hips in line with his. The rocking action penetrated his body, causing him to groan soul-deep in his throat. It was a sound he sometimes made in the throws of lovemaking and it always drove Zanita wild. It was the sound of the captor held captive.
Her cry of near-release resonated against his lips, into his mouth.
That was when he released her.
Her hands immediately went to his back, scratching down the length of it. She grabbed his buttocks and pressed him into her. Tyber growled, nipping at her lower lip. He grabbed the cloth and tugged it down off her head. His mouth seized hers and he thrust his tongue all the way into her mouth. The feel of that final contact of skin on skin undid both of them.
Scream/groan number three drowned out the honks of the
Canada
geese that happened to be flying overhead at that precise moment. It was a sure bet that they never had cause to make a sound that good.
Now, they really had something to bitch about.
"Come out from under that blanket, you miscreant."
"Me?" was the half-dead response. A slick, hot tongue teased the arch of her foot.