Ready (25 page)

The lower level of his house looked like a weapons arsenal for a third-world country. Guns, launchers, knives, even swords filled the locked glass cases covering the walls from floor to ceiling. One end of the room boasted a lathe and some other machining equipment. In the center were two different work benches, both tall and pristine in their appearance.

“Do you make your own guns?” she asked, feeling some trepidation about what he wanted to do with her in this room.

Yet, she could not deny the thrill of wanton desire inside her. She yearned for untamed intimacy with him.

“Not usually, but I like to modify them myself and make my own ammunition.”

He went directly to one of the tall, narrow tables and laid her on it. The smooth, polished surface was chilly against her skin and she shivered.

“Cold, honey?”

“A little.” She trusted him not to hurt her, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t push her beyond her comfort zone.

This time the shiver had nothing to do with the cold table.

“I’ll warm you up.” He arranged her arms above her head and then brushed her nipples with the back of his forefinger, going from one to the other with seemingly random movements.

“I fantasized about having you here, in my workroom. Ever since that damn kiss that ended too early, I couldn’t get you out of my mind, even when I was working down here.”

She arched toward his gentle touch, her heart contracting at his words. Not love, but something more than mere sex.

“So this is by way of exorcising some ghosts?” she asked.

“More like living out a fantasy gone wild. I have a feeling once I’ve made love to you in here, I’ll never be able to forget it.”

“Or me.”

His eyes were almost black, but she could still read the disbelief in them. “I could never forget you.”

“So, you’ll miss more than just the sex with me after I’m gone?” she asked.

His eyes registered remembrance of what he’d said on the plane. “You’re more than just a body to warm my bed, Lise.”

They weren’t words of love, but they definitely implied more than he’d had with his ex-wife. “I’m glad.”

He ran his hand down her side, tickling her with the light touch, but not so much that she lowered her arms. “I would be polishing a gun and thinking how much I’d like to have my hands on your delectable body.”

“You really fantasized about me?”
While he was awake?

It was one thing for his subconscious mind to play tricks on him, another entirely for him to voluntarily think about her.

“I really did.” He was touching her the way he said he’d wanted to, his fingers dipping into every crevice, sensitizing every nerve ending.

“This is better than a fantasy,” she gasped out between suddenly dry lips.

“Much better.” He lowered his mouth to her body and covered the same skin his fingertips had seduced with pleasure.

When he moved to rock his mouth over hers, his hand skimmed down her stomach and over her thighs, playing at the juncture just a little before moving down to touch the back of one knee with a knowing stroke that made her body swell with feverish longing. Her legs separated of their own volition, her body greedy for the feelings he could evoke.

His fingertips trailed back up the inside of her legs, closer and closer to the heart of her. “You’re soft, like Chinese silk,” he breathed against her mouth.

Then his fingers were there, on her most secret place, and she was arching up toward him, eager and needy.

As his fingertip slipped inside of her, his eyes burned with near-black fire as he possessed her more completely with his hand.

It felt wild, amazing, and beautiful.

When she was shaking with the need to climax, he positioned her so that her bottom was on the edge of the table.

He stood back and looked. “Yes, just like that.”

“Joshua?” Her legs dangled at an uncomfortable angle, but she didn’t move them, did not want to detract from the look of utter eroticism on his face.

He rolled a condom over his huge erection and then came to her. He gently lifted her legs onto his forearms, alleviating the discomfort and opening her completely to him.

For several seconds, he did nothing but look, a thunderstorm of yearning in his eyes. Then he lined his sex up with hers in total intimacy and pushed the head inside. He took long minutes effecting complete possession, refusing to increase his pace beyond the tender wooing his intimate flesh was giving her own. When he was completely inside her, he set up a rhythm that drew forth her passion in one drenching wave after another.

They’d done this many times in the past few days, but it felt new, more intense, more powerful, and when she climaxed, she sobbed out her ecstasy and then just sobbed.

Dark and fathomless emotions swirled through her, devastating her senses and leaving her with no reserves to combat the tears.

He picked her up again, wrapping her tightly in his arms. “Shh, Lise, don’t cry.”

“It’s too much, Joshua.”

“No, it’s not. What happens when we touch is very special, but it isn’t too much.”

“It’s like a hurricane that leaves me wrecked in the aftermath.” She wasn’t complaining—far from it, but she was trying to help him understand why she couldn’t stop crying.

“I know, sweetheart—me, too.”

She savored the admission like the declaration of emotion she would likely never get.

He didn’t take her back up the stairs, but through a door in the back of his workroom.

Suddenly she was in a different world. Green plants grew wildly under special lights and steam filled the air, created by a dark, heated pool in the center of the space. The floor and walls were hewn from natural rock. The scent of damp earth, flowering African violets, and steaming mineral water surrounded her. It was an underground jungle paradise.

Incredible that it could exist in the Green Mountains of Vermont.

She was in awe. “The hot springs.”

“Yes, this pool is cool enough to bathe in, but there’s another behind that rubber tree that you could boil eggs in.”

Probably the one that fed his radiant heat for the roof and walkways.

She looked at the pool, her heart skipping a beat. “It’s dark and very mysterious.”

“It’s safe.”

“It doesn’t look safe. It looks magical.”

He smiled at that. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes.” Always. With everything.

“Then relax and enjoy.” He lowered them together in the pool.

Steaming water, hot but not unbearable, covered her body.

Keeping her in his lap, he settled on what must have been some kind of seat because her feet dangled over the side of his bent legs without touching the bottom of the pool.

They rested in silence for several minutes, content to let nature’s hot tub soothe their love-wracked bodies. She didn’t feel the need to speak, but reveled in his nearness. He dropped gentle kisses on her temple and cheek and then nuzzled her ear.

Familiar feelings began to curl through her as his tongue traced the outline of her ear.

Was her capacity for pleasure infinite? It felt like it. No matter how much their earlier lovemaking had taken from her, her body was preparing for him again.

“This is kind of scary.”

He didn’t say anything, but she knew he understood.

She cuddled into his body. “I like it all the same.”

“Me, too.”

He kissed her, claiming her mouth with a leashed control that felt different from anything they’d shared. Emotions swirled around them with the hot, fathomless water and she wrapped her arms around his neck, allowing him complete freedom to touch her.

Anywhere he wanted.

Any way he wanted.

He used the hot water as a lubricant to slide his masculine hands over the soft dips and hollows of her body. He built the pleasure inside her with skillful caresses until she was trembling with the need to climax.

She tried to touch him, but he caught her hand and put it on his shoulder. “Give yourself to me.”

T
he words were dark and as magical as this secret place, demanding a surrender that she wasn’t sure she understood. All she knew was that he wanted to pleasure her while she sat in his lap, doing nothing but accepting his touch.

She made a small assenting noise and did not balk when he slid her thighs farther apart so he had complete access to her secret place. He touched her with his fingertips, light caresses that gave pleasure and demanded nothing in return.

His ministrations had her squirming, but again he broke his lips from hers. “Relax.”

How could she relax when he was touching her like that?

But she forced her body into stillness and experienced something amazing. It was as if she was in her body, but out of it. Each glide of his fingers increased the burning fire inside of her, bringing her closer and closer to orgasm, but her body did not tense for it.

She didn’t know if it was his adjuring to be still or her own body’s exhaustion, but she felt her climax build inside with unstoppable escalation while her body remained pliant against him. His mouth possessed hers with tender but absolute control. His tongue tasted her, his lips molded hers.

And all the while her womb tightened and her inner flesh throbbed around the fingers invading her. Her breath splintered as a climax of amazing depth shook her inner core, sending her into a black oblivion.

When she woke, Joshua was laying her carefully onto his bed. “You’ll sleep now, won’t you, honey?”

She looked at him, her tongue refusing to work.

She didn’t know what had happened down there in his tropical paradise, but it had been life-altering.

He didn’t seem to expect a response and left the room after kissing her, with aching sweetness, on her lips.

She woke later, feeling refreshed, and all of the aftereffects of the CO poisoning gone.

She sat up to find Joshua reading one of her books in the big black recliner in the corner. Her stomach growled before she even said anything, and his head came up with a snap.

“Hungry?”

She nodded. “What was your first clue?”

“Other than the wild animal sounds your stomach has been making for the last half-hour while you were sleeping, nothing…”

She grabbed a pillow from behind her and threw it at him. He caught it and stood up, letting the book drop onto the chair behind him. “Want to play?”

She tried for a look of innocence, but he wasn’t buying it and they ended up wrestling the covers off the bed before he bullied her into getting dressed so he could feed her.

“Most men want women to take their clothes off,” she grumbled as she pulled on the thick socks he’d insisted she wear when she told him she hadn’t brought a pair of slippers with her.

“It’s either get you dressed or take you back to bed and you need sustenance to keep up with me later tonight.”

“I like that,” she mocked.

“Yes, you will,” he promised in a dark voice that sent shivers of anticipation along nerve endings she’d discovered only since becoming Joshua’s lover.

They cooked together in his huge, state-of-the-art kitchen, though he did most of the real preparation.

“You really do like to cook, don’t you?” she asked.

“Yes.” He dropped the fresh noodles he’d just rolled and sliced into thin strips in a pot of boiling water. “It helps me relax.”

She stirred the sauce he’d put her in charge of. “You’re also very good at it.”

“It’s a lot like making your own ammunition. You’ve got to know how to read a recipe and augment it for the best results.”

She laughed at the analogy. “That’s a very interesting way to look at it, but I still think cooking is a unique hobby for a professional soldier.”

“Life can’t all be about warfare.”

She thought that was an even more unusual attitude for a mercenary to have. “Is that why Nitro designs houses?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What about Hotwire?”

“He paints.”

“Your bedspread,” she breathed, remembering the realistic wolf and how much it resembled Joshua.

“He’s got a gallery in New York interested in his work.”

“So, y’all have careers to fall back on when you’re too old and decrepit to run around saving the world.”

Joshua put his arms around her and nuzzled her neck. “We’ve got plans for leaving the business long before the word
decrepit
becomes part of our everyday vocabulary.”

She quivered as his lips brushed the sensitive skin behind her ear. “You do?”

“Yeah.”

“When?”

He kissed her and stepped back. “We don’t have a definite date.”

She stirred the pesto sauce with a great deal of concentration. “I guess it depends on what other things you want from life.”

“Right.”

“So, what do y’all plan to do?”

“Security consultation. We’ve got a lot of experience breaking through security, which should make us the best at designing systems that work.”

She couldn’t argue with that. “It’s probably not as exciting as being a professional soldier.”

“No, but it isn’t as likely to get a person killed, either.”

“You could probably retire early without having another job to go to.” He owned a plane and his house bespoke a man who had done very well with his career.

Joshua nudged her out of the way and started adding last-minute ingredients to the sauce. “Too boring.”

She tried to imagine life without her writing and agreed. “I don’t ever want to retire,” she admitted.

“Good. I love your books.”

She smiled, feeling warmed clear through.

Joshua set the sauce aside and put two chicken breasts on his range-top grill. The fragrance of seared meat and spices mingled with the pesto sauce, filling the kitchen with yummy odors. “Why don’t you make some coffee for after dinner?”

She noticed he had an espresso maker. “I could make cappuccinos. I took an evening workshop on the fine art of making coffee right after I moved to Seattle.”

“Sounds great.”

The perfectly foam-capped cappuccinos smelled rich and decadent when she was done, and she put them on the table with the dinner plates Joshua had served up while she was busy with the espresso.