You've Got Male (21 page)

“Peaches,” he said softly as he came to a halt by the side of the bed, “I didn’t exactly come here expecting a party. If you know what I mean. I don’t have a condom.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she told him. “My cycles run like clockwork. I won’t get pregnant.”

“What about STDs?” he asked. “I get checked every year on the government’s dime, but…”

“But you’re not sure you can trust me to be clean, right?” she asked matter-of-factly.

He said nothing. Which pretty much amounted to an affirmative.

She didn’t want to tell him the truth, that she hadn’t been with anyone since before she went to prison. That it had been ten years since she had been with a man. But how could she lie? She was relentlessly honest with men. It was one of her worst vices.

“It’s been a long time for me, Dixon,” she finally said. “I mean, a long, long time.”

“How long?”

“Since college,” she said.

His eyebrows shot up at that. “You haven’t had sex for ten years?”

“Look, could we talk about this later?” she asked. “Just know that I’m healthy, all right? Trust me. The way that I trust you.”

She’d meant about the whole health issue when she said it, but as the words left her mouth she was astonished to realize that she did indeed trust Dixon. Wholly and completely. In every sense of the word. At least in that moment. At least for now. And really, when all was said and done,
now
was all Avery had. It was all she’d ever had. Later would take care of itself. Now, though, Avery wanted…

Well, she wanted too much to even begin to list it all. But most of all, she wanted Dixon.

She wasn’t sure when he decided to trust her, too, or even if he decided to trust her at all. He must have decided to have sex with her, though, because he hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his jeans and pushed them down. His eyes never left Avery’s as he stepped out of them and kicked them away, then joined her on the bed, lying alongside her, facing her, covering her hip with one hand.

She smiled as she placed her hand on his chest and urged him to lie flat on his back, then levered one leg over him to straddle his middle. Dixon took his cue from there and, smiling back at her, settled both hands on her hips. Slowly she moved her body forward until her calves were hugging his rib cage and her knees were nudging him under his arms. He pressed his hands more insistently into her flesh, pulling her forward even more. She gripped the headboard behind him and, with one final motion, brought herself to the place they both wanted her to be. Dixon lifted his head from the pillow, moved it between her legs and gently began tonguing her tender flesh.

Her eyes fluttered closed as he tasted her, her grip tightening on the headboard with each stroke of his tongue. Vaguely she registered the movement of his hands from her hips to her bottom, his fingers delving into the elegant line bisecting it. He urged her forward with one hand, and as he penetrated her damp canal with his tongue, he gently dipped a finger inside her from behind. She gasped at the double penetration, then sighed, feeling full and complete and very aroused.

For a long time he savored her, consumed her, pleasured her with his finger and his tongue. Before she could succumb to another orgasm, though, he withdrew from her, moving her gently backward over the length of his hard shaft. Rising up on her knees, Avery brought herself down over him, sighing with pleasure at the slow, thorough penetration. He was so big, she’d wondered if he would hurt her. But he filled her perfectly, the gentle friction of him moving inside her generating a deep sense of satisfaction. Up and down she moved her body, her pace leisurely at first, then gradually quickening, then slowing again.

During one of the slow times, Dixon gripped her hips again and lifted her off him, twisting their bodies until he was kneeling behind her. Avery positioned herself on her hands and knees, but he gently urged her head and shoulders down to the mattress. He entered her from behind, easily, thoroughly, sliding hard and deep, so damp was she from her arousal.

The crispness of the sheet felt rough against her sensitive nipples, so she covered her breasts with her hands as he joined his body with hers, bringing herself even more pleasure. Again and again Dixon bucked his hips against her, claiming her body with his own. Little by little his movements quickened until he reached a feverish rhythm, when he withdrew from Avery completely and turned her so that she lay on her back. He gripped one of her ankles in each hand, spreading her legs wide, then knelt before her and pushed himself inside her again. For long moments he thrust in and out of her that way, Avery tangling her fingers in the sheet beside her and groaning for more. Just as she was about to crest, he stopped and withdrew, folding himself over her, his body pressed into hers, bracing both muscular forearms on the mattress near her head.

“I want to watch you while you come,” he said raggedly.

And she very nearly did right then.

But he hesitated when he seemed to realize just how close she was, smiling at the control he held so capably. With another slow push, he was deep,
deep,
inside her again. After that, things became a little hazy for her, so lost was she in the sheer ecstasy cartwheeling through her. She cupped her hands behind his neck as he drove himself harder, spreading her legs wide and tilting her hips upward to encourage a deeper penetration still. Again and again he thrust inside her until they were both panting and grunting on the verge of detonation. At the same time that an explosion of white heat erupted at her center, she felt his body jerk to a halt, felt his heat spilling inside her, mingling his essence with her own.

They were one in that moment in every possible way—physically, spiritually, sexually, emotionally. And even if that moment only lasted a moment, it was more than Avery had had in a long time. It was more than she’d ever had, really. Because in that moment, she very nearly loved Dixon. And even if that only lasted a moment, too, she would hold on to the memory forever.

But the night was still young, she thought as he collapsed against her. Really, they were only just beginning….

O
N DAY FIVE OF WHAT
T
ANNER
had come to think of as not his Hamptons
Idyll
but his Hamptons
Ordeal,
he wrestled with his necktie and tried to think of a proper analogy for dinner with the Nesbitts. Old Man Nesbitt kept insisting that the meal was a formal affair, and as such, everyone was required to dress for the occasion. But over the past week Tanner had come to think of it more as, oh…what was a good analogy? Hmm…let’s see…. Okay, he had one. Dinner with the Nesbitts wasn’t so much a formal affair as it was a colonoscopy performed with a hacksaw. Without anesthesia. In the dark. By an orangutan. Though, now that he thought about it, even that was preferable to spending another evening sitting across the table from Carly Nesbitt while she and the rest of her family gave bitterness a bad name.

The only reason Tanner continued to take his meals with them was because a man had to eat, and he’d discovered that the average cost of lunch in the Hamptons was roughly eighty billion dollars. And Tanner was saving up his money for something special—a lifestyle. So he’d just go for the free eats the Nesbitts offered and he’d deal with the indigestion that came from sitting across from Carly later.

Of course, indigestion wasn’t the only thing Carly had been giving him the past few nights. She’d also given him a hard time. And she’d given him the once-over. Several times, in fact. And she’d given him some steamy looks, too. But those he hadn’t minded so much. Nor had he minded her giving him an eyeful, which she’d also done at least once during every meal, usually by reaching
waaaaaaaay
down the table for a salt shaker instead of asking someone to pass it, which would have been the polite thing to do. Even Tanner, with his working-class manners, knew that. But had she done the polite thing, then she couldn’t have leaned
waaaaaaaay
over in the low-cut dress she invariably wore and do the impolite thing she liked doing even better: flashing the guests.

Or maybe it was just Tanner she liked flashing. She always seemed to wait until everyone else was caught up in some other activity—usually quarreling or nit-picking or grumbling, more favorite Nesbitt pastimes—before she put on her little peep show. And gosh, but he was just so touched that she’d single him out that way.

And yeah, okay, so maybe that was another reason he kept joining the family for dinner. So sue him.

He’d meant it that morning by the pool when he’d told her the two of them should just stay out of each other’s way. And he’d done his best—honest he had—to follow his own advice. He’d kept to his room, planted in front of his computer, trawling for leads or information about Sorcerer, analyzing and reanalyzing what little they did have on the guy, monitoring Avery’s comings and goings on the Net until Padgett finally showed his face.

And how bad was that, that when the guy finally,
finally,
showed up, Avery’s computer went down for no apparent reason? And right when things had been getting steamy, too, Tanner had been sorry to see when he went to prepare the transcript first thing next morning. Not that he was into voyeurism or anything, but…Well. Suffice it to say he’d never be able to look at Avery quite the same way again.

Still, had she and Sorcerer been able to, uh, consummate their, uh, whatever it was they had, then maybe they could have moved on to an exchange that would have furthered the assignment. It had been nearly a week since they’d set up shop at the Nesbitt estate, and so far they had nothing more than a brief, unfinished dialogue with their quarry that helped not at all. At this rate, Tanner would be spending the rest of his life sleeping in a room that looked as if it belonged in a high-class brothel and staring down Carly Nesbitt’s shirt.

Not that there was anything wrong with that.

True to form, when he seated himself at the Nesbitt dinner table—which he’d noted that first night was roughly the size of Delaware—he saw that Carly had once again squeezed herself into a tiny little dress, this one the color of a sailor-take-warning sunrise. Or maybe it was the color of a sailor’s-delight sunset. Tanner would have to wait and see how he felt by evening’s end. In any event, it was a cross between hot-pink and flaming-red, and it set off more than a few sirens in his head. Not to mention other parts of his body.

“Ms. Nesbitt,” he greeted her as he had every evening—with a touch of sarcasm for flavor—then folded himself into his seat.

“Gillespie,” she replied easily, dispensing with any sort of formal address in an effort to make him feel, he was sure, like a slug.

Tonight there seemed to be even more tension in the air than usual. That could have been because the younger Desmond Nesbitt and his wife were present, but the tension seemed to come more from Dixon and Avery’s end of the table than anywhere else. Although Avery hadn’t arrived, Dixon was sitting in his usual place next to hers on the other side of Tanner, at the very end of the table. But where the other man had seemed reasonably comfortable in the arrangement before, chatting amiably if not deeply with everyone else—particularly Avery—tonight he was looking at no one. And no one was saying a word to him, either.

Odd, Tanner thought. Not that he’d found Dixon to be the most gregarious guy in the world, but he had seemed to warm up some since their arrival at the estate. Tonight, though, his expression was as dark as the black federal-agent suit he wore and his mouth was flattened into a hard line. Certainly he had plenty to be pissed off about, having lost Sorcerer last night. But they could try again this evening. There was no reason for him to look as if it were the end of the world.

A flash of pink—a soft, rosy pink this time, as opposed to the anatomically correct Georgia O’Keefe pink Carly was wearing—caught Tanner’s eye, and he looked up at the entry to see…No, it couldn’t be. That couldn’t possibly be Avery Nesbitt, whose concessions to “dressing for dinner” had so far consisted of baggy man-style trousers and even baggier man-style shirts, wearing a pink sweater set and slim gray skirt. She looked like…well, Mrs. Nesbitt. Only not as frigid. Probably that was because Avery wasn’t wearing her hair in that long, tight braid down her back she normally favored and had instead woven it very loosely and pulled it forward over one shoulder.

She actually looked kind of pretty, Tanner thought. She also looked nervous about something. Of course, nervous was pretty much her natural state, but she, too, seemed to have relaxed some since that first evening at her ancestral home. Even at dinner, when her family seemed to be at its worst, she was always able to stay cool. Tonight, however, she was obviously edgy.

He started to return his attention to Carly, who made him feel edgy and nervous—in a good way—but his gaze halted on Dixon before completing the journey. Wow. Had he thought the guy was glowering before? Man, he’d had no idea. Because Dixon’s dark expression had become downright black. And the reason for it, Tanner also saw, was Avery’s arrival. Or maybe it was her appearance. Or maybe it was both. In any event, it was Avery Dixon was looking at when his scowl turned into a grimace, Avery who was clearly the source of his discomfort. Or maybe it was displeasure he was feeling. Or even dislike.

She seemed to sense his turbulence, because what had been an almost smile playing about her lips went flat and she hastily dropped her gaze to the floor. She didn’t turn around and bolt from the room, though, which was what she had looked ready to do. Instead she strode over to the table and took her seat next to Dixon. But she kept her body turned away from him, toward the place where her father sat, and Dixon likewise turned away from her.

And suddenly Tanner found himself wondering if maybe, just maybe, the computer shutting down the way it had the night before,
when
it had the night before, hadn’t been such an accident after all.

Well, well, well. So Dixon could be as professionally unethical as the next guy. The next guy being Tanner, of course, whose thoughts about Carly had been anything but professional since his arrival, never mind ethical. Or moral. Or decent.

As if his thoughts set her into action, she suddenly spoke up, saying tartly, “My God, she
can
show some fashion sense when she wants to. Of course, that outfit was
more
fashionable twenty years ago when Mother bought it.” Then, a little too sweetly she added, “Oh, but it looks good on
her.
”

“I didn’t know we’d be dressing for dinner when I packed,” Avery said quietly without looking up. “I didn’t bring enough clothes. I found some in the closet in my old room. I didn’t think anyone would mind.”

Carly opened her mouth to say more—and knowing her, it would be something really mean, Tanner thought—so he cut her off with, “Carly, just what do you call that color of your dress? It reminds me of something I saw at the scene of an especially grisly murder. Guy’s head got ripped right off his shoulders. It was amazing.”

Of course he was only kidding about that. Tanner had never been at the scene of a grisly murder. The color actually reminded him of a woman’s pudendum. But he didn’t think that made for polite dinner conversation. At least, not in the Hamptons. Not even when he used a word like
pudendum.

Carly snapped her mouth shut and she narrowed her eyes at him, just as Tanner had hoped she would. He loved it when she did that squinty thing. It meant he’d really pissed her off.

“The designer called it ‘pomegranate,’” she said coolly.

“Well it’s like no granite I’ve ever seen,” he told her. “And I worked construction while I was in college, so that’s quite a compliment.”

“It’s not—” She expelled an exasperated sound, another reaction Tanner enjoyed, then finished, “Oh, never mind. You’re too provincial to understand.”

Yeah, and you’re lovin’ me for it,
he thought. “Ooh, provincial,” he said. “That makes me sound so French.”

“No,” she said. “It makes you sound so annoying.”

He grinned. “Well, then, I think you’re pretty provincial yourself, Ms. Nesbitt.”

Dinner passed as it invariably did—awkwardly—until the guy in the monkey suit brought around coffee and pie. Well, not pie, since that was too plebeian. But it was something with fruit and what vaguely resembled a crust, so pie was what Tanner would go with. Old Man Nesbitt lit his usual cigar without offering one to either him or Dixon or even his son, then leaned back in his throne to survey his subjects at the dinner table.

“How is this…thing with Avery going?” he finally said.

Although he hadn’t directed the question to anyone in particular, Tanner was pretty sure he was talking about his and Dixon’s assignment, since, well, the other
things
with Avery were too entrenched in the family tradition of shunning to be going anywhere anytime soon.

He waited for Dixon to answer, since he was the senior operative, not to mention more knowledgeable about the particulars, but nothing was forthcoming from that end of the table. When Tanner turned his attention in that direction, it was to discover that the reason for that was because Dixon had left. Funny, but he hadn’t even noticed. Of course, Carly had been doing that leaning
waaaaaaay
over thing to get the cream for her coffee, so Tanner probably should have been grateful he even remembered his own name.

“We had a major development last night,” he told Desmond IV, turning back to look at the other man.

Although he wasn’t sure, he thought Avery gasped when he said it. But when he glanced at her, she was staring down into her coffee. With
a lot
of interest. A bright spot of pink had appeared on the cheek that Tanner could see, though, and it gave him pause.

“What kind of development?” Desmond IV asked from the other end of the table.

Instead of replying, Tanner kept watching Avery. She lumped one, two, three…wow, six spoonfuls of sugar into her coffee, then stirred it furiously enough to send some sloshing over the side. She didn’t seem to notice, though, because she was reaching for the sugar bowl again.

“Your daughter hooked up,” Tanner said, using the phrase deliberately to see if she would—yep, she did—flinch visibly in her seat. “Online,” he clarified, noting how she predictably relaxed, “with the man we’ve been looking for. Unfortunately we had a computer glitch before we could move forward much. Which is weird, because your daughter has nothing but state-of-the-art equipment.”

Avery looked up, meeting Tanner’s gaze unflaggingly. He knew then without question what had happened last night. That Dixon and Avery had hooked up, too. Off-line. That they’d been as turned on by the dialogue she was having with Sorcerer as Tanner had gotten reading it after the fact. Probably more so, since they’d been together at the time it was happening and they’d been, you know, together at the time it was happening. Judging by what he’d seen so far at dinner tonight, Avery was handling what had happened better than Dixon was. She also seemed to be taking it more seriously than Dixon was.

Surprising, Tanner thought. And not a little interesting.

“But she can try again tonight,” he said aloud. “Maybe with better results this time.”

Although he wasn’t positive, he thought maybe Avery nodded once at that.

C
ARLY WAS BORED
. S
HE DIDN’T
want to hear Tanner talking about his little spy mission with Avery. She wanted to hear more about how he was noticing her dress. Even if he didn’t flatter her, she could read between the lines. She spoke Plebeian surprisingly well—and she spoke Man even better—even if she didn’t care for the lifestyle. Plebeian
or
Man. And strangely since meeting Tanner, she’d been more curious about both.