Midnight Kiss

by Lisa Marie Rice

  “God no!” he blurted. “You’re perfect! You’re gorgeous. I didn’t mean at all —”

  Hope laughed. “Just messing with you. I’m ‘my size’ as you put it, because I often forget to eat. I love food, and will eat most anything. But if I’m lost in work, by the time I’m really hungry, it’s late and I know by experience that the places that provide food after midnight suck. And it comes cold and greasy. And I always forget to shop. I have some staples like milk and cereal that my fridge automatically orders every week, but my pantry is pathetic.”

  He looked at her curiously. “You don’t cook?”

  “At all,” she said cheerfully. “Never learned. My … mother didn’t cook. I don’t think I ever saw her in the kitchen. We had a cook who wouldn’t let anyone in the kitchen. Then I spent most of my growing-up years in boarding school, and in college and in most of the places I worked at after that, they had canteens. And of course —” she gestured at the table — “there’s always takeout. Do you cook?”

  “Absolutely.” Luke was still removing the containers from the large insulated bag. “When my mom died, Dad had to learn to cook for me. There sure wasn’t money for a cook and anyway he became a pretty decent cook, but with a limited range. It was fine for what it was. But I like lots of different cuisines so I learned how to cook Italian and Mexican and Thai, mainly. At a very basic level, but still. I felt like Italian tonight so that’s what we’re having. One of the Black Inc guys I trained with particularly recommended an Italian restaurant they use when in the safe house. Traditional, but really good.” He leaned over the table of containers and breathed in. “Mushroom risotto, fried polenta, sautéed wild greens, chicken cacciatore, tagliata steak, tomato salad with basil olive oil, panna cotta. Good stuff.”

  She leaned over, out of politeness, hoping the smells of food wouldn’t nauseate her. It happened sometimes, when she was overtired, no matter how hungry she was. Food just made her stomach close up into a tight cold ball.

  And she was overtired. Exhausted, really. Her emotions had been stretched thin to the point of shattering. She was too tired even to take stock of the day. Of the mind-bending nature of the visit to the trailer park. How she had this knowledge of the park. Somehow, crazy as that sounded, she’d been there before. The information was simply there, in her head, and she had no idea how it was there.

  It felt like being tossed around in a stormy ocean.

  Her stomach was already tightening when she leaned over the table top and — the smells were absolutely amazing. You’d have to be dead not to respond to them. Her stomach just opened right up and stretched out virtual fingers, curling up. Gimmee. Now now now!

  “Wow,” she breathed. “That smells awesome.”

  Luke looked up from carting out the food boxes, lifted a corner of his mouth and winked. “Right?”

  Oh God. Luke shouldn’t do that! Shouldn’t give that wildly attractive half smile and a wink, drawing attention to those sky blue eyes. Nope. She was rooted to where she stood, her terrible day and the luscious food all forgotten. All she could do was stare at him, all thoughts gone from her head. No thoughts, just hormones, all suddenly alive and kicking, swirling around in her bloodstream.

  She’d been chilled just a moment before, thinking she should have taken a hot shower to warm up. She didn’t need to warm up now. No. She was overheating if anything, heat flushing over her skin from head to toe.

  It paralysed her, as if someone had put her under a spell. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t talk. All she could do was stare at Luke. If she’d had room in her head for it, she’d be embarrassed, but she didn’t. There was only him, filling her field of vision, his body a magnet for her touch. She had to curl her fingers into the palms of her hands to stop herself from reaching out, because though she couldn’t think straight, she remembered very well what he felt like. Like warm steel. He felt like no other human being she had ever touched. He smelled good, too, of soap with a faint overlay of leather.

  He watched her watching him and she couldn’t move, could barely breathe. The air around them felt charged, like something was about to short circuit.

  Like her.

  Her hands started trembling uncontrollably. Something had taken her body over and she felt completely rudderless. A broken branch tossed about by a raging river.

  He reached her in two strides, placed his hand over hers, large and sinewy and almost twice the size of her hand. She stared down at their hands, so different they could have almost belonged to two species. Her hand was small and soft and about the only thing she did with her hands was work the keyboard. His, however, was powerful and tanned, with a few small white scars, and was clearly used for a number of things.

  He was a good shot, he said. He could cook. He was an excellent driver. He was probably really good at …

  Images blossomed in her head as if she were watching clips from movies. Luke, his hand cupping her shoulder, moving down to cover her breast. Crazily, it was as if she could feel his hand on her skin. Her breast felt heavy, exactly as if he were touching her.

  In the movie reel now showing in her head, she was naked on a bed. Sprawled wantonly, legs spread wide, arms out. To her knowledge, she’d never done that except once, at summer camp, when the temperature was 102°. She’d been twelve and hadn’t been thinking of sex but of cooling off. Sex was under the covers, preferably in the dark. Not like this, her entire body an invitation.

  To sex. That’s what this was. Her imagination had sandbagged her and run ahead of her, imagining sex with Luke. Because it was going to happen. No doubt about that.

  “You okay?” His deep voice penetrated the fog of imaginary sex that had suddenly filled her mind, that would soon turn into the real deal.

  Was she okay? The slight trembling had stopped. She thought about her situation. She was on the run. No idea who her parents were. But she somehow had memories of a broken-down trailer park in Sacramento, California when she’d never been to California.

  Those were the cons.

  On the pro side, she had the handsomest man alive on her side, protecting her and helping her. He was backed up by a highly competent security team in Portland, with the help of the most powerful security company in the world.

  There was a luscious spread of fabulous food right under her nose.

  She was absolutely certain that equally fabulous sex would be in her future soon.

  “Fine,” she answered, smiling up at him. “Let’s eat.”

  The food was, as promised, absolutely delicious. As delicious as the woman sitting across the small table from him. He was drowning in pleasure as he put bite after luscious bite in his mouth while smiling at Hope. Who was smiling back at him.

  Luke wanted sex. Normally, sex would take precedence over food any day and for a moment he wondered at himself, that he was sitting here stuffing his face when what he wanted to do really badly was pick her up, rush into her room — or his, he wasn’t fussy — strip her and jump her bones.

  She was willing. She hadn’t said the words and he’d get the words out of her before taking her to bed, but her eyes let him know sex was going to happen.

  So why wasn’t it happening?

  “This is so good,” she said, digging into the risotto. “I really needed this.” Color was coming back in her face and her green eyes glowed.

  That’s why sex wasn’t happening. Not right this minute, at least. Hope needed this. Needed a moment of normality, maybe even a moment of comradeship. Luke wanted to bed her, yes. More than any woman he could remember. But he also liked her, a lot. He’d seen her beaten down and he didn’t want to see that ever again. She was so smart and so vital. He liked seeing her the way she was right now, enjoying a fabulous meal. Happy and relaxed.

  “Here,” he said, picking up a rondel of fried polenta. “Open up.”

  She opened her mouth obediently, closing her eyes in delight while she chewed. He had a pang when his treacherous mind envisioned that lovely soft pink mouth cl
osing over his — no. He wasn’t twelve. He could wait. Just seeing the happiness on her face, when her life had been anything but happy, was repayment for ignoring the boner under the table. “Good?”

  She caught her breath and moaned. He smothered his own moan because he was picturing that very expression on her face, under him.

  “Oh, man. I’ve eaten more good meals with you in the past couple of days than I have in the past year.”

  Luke speared a slice of tagliata steak, delighted at her words. Oh yeah, he wanted to be the source of a lot of happiness for her. Right up there with food was sex and he wanted to put that look of bliss on her face, only not with food. He stared down at his plate, not meeting her eyes. Because though she declared herself a nerd, she was good at reading people and he didn’t want her to know what he was thinking right this instant.

  Because what he was thinking was a little dangerous. He wasn’t happily aroused, a guy looking forward to a good time in bed. He was on a hair trigger. Ready to blow.

  And wouldn’t that be embarrassing? He hadn’t done that since high school.

  So the only way he knew to deal with this was to have as few stimuli as possible. Eating. He could do eating. But he couldn’t talk and he couldn’t touch her. Talking to her would only mess with his head. He found her fascinating and every word she spoke made her even more desirable. And touching her — no way. He wouldn’t be able to stop.

  So he stuffed his mouth as quickly as manners would permit so he couldn’t talk and he couldn’t touch her.

  She ate more slowly but much less, so she finished before he did. When he saw that she was done, his fork clattered on his plate. There was still some food on it but he ignored it.

  He wasn’t alone in this. Nope. She was studiously avoiding looking at him, but still she was stealing little glances when she thought he wasn’t looking. Luckily, Luke had excellent peripheral vision.

  Her hands had started trembling. She put her own fork down, not clattering like his own, but neatly.

  They stared at each other, both knowing what was coming next. But Luke had to have it out there, in words.

  “So,” he said and stopped. Nothing else came out. Whoa. He didn’t have too many words in him.

  “So,” she answered.

  Silence.

  “Do you want —” Luke cleared his throat. There had to be better words for this than do you want to have sex with me? But at the moment he couldn’t think of any. It was like a strong wind whistled in his head, scouring everything but desire from him.

  Luckily, he didn’t need words.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  He carried her to the bedroom. Hers. Probably because it was the closest.

  She’d never been carried as an adult. Actually, she couldn’t remember ever being carried as a child, either. Man, it was … it was great. Like flying. She wanted to get somewhere but didn’t have to exert any effort, all because Luke was carrying her. And not huffing and puffing, either. Perfectly naturally, like you’d carry a book somewhere.

  The entire right side of her body was against him, warm and hard. For balance, she twined her arms around his neck, her forearms resting on his strong shoulder muscles, her face against his.

  Whoa, forget self-driving cars. This was the way to travel.

  When they crossed the threshold together it felt like … like some other kind of threshold had been crossed. From the dining room, where they’d been eating, to this shadowy world of the bedroom where other things were going to happen.

  Hope felt a deep tremor of anticipation while at the same time feeling an utter calm. She’d never felt anything in her life was predestined. Everything she had in her life had been gained by hard, assiduous work. Step by step, everything planned out.

  Not this. This felt easy and natural. Meant to be. Going with the flow.

  Luke didn’t look like he felt this was easy. His face was tight, almost suffering. When they got to the bedroom, he gently eased her down to her feet, but kept one arm around her. He was so much taller than she was and held her so tightly against him, she could feel the difference in their bodies keenly. Taller than her, stronger than her, but she didn’t feel intimidated at all. If anything, she felt like she held some kind of power over him.

  He was looking down at her, face drawn, waiting.

  “Kiss me,” she whispered.

  His eyes narrowed. “Oh, yeah,” he whispered back. And kissed her. And kissed her. Mouth eating at hers, as if the boundaries between them could disappear. With the arm wrapped around her waist, Luke lifted her a little so that their mouths could align better. Oh, yeah. Her arms wound more tightly around his neck, their torsos breast to chest. She could feel a deep, regular thumping that she knew was his heartbeat. It wasn’t hers because her heart was beating a thousand times a minute.

  He licked inside her mouth and she felt an electric thrill run through her, from the top of her head to the soles of her feet. He licked again and her vagina clenched, hard. At this rate, she’d die of overstimulation before they even made it to the bed.

  Luke lifted his head, those light blue eyes glowing in the darkened room. The shadows turned him into an almost otherworldly figure, all sharp cheekbones and glowing eyes and teeth. He loosened his hold and she dropped down to her feet, rubbing against his massive erection while slipping down his body. Luke hissed in a breath.

  “Sorry,” she whispered.

  He flashed a grin, that beautiful face going from grim to amused in a second. “No problem,” he said softly. “Why are we whispering?”

  They were whispering because this felt so … so momentous. Something huge was happening, something that would split her life into two. Before Luke and After Luke. But she didn’t have the words to say that, so she just shook her head.

  Luke’s gaze was fixed on her face. “Hope. I want you like I want my next breath.”

  “But?” Surely there was a but here?

  “But.” Luke huffed out a breath. He was holding her by the shoulders, strong hands gripping her tightly. “Okay. This is hard.”

  Startled, Hope looked down. Yep, very hard.

  Unexpectedly, Luke laughed. “Yeah, that too. The thing is — God. I mean Felicity said you were very pretty and she was wrong. You’re beautiful, and – I’m messing this up.”

  Hope was watching him carefully, trying to make sense of what he was saying. Ready to agree with him, whatever it was. If he was backing down, she’d smile, shoo him out, get into bed and stare at the ceiling all night, devastated. But she’d never let him know that.

  “It’s okay.” She tried to smile, but it came out wobbly.

  “No,” he sighed. “It’s not. Like I said, Felicity told me you were really pretty but it never occurred to me because I’m focused on the job, always.”

  She blinked. “Okay.”

  “Gah.” Luke shook his head. “What I’m trying to say is that I packed for trouble, not pleasure. I don’t think it occurred to me that you’d be irresistible.”

  Whatever it was, it was her fault? Hope frowned and opened her mouth to reply but he beat her to it.

  “I don’t have condoms, honey. I’m so sorry. It’s — it’s been a while for me and even if I did have some on me, they’d probably be expired. But I don’t have any at all, not even expired ones.”

  “Oh, um …” Hope looked up at him. He was frowning. Even frowns looked so good on him. “Well, your friend Summer thought of everything when she packed that bag for me. She included, um, condoms.”

  Luke’s eyes widened and his face lit up. “Yeah?”

  “Yep.”

  “Can you get them?”

  “Yep. You’ll have to let go of me, though.”

  He opened his hands and Hope went to the wheelie. The box was at the bottom and in a second she was holding it. It was brightly colored and there were flavors. She was pondering that when Luke snatched it out of her hands, picked her up and placed her on the bed. Actually he threw her. She bounced a litt
le. His hands were shaking. So were hers.

  “Oh, man.” Luke stood by the side of the bed and looked down at her, like you’d look at a present someone had given you. “Bless you, Summer. A whole box.”

  Hope wanted to smile but somehow she’d lost control of her muscles. Heat was rippling under her skin, glowing, melting her. It was a miracle she could breathe.

  Luke bent forward, backlit and burnished gold, like some ancient god. He reached out and a shiver went through her. He unbuttoned her jeans, the back of his fingers whispering across her belly. Even greater heat was concentrating there. He knelt on the bed, making her roll gently toward him. He unzipped her jeans and his hands tugged gently, sliding them down her legs and then sliding his hands back up to her hips. Summer’s underwear was sexier than what Hope usually wore, which was white cotton athletic underwear. This was lingerie — a scrap of mint green stretchy lace with matching bra.

  Luke hooked his fingers in the elastic waistband of the panties and pulled them down. Slowly, slowly. Hope couldn’t see anything but Luke’s eyes, blazing with heat. He pulled those pretty panties off her feet and threw them to the floor.

  “Open your legs,” he whispered.

  “Okay.” Her voice came out on a soft breath. They were back to whispering.

  It was so quiet in the room she could hear the rustle of her heels moving across the bedspread. Naked below her waist she was completely open to him.

  Luke blew out a powerful breath. “I can either take off your sweater and bra or undress myself. I can’t do both. Sorry. This should be long and drawn out but that train left the station a while ago. Can you do the rest yourself?”

  Could she? Hope moved her fingers. They were working. “Yeah.”

  Lifting herself up slightly, she pulled the sweater off and threw it somewhere, hoping Summer wouldn’t mind the way her clothes were being treated.

  Luke had already pulled off his tee, unbuttoned his jeans and was shucking them. “Bra,” he reminded her, as if she’d somehow forgotten.

  She hadn’t forgotten. Her fingers felt numb. The bra had a front clasp which was fortunate, because she didn’t know if she’d have the coordination to reach around behind her back. It came off at the exact moment Luke pulled down his briefs and … oh.