by Jill Shalvis
There was an actual tremor in his voice, and in tune with it, my heart quivered. “You wouldn’t,” I said softly, shaken by his fear.
“I’m not thrilled with any of this shit. I’m not.”
I was beginning to see that. I just didn’t know what to do about it, or about another, new revelation I had. “Truth or dare?” I whispered.
“What? Rach—”
“Pick one.”
He sighed. “Truth.”
“Okay, here’s my truth. I really like the Kel you are, right here, right now. So much that that scares me more than anything that’s happened to us so far.”
Chapter 16
H e stared at me for a long beat, then turned away. “I’m different here.”
“Kel, you have the same heart.” I put my hands on his arms and tried to turn him back to face me. I say tried because the guy dug in his heels and was nearly impossible to budge. Only when I made a sound of frustration did he allow me to turn him. “I want you,” I whispered. “You, Kel.”
His baby blues met mine, and I let him see everything I was feeling. With a groan, he dropped his forehead to mine, his broad shoulders eclipsing the light so that it was just him and me and nothing else.
His hands came up and gripped my waist, not pulling me in, but not pushing me away either. His eyes were stubborn, but softening, as he just looked at me.
“This thing between us is temporary,” he said, in the old refrain.
“How do you know?”
“Your own motto, Rach. Nothing good lasts forever. Remember?”
I stared at him. “I remember,” I whispered, wishing I didn’t, wishing that I’d never believed such a thing. But I did…“I want this to be different. God, I wish this could be different. Just this one thing.”
He closed his eyes, then opened them again. “Don’t you dare regret this,” he said fiercely, his hands already gliding down my back, cupping my butt, pulling me close so that I could feel his reaction, at which it was impossible to hold back my sigh of pleasure.
“Love that sound,” he murmured, and lifted his head, noting the desk behind him. Turning me, he used his body to press me back against it, those eyes darkening with things that made my belly quiver.
Other things quivered, too, and I bit my lower lip. “Are we going to…”
“Up.” Then he lifted me, plopping me down on the desk.
I could tell myself he was the same guy I’d always known, the slightly goofy, always sweet, unfailingly steady Kellan, but the evidence told me otherwise. The old Kel wasn’t this bold, this daring, this sexually sure of himself.
And God help me, I liked this bold, daring, sexually-sure-of himself Kel.
Very much.
In fact, I could hardly breathe, I liked him so much.
“Here, Kel?”
Reaching around me, he swiped a hand across the surface of the desk, knocking the telephone, files and paperwork all to the floor in one motion, then looked at me, silent, letting me draw my own conclusion.
Oh. My. “Okay, here,” I said shakily.
He pulled off one of my tennis shoes, tossed it over my shoulder.
“Hurry,” I whispered.
His eyes cut to mine as he gave the other shoe the same treatment.
“So you like it when I completely lose it?”
I liked it so much, I couldn’t speak. I think I managed a nod.
“Yeah? Then try this.” Putting a hand on each of my thighs, he nudged them open, then stepped between so that I couldn’t close them.
He’d turned into every badass I’d ever fantasized about. “Um. Kel? Now?”
He pulled off my sweatshirt.
I couldn’t breathe. “Are you going to say anything at all?”
“Now.”
The air stuck in my throat, and a shiver of thrill raced down my spine, as I gripped the desk on either side of my hips for dear life.
Kel reached for the hem of my camisole. “Arms,” he said in a gruff whisper.
I lifted my hands up and felt my breasts spring free as he pulled off the shirt. His gaze was still holding mine, but then he let it drop, drinking in his fill of me with a sigh of pleasure so real, so deep, that I felt the answering tug in my womb.
His fingers went to the waistband of my pj bottoms.
“Um,” I said, momentarily sidetracked by the thought of being bare-ass naked to his fully clothed self, but he didn’t give me much time to dwell on this, because he slowly but firmly began to tugg my pj bottoms down over my hips.
“Um—”
“You already said that.”
Another tug had the pj’s to my thighs.
Then to my knees…
I was wearing a smiley-face thong with lace trim that made him go utterly still for a beat.
“Oh man,” he groaned, and abandoned my pj’s, dangling off one ankle, to trace a finger over the lace. “You take my breath. Every single time.”
“There’s been only one time.”
“Every single time I look at you.”
I stared down at his bent head, a little stunned by this revelation. “Kel—”
But he surged up and kissed me, long and wet and deep, and that, combined with his questing finger, drained any thoughts right out of my head.
Then he dropped to his knees, scraped my thong to one side and leaned in and put his mouth on me.
Oh. My. God. I fell back against the desk, gripping the wood at my sides like an anchor, as he took me on a rocking ride that left me unable to control my senses. Lights burst behind my eyeballs, my blood rushed through my veins, roaring in my ears, so that I couldn’t hear a damn thing. I think I probably cried out, maybe even screamed his name, but I didn’t have enough self-awareness left to be embarrassed. All I could do was ride it out, wave after wave, only to have him bring me up yet again, and again…
Finally I came back to myself, only to hear what sounded like Frankenstein gulping air in and out of a set of taxed lungs. “Someone’s breathing loud,” I whispered.
“That’s you.”
I opened my eyes. Kellan was leaning over me, a hand on either side of my head, bracing his weight off me.
He’d just given me the most amazing oral sex of my life, and I think, given the way his eyes glittered, he probably knew it.
And the crazy breathing? It was me. Damn, how mortifying. But the more I tried to control it, the more ragged it sounded. “Sorry.” I tried to sit up, but he held me down.
“Don’t be sorry. I like knowing I can do that to you.”
I ran my gaze down his body, stopping at the unmistakable bulge behind his button fly. “Tell me you have a condom.”
With a sheepish smile that said he wasn’t all Superman all the time, a fact that possibly endeared him to me all the more, he pulled one out of his pocket. “It’s one of yours.”
“You were hoping—”
“More like praying.”
I laughed, and realized that was a first—laughing with a man I wanted so badly, I was shaking for him. I took the condom out of his hand and tore the packet open.
He opened his jeans.
I slipped my hands inside.
He hissed out a breath.
“Good?” I murmured, melting all over again.
“Cold,” he muttered. “Christ, your fingers are ice.”
“Baby.”
He hissed again, but since I could feel him growing, swelling, even more, I didn’t worry. In fact, I grinned. “You still want me.”
“Go figure.”
Watching him put on the condom, his jaw tight enough to be jumping, the tendons in his neck standing out in bold relief, his arms and shoulders tense, was an experience I’ll never forget. I pushed up his shirt for the sheer pleasure of watching his abs contract beneath my fingers, and had barely pulled the material over his head when he eased himself into me.
The pure gratification of the connection stunned us both into immobility. I could feel him, thick and pulsing inside me, could
feel his tremors, and knew how rigidly he controlled himself. I didn’t want that, so I wrapped my legs around him, driving him forward, deep enough to make me gasp.
“Jesus.” His gorgeous eyes went blind, and he dropped his forehead to mine. “Am I hurting you?”
“Only if you don’t move.”
“I’m trying to make it last longer than two seconds,” he managed.
“It’s been longer than two seconds.”
“Rach—”
I dug my heels into the small of his back, and I bit his jaw.
“So violent,” he murmured, but still held back.
“Kel, I want you as out of control as I was!”
His eyes softened. “Ah, Rach. Don’t you know that you look at me and I’m out of control?”
“Love me,” I whispered. “Please? Just love me.”
That did it, and finally, finally, he began to move, watching himself fill me in a way I couldn’t remember ever being filled before. I closed my eyes to savor the feeling, and also, maybe, to hide a little.
“No,” he whispered, open and honest in a way that didn’t come as easily for me. “Rach, look at me.”
With a struggle, I opened my eyes, struck by the combination of tenderness and affection and heat I found in his.
“Yeah,” he breathed, his own beautiful gaze holding mine prisoner now. “Love that.”
I’d never done this, connected like this, eyes open, heart open…and by doing so, I found myself giving so much more than I’d ever given before. I gave him all of me, everything I had, and a bit afraid, I clutched at him.
“I’m right here with you,” he promised softly, and bending for a kiss, finally took me where I wanted to go.
Oblivion.
And he was right next to me the entire way.
When I could breathe again, I realized I had my face plastered into Kel’s neck and my fingers embedded low on his back. I pulled back slowly, and blew the hair out of my face.
Kel looked no less shaken as he pulled me upright on the desk. “What the hell is that?”
“Don’t worry,” I said, smiling into his unsmiling face. “I don’t think it’s fatal.”
He looked at me for another long beat, then nodded. “That’s a relief.”
But then he turned away, leaving me vaguely uneasy.
“Kel?”
“Truth or dare.”
“Truth,” I whispered.
He didn’t turn to face me. “You really think this would be happening between us if we hadn’t come here? You know, to the sexually healing B&B from hell.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it, not wanting to lie. I honestly had no idea how it was that I’d not been so attracted to him before. It had taken this trip, being within such close proximity—
“Never mind,” he said, again fiddling with the Blackberry. “We have more important things to do. Such as figuring out what the dot means for tomorrow.”
Our gazes met, and the somber knowledge flitted between us. As bad as things were, we both knew it could get worse, so much, much worse. I tried to think about it, but I was so tired, I yawned widely.
Kel tucked both the Blackberry and the laptop beneath his sweatshirt. “Bed,” he said in a quiet, authoritative voice that I was beginning to react to like I suspected his dolphins did. Kellan McInty, animal whisperer. Rachel whisperer.
“You need some sleep before we figure out the rest of this swap thing,” he said. “And so do I. Back to the guest house.”
“With one little pit stop on the way.”
“Let me guess. The freezer?”
“Problem?”
“No. I don’t care if you eat every last cookie in the place. As long as Marilee doesn’t find out.”
“Why? Are you afraid of her?”
He stood there, shirt a bit wrinkled from the time it’d spent wadded on the floor, his jeans disturbingly low on his hips, looking good enough to jump. Again.
“Actually, I have bigger things to fear at the moment,” he said.
Which left me to wonder. Did he mean the swap, the impending dot…or me?
Chapter 17
We escaped the office and made our way through the dark inn, me in front leading the way with my night-vision abilities in order to save Kellan’s toes and shins. I steered us through the living room and into the kitchen. The wood stove was still hot, with embers glowing red. We were halfway across the floor when a creak sounded from above.
“Did you hear that?” I asked.
“Yeah.” Kellan had one hand in mine, and he was so close behind me that I could feel his warm breath brush my temple, blowing bangs into my eyes. He felt big and warm and safe, and right then and there, I experienced a warm fuzzy the likes of which I’d never experienced before.
Or I would have felt warm and fuzzy if I could have shaken off the sense of impending doom.
“What was it?” I asked.
The sound came again.
Someone was moving around quietly, not wanting to be heard.
Kellan squeezed my hip, putting his mouth to my ear. “Can you focus on it? Who is it?”
Damn, I kept forgetting I could tell. I looked up, and sighed. “Marilee. She’s pacing her bedroom.”
“Why?” he wondered.
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s get out of here.”
“Yes, but first…” I headed straight for the freezer and grabbed a few cookies, offering one to Kel, who shook his head. Damn, that was probably how he stayed so much leaner than me.
We went out into the night. Again, that odd sense of noisy silence surrounded us—air rustling through the trees, a coyote calling in the distance…
Or some other wild animal that I didn’t want to meet.
The stars scattered across the black-velvet sky lit our way, but I’d have rather been home, with so many city lights, they drowned out the stars.
Inside the guest house, Kel set the laptop and Blackberry on the coffee table, and took me straight to the bedroom, where he pulled back the covers on the prissy, lacy bed and waited until I obediently slipped between the sheets.
“You coming in?” I asked, and batted my eyes.
“Bad idea.”
“I’m cold.”
He pulled the covers up to my chin, tucking them in, as if looking at me would weaken his resolve. “I’m not falling for that one.”
“I am cold.”
He put his hands on his hips, looking tense, rough around the edges and slightly temperamental. “You want me to crawl in there with you and share my body heat.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And other things.”
“You’re quick, Kel.”
“I need to think. And I can’t do that when you’re near me.”
“Ah, that’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
If possible, he looked even more tense. “I’m not feeling particularly sweet, Rach.”
Well, if that wasn’t arousing. Tossing the covers aside, I came up to my knees on the mattress. I cupped his beautiful face and looked deep into his drown-in-me eyes. “I want you.”
“For now.”
“At the moment, now is all we have.” And besides, thinking ahead to what I’d want tomorrow, or the day after that, wasn’t in my genetic makeup. “Can’t that be enough?”
A shuddery sigh escaped him, and his hands came up to my hips, squeezed. His voice, when he spoke, sounded tortured. “No.”
He said it so gently, it took a moment for it to sink in.
“But—”
His arms came around me, and I felt the softening in him that I needed, even as his body became harder than ever. The hug clogged my throat with emotion, because I knew it was a good-bye hug. I held on, and closed my eyes. “You make me feel so safe, Kel.”
“You are safe. I’ll make sure of it. Even when—or if—I change back.”
I blinked back tears. “Another promise.”
“I mean it.”
No one had
ever said such a thing to me before, in a voice so fierce I didn’t doubt he’d keep me safe if it meant his own life.
I’d never wanted anyone to say such a thing. I don’t know if I was ready to want him to.
I wasn’t.
Of course, I wasn’t.
I was young. Twenty-seven. I was a modern woman who could take care of herself. I always had.
But a small part of me stared at him with a bunch of what-ifs suddenly flowing through my head.
But before I could finish processing, a shockingly loud BOOM sounded, shaking the ground beneath us. The shelves rattled, the furniture jumped.
Not to mention us.
With an oath, Kellan grabbed me off the bed and dragged me to the doorway, but as fast and loud and hard as the Earth had rumbled, it stopped.
Everything went completely, almost unnaturally, still. Not a sound, not a remnant shudder, nothing.
And then, from out of the darkness and through the windows, came a high-pitched scream.
“Marilee?” I gasped, reaching for Kellan. “Was that Marilee?”
I’d never seen him so grim. He pushed me back into the bedroom while at the same time flipping off the light, flipping off all the lights. “Wait right here,” he said urgently. “Stay still, and don’t make a sound, all right?”
“Kel—”
“Say you’ll do it.” He pushed me behind the door, thrusting something into my hands.
I stared down through the dark at his flashlight. “I don’t need—”
“Listen to me. This thing is heavy. If you swing it just right—”
“Kel—”
“A nice hit to the head will make an assailant kiss the floor long enough for you to get away.”
“Oh my God.”
“Promise me you’ll use it if you need to.”
“I don’t—”
“Promise me.”
He was so fierce, so serious, and I think that scared me more than anything else had so far. “You think something very bad is happening.”
“Promise me, Rach.”
“I promise,” I said very quietly, instead of clinging, as I really, really wanted to do.
And then he was walking away from me, hands out in front of him, staggering slightly, heading directly for the coffee table instead of the door. “Kel—”