“Then why’d you pack the damn thing?”
She whirled around, mouth opening to hurl a few well-chosen words in his face, but he waved a big, imperious hand at her.
“Never mind, I don’t even want to get into that.” He twisted his head to peer at the long underside of her calf. “You about finished there? I can’t just stand around here holding it all day long, Red; I gotta use the can.”
“My God.” She gave him an incredulous look. “I don’t believe you.”
“What’s not to believe? If ya gotta go, ya gotta go.”
She made a sound like steam escaping. “Fine.” Tossing the washcloth she’d used to wipe away the last of the lather into the sink, she shoved past him. “It’s all yours, you ingrate.”
She was into the main room before his voice stopped her. “Red.”
“What?” She didn’t turn around. Damn him, she should have just left while she’d had the opportunity.
“Thanks. For last night.” His voice was low, rough, and reached out to wrap itself around her. “I don’t pretend to know why you came back, but I am grateful. I feel fine this morning, and I know I owe it to you.” Then he pushed the door between them closed.
Damn. Catherine stared blindly at the rain rolling down the window through a part in the curtain. He was making her crazy. He was so arrogant. Infuriating. Too damn stubborn to see past his own blind preconceptions.
Exciting.
Ah, face it. She had pretty much made her decision this morning anyway, so why keep pretending otherwise? She was sticking around to see where this strange trip led.
For years she’d believed she wanted to live a Leave It to Beaver kind of life. Something that was normal and safe. But maybe she was a lot more like Kaylee than she’d ever imagined. And maybe that wasn’t such a terrible thing.
She was beginning to realize just how consistently she’d repressed and denied integral parts of her personality over the years. Cutting loose wasn’t necessarily the road to ruin. And acknowledging her sexuality didn’t automatically have to equate with irresponsibility. Clearly there were parts of Kaylee that were parts of her, too. Parts she’d secretly envied. Perhaps it was what she did with those parts that really counted.
She sorted through her suitcase slowly, thinking about it. By the time Sam emerged from the bathroom, she’d figured out at least one aspect.
“I was right,” he grumbled as he walked out. “You destroyed that blade. Women’s legs and men’s faces were never meant to share the same razor.” Scowling at her offending limbs, he touched a long finger to a miniscule dab of toilet paper that was stuck by a dot of blood to his jaw and then indicated the others that decorated his face. “Look at this! I’ll probably be scarred for life.”
“Aw, you poor, poor thing.” Her heart began to pound, but she didn’t hesitate; she crossed the room to stand right in front of him. Mere inches was all that separated their bodies.
Looking up to find him regarding her with a challenging wariness, she almost chickened out. If this bombed, she was going to feel like the worst kind of idiot. But she had to give it a try.
Eyes on the slight wound beneath his sullen lower lip that was her ultimate goal, she reached out to grip his shoulders, raising up onto her toes. “Here.” Hearing the lowered sultry timbre of her voice, she dabbed a nervous tongue at her lower lip. If he but knew it, for the first time, she truly sounded like Kaylee.
“Let Mama kiss it all better.”
18
SAM WENT VERY still as Catherine pressed soft, pursed lips first to the tissue-patched spot he’d pointed out to her, then to another one on his opposite cheek. Finally she kissed the one just south of his lower lip.
Was she toying with him? He could feel her heat, smell her scent, and his mouth hardened determinedly. Fine, then, two could work that angle. He liked contests. “You wanna play games?” He snaked an arm around her waist, yanking her flush against his torso. His free hand speared into her hair to hold her head still. “Play this.” He slammed his mouth down on hers.
Like fire to gunpowder, emotions exploded between them with instant combustion. Differences of opinion, individual worries, thoughts of one-upmanship went up in flames. A deep, hungry sound rumbled in Sam’s throat, and he widened his mouth over hers, seeking her flavors with the tip of his tongue. His fingers dug into her scalp, his arm tightened around her waist, and he leaned into her as the kiss climbed out of control, bending her farther and farther backwards, until all that prevented her from falling onto the floor was his grip at head and waist.
Catherine wrapped her arms around his neck and hung on, but the strain shot arrows of discomfort through the fog of her arousal. She ripped her mouth free. “My back,” she panted. “Sam, I don’t think it was intended to bend in this direction.”
“What?” A veil of sexual arousal hazed his golden eyes and only gradually did cognitive reasoning pierce it. Black lashes blinking lazily, he gazed down at her contorted posture. “Oh. Damn.”
His tongue slicked over his full lower lip. Then he straightened, easing her upright. Without a word, he dropped his arms but reached out long fingers to manacle her wrist and pull her over to the bed. There he set her free, but his head immediately lowered once again, and touching her with nothing more than his mouth, he kissed her softly. Then, with a husky growl, he kissed her more firmly.
It was rapidly sliding into something hot and out of control, their bodies plastered in each other’s arms again when, moaning softly, Catherine reached for his T-shirt at the small of his back. She pulled it free of his waistband, worked it up his torso, and, feeling his arms raise, pulled it off over his head. That broke the kiss, and she stood blinking, staring with aroused befuddlement at the fan of black hair on his muscular chest while his fingers rapidly worked the buttons on the oxford cloth shirt she wore.
His knuckles brushed her skin as he worked his way down the placket, but despite the stimulus, without his mouth on hers she began to regain the tiniest degree of sensibility. Then he bent his knees and applied his mouth to her throat. His lips were hot and skilled, and her eyes slid shut as she plunged back into the tempest. Anchoring herself by hooking her fingers through the belt loops of his jeans, she hung on. A moment later her shirt lapels were spread apart, the material pushed from her shoulders to hang from her elbows, and Sam’s mouth ceased its debauchery on her throat as he raised his head.
All motion came to an abrupt halt. Even sound seemed to cease, as Sam’s breath caught raggedly in his throat. Confused, Catherine slowly raised her eyes. Why had he stopped? Had she put him off by standing here like a dolt, letting him do all the work?
It had nothing to do with her lack of expertise, she realized the moment she looked at him. His golden brown eyes were all over her, and their hot intensity as they stared at her breasts, her waist, her hips, caused a blush to heat up her chest and climb toward her face. Her arms dropped to her side, causing the shirt to drift to the floor.
Sam felt as if he’d been kicked by a horse. His hand rubbed at the spot over his heart as he stared at her, unable to tear his eyes away. “God,” he said through tight vocal cords. “You are so…” He cleared his throat and tried again. “I have never seen anything so…Christ, so incredibly…”
“Sinful?” Catherine supplied drily when he seemed at a loss for words. “You can go ahead and say it, you know. It’s no more than what Mama always called it.”
Sam snorted. “Oh, yeah, Mom’s the person to judge a daughter’s figure, all right.” He reached out a reverent finger to the tip of one pert beige nipple. It beaded up tight beneath his touch, distending nearly half an inch while the aureole around it twisted and shrank until it all but disappeared. He shivered and stroked both hands down her sides to encircle her waist. His fingertips nearly touched. His gaze lowered to the deep indentation of her navel, the full, sweet swell of her hips, and lower still to the scrap of red satin that was all she was left wearing above those long firm thighs. “If you ask m
e, darlin’, a body like this is more of a religious experience. I know that I could spend days on my knees in front of it.” Then his eyes took a leisurely tour back up to her face. The color warming her chest stopped him cold, and he jerked his gaze up to her face. “Are you blushing?”
The incredulousness in his tone made her deny it. “Who, me? Of course not.”
He pressed a brown finger to her chest, staring at the white spot that stood out for a moment in the surrounding field of hot color when he lifted it. “The hell you’re not. You’re blushing.” His tone wasn’t exactly accusing. But it was close.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Her chin angled up at him. “Women like me display our naked bodies for dozens of lovers. We wear G-strings and feathers and strut our stuff in front of hundreds of men. Thousands. We don’t blush.”
It was no more than a confirmation of everything he’d ever thought. Why, then, did he suddenly find her statement doubtful?
You really want to think about that right now, Boscoe?
With a soft curse, he jerked her into his arms, then hissed through his teeth at the feel of her breasts flattening against his diaphragm. Gripping a slippery fistful of hair, he pulled her head back. “Shut up,” he muttered. “Just shut up, Red, and kiss me.”
Her green eyes flashed defiance but her mouth raised to his in instant compliance. It was soft and sweet, and he made love to it with his tongue, sliding in and out in an increasingly compulsive motion. Within moments her arms were clinging to his neck and one long leg had raised to hook around his hip as she did her best to climb his body.
Sam growled deep in his throat and tipped them onto the lumpy mattress. He rolled on top of her, spreading her legs to make a place for himself between them. He wedged his erection hard up against her cleft.
Sensation rocketed through Catherine, and she mewled into his ravaging mouth. An instant later she was left panting as he ripped his lips away and moved down her body. She tipped her pelvis up, but his sex had been replaced by hard stomach muscle and the satisfaction level was simply not the same. “Oh, please,” she pleaded, widening her thighs and rubbing herself against him. “Please, Sam.”
“What do you want, darlin’?” He stroked his cheek against the side of her breast, watching her. “This?” Opening his mouth, he took a gentle bite out of the fullness. Then he released it and moved an inch inward and a little to the south to open his lips over fresh territory. “This?” Sinking his mouth into her pale, pale flesh with its faint tracery of blue veins, he drew a section hard against his teeth.
Her nipple distended, blindly seeking similar treatment. Sam’s mouth went slack. “God,” he whispered hoarsely. He went after it like a zealot after an unclaimed soul. He wrapped his lips around the proffered morsel and sucked, while his long brown fingers caught and plucked at its unattended mate.
His name left her throat in a long, attenuated moan. She pushed her mound restlessly against his stomach. “Oh, please. Oh, please.”
He growled and opened his lips wide around her nipple, and Catherine watched helplessly as he extended his tongue to lap as far down the full curve as he could reach without losing his place at its beaded peak. His big, dark-skinned hand stroked and molded the other globe.
Since the day she’d developed, her breasts had been a source of embarrassment to her. But this morning, for perhaps the first time in her life, she liked them, was proud of them. Seeing him pay homage to the generous curves as if he wanted to consume them gave her an incredible rush of power.
She’d never realized what an aphrodisiac that could be.
His fingers released her and he gauged her expression closely as he insinuated his hand between their bodies and slid it, palm flat, down her diaphragm, her stomach, lower. He stopped with the heel of his hand resting feather-light against her pubic bone as he probed her navel with the tip of his forefinger. Then he slowly rotated his hand, and his fingers slid beneath red satin onto her downy mound.
It rose eagerly to his touch, and his middle finger divided slick feminine folds with unerring accuracy, zeroing in like a heat-seeking missile on the slippery pearl of her clitoris. Feathering it with his fingertip, he simultaneously clamped his lips around her nipple, sucking it firmly into his mouth.
With a soft shriek, Catherine arched up off the bed. For a moment, only the back of her head and the heels of her feet anchored her to solid ground.
Sensations throbbed and roared, clamoring for completion. Never in her life had she experienced feelings like this. The few times her sexuality had threatened to run away with her in the past, she had firmly clamped a lid on it. But the passion that whipped through her blood now had absolutely no intention of being denied, and whimpering, she fisted her hands in his black hair to hold him to the breast she thrust upward. Hips involuntarily instigating their own bump and grind, she spread her thighs to experience more of the magic of his fingers. “Oh, please, Sam. Please. I want you.” His touch slipped and slid between her legs and she chanted mindlessly. “Want you, want you, want you.”
Releasing her breast with an audible pop, Sam pushed up onto his knees between her legs. He slid his hand from her panties and stared down at her. Her eyes were dark with arousal, her nipple wet and ruddy from his mouth. “God, you’re sweet,” he muttered, and reached out impatient hands to peel the scrap of satin from her hips. Gaze drawn to the triangle of downy curls gracing her mound, he stilled. Oh, sweet Jesus. She was a redhead all right.
All over.
He touched the bright curls with reverent fingertips. “Where?” he demanded hoarsely, stroking his thumb along her cleft. “Where do you want me, Red?” He lightly circled her opening, pressing without penetrating. “Here?”
“Sam?” She moved convulsively against his hand.
He caught her chin in his free hand and tilted it until she looked at him. His thumb continued to torment her. “Tell me where you want me.”
“Inside me?” She licked her lips. “Please, Sam, I want to feel you inside of me.”
He ripped at the fastenings on his jeans, then shoved to his feet on the bed to stand between her sprawled thighs as he shucked out of his pants and shorts. He saw her eyes zero in on the erection that sprang out proud and eager above her. Watched as her big eyes rounded and the little yearning movements of her hips stilled. Saw her swallow hard.
His brows pulled together. He was hardly a stallion, just a guy with an average, run-of-the-mill-sized cock. One he could drive nails with at the moment, maybe, but nothing she need regard as if it would rip her asunder. It must be the angle.
That didn’t compute, though. Even if he appeared hung like a horse from her viewpoint, why would that give her pause? Well hung was generally the experienced woman’s preference. Unless…
No. He rolled his shoulders uneasily at the thought that cropped up in his brain, made even more uneasy at the emotion it prompted. Hastily he dropped to his knees between her thighs. No second thoughts.
Second, third, and fourth thoughts assailed Catherine as she watched Sam reach for protection and roll it down, down, down the length of his penis. She didn’t know if the thing was truly as massive and capable of doing damage as it appeared to be, or if it had simply been so long since she’d seen one of those bad boys that she’d lost all sense of perspective.
She almost laughed. Yeah, right. Like she’d ever seen all that many in the first place—never mind actually inspected one this closely.
Nerves were definitely gaining the upper hand and she was on the verge of calling the whole thing off when he fell forward over her. He caught himself on his palms and propped himself up on stiff arms. She found herself staring up into his golden brown eyes, mesmerized by the intensity that burned in their depths.
“We sorta lost momentum,” he murmured huskily, and bent his elbows, lowering his chest to brush back and forth across her breasts. Black hair brushed her jaw as his mouth attached itself to the side of her throat with soft suction.
Catherine’s
nipples, newly softened, sprang to full, erect attention, and sensations she’d thought killed deader than a doornail by her nerves roared like an out-of-control freight train back to life. She arched her back, flattening the aching globes of her breasts against his chest.
Sam’s head reared up at the contact and she saw his mouth pull back from his teeth. His eyes stared blindly at the wall as he moved against her like a huge domesticated cat, rubbing himself up and down, side to side, shoulders and arms flexing with his efforts. Then his sex bumped hers, and he inhaled sharply through his teeth. His chin lowered, and slits of gold gleamed at her demandingly through narrowed black lashes. His hips pressed forward.
“Let me in.”
She’d have been helpless to resist even if she’d wanted to. Pulling her knees back, she opened herself up to him.
It made her as vulnerable as a woman could be, but he pushed into her slowly, with care. Blood-rich tissues, swollen and sensitized, parted to accommodate him, then immediately closed around every inch of the thickness that invaded her. He pulled back slightly, dragging against the hugging sheath, then thrust a little deeper. A whimper of need shuddered in her throat, and she hooked her ankles behind his thighs. Her hands gripped his buttocks and gave a shy, encouraging little yank.
“Oh, yes.” Sam pulled his hips back and then slammed them forward, seating himself fully inside her. He held himself still, fighting for breath. Looking down into her face, he saw a strand of bright hair that had flopped across one eye, and he brushed it away. “God. You. Are. So. Tight.” It was like being squeezed into a hot, wet, velvet glove one size too small. Rocking his hips with shallow, subtle strokes, he watched the parade of emotions that crossed her face. The desire for more. The helpless wonder. She licked her lips and clung to him and returned his gaze with dazed eyes.
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