Then Catherine’s lush breasts flattened against his back, her mound and her thighs nestled spoon-fashion into his backside, and her slender hands slid around his waist. His stomach muscles jumped beneath the froth of lather she worked up on their surface, and he rose up on the balls of his feet, willing those industrious hands to go a little lower, please, ah, God, just…a…little…lower.
Then they did, and his breath exploded from his lungs. He pushed into her touch and looked down to see himself emerge dark and angry-looking against the white lather of soapsuds and long, pale fingers. He contracted his hips and disappeared into her fisted hands. Then he thrust forward again. “Oh, God, Red,” he muttered. “I want in you.”
He spun them both around and Catherine found herself with her back to the enclosure wall and Sam in a half squat between her legs. His big hands swallowed up her breasts. They massaged, and pressed, and pulled, then shifted until her nipples popped through spread fingers. His fingers closed, and the massaging, the pressing, the pulling began again. Little mewling sounds crawled up her throat.
His mouth kissed, licked, sucked its way down her stomach, her waist. His tongue probed her navel, then he kissed her abdomen. A moment later he was crouched between her feet, looking up at her, his eyes glints of gold between narrowed black lashes. “Spread your legs for me, Catherine.”
Flushing, she did as he commanded, and then bit her knuckles to muffle her cry as his mouth moved up to kiss her there, too, his agile tongue lapping apart sensitive folds of flesh.
“Sam, ohSam, ohSam, ohSam,” she repeated over and over, and her hands tangled in his dark hair, attempting to pull him away one moment and then holding him fiercely in place the next, before he raised his head again and sat back on his heels. Licking his lips, he stared up at her with burning eyes. Then, surging to his feet, he grasped her hips, lifted her against the wall, and buried himself in her in one smooth, controlled motion.
“Ah, Jesus, Catherine,” he growled in her ear. “You feel so damn good.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck but didn’t quite know what to do with her legs. The position raised her onto her toes and she tentatively hooked one leg over his hip, bracing the sole of her foot against his calf. That felt a bit more secure but still awkward.
“Both of ’em, darling’.” He grasped her bottom and hiked her up. She gasped to feel her feet leave the ground. Clutching at his neck, she instinctively raised both legs to grip his hips as well, then whimpered at the fullness inside that stretched her to capacity.
“Yes. Like that,” he approved, and started to move. “Just like that.”
Hot water hit her underarm and the side of her breast; it drummed against her waist, trickled over her outer thigh and cantilevered knee. Sam’s hands gripped her bottom, his chest hair rasped her nipples, and the emphatic thrust and retreat of his iron-hard sex abraded oversensitized nerves deep inside. She was immediately ready to explode but longed to make it last. Panting, tightening her grip until she feared she’d strangle him, she tried to pull herself to a plane where the feelings weren’t so intense in order to hold back.
Sam wasn’t having it. “Oh, no you don’t,” he muttered hoarsely. He bent his knees for better leverage and surged into her, reaching for the heart of her with every thrust. He felt the rhythm lift and drop the full globes of the breasts pressed hard against his chest, felt the clamp of smooth arms around his neck and firm thighs around his hips. Lowering his head, he laved her ear with his tongue and encouraged her to come with dark, whispered urgings.
Savage satisfaction burst deep in his gut when her head thunked back against the wall and his name emerged from her throat in a low wail. He watched a flush spread over her pale cheeks, her eyes darken and lose focus, and felt a sense of power that owed nothing to his size or strength. Then the tight, hot sheath clasping him, milking him, sent him over the edge in her wake. Gritting out her name between clenched teeth, he thrust deep, a guttural groan wrenched from him with each scalding pulsation he jetted into her.
He sank to sit cross-legged on the floor of the tub, with Catherine draped astride his lap, her long legs loosely crossed behind his back. Her arms flopped over his back, her chin rested in the angle where his neck met his shoulder. He accepted her full weight, running a gentle finger up and down the bumps in her spine as she sagged limply in his arms.
“Wow,” she whispered several minutes later, without bothering to raise her head. She felt as if someone had removed her entire skeletal structure. Enervated to the point of inertia, her limbs were heavy, her muscles lax, only the persistent after-twinges in the nerve-rich passage that still encased him showing signs of life. Lazily, she tightened interior muscles to prolong the feeling.
And felt him pulse once inside her.
“Oh.” She repeated the exercise and felt him do the same. What had been half-hard was suddenly three-quarters hard.
And gaining strength.
“Sam?” she whispered.
In reply he pressed his thighs toward the tub floor, the movement sliding her down his phallus, burying him deep. Relaxing his knees made his thighs raise off the floor and lifted her up a few inches.
Her twinges became a full-fledged throb. “Oh my God. Sam?”
With lazy precision he butterflied his splayed thighs up and down. “Reach behind you and turn off the water, Red.”
When she found the strength to comply, he bent his head to nuzzle the breast the action thrust forward. “We may be here a while,” he said roughly. “I wouldn’t want you to drown.”
23
BOBBY HAD JUST maneuvered himself into a little slice of heaven when the phone rang. He had Kaylee with her skirt rucked up around her waist, facedown on the bed, where he was busy complying with the invitation extended by the pursed lips of her little red tattoo.
He raised his head at the unexpected interruption. “I don’t suppose you’re gonna let me ignore that.”
She was tempted. Lord was she tempted! His mouth, fitted so precisely to the lips on her rear, was soft, hot, and it had been sooo looonnng.
However…
She rocked up onto her hands and knees and reached forward to grab the receiver off the phone on the nightstand. “Hello,” she said just as Bobby’s mouth resumed its activity. But this time, his fingers joined in the game just a few inches to the southeast, and she had to bite back a moan.
“Kaylee, it’s Scott,” said the caller. “Your sister just used your Visa to charge a room at the Mountain Crest Inn in Fort Collins, Colorado.”
She reached back to grasp Bobby’s wrist and halt his marauding fingers. “Was she alone?”
“I don’t know, but it was her who signed for it, not the bounty hunter. And if prices are anything to go by, the place is a lot nicer than the usual dives he’s been checking her into.”
“Oh, my God, Scott, thank you.” She reseated the receiver and flipped over. “He found her.” She grinned at the hot-eyed male crouched at the foot of the bed. “Bobby! He found her! And it’s possible she’s alone.”
She started to scoot off the bed, but he grabbed her ankle and yanked her flat. He swarmed up the mattress to loom over her, his warm hand stroking down her stomach.
“Not so fast, baby. That’s real good news, but another ten minutes isn’t going to make or break the schedule.” His fingers slid back to their warm nest between her legs.
“Come on, Bobby, this is serious.” She dislodged his hand and rolled away.
“Damn!” He flopped onto his back. “I’m starting to seriously dislike your sister.”
Kaylee’s hands stilled. She set down the top she had picked up to fold and turned to look at him. Frustration rolled off him in waves as he glowered back at her. “Ah, don’t be like that. Please. None of this is Catherine’s fault.”
He looked less than convinced, and it struck her that she was harboring some serious frustrations of her own. Which left her, oh goody gumdrops, with another adult-type decision to make. This being r
esponsible was stressful stuff. How did Cat deal with it on a daily basis?
But back to the decision. Well, let’s see. She could snap Bobby’s head off for failing to fall in with her plans with better grace…or she could take care of the source of the problem for both of them.
She felt a slow smile tug up the corner of her mouth. Big contest.
“You know what? You’re right.” She laughed and dived back onto the bed, rolling to lie on top of him. “I mean, what can I say, big fella—when you’re right, you’re right.” She wriggled around, nestling her breasts on his chest, and grinned down at him. “Ten minutes one way or the other’s not gonna make or break the schedule.”
Sam’s fingers had been drumming out a nervous rhythm against the tabletop ever since he’d sat down in one of the easy chairs, tucked the phone receiver between his ear and shoulder, and punched out his Florida number. Breaking off mid-drum, he brought his little finger up, wiggled it in his free ear and withdrew it, inspecting its perfectly clean tip. Clearly he’d heard exactly what he thought he’d heard. Nevertheless, he said in disbelief, “You started what?”
“Computer classes, man,” Gary’s voice replied down the line. “I told you a couple a weeks ago I’d signed up for ’em. Damn, you gotta pay more attention when I’m talkin’ to ya.”
“Computers,” he repeated blankly. His fingers slowly resumed their rhythm against the laminated surface of the tabletop. What was this? Gary had always scorned any job that would keep him indoors.
“Yeah, who’d a thunk it, huh? Turns out I have a real aptitude for the suckers. And it’s a great way to meet chicks, Sam—more than half the class is sweet young things. There’s this especially fine little blonde, sits next to me—the girl’s really strugglin’ to comprehend this stuff. I’ve helped her out a couple of times, and now she thinks I’m smarter ’n Alex Trebek.” Gary’s raspy laugh scratched its way down the line. “We’re going out Friday night. So, hey, how about you? Still got the showgirl chained to your bed?”
Sam’s fingers once again stilled. Shit. This was the part he’d been dreading. He levered himself upright and stretched the phone cord over to the window. “Uh, about her, Gare. There’s sorta good news and bad news. The good news—for me, anyhow—is that she’s pretty much in my bed voluntarily now.”
“No shit? Way to go, Sambo.”
“Yeah, but, uh, the bad news is, turns out she’s not the showgirl after all. She’s her twin sister.”
There was dead silence for a moment. Then Gary said in a strangled voice, “You grabbed the wrong sister?”
“Yeah.”
“Dudley Do-Right McKade grabbed the wrong sister?”
Jaw clenched, blind to the view on the other side of the glass, Sam braced his forearm against the window frame. His fist rose up, then thumped down, once, twice, three times.
Gary’s laughter rolled down the line. “Oh, God,” he gasped. “That’s beautiful. So, if this one doesn’t strut her stuff in minimum clothing for a living, what does she do?”
“Teaches the deaf,” he mumbled.
“Say what? Ya gotta speak up, Sam, I didn’t quite catch that.”
“She teaches the deaf!”
Gary laughed himself sick.
“I’m glad you’re so amused,” Sam interrupted. “Because this means I’m gonna get bugger-all as bounty for her. And that means that unless I can find something else pretty damn pronto, the lodge is history.”
The laughter stopped. “Ah, shit, man, have you been worryin’ about that?” Before Sam could even begin to formulate a reply, Gary blew out a breath. “’Course you have. Sam, listen to me,” he said in a suddenly serious voice. “That’s probably just as well.”
“Dammit, Gare, you don’t have to spare my feelings. I know I really screwed this up.”
“Fuck your feelings, man. How the hell am I supposed to meet women in the wilds of North Carolina? Fishing lodges are usually chock-full of men—how many times did we ever go to that place when there were any chicks? Once, right? And the girl could cut bait, no doubt about it, but she chewed Red Man, Sam.”
“You loved it there.”
“Sure I did; it was a great place to get away…when I was meeting women on base or in town. But it’s not the place for me now. Screw the lodge, man. Go join a police force somewhere.”
Sam was still standing in the same place, in shock, brooding over the conversation, when Catherine let herself into the room fifteen minutes later. She smiled at him and wafted two fragrant bags in his direction.
“Barbecued beef sandwiches,” she said. “Nice and sloppy.” Noticing the phone still in his hands, she quirked an eyebrow. “You get hold of your friend?”
“Yeah.”
She observed the sullen slant of his mouth, the moody eyes, both of which were a far cry from the lazy satisfaction of the man she’d left just a short while ago, and paused in laying out the food. “Uh-oh. He was furious, huh?”
“No, ma’am.” Sam came over to the small table. Picking up a sandwich, he peeled back a corner of the wrapper and tore off a huge bite. Jaws working furiously, he chewed, and then swallowed audibly. He impaled her with furious golden eyes. “He says it’s just as well the financing’s going to fall through on the lodge, because it’s not what he really wants anyhow.”
She lowered her own sandwich and swallowed the much daintier bite she had taken. “But…that’s good, isn’t it?”
He looked at her as if she’d said something unutterably stupid. “It’s bullshit, is what it is.”
“’Scuse me?”
“I said it’s bullshit. I’m supposed to believe he doesn’t want the place after all, because he can’t meet women at a fishing lodge?”
That arrested her attention. “Oh! Can he still…?” She made a vague movement with one hand, glancing instinctively at Sam’s crotch, then hastily away, embarrassed to be so curious about someone else’s sex life.
“Hell, yes he can still”—his explicit hand gesture mocked the genteel movement hers had made. “The man lives for pussy; he always has.” He noticed the slight wash of color that rose in her cheeks and felt a flash of shame for his crudeness. “Sorry,” he muttered. Still, the basic premise was true, and he thrust his chin out at her. “But it’s a fact, dammit. It’s the one thing that hasn’t changed since the day we met. He’s a hound for women and he’s pursuing ’em as diligently as ever.”
“So…I don’t get it. What makes it so difficult to believe then that he might want to stay in a place where they’re more readily available?”
“Come on, Red, computers?” He ripped off another bite of sandwich and chewed furiously.
Her eyebrows furrowed. “You’ve lost me.”
“He says he’s discovered a fuckin’ aptitude for computers!”
“And this is bad, because…?”
“Because he lived for the challenge of police work every bit as much as I did. And he always said he’d rather be dead than work at an indoor job!”
“For crying out loud, Sam!” She stared at him, incredulous that a guy so savvy could be so obtuse. “The man’s life is not what it used to be, and it never will be again. But, bless his heart, he’s getting on with it all the same. He’s still chasing women—which has to take guts from a wheelchair—and he’s actively pursuing something to replace what he used to do. What part of that, exactly, don’t you understand?”
“The part where he told me to screw the lodge and go join a police force somewhere!” He threw the remains of the sandwich into the sack. “Don’t you get it, Red? He’s doing this for me.”
“Uh-huh. Well, let’s just agree for a moment with that interpretation. You’re going to—what?—throw his generosity back in his face? Save him in spite of himself?” She set down her own sandwich. “My God, there’s nothing wrong with your ego, is there?”
“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
Because she could see that he honestly didn’t, she tried to rein in her rising
impatience. “You assume way too much responsibility for other people’s problems,” she gently pointed out—only to be immediately interrupted.
“This isn’t about ‘other people,’” he said impatiently. “This is about Gary. Whose life I messed up.”
“Arrrgh!” She clutched fistfuls of her hair and tugged until her eyelids stretched. She glared up at him. “Dammit, Sam, you are the most stubborn pain in the ass I have ever met!”
He looked thoroughly insulted. “Because I don’t shirk my responsibilities?”
“Who asked you to shoulder the damn things in the first place? Gary? I doubt that.” She poked his hard chest with an irate finger. “He’s a fully adult male. Who the hell are you to decide he’s not competent to know what he wants?”
“I never did that,” Sam roared. He took a large step forward, pushing his face close to hers, as if he could intimidate her by sheer size and proximity into taking back the accusation.
She pushed right back, angling to get her nose up under his. “In a pig’s eye—that’s exactly what you’re doing. You’re always so damn ready to take on everybody’s problems. Well, maybe you should trust and respect your friends’ abilities. Maybe we’d like to be accountable for our own actions. Did that ever occur to you? Huh? Did it, huh?”
He grabbed the finger jabbing him in the sternum and stared baffled into her furious green eyes. “Whataya mean, we? When did I ever step on your precious accountability?”
“Good God, Sam! What was it you said this morning—that you didn’t think you could bear up under the burden if Chains shot me?”
“Well, shit, I couldn’t.”
She made a sound like steam escaping a teakettle at full boil. “When did my actions become your burden to bear? It was my decision to instigate the flanking maneuver. You have no control over what I do, Samuel McKade.”
Baby, I'm Yours Page 25