by Lori Wilde
“Why are you torturing me like this?” he croaked.
“Because I’m wicked to the core.” She stuck her tongue out at him and laughed. She unhooked the bra, but left it dangling in place, the straps draped loosely over her shoulders.
He studied her for a long moment, his eyes inscrutable, but his breathing gave him away. He was almost panting.
They stared at each other.
Endlessly.
Callie realized she, too, was breathing hard and heavy.
“You’re not wicked,” he said finally.
“How do you know?”
“You’re just trying to shock me.”
“I’m not. I’m trying to get you into bed.”
“By shocking me.”
She conceded his point with a slight smile and a tilt of her head. “Foreplay.”
“I’ve got you figured out.” He bobbed a finger at her.
“Oh? How’s that?”
“You’re hiding your true self behind the outrageousness.”
“I’m not,” she bluffed but she was blindsided by a rush of emotions that made her want to laugh and cry at the same time. Nervousness, excitement, a strange thrill at the idea that at last, here was someone who “got” her.
Where had this feeling come from?
Where had he come from?
Suddenly, she was aware that she was almost naked in front of him and she had to force herself not to pick up her clothes and cloak herself with them. How had he managed to quickly turn the tables on her? One minute she was in control and the next, she was figuratively on her back, pinned to the mat by the soft expression of understanding in his eyes.
Help!
Immediately, she denied what she was feeling, and let her bra drop to the floor. His gaze welded to her breasts and his eyes widened. That’s when Callie knew she was in control again.
“I’ll just be in the shower if you decide you’d like to join me.”
“Thanks for the invitation. But I’ve got a lot to do.”
“Uh-huh. Right, chicken,” she said.
He turned and almost ran into the sitting area, closing the door securely behind him.
To shut her in?
Or to keep himself out?
She was getting to him. No doubt about it. There was just one thing left to do if she hoped to help poor Sir Galahad find his way home to come-a-lot.
Turn up the heat!
Because the poor man needed casual, lighthearted sex almost as much as he needed to breathe.
7
“YEW-HOO, LUKE.”
Five minutes later, he thought he heard Callie calling to him from the bathroom over the sound of running water. He cocked his head and listened. He was perched on the edge of the couch, his heart shoving blood through his veins at an alarming clip. At one point back there in the bedroom, he had come within inches of ripping off his clothes and taking Callie in a hard, hot rush.
The woman tested him in unanticipated ways. And he’d never expected himself to come up so short. She called to a part of himself he’d turned his back on a long time ago. The playful kid that had been lost forever at seventeen. But his feelings for her were more primal. She stirred in him a need he hadn’t known existed. She challenged him to seek a new reality for himself, to let go of the past and make himself over. A fresh start. A new beginning. A different outlook.
And let’s face it, there was the sexual angle. He had never experienced anything like the thrill he got watching Callie strip off her clothes.
She wanted him to crack. But he would not.
Could not.
Could he?
He heard the water turn off.
“Oh, Luke, could you please come in here a sec?”
Nothing doing. Absolutely not. No way was he going into that bathroom with her.
“Luke!” Her voice took on an anxious quality. “I need you.”
He swallowed. What if she really was in trouble and not just trying to seduce him? But what could have happened to her in the bathroom? He fisted his hands against his knees trying to decide what to do.
You’re her bodyguard, you can’t ignore her cry for help.
“Please come in here, I’m in something of a fix.”
Aw hell, like it or not he was going to have to go into that bathroom. Putting on his game face, he got up and went into the bedroom. The bathroom door stood ajar.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I’m hung up.”
“Hung up?”
“Just come in here,” she said.
“If this is just another one of your ploys to embarrass me I’m going to be mad.”
“It’s not, I swear.”
He hesitated a moment, then resolutely toed the door open farther. He stuck his head into the bathroom.
Callie sat in the middle of an oversize hot tub filled with lavender-scented bubbles. Her back was to him and she was surrounded in a steamy fog. She was leaning over and the first thing he fixed on was the sumptuous curve of her spine. She had one hand resting on top of her head, thick with shampoo lather. That was when he saw that one of her bracelets had become entangled with her hair.
Just looking at her made Luke’s pulse jump. There were bubbles dribbling down her neck, drawing his eyes to her slender shoulder blade and glistening golden skin.
God, she was gorgeous. He felt himself grow instantly hard.
She turned her head and met his gaze. “Thank heavens. I thought you were going to be too damned stubborn to come in.”
“I’m here,” he said gruffly.
“So untangle me already,” she said, lifting her wrist as high as it would go above her head.
Luke gulped, braced himself to handle the situation and trod across the floor toward her.
“This is all your fault,” she said as he pushed her hair-care supplies to one side and sat down on the tub.
“How so?”
“You were the one who insisted I color my hair.”
“I didn’t tell you to wear bracelets while you were doing it. Lean over so I can get at you better.”
“Oooh,” she teased. “I like the sound of that.”
She leaned into him, dampening his shirt as she rested her head on his thigh. Her warm breath spread across his skin, raising gooseflesh up his arms. He tried not to think about how great it felt to have her nestled against him, or how easy it would be to surrender to temptation and have sex with her right there in the tub.
His gaze slid down and he caught himself peeking at the smooth hollow underneath her raised arm. The sight of her armpit shouldn’t have been sexy or seductive, but it was.
His fingers worked at the clasp of her bracelet. It would be easier to detach it from her hair once her wrist was freed.
Callie pushed a tendril of loose hair from her face and peered up at him. There was no mistaking the appreciation in her eyes as she visually caressed his face. That and the slight groan that slipped from her lips let him know how much she was enjoying this.
Luke felt self-conscious. He wasn’t accustomed to being in the bath with gorgeous naked women. Especially a woman who’d clearly voiced her desire for him. It had been so long since he’d touched soft feminine flesh so intimately.
Too damned long.
However, it wasn’t the time or the place, nor was Callie the right woman to be breaking his celibacy over.
But God, how he wanted to.
He pretended to fiddle with the bracelet but instead, he was trying not to panic at the feel of her nipple hardening against the leg of his damp slacks. A corresponding hardness strained at his zipper.
Her hair was a soft and silky slide beneath his fingers. And the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest sent his own breath reeling. A heated awareness pricked his skin. He’d never felt so conscious of anything in his life.
His entire body flushed with mind-blowing heat. Damn! What was happening to him? That unabashed look in her eyes caused his pulse to jump. His hormones were flipping out.
> Focus on what you’re doing, Cardasian. Concentrate.
He fumbled, his fingers slipping in her wet, soapy hair, but finally, he got the bracelet undone and she was able to lower her arm.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Hold still. Your hair is looped through several rings on your charms.” He hoped he came off gruff and unaffected, but he was afraid he sounded hungry and needy.
Slowly, carefully, he disentangled her hair from the bracelet and set it in the soap dish.
She looked at him, her eyes bright and eager. She made him feel unique and yet he had no right to feel that way. Callie was an adventuresome woman. No doubt about it. From her mischievous grin, to her rakish smile, it was clear she appreciated sex.
And no woman had ever aroused him so intently.
She pursed her lips.
He held her gaze and then before he knew what was happening, he was kissing her. Which wasn’t like him. He didn’t get swept away by his desires. He was detached and introspective and restrained. It was the only way he’d survived the dangers he’d faced in Limbasa.
But his self-control was unraveling like a spool of wire rolling downhill. How was he supposed to survive three weeks on the road with Hurricane Callie?
He knew he was in trouble the instant she started kissing him back. The woman knew exactly what she was doing. The way she worked that sweet tongue of hers told him she’d had plenty of experience expressing her passion.
And he’d had very little, almost no experience.
If he hadn’t followed in his father’s footsteps and joined the navy. If his old childhood friend, Mukasi, hadn’t asked him to come back and help guide aid workers to war-ravaged villages in Limbasa, he might be a different man today. More sophisticated, more open-minded, more accomplished in the relationship department. But he had joined the military and he had gone to Limbasa and his love life had been severely neglected because of his choices.
And he was suffering for it now.
To fight his feelings of inadequacy, he did the only thing he knew how to do well. He took control, startling Callie with the demanding pressure of his lips. Surprise flashed in her eyes and she stared him directly in the face.
He could almost read her mind. He could tell she was thinking, I can’t let him get away with this.
She tried at that point to take over. Enfolding her slender arms around his neck and pulling him half into the tub. Fighting to maintain a position of dominance was in her nature. He had already figured that out about her, recognized the same instinct within himself. In that respect they were two of a kind, although in almost every other way they were exact opposites.
She was playful and coy and impulsive. He was taciturn and serious and precise. She was windblown. He was spit and polished. She lived to shock. He embarrassed easily. She danced to the beat of a different drummer. He marched to the tune of John Philip Sousa. She was premium ice cream and he was plain old broccoli.
And he was falling for her hard and fast.
Falling so hard he didn’t mind that his clothes were wet or that his face was soapy from her kiss.
You’re just horny, he told himself but Luke was afraid that wasn’t the whole truth.
She kissed him, increasing the pressure, upping the tempo. Her lips blasted him into another realm of awareness, making him forget everything except the feel of her mouth under his. Her short fingernails dug into the back of his head. A deep flush of arousal painted her face, spread down her neck to her perky bosom. She was ready for action. She left no doubts about her interest.
The flick of her tongue over his teeth was lazy, sultry, teasing him by degrees. Slowly at first, but then with steadily building pressure.
She was so petite, so narrow of waist, that with his hands spread he could almost span her. God, his fingers were itching to do just that and so much more. Aching to skim every part of her, to learn all the secrets her body possessed.
“Luke,” Callie moaned softly and the way she breathed his name on a sigh almost pushed him over the edge of reason.
His head spun, his heart pounded. Some bodyguard he was. He didn’t even remember where they were or why they were here.
All he knew was that he had to have more.
His hand, with an amazing mind of its own, slipped down into the water to cup her tight, round bottom. His penis strained against his zipper, flourishing from sandstone to solid granite.
Flexing, he curled his fingers into the soft, willing flesh of her buttocks. He heard her quick intake of breath and he couldn’t believe what he was doing. Squeezing her so possessively.
You’re out of line.
But he couldn’t stop kissing her, or touching her. She was even tastier than in his fantasies. Her mouth was hot and moist and so was his. Her bottom, beneath his palm, was warm and growing hotter with each passing second. He kneaded her right where the curve of her butt met her upper thigh and she instantly trembled against him,
Ah, he’d found an erogenous zone.
The discovery pleased him inordinately. He’d never found one before and the knowledge caused him to grin.
Note to self. Don’t forget this.
The air vibrated between him and Callie. Rich and hot. As rich and hot as the blood simmering through his veins.
Hell, he was in trouble here.
The erotic promise buried in that kiss made him shudder. The push of her rose-petal lips, the heat of her breath disoriented him. The form and curve of her mouth, the delightful swell of her lower lip, the sculpted bow of the upper, the edge where the textured velvet of her mouth gave way to the sultry mystery of her inner self.
At long last, she pulled away and peered at him, her eyes rounded wide.
He blinked, the spell shattered.
“Long as you’re here,” she said. “You might as well help me color my hair. It’s tough to do a good job by yourself.”
“I don’t think that’s such a great idea.” His voice was shaky. He could tell from the expression in her eyes she heard his vulnerability.
“You’re already wet,” she pointed out.
His shirt was soppy, his thigh streaked with water from where she’d laid her head. “I could go get Molly Anne to help you,” he offered.
“Molly Anne’s allergic to a lot of chemicals.”
“She could wear gloves.”
“She reacts to latex, too.”
“You’re going to force me to do this, aren’t you?”
“Pretty much.”
Luke drew in a breath. He was playing with fire but he couldn’t seem to make himself get up and walk out of the bathroom. “Okay then, let’s get this over with.”
“It’d be easier if you took off your clothes. So you don’t get hair dye all over you.”
“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes I would.” She grinned. That wily grin weakened his defenses and cut right to the root of his sexual longings. It was as if she knew what was in his heart and in his mind. He wanted her and for the first time in his life he hungered for a red-hot casual fling.
Scary stuff.
Unable to sort out the confusion raging in his oversexed brain, Luke concentrated on the one thing in front of him.
Coloring Callie’s hair.
She cocked her head in that coy way she had and a lock of soapy hair fell across her forehead. She arched an eyebrow expectantly. “Well? You gonna do it or not?”
Well, indeed.
Here goes nothing.
He picked up the box of hair dye and read the instructions. It did sound messy and he was wearing an expensive suit. She was right. It would be easier if he took his clothes off.
Gingerly, Luke removed his shoes, then shucked off his shirt and pants. He neatly folded his clothes and laid them on the counter. Unclothed, he sat on the ledge of the tub and stuck his legs into the bubbly water behind Callie.
She sank her head back against his shins. His muscles at first tensed and then relaxed, soothed by the w
ater jets and silky heat. It felt as if his feet were sinking into a tub of melted chocolate. Hot, thick and sinfully delicious.
“There you go,” Callie said. “Give in. Relax.”
A moan of pleasure involuntarily escaped his lips as the steamy pulsations massaged his calves.
“Nice, huh?” Callie tilted back her head and grinned up at him.
He grunted. No way was he going to let her know exactly how nice it felt. He twisted the cap off the bottle of hair dye. “Let’s get this over with.”
Following the instructions, he applied the hair color in sections, his fingers gently massaging her scalp.
“That feels so good,” she murmured.
“Hold still,” he said gruffly. Touching her was making him tingle in places he had no business tingling.
She was doing this on purpose, teasing him, testing him. He would not succumb, no matter how much he might ache to give in to temptation.
“I need something to anchor me,” she said and wrapped both her wrists around his ankles. “Will you be my anchor, Luke?”
He was out of his element. She knew how to flirt and he didn’t. She wanted more from him than he knew how to give. He blocked that thought and kept working.
Every sensation was amplified, exaggerated—the weight of her body against his legs, the feel of her fingers tickling his anklebones, the rhythm of her breathing. The perfect shape of her head as he worked the chemically smelling solution into her silky magenta hair.
In spite of his best intentions not to get emotionally involved with Callie, she had a sneaky way of getting to him. He shouldn’t be here in the tub with her. He was setting himself up for trouble.
His cock throbbed and he had to squeeze his eyes shut and clench his fists and fight for every shred of control he possessed.
She had gotten to him. She’d slipped under his radar with her sassy talk and her sex-kitten looks and that naughty crooked grin just begging him to come do wrong.
Truth was, she scared him. He’d spent so many years on constant guard, on alert, watching his every thought, his every emotion that he was stunned to learn she had sneaked her way past his defenses.
What was he going to do? If she kept tempting him, sooner or later he was going to crumble. He was only human.
But he valued what he valued. How could he break his own code of ethics and indulge in casual sex when he truly believed it was the road to disaster? He should know. He’d traveled down it before.