Breathless

by Nancy Warren

  And, like the caveman, when reasoning had ceased to impress his thickheaded cavewoman, he advanced on her, his eyes narrowed.

  She must have known what he was thinking for she took a step backward, possibly to protect herself from being dragged by the hair to his cave for some hot and dirty sex. He imagined after a few rounds with Sophie, his cave paintings would resemble an early issue of Playboy.

  He put his hands on her shoulders and felt the tension in her muscles.

  Her eyes stared up at him and he could tell that now her body was coming back to life, she was having the same post-danger high she’d experienced after her near miss with the hit-and-run.

  If Blake knew anything about women, Sophie wanted him. And she wanted him now.

  13

  BLAKE LEANED FORWARD TO kiss her, but apparently he’d misread her cues, for she pulled back. “I smell like a dirty ashtray,” she said. “Do you think I could borrow your shower? Can’t go to a hotel smelling like an arsonist.”

  She grinned. Amazingly, she grinned. And somehow, he couldn’t help grinning back. He kept forgetting how much tougher she was than she appeared. “I’ll lend you my bathrobe, then we’ll talk.”

  “Thanks.”

  “We need to eat. Pizza okay with you? There’s a brick-oven place around the corner that delivers.”

  He fetched her a couple of clean towels and showed her to his bathroom. “You’re in luck. The cleaning lady comes Fridays.” He could have led her to the guest bathroom, but his shower was bigger. Besides, he loved the idea of Sophie naked and wet in his shower. If it weren’t for his cursed cast, he’d be sorely tempted to join her. Instead, he fetched some clean clothes from his room, made do with a sponge bath, and washed his hair in the laundry sink.

  By the time she emerged, wrapped in his bathrobe, her hair clinging to her head in damp ringlets and her feet bare, he’d had a chance to calm down. Although he felt less than relaxed when he realized she had to be naked under his robe. He cleared his throat. “I ordered the pizza.”

  “If pizza’s first, what’s second?” Her lips savored each word and he was mesmerized by the sensuality of her mouth.

  Knowing it was hopeless to try to resist, he went to her, dipped his head and kissed her, slowly and thoroughly. She smelled of his shampoo and tasted of his toothpaste.

  “Second, we talk. Like it or not you and I are a team. We have to start acting like one.” He traced a finger up one side of her neck and twirled a wet curl.

  “And third—” He dipped his head again, taking his time, tasting her, deepening the kiss until she was clinging to him, her hands delving into his hair, pulling him closer.

  “On the other hand—” he raised his head for a panting breath “—I might have got the order wrong. About that pizza…”

  “Screw the pizza,” she murmured and pulled him back down to her mouth.

  As much as he wanted to rip his robe from her body and take her with the flaming urgency that consumed him, he was also conscious of a desire to touch and savor slowly. To kiss each inch of her so miraculously spared by a paper carrier with a bad aim. To touch and caress her and watch each nuance of her expression as her passion built, to feel the warmth rise on the surface of her skin, watch her various pulse points as they picked up speed until they were racing in a dead heat for the finish line. And when that finish arrived, he wanted to watch the abandoned way her head fell back and she let out her own rebel yell of victory.

  Above all, he wanted to bury himself in her body. Spill his seed inside her. Pill or no pill, he was self-aware enough to recognize his primal roots in that burning urge to pour his life essence into her. If his forebears were all like him, it was no wonder his bloodline had flourished.

  His hands dropped to her belly, touching the flat, firm abdomen, and the idea of her blooming, heavy with his child, added an extra degree or two to the roaring heat in his blood.

  He didn’t freak, as he normally would have done, to find himself fantasizing about the woman he was about to make love to getting pregnant. He accepted it for what it was, a basic instinct to celebrate the escape from death with the creation of new life.

  But there was a tiny part of him that wondered if that’s all it was.

  He didn’t bother analyzing his feelings any more than he tried to talk Sophie into his bed. He simply led her to his leather couch, pushed her back so she toppled, giggling, in a sprawled, sexy heap, and yanked open the tie at her waist. Beneath the masculine black robe, her body was all female. Rounded and pink, the nipples on those amazing breasts blooming beneath his gaze. He reached for his wine, stuck a finger in it and rubbed the dark red liquid first on one nipple, then on the other, while she moaned and twisted beneath him.

  Of course, being a wine lover, he had to lick the stuff off, pulling each dark red point deep into his mouth to suck and savor. Half laughing, half moaning beneath him, she grabbed at his shirt, plucked at his belt in a totally uncoordinated attempt to undress him.

  He rose and did the job himself, in no mood to waste time.

  She ran her gaze up and down him, a siren’s smile on her face and then, before he saw it coming, she’d pulled him off balance so he landed beside her on the couch.

  While he tried to rearrange his limbs in a less dorky pose, she reached for the wine, took a mouthful and, with a teasing glint in her eye, knelt over him. Then she took him into her mouth and his hips jerked helplessly as the wine swirled around his engorged, sensitive flesh. She sucked on him in some fantastic way that sounded as if she were inhaling the remains of a soft drink through a straw. It felt like a miniwhirlpool against his cock and he delved and thrust helplessly, approaching bliss much faster than he wanted to.

  She swallowed the wine with a noisy gulp and rose up to sit in his lap, taking him in hand and guiding him into her body. He leaned forward and licked the trail of red wine that dribbled down her chin.

  They were as silly as kids, but this was a celebration of the most fundamental kind and even as they played and teased, their thrusts grew harder, her gasps louder, until he couldn’t stand it anymore and grabbed her hips, pulling her down even as he thrust up, always deeper, as though he could thrust through to her very essence.

  She was sobbing, her head thrown back as he felt her inner muscles clench around him. He pulled her down faster, delved farther, and there it was, the high-pitched scream that was just about the sexiest thing he’d ever heard.

  He let go, feeling his own life essence pump into her.

  Afterward, they lay slumped and panting in each other’s arms and would have slept had the pizza not arrived. He borrowed his own robe, deliberately leaving her naked. When he returned with the fragrant box, he shucked his robe and they ate—naked and greedy—feeding each other, sharing wine, both determined not to talk about or think about the earlier disaster.

  But, eventually the pizza was gone, the wine bottle empty and the sky outside was dark.

  She sighed. “I’d better call a cab and get myself to a hotel.”

  “Stay here,” he heard himself say. The minute the words were out he felt the rightness of them in his belly and some of his coiled fear for her safety eased. If he kept her under his roof, he could protect her. While he let her think about the idea, he didn’t waste his mouth’s proximity to the swirl of her ear, but traced it with his tongue, then breathed lightly, enjoying the shiver that rippled through her.

  “You want me to stay here tonight?” Her voice was vague and foggy and he had the impression that while their spent passion gave his mind an odd, racing clarity, it had fogged hers over so she was having trouble thinking coherently.

  “Not just tonight.” The wonderful straight line of tendon that stretched from her ear to her throat beckoned. He traced it with his tongue, pausing here and there to nibble gently. “Stay here until we catch the bastards.”

  She ran her hands through her hair, making him want to follow suit. He loved its random curls, especially now they were tossed all over th
e place, still damp in places, gleaming with hints of gold, platinum and copper. “You mean move in with you?”

  A shaft of panic speared him. He’d avoided that trap for years. Was he now snapping the jaws shut on his own freedom? “Not permanently,” he assured her.

  Her breasts, rising and falling rapidly, called to his aching hands, but he could see she was trying to think so he pulled away and stared at the floor, trying to get his own breathing under control.

  “I’ve got friends I could stay with,” she said, sounding uncertain.

  “Don’t push it, Sophie. The only way I’ll consider letting you go back to work on Monday is if you agree to stay here with me until this thing is over. We live together, commute to work together, spend every damn minute of the day together.”

  She glared at him mutinously for a moment, then nodded.

  His relief was tempered by determination to watch her every second. Sophie wasn’t going to die on his watch.

  TO MOVE IN WITH BLAKE, even temporarily, was to enter dangerous territory. A girl with no sense of direction could end up seriously lost making a move like that. Hopelessly and permanently lost. Sophie sucked in a deep breath. “Where will I sleep?”

  Cleaning the criminal scum out of her bank had to be their first priority, and she knew if she climbed into his bed, it would be a very long time before she climbed out again.

  She was so happy she’d started that silly no-bed equals no-sex rule because now it seemed it would come in handy. Sharing Blake’s bed—living together, for goodness’ sake—sounded way too permanent. She didn’t do permanent. Permanent was for people like her parents, who found the perfect partner for life and lived happily ever after. It wasn’t for a commitment-phobic modern woman who’d never had a relationship that didn’t end up making her feel trapped.

  His narrowed eyes told her he’d guessed what she was thinking. Still, he tried. “I have a king-size bed in my room. Plenty of space. I think it was recommended by the American Chiropractic Association.” He tapped his spine. “Very good for the back.”

  She held back her smile. He was so adorable when he turned on the charm. They’d both need visits to the chiropractor if they did half the things she wanted to do with Blake in his bed. With regret, she told him what he’d probably already figured out for himself. “If I stay with you I can’t share your bed.” She must sound like a crackpot, but she couldn’t explain to him how she felt.

  “Why?” He sounded more like a petulant four-year-old who’d been denied a treat than a grown man.

  “Because I don’t particularly want to die. I do want to, one, get the bastards who tried to kill me, and two, get the bastard who’s using my workplace for criminal activity. We won’t be able to concentrate if we spend all our time in bed.”

  He sighed noisily. “For someone who likes sex as much as you do, you put up a lot of barriers.”

  She decided to put up another one, and retrieved his bathrobe from the floor and snuggled into it. It smelled like him, so she hugged it to her, taking strength and comfort from the robe just as she did from the man. Since she was thinking about sex anyway, she might as well get the whole subject dealt with at once. “I think we should have a few ground rules about living together.”

  He scowled at her and began shoving his clothes on. “If you’re thinking about some kind of dorm roster of who does the dishes and who cooks meat loaf on Thursdays, you can forget it.”

  “I’m not worried about food. I’m worried about sex,” she snapped back.

  Miraculously his scowl lifted. “Honey, you’ve got nothing to worry about. Lie back and leave everything to me.”

  She chuckled. God, he was cute. Arrogant, but cute. “That’s a perfect example of what I’m talking about.”

  “What?”

  “Sexual innuendo. Come-ons. No come-ons while I’m staying here. It’s not fair.”

  “Because your willpower is so frail?” he taunted.

  He must know that was true. She was a sexual powder keg and he was a blowtorch. “Yes.”

  “Agreed.”

  “No walking around naked or half-dressed.”

  “Does my naked body arouse you that much?”

  He was really getting her goat. “Yes! And don’t think I’m happy about it.”

  “Well, it goes double for me.” He looked her up and down as though she were an oasis and he’d just crawled through a thousand miles of desert. “So the same rule applies. You wear a ski suit in this apartment or I’m not responsible for the consequences.”

  She shot him an evil look. “And none of that, either.”

  “None of what?”

  “Those steamy come-to-bed glances. I’m only human.”

  “Yeah, well, do you have some kind of bra that doesn’t show your nipples? Maybe something in iron?”

  She glanced down, appalled at the blatant way her breasts were telecasting her lust, and crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s not going to be easy, is it?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  She cleared her throat. “Should I sleep on the couch?”

  “If you’re sure…” He glanced toward his bedroom, where visions of king-size chiropractic-approved mattresses danced in her head and she frowned him down. Oh, Lord. How were they ever going to get through this? “I have a guest room. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  She hadn’t noticed a second bedroom. In fact, she hadn’t noticed much of anything when she first arrived, but now that the shock had subsided, she found herself looking around his apartment for the first time and taking it in.

  It was nice.

  Much nicer than she would have imagined—a decent-sized loft in a trendy part of town. She didn’t know much about police officers, but she didn’t think they earned this kind of money. Unease stirred within her. “This is a very nice place,” she said.

  He must have heard her surprise for he chuckled softly. “You can thank my sister.”

  “Your sister?”

  “Yeah. Tanya talked me into buying it when they first started converting these old warehouses into lofts. She was in real estate then and she told me it was a great buy.” He shrugged. “She was right.” Sophie knew enough about real estate in Vancouver to hazard a shrewd guess that if he’d bought in Yaletown before it became ultratrendy, his apartment had easily doubled or tripled in value. A good buy indeed.

  “Do you always do what your sister tells you?”

  “Pretty much,” he said with no irony that she could see. “She’s a lot smarter.”

  This was the first time he’d mentioned a sister, or any family. Once again she realized how little they knew about each other. He was so bossy with her it was hard to imagine him taking advice from a sister. “She must be something,” Sophie said almost to herself.

  “Oh, she is.”

  “Is she still selling real estate?”

  “No. She’s a financial planner now.”

  She shot him a quick glance, and took another look around the apartment, only now taking in details that didn’t seem consistent with a cop’s salary. The apartment itself may have been a steal, but he hadn’t furnished it with junk. The leather on the couches was butter soft, the appliances she’d glimpsed in the kitchen were top of the line, there was art on the wall that didn’t look like prints. Even the wine had tasted expensive, now that she thought about it.

  “She’s your financial planner, isn’t she?”

  His eyes twinkled with lazy amusement. “Yep.”

  “Blake, are you rich?”

  He chuckled. “Tanya’s rich. But I’m in good shape for a rainy day.”

  Somehow, her world kept getting stranger and stranger. “Show me my room.”

  He led her down a short hallway. The guest room was surprisingly nice for a household run by a bachelor. The double bed was made with a cheerful chintz spread, there was a pine dresser with a nice-sized mirror and a night table with a lamp and a clock on it. “Your bathroom’s through there,” he said, pointing to a door.
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  They wouldn’t be sharing a bathroom then. Thank goodness, that was a major source of anxiety gone. There’d be no bumping into each other half-naked on the way to the shower. No middle-of-the-night meetings on the way to the washroom.

  Which suddenly made her realize she didn’t have so much as a pair of pyjamas. “I don’t even have a toothbrush,” she said.

  “There’s some girl stuff in the bathroom,” he said vaguely. “A couple of unopened toothbrushes, and some clothes in the closet that will probably fit. We can do some shopping tomorrow after we check in with John.”

  She might have bristled over his bossy ordering of her day, except she was too busy bristling over his casual mention of women’s clothes in his guest-room closet and “girl stuff” in the bathroom.

  “Taken up cross-dressing?” she asked sweetly.

  His cocky grin made her wish she’d kept her witchy comment to herself. Now he probably thought she was jealous. “It’s my sister’s stuff. She stays over when she’s in town.”

  It was plausible. Anyway, it wasn’t as if she owned the man. They’d had “doesn’t count” sex a few times, but they both knew things were too complicated to risk getting involved.

  So why was she itching to check out the clothes and decide for herself how sisterly they looked?

  14

  “DO YOU FEEL LIKE Thai?” Blake asked. “Or better still, do you feel like cooking?”

  They were strolling along Robson Street, a hefty selection of shopping bags between them—though all the contents were hers. It was amazing how much stuff she had to replace.

  Sophie was torn between enjoying his company and his Sherpa services, and feeling irritated that he’d insisted on accompanying her everywhere today. He was easy company, if she ignored the wariness in his eyes. She sensed that he was assessing every car that went by, every pedestrian they passed, from a group of Korean language students, to German tourists to locals out shopping.

  As much as his solid bulk made her feel safe, his bodyguard act was making her edgy. John and the fire inspector had paid a visit this morning and she’d been forced to relive the experience of coming home to an exploding apartment. As though she hadn’t relived it all night in her brief spurts of sleep.