He jammed his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket and leaned against the door. “Tell me to go.”
She might not be willing to ask him to stay, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to tell him to leave.
Snowflakes glistened in his coal-black hair. “Like last time I came in here, tell me to get out. You had the right idea then.”
She stayed silent.
“You know this is wrong.”
Damn it, she was tired of his mixed signals and tempting half seductions. “Then go if that’s what you want.”
“I don’t,” he said, each word torn from him. “I don’t want to go. But I don’t always want what’s right. I’m a selfish son-of-a-bitch, and one of us needs to do the right thing. Being honorable and cautious isn’t my strong suit. You’re the smart one. Help me out.”
She was the smart one? Somehow she knew that wouldn’t stop her from making a reckless decision tonight.
“Kelly, I want you so damned bad I’m shaking here. Please.”
The final word rasped from him, and even though she knew he was begging her to make him go, she’d received her desired pleading. No, she wouldn’t ask him to stay. But she knew what to say to guarantee he wouldn’t leave.
Kelly draped her hands on her knees and met Ethan’s gaze dead-on. “It’s a dragon.”
“What?”
“My tattoo.” Her right hand trailed up her thigh until her fingers stroked a single finger in a swirl along her hip. “It’s a dragon.”
Chapter 12
Ethan couldn’t suck in air fast enough.
He also couldn’t make himself step away from the vision of Kelly lounging on a quilt, the aquamarine he’d given her swaying on a chain between breasts he ached to cup. Her hair flowed around her shoulders, temptation radiating from her warm brown eyes.
A dragon.
This woman of so many contradictions had chosen to brand herself with a dragon. Ethan surrendered to the inevitable, his defenses already in the negative numbers tonight.
“Tell me more,” he demanded, shrugging out of his jacket.
Kelly arched her back in a languorous, feline stretch. “It’s not very large, about two inches, and the tail curves around my hip.” She scooped up her CD player and shoved to her feet, taking too damned long to dust off her bottom. “You said you had to know and now you do. Mystery solved. You’re free to walk out that door.”
Like hell.
If he were a better man, he would leave. But he wasn’t and he couldn’t, not tonight with the world shifting under his feet and this woman offering forgetfulness. He was through resisting her.
But first, he had to take care of one thing.
Ethan turned away. Kelly’s light gasp of surprise behind him fueled him to move faster. He hooked his foot on a low shelf and swung himself up to the camera hidden in the corner among dangling ferns. Arm arcing back, he flung his jacket over the lens.
“How long has that been there?” Kelly called up to him.
He dropped to the ground. “Since the day after I found you in here.”
She studied him through narrowed eyes, her body outlined in curve-hugging Lycra as she stood—too far away. “Have you been watching me?”
Maybe this would make her send him packing. “What do you think?”
“I think you have.”
“You’d be right.” He waited, certain now she would tell him to haul his sorry butt out of her greenhouse.
A slow smile curved her full lips, and she leaned one luscious hip against a table of potted flowers.
His mouth turned drier than the sack of soil beside him. “You’re okay with that?”
“Of course. You were doing your job.” Her eyes flicked up to his dangling jacket. “Can anyone hear?”
He shook his head. “There’s no microphone. I couldn’t have survived seeing and hearing you. Not and manage to maintain any objectivity while watching over you.”
“So you were watching to keep me safe?”
“What do you think?” he repeated.
She tossed her head, hair rippling. Her lithe body exuded a newfound inner confidence in her own appeal. The whole package radiated such lush sexuality Ethan almost dropped to his knees.
Instead, he charged across the greenhouse. Five bold steps—he counted every one, begrudging each inch between them—and Ethan gathered her against him. He tasted her. No, absorbed the giving feel and flavor of her lips. Her arms flung around his neck without hesitation.
He gripped her hips, tucked her in a perfect fit between his thighs. “I gave you your chance to send me away.”
She pressed closer. Hotter. “I know.”
“If you ask me to stop, I will,” he muttered against her lips.
“I won’t ask.”
Forcing himself to draw back, he stroked her hair away from her face. “Kelly, there can’t be any question, not after what happened to you.” He held himself apart from her, waiting. “I need to hear you ask me to stay.”
“I don’t want to talk about that now.” She stretched up on her toes to nip his bottom lip, her soft hands gliding down his back. “Don’t want to think about it.”
“I know, honey, but I have to. For both of us.”
She cupped his face in gentle but sure hands. “Do you have a condom tucked away anywhere?”
In his pocket, always had kept once close since the first time he’d kissed Kelly. He’d known this could happen. Would happen. “Yes.”
“Then stay.”
A rush of relief surged through him, quickly followed by a pulsing need to claim her. Finally. Fully. Damn the consequences. He had a truckload of regrets in his life, and he wouldn’t add never knowing Kelly to the list.
He would be her first, if not her last. And he would damn well tap every ounce of restraint he possessed to make certain it was a “first” worth remembering.
Kelly watched every line of Ethan’s body tense. She’d studied him long enough to know. He was coiled and ready to act. All that wonderful strength and determination would be directed at her.
He tapped the aquamarine between her breasts until it swayed gently. “Let’s take this inside.”
Forget delays of even a second. The cold blast of the snowy winds and outside world could too easily bring the chill of reality. She didn’t want reality. She wanted her fantasy moment, her dream come to life with Ethan. “No. Here. Now. With the heat and the flowers.”
A smile of wicked promise creased his face. “So you like the flowers?”
“I love flowers.”
“Then you’ll have flowers.” Ethan’s hand stroked down her arm and away.
He reached past her, returning with an orchid. With the barest whisper of a touch to her face, he trailed the bloom down her forehead, along her nose, over her lips.
“Hmmm.” She inhaled, savored, smiled against the milky petals.
He tucked the orchid behind her ear. “A flower for you.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m not done.”
She certainly hoped not.
The hard length of his body pressed her back against the edge of the wooden table. Slowly he plucked flower after flower and tossed them on the blanket.
Orchids, lilies, gardenias fluttered over her onto the puffy comforter, until finally he ended with crushed roses raining petals and perfume over her head, drifting and catching along every sensitized inch of her.
She clasped his wrist. “Ethan! Don’t waste them all.”
He pried his arm free and flung a fistful of daisies to their makeshift bed below. “They’re mine to do with as I please, and seeing them against your bare skin would please me.” His voice lowered, rumbling husky, dark, with even a hint of danger. “Very much.”
Ethan draped his arm over her shoulder, drawing back until a yellow tulip grazed along her shoulder. She shivered in spite of the humid warmth of the greenhouse.
His eyes followed the tulip’s trek down in a glide between her breasts. Her nipples
tightened beneath her sports bra, already eager for his attention.
Ethan didn’t disappoint her.
With the same finesse he managed in every aspect of life, he skimmed her top up and off without even dislodging the flower from her hair. The cold weight of the stone teased her skin. Every nerve tightened, from the brush of air or his eyes, she didn’t know and couldn’t scavenge the will to figure it out.
He retraced his path between her breasts, detouring lower to explore each curve, under, around. The petals kissed each pointed tip in turn, Ethan’s hungry gaze devouring her. “Kelly,” his hoarse voice echoed, “your breasts are so damned pretty.”
Heat tingled all the way to her bare toes, but not from embarrassment. His compliment stirred a swirl of excitement. The sincerity of his words, the simple compliment, somehow seemed so much more believable to her than some lavish poetry about beauty she didn’t possess and shouldn’t be important.
She gripped his hands and flattened his palms to her breasts in a bolder move than she would have expected from herself on her first time. But she had to pack a lifetime of memories into the moment, in case there wasn’t another with this man.
Kelly cut that thought free with the clean precision of a florist’s scissors. “Finish.”
A low groan rumbled up from Ethan’s chest. His hands gentled against her, one sliding around to palm her back and draw her closer. His head dipped as she rose to meet him halfway. Chambray rasped a gentle abrasion against her skin.
Live for the here and now, she reminded herself. Take a page from Aunt Eugenie’s book and savor the moment. Although Kelly didn’t think Aunt Eugenie’s plans would have necessarily included Kelly jumping her nephew in the greenhouse.
Yet was she really doing any jumping? No, she’d been too caught up in a sensual haze of allowing Ethan to take the lead. Making the most of this moment included doing everything she could imagine to bring Ethan as much pleasure as his hands on her body brought her. While she might be lacking in experience, she’d always had a fine imagination.
Kelly arched up into another kiss, gliding her hand down his chest to his jeans and palming the rigid length encased in faded denim. Even her fine imagination didn’t do him justice. Her fingers explored his length, while her tongue explored the warm recesses of his mouth.
He tasted so good, like crisp, snowy air and maybe a hint of one of those peppermint sticks they’d shared. She’d dreamed of being with him, what it would be like having all that roguish experience devoted entirely to her.
Except he wasn’t sending one of his wicked smiles her way now. Between deep heady kisses along her mouth, her throat, her breasts, he studied her with such somber, intense eyes. With a hint of reverence that humbled her even as he elevated her.
No, he wasn’t the kick-ass bad boy from their office here. He was turning into someone she barely knew, but found no less intriguing.
Trapped between their bodies, her fingers worked the buttons on his shirt free, found the rigid planes of his chest, his stomach, finally the fly button on his jeans. He shrugged out of his shirt and kicked his jeans and boxers free with barely restrained impatience.
Reality was so much better than any of her fantasies.
Of course she never would have thought to place any of those fantasies in a greenhouse. All the same, she welcomed the haven of heat in the middle of winter.
Ethan lowered her to the blanket, flowers crushing beneath the press of their weight. A fragrant blend of perfumes clung to the humid air.
He hitched a finger in the waist of her leggings and waited until she smiled her consent. He peeled them down, one inch at a time, as if unwrapping the best Christmas present ever and enjoying every second of the process. Only once he’d tossed them aside did his gaze travel to her hip.
His low growl of approval sounded much like her dragon come to life.
“You like it?” she asked, as if she couldn’t already tell from the leaping response under her hand.
A second growl offered a resounding affirmation just before his mouth lowered to kiss the tattooed patch of skin. The heat of his mouth seared her skin much as the needle had. His hand swept around, finding a purple tulip he’d rescued from somewhere. She didn’t care where. Didn’t care about anything but Ethan continuing.
While he rained hot kisses along her hip and her belly, he caressed the flower up the inside of her leg. Higher. Higher still.
Until.
She couldn’t think at all.
The combination of the silken flower and his roughened fingers teased her into a world of sensation so intense the burn, the need, reached an almost painful clench of nerves.
And then he slid to his side, tore open the small packet and sheathed himself. Ethan kissed her once, twice. “Everything okay so far?”
She didn’t want any reminders of the past. Being with Ethan had nothing to do with violence, but his concern touched her all the more. “Much better than okay.”
Kelly reached for him and he rolled to his back, pulling her with him. “You’re in control, Kel. Your pace. Whatever you want.”
The position of command tightened her desire. Too intense. Her fingers dug into the steely wall of his chest. “I want to finish.”
He guided her hips and she wasn’t fool enough to reject the tutelage. He eased her down, slowly. The full, thick pressure giving her momentary pause, the stretch stinging until she tensed. She didn’t want pain to play any part in their time—
Ethan’s hands worked a gentle massage against her hips. “That’s it, hon. Easy. You’re almost there.”
And she was. The stinging eased, her years of limber meditation paying off.
She looked down at Ethan. Tendons in his neck strained with his effort to hold back while he waited for her and she fell a little bit more in love with him. Maybe a by-product of the moment, but she couldn’t pull up the will to stem her emotions for once.
So she smiled at him and moved against him, coaxing him to join her. No holding back. His answering smile painted itself on the back of her lids as her eyes slid closed and she savored. Man, did she ever savor every stroke. Her pleasure and his a focal point in a ritual far more mind-altering than what she’d stepped into the greenhouse seeking.
If only they could achieve the same synchronicity with their clothes on.
She squeezed her eyes shut against thoughts that would steal this moment from her. The glide of their bodies against each other, the touch of his skilled fingers, built the intensity, narrowed the focus. Tighter. Closer. Until…
The pinpoint exploded in a shower of sensation. Kelly arched against Ethan’s bracing hand as wave after wave sparked through her. Each bolt of pleasure tearing a fresh cry from her. “Mon amour. Mon jules.”
Words wrenched from her by the strength of her release. My love. My lover.
Again Ethan plunged upward, his deeper stroke and hoarse shout of completion triggering an afterglow through her shuddering body until she sagged against his chest.
Her words echoed back in the wind. In her heart.
Mon amour.
Ethan sprawled in a tangle of gray satin sheets, Kelly tucked against his side as he stared up through his skylight at snowflakes swirling above them in the starlit sky. He’d expected to regret being with her. But he didn’t. He couldn’t regret something so damned perfect, both times. Once in the greenhouse and again in his bed.
Which left him where?
About five minutes from hunting for a ring and begging her to take it.
Ethan crooked a finger in her necklace and twisted the chain around his finger. He’d known the minute he peeled those leggings down and off, the second he’d laid eyes on her dragon and slid his body into hers, that he’d taken away any choices. He’d crossed a line and there wasn’t any going back.
Marrying Kelly. He let the image churn in his head but couldn’t make the edges of the picture come cleanly together. Never could, a large part of why he’d never pursued her, because Kelly was un
doubtedly the marrying kind. He couldn’t picture what kind of future they would have and that bothered him—almost as much as the thought of letting her go.
Which was no longer an option. He knew damned well his aunt had spoiled him as a kid. Sharing had never been his strong suit, and he found now that there wasn’t a chance in hell he could share this woman with any other man.
He was her first, and he damned well intended to be her last.
Which meant marrying her.
Ethan tugged her forward and kissed her with a familiarity that scared the hell out of him after only knowing her body twice. He untwined the chain and found the warm comfort of her hip beneath the sheet. “What would you have done if I hadn’t had a condom with me in the greenhouse? Would you have sent me on my way?”
“No.” She feathered her fingers over the bruise on his arm from the mine, then his injured shoulder blade, finally along the faint remains of the scratch from his near miss with a bullet in Gastonia. “I would have told you to follow me inside and we would have used the box in my room.”
He pulled her hand away and kissed her palm as if that could erase her brush with the danger of his world. Hers, too.
He booted that thought out of his bed. Out of their bed. “Or we could have come straight to my place.”
She swept her hair out of her face, revealing full, well-kissed lips. “Why don’t you ever come into the house?”
“I do.” He’d never be able to look at her hair swinging across her face again without thinking of sex. Incredible sex. The best sex of his life, with a virgin, no less. “What about when Jake and Matt came to dinner?”
She shook her head. “We ate by the pool. And I don’t consider a glassed-in pool area a part of the house. Or the gym. I can’t think of a single time you’ve stepped into the house since I arrived. Were you afraid I would jump you and drag you off to my boudoir?”
Her hand traveled southward.
He stopped her a second shy of her target and brought her hand up to his mouth. “Soon. Give me ten more minutes to recover.”
The Cinderella Mission Page 17