Between The Sheets

by Jeanie London

  But Rex had anticipated that move and was ready. He launched himself on top of her and pinned her down. “You can lie here and subject yourself to a massage of your own free will or I’ll make you. Your choice.”

  He reached beneath a pillow and dragged out the leather apparatus underneath.

  Fit to be Tied Restraints.

  “It’s my turn to play with the toys,” he said. “I insist we talk and I want you to be comfortable.”

  She bucked wildly and he dodged the top her head, which almost caught him in the chin.

  “Comfortable? You absolutely may not restrain me.”

  “I wore your cock ring without a debate, sunshine, so buck up and deal with it. I want to know what the problem is.”

  “Rex!” She showed no signs of yielding.

  “Restraint it is, then.”

  April put up a good fight, but Rex had seven inches and a hundred pounds on her. She never stood a chance. He slapped those restraints right on top of the wristbands and secured her arms to the bed frame. As she was lying face-down, he didn’t bother with her legs, just sat on top of her and began to massage her back.

  Her muscles were as tight as his fishing line the last time he’d hooked a marlin. “I won’t let you up until you talk to me. What’s bothering you?”

  “Nothing.”

  He not only had the advantage of size but he had the advantage of patience, too. He wasn’t the one with a problem sitting still. Waiting her out wouldn’t be tough. So he focused his attention on kneading the tension from her muscles, on freeing her blouse from the waistband of her skirt so he could slip his hands beneath and add the warmth of his skin to his efforts.

  Soon her muscles grew more pliable beneath his touch, her rapid breathing slowed. He took another stab at conversation.

  “So what is it about me being thoughtful that bothers you?”

  “I thought we were just having sex.” Her hair and the mattress muffled her voice but the panicked edge was gone, confirming that his massage was taking effect.

  The key word here was sex so Rex pursued that line of questioning. “Is sex all you want from me?”

  She nodded, landing a punch to his solar plexus without ever lifting a fist. “We agreed to explore our chemistry but you’re not playing by the rules.”

  “What rules?”

  “The fling rules.”

  Okay. Now they were getting somewhere. “How have I broken the rules?”

  “You invited me home to meet your family, and now you’ve given me a present.”

  “April, I wanted to explore our attraction to each other and see where it led. I didn’t know where we would end up. I just knew I’d never wanted a woman as much as I wanted you. The way I want you.”

  His admission filtered off in the quiet, empowered by being spoken aloud. He had to force the next words out. “If you don’t feel the same way then we’ll deal with it, but I want to know.”

  Raising her head from the mattress, she blew the hairs from her eyes with an exasperated breath and finally stopped hiding. “I wouldn’t trade a minute of the time we’ve spent together.”

  “I hear a but.”

  “But you said you just wanted seduction.”

  Though she’d raised her head to look at him, the restraints held her from fully turning, so he could only see half her face. What he saw in that half made his teeth clench in frustration.

  The panic was back.

  Rex probably should have cut his losses and shut his mouth, but he needed to understand. “I did want seduction. But now I want more.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t do the relationship thing.”

  “You also told me that you didn’t do the sex thing, but you do it very well. We have something special.”

  “No, Rex. No.” She tugged at the restraints. “I don’t want to have this conversation. Let’s just enjoy our fling.”

  He slipped his hands down her ribs to her waist, needing touch to anchor him. “You don’t want to talk about how I feel about you. You don’t want to talk about where our relationship can go. What do you want to talk about?”

  “I don’t want to talk.”

  “You just want sex.”

  She didn’t answer, which told him she wanted something more than sex but wasn’t willing to tell him what. And knowing that didn’t dull the raw edge from the way he felt.

  Sliding his hands beneath her blouse, he stroked her skin, needing to feel her warm and real and responding. Was it possible that he’d read her wrong and she didn’t feel as strongly about him as he did for her?

  On a gut-deep level, Rex knew he wasn’t wrong.

  “What’s your problem with relationships?” he asked. “Does this have something to do with the accidents you had?”

  “I swore off sex, and relationships. I can’t handle it.”

  “I understand, April, but we’re way past that. We’ve been sleeping together for weeks and I’m still in one piece. We might even be on to a way to solve the problem permanently. What’s the matter?”

  “Rex, being with you has been wonderful. I had no idea I could ever feel this way. I’ve never…I mean, I never did this before…you know?”

  No, he didn’t know. He’d guessed she wasn’t terribly experienced, but he would never have missed that. He was thirty-two years old for Christ’s sake. He’d made love with enough women to know…

  Unless he’d had a worse case of sex on the brain than he’d realized.

  “April, you’re not telling me you were a virgin, are you?”

  “No!” She bucked hard, trying to throw him off.

  “Then what haven’t you done before?”

  Her only reply was a blush that stole through her so hot that he could feel her skin singe his hands. Even though he could only see half her face, he recognized her mortified expression. And then it hit him.

  “You never climaxed before?”

  She buried her face in the mattress and groaned, which was the only answer he needed.

  That certainly explained why he always felt as if he was the only man in the world who’d ever pleased her. He had been.

  And along with that realization came a profound sense of satisfaction. He’d been the only man to coax those soft sighs from her lips, to tease her exquisite body until she melted against him, boneless with contentment.

  But something still wasn’t adding up. He was missing an important part of this equation, and April, with her face buried in the mattress, didn’t look likely to help him solve the problem any time soon.

  In Rex’s mind there was only thing he could do—prove to her she was wrong. She might have given up sex and relationships, but that was before she’d met him.

  He unzipped her skirt.

  “Rex!” She arched back against him, resisted as he pulled it down, dragging her panty hose along for the ride.

  “Tell me you don’t want me, April. Tell me to stop. I’ll be a gentleman.”

  Some dim part of his brain warned he was taking a huge risk here, that he should let her up, but he also knew too much was at stake. He wanted April. He wanted her to want him.

  There was only one surefire way to make her respond.

  “Tell me to take off the restraints so you can get up and walk away.”

  She made a sound that might have been a sob.

  It definitely wasn’t a no.

  Dragging the tangle of clothing from her feet, he freed her beautiful long legs, worked his way along their sleek length with his mouth and his kisses.

  April moaned, a low, needy sound that made a lie of her explanations. The way she arched into his touch, the way she sighed out her need proved that she wanted him. That this was much more than sex.

  The need to hold her, to feel all her soft curves molding his body, hit him hard. Rex slithered up her back until he was pressed against her full length, his cheek pressed to hers, his erection cradled against her warm bottom. He unzipped his trousers an
d freed himself, unwilling to let her go long enough even to undress. He didn’t want to give her a chance to regroup, to come up with new arguments that might convince her not to take a chance on him.

  “Tell me to stop.”

  He didn’t recognize the gravel-edge voice as his own, hadn’t known he could feel desperate. And he waited, hoping she didn’t issue the words that would test his restraint and take away any hope for their future.

  “Oh, Rex.” She gave a raw sob.

  It wasn’t a no.

  Positioning his erection between her thighs, he ran his hands upward along her outstretched arms, skimmed right over the restraints to twine his fingers through hers. He sheltered her with his body, needing to comfort as much as he needed comfort.

  Pressing his cheek to hers, he inhaled her scent, faintly floral and all woman. He whispered against her ear, “I love you, April. You might not want to hear it. But I do.”

  She gave another broken sob and he sank deep inside her, one reckless stroke that made them one.

  APRIL SLIPPED OUT of the bedroom after Rex had finally fallen asleep. He’d assaulted her with orgasm after orgasm, as though he’d wanted to prove to her that there would never be another man who could make her feel the way he did.

  But he’d had nothing to prove because April already knew.

  And afterward he’d been so gentle, massaging her wrists where he’d restrained her, cradling her in his strong arms and telling her they’d figure everything out tomorrow that her heart just broke.

  She couldn’t be honest with Rex so she’d hurt him, instead. He hadn’t deserved to be hurt.

  He loved her.

  In the space of a few weeks, April had found everything she’d ever wanted from life—a wonderful, thoughtful man with a fun, loving family—and orgasms she’d only dreamed about. And as she’d lain in his arms, listened to the sound of his heart beat beneath her cheek, she finally acknowledged what she’d been denying for too long. She loved him, too.

  She wanted a future with this man. She wanted to start over again without a lie between them.

  She wanted to stop hiding from life.

  She wanted to take a chance that Rex would understand and forgive her once he found out that she’d been making love with him while keeping her real identity a secret.

  And taking that chance meant she had to clean up her baggage and clear the problems out of her way, starting with…her job. Yet she wouldn’t trust Rex’s reputation to anyone else, which meant she only had one choice.

  She had to clear his name off that suspect list once and for all.

  Taking great care in making her way across the dark suite, April powered up her laptop and logged on to the Web site of her adoption society. If Rex happened out of the bedroom, she wanted some cover. Then she went to his computer, sat down and booted his computer. His files were password protected. A necessary precaution since he networked his assistants to his system.

  Even without J.P. Mooney Investigators high-tech resources, April could still access Rex’s system. She wasn’t just going to sit here and wait until in-house security got on with their investigation.

  She was just going to take a peek.

  Standing over his shoulder one day, she’d caught that his password began with an R and ended with two Ts, but from there she was on her own.

  She could only hope his password was a variation of something familiar in his life because she didn’t have the time or the resources to crack an eleven-digit password.

  April squelched her guilt as she went to work, starting with the obvious—family names, mother’s maiden name. This would stop her investigation cold if she couldn’t figure him out enough to narrow down the possibilities.

  She came up with nothing.

  Okay, how about not so obvious? College, high school, neighborhood in Chicago where he’d grown up.

  Still nothing.

  Twenty minutes passed and April still hadn’t hit on the right combination. Finally losing her patience, she got up from his machine and headed back to her own, pulled up the J.P. Mooney Investigators’ server to access the file on Rex.

  She scrolled through the documents, looking for anything that would inspire a brainstorm. She wasn’t only an investigator but the man’s lover, for goodness sake. What password would he consider individual enough to protect his all-important work?

  Think, April told herself. But they hadn’t had enough time together for her to have knowledge of his favorite song or movie. They’d never discussed his religious or political views.

  His parents. Shawn, heavy equipment operator, and Gina, homemaker. Married 1969. That meant they were about to celebrate their thirty-fourth anniversary. Frustrated, April went back to his computer and tapped out the words thirty-four already knowing it wouldn’t work.

  Nothing.

  She exhaled sharply, resisted the urge to snarl at the dialogue box that kept denying her access. This was stupid. She was getting nowhere and wasting valuable time.

  I’ve already researched the subject online, he’d told her.

  She had to see it with her own eyes, had to be able to prove it, even though she already knew the truth in her heart.

  Back to his report. She scrolled through the screen with his data again, flipped to a page and waited for some digital images to load. Perhaps there would be some clue there.

  A scanned newspaper clipping about a very handsome young Rex as the captain of the high school football team.

  A photo of Rex with a shaggy black-and-white dog, a strange mix between a black lab and sheepdog. They were both standing in a forest stream and Rex held a fishing pole. On the bottom of the image were scrawled the words Rex and Ralph the Mutt.

  April gave it a whirl. She typed Ralphthemutt, all one word, using his keyboard. Sure enough, she’d no sooner hit Enter than the screen collapsed and she was staring at Rex’s desktop.

  The dog he’d grown up with, which only underscored what a sentimental man he was.

  And made her heart ache more.

  But adrenaline saved her, fueled her efforts even though she was physically exhausted. Maneuvering easily through his files, she scanned his organizational system for his work on the Luxurious Bedding Company project, the data she’d been inputting for the past few weeks, his remarks on the supervised shopping experiments he’d conducted in Tampa.

  Rex was organized and meticulous, keeping several copies of his work updated in different places on his hard drive and then backing up the drive to the Web and CD. Given that this information was the crux of his work, his thoroughness didn’t surprise her.

  She glanced at the Web sites he had bookmarked in his Favorites folder, popped into his Recent History folder and found an accounting of every site he’d surfed in the past week.

  No visits to any rival bedding manufacturers. In fact, not much activity…she double-clicked on his temporary Internet files, and bingo, his temporary folder overflowed with files.

  Only a man who didn’t have anything to hide would leave such an obvious clue to his online whereabouts. And as she scanned the names of the sites he’d visited, most of which were pages to the research foundation he’d told her about, April knew exactly what kind of man had left this trail.

  A man who’d said he wanted to help her.

  For the first time in weeks, April felt focused. She knew what she had to do. The idea gathered speed in her head as she thought about how she’d been surveilling Rex to see if he was involved in anything nefarious, how in-house security had been investigating him and the company employees.

  She forwarded a copy of his browser history to the J.P. Mooney Investigators’ server for safekeeping, erased all evidence of her transmission and powered down his system. Retrieving her cell phone, she hid in the bathroom to make a call, not caring that it would still be well past bedtime in the time zone she dialed.

  The phone only rang three times before a groggy voice answered, “Hello.”

  “Wilhemina,” she said. �
��This is April. I need to access your network. The same permissions your system administrator has. Will you authorize security to give that to me tonight?”

  “What’s happened, my dear? What have you found?”

  “Something that will lead me to your stalker.”

  It was an outright lie. April didn’t have anything more than the firmly rooted belief that she could find the evidence that she needed. It was enough. She was done second-guessing herself. She would be able to find what she was looking for.

  She knew it.

  “If you arrange access for me now, I’ll have something concrete before your alarm goes off to wake you up for work.”

  To Wilhemina’s credit she didn’t miss a beat. “Done, my dear. Just give me time to make a phone call. Does this have to do with Rex?”

  “Yes. I’ve found out what he was doing online and it has nothing to do with rival bedding manufacturers. I’ve forwarded the evidence to John. I’m afraid it won’t be admissible.”

  “We won’t need it in court, just for the board. I promise,” she said confidently. “Just out of curiosity, does John have any idea what you’re doing?”

  “Not yet.”

  Wilhemina laughed, a delighted sound that told April she understood the significance of that statement completely. “Go for it, my girl.”

  “I’ll be in touch with your security people through the night. I might need access to their investigation. Will that be a problem?”

  “Not at all. Do what you need to do. I’ll be waiting to hear what you find. And, April?”

  “Yes?”

  “Good work.”

  “Thanks, Auntie Wil.”

  April disconnected with a smile and headed back out to her laptop to await Wilhemina’s access. It had been that easy. Wilhemina hadn’t even questioned her stepping into the investigation. She believed that April could help.

  John, on the other hand, would likely fire her the instant he found out she’d disobeyed his orders. But she’d have to worry about that later. Right now she had a stalker to track and a man’s name to clear. The man she loved.

  15