Just Say Yes (Escape to New Zealand Book 10)

by Rosalind James

  “That’s the idea.” He watched her shift to second position, but didn’t comment on it. “Want me to go first? I will. It’s different from my first month with anybody else, ever. Different enough to make me believe in it. It’s easier, and it’s harder, too. Easier because being with you is easy. Because you don’t want to chat all the time or expect me to be clever, and you don’t seem to hate that I’ve always got my bloody family around, or that all we’re doing is washing the car or making dinner. And because I know what I want to do later, and how good it’ll be. It’s pure excitement to make love to you, and even to think about doing it, and it’s good to hold you afterwards, too. And it’s harder, because I can’t do any of that enough. I keep having to leave you, and not just when I’m leaving with the squad, which is bad enough. Every time I go to bed alone when I could have been with you, I hate it. And it’s harder because the stakes are so high, and I know it. Not just my happiness, but yours and Zavy’s. And so much of your happiness isn’t anything I can help with, and I hate that, too.”

  Her mouth had fallen open, and he stopped and said, “Your turn.”

  Her feet were moving faster than ever. “How do I? How can you just ... just say everything like that, like you know how you feel that exactly, and you don’t care how much you’re putting yourself on the line? How can you have that much confidence?”

  “Dunno. I just do. I’m a simple bloke, I guess. It all seems pretty obvious from where I stand.”

  “Oh.” She tried to process that, but she got stuck. “Well, I don’t think I can do it like that. I don’t talk that well anyway, and tonight isn’t one of my peak moments.”

  He smiled, and by the way? He’d been right. Those folded arms did display his biceps fairly ... well, fairly magnificently. Not to mention his forearms.

  She didn’t want to bare her soul. She wanted to run her hands up his arms and down them again, to feel every one of those ridged muscles, and to have him shove off that bench so he could hold her better, and so he could move them to the bedroom. Preferably by carrying her there.

  All right, so there was one area where she didn’t mind answering to him. She was a physical creature, so was he, and her physical being seemed to have been made to answer to his.

  “It’s not a contest,” he said. “No style points. Just tell me what you can manage.”

  She tried. “It’s ... uh, completely different, then. Between you and Rich, I mean. Because Rich is the only person I can compare you to.”

  “Good news for me, then.”

  Well, that was true. “Probably because I met him when I was barely past twenty. That feels like another person.”

  “Right, then. Start there. What person?”

  “Well, uh, I guess ... well, back then, I was ... on top of the world, and I was terrified. I was a soloist already, and I wanted to be a principal more than anything in my life, but it all felt so fragile. You can be so insecure when you start. It takes so much dedication, and there’s so much competition. I just loved it so much. I hadn’t come close to losing it then, but just the idea of it—or even of being stuck where I was, as a member of the company—was enough to keep me from sleeping anytime I had a bad rehearsal, a performance that wasn’t my best. And Rich ... Rich was my first, and he did all the right things. That first month? He treated me like a star. He loved that I was a dancer, and he did all the things you could imagine that a man would do for a dancer. Flowers. Restaurants. Making me feel glamorous. Taking me to bed and telling me he loved my body, even though I had too many muscles and not enough curves to satisfy a man, and I knew it, and I didn’t know what to do or how to do it. And he was right, I guess. I was a star, in the end. And it felt like he helped. I knew what he put up with, being with a dancer.”

  Kevin said, “I’m trying to listen, but I’m stuck back there at ‘He was my first.’”

  “No mystery. I was a dancer. I started with the company at seventeen. Dancers don’t go to parties. Dancers dance, and they know other dancers.”

  “And male dancers aren’t always straight.”

  “No. They’re not. And I was very focused.”

  “I’m trying not to ask this,” Kevin said. “I know it’s not the important bit, and it’s not my business. And I can’t help it.”

  She looked at him sidelong. “Which one you are?”

  “Well, yeh. That would be it.”

  “Two.”

  “Ah,” he said, and sighed.

  “What does that mean?” she asked. “That you’re sorry you’re not first? Can’t be too big a surprise, mate. I have a son.”

  “Geez.” He stepped closer, took her in his arms, and said, “I can’t help it. I do wish that. I’m jealous. I want you to be all mine, and I wish you always had been. But I don’t know why you’d imagine any man would think you weren’t gorgeous, and that he wasn’t bloody lucky. Every time I see you dance, every time I see you, period, I know both of those things.”

  She couldn’t think how to answer that. Well, she could, but she didn’t know how to say anything about it. The best she could come up with was, “That’s a very nice thing to say.”

  He sighed, and she tried to pay attention, but it wasn’t easy, not with him smelling so wonderfully of leather and man and soap. His shaving cream, maybe. Not to mention how he radiated all that heat. She wanted to bury her face in his broad neck, to feel his big hands running all over her like he had the right.

  He said, “I should’ve known. You don’t believe me. First time I’ve ever had to say this, but here you are. There hasn’t been a time I’ve been with you that I haven’t wanted to take off your clothes.”

  “Yeh, right. Including the first time. When you came to tell me to get out of your apartment.”

  “Especially the first time. Oh, yeh. And every time since. I want to do it right now, in fact, but we’re meant to be having a fight.”

  “Fight’s over,” she said. “I won.”

  A smile touched his mouth. “I reckon. But you know ... somehow, it always feels like I did.”

  “Nice memory, then,” she said, trying to be saucy. Trying to be in control when she wasn’t.

  “Want to know why?” It was low, and it was dark. That other side of Kevin, the side he saved for the rugby field. And for her.

  The thrum in her body, insistent as a drumbeat, had started up despite her fatigue, despite the agitation that came from trying for honesty, for openness, when it mattered too much. Or maybe because of it. Kevin’s hand had drifted down her back, all the way to her bum, touching everything along the way as if it really did belong to him. His other hand was on her face in that way that turned her on all by itself. Possessive and tender, demanding and giving. All contradiction, and every bit of it a thrill.

  He said, his voice so deliberate, like a man who’d never be embarrassed, who’d never mind telling you what he felt or what he wanted, “When you arch your back the way you do, when your head goes back because you can’t help it? That’s a win. When I’m making you come, and you’re pulling my hair, and I’m getting some noise from you even though you’ve tried so hard not to do it? That’s a win as well.”

  That hand of his was stroking over the curve of her bum, and then it was inside the waistband of her leggings, discovering the high-cut undies that stopped halfway down her cheeks. He was tracing that lacy edge around and down, making her tingle, making her need more. Making her need it now. And when he followed it all the way down and slid his hand inside the silken fabric, was rubbing over her, exploring her body with absolutely no hesitation, it was exactly what he’d said. She was breathing harder already, and pretty soon, she’d have to make some noise.

  “And when I’m inside you,” he said into her ear, “and you’ve got your legs wrapped around my back? When I turn you over because I need to do you that way, and I can look down and watch myself moving in and out of you, filling you up? No matter what you tell me or don’t tell me—that’s a win for me, and you know it. And I want it.�
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  He’d told her the truth. At this moment, he needed to take her clothes off.

  He picked her up. She loved it when he carried her, and that suited him fine. He’d have been quite happy to do her bent over the kitchen sink, and he was pretty sure she’d have loved that, too, but she’d care about privacy, and she’d worry about Zavy discovering them.

  Never mind. He’d find an even better way to do it. He knew what he needed tonight, and he thought he knew what she did. She wasn’t sure? He’d make her sure of one thing, anyway. That the second time—the second man—was the charm.

  I need it intense and hard and strong, she’d said. Then that was what she was going to get.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and began to stroke him there, her fingers reaching under his T-shirt. She started to kiss his throat, too, and he moved a little faster. Down the passage and into her bedroom, and when he got there, he didn’t put her on the bed. Instead, he set her on her feet, switched on the bedside light, shut the door, and twisted the lock closed.

  She expected him to kiss her, and he knew it, but he was past that. He needed that win. So he put his hands on her shoulders, spun her around, pulled her back with a hand on her belly, and whispered in her ear, “Want to please me tonight?”

  He felt the shudder that went straight through her body, because there was no way she could hide it. “Yes,” she said, and it was nothing more than a breath. She was already halfway gone, and that was all it took. He was hard as iron, and tonight, it was going to be flat to the boards and no beg pardons.

  He pulled her with him, straight down to their knees. A bed wasn’t good enough tonight. He needed the floor. He was behind her, his hands under her stretchy top, pulling it over her head, and then he found the clasp of her bra and drew it down her arms. He could already hear her breath coming hard, and he loved it.

  He pulled her hair back from her ear, kissed her soft cheek, trailed his lips over to her earlobe, and felt her shiver again. And when he bit down on the lobe, she jumped. He said into that pointed ear, “Take the rest of it off, and stay there.”

  There weren’t many women who could look graceful on their knees taking off a pair of leggings, but Chloe was one of them. He was yanking his T-shirt up his own chest, but he may have got a bit distracted by the sight of her wriggling her way out of those stretchy black leggings, and by the pair of undies he’d felt back there in the kitchen.

  Her arse really was the prettiest he’d ever seen, high and tight and so sweetly rounded, and the way the scrap of black lace stopped halfway down the curve of cheek was nothing but choice. He grabbed what he needed out of his pockets, then got his jeans, briefs, and socks off and tossed them, too. But when Chloe’s thumbs went to that black lace, he said, “Changed my mind. Wait.” And if it came out a little hoarse, he couldn’t help that.

  She started to turn around, and he said, “No. Don’t. Put your arm around my neck.” And when she did ... that was good.

  Chloe on her knees, her narrow back arched, her arm stretching so gracefully behind her, twining around his neck. One of his hands on her belly, hauling her back, and the other sliding up over her delicate ribcage, then capturing that uptilted breast, squeezing the hardened peak between a thumb and finger. She was squirming just from that, but she was going to squirm so much more before he was done.

  He kept up the play, loving that he could watch. And when he sent his other hand down her flat belly and into the low waistband of the world’s tiniest, laciest pair of black undies? When she leaned back farther into him, and he was holding her by one breast and was stroking over all that silken heat, opening her, exploring her? When her eyes were closed and her mouth was open, and she was going to need what came next as much as a woman had ever needed a man?

  You could say it worked for him.

  Little by little, he worked that scrap of black down her hips and over her thighs, and when he’d done it, he didn’t let her breast go. Instead, he bit her earlobe again, then bit her neck, and finally, when he felt the wetness increase yet again, when she was pushing into his hand, he whispered, “Take them off.”

  He had to let go of her then, but that was all right, because he had a condom to find while he watched. And as soon as she’d done it, he said, “Get down on your belly. One arm in front of you, one under you.” And when she did it, when she went down on her belly for him, he pulled her back by the hips, lifted a thigh in each hand, and said, “Wrap your legs around me.”

  Oh, the beauty of a flexible partner who wanted to do what you told her. He looked at her there, her upper body stretched out, palms flat on the floor, pushing off, her hips all the way off the floor as her legs wrapped around his back, and felt a surge of pure power that went straight to his groin. And when he held her hips, pushed slowly into her, and felt every bit of sweet submission?

  Oh, yeh.

  He didn’t move in her. Not yet. That wasn’t what this position was about. Instead, he grabbed the tiny tube of lube he’d brought with him tonight just in case they wanted it, smeared a little on fingers and thumb, and started to play.

  She was squirming again. Against him, into him. But she wasn’t talking. Her hair was falling around her face, her gasps the music he worked to. His other hand went under her body and began to stroke, and she started to move harder. She was completely at his mercy, but she was riding him all the same. Riding, and contracting around him. Going up already.

  His thumb was diving, now, getting bolder, a little rougher, and she made a noise at last. A moan.

  He said, “Tell me. Tell me if you like it.” Because he wanted to hear it, and he needed to make sure. Both.

  “Uh ...” She was rocking back against him, and she was pulsing under his other hand. “Do that to me,” she finally said, and that was a moan, too. “Please. Do it. Feels so ... good.”

  Saying it excited her, he could tell. She was so close. He took her further up, felt her teetering at the edge, then backed off. Both his hands moving now, and nothing else, because he was making her do the rest of the work. Again and again, he dragged her along, getting her almost there and then pulling back, until at last, she was moaning, crying out.

  “Kevin,” she said. “Please. Please. I can’t stand it.”

  He pulled out of her, then, and she uttered an incoherent sound of protest. “Elbows and knees,” he said. “And I want to feel you grabbing me. I want you to work me over. Do it now.”

  She didn’t answer, but she offered herself up to him, and when he plunged deep, then did it again, and again? When he was pulling her hips back with one hand, had the other one stroking that magic button, pinching it, swirling around it? When she was working those muscles of hers, and he was pumping into her, and she was pushing back?

  And then when she got there at last. When she went over the top, when her hips were bucking, and he was riding her hard. When everything in him was about being inside this woman, taking her over, making her his.

  He could feel her coming, the contractions so strong, squeezing him tight, and that excited him even more. His body was tightening, winding up, higher and higher, until it exploded in a starburst of pleasure so intense, he thought for one heart-stopping moment that he couldn’t stand it. It went on, and then it went on some more, and she was still coming, too. Again and again, shaking under him, taking him deeper, making him lose his mind, until the possessor became the possessed.

  He took her hard. He made her give it up. And she owned him.

  He did end up in her bed, eventually, and he kissed her, too. Lying over her, holding her face in his hands and giving her every bit of tenderness he hadn’t managed earlier.

  “Did I mention,” he asked, rolling a little farther over her, just because he loved how she felt under him, “that I loved you?”

  “Did I mention that I loved you, too?” It was only a murmur, because she was falling asleep. “But you need to leave. I’m so tired, and I want to sleep with you, but I can’t. We can’t.”


  He didn’t roll off her, and he didn’t let go. “Zavy’s not going to be worried, you know. I like my little mate, and he likes me.”

  “And you’re so sweet to him.” Her hand was stroking his cheek, and that felt good, too. “But I have to do what’s best for him, and I think it’s too soon.”

  “Sure that isn’t just your own fear?” He had to tread carefully, but he needed to try.

  Her eyes were somber in the dim light. “It could be. I don’t know. It’s hard to know what to do, what to say.”

  “Just say yes,” he said. “Just say yes, the same way you did with me tonight. Trust me to take care of you, and to take care of Zavy. That’s all I want to do.”

  She rolled out from under him, and he let her go. No choice. “It’s not that easy,” she said. “Too many changes in our life right now. Too many hard choices. Please, Kevin. Don’t force me to make this one. I’m nowhere near ready.”

  He could have pointed out that by not making it, she was making it. But he didn’t. No matter how much he wanted her, he couldn’t make her life harder. If he loved her, that was the test.

  “Right.” He got out of bed and started hunting out his clothes and pulling them on, handing over hers along the way.

  “Kevin.” She was sitting up, the sheet pooling around her slim hips, her upper body as beautifully sculpted as the nymph on his fountain. So much warmer, but at this moment, almost as distant. “I want you, but I can’t risk Zavy’s happiness, or his security.”

  Or mine, she didn’t say, but he knew it was true. He finished pulling his shirt on, sat on the edge of the bed, stroked a hand over her hair, and finally, bent and kissed her mouth. Nothing but gentle, now. “Nah,” he said, still holding her close, knowing that he had to let her go. “I know you can’t. A man doesn’t get to fall in love with a strong woman and then complain about it.”

  “Is that how it seems?”

  “Yeh, baby.” He stood up, because he had to. “That’s exactly how it seems. And I’ll still hope you’ll bring my little mate down for dinner tomorrow, so I can see you both before I leave for Safa. And I’ll still miss you while I’m gone. Seems there’s no choice. Seems I’m built that way.”