She lay on the floor of the master bedroom. Her eyes were closed and her hair had tumbled forward to hide her face.
Felipe holstered his gun and tossed aside the pile of clothes he’d been holding. He knelt next to her and brushed her hair back from her face.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “At Sea Circus, when I put you in your trunk…God help me, I had no idea.”
She opened her startlingly sea green eyes and looked directly up at him. “I know that,” she said, still breathing hard. “How could you have known? Besides, you did what you had to do to save me.”
He was miserable, and he realized that every bit of his misery showed clearly on his face. No wonder she had been so angry with him at Schroedinger’s restaurant. No wonder she was adamant about keeping her distance. “How you must hate me,” he said.
She pushed herself up off the floor. Reaching out with one hand, she touched the side of his face. “No,” she said quietly. She took a deep breath in, then let it slowly out. “No, I don’t.”
The tears that were in Felipe’s eyes threatened to overflow. He reached up, pressing her hand tightly to his cheek. “I’d never do anything to hurt you,” he said. “Please believe that.”
She nodded, her own eyes luminous. Her face was smudged with dirt, and her tears had made clean tracks through it. Still, she looked beautiful. Lord, the torment he’d put her through…
She tried to smile and actually succeeded. “That was a heck of a way to wake up,” she said. “A hand over my mouth to scare me to death, and then a trip to my own personal hell. Tomorrow you might try something a little lower key—maybe like this.”
And then she kissed him.
She kissed him.
It started out feather light, the gentlest of butterfly kisses.
Felipe pulled back, surprised and even embarrassed. Had she really kissed him? Or maybe he’d kissed her, and maybe—certainly—he shouldn’t have.
But she leaned forward again, and this time there was no mistaking. She did kiss him.
Her mouth was warm and soft, her lips opening under his, pliant and willing and…oh, yes.
He pulled her against him, turning his head to kiss her deeper, harder, longer. She molded her body against his and wrapped her arms around him.
Dizzy with desire, Felipe sank down onto the floor, pulling her with him. Their legs intertwined, and this time, he let himself truly enjoy the sensation of her smooth, silky skin against his. He kissed her again and again, exploring her mouth with his tongue, taking his time, content just to kiss her for hours and hours.
But then she moved against him, the softness of her belly against him. Her legs tightened around his thigh and he heard himself groan.
Her heart was beating as fast and hard as it had been down in the crawl space—faster, even. She tugged at him, and he rolled over so that he was on top of her.
This was not a case of him seducing her. This was not a case of him taking advantage…or was it?
Felipe pulled back. “Caroline,” he said, shaking his head, unable to speak.
She looked up at him, fire in her sea-green eyes. He reached for her hand, pulling her so that she was sitting up. Confusion and then trepidation replaced the fire in her eyes.
“You don’t want to…?” she whispered.
“You don’t want to,” he replied, hardly believing he was saying those words, hardly believing he was denying himself what would surely be a first-class trip to heaven. “You told me that yesterday, cara, remember?”
She looked at the obvious sign of his arousal. He couldn’t hide it, so he didn’t bother to try. He could feel her eyes studying him, searching his face. He looked back at her, steadily meeting her gaze.
“Is it okay if I changed my mind?” she asked softly, and his heart leaped.
“Oh, yes,” he said huskily. “It’s very okay.”
“I changed my mind,” she said.
He wanted to touch her. But right at this moment, it was enough to look, knowing that soon, very soon, he would be touching her.
For the first time, he let himself really see her in that ridiculous excuse for a shirt. The thin material was nearly transparent as it hung loosely on her slight frame. The armholes dipped down almost to her waist, revealing the soft, round sides of her breasts. Her nipples were dark, tight points that the shirt did little to conceal. It was sexy as hell and her smile told him that she knew it. She liked knowing that she turned him on. That was good, because he couldn’t have hidden his attraction to her even if he had wanted to.
She was beautiful, and she was to be his. That knowledge made his body nearly hum with desire.
“Do you have any protection?” she asked. “A condom?”
“I keep one in my wallet.” He smiled. “I kept it there in hopes that I’d meet up with you.”
She laughed. “I know that’s supposed to be romantic,” she said, her eyes dancing with amusement. “But, really, Felipe, that’s such a total crock of—”
“Do you know for sure it’s not true?” he countered, his eyes sliding down her body, across those perfect breasts, down her shapely legs then up again to meet her eyes. “I’ve met you in my dreams quite often these past six months, Caroline Brooks.”
Her smile faded, leaving only heat in her eyes. She moistened her lips with a nervous flick of her tongue. “Why don’t you call me Carrie?” she asked.
“Because Caroline is more beautiful,” he said. “It suits you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Ease up on the B.S., Salazar,” she said, “or I might change my mind again.”
He watched her steadily. “It’s not bull,” he said serenely. “And, you know, if you change your mind again, that’s okay, too.”
She smiled at his words, but then stopped as she realized he wasn’t kidding. It was okay. Everything was okay.
“There is more to the way I feel about you than sex,” Felipe said quietly. His words were true but purposely vague. He couldn’t get more specific. He was afraid to delve more deeply into his own feelings. But even though it scared him—both the words he spoke and the feelings that prompted those words—she had the right to know.
She looked down, away from him, and he was struck by how sweet, how young and innocent she looked. She was only twenty-five—that was his age, too, he realized. But she was still young and he was not. He’d grown up a lot faster, a lot harder. They came from different neighborhoods, he and Caroline. The mountains of her father’s ranch couldn’t be compared to the rough, unforgiving city streets where he’d spent his childhood—what little of it he’d had. He’d been twenty-five for the past fifteen years. She’d been twenty-five only since last October 16—at least that was what had been listed on her driver’s license.
But then she glanced up at him from underneath her long eyelashes and smiled. It was a smile that promised paradise, a dazzling contrast to her seeming shyness moments before. She was full of surprises, full of contradictions, a living kaleidoscope of mercurial energy and emotion. He liked that. He liked her.
He leaned forward to kiss her and she met him halfway.
The explosion of passion was nearly instantaneous. He heard her moan as he pulled her, hard, against him. As he kissed her again, he felt her hands in his hair, on his back, touching, caressing, drawing him yet closer.
They were back exactly where they’d been several minutes earlier. Only this time, when Caroline pulled him down on top of her, she opened her legs, pressing the heat of her most intimate self against him.
Oh, yes.
The pain in his leg no longer existed. St. Simone and Lawrence Richter and Tommy Walsh and this whole damned mess they were in no longer existed. The world—the entire universe—no longer existed.
There was only Caroline.
Felipe rolled over onto his back, pulling her along so that she was straddling him. She kissed him, her tongue dancing with his, mimicking the movement of their bodies as she slowly, sensuously moved on top of him. Her hair fell around
his face, a curtain of gold, as his hands cupped her buttocks, fixing her more tightly against him. Only the silk of his shorts and the cotton of her panties kept him from entering her.
“Oh, Caroline,” he breathed. “This is…” He couldn’t find the words. But he didn’t have to.
She stopped kissing him long enough to gaze down into his eyes and he knew that whatever it was he was feeling—this euphoria, this sense of perfection, of completeness—she was feeling it, too.
He found the edge of her shirt and pushed it up and over her head. Her breasts were small and round and perfectly proportioned to the rest of her body. He covered them with his hands, groaning at the pleasure of touching her soft flesh. She moaned, too, pressing herself forward.
With one swift move, he flipped her onto her back, moving to touch one taut, pink nipple with his lips. Gently, so gently, he kissed her, then touched her lightly with his tongue.
Her skin smelled fresh and clean and ever so slightly of sun block. Yes, now more than ever, he would associate that scent with paradise.
Felipe could feel his pulse racing. He tried to bring it under control, to slow down his breathing and ease this feeling of an imminent explosion that tightened his throat and his gut and made him ache even lower. He wanted to rip off her panties and his boxer shorts and plunge himself deep inside her.
Instead, he forced himself to move deliberately, unhurriedly. He drew languid circles around her nipple with his tongue while his hands swept slowly up and down her tanned, flat stomach to the edge of her panties and then up and across her other breast. She touched him the same way, too, almost reverently, as if she couldn’t believe she was finally getting her heart’s desire.
Her fingers felt cool and delicate against the burning heat of his skin. Could she feel his heartbeat? he wondered. Did she know that the gentleness of her touch had the power to make him tremble? As he drew her more fully into his mouth, pulling, sucking, laving her with his tongue, she gripped his shoulders with a strength that surprised him. She arched her back, wanting more. Her response nearly did him in, nearly pushed him over the edge.
By sheer willpower, he managed to hang on to his sanity and his control. He closed his eyes, counting slowly to ten. When he opened them, she was watching him. She smiled and his heart nearly burst. If it wasn’t one part of him ready to explode, it was another.
She pushed his hair back from his face in a gentle, loving caress. It warmed him and he smiled back at her, whispering words of endearment in Spanish—words he wouldn’t have dared say to her in a language she could understand.
He broke away from the spell her ocean-colored eyes had cast over him, gazing down at her beautiful body, clad only in those blue panties.
She was tanned all over, he realized. At least on the top. She did have a tan line where she’d worn bathing-suit bottoms, and another line of shading where she’d worn shorts, but her breasts had the same perfect, golden tan as her shoulders and arms and stomach.
More contradictions. Somehow he couldn’t imagine Caroline driving south down the coast from St. Simone to hang out at Tamiami Beach, the area’s only topless sunbathing spot. Still, she’d obviously spent some time—quite a bit of time—in the sun without her top on.
“Nice tan,” he murmured, and she blushed. More contradictions. But then he lowered his mouth to her other breast, and she forgot her embarrassment. He felt her hands in his hair as she ran her fingers through his dark curls. He ran his hand down her stomach again, and when he would’ve stopped short of her panties, she lifted her hips, pressing herself up and into his hand. She couldn’t have been any clearer about what she wanted if she’d announced it through a megaphone.
So he slipped his hand beneath the elastic waistband of her panties, lifting his head to gaze into her eyes as he touched first the nest of her curls and then her soft heat. The light of pleasure on her face was sinfully delicious as he explored her most intimately.
This would be enough, he realized. Even though he was straining against his shorts, even though he wanted to be inside this woman more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life, simply giving her pleasure would truly be enough.
She closed her eyes, moving against him as he stroked her harder, deeper.
He murmured to her in Spanish, telling her of the strange sensations in his heart, urging her on, right there, right now, as he held her in his arms.
But Caroline had an entirely different idea.
She reached for him, encircling his shaft with her hand right through the silk of his shorts. “This is what I want,” she whispered. She moved her hand along his length and he bit back a cry of pleasure.
She reached for the waistband of his boxers, pulling them down, freeing him from their restraint. And then she was touching him, her fingers against his hardness, and once again he fought for self-control.
But she wasn’t going to let him get it back.
She sat up, pulling away from him, getting up on her knees to drag his shorts down his legs, careful to lift them over the bandage that covered his stitches, touching him all the while. Feverishly, he reached for his jeans, for the wallet that was still in the back pocket, and for the condom that was stored there.
His hands shook as he tore open the foil package. She pushed off her panties—how beautiful she was!—then quickly helped him cover himself. Helped? Not really. She stroked him, squeezed him, caressed him as he blindly tried to put on the damned condom.
All of his English had left him, every single blasted word of it. He tried to tell her that he wanted to make love to her this first time in the traditional way. The first time, the man should be on top, giving the pleasure.
But she didn’t understand. She murmured something to him about his leg, something about not wanting him to hurt himself, something he didn’t understand because he wasn’t hurting—he was feeling absolutely no pain. She kissed him, still straddling him, moving her hips so that she touched him with her moistness and heat. Oh, man, at this rate, he’d be finished in seven seconds. Felipe lifted her up, about to turn her and lay her down on her back, wincing when all at once the pain from his leg cut through. And, then, “No.”
The single word penetrated and he froze.
No?
He looked into her eyes through the fog of desire, and she shook her head.
Yes, that was definitely a no.
Stopping like this was going to kill him, but if she’d changed her mind, then he’d stop. He was holding his breath, he realized, and he let it out with a long, ragged sigh, trying desperately to regain his equilibrium. What had happened? Had he done something wrong?
Slowly he lowered her back down, but instead of moving away from him, she moved toward him. With one smooth thrust, she unsheathed him.
Oh, yes.
It was a lot like being thrown a surprise birthday party. He was caught totally off guard, but instantly able to adjust to the shock. And just as quickly, he understood what she had been saying no to. She wanted to be on top.
It went against the grain of everything he believed about making love to a woman. The man gave and took the pleasure. The man was in control.
And he was not in control here.
But as she moved on top of him, as she rode him, her eyes half-closed with pleasure, her long, blond hair loose around her shoulders, covering all but the tantalizing tips of her breasts, Felipe realized an awful truth.
When it came to making love to Caroline Brooks, he would never truly be in control.
The only consolation was that she was not in control, either.
He moved his hips, thrusting up to meet her downward movement, driving himself deep into her. Her eyes widened, then shut tightly, and she threw her head back, crying out her pleasure at the sensation.
He was lost, swept away by passion and pleasure and an ache in his heart he was beginning to fear would never let up.
Time blurred, and he pulled her down to kiss him as they moved together. Together. He wasn’t making love
to Caroline, he was making love with her. The thought exploded in his head as clearly as the flash of light from fireworks. Suddenly, all of his previous beliefs about making love seemed old-fashioned and obsolete. Because as sure as he was born, he’d never in his life felt anything even remotely like what he was feeling right now. It was delicious ecstasy, wild abandon, pure pleasure. And he was sharing it with Caroline. It was dizzying, consuming, terrifying. Could he actually feel this way for more than the briefest moment and not disintegrate?
And still they moved together.
She pulled away from his kiss to sit up, still atop him, and the movement sent him plunging harder and deeper into her again and again. Her head went back and she clutched at his arms, and feeling something close to disbelief, Felipe fell over the side of a cliff.
He felt the last shred of his ragged control dissolve as his body took full command. He exploded with a violent rush as, for the only time since he’d first made love at age sixteen, he finished before his lover.
He heard the hoarse sound of his voice crying out her name, heard her answering cry, felt her shudder of pleasure as she, too, found her release.
His ears were ringing as she slumped on top of him, her hair covering his face. He closed his eyes, breathing in the sweet scent of her shampoo, feeling their two hearts racing, pounding a syncopated tattoo.
His breathing slowed, and his pulse finally returned to near normal. But the dizzying, consuming emotions that had been let loose in his mind and in his heart at their coupling wouldn’t fade away.
Perhaps they never would.
That thought scared him to death.
What could it mean? Why was he feeling this way?
They swirled around him like a tornado, those almost palpable emotions, forming a pattern of words that repeated over and over in his mind.
Te amo. Te adoro.
I love you.
His eyes opened and he stared at the ceiling through a haze of golden hair.
He was in love with Caroline Brooks.
No. He couldn’t be. He wouldn’t let himself be. It was not possible. Not now. Especially not now. But not later, either. There was no room in his life for such a thing.
Nowhere to Run Page 36