Sparring Partners

by Leigh Morgan

  "I'm keeping the shirt." He said, alerting her to the fact that he knew she was behind him.

  "I'd have given it to you if you'd asked nicely."

  Jordon turned around and looked at her. She'd showered and lost what was left of her pajamas. She was wearing a sleeveless summer dress that tied in back, tennis shoes with no socks and a straw hat. It was decidedly more feminine than anything else he'd seen her in, including the dress she wore to their five minute wedding.

  "Liar."

  She came within a foot of him and stopped. Her soap and flowers scent teased him, but he didn't bridge the gap between them. He needed her to come to him. What happened next was up to her. He'd done enough demanding for one day.

  "You're right. I did lie to you before, but not about the shirt." She took off her hat and took a step forward. Still, he didn't move or speak. This was her play. He wanted to push her, he wanted to know why she was here and what she lied about, but he didn't want to scare her away, so he wiped all the emotion from his face and calmly waited.

  Then she took his hand. "Walk with me. I'll show you my favorite spot. It's where I go when I need to be alone with my thoughts."

  Jordon's hand closed around hers and he let her lead him out of the woods toward the pond. They walked in silence. Jordon, because he wanted to see her secret place almost as badly as he wanted to keep touching her, even if all he was touching was her hand. He wasn't sure why Reed was suddenly silent, but as long as she kept touching him he wasn't about to question her motives.

  She led him around the pond to the narrow strip of land behind that was lined on each side with weeping willow trees. They had been left to grow wild, their branches nearly touching the ground. There were other small trees and shrubs along the bank that Jordon couldn't name that provided shelter for animals, and, combined with the willows, obscured the view from the house up the hill.

  No wonder Reed liked this place, it was completely secluded. Her own little elf kingdom. Jordon felt some of the tension he'd been carrying between his shoulders ease. He closed his eyes and let the scents of freshly cut grass and wild flowers envelope him. He could smell the water too, fresh and clear except for the light tinge of algae floating at the perimeter. He found the scents and the sounds of the water and the creatures who lived here relaxing. It had been a long time since he held hands with a woman and simply enjoyed the sights and scents of a sunny summer day.

  Reed seemed to sense his mood and let him soak it all in for a long moment before leading him to the largest of the willows directly in the center of her grove. Releasing his hand, Reed went on tip-toe to pull down a small bundle she kept squirreled away amid the branches. He could have helped her with her task, but he didn't want to seem too eager or too hopeful after this morning's encounter. This was her plan and she needed to be the one to determine the course of events.

  Jordon turned away to watch a pair of dragonflies as they danced above the water. He lifted his face to the sky and let the warmth of the day wash over him. When he turned back to Reed, she was sitting on a checkered blanket held down on each corner by a plastic bottle of water and some small rocks. She'd taken off her shoes and socks and tossed them to the side with her hat, the thick plastic bag, and two more bottles of water.

  She patted the blanket beside her. "Sit with me."

  He sat, feeling awkward and at a loss as to where to put his feet. She looked like an exotic butterfly, delicate and perfect. He felt like a giant bull frog, all warts and feet. He settled on crossing his feet straight out in front of him.

  "I'm trying to keep up here, Reed, but I can't help feeling like I missed something."

  She bent her bare legs back around her, holding herself toward him, perched on one well muscled arm. He cleared his throat as her skirt rose higher and forced his gaze from her thigh to her face. Big mistake. Her lips were slightly parted and all dewy with pink gloss. Her freshly scrubbed face shone with good health. And her eyes. Damn, she had incredible eyes. Gray and blue and light green all mixed up with a rim of deep charcoal. No one should have eyes that beautiful.

  Jordon leaned back on his elbows and looked away, pretending to study the water. Every internal warning bell he had was sounding loud and clear, but he couldn't walk away. Not yet. Not before he found out what this was all about.

  He steeled his voice. "So, you said before we took this little stroll, that you lied to me earlier. What did you lie about?" He asked, not really caring.

  Reed wasn't the kind of woman who had anything deep and dark to actually lie about. He was more interested in what she was up to now.

  "I like you." She said, surprising him. "I like you, a lot."

  Not exactly a big lie, but it got his attention. His gaze snapped back to her while he silently willed her to continue. He always learned more by shutting up and letting his opponent talk than he did through outright interrogation, no matter how gentle the interrogation. Unfortunately, the wait now was killing him. She didn't seem to have any of the usual motives people had when they wanted something from him: money, an introduction to the world's elite, free investment advice, selling their company, the list went on but nothing on it started with a walk in the woods and a sun dress as light as air.

  "I like you too. Now, spit it out Reed. Tell me why we're here. I can't read your mind." He said, sounding harsher than he intended.

  She moved to the bottom of the blanket instead of answering him and began taking off his shoes. His socks followed. He didn't stop her, but he didn't help either. She stuffed his socks in his shoes and put them behind her, smiling like a naughty three year old caught stealing candy from grandma's jar. He'd worn that smile often enough as a kid to recognize it when he saw it. It always indicated to the recipient that trouble was just beginning.

  When she finished with his shoes Reed began to rub his feet. Any attempt to analyze that smile further left as her warm hands began to work magic on his instep. Jordon closed his eyes, enjoying the sensations as her hands ran the length of his foot. When she leaned down and blew on his toes, Jordon tried to pull away. She held on. His eyes shot to hers. The banked heat in her gaze stopped his struggles, keeping him rooted to the blanket. There was an openness and frank sensuality in the small smile she gave him that hadn't been there when she threw her shirt at him or when she pushed his shoes behind her on the blanket.

  Her hand ran up his arch, to his calf sending electricity surging through him. He ignored it and focused on her eyes. She could lie to him, but her eyes weren't capable of deception. They held every emotion she was feeling for anyone capable of reading them, like a computer screen directly to her soul.

  "Why did you bring me here?" Jordon asked again, wanting her to say what she wanted from him out loud. Wanting to read the truth of her desire in her eyes.

  "I wasn't honest with you earlier today. You made me so mad I couldn't see straight. So I lied. I don't want there to be any lies between us so I brought you out here to tell you the truth." She stopped playing with his feet and grinned impishly at him. "Then I stole your shoes so you can't run away before I tell you."

  Jordon glanced around. Sure enough, she'd managed to toss his shoes under the brush far enough that he couldn't get to them without leaving the blanket. Right now securing his shoes was the least of his worries.

  "I'm not running. Tell me your truth, elf. I don't care about the lie." His voice sounded raspy, even to him.

  Jordon was beyond caring whether she knew just how much he wanted her naked, in his arms, those glorious eyes bleeding to black as he sank into her an inch at a time. Subtlety hadn't gotten him anywhere, neither had coercion. Honesty, at least in this, was worth a shot. It wasn't like he had all the time in the world to woo her. If she kept looking at him like he was chocolate pie, maybe he wouldn't need to.

  "I liked you that day at the museum. I liked the way you controlled your irritation and didn't take it out on Jesse," she looked down and back up again, a sheepish smile on her face, "Or me."

&nb
sp; She leaned into him, working her magic hands farther up his calf. "I liked the way you smiled when you asked me to dinner. I liked Las Vegas. The way you sank into me and made me come twice before you did. I like the way you're looking at me now."

  Jordon sat straighter on the blanket, trying to control his rapidly beating heart and the blood it was forcing to his groin. He wondered just how much truth she was capable of admitting.

  "And just how am I looking at you?" He asked.

  "Like you want to eat me."

  "If you don't want exactly that, you'd better leave. Right now." He said, nodding toward his discarded shoes. "And take those with you in case I change my mind and come after you."

  He hoped like hell she'd stand her ground and not make him run after her. He felt too raw at the moment to chase her. Worse than that, he couldn't trust himself to be gentle if he caught her.

  Reed got to her feet and stepped away from him. Jordon couldn't decipher the look on her face before she glanced back toward the house. It was at least a quarter mile away. If she ran right now, he could give her a good ten second head start before he chased her down. Damn it. He'd opened up and let her see his vulnerability, no matter how little of it he'd shown, at least that much of how he felt was honest, and now she was going to throw it in his face and run away. Jordon closed his eyes and sat perfectly still. He wasn't about to give her the satisfaction of watching while she left him.

  "I'm still here."

  "I know. I can smell you."

  "Look at me Jordon. Please." Her voice soft, fragile even, with an under current of strength that buzzed in his ears.

  He opened his eyes. She wasn't running, although her breathing suggested she could have just run a mile. She was standing just out of reach. He didn't move, afraid she'd flutter away if he startled her.

  Jordon swallowed past the lump in his throat when her hands moved to the tiny row of buttons holding the front of her flimsy dress together. She took her time undoing each one. He didn't think she was teasing him, her hands were shaking too noticeably for that, she simply couldn't get the job done any faster.

  He wasn't about to help her. Not this time. This time he needed her to come to him. Open, willing, ready to accept who and what he was to her now. He couldn't risk telling her everything yet, the bond she was weaving between them was too fragile, too new.

  When she unbuttoned about half way, she shimmied out of her dress, letting it fall over her surprisingly full hips. She wasn't wearing any underwear. Suddenly he wanted that dress far more than he wanted her tank-top, but he wasn't about to ask for it. He'd been scary enough for one day. He'd just have to order a dozen more like it in every color and pattern he could find, so he could watch her take off each and every one.

  She stood before him naked, dappled in light, willow branches swaying around her to the beat of the frogs and the crickets and the water-bugs. She was more faerie princess now than elf. All she lacked was a diamond tiara and wings, he could order the tiara.

  He held out his hand to her. "Come here. Let me taste you."

  She walked to him slowly. He didn't get up. When she was close enough to touch, he pushed back fully against the willow trunk, pulling her with him, hands spanning her waist. Jordon let his hands measure her there, then flow over her hips to her thighs. Lifting one leg from behind her knee he turned her, exposing the soft inner skin of her thigh. He kissed her warm skin, surrounded by the fragrance of her desire. He lingered a moment before trailing her leg over his shoulder, exposing all of her. When she didn't pull away he pulled her closer, spanning her bottom with his hands.

  Inhaling deeply, Jordon savored the scent of her, honey and heat, salt and earth. He let it flow over him, through him, like river water over bare feet, surrounding him with the promise of a cool sanctuary in the blinding heat of the day.

  When he couldn't wait any longer, Jordon groaned and brought his mouth to her heat. The first flick of his tongue found her clit with an accuracy that had Reed fisting her hands in his hair. He relished the small pain and licked deeper down her cleft then back to her hard center of sensation which he laved gently, teasingly, and then sucked it into his mouth, causing her to make low animal sounds that seemed to come from her toes.

  Jordon's shoulders absorbed most of her weight as she took over, riding him, forcing his mouth and tongue to her speed, to her tempo, easing away only to push back into him. Her breathing was labored now, her moves more forceful as she pulled him more deeply into her. When he felt her coming close to orgasm, he trailed his fingers through the cleft of her buttocks to the wetness of her vagina, penetrating her with one finger as his other hand found one erect nipple and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger, not too hard, not to gentle.

  She came apart around him, vaginal walls trying to absorb his finger, bringing it deeper with each convulsion, screaming as she came.

  Collapsing into a spent heap in his lap, Reed threw her arms around him and held him, slight shakes still rippling their way through her tiny body. Jordon could feel her heart trying to beat its way through her chest, reveling in the feeling of power her complete surrender to him made him feel.

  At least in this way she loved him fully. For now, it was enough.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  "Let go of me." Finn said, ripping her arm away from Henry's grasp. She didn't like the way her heart accelerated its beat every time she was near him or the way her insides sank to her knees every time he touched her.

  "I don't have any intention of interrupting Reed when she's preparing to skewer a man for lunch so there's no need to usher me away like a child."

  "I thought you were a family of vegetarians? I've never gotten so much crap for frying bacon in my life."

  "Charlie's not. He eats meat. Reed could skewer Jordon, roast him and feed him in little chunks to Charlie." She shrugged, "Or, she could pound him into ground meat and serve him on a bun. Either way he'll be swallowed, digested and Potters Woods will be rid of him."

  And you. That thought didn't lift Finn's spirits in quite the way it should have.

  Henry's eyebrows shot up and he stopped walking, the look he gave her said he didn't know how to take her. "You know, for such a sweet faced woman, you sure are blood thirsty."

  Finn didn't think that merited a response so she turned away trying to get to her workshop before he did so she could lock him out. Work always calmed her. Her workshop, a free standing mini-house with it's own loft, bathroom, kitchenette and utilities was her refuge when the constant stress of running Potters Woods with increasingly limited resources threatened to overwhelm her.

  It even had it's own small flower garden. All the windows had flower boxes stuffed full of bright blossoms and trailing ivy. It looked like something out of a fairytale, but that was the effect Finn wanted to achieve. She reached down and pulled a weed from her multi-colored impatiens, trying to ignore the inexplicable attraction she felt for Henry.

  "I may be blood thirsty, but, I'm not the one Jordon needs to worry about. He's not pulling at my heart-strings."

  Henry sat on the metal bench Finn created in her workshop that looked like a fallen log with copper inserts forming Celtic knots across the back. He looked right at home in her sacred space, taking up most of the bench made for two, making Finn painfully aware of his size and his physical appeal. Damn him.

  She already had a lover she was pleased with. A painter. A young, talented, vibrant painter who satisfied her without overwhelming her senses or making her heart beat painfully simply by touching her. She didn't need or want a bodyguard. She really, really didn't.

  Henry looked at her, his gaze pinning her to the ground, his mist colored eyes that seemed to change with his mood seeing past her internal denial. If she didn't know any better, Finn would have sworn he had control over the color shift, and used it to his advantage in every situation.

  Wizard.

  The word flitted in and out of her mind before she could give it shape or deny it credence. She knew m
agic was real, she simply didn't believe this man had the ability to conjure it. Finn looked up sending a silent prayer to the God and Goddess that she was right.

  "So who pulls at your heart-strings?" Henry asked.

  "I thought we were talking about Reed and your boss."

  He shrugged, maintaining eye contact. "We were. Now we're not. Answer the question."

  Finn tossed the weed she plucked into the grass and turned to face Henry fully, hands on her hips, back yoga straight, using every inch she could muster to lord over him. "You can turn off your dictatorial-tell-me-or-else-body-guard button. It's not going to work on me."

  Henry stood in one easy movement and crossed the distance between them before Finn could blink. He didn't touch her, but he was standing very close. Close enough for her to make out the flecks of sunshine yellow in his chameleon irises.

  "Tell me what will work on you." He said, more cajoling than demanding now.

  "What do you want from me, Henry?"

  He reached out and brushed the lock of straight blond hair that had fallen into her face back behind her ear. "You want the truth?"

  Yes.

  "No."

  He let his hand fall back to his side, managing to look disappointed and cynical at the same time.

  "Let me know when you do." He said, turning away from her, heading back to the house. He didn't look back when he added, "I'll be staying in the room next to Reed's upstairs. Come find me when you decide to stop lying to yourself."

  He sent her a little wave over his shoulder without bothering to see if she was even still watching him as he disappeared into the trees.

  Finn looked at her watch. It wasn't even noon. Irma wasn't due for a few more hours. Reed and Jordon were still hashing out their differences down by the pond. She had plenty of time to quickly shower, change into one of those leather outfits Peter, her painter, liked so much, and be back in time to see Irma settled in. Peter was always up for a quickie, and she needed to get one pushy, over-sized, misty-eyed head of security out of her head.