by Jill Shalvis
“Relax.” She bit back her hysterical laughter. “Sure. I’ll relax.”
“Great, because you’re wound up tighter than a clock.”
“Yes, well, this hasn’t been exactly a good day.”
“I know.” He contemplated her in silence for a while. “Are you cold?”
Yes. She was cold. And hungry. And tired. And, apparently, letting this whole situation really get to her.
“Come on,” he said. Still on his knees before her, he wriggled his fingers, clearly indicating she could take his hand.
Tessa closed her eyes. She didn’t want to take his hand. She wanted to crawl in a hole and have a meltdown. She wanted to be alone while doing it, thank you very much. “Go to sleep,” she said.
“I can’t do that now,” said the contrary man.
Of course not. Because heaven forbid one thing go her way tonight.
3
“TESSA, COME ON. Lie down.”
Only a moment ago she’d been holding it together just fine, and then Reilly had to come close with that long, sleekly muscled body glowing in the faint light and go all sweet and sensitive on her.
Ha! As if he could ever even pretend to be sweet and sensitive.
“Come on,” he said gently. Gently.
Didn’t he know that was how to break a woman down—show a tender insight and perception, along with near nudity so magnificent it made her mouth water?
“Tessa?”
And the way he said her name in that low, husky voice… It brought to mind hot summer nights and satin sheets and wild but sweet lovemaking.
Not that she knew much about hot summer nights combined with satin sheets and wild but sweet lovemaking, but a girl had her fantasies.
And he was a walking fantasy.
Taking her hand in his, he rose. “Up you go.” He led her to the cot with a hand at the small of her back. As if he was kind and compassionate. “Lie down right here.”
No questions at the end of his sentences, not for Reilly. Nope, he never said, “Okay?” or “Would you like?” He was a guy, through and through, and an extremely confident one at that. Not to mention demanding, because really, why ask when clearly he knew everything?
“Tess. Lie down.”
He shortened her name. No one else had ever done that, and it seemed…extremely intimate, and on his lips, almost unbearably sexy.
Suddenly the room felt so small, too small. She needed wide open space and she needed it now. Forget adventure, had she ever said she wanted adventure like this? No! She wanted her cozy little apartment, her sister’s nightly visit bearing ice cream and a good movie. Maybe a call from her brother just to say hi.
“Sit.”
She shivered again—what was the matter with her? She was safe, she was fine, and now she was going to fall apart? But she sat on the cot. It wasn’t as soft as it looked, and didn’t have any covers on it. “I don’t understand this room,” she said, and shivered again, knowing she was talking out of nervous reaction, but unable to help herself. “The rest of the house is so beautiful and warm and comfortable.”
Reilly looked around him and shrugged. “For all Eddie’s wild and extravagant living, he doesn’t like servants—it’s the subservient thing, I guess. At least ones who don’t sleep in his bedroom. Fixing this room would be a waste of his time, he probably never even uses it.”
He talked about Eddie as though he didn’t like him. She didn’t understand that either. “Your father is a wonderful man.”
“What does that have to do with the fact he goes through women like some of us go through water?”
Since she couldn’t deny that, she lay down and curled on her side facing away from him. “I’m not a bed hog. You can have half.”
“It’s not big enough.”
Fine. No skin off her nose. Tessa planned to lie there and wait for dawn, but the late hour, combined with her heavy workweek, not to mention the evening’s events, had taken a greater toll than she’d imagined, and miraculously, she drifted off…
Only to dream about being grabbed from behind, about the thick, muscled forearm cutting off her air—
She jerked straight off the cot and gasped for the breath to scream but when she blinked into focus the small, rather dark room and the silent man standing there propping up the far wall, she sagged.
“Just a dream,” he said.
Imagine that.
“Go back to sleep.”
Right. She sat down, and realized she was chilled to the bone.
“Sleep,” he said. “Not sit.”
“I’m cold.”
He tipped his head back and glanced at the ceiling as if seeking divine intervention. He moved forward until his knees bumped the cot. “There’s no blanket.”
“No.” She wrapped her arms around herself and kept her eyes straight ahead, which landed them…oh, only about eye level with the best-looking male stomach ever.
“Lie down.”
She had no idea why she obeyed him, but with another shiver, she did, and then went flat onto her back, where she held her breath as he lowered himself onto the cot as well. He lay on his side facing her. He held up his head with his hand, setting his other very lightly on her stomach.
Her belly quivered. Other parts did, too, and she looked for a diversion. She found it in the closed access above them. If only he’d just climb up there—
His fingers tightened on her and he leaned in, just a little. “Sleep.”
Right. Since his broad shoulders, chest and amazing eyes filled her vision, she closed her eyes. Only problem, without a visual, her other senses kicked in. His scent came to her, a little soapy, a little woodsy and a lot male. His heat and strength seemed to seep into her chilled bones and, helplessly, she relaxed a bit, because maybe, just maybe, he really was kind and sweet and sensitive behind all that…
“You don’t snore do you?”
Her eyes flew open. “No. Do you?”
“No.” He lowered his head to the cot and closed his eyes.
Hmm. New problem. Now their faces were only an inch apart. He hadn’t shaved in a few days, she guessed, given the shadow on his lean jaw. He had the longest, darkest eyelashes. A complete waste on a man, especially this man. There was a white jagged scar running along one eyebrow, another high on his forehead. Where had he gotten such scars? His nose was long and straight, his mouth fixed in a grim, hard line. His dark hair was so short it stood straight up, and she imagined he rarely bothered with a comb. She wondered if it was soft or—
“Are you going to think this loudly all night?” he asked, but then another shiver wracked her and he let out a long breath. “Okay, but only in the name of shared body heat…” He gripped her around the waist and tugged, turning her at the same time, until she was snuggled firmly against him, her spine to his chest, the backs of her legs to the front of his and all the spots in between perfectly aligned. All in the “name of shared body heat.”
Oh boy.
She tried to go to sleep, she really did. It proved an impossibility while she was holding her breath as she was. Behind her, Reilly lay utterly silent, utterly still, not pressing any of his…parts…against her unduly.
And she’d already noticed he had parts. Oh my, did he have parts.
Scooting free so that she could roll onto her back and look at him, she instantly wished she hadn’t. He was so close, and so warm and well…sexy as hell.
And also annoyed, very annoyed.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It’s just that…it’s all hitting me.” She was horrified to hear her voice waver and blamed it on adrenaline. Anyone would be feeling it, she assured herself. “It’s making my mind rush and my body shake, and I hate that. I don’t mean to keep you up, but I can’t stop wondering.”
“Wondering what?”
“Are they still out there, and what if they decide to come back—”
He put a finger to her lips and waited. When she didn’t try to talk around him, his mouth curved. “T
here. See if you can hold still, just like that.”
She grabbed his wrist and freed her mouth. “I realize that you can turn off the feelings and emotions with ease, but I can’t. I’m scared, if you want the truth, and I’m feeling a little claustrophobic here. I want…”
His eyes heated. “What?”
“Comfort,” she whispered, and trembled again, her body betraying her, which really made her mad.
A sigh rumbled from him and he settled one big hand at her hip and pulled her closer. There. The comfort she’d wanted. Yet with him looking down at her with that disconcerting gaze, with his body so close, so big and warm and unintentionally sexy—and it was unintentional, she knew he wasn’t trying to drive her crazy—what she felt was far, far from comfort. In an almost out-of-body experience, she whispered his name in a voice no longer quivering with trepidation but with something else entirely.
Something that felt shockingly like…hunger. Need.
She had no idea what was happening to her but it was so much better than being afraid. Infinitely better than the cold. She came up onto her side, so that they were once again body-to-body, only now face-to-face. Reaching up, she slowly slid her hand around the back of his neck and tugged him closer.
His fingers, in the act of gently skimming up and down her hip in the name of shared body heat and comfort, froze. “Tess—”
If this was a dream, she didn’t want to wake up. If it was indeed an out-of-body experience, she wouldn’t complain, but something made her put her mouth to the very corner of his.
He held perfectly still. Unnaturally still but she didn’t care. The connection of their mouths had spread warmth through her like nothing else ever had, so she nibbled at the other side, too. Adrenaline? Fear? She didn’t know, didn’t care, because the ball of warmth deep inside her started smoking now. To stoke it into a full-blown fire, she opened her mouth and took his bottom lip in her teeth.
This wrenched a deep rumble from his throat, a warning from the beast, which should have stopped her, would have in any other place and time, but not tonight.
“Tessa. This is—”
Crazy. She knew that. Just as she knew it was the events of the night making her feel this way, but she didn’t care. She settled her mouth on his, hoping he’d give into it, too, so that she wasn’t the only fool.
But Reilly was still rigid, holding himself back with a restraint that she’d admire another time. For now she arched against him, enough to know that his thin shorts couldn’t hide what he was beginning to feel.
“Tess—” he growled with unmistakable warning.
Nope, she didn’t want him to talk. Not now. She opened her lips and touched her tongue to the corner of his mouth, and in doing so, finally, finally unleashed the beast.
He dove headfirst into the kiss then, wrapping his arms around her body and bringing it more snugly to his, thrusting a muscled thigh between hers, opening his mouth wide for a hot, deep, wet kiss that would surely highlight her dreams instead of the nightmares this day had afforded her.
Oh, yes, this was perfect. This was just what the doctor had ordered for her shock. She slid her fingers into his hair, taking notice that it was soft, as not very much else of him was. Her other hand went on a tour of his tight shoulders and solid chest, feeling the smooth glide of muscle beneath skin, and she knew if she had all night it wouldn’t be long enough.
Given how he held her, with the fingers of one hand spread wide, holding her head for the sexy forays of his plundering tongue, Reilly felt the same. His other hand skimmed over her hip, her belly and ribs, so that his long fingers rested just beneath her breast.
More, she thought. She had to have more, she had to feel his touch. Straining against him, she slid down an inch, just enough to have those fingers of his brushing the very underside of her breast, and she let out a sigh of pleasure.
At the sound, he moved of his own accord, cupping her breast in his big hand, rasping his thumb over her nipple and making her toes curl.
She wanted out of her clothes and she wanted him out of his. She wanted to be skin-to-skin, wanted to feel all his impressive strength and heat against her so that she could forget what had happened to her earlier, what could still happen.
Just thinking it made her let out a little cry, and he pulled her closer. “Shh,” he murmured. “Just me. Just you and me…” He danced a hand up her spine, then down again, until she relaxed into him once more, until she was clinging and back on her way to the mindlessness she needed desperately. Then he had her bottom cupped in his palm, pressing her against an impressive erection she wanted cradled more firmly between her aching thighs. Oh, yes.
To get more, she hooked a leg over his, opening herself up so that he could thrust against her, and he did, one glorious thrust, before he went utterly, totally, carefully still.
Lifting his head, he stared down at her mouth, his breathing not nearly as steady as it had been.
“That was quite a bedtime story,” he said, and flipped her over again, to her other side, so that she could no longer see his face.
“But…”
“Shh,” he said again.
She ground her teeth. “I can’t shh.”
“Yes, you can.”
“But…don’t you want more?”
His laugh was low and mirthless. “Hell, yes.”
“Well, then—”
“It’s not going to happen, Tess.”
“Reilly—”
He reached an arm over her shoulder and put his fingers against her mouth. “Shh.”
How could he just turn it off? She squirmed a little, and felt his erection against her bottom.
So he hadn’t just turned it off at all. “But—”
“Be good and go to sleep.”
Be good?
Go to sleep?
Was he kidding? The man kissed like no one she’d ever met, touched like no one she’d ever met, and he thought she could just turn it off and go to sleep? “Reilly…”
A soft snore sounded in her ear, making her want to scream in frustration. She couldn’t decide if she hated him or wanted him. Her body was still humming and twitching, so that meant she wanted him, but he’d firmly set her away as if it’d been nothing.
Definitely she hated him, she decided.
Eventually she set her head down on his arm and tried to follow him into slumberland. As far as pillows went, he wasn’t soft and giving, but he sure was warm and smelled like heaven.
And—this was such a terrible thought she couldn’t even believe she’d had it—she was glad he’d been stripped, because feeling his body against hers could take her mind off her troubles as nothing else could.
Unless, of course, he’d kept kissing her.
4
REILLY AWOKE to a jostling that made his head hurt all over again. For a brief flash, he thought he was on a mission and it had all gone really, really bad.
A feeling he knew all too well.
He opened his eyes and promptly wished he hadn’t.
It had most definitely gone really, really bad. It was still dark outside, but that hadn’t stopped Tessa from standing on the cot at his feet and jumping up and down, trying to open the attic access herself, which stayed stubbornly out of her reach by a good six inches.
He did find himself sidetracked as the wide skirt on her sundress flew high on her thighs with each leap, but not even the quick flash of light-blue lace panties could help the hammering at the base of his skull.
Still, he watched for a long moment. Up and down. Up and down. And as she jumped, she turned so that she was no longer facing him, leaving him to notice that with each leap, those light-blue lace panties rose a little higher on those rounded cheeks of hers. She had quite a wedgie going.
“Not helping my head,” he finally said, and startled, she whipped around to face him again, then lost her balance and fell to her knees onto the cot, using his chest as a grip.
Automatically he reached for her, steadied her an
d she sprawled out against him, slipping her arms around his body with an ease that bewildered him. She stared, apparently enraptured by whatever expression he wore on his face, making him wonder if he’d let his lusty thoughts show.
“Are we going to kiss again?” she whispered.
Oh, yes, he’d definitely let his thoughts show. Plus, now there was a hopeful quality to her voice that made him want to groan. Instead he ruthlessly tugged her skirt down as far as it would stretch over her thighs. No more visuals of that squeezable ass. “No.”
“Because—”
“No.”
Kissing had been a really bad idea. Now that he’d tasted her, it was hard—no pun intended—to get the thought out of his brain, and other parts as well.
“I’m really going crazy,” she whispered.
Yeah, well. Join the club.
“I need out.” She made a fist against his chest and speared him with a frustrated glance. “How can you not need out?”
Simple. Just the thought of being enclosed in that dark attic, of how it would remind him of his last mission and how it had all gone bad, made him break out into a sweat.
“Reilly?” Her fingertips ran lightly over his shoulders.
He wasn’t used to being touched, not like this. Give him a good fight, give him good sex, those were the kinds of touch he was used to.
“If we can’t get out, if we have to stay here, then I have to talk,” she said. “I have to hear you talk.”
“I’m not much on talking.”
She laughed, and the sound went through him like wine. “That’s probably the understatement of the year,” she said and put her head on his shoulder as if they were old lovers.
Or worse, friends.
“My brother, Rafe, is like you,” she told him, her fingers dancing over his flesh. “He only talks when it’s really important. The strong, silent type, I guess you’d call him. Maybe that’s why he’s a good photographer. But my sister…” she said, smiling. “Two peas in a pod. I think Carolyn can outtalk even me.”
“This I can’t imagine.”
“It’s true. I’m the baby of the family, you see, so believe it or not, I didn’t talk until I was three-and-a-half. There was no need for me to say a word, Rafe and Carolyn talked for me. And then one day I just started speaking in full sentences, and I haven’t stopped since.” She smiled. “So. Your turn…you’re an only child,” she prodded gently when he didn’t speak. “Eddie said so.”