All a Man Can Ask

by Virginia Kantra

  “We could go inside,” she suggested.

  “Inside,” he repeated reflectively and rocked again, harder, higher up.

  Her lungs emptied. “Yes,” she said.

  He reached between their bodies, positioning himself, parting her. Oh, yes.

  “I’d like to be inside,” he whispered, stroking. “Take me inside, sweetheart.”

  When he put it that way, when he touched her that way, how could she resist? He nuzzled her neck.

  Anyway, she was tired of resisting, tired of living in shades of gray. She wanted raw and vivid and warm and wonderful. She wanted sex on a dock under a brilliant night sky and Aleksy. She shuddered with her own daring. And he must have read that as encouragement, because he thrust inside her then, thick and solid, real and male, slick and stunning.

  Her mouth opened. Oh.

  Aleksy’s hand tightened in her hair until she looked at him, dazed. “Like that,” he said. “Just like that.”

  He moved over her and in her, deeper, faster, building a rhythm that made her heart race. She clutched at his shoulders, pressed her feet flat against the dock. She could hear the lap of the water and the slap of flesh on flesh, and her own short, explosive breaths as he came into her, plunged into her, again and again. His face was fierce and unfocused. The stars whirled behind his head. Dizzied, she clung to him, until the night sky streaked down in color like a paint box left in the rain, and she fell off the edge of the world.

  She heard his shout as he tumbled after her.

  Aleksy was good at exits.

  He had perfected I-have-to-get-up-early-it-was-wonderful-I’ll-call-you, right down to the last warm squeeze and significant look at the door.

  A good exit kept things from getting messy. Kept people from getting hurt.

  He paced the length of the braided rug. It was harder, he was discovering, when you had to stick around.

  It was a damn sight harder when the woman was Faye.

  He heard her turn off the shower in the next room and pictured her wet and naked, reaching for one of those fluffy green towels. He still hadn’t seen her without all her clothes, but he knew the shape of her breasts now, the slope of her hips, the curve of her tight little butt. He’d learned the smell of her soap and the texture of her skin.

  He stared out at the black lake, his jaw tense and his imagination running wild. When they had staggered back to the cottage, she’d invited him to shower with her, her face a pretty pink.

  What if he’d said yes? What if he went in there right now and—

  Bad idea.

  One of a string of bad ideas, starting with “let me stay with you.”

  His brother was right. Aleksy needed to separate the personal and professional areas of his life before somebody got hurt.

  He heard Faye humming and winced. Too late. His knees already stung. His conscience smarted. And Faye, warm, sweet Faye, with her wounded idealism and her unexpected passion, was a five-car pileup waiting to happen.

  She wandered into the living room, wearing a sleeveless cotton dress that swirled around her calves and showed the outline of her nipples. Her short damp hair glistened like gold. Her feet were bare.

  He went hard as rock.

  She smiled at him. “Bathroom’s all yours.”

  He fisted his hands at his sides. “Thanks.”

  The smile faded. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  Nothing except every time he looked at her he wanted to back her against the nearest available surface and take her again.

  Her brows drew together. Concern shone in her eyes. Crossing the room—don’t look at her breasts—she touched his arm with warm, light fingers.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Panic stirred. This is how it started. They always wanted to talk.

  He sighed. “Yeah. Maybe we better.”

  He took her hand—she had really great hands, the kind you’d expect an artist to have, long fingered and smooth. The memory of those hands on his body made him break out in a sweat—anyway, he took her hand and sat on the couch with her.

  “The thing is—” he started.

  She looked at him expectantly.

  And his quick-thinking brain went blank. His fast-talking mouth went dry.

  “The thing is,” she prompted.

  “I really like you,” he said.

  She drew her hand away. “If this is the part where you tell me you want us always to be friends, someone is going to get hurt.”

  That was exactly what he was trying to prevent.

  “No. I don’t want us to be friends. I mean, friends, fine, sure, but—I really like you, Faye.”

  Her slim shoulders relaxed a little.

  “I want us to see each other,” he continued. “When we get back to Chicago.”

  Her lips curved. “That’s planning ahead.”

  To the end of the summer, she meant. She thought he would still want to see her, sleep with her, three months from now.

  Aleksy waited for the spurt of discomfort, of denial, and was astonished when it didn’t come.

  “Yeah. The thing is—” He cleared his throat. “I think you should go back to Chicago now.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re in danger here. I think you should leave. At least until I get the proof I need and things settle down.”

  She shook her head. “We already talked about this. I told you I accepted the risks. Nothing has changed.”

  He felt a lance of fear, sharp and unfamiliar. He covered it with irritation. “What do you mean, nothing has changed? We’re sleeping together.”

  “We haven’t slept together,” she said. “You couldn’t roll off me fast enough. We had sex.”

  “Great sex.”

  Her lips pressed together. “It must have been really special for you to be in this big a hurry to get rid of me.”

  He was genuinely appalled. “You can’t think that!”

  “What else should I think?”

  “You could think maybe I care about you,” he snapped. “Maybe I don’t want to have to worry about you.”

  “Well, isn’t that too bad.” She stood. “I, of course, wouldn’t need to worry about you if I went running off to Chicago and left you here in the middle of God knows what kind of danger. Where did you plan on staying?”

  He hadn’t planned. She was wrecking his thought processes. “I hoped you’d let me stay here.”

  “In my aunt’s cottage,” she said flatly.

  He shrugged. “I can pay rent, if you want.”

  “That’s not the point. The point is, you’ve already made sure the whole town thinks you’re my boyfriend.”

  She was concerned about his cover. She was trying to protect him. He was touched.

  “It’s okay,” he assured her. “I’ll make something up. Pretend we had a fight or something.”

  “You don’t have to pretend.” Her voice was clear and sharp as glass. “We are having a fight. And I am not leaving.”

  Faye dragged a broad, wet brush across the top of her page, blending blue and purple to create a peaceful cloud layer in a soothing sky.

  Okay, so she wasn’t feeling that peaceful, she admitted to herself. The edge of her brush had caught some unfortunate cadmium red, and she hated painting at night.

  But she couldn’t sleep. She refused to cry. And she would teach watercoloring to the wrestling team before she would run away again.

  She stepped back, barefoot, to squint at her painting. No, this time Detective Hit-and-Run Denko was the one beating a retreat.

  I really like you, Faye.

  Ha.

  She streaked an angry orange line across the horizon. Sunset, she decided, approving the way it punched up the red, and dug her brush into the raw sienna for good measure. Take that, paper.

  She was a grown woman. She was a grown artist. She could paint outside the lines if she wanted. She could live outside the box.

  Until A
leksy got tired of playing with her and put her away again.

  The rat.

  Her brush shook. The sky blurred. She blinked fiercely.

  Okay, so she’d just bared her soul and gotten naked on a dock with a man who wanted to keep her safely under wraps. That didn’t mean she had to accept his restrictions.

  Did she?

  Aleksy winced. He was sitting on the couch with his pants around his ankles, picking splinters from his knees.

  If he needed any proof he was too damn old to screw on a dock, this was it.

  The thought depressed him.

  He wasn’t that old. He pinched the skin around the splinter, forcing it to the surface. Just old enough to start taking precautions. He should have supplied a blanket. And he should never, ever have put the moves on a woman he couldn’t walk away from, a woman he could care about.

  Not that he’d get the chance to now. The splinter resisted his fingers. The only woman he cared about was barely speaking to him. He didn’t figure she’d invite him to inspect the planks at the end of her dock anytime soon.

  His knees were safe. His bachelor lifestyle was protected.

  So, how come he still felt lousy?

  Aleksy sighed and poked at the splinter with the tip of his pocket knife.

  Faye stopped dead in the living room door. “What are you doing?”

  He stabbed at his knee and swore. “What does it look like?”

  “It looks like you need to pull up your pants,” she said primly, but she took a step forward.

  His body twitched. He did his best to ignore it. “Yeah, well, I was in my room but the light’s better out here.”

  “Better for what? Oh.” A wave of pink washed from her throat to the tips of her pretty ears. “You have a splinter.”

  “Splinters,” he said grimly. “And I’m dealing with them.”

  Her brows arched. “With a knife? You’re supposed to use a needle.”

  “Gee. Guess I left my sewing kit at home,” he drawled.

  Silenced, she stood and watched his clumsy attempts to pry bits of wood from beneath his skin. His palms dampened. The bulge in his boxers grew. He didn’t know whether to be sorry or relieved when she finally pivoted and left him.

  He sucked in his breath. He almost had this sucker. He pinched the protruding end of the splinter with his fingernails and…broke it off beneath the skin.

  “Damn.”

  “Oh, here,” Faye said impatiently. “Let me.”

  She was back, wearing that long blue dress that cupped her breasts and left her arms bare. She had a needle and tweezers in her grasp and a determined look in her eyes.

  Hell, he wasn’t getting anywhere. Let her see what she could do.

  He leaned back against the cushions of the couch. Would she notice he was already half aroused?

  “Be my guest,” he said.

  Her throat moved as she swallowed. But she knelt bravely on the floor between his legs, resting one hand on his hairy thigh for balance. Beneath his boxers, his body strained for her attention.

  Faye kept her head demurely lowered. Her gaze fixed on his knee. Her hands trembled slightly.

  She was going to kill him, he thought, resigned. But it would be worth it.

  She touched his knee, her fingers warm and light.

  He closed his eyes. Just a little higher, sweetheart.

  Her needle probed under his skin. Before he could do more than draw a breath, she extracted the splinter.

  “That’s one,” she said, holding it up for his inspection.

  He exhaled. “Great.”

  “I’m not done,” she warned.

  Even better.

  Her slight weight leaned against his leg. Her elbow rested on his thigh. Aleksy sniffed. If he let himself lean forward, her flower-scented hair would brush his chin. He felt himself swell at the thought.

  He spread his arms along the back of the couch. “Do your worst. I’m in your hands.”

  She frowned. Hesitated. Jabbed.

  He sat up fast. “Ouch.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

  She sounded flustered. Mortified.

  Maybe she was mad at him, but she was too soft-hearted to willingly hurt anybody. Cream puff, he thought.

  He studied her. Despite her wild blush, her face was drawn. Fatigue pulled at the corners of her mouth and bruised the delicate skin under her eyes. Tenderness tugged at him.

  “You look tired,” he observed.

  She shot him an annoyed look. “Thank you. I’m fine.”

  “You sleep all right?”

  “No.” She pressed the tweezers to his skin. “I stayed up too late.”

  He felt a spurt of purely male gratification. At least he wasn’t the only one suffering.

  “We must have had the same dream,” he said.

  Her eyes gleamed. She extracted another splinter. “I doubt it. I was working.”

  “Ouch,” he said again.

  She bent her head, but not before he saw her smile.

  He grinned like a fool. She wasn’t as immune as she liked to pretend.

  She had the prettiest neck. He wondered what she’d do if he brushed aside those soft, pale tendrils of hair and kissed the delicate skin of her throat. Probably stick him with her needle.

  To distract himself, he asked, “So, what were you working on?”

  She nodded toward the magnet strip board propped against her worktable. “It’s over there. This one’s going to hurt,” she cautioned.

  He sucked in his breath and glanced toward the table as she drew another splinter from his abraded knee.

  Well.

  Wow.

  “That’s different,” he said.

  She glared at him. “Different, how?”

  “It’s—” Jeez, how was he supposed to describe what he was seeing? It was a landscape, kind of, but the whole thing throbbed with color and pulsed with life. Fierce reds contended with angry purples in a violent sky. The hills smoked. The water steamed. “It’s red.”

  She sat back on her heels. “I’ve used red before.”

  “Not like that.” He didn’t know anything about art, but he was certain he hadn’t seen anything like this before.

  “You hate it.”

  “No,” he said. “No, I guess I’m trying to decide if I had a narrow escape last night or missed something really hot.”

  Faye gaped at him, flattered. Shaken. Confused. Art should evoke an emotional response, she’d told him. Did he remember? He had a good memory. Would he use it against her?

  Abruptly, she pushed to her feet, using his warm, muscled thigh for support, and scrambled back. “You’re done.”

  “Okay.” He stood slowly. He hitched his jeans over his lean hips and—well, over everything. With some difficulty, he zipped his fly. Her face flamed.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Your turn.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You just picked enough wood out of my knees to build a bookshelf. The least I can do is return the favor.”

  She had told herself she would not run again.

  She’d lied.

  “My knees are fine,” she said.

  “Sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe I should check for you. You did spend a lot of time on your—” he paused wickedly “—back.”

  Her insides went warm gold as she remembered the stars pulsing behind his head and him pulsing inside her.

  Could she take what he was offering and still hide her feelings from him? Could she hide them from herself?

  She straightened her spine before she melted in a little puddle at his feet. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

  He took a step closer, hot, dark and dangerous. Her breath hitched.

  “I don’t mind playing doctor,” he said, his voice husky.

  “That’s too bad,” she said. Could he hear her heart? It was beating so hard she was shaking with it. “Because I don’t want to play with you.”

  Although, heaven hel
p her, when she was kneeling between his thighs a minute ago, she’d certainly thought about it.

  Aleksy scowled. “Okay. No games. Faye, I—”

  And someone knocked on the front door.

  Chapter 10

  “I’ll get it.”

  In a smooth move that looked borrowed from a police drama, Aleksy flowed toward the door.

  Faye’s mouth went dry. Her hormones signaled that this was prime alpha male stuff and she should start making babies with it immediately.

  “I can get the door,” she said more sharply than she intended. “This is my house.”

  He frowned. “Are you expecting anybody?”

  “No.” She marched past him into the dark hallway. “Are you?”

  The shadow behind the screen—big, black and rangy—made her check her stride. And then her visitor stepped back into the sunlight, and she recognized his black-and-orange football jersey and close-cropped head.

  Joy coursed through her, surging through her guilt, rushing past her doubts.

  “Jamal!” She flew to unlock the screen.

  The seventeen-year-old jerked his chin in greeting. “Hey, Harp.” Super casual. Super cool.

  But when she grabbed him in a hug, one arm lifted and patted her back awkwardly.

  She gripped his jersey—the Bear’s Urlacher 54—and held him at arm’s length to get a better look. “What are you doing here?”

  “My stepdad threw me out.”

  With dismay, she saw the worn book bag at his feet, its seams strained to bursting. “Oh, Jamal. Why?”

  He shifted his feet. “He got mad about some sh—something and told me to get out.” The boy shrugged. “So I did.”

  “Was it your arrest?” Faye asked.

  Jamal’s eyes widened. “You know about that?”

  “She knows,” Aleksy said behind her. “You want to keep your bad habits to yourself, you shouldn’t hang out on street corners with associates who are known to the police.”

  The boy jerked. “Who the hell is he?”

  “A friend,” Faye said, although at the moment she could have strangled him. “Jamal King, Aleksy Denko.”

  “Detective Denko,” Aleksy said.

  “Right.” Jamal’s tone flattened with betrayal. “See you around, Harp.”

  Faye kept tight hold of his shirt. “Don’t you dare leave. You have to at least come in for—” what? she thought frantically “—something to drink.”