The faint sound of laughter stopped her dead in her tracks and twirled her right back around, her panties instantly forgotten. It was Mark’s laugh. And it didn’t sound like it was coming from the phone. It sounded far too close. Wait a minute . . .
Where was he?
Her gaze raked over the backyard, hungry for the sight of him. Nothing. Only the big old white house behind her, tulips and daffodils spread at its feet. Nothing but Steven Tyler, the great expanse of lawn carpeted with spring grass, and the tire swing swaying gently in the breeze.
Disappointment speared through her. Mark had just made a lucky guess, that’s all. It’s for the best, she told herself as she bent to retrieve the phone, held it in her hands, and stared at it. Should she even talk to him anymore? Torment herself with what she couldn’t have? Draw out the misery? She hung up the phone.
Mark was a game she couldn’t play anymore. Had stopped playing that night when everything had changed between them. It was her choice.
So why did she feel like crying?
Lorelei scrubbed her hands over her face, pressed fingers against the bridge of her nose, and closed her eyes against the hot sting of tears. Hadn’t she vowed not to get in so deep with him that he could hurt her? That she wouldn’t hang around long enough to see him leave? Well, she’d been the one to do the leaving. That was true. But her plan had backfired—her heart had gotten involved after all.
“Don’t you know it’s rude to hang up when someone’s talking to you?”
Her body tensed, every single nerve went pinging through her. Opening her eyes, she dropped her hands and slowly turned around. Felt her world tip dangerously beneath her feet.
There he was, standing in her backyard in a pair of jeans, a black baseball cap, and a faded gray T-shirt that said “Baseball Players Give Good Wood,” looking better than any man had a right to. And her heart plummeted right down to her pink painted toes. “What are you doing here, Mark?”
His running shoes made a muffled sound on the grass as he advanced on her. He hadn’t shaved in a day or two and had the stubble to prove it. Dark blond hair curled around the bottom of his cap and smudges darkened the undersides of his eyes. They were hot, but his scowl was hotter.
He was mad, bad, and so damn good it hurt her heart to look at him.
Lorelei tore her gaze from him and swallowed hard. Focusing on a new foal and its mother in the pasture to her right, she said, “Go away, Mark. There’s nothing here for you.”
He didn’t stop until he’d invaded her personal space and his body heat washed over her. His voice had a hard edge. “You owe me an explanation, Lorelei.”
Her jaw clenched and her eyes narrowed. It wasn’t fair, just wasn’t fair at all. She’d given him his stupid necklace back. There was no reason for him to be there, messing with her emotions. “I don’t owe you anything. That stopped the minute you got your necklace back.”
The brim of his hat shadowed the top half of his face when he lowered his head to her and demanded to know, “Are you telling me I’m nothing to you? That what we’ve shared means nothing?”
It meant everything. “That’s right. It was a good time while it lasted, but I got bored so I left. No offense.”
He made a warning sound low in his throat. She still refused to look at him—couldn’t. “You got bored?”
She swallowed around the lump in her throat, nodded. “That’s right.”
“Prove it,” he demanded after he cursed.
Why was he doing this to her? Wasn’t he glad to have his life back? No strings, no complications. Wasn’t that what he wanted? “I don’t have to prove anything to you.”
His hands shot out and gripped her hips, pulled her close. “Why?” he taunted. “Afraid you’ll show your bluff? That I’ll know you’re a liar? News flash, I already know that. You’ve done nothing but lie to me—now it’s time for the truth.”
Emotions crashed over her in brutal waves, too much for her to take. She pushed hard against his chest. Taken by surprise by the attack, Mark rocked back far enough for her to yank out of his grip. The second his hands released her she was running to the house. She heard him let out a string of curses, then take off after her. “Damn it, Lorelei,” he called after her, “come back here, you little coward. I’m not through with you.”
Her pulse leaped at the threat and she barreled up the steps to the back porch, swung the door open, and had it ripped out of her hands and slammed shut. Mark spun her around and pinned her to the door as his large body came up hard against her. Air rushed from his chest and washed hot over her face. When she struggled he just gripped her hands and flattened them over her head.
“Let me go.” She was breathless. His body was so close and it was making her crazy. He was making her crazy. Too many emotions racked her. It was just too much, period.
“No. I’m never letting you go again.” Hard gray eyes stared her down. “Get used to it.”
Lorelei stopped struggling. What was he saying? “It’s over. We both know it. Maybe you just don’t want to admit it because you’re a sore loser.”
Full, sensual lips scorched her skin when he kissed the side of her neck. “It’s not over between us, sweetheart. Not even close. Now kiss me and prove to me how bored I make you because you don’t feel bored now. You feel hot and soft and so damn good.” His open mouth trailed over her jaw, making her knees weak.
His voice was caught between a demand and a plea when he whispered roughly against her mouth, “Kiss me.”
She kissed him. Against her better judgment. Despite the voice in her head screaming at her not to. She did. On the back steps of her house because she couldn’t stop it. And because she wanted to more than she wanted anything.
A groan rumbled deep in his chest when her mouth opened under his. He released her hands and shoved a heavy thigh between her legs, pushed it against her crotch. The brim of his baseball cap hit her in the head and she ripped it off, flung it away. Then her hands were in his hair, pulling at him. They were streaking over his shoulders, her nails digging into the hard muscles. They were tearing at the waistband of his faded jeans.
She couldn’t get enough of him.
When her hands dove under his shirt and encountered the hard, corrugated plane of his stomach he tore his mouth from her and growled, “To the bedroom. Now.”
Because she couldn’t help herself she clamped her legs around his lean waist and gave him wet, drugging kisses. She felt him fumble for the doorknob and push the door open. As he stumbled through the door into her house, the screen door slapping behind them, she ran her tongue over his throat. Tasted his skin.
“Jesus.” His hands gripped the backs of her thighs below her butt, hard.
She laughed against his neck when he stubbed his toe against the wood stairs and almost toppled them to the floor. He released a very creative oath and flung a hand against the wall, saving them. When she sucked the skin below his jaw he tripped again. “Am I distracting you?” She bit his ear.
“Hell, yes,” he ground out. “Don’t stop.”
She didn’t, and when they crashed through the door to her room and hit the bed she was so turned on she almost came. Almost climaxed right then, when he fell on top of her and thrust his erection hard against her. Tremors started and her muscles clenched. She gasped, “Hurry.”
Sunlight streamed through the open windows and fell across his face when he leaned back. He was so beautiful to her that her heart floundered in her chest. His normally clear eyes were totally glazed with passion. His lips were slick from her kisses. “Tell me what you want,” he panted.
His hands raced over her stomach as he pushed her sweater over her head and threw it on the floor. Her white cotton bra went next, and when her breasts were free he groaned.
“I want you naked,” she demanded, impatient for the sight of him.
In less than a minute he stripped until he was wearing nothing but skin and a condom. Her gaze ran hungrily over his body until it settled on
his heavy erection jutting out from the patch of dark blond pubic hair. Her stomach shuddered in response to the sight of him, made her ache for what he had. She licked her lips and his hard-on jerked in reaction. He smiled and moved to her.
He stopped at the foot of the bed by her feet and Lorelei watched him reach out, felt the callused palms and strong fingers wrap around her ankles. Honed muscles flexed as he yanked, pulled her down the bed. “Your turn, sweetheart,” he said with a wicked grin.
Then his hands stroked up the insides of her thighs, and nothing had ever felt better in her life. Lorelei knew it didn’t change anything. There was no way for the two of them to work. They lived in different worlds.
But when his hand was palming her through her shorts and his fingers were slipping behind the cotton fabric to touch her where she throbbed for him, she didn’t care. All she knew when his thumb found her clitoris and rubbed was that she’d explode if he didn’t take her soon.
He shifted her, and then her shorts and panties were flying through the air. They landed on her computer desk, her flower-printed panties draping from the corner of her open laptop.
His harsh voice made her wet and achy for him. “I’ve spent the past week hard for you. Nothing’s worked to cool the fever you’ve started in my blood. I’d think of your mouth, the way it had felt so slick and hot around me that night in my car, and my cock would turn to stone. When I’d try to take care of it I’d see your hot little pussy and my hand wasn’t enough. I wanted your hands on me stroking me off, not mine.” He dropped to the floor between her knees. “I needed you.”
“Oh God,” she breathed. Her hands fisted into the quilt.
Mark laughed and slid his hands under her behind, spread her thighs, and pulled her to his mouth. “He’s not going to save you now.” His wet tongue stroked boldly, aggressively over her. “You’re mine.”
A strong finger slid inside her as his mouth covered her fully and it made her cry out. “Mark!”
Another finger joined the first. His tongue rolled over her clit and he sucked. Used tongue and lips and suction on her with single-minded intent. Her muscles started to quiver on the edge of orgasm. Wanting more, wanting to go over the brink, she raised her knees and placed her feet on his shoulders, arched into his mouth.
A growl ripped from him, vibrated against her before he pulled back. His voice was rough, raw with arousal. “Look at me,” he demanded.
She opened her eyes and stared down her body. Sexual desire rolled off him and slammed against her. His body was rock-hard beneath her knees. “Don’t ever leave me again. Do you hear me? I don’t think I could take it.” Mark straightened slowly, pulled her bottom off the bed until she was positioned over him, the thick head of his penis pushing against her. “Say it. Tell me you’ll never leave me again.”
His hard hands gripped her butt and she tried to slide onto his erection, but he held her off. He rubbed the hot length of him against her opening until it was slick with her moisture and she was panting with need. “I need to hear the words,” he said just above a ragged whisper. “Tell me you’ll stay.” This time it wasn’t a demand. It was a plea.
But she couldn’t say it. So Lorelei did what she knew they both wanted instead. She gripped the end of the bed and shoved off the edge, buried him all the way inside her in one long thrust. The hot circumference of him filled her up and she quivered around him, moved against him.
He gasped. “Damn you. Why can’t you just say it?”
Because she was still so scared. So she shifted her hips and rotated them, ground flush against him. Rubbed against the base of him. Mark swore violently and pulled out, rocked into her. Thrust in deep again on a primal moan.
They forgot all about talking.
Chapter 22
“COME BACK TO Denver with me.”
Lorelei pulled her shorts over her hips and sighed. “What just happened doesn’t change anything.”
His voice was hard behind her. “It changes everything. Go throw some clothes in a bag. I’ll buy whatever else you need to stay in town with me for the next few days.”
And that right there was part of the problem, Lorelei thought. Mark could just about buy whatever the hell he wanted to just like that. No thought involved or financial struggle. Anything at all. He wanted it and it was his.
She and Logan had trouble some months buying groceries.
Not that she begrudged him the money, really. Some people just had it, some didn’t. She knew that, was fine with it. Except when there was a situation like Michelle’s. Then it got to her. Made the unfairness of it burn in her chest.
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Mark pulling his shirt over his head. A flash of gold metal caught her attention before gray cotton covered it. Bitterness and guilt mixed hot in her abdomen.
His good luck charm. Funny how she hadn’t noticed it ten minutes ago when he’d been naked.
But she wasn’t the least bit surprised he was wearing it. No doubt he’d kissed it like a long-lost girlfriend and put it on the second he’d spotted it. He’d probably permanently fused the clasp so it could never come off again.
Seeing it around his neck served a purpose, though. It reminded her that there was no solid, honest foundation for them to build a relationship on. When she’d pushed him that day he’d told her it had been a girl’s—but whose, she still didn’t know. Something else was missing, too. She just couldn’t put her finger on it.
“I’m going downstairs to finish hanging the laundry. The front door’s unlocked. You can leave that way.” Lorelei didn’t look back when she walked out.
She had just hung a pair of Michelle’s little pink Wranglers when the creaking of the screen door signaled Mark’s presence behind her. A small stain on the hem of the tiny jeans suddenly caught her interest. Wonder how that got there.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw him lean his tall frame against the trunk of an old maple. He rubbed back and forth against the bark as he scratched at an itch, then he crossed one foot over the other and hooked his thumbs in the front pockets of his jeans. The black ball cap was back on and pulled low over his eyes.
He looked casual, totally relaxed.
She knew better.
“Care to tell me what’s going on in that head of yours, Lorelei?” Wow, he even sounded casual. Mark was a dang good actor.
Lifting the pant leg for a closer inspection, she scraped her thumbnail across the teeny mark. “Nope.”
His sigh could have parted the tree branches. “All right. We’ll play a round of twenty questions then. Are you mad because I didn’t call or come by before today?”
I’ll be damned, that looks like a grape jelly stain. She’d have to remind Logan not to feed Michelle peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Too much sugar. “Nope.”
“Are you upset because I didn’t let you lead back there in your room just now?” He jerked his head in the direction of the house.
She snorted. “Get over yourself.”
“I promise, next time you can tie me to the bed and have your way with me. How’s that sound? You can do whatever you want. Except whips and chains—I’m not into pain.” He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Well, except maybe some spanking. That might be all right if you ask me real nice.”
A smile tugged at her mouth and she bit her cheek to stop it. Tried for a frown instead. “There’s not going to be a next time, Mark.”
“So spanking’s out?”
She choked back a laugh. Smart-ass. “Go home and leave me alone. I’ve got work to do and Logan should be bringing Michelle back from therapy soon. Go harass someone else.”
Lorelei didn’t realize what she’d let slip until he asked quietly, “Why does Michelle need therapy?”
Shit. All humor left her and she grabbed up another damp pair of toddler jeans, hung them on the line, pinned them. “Never mind.”
His voice was soft with his next question. “Is she who you were talking about that day in my room? Is Michelle sick?�
��
She spun to face him and threw the clothing in her hands at him as hot grief overcame her. “I said drop it!” Tears burned the back of her throat and stung her eyes. What right did he have to ask that like he really cared? Damn him. She just couldn’t deal with this right now, not when so many emotions were at the surface. Raw vulnerability ripped through her and she pushed back violently, an instinctual response to the overwhelming emotion.
He pushed away from the tree and strode across the grass, avoiding the wet wads of clothes. “That’s it, isn’t it? What this whole thing has been about. Something’s wrong with Michelle.” His eyes filled with instant understanding and sympathy.
Feeling scared and cornered, she lashed out, all rationality lost in the face of such emotional bombardment. “You don’t get to ask me questions about my life and my family like you give a shit. I want you to leave. Now.” It was too much. He was tromping all over her personal boundaries and if he didn’t leave soon she was going to lose it. She wasn’t ready to let him in.
He was relentless. “Is she going to die, Lorelei?”
It was all suddenly way too much. Michelle, Logan, Mark.
She lost it.
Tears sprang up and spilled down her cheeks. When he tried to reach for her she slapped out blindly against his hands. Something close to hatred flooded her. His life was so perfect. He was so fucking perfect. “I said leave! Go back to Denver and leave me and my family the hell alone.”
His hands grabbed hers and he pulled her roughly into his arms as she fought him. He grunted when she elbowed him and said against her hair, “No. I’ve already told you that. Damn it, Lorelei, calm down and talk to me.”
Stealing Home: A Diamonds and Dugouts Novel Page 20