by Lucy Monroe
“You trust me?” She didn’t know why it mattered, but it did.
“Yes. Now all you have to do is trust yourself.”
“I do.”
“Prove it.”
“By having sex with you?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a pretty unique variation on the high school guy’s line that if his girlfriend loves him, she’ll have sex with him.”
“This isn’t about me. It’s about you.”
She laughed. “Right. So, it doesn’t matter to you either way.”
“Hell yes, it does. I’m just saying I’m not conflicted about it.”
“I don’t want lovemaking to get in the way of the investigation. I have to have distance, to keep my professional perspective.”
“That is so much cow pucky.”
“What?”
“Your brother and the woman he loves are at risk because of this investigation. No way are you operating from a professional distance.”
“I know how to keep my personal and professional life separated.”
“Have you ever had to before?”
“Of course.”
“Really? You’ve been on a case where someone you loved was at risk?”
“No. This is a unique situation.”
“And when Kyle died, you accepted the fact you’d been on the job and it wasn’t your fault you weren’t there?”
“That was different!”
“No, honey, that was your professional life running smack-dab into your personal one. The only distance you maintained was between yourself and your family afterward.”
“How did we go from talking about sex to my actions after Kyle’s death?”
“You claimed a professional distance that a woman who cares about her family as much as you do yours isn’t going to be able to maintain. You love your family. No matter how much you’ve been avoiding them since Kyle’s death, that hasn’t changed. In this case, there is no separation between the personal and professional for you. You’re just going to have to live with that, sugar.”
Deep inside herself, Elle knew that Beau was right. “That doesn’t mean I have to compound the problem by having an intimate relationship with you. In fact, it’s the biggest reason why I shouldn’t.”
“That’s the quandary for you, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“It’s not just sex. Oh, it’s not the romance of the century. We’re not in love. Neither of us is offering a commitment, but it’s not just physical release either.”
“I…” She didn’t know what to say. She felt his conversational volleys were more like live hand grenades that kept going off around her.
He massaged the tight muscles at the base of her neck while giving her a wry smile. “It isn’t for me either, sugar.”
“It’s not?”
“Do you really have to ask that after last night?”
“From listening to you talk, a woman might get the impression that sex is like that every time for you.”
“I’m a good lover for sure, princess. You ain’t no slouch either. But together? We’re explosive. Last night was pure damn exceptional.”
Chapter 15
Elle tried to ignore the heat curling through her belly from Beau’s words. “So, if it’s not commitment, romance and all that stuff, then it is just sex. Exceptional sex, but still sex.”
“You think? Feels bigger to me.”
“I don’t want it to be bigger.”
“Trust me, I don’t either.” He sat back against the couch, giving her the space she’d thought she’d wanted. “I’ve been burned twice by bigger and I’m not getting singed again.”
The loss of his in-her-face presence made her feel bereft, and wasn’t that just idiotic. “Then you should agree that sex between us isn’t a good idea.”
So should she. Really.
“Nah, hiding from it will only make it worse. At least if we give in to the desire between us, we can work it out of our systems.”
“You think that’s possible?”
“We’ve got at least a couple of months for your security analysis and implementation, isn’t that right?”
“Yes.”
“Sugar, even for us, that should be enough time.”
Beau looked like he actually believed that. Elle wasn’t going to tell him she had her doubts because that would be admitting things she had no desire to.
“Tell me about the times you got burned,” she said instead.
Taking a sip of his wine, he let the silence around them build. When she was sure he was going to ignore her request, he said, “I fell in love for the first time when I was in college. She was beautiful, ultrafeminine, but she had this thing for sports. I thought that we had so much in common, that she was perfect for me. I was besotted. I asked her to marry me.”
“She said yes?”
“She did, but then I decided not to put my name in for the NFL draft. I already told you how my parents reacted to that. They were really disappointed in me. My dad was calling me every other day with new arguments about what a mess I was making of my life. My mom cried every time we talked. You’d think I’d told them I was signing on to be a drug runner or something. I needed my fiancée’s support more than ever.”
“And she didn’t give it to you?”
“She pretended to. I figured out later that she was pretending to support my decision in hopes of being able to influence me to change it. She waited to make her move until my dad stopped calling all the time and my mom told me maybe I shouldn’t come home for the next break. I felt like I was losing my family. At the time, even my little sister thought I was being a dolt. My granny was the only one who truly supported the decision all the way, but she was sick.”
“That would have been really hard.”
“It was. My fiancée told me that maybe I should consider going for the draft, that I could play for a couple of years and make my parents happy and then go back to school. It sounded rational to me. She even pulled out the guilt card about my grandmother. She said that if I was playing professionally, I’d have enough money to make sure her final days were the best I could give her.”
“She sounds persuasive.”
“Manipulative, and yes, she was. I almost fell for it, but I was hesitating. She didn’t know how close I was getting to declaring for the draft. It’s a good thing too. If she’d known, I wouldn’t have found out the truth about her until later, until I’d become someone I didn’t want to be to keep someone who wanted what I was, not me.”
“What happened?”
“She was hedging her bets, but I didn’t know it. She was two-timing me with a teammate. I walked in on them. Ironically, I had come by her apartment to let her know I’d decided to declare for the draft.”
“Ouch.” Reading the bones of it was nothing like hearing the remembered pain of betrayal in Beau’s whiskey-smooth voice.
“That’s one word for it.”
“What about the second time you got burned?” That hadn’t been in his file.
“She was another scientist at ETRD. Only it turns out she wanted her brains and training to earn her money and fame, not necessarily help her make the world a better place. She moved to a commercial-product development lab after dumping my ass for being too much of an idealist.”
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s life. At least I didn’t ask her to marry me. Anyway, I learned my lesson about trying to share my life with someone who doesn’t share my outlook on it. I won’t make that mistake again.” He turned his full-wattage, prime-grade, Texas-stud grin on Elle. “Sex, on the other hand, is something else.”
He’d said he trusted her, but his words implied that he thought they looked at life from opposing viewpoints. Like her family, he didn’t see the value in what she’d chosen to dedicate her life to. And maybe he still believed they defined things like personal integrity differently. “Was it as explosive with the women you loved?”
“Sex has never b
een as wild for me as it is with you.”
Which was presumably why he wasn’t willing to let it end. Not because he had any kind of emotional attachment to her, thank goodness. Nevertheless, she said, “Something this big is bound to impact our emotions.”
Shaking his head, he laughed. “Do you always overthink your physical impulses like this?”
“What if it’s more than that?”
“Like what? Love? You and I have both played and lost at that game. Badly enough that neither of us is going to be tempted to go there. This is pleasure I’m talking about, princess. The kind of pleasure we’d be idiots to ignore.” He winked at her. “And neither of us is any kind of stupid.”
He made it sound so simple.
And logical.
And risk-free.
So, why did she feel like she was on the edge of an abyss and making love was the step that would take her over?
“No. Not stupid.” Only, Elle hoped she was smart enough not to confuse physical pleasure with an emotional connection, or allow it to lead to one.
Regardless, Beau was right about one thing: without his cooperation, she had no chance of ignoring the sexual tension between them. Maybe he was right about the other too—that she wasn’t going to be able to ignore the craving for him even if he was an angel of innocence in how he treated her. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to thank him or drop-kick him for being so stubborn. Her body had no such qualms. It was practically vibrating with anticipation.
“So,” he drawled all husky and slow. “You’re okay with me doing this?”
“This” was curling his warm hands over her shoulders and tugging her toward him for a kiss. The brush of his lips against hers dissolved the last of her mental resistance. She didn’t want to spend the following weeks fighting this attraction and doubted she would be successful even if she did.
Elle had never responded so quickly and completely to another man. Not even Kyle. There was just something about the chemistry between her and Beau. Every kiss was like a rocket blast inside her, sending her pulse and pleasure into the stratosphere. Every touch transmitted itself to nerve endings she hadn’t even known she had.
Her toes curled, the tips of her ears tingled and the intimate flesh between her legs grew even more damp and swollen. He hadn’t touched her breasts, but they felt sensitized and her nipples were achingly hard inside her bra. She wanted skin against skin.
Now.
He seemed to want the same thing because the wineglass was taken from her hand a second before he started removing the clothes from her body. She returned the favor, kissing him back with violent passion. He might be a scientist, but she wasn’t afraid to let him feel her deepest desires or the strength of her need.
With other lovers, including Kyle, Elle had always held part of herself back, afraid to overwhelm or even hurt an unwary partner. Instinctively, she knew Beau could take everything she might dish out and serve it back to her with more bliss than she’d ever known. He could more than handle her intensity; he would revel in it.
They were both fully naked within moments.
She flipped him on his back and attacked his chest with her mouth. He tasted so good, and the sculpted muscles felt incredible against her tongue. So hard. So male. So different from her, despite the excellent shape her body was in. His nipples were stiff little nubs, silently begging for attention. His whole body shuddered when she gently nipped one. She laved it with her tongue, soothing any sting, then sensually worried it with her teeth again before moving to the other nipple to do the same thing. She bit down and sucked up a mark right beside his left aureole. He shouted something nasty and oh so sexy in that wonderful Texas drawl, his strong fingers gripping her hips and tugging her toward him as he pushed his pelvis upward.
Hot, masculine flesh rubbed against her throbbing labia, spreading the silky wetness and teasing her clitoris. So good, but not enough.
She lunged for his lips, kissing him so hard their teeth clicked. He just moaned, kissed her back with equal fervor.
“Want you.” She mashed their mouths together again, unable to stop the kiss long enough to get the whole thought out at once. Then she pulled back just far enough to get words out. “In me.”
He tilted his head so her lips had to make do with his jaw. Make do she did, nibbling, licking and kissing the stubbled flesh with abandon.
He groaned, long and loud, then cursed when she started sucking the underside of his chin. “Condom. Wallet.”
Then he moved his head so their mouths were once again in alignment. Their tongues dueled while she reached around on the floor for his jeans. She found them, not letting go of his lips. He tasted so good. Because of her training, she was good at searching blind and she found the wallet quickly. She was pretty sure she dumped other stuff out of it getting to the condom, but she didn’t care.
Once she had the foil packet in her hand, she broke the kiss to tear it open with her teeth.
“You are so damn sexy like this,” he growled.
“Don’t talk, or I’m not going to get the glove on you before I start riding.”
His cock jumped against her at the words, but he didn’t say a thing.
She managed to roll the condom over his erection without breaking the latex or losing control, but it wasn’t easy. Beau had the perfect penis. Big, thick and so hard it bowed toward his stomach. He’d been circumcised and there was no extra skin, just a smooth, deliciously shaped rod her mouth watered to taste.
But her vaginal walls were spasming with desire, and she knew if she didn’t get him inside her soon, she was going to lose her mind.
Elle lowered herself over the hard shaft, taking him in faster than was comfortable, but there was pleasure in the burn and stretch of her tender flesh. Her body adjusted quickly to accommodate him, though, and soon all she felt was intense delight at the sensations zinging through her. She’d felt empty and now she experienced a fullness that only he had ever given her.
He might be on the bottom, but Beau was far from a passive lover. He started a rhythm from below that she followed, because it felt so good. Perfect even.
“That’s right,” he praised. “Faster. Come on. I want to see you!”
She went faster and faster. He matched her movements until they were both covered in a sheen of sweat and breathing like marathon runners sprinting in the last stretch.
His roar as he came only echoed at the fringes of her consciousness as she had one of the most intense, heart-pounding orgasms of her life. Her fingers convulsively kneaded his chest as every muscle in her body tensed and then released. Her arms felt like rubber and she had to lock her elbows or she would have collapsed on top of him.
She would have liked nothing better, but there was the condom to consider. And the aftermath of sex that wanted to mean more than either of them would allow. Although she may have given in to the inevitability of sating their desires together, she wasn’t going to make the mistake of wallowing in the afterglow. Nor did she have any intention of falling asleep in his bed.
That would carry a whole host of intimate connotations she refused to deal with. She’d never slept in a man’s bed since Kyle. Beau was on a short list of men she’d allowed to sleep in her bed since then too. She wasn’t going to make that mistake again either.
No more cozily domestic breakfasts the morning after.
She let herself stay where she was until they were both breathing pretty normally, and then she climbed off of him. “Shower, I think.”
“Sounds good, sugar.”
He led her to the bathroom and shared her shower without asking if she minded. She found she didn’t, especially when it led to another climax that had her knees collapsing under her and her body feeling like a puddle of goo. Melted or not, though, she was still determined to go back to her temporary housing.
Beau swiped at the water droplets on his chest with a towel. “I’ll order in some dinner. Any preferences?”
“Curry okay with you?”
<
br /> “Indian or Thai?”
“Either.”
“My favorite is Thai, and there’s a restaurant nearby that delivers, so it’ll get here soon. Now that we’ve satisfied our sexual cravings for the time being, my stomach is reminding me that the last time I ate was breakfast.”
“It’s been a busy day.”
“It has. What do you want to eat?”
“Yellow curry with chicken, if they have it. No onions.”
“Got it.” Feeling more settled in his bones than he had in a long while, not to mention physically replete, he went to make the order.
Dinner was relaxed. They shared their curries. He’d ordered the restaurant’s special pumpkin curry and Elle said she’d found her new favorite. When they were done eating, she helped him clean up and put away the leftovers. Then she disappeared into the living room.
He found her on the sofa, putting on her shoes.
“Where are you going?”
“I’ve got work to do tonight.”
“You can do it here.”
She flicked him a glance. “It’s better if I go back to my apartment.”
She was fighting the intimacy. He should have expected this. And while part of him wanted her to stay, he was glad she was going. Glad that he hadn’t let himself start to see this as something more than what it was.
Sex.
Mind-blowing sex, but not life altering. He wouldn’t let it be, and obviously, neither would she.
It took Elle about six months after Kyle’s death to stop reaching for him in bed at night and another six to get used to waking up alone in the morning. She’d adjusted, though, and no longer expected a warm body upon waking, or someone else around to chat with while she got ready for her day.
So, why the heck did her small corporate apartment feel so vacant this morning? Despite her own things hanging in the closet, it felt like no one was living there. Maybe that was the problem. She was staying in the space, but not filling it with life. Not like Beau’s condo, where his presence could be felt in every room she’d visited.
Alone in the big bed and somehow made subconsciously aware of the fact, she’d woken before the alarm had gone off. She’d been unable to go back to sleep and had gotten up and dressed to go work out. Unoccupied by anyone else, even the cleaning crew, the ground-floor facility available for those staying in the apartments had echoed with the sounds of her training program. Her lunges. Her falls. Her kicks and extensions. Her breathing. But nothing else.