“Your skin is so soft. Like rainwater.” He pressed his hand against my stomach and lowering his head, he covered my breast with his mouth. Ever so slowly, he began to stroke my nipple with his tongue. The moist heat of his mouth combined with the friction of the silk against my skin had me trying to arch upward, reaching for more….
I whimpered something, and as if he had been waiting for that sound, he moved his hand lower on my stomach, sliding his fingers beneath my panties and then between my legs until he reached the spot that felt so empty. I stopped breathing then, trapped between exquisite pleasure and the painful ache that was building inside of me.
I tried to move and found that I was trapped physically, too. My hands were still pinned above my head, my foot still held captive by his. All I could manage to do was wiggle my hips, but it wasn’t enough.
“Please.” My voice was barely a thread of sound, and just as I thought I might die of wanting, he drew my nipple into his mouth, sucking it hard at the same moment that he pushed two fingers into me.
“Sloan,” I cried out.
He drew his fingers out and pushed them in, drew out, pushed in, matching the rhythm of his hand to the movement of his mouth as he suckled at my breast. I was burning, melting, searching….
And then suddenly he withdrew from me. The sense of loss was so acute that for a moment, I couldn’t say anything. Even though he’d released my hands and my foot, I couldn’t move. I watched him rise from the bed and begin to take off his jeans. My gaze followed the dark denim as it slid down those long muscled legs. Beneath them he wore white Jockey briefs, and I could see the evidence of his arousal pushing at the fabric. When the underwear followed the path of the jeans, I finally saw what I’d only felt before. My mouth went dry as dust. He was so big—not just where my eyes were currently glued, but all over. His chest was wide, the bronze skin sprinkled with dark hair, and he had the shoulders of a linebacker. I had never wanted anyone the way I wanted him.
“Hurry,” I said. At least that’s what I tried to say. The sound that came out was more like a moan.
And he didn’t hurry at all. At least not to the bed. Instead, he moved to the bedside table, opened the drawer and took out a condom. I’d thought the sound of my zipper opening was erotic, but the rip of that foil packet topped it. When he’d fully sheathed himself, I sat up and said, “Hurry.”
He didn’t move. He simply stood there, looking down at me. My skin had chilled when he’d moved away so abruptly, but now it began to heat again.
“You have too many clothes on,” he said.
Glancing down, I realized that I was still mostly clothed. I’d been so mesmerized watching him strip that I’d completely forgotten.
“Take them off for me.” His voice was husky, but I found the thread of command in his voice arousing. And he was driving me mad. He’d been teasing and tormenting me, taking me right to the brink and then withdrawing. Maybe it was time I gave as good as I was getting.
Raising my eyes to meet his, I deliberately started with my boots. I dropped one and then the other over the side of the bed. I took my socks off next, drawing out the process as long as I could. His eyes narrowed and I could hear the harsh sound of his breathing in the room. I turned my attention to my bra next. It was a good thing that he’d unbuttoned my blouse because my fingers were growing numb. Then lying back down, I lifted my hips off of the bed and began to wiggle out of my riding breeches.
I’d only managed to get them halfway down my legs when he joined me on the bed and dragged them off the rest of the way. Then Sloan knelt between my legs and tore away the lace that still separated us. Power streamed through me as he gripped my hips and positioned himself over me. But then once again, he paused.
I wrapped arms and legs around him. “Dammit, Sloan. Do it.”
He framed my face with his hands. “Do what?”
“Come inside me. I want you inside right now.”
He drove into me, and I went off like a rocket. The orgasm ripped through me so fast and so hard that I think I lost consciousness for a moment. The next thing I knew, my arms had dropped away from him and so had my legs. They felt like limp noodles. But Sloan was still on top of me, still filling me.
I opened my eyes to find him regarding me in that intent way he had. I read triumph and satisfaction in his eyes. And something. A question?
He withdrew and pushed into me again. To my astonishment my knees came up and my arms wrapped themselves around him.
“Hold on,” he said in a hoarse voice. “It’s going to be a rough ride.”
It was. And incredibly I was ready for it. As he drove into me again and again, each stroke built in speed and intensity. My world narrowed to this man, the heat and hardness of his body, his hands, and the movement of him inside of me. I felt another climax building, more slowly this time, but as we raced toward it together, I felt parts of myself slipping away.
“Come with me.” His voice was harsh in my ear. “Now.”
I had no choice. When the first wild spasm tore through me, I cried out. But it didn’t end there. He showed me more, driving me up again until I knew only that searing heat. And him. His voice joined mine as I gave myself to him and we flew over that last peak together.
Sloan came back to awareness slowly. He couldn’t think. All he knew were sensations. His face was buried in Red’s hair, his body pressing hers into the mattress. His heart was racing, his breath coming in gasps.
And he was trembling. That was a first. A little sliver of fear moved through him. What in the world was she doing to him? Still dazed, he raised his head and studied her. Her eyes were half-closed, her skin still flushed from passion.
He’d wondered where it would lead when he made love to her. But he hadn’t expected this…this loss of self. How could he? How could a man anticipate something he’d never experienced before? Something he was already wanting to experience again.
Incredibly, he felt a fresh wave of desire ripple through him. How could she do this to him—this woman who looked so much like Cameron. But who wasn’t Cameron.
“Who the hell are you?”
Chapter 14
“Who the hell are you?”
The question, especially the not-so-friendly tone of it, blew some of the fuzz out of my brain. I opened my mouth, not at all sure what was going to come out, but Sloan pressed a finger against my lips to silence me.
“Don’t even think of lying, Red. I know that you’re not Cameron McKenzie.”
Okay, the jig was up. There was always the possibility that someone would see through my impersonation. But I couldn’t think of a worse spot to be in—lying naked beneath the man who’d just unmasked me. Worse than that, I was lying naked beneath a man I’d just had mind-blowing sex with. A man that I incredibly wanted again, so my brain was still deep in the fuzzy zone. Otherwise, I might have thought up something. Anything.
“What’s your name?”
“Brooke Ashby.”
“Brooke Ashby.” He said the name as if he were testing it on his tongue. “I can check it out.”
“Yes, you can.” Temper began to flare inside of me. “And you can get off me.”
He rubbed his thumbs over my cheekbones, and something else began to fire up inside of me.
“I’m not moving until you tell me what game you’re playing, Brooke Ashby.”
“Game?”
“You come here with an amnesia story and pass yourself off as Cameron McKenzie. Several scenarios have occurred to me. In one of them, I figure you came across a picture of Cameron, were struck by the resemblance, and decided that impersonating her was the ticket to getting your hands on her inheritance.”
I stared at him. Had seducing me been just part of his plan to unmask me? Well, I didn’t like his tactics. Or rather I’d liked them too much.
“Get off me!” I shoved hard against his shoulders, but I might as well have been trying to move one of those boulders on the bluff. “What kind of man are you? You th
ought that I would do something like that and…and yet you made love to me?”
“Yeah. And I want to again.”
I felt the truth of what he was saying inside me. And I felt my body’s reaction. There was a part of me that was angry, but there was also a part of me that was almost weeping to have him moving in me again. Since I wasn’t having much luck controlling how my body was responding, I concentrated on keeping my brain unfuzzed. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Yeah, it is.” As if to prove his point, he surged forward, and we both felt the way my body reacted. Heard the way my breath caught in my throat.
Sloan withdrew. “We’ll get to that in a minute. First, I want the truth about what you’re doing here.”
“I’ll need to breathe. And I’ll be able to think more clearly if you get off of me.”
“Fair enough.” He rolled to my side, but he kept an arm around my waist and one leg over mine. “But you’re not getting out of this bed until you answer my questions.”
My mind raced for a moment trying to decide just what to tell him. But he hadn’t moved far enough away for me to completely get the static out of my brain.
Finally, I did what I usually do when my back is against the wall. I went with impulse. Not that following my impulses always got me out of scrapes. Case in point—giving in to my impulse to make love with Sloan Campbell. But I wanted to tell someone, and since Sloan already knew that I was an imposter, he was the most likely candidate and perhaps he could be useful. “If I tell you, will you help me find out what happened to Cameron?”
His gaze remained steady on mine. “Then she didn’t send you here?”
“No. Why would you think that? Oh. The face-saving thing again? She sends me here to seduce you. Then she has a good reason not to go through with the wedding.” I stared at him. It would make a great story line for Mallory Carstairs on Secrets. But… “Would Cameron actually do something like that?”
“She has a lot of her father in her. She likes to play games.”
Evidently, the big difference between Cameron and me was that I could dream up plot lines, but she could really carry them out.
“Did James have a hand in your coming here?” Sloan asked.
“No. And you haven’t answered my question. If I tell you, will you help me find out what’s happened to Cameron?”
“Why do you think something’s happened to her?”
“Because I’m her twin, and I can feel it.”
Surprise flickered over his face. “Her twin?” He frowned. “I don’t think so. Cameron doesn’t have a twin sister.”
“I didn’t think I had one, either, until five weeks ago. That’s when I received an anonymous letter telling me that I was adopted.”
I found that telling him about the letter was like pulling my finger out of a dike. Everything else came pouring out with it. I told him about talking to my parents and how they’d confirmed I was adopted and that my whole life had been a lie. I told him about hiring Pepper and what she’d discovered and my decision to come to the ranch to find out what I could about Cameron.
Spilling all the beans probably wasn’t my wisest strategy, but Sloan was a good listener. He didn’t interrupt, didn’t react in a judgmental way. And it was helping, I found, to put everything I’d discovered so far into words.
I also became aware that lying there in his bed and revealing all my secrets to him was almost as intimate as making love with him had been. For a while after I was finally finished, he didn’t say a word. My insides twisted into knots. What must he think of me? I claimed that I’d come to the ranch to find out what had happened to my newly discovered sister, and as part of my little adventure, I’d agreed to marry him on Friday and then I’d slept with him. Looking at it from an objective point of view, his scenario about my coming here seemed a lot more feasible than the truth.
But when he finally spoke, all Sloan said was, “So you’re telling me that you believe Cameron and you are twin sisters, separated at birth and both put up for adoption.”
“Yes. Except Cameron wasn’t adopted, was she?”
He was looking at me in that intent way he had. “No. At least not that I’m aware of.”
“Beatrice gave me a tour of the ballroom this morning, and I saw Elizabeth McKenzie. I could be her daughter. Cameron and I could both be her daughters.”
“You’re implying that Elizabeth had twins and she and James gave one of you up? I can’t see James doing that.”
I was having trouble with that, too. “And it doesn’t explain my friend Pepper’s discovery of Cameron’s adoption records. She’s checking into it again. But that’s not what’s important right now. What’s important is to find Cameron. I have a really bad feeling—I’ve had it ever since I found out that she was missing—that something horrible has happened to her. She didn’t just go off in a snit like everyone seems to think. What did the two of you argue about?”
“I caught her kissing Hal Linton in the garden. After I sent him off, I reminded her that part of our agreement was that although our marriage was partly a business arrangement, we would be monogamous. She lost her temper then. But I don’t think what I said was the only thing that set her off. Something else was bothering her. Anyway, she said she was going to call off the wedding. And I told her to go ahead. I knew that once she thought it over, she’d back down. Cameron never accepts criticism well. When she went missing, none of us were worried about her. It’s not unusual for her to disappear like that.”
“But five weeks? You think she needs that much time to figure out whether or not she wants to go through with the wedding?”
“It’s possible that she’s decided to call it off. She doesn’t like to back down once she’s given her word. So she may be figuring out how to persuade her father to side with her on this.”
He didn’t sound angry or upset that Cameron might be deciding to call off the wedding. I tried not to read too much into that because whatever the truth was surrounding Cameron and Sloan’s marriage, it didn’t change the fact that I’d just made love with my sister’s fiancé. Or the fact that I wanted to do it again. I was all too aware of the strength and the heat of his arm lying across my stomach.
As if he were reading my mind, Sloan slid his hand up to cup my breast, and my nipples—traitors that I’d already found them to be—hardened.
“Don’t,” I said. But my voice didn’t sound convincing even to me. In spite of the satisfaction I’d experienced only a short time before, my body was already heating, yearning.
“Why not?”
I nearly cried out in protest when he removed his hand and levered himself into a sitting position. “Because…”
My voice trailed off when I saw that instead of leaving, he was taking off the condom and replacing it with another.
I just lay there mesmerized, watching him do it. I couldn’t think of my sister or the wedding or anything but making love to Sloan again. When I finally raised a hand, it wasn’t to push him away. Oh no. Instead, I ran my fingers over the long hard length of him, and I wished I’d thought to do it before he’d slipped the latex on.
The sound he made deep in his throat echoed what I was feeling almost perfectly. He moved quickly then, first lifting away my hand and then finding a place for himself between my legs.
Exhibiting my usual total lack of control where he was concerned, I immediately wrapped arms and legs around him and arched upward.
But he didn’t fill me. Instead, he said, “You haven’t yet asked how I knew that you weren’t Cameron.”
I hadn’t. It was a sure sign of how far gone I was that my inner Alice hadn’t kicked in on that little issue. “How?”
He leaned down to brush his mouth over mine. “Your reaction to Saturn was a clue. At the Derby, Cameron was afraid of him. He didn’t take to her, either.” He paused to trail a line of kisses along my jaw.
When his teeth nipped my earlobe, pleasure fizzed through me. “But that wasn’t it.”
His voice was a husky whisper in my ear, and I could feel him against me right where I needed him. But it wasn’t enough. He wasn’t letting me move, and I wasn’t sure I could speak.
“It was when I kissed you the first time on the bluff, I knew that you weren’t Cameron, and in the garden last night, I confirmed it. You see, I never kissed Cameron quite that way before, and I never wanted to do this to her.”
He entered me in one fast plunge, filling me so completely I cried out.
“I don’t want to stop doing this to you, Brooke.” He withdrew and pushed into me again. And again. True to his word, he didn’t stop for a very long time.
When I could finally breathe and think again, I found that Sloan and I were lying side-by-side, tucked together like spoons, and as much as I knew I should, I didn’t want to move. This was why forbidden fruit was forbidden, I reminded myself—the addiction factor.
“We’ll have to tell James,” Sloan finally said.
“No.” I wiggled around to face him. “We can’t. Not yet. If we do, I’ll have to stop impersonating Cameron, and having amnesia gives me the perfect excuse to ask a lot of questions.”
He studied me. “Questions about what?”
“About who was around on the day Cameron disappeared.” I swallowed hard. “And about who might benefit if she doesn’t come back.”
“Because you have a ‘feeling’ she was the victim of foul play?”
He was frowning, and I could still hear skepticism in his tone. So I drew in a deep breath and told him about the anonymous phone call I’d received.
When I was finished, he continued to study me with that I-can-see-right-through-you look of his.
“Cameron is an heiress,” I said. “You were quick enough to jump to the conclusion that I came here masquerading as her to get her money. What happens if she never comes back and your marriage can’t take place? What will James do with the estate then?”
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