She wanted to throw back her head and laugh, or throw back her head and weep because everything was upside down, everything was terrifying and exciting and none of it made sense, and suddenly he jerked the Harley hard to the left and they were bouncing across sand, the Harley’s headlight picking out the shape of her motel, but he rode past it, down the beach, along the hard-packed sand down where the waves rolled in from across the world.
He stopped the bike under one of the palms and turned it off.
The night became very still. All she could hear was the sigh of the breeze through the palms, the whisper of the surf, and the heavy thud, thud, thud of her heart.
She let go of him and sat up straight. “The motel is behind us.”
“I know where it is.”
“Then what are we doing all the way down here?”
“We need to talk.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Get off the bike.”
“Didn’t you hear me? We’d don’t have anything to talk about.”
He put down the kickstand. “Get off the bike, Bianca.”
“Mannaggia! What is this nonsense, Lieutenant? You do not give me—”
He slid off the Harley, dumped his helmet on the sand, wrapped his hands around her waist, lifted her from her seat and stood her in front of him.
“This has to stop.”
His voice was low. Hard. Hard and…Her pulse rocketed. Hard and hot.
“I don’t know what you—”
“Yes. You do. This fighting. This wanting. It stops. Right now. Tonight, goddamn it, it stops…”
He said something short and sharp, pulled her against him, and then his mouth was on hers.
She struggled. Or perhaps she only thought she did, because a heartbeat later, her mouth was open to his, her hands were in his hair, and she was sobbing his name.
Not Lieutenant. What she was sobbing was Chay, Chay, Chay, and it added to the frenzy building inside him.
This was what he’d needed. What he’d ached for. This, his tigress in his arms, the taste of her desire, of her surrender, sweet on his tongue.
“Tell me,” he demanded. “Tell me you want this.”
She knew what he meant. That other time he’d kissed her, she’d told him never to touch her again and he’d said he wouldn’t until she begged for him to do it.
How could everything have changed so completely? She’d gone from hating him to wanting him in in one night. Just one night…
She couldn’t think.
She could only feel. His mouth on hers. His breath whispering over her skin. The rasp of his teeth against her flesh. Pleasure shot through her, but this wasn’t enough. She needed more than his kisses, more than his touch, and she whimpered with need, rubbed herself against him like a cat.
He said her name.
She loved the way it sounded coming from his mouth. She loved everything he was doing and when he pulled off her helmet, thrust his hands into her hair, let the silky strands twine around his fingers, she moaned with the electric feel of him caressing her.
He kissed her. Again. And again. His kisses were hard and deep; his tongue swept against hers. He tasted of wine and of himself, and she couldn’t get enough of him.
“Bianca,” he said. “Say the words.”
She rose to him, clasped his face with her hands.
“Kiss me,” she whispered. “I want you to kiss me. To touch me. Please. Please. Ple—“”
She fell back with him against the trunk of a palm tree. He drank from her mouth, nipped her throat, kissed the pulse that beat wildly in its hollow.
He tugged her purse off her shoulder and let it fall to the sand. His jacket slipped from her shoulders and puddled at her feet.
His hands were at her blouse, working at the tiny buttons, his fingers too big, too clumsy, and finally he cursed and tore the blouse open.
He could see her by the soft light of the ivory moon that rode high against the black, star-shot sky.
And, God, she was beautiful.
She had on a bra. White. Some pale color. It was plain. No lace. No silk. Nothing about it was sexy, but she didn’t need a sexy bra.
She was sex itself.
She was the woman he wanted.
A woman he wanted more than any woman he’d ever been with, and now sure as hell wasn’t the time to try and figure that out.
What it was time for was to taste her mouth. Her throat.
Her breasts.
He pushed the bra up.
Her hands rose to cover her breasts.
He caught her wrists, brought her hands to his mouth and kissed the palms.
Then he bent his head and closed his lips around one warm, erect nipple.
She cried out. Her body bucked against his. Her hips arched towards his. He groaned, gathered her breasts between his hands, kissed one and then the other, drew the eager tips into the heat of his mouth.
She tasted the way she smelled. Of flowers. Of the sea. And of cool forest mornings and hot prairie afternoons. She tasted of dreams he’d dreamed and dreams he’d lost, of dreams that had always been just beyond his reach.
She was sobbing. Saying his name. Pressing herself against him.
Her teeth nipped at his jaw. At his lips. He gave her his tongue and she sucked it into her mouth.
Jesus.
Another minute, he was going to come.
Quickly, he reached for the waistband of her pants. A button popped; the zipper snagged. He cursed and she shoved his hands away and undid the zipper herself.
He pushed her pants and panties down her legs, knelt and tugged one of her feet free. Then he rose. Reached for his fly.
His hand shook as he undid it.
His erection sprang free, throbbing with life.
He put his hand between them. Between her thighs. She gasped. He groaned. She was hot. Wet. For him. For this, he thought, for what only he could give her, and he grasped her thigh, lifted it, brought her leg over his thigh.
“Hang on to me,” he whispered.
He drove into her.
Deep, deep into her.
She screamed in ecstasy. Sank her teeth into his shoulder. He rocked into her. Harder. Deeper.
The world was spinning. And she was sobbing his name.
It was everything he had imagined because, yes, he had imagined this.
And it was more.
His name like a song on her lips. Her silken heat clasping his swollen penis. Her scent, the scent of sex, in his nostrils.
He was close to the edge. Too close. He wanted her to come again. Wanted to feel the glovelike clasp of her around him as she fell off the edge of the world.
He slipped his hands under her ass. Lifted her off the ground. Her legs went around his hips and he drove into her again. And again. And this time, when she screamed, she screamed his name and he let go.
Emptied himself into her. Deep. So deep.
She slumped forward in his arms, her face buried in his shoulder.
He held her that way while his heartbeat steadied. While hers steadied. She was damp with sweat. She shivered, and he knew she must be chilled.
He held her tighter. Stroked his hand down her back.
She deserved more. And more was what he would give her. He’d take her to her room… Hell. No. Tanner and his wife were in this hotel. Where, then?
“Put me down.”
He nodded, made soft, soothing sounds. He’d take her to his place. His small cottage up the beach. He never took women there. He’d never even considered doing it, but tonight…
“Lieutenant. Put me down.”
Lieutenant?
The word penetrated his thoughts. Still holding her, he drew back. Not far. Just enough so he could see her face.
Hell.
>
Her face was pale. Her gaze was downturned.
Not good, he thought, dammit, not good.
“Bianca.”
“Please. Put me down.”
Her voice was a whisper. He could barely hear it. But whatever she was feeling, it wasn’t the sweet afterglow of sex.
Slowly, he did as she’d asked. When her feet touched the sand, she raised her hands, placed them against his chest and pushed against it just enough to make it clear she wanted him to step back.
Okay. She needed some space. He got that. What had just happened… No finesse. No tenderness. Yes, he got it. The next time would be—
“Let go of me, please.”
Shit. She was polite. Too polite. A stranger asking another stranger to pass the salt would have spoken with more emotion.
“Bianca?”
She looked down at herself. He heard the indrawn hiss of her breath. She took her hands from his chest, grabbed the waistband of her pants, stumbled a little as she jammed her foot back into them. When he tried to help, she jerked away.
“Baby—”
Her gaze flew to his. Her eyes flashed with cold fire. So much for the politeness of strangers.
“Don’t.”
“Honey. Baby. If you’d just listen—”
“Honey? Baby? What’s the matter, Lieutenant? Did you forget my name already?”
Okay. She was upset. He’d been a little fast. Not just the way he’d taken her. The entire thing had been a little fast…
“Bianca.” She was trying to button her blouse, but hell, that wasn’t going to happen. He’d seen all those tiny buttons go flying. “Honey,” he said, trying to help her tug the edges of the blouse together, “listen—”
She slapped his hands away.
“No,” she said. “You listen! This was—what you just did was—”
Chay drew back. “What I did?”
“You’re right. What we did. It was—it was awful.”
Apparently, nobody was going to enjoy the afterglow tonight.
“Look,” he said carefully, “I know it was fast. But—”
“Not fast enough.” She bent down and picked up her purse. “Would you please step aside?”
“What in hell does that mean? ‘Not fast enough.’”
“It means what it is. I thought you would never get to the end.”
He felt his jaw tighten. “You made a lot of interesting noises for a woman waiting for something to end,” he said coldly.
“You flatter yourself, Lieutenant.”
His eyes narrowed. “I’m not deaf or dumb or blind, Ms. Wilde. When a woman comes with me inside her, when she comes twice, I’m aware of it.”
“I guess if vibrators could talk, they’d make that same statement.”
His smile tilted at one corner of his mouth. “Very nice. Charming, in fact. Anything else you want me to know about your sex life?”
Color swept into her face.
“Remember what I told you the last time you touched me? That it would never happen again?” Her chin lifted. Her mouth thinned. Her eyes glittered with rage. She looked angry and beautiful and for one crazy second he thought of hauling her into his arms and making a lie of the crap she was spouting. “What I’m telling you now is that you are never, ever to so much as speak to me again.”
Chay folded his arms over his chest.
“And how, exactly, are you going to explain that to your sister?”
“I won’t even try. Tanner has only another couple of days here. There’s no reason for our paths to cross.”
“What if he suggests dinner? A movie? What if he wants the four of to get together?”
“I’ll say I have a cold. A headache.” Her chin went up another notch, although how it could have gotten as high as it was struck him as impossible. “If you’re afraid I’ll tell him the truth, stop worrying. I am not about to cause problems for my sister and her husband.”
“You mean you’re not about to tell anybody I just fucked your brains out.”
She slapped him. Hard. Really hard. The force of the blow snapped his head back and he figured he’d be wearing her handprint for a couple of hours.
Yeah, but what the hell, he’d deserved it.
What he’d just said had been crude… Hell. Crude, but accurate. Because he damn well had fucked her brains out, which was precisely what she had done to him.
He’d never experienced anything like it.
Sex in a public place? Of course. With a woman he hardly knew? Damn right. Sex that was fast and furious? Hey, there were all kinds of ways to get off.
But sex that had driven every rational thought from his head?
No.
He’d never had sex quite like that, sex that, even now, made him think about silencing her with a kiss, about taking her down to the sand, about burying himself inside her because, despite what she said, it was what she’d want, what she’d sob for, what would drive away all the anger inside him, the emptiness, the pain…
His breath caught.
Was that the reason the sex with her had seemed to explode through him? Was it because of that kid on the mountain? Had he needed this to get the kid out of his head?
Made sense.
Maybe the sex hadn’t been mind-blowing.
Maybe his need for it had been what made it seem that way.
Maybe it wasn’t about this woman.
It couldn’t have been about this woman.
All of a sudden what she said, what she’d laid down as law, that they never deal with each other again, made sense. The truth was, he wanted to forget the entire night and he wasn’t going to waste any time getting started on making that happen.
“Get out of my way.”
Chay stepped back, but he didn’t step aside. Instead, he bent down, picked up his jacket and held it out to her. “You’ll need this.”
“Are you pazzo? I want nothing of yours!”
His gaze raked her from head to toe. “Really?”
She frowned and looked down at herself. He knew what she saw. A blouse hanging open. Pants that no longer had a working zipper.
She said something through her teeth, snatched the jacket from him and wrapped it around herself.
“I will ask Tanner to return it to you.”
“Consider it a souvenir,” he said as he mounted the Harley. “Go on. Walk to the hotel. There’s a back entrance to the lobby. I’ll wait until you’re safely inside.”
“I do not need you to do that.”
There it was. That stilted speech. She was upset, and wasn’t that just too damn bad?
“No,” he said, “I’m sure you can take care of yourself, but I’m going to wait anyway. Consider it part of the services I provided this evening.”
She spat a word at him. Then she turned on her heel, a small, stiffly erect figure oozing dignity with every stride as she marched up the beach to the hotel.
He waited until she opened the door and stepped inside. Then he turned the bike on and gunned the engine.
Of course this had been all about what had happened days ago on that fucking mountaintop. It had had nothing to do with Bianca Bellini Wilde.
But that didn’t explain her part in it.
Shit.
The truth was, it really didn’t explain his part either. Sex to shut the door on a bad memory? Yes. It had worked before. But sex like what he’d just experienced…
Chay rode the bike over the sand and onto the road.
Be honest, man.
It had been…different. It had turned him inside out. Left him feeling as if he could never get enough of the woman he’d held in his arms.
And that was ridiculous.
He upped the Harley’s speed.
He knew exactly what to do. Go back to the LZ.
Find a woman. There would be one. There always was. Somebody beautiful, hot and eager. Take her to wherever she was staying. Fuck her again and again until the Tigress wasn’t even a blip in his mind.
It was a good plan. A great plan.
Except, when he reached the turnoff for the Landing Zone, he hurtled past it and headed straight for home.
CHAPTER SIX
5:10 p.m., a Friday evening in late June, Bianca’s office on the Upper East Side of Manhattan
The day had started with bright sunshine. The weatherman had predicted rain, but how often was the weatherman right?
Bianca hadn’t been surprised that the skies remained clear.
Then, with amazing speed, clouds moved in until they covered the city like a thick gray blanket, so dense that a little while ago she’d had to turn on the lights in her office.
Now, as the first tentative patter of rain hit the window, she looked up from her desk, where she’d been making entries in the file open on her laptop. Could she finish up and get out of the office before the rain turned into a downpour? The subway was right at the corner.
Maybe.
Wait.
Bianca groaned.
Only one problem.
She had an appointment. A meeting. And it was two blocks from here, at the Cuppa Joe’s on Madison Avenue.
And—she glanced at her watch. Mannaggia! She was going to be late.
Her fingers flew over the keys.
Patient shows lessening signs of anxiety. Recommend dosage change in meds—see attached note sent to Dr. Carlyle—and a decrease in sessions from two per week to one.
She read what she’d typed, read the note to Dr. Carlyle, the psychiatrist in the practice who would, as a medical doctor, review the request and authorize the prescription, and added a couple of words. Then she hit Save, followed by Close. The screen went blank and she shut her laptop, sat up straight and grimaced as she flexed her shoulders.
“You’re too young for aches and pains.”
Bianca swung towards the door and smiled at East Side Associates’ temporary receptionist, Lacey Hilton. Lacey was a bright MBA student, working as a summer fill-in for the regular receptionist, who was on maternity leave.
“Tell that to my muscles,” Bianca said. “They’re reminding me that I haven’t gone to the gym in a couple of days.”
Privilege: Special Tactical Units Division: Book Two Page 8