by EC Sheedy
“Not quite.” He closed the short distance between them. “I like looking, too.” He gestured with his chin at her two piece swimsuit. “And I’ve already designed a costume for you.”
“Let me guess . . .” Her suit had a front close, and she unhooked it, baring her damp breasts, before dropping the bra top to the floor. “Would that costume be flesh-colored?”
“Definitely.”
“And would it be trimmed with”—she peeled off the bottom of the suit, left her dark blond curls to wetly glisten in the bathroom light—“anything?” She stroked the curls at the top of her thighs.
Joe could barely breathe, and even if he could, he wouldn’t hear it over the thumping going on in his chest. “You’re killing me, you know that?”
She took the final few steps between them and touched his mouth with her index finger. “Killing you is the last thing on my mind.” Her eyes softened, and she was so close he saw her pupils dilate. “Make love to me, Joe”—she backed him into the double shower—“right now. Right here.” She lifted her face to the warm water coursing over them both, shoved her hair back, and looped her arms around his neck.
He slid his hands over her hips and cupped her bottom. Spreading his legs for balance, he lifted her and braced her back against the shower wall. “I’ve been waiting to make love to you since . . . Hell, I think I’ve been waiting forever.” Wrapping her long legs around him, she nestled her head beneath his ear and kissed his neck. “Then take me fast and hard.” She bit him—not gently. “We’ll do the slow stuff later,” she whispered, licking then kissing the bite she’d given him, before moving her mouth to the rose in his tattoo.
“You ready for that?” They might be drenched in shower water, but that wasn’t the moisture she needed.
“Oh, yeah,” she murmured, the words vibrating against his skin. “I’m more than ready, I’m waiting.”
Joe’s brain fogged, his muscles hardened, and he slipped into pure testosterone fueled sex drive. He went in the way she’d asked him to: Fast and hard. She took him deep, her breasts against his chest so tight they were a blur of softness, her arms and legs gripped him like a vise. The rounds of her rear firmly in his hands. Throwing his head back, he plunged mindlessly, water splashing and splattering the glass shower stall with every thrust and jolt. His eyes closed, his mind shorted out, and he raised his face to the shower, and . . . mated. Free, primal, and possessive. He thrust, pulled back, thrust again, and again; each deep hard stroke numbing him, crazing him.
Brain chaos. April under his hands, her skin water-slicked and hot. Her inner walls stroking him, taking and taking . . .
He couldn’t hold on, didn’t want to hold on.
A hoarse rumble starting low in his throat, the final surge building, overtaking him. Muscles straining, taut to max. Breath tangled in his lungs. Mind a blizzard.
He crushed her to him and plunged home, to her center . . . groaned . . . held her to him. His blood still popping in his veins, sweat rushing off his back under the shower’s cascading water, he grasped for air. His muscles slackened. His legs quivered.
It was over. Finished. Just beginning. Joe’s overheated brain couldn’t figure out which.
His breath still a four-fisted brute pounding against his rib cage, he cursed softly, kissed the hot wet skin of April’s shoulder, and waited for the cool-down to begin—and hoped like hell it never would.
It had been a wild, hard possession that was over in a time that had to be his personal best—or worst, depending on your point of view.
April, clinging to him like a rain-soaked vine, hugged him tighter. “Nice,” she whispered in his ear.
“For me, yeah. For you, not so sure.” His voice was low and uneven. He cleared his throat.
April loosened her grip on him enough to pull back and meet his eyes. “I asked for it, didn’t I?”
He was still holding her, still in her, and distracted by the sensation of going soft inside her, he was seriously considering giving up his real life and staying there forever—or at least until he was hard again. The thought did nothing for his voice box, but it did bring a flicker to his depleted sex. Something suspiciously like a grunt came out of him. Give it up for the Neanderthal, he thought grimly. Joe liked slow, liked smooth, liked taking his time with a woman . . . but shit it was good to just get off once in a while with a woman on-board with it.
“Joe?” She was still waiting for an answer.
What was the question again? Oh, yeah, about her asking for it. “Just afraid it might have been one of those be-careful-what-you-wish-for-because-you-might-get-it kind of things.” He reached behind her to turn off the water.
“It wasn’t. Because I had an ulterior motive. “She smiled, wiggled her brows. “Now you owe me.”
Lifting her and taking a steadying breath, Joe withdrew himself from her heat. When he had her feet on the floor, he dug up a smile of his own, cupped her breasts and thumbed the hard tips of her nipples. “A debt I’ll be happy to pay.” Over and over again.
Under the play of his fingers, her nipples peaked. He leaned down to take one in his mouth, let his tongue take over from his fingers.
April gasped when he sucked on her, sank her hands into his hair, and arched to give him full access.
He switched to her other nipple, lapped at it then took it between his thumb and index finger. Lifting his head, he looked at her closed eyes, the softness of her skin, made rosy by the warm shower, the flexing of her lips reacting to his touch, slack one second, tight the next. He heard a purr, and she shifted against his lower body, showing her need openly. No barriers, no shyness. God, he loved that.
It was a deep part her, he thought, the openness—to sex, to caring, to loving. He didn’t stop toying with her nipples, but he eased up and gentled his touch. “That was a gift, wasn’t it?” he said. “That fast-and-hard thing we just did.” She opened her eyes, and he could see the heat in them, see how he’d left her wanting. Aching. She put her hands over his, crushed his big paws to her breasts, and for a second looked away from him. When she looked back, her gaze was less cloudy with sex, more filled with purpose. Still she hesitated before shaking her head and saying, “Kind of a test really.”
He cocked his head.
“Not of you. Of me. What’s going on between us . . . it’s too hot, too fast, and too bizarre for me to wrap my head around. And the sex . . . Well, the sex was so good between us in Vegas and you were such an expert lover. I was afraid it might be just some slick—”
“Technique?”
“I thought if I got you to just—”
“Go at you like a wild bull. I’d demo that I’m the usual jackass male.” Which I did.
She frowned. “Quit finishing my sentences.” She took a breath. “But, yes, that’s exactly what I meant. I thought if you did—what you just did—I’d get real. See you as just a guy. Maybe not like you as much as I’m starting to.”
“Did it work?” he asked, not sure he wanted the answer.
She tightened her lips briefly, but apparently couldn’t stop them from turning up into a quick smile. “No.”
“Then you like me as much after I nearly embedded you into Julius’s shower tiles as you did before?” Something way back in his sex-addled brain told him he should be asking about why she didn’t want to like him. But he figured that would be too much information. Plus being naked with an equally naked woman in a cooling shower stall had a direct bearing on his priorities. It didn’t include sticking an oar in murky waters. That was best left to a time when eye contact was the only option.
“I guess so.” She looked up at him, rubbed her arms as if for heat, then crossed them under her breasts.
“Come here,” he said. He pulled her out of the shower and wrapped her in a bath sheet. He massaged her back, her shoulders, and her arms. When he had her warmed up, he turned her to face him, and lifted her chin. “I don’t know why your liking me bothers you—”
“It’s a—”
/> He touched her mouth. “And I don’t want to. Not tonight anyway.” He lowered his head, caught her eyes. “You good with that?”
“We should—” she started then stopped herself. “I’m good with that. We’ll leave it until after.”
He knew she meant after finding Phyllis Worth, but the last name he wanted mentioned in context with what was going on with him and April was that one, so he let her statement hang. “Can I take you in there now”—he gestured toward the open bathroom door showcasing a king- size bed—“and start paying off what I owe you?” It was the best he could come up with to give her a choice. “With interest,” he added.
“That’s the thing.” Her brow furrowed as though in confusion. “I shouldn’t, but that’s exactly where I want to be—in that bed. You all over me and me all over you.”
“All those shoulds and shouldn’ts must be tiring.” He ran a finger down her cheek, and sensing a win, didn’t hide his grin. “But it’s your call.”
She pulled the towel tight around her, eyed him, then as if she couldn’t help herself, she grinned back. “How much interest?”
“As much as you can take.”
She dropped the towel.
Chapter 25
April woke up in Joe’s arms, her head and one hand on his broad chest, her hair snagged under his arm. She didn’t move, didn’t want to move. This was the finest cocoon she’d ever spun for herself, and she was in no hurry to leave.
God knows it wouldn’t last. She had the nagging sense she and Joe were heading for a major crash and burn. And Phylly would be at the root of it. At the thought of Phylly, her mood darkened, but she didn’t let the worry take hold. She was okay, safe for now, and would be until she and Joe got to her. And like Joe said, worrying, when you couldn’t affect things, was a waste of time. She did wonder though, what Phylly would think of her stolen daughter sleeping with her abandoned son—or that daughter teetering on the brink of falling for him.
She peeked over Joe’s shoulder to the bedside clock—almost six. She should probably get up, repack, and start some coffee. The trouble was she wasn’t in the mood for shoulds; she was in the mood for Joe Worth and had been—not from their first meeting when he’d been what Cornie accurately called a jerk—but from the moment he strode into that cheap motel room, trying to pretend he didn’t give a damn about family, even while his stubborn gaze filled up with equal measures of panic and awe on sight of his true sister. He’d acted like a father handed a five-pound newborn, enthralled and terrified at the same time.
Yes, that’s when he had her . . .
And he’d been having her ever since. She had the dull ache between her legs to prove it.
God, what a night . . .
He stirred under her hand and his heart under her ear beat easily. Too easily, considering her heart was ticking like a broken clock. Smiling, she ran her free hand down and over his hard, rippled abs, lower, lower still.
“You know what they say about not going into the kitchen if you can’t take the heat,” he said, his voice morning husky.
“I like heat.” She looked up at him. His beard was rough and dark, and his eyes, peering at her from under narrowed lids, were nickel bright. “Anyway, I was just going to pull up the covers,” she lied, keeping her hand where it was and making circles with it.
“And I believe you, even when those busy fingers of yours are now well below the cover zone.”
“Hmmm. Guess they slipped.” Still smiling, she slid her hand to its final destination, encircled him, and watched his eyes. They closed.
“Jesus, what a way to start a morning.” He lifted himself to her caress.
“We’ve got a few minutes before we have to start getting ready,” she said. “Any ideas what to do with it?” She pumped him gently, loving the way he grew into her hand, his lazy thrusts when he got her rhythm.
“Ideas are a dime a dozen, baby”—he quickly took control, flipped her onto her back—“what you’ve got here is a man of action.”
“April? Are you in there? April, come on. We’ve got to go.”
Cornie.
“April, I know you’re in there. I know Joe’s in there. So get over it. Kit’s made coffee for you guys.”
Joe and April looked at each other, both shock-eyed, both still as rocks. Joe blinked first then sucked in some air. Very noisily. “She hates me, you know that. Why else would she have my sex life wired into her GPS system?”
April tossed the covers back and sat on the edge of the bed. Even though she was as disappointed as he was, and felt as if someone had thrown a bucket of ice water on the bed they were in, she had to smile at his irritation. Hell hath no fury like a man denied morning sex—twice. “She hasn’t got anybody wired. She’s just anxious about her mom, and she’s right, we should get going.”
April put her hand to her mouth. “Oh God, she still thinks she’s coming. She’s going to be so disappointed.” Which meant seriously ticked off as only Cornie could be—a condition that brought sass, sulks, and stubbornness to new and glorious heights.
Joe pulled himself up, didn’t bother covering what she’d had her hand around mere moments before. Her breathing hitched. “Disappointed?” he shook his head, ran his eyes over her. “That kid doesn’t know what disappointment is.” He paused. “But I’ll take care of it, don’t worry. It’ll be my chance to get even. I’m pretty sure Julius has a dungeon equipped with various weights of chains.”
She gave him a long look. “Know what?”
“What?”
“You sound just like a brother.”
He looked disgruntled. “Maybe because—like it or not— I am one.”
“You like it well enough.” April thought of Gus. They’d had their fights, she and Gus, mostly because she’d get, as he called it, all pissy and grabby. But he’d always looked out for her, and while he might call her names, God help anyone else who did. If he’d been there the night the black-eyed man came, things might have different. She’d screamed for him—oh how she’d screamed—but he hadn’t come. And for a long time she’d blamed him for that—until she’d grown up, got some perspective, and realized there was nothing a twelve-year-old boy could have done, no matter how he might have tried.
Joe slid back down the bed, snapped his fingers in front of her. “Deprived male here. Hello.”
She smiled at him, brought her attention back to Julius’s beautiful room, the bed with the deprived male in it. “I was thinking how lucky Cornie is to have found you.”
“Hmmm.” He rolled out of the bed, magnificently naked, his hair rumpled, his unshaven jaw a dark sexy shadow, and looked at her with his mother’s silver blue eyes. “She won’t feel so lucky a half hour from now, when I tell her she’s staying here.”
“No, she won’t”—she went to him and wrapped her arms around his narrow waist—“but I’m sure you’ll handle her with your usual diplomacy and tact.”
He enclosed her in a powerful embrace, kissed her forehead. “Uh-huh, right after I have her in those chains.”
Everybody was in the kitchen when she and Joe got there. Kit and Cornie were sitting at the far end of a long table eating cereal. April’s stomach dropped when she saw the bag packed and sitting at Cornie’s side.
When Cornie’s eyes met April’s, the girl raised her eyebrows and glanced at Joe. Her gaze shone with the light of teenage triumph, making April the tiniest bit squeamish. When it came to men, April had always been discreet, particularly around Cornie, and considering her relationships were few and far apart, it had been easy enough—until Joe. With Joe nothing was easy, nothing was the same as before, and Cornie, like it or not, was right in the middle of it.
She’d have to talk to her—but not now, not today. Not only did she not know what to say, she didn’t have the emotional reserves to even begin thinking logically about what was going on between her and Joe.
She’d tried to do that last night, going to her room alone, taking some time to herself, a solo swim. Then
she’d sensed him on his balcony, felt his eyes on her—and she’d wanted him so badly she’d shaken with it. All her thinking had only made things worse—or better if she considered what she and Joe had done after the swim. Her body warmed at the memory. She glanced at Joe—talking to Kit now—his clean shaven jaw, his firm mouth, serious this morning and set with purpose. The kitchen light turned streaks of his shower-damp chestnut hair to dark gold, and when he caught her gaze, his eyes glittered with intimacy.
Her knees weakened simply looking at him. She shifted her gaze, told herself her ill-timed attraction to him didn’t matter right now. Priority one was finding Phylly, making sure she stayed safe.
It wasn’t like April to procrastinate, to delay or dither over decisions, but she’d never fallen in lo—serious like with her mother’s son before.
God, all of it together made her head pound.
And coffee. I crave coffee.
As if on cue, Julius handed her a cup, black and steaming, exactly how she liked it. He did the same for Joe.
“I’ve called a limo. It’ll be here in ten minutes,” he said.
“Perfect,” Joe said, taking a solid swig of coffee. “And that other thing?”
April gave Joe a questioning look; he ignored her.
“Done,” Julius said. “There’ll be a parcel for you to pick up, along with your rental car, when you arrive in Tofino.”
Joe just nodded.
Kit glanced nervously at Cornie, then said to Joe, “Your Sea-Tac flights are booked, too. The info’s by the phone.”
He jerked his head toward a phone on a desk area at the end of the granite counter.
The kitchen was as massive as the rest of the house—and a chef’s dream: Hanging pots, bronzed-steel appliances, triple ovens, and enough gas elements to cook for a regiment. April had never dreamed this big, this grand, for the home she hoped to have one day, but she could still appreciate it.
Joe looked at Cornie. “Will you get that, Cornie?”
Cornie took a last spoonful of cereal and went to the desk. She picked up the paper with the flight information, and automatically scanned it—her eyes shot to April, then Joe. “This is for two,” she accused.