As they knelt there, her arms around his neck, her breasts against his chest, his erection straining against her belly, he gazed into her face, more beautiful than Elizabeth could ever be, and thought about the question he hadn’t asked. Why did you change your mind? If he asked and she answered any of the possibilities he’d already considered, he would have to walk away. He wouldn’t have her, bought and paid for, again. No matter how much he’d enjoyed their one night together, no matter that it was the best sex he’d ever experienced, the fact that she’d been in his bed only on promise of payment tarnished it, cheapened it.
But what if she gave an answer he hadn’t already considered—a good answer, one he could live with? Then she would walk away, because she would know that he’d suspected her of prostituting herself again. Either way, he would lose, and he had too little in his life that he could afford to lose the most important part. It would be best that he not open his mouth.
Unless it was to give her kisses—sweet, steamy, gentle, hungry, demanding kisses. He explored her mouth as his hands explored her body, gliding over wet T-shirt and damp skin. He stroked her back, her breasts, the flat of her belly. She was cool and hot, exquisitely responsive to the slightest of his touches. She trembled, clung to him and repaid him with her own sweet touches, her fingers brushing here, kneading there, cupping so tenderly there, until he couldn’t bear any more.
He removed his trunks, tossed them aside, then knotted his fingers in the hem of her shirt. She watched him, her blue gaze steady on his face. He watched her, his gaze locked on her body, as he began pulling the shirt away, revealing rounded hips, narrowed waist, damn near perfect breasts. He tugged the shirt over her head, then wrapped it round and round his hands, pulling the fabric tighter as tension, hunger and unbearable need streaked through him.
She took advantage of his self-created bonds to touch him intimately, her small fingers unrolling a condom over him, her delicate hands tormenting his flesh when she was finished. He caught his breath, jerked his hands free and threw the shirt away, then pressed her down on the towel. The splash an instant later barely registered because he was between her thighs, probing, seeking entry into her body, finding heat and an incredibly snug welcome.
He moved, and her muscles tensed. Moved again, and her body clenched hard around his. Her face was pale, etched with need. Her breasts were swollen, her nipples hard, her arousal as intense as his own. Just like Saturday night, he knew this first time wouldn’t last long, knew their bodies would betray them with a hot, quick, breath-stealing release, knew it would be the sweetest betrayal either of them had ever experienced.
He could try to make it last, could grit his teeth and think about anything in the world but Hannah, but tonight there wasn’t anything else in his world except Hannah, who was sliding her flesh along his, who doubled his need with every movement, who tripled the heat with every breath. Her sensual thrusts enticed him as her soft little whimpers pleaded with him. He tried to resist, tried to prolong the pleasure, but his body responded on its own, meeting her thrusts, filling her deeper, faster, harder. His lungs emptied of air, his mind of thought. There was nothing but him and Hannah, and this incredible, exquisite, painful, killing hunger, driving, building, growing until it became unbearable, then growing even more.
Release came quickly. One second he was fighting for it, and the next it was there, holding his body utterly rigid, then leaving him trembling and weak, unable to breathe, unable to move, unable to feel anything but the purest, sweetest and most fleeting satisfaction.
She felt it, too, because after one moment dragged into another, after their breathing settled into a low rumble, after his heartbeat slowed to a relatively normal pace, she opened her eyes, gave him the sweetest, shyest, most wicked smile and a husky invitation.
“Let’s do that again.”
Chapter 8
Long minutes passed—maybe days, weeks—before Hannah found the energy to move even one small muscle. She would simply stay there in Mick’s arms forever if not for the very real possibility that they would be discovered in a few short hours by some early-morning fishermen—most likely fishermen she’d known all her life. Not desiring to be any more of an exhibitionist than she’d already proved, she forced herself away from the arm that held her close and sat up, scanning the dock. “Where’s my shirt?”
Mick yawned, stretched, turned onto his side to face her. “I think it fell in the lake.”
“Fell in?” She leaned over the edge of the dock, peering into the dark water, then, realizing the picture she was presenting, sat down again. He was grinning like a man who hadn’t just experienced two incredible orgasms. “You threw my shirt in the lake?”
“You made me. You wrapped your fingers around my—”
With a warning look she cut him off, then pulled his shirt on. “This was nice,” she said with a supremely satisfied sigh. Mick’s words—“Yeah, it was”—agreed, but his tone didn’t. His expression, suddenly serious and more than a little bleak, didn’t. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. We’d better go.” He sat up and reached for his trunks, but she grabbed hold, too.
“Mick, what’s wrong?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He. pulled the trunks from her and stepped into them, then shoved his feet into his shoes before extending his hand.
She let him pull her to her feet, then picked up her towel and shorts, returning the remaining condoms to the pocket. Holding both in a ball in front of her, she watched as he started toward the truck, but she didn’t follow.
A few feet past the end of the dock, he realized she wasn’t coming and turned around. He looked as if he was struggling with himself, wanting to talk but at the same time wanting to keep whatever it was to himself. Clutching her towel tighter against the chill growing inside her, she watched him and waited, and finally he blurted out his question.
“What changed your mind about sleeping with me?”
“Our conversation this afternoon. Your offer to buy into the motel. Your pl—”
Something in his face changed, turned darker, colder. “You know, you could have sold this place a hundred times over if you’d taken out an ad. ‘Run-down motel for sale. Requires hard work and lots of money. Includes restaurant and great sex with the boss. Warning: she doesn’t sell herself cheap.”’
For a long time she stared at him, stunned, hurt. Then, giving herself a mental shake, she pulled on the shorts she’d intended to carry home, feeling too vulnerable and exposed without them. She wrapped the damp towel around her shoulders, seeking some protection against his insult, against her shame that, under the circumstances, he was entitled to think that about her.
When she drew even with him, she stopped and forced herself to meet his gaze. He looked miserable and ashamed. “If you had let me finish, Mick, I was also going to say because of your plans to stay here. I can’t risk a relationship with someone who has a better life someplace else, because my life is here. This is all I have to offer, and it’s certainly not enough to make someone leave a comfortable home and a good job to come and live the way I do. Hoping that it might be is the best way I know to get my heart broken. But this afternoon you said you were willing to move here, anyway, for business, and I thought—”
She broke off, shook her head. “I can’t even blame you for thinking it. It’s only reasonable, once you start selling your body, that people are going to be confused about when you’re selling and when you’re giving.” In spite of her best efforts, her voice quavered at the end. Ducking her head, she started for his truck and was almost there when his arms wrapped around her from behind, drawing her up short and snug against his body.
“I’m sorry.”
Squeezing her eyes shut on the tears, she shook her head. “It’s not your fault. It’s Brad’s and mine, not yours.”
“Not yours, either,” he disagreed fiercely. “He gave you no choice.”
“He gave me a choice. I just made the wrong one. I should have told hi
m to go ahead and foreclose on the loan.”
“Then I never would have met you, and that would have been one of my biggest losses.” Even though she tried to resist, he slowly turned her to face him, then kissed a tear from the corner of her eye. “And just for the record, darlin’, I like the motel. I like the idea of fixing it up and turning it into a profitable business, but that’s not why I want to stay here. You are, Hannah. You’re the only reason.”
He kissed her then, long and hard, and made her legs go weak and her muscles quivery. When he backed her against his truck and lifted her so his arousal rubbed exactly where she needed him, she regretted bothering with her shorts, regretted ever leaving his embrace on the dock. She moaned, but it made little sound, lost in his kiss. When she reached for him, sliding her hand boldly over his erection, he pushed her back, ended the kiss and dragged in a deep breath.
“Let’s go home.” His voice was thick, uncontrolled.
Home. It had such a nice sound to it.
She climbed into the truck, fastened her seat belt, then gazed at the dock as he backed up. She had a lot of sweet old memories of this place. Now she had one new memory, one that would always take her breath away.
They drove back to the motel in intimate silence. She didn’t even make a pretense of going into her own room. Mick unlocked his door, looked at her in silent invitation, and she walked inside. The air was cold, the only light coming from a bulb above the sink. He turned the air conditioner down a notch, then switched on every light in the room. At her questioning look he grinned. “I want to see you. You were careful to control how much I saw last weekend because you didn’t want me to know that you were a natural blonde. Tonight I want to see you in more than just moonlight. Tonight I want to see everything.”
She wished for a shower, a brush and something pretty to wear. Then he began closing the distance between them, all the while giving her a dark-eyed look that made her burn, and suddenly all she wanted was him. All of him, all night long.
Kneeling, he undressed her slowly, loosening the button that secured her shorts, sliding the zipper down inch by inch, lifting one foot, guiding the shorts over, then the other. Before he discarded them, he removed the condoms from the pocket and laid them on the dresser beside her. Her fingers closed automatically around them, crinkling the packets, then knotted as he brushed a long, slow, wet kiss over her hip. The next kiss landed low on her belly, accompanied by easy caresses that robbed her of strength and reason and made her cling to his shoulders for support.
“Definitely a natural blonde,” he murmured as he rose easily to his feet and pulled his shirt over her head in one fluid motion. Claiming Her wrist, he pulled her the short distance to the bed, where he lay down, then drew her close.
She leaned over him, feathering her fingers across his chest, tasting him here, there, making his muscles knot and his skin ripple. She worked her way to his lean hips, then sat back and opened a plastic packet. He shifted on the bed, restless, edgy, but made no move to hurry her along. She eased the coiled latex from the package and held it with two fingers while lazily stroking him with her other hand. The condom was so thin, a delicate piece of nothing to bear such responsibility.
She wished they didn’t have to bother with it at all, wished his wife hadn’t been unfaithful, wished he hadn’t even had a wife. She wished all the men and women in their pasts had never existed, that it had always been, would always be, just the two of them together. She wished their futures weren’t so uncertain, wished they were at a place in their lives where they could be thinking about forever and babies and not prison or worse.
“Darlin’?” Mick’s voice was hoarse, taut with discomfort. “You’re killing me....”
Drawing her attention back to the task at hand, she positioned the sheath and, deliberately clumsy, worked it into place, making him stiffen even more, making him groan. Then she took him into place, rising over him, settling slowly, deeply, sinking, taking all she could. When he filled her, she closed her eyes and sighed softly.
“Want to run away with me?”
She smiled. “Sure. Could we go someplace with a moderate climate? No hot summer droughts, no winter ice storms?” Then she laughed. “No, let’s go someplace where it’s warm all the time, where we can go naked and not care. A deserted island somewhere in the South Pacific maybe.”
“I’m serious.”
She opened her eyes and saw that he was. With only that glimpse, she became serious, too. “I can’t leave here, Mick. I’m not even sure I want to.”
“Whatever happened to wanting another life, another job, the variety and excitement of the city?”
“I’ve wanted that so long it’s become habit. I just assumed it was still my dream. But when you said this afternoon that I could leave here and you would take care of Mom and Sylvie...I tried to imagine myself in Tulsa, being independent and free, responsible for no one but myself, doing only what I wanted.” She smiled faintly. “I used to see my dreams so easily that it was like watching television. ‘Hannah Goes to the City.’ ‘Hannah at Work.’ ‘Hannah Has a Social Life.’ But this afternoon I couldn’t see anything except ‘Hannah Gets Lonely.’ My life is here. My family is here.” She hesitated, debated finishing the thought, then did. “You’re here. Why would I leave?”
He shifted, and she felt it deep in her body. His hands claimed hers, then settled on her thighs. “If the motel was taken care of, if there was someone here to make sure that Merrilee and Sylvie were all right, if I was going, too, would you go?”
“But why would you... You mean if the sheriff arrests us. You’re talking about running away to avoid prison. That would break Sylvie’s heart.”
“Any more than seeing you in prison would?”
She held his gaze a long time, then looked away. “It would certainly be a different and exciting life.”
“But you’d rather stay here and take your chances with the sheriff and Brad.”
Slowly she nodded.
“Even if you could be naked on an island in the South Pacific with me?” he gently teased, then pulled her close. “Then I guess we just won’t let things get that bad. Somehow we’ll find proof against Brad. Then you can spend the next few years naked in this room with me. Right now you can...” He murmured the rest in her ear, wicked ideas that made her flush and shiver, intimate words that prompted her to move against him, to withdraw, then take him once again deep into her body. He paced her, encouraged her, coaxed her along, until she shattered. Only a moment later so did he.
One endless, mindless moment drifted into another before he drew her onto the bed beside him, fitting her body snugly against his, and gave her a sweet kiss. “How about a new show?” he murmured. “‘Hannah Takes a Lover.’ And does it very well.”
The last breakfast table was cleared, the last dish washed and the sweeping and restocking done when Mick joined Hannah at the registration desk. “What do you have in mind for today?”
She held his gaze, refusing to let hers slip one inch below his jaw. If she did, she would smile, and he would get that look, and they would go off to his room, and nothing would get done all day. Such pleasures would have to be restricted to nighttime hours, or else the motel would fall down around their ears in a matter of days. “Do you want to inspect your new business venture? Get an idea of what kind of trouble you’ve gotten yourself into?”
He gave her that look, anyway, accompanied by a wicked grin. “Oh, darlin’, I know. Believe me.”
She tried with little success to ignore the hunger he’d stirred. “Want to inspect the roof?”
“It’s too hot. If we walk up there in heat like this, we’re liable to do more damage.”
“The rooms?”
“Now there’s an idea. They’re all empty, aren’t they? Eighteen rooms. With eighteen beds.”
She laughed in spite of herself. “You are shameless.”
In an instant he sobered. “Not always. Not last night at the lake.”
Sh
e started to reach for his hand, started to plead with him not to apologize again, because she’d deserved his insult more than she deserved his apology, but her gaze slipped past him, and instead, she clenched her hands into fists and muttered, “Damn.”
He turned to look as the sheriff parked out front. This time he was accompanied by two deputies, both very young and looking self-important with their badges and the pistols on their hips.
The three men swaggered into the lobby and immediately turned toward them. “Morning, Hannah. Mr. Reilly.”
Mick turned toward the sheriff. “I was going to call you later today. I wanted to ask you about Sandra’s car.”
“Silver Lexus. Pretty car. We’ve got it over at the impound lot. What about it?”
“I noticed when I was at the house in Oklahoma City that some of her things were missing—two suitcases, some clothes, shoes, jewelry. Were they in the car?”
His question went ignored. “Isn’t it normal for a woman going out of town to take suitcases with her?”
“Sandra drove over here Saturday morning. She told me she was going straight back. She had a date that evening.”
“But she didn’t go straight back, did she? And there weren’t any suitcases in the car. Huh. Interesting. Maybe I ought to have a look around your room, Mr. Reilly.”
Mick scowled. “Maybe. When you have a search warrant or my lawyer says it’s all right. You remember my lawyer? The one I told you to call if you had any other questions?”
Mills smiled. “I do. But you were asking me, remember? About your wife’s pretty car. And it’s beside the point, anyway, because I’ve come to talk to Hannah. I would appreciate it if you stayed around, though.”
Hannah shifted nervously. “What do you need?”
“Are your mama and Miz Clark around?”
“Mom’s in her apartment. Sylvie’s gone into Yates.”
The Overnight Alibi Page 18