She didn’t ask what about; she just shook her head.
“They think they did the best for you, sending you off to university at thirteen.”
“I was mature for my age. It came from having a really facile brain and siblings that were so much older than me. I told them I didn’t need my mom to come with me. It wouldn’t have been fair to take her away from my dad. Baba would have come, but she didn’t move over from the old country until I’d been at university for two years already.”
And her parents had believed Danusia when she told them she didn’t need them. She’d let them off the hook and they’d swum on happily in their local pond while she tried to find a place for herself in unfamiliar waters.
Unable to keep himself from touching her, he brushed her hair behind her ear. “You deserve so much more than I can give you.”
“I’ll take what I can get.” Again the words could have been desperate, but she said them with a calm certainty that blew him away.
He let his hands drop to her waist, his long fingers almost touching behind her back. “You’re so tiny.”
“Please tell me that’s not one of the five excuses.”
“Reasons. And no, it’s not.” Though maybe it should be.
“Good.”
“I joined the Marines right out of high school.”
She tilted her head back so their gazes were locked. “If that’s one of your five, you’re going to have to explain why.”
“I didn’t go to college.”
“Right. So, no fancy degrees for you, huh?”
“Not a one.”
“At the risk of sounding like a CD with a skip in it, does that really matter if you’re not looking for a long-term relationship ?”
“I guess not.” It felt like it did with her though.
“But it bothers you.”
“Some.”
“Not everyone gets their education at a university.”
“True.”
“You’ve got life experience I can’t begin to match. Does that make you think less of me?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“It’s not the same.”
“Oh, I think it is. You read a lot too, don’t you?”
“Roman tell you that?”
“I guessed, but he confirmed it. I already know you’ve taught yourself to cook like a chef. Degree, or no degree, you’re a renaissance man, Max. And for the record? I’ve known more academics than most people. A university degree does not decree instant compatibility, nor does the lack of one mean two people cannot find and maintain common ground. You may not have my brain, but you’re a long way from stupid.” She smiled up at him. “Unless you really refuse to take me up on my offer. Then I’m going to revise my opinion of your I.Q.”
“Brat.”
“Matej calls me that sometimes, but it sounds different coming from you.”
“I sure as hell hope so.” The temptation to kiss her was so strong, he had to step back.
Only his hands refused to let go, so the distance between them was limited and not real effective.
“Five,” she said in a breathy voice that revealed he wasn’t the only one affected by their nearness. “You said there were five reasons and you’ve only given me four so far.”
“You’re six years younger than me.”
She gave him a considering look. “You know, for a man not in the market for a relationship, an awful lot of your excuses are based on your perception of long-term compatibility.”
He didn’t have an answer for that, or at least one that would make sense—to either of them.
“But six years? Really?” she went on, when he didn’t say anything to her observation. “Sixteen might worry me, twenty-six would give me some doubt, but six? Please. When we were teenagers, those six years would have mattered, but we’re both adults now and they just don’t.”
“I’m thirty and I should have enough self-control to keep my hands off you.”
“But you don’t?” she asked hopefully.
He found himself grinning as the inevitability of what was going to happen between them washed over him. “I don’t.”
And if she wasn’t convinced by his reasons, he wasn’t going to hang on to them like a sulky child. She was right, this was just sex and if she wasn’t pushing for more, who was he to insist she should?
“Seriously?” she asked.
“Oh, yeah.”
“Now?”
He shook his head. “You have work to do today.”
“It’s the weekend, I can take some time off,” she said suggestively.
“I’m teaching a class this morning. Advanced techniques in hand-to-hand combat. I need to be there in forty minutes, but I’ll be done by three,” he said quickly when her face fell.
He could call in and cancel class, but he wanted her to have some time without him around to think about what he’d said and change her mind if she was going to.
“Hmm . . . not feeling like working. Maybe I’ll get a massage.”
“I guarantee you’ll get plenty of touching when I come back.”
“That’s what I’m hoping, but to maximize the experience, I should work on getting relaxed.” He couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.
Scientists didn’t think like normal people. Roman might be more soldier than scientist now, but the man still proved the rule.
Then he realized why she was so tense. “The break-in threw you, didn’t it?”
“It scared me, yes.”
He should have realized, but she’d done that thing with him that she clearly did with her family. Pretended to be okay when she was frightened and facing the unknown. He wasn’t going to fall for it again. “Why didn’t you go stay with family?”
“Everyone but Roman is in a fairly new relationship. They don’t need me horning in on their privacy.”
“And your parents.”
“Would you go stay with your parents?”
“Point taken.” He loved his mom, but he preferred to get a hotel room when he went to visit her.
“So, three o’clock?”
“I’ll be here by three-thirty.”
“Yum.”
Laughing,quishook his head. “You’re sweet.”
“You think?” She fluttered her lashes outrageously and he laughed again.
Giving in to the urge that had been riding him since walking into the kitchen, he leaned down and gave her a brief but thorough kiss.
He ran his tongue along her lips to savor her flavor before pulling back. “A little taste of what’s to come.”
She just nodded, her expression dazed.
Sex between them was definitely going to be mind-blowing.
He was whistling when he got in his car.
CHAPTER 5
Danusia rolled the pencil between her teeth, the faint taste of wood comforting in its familiarity.
Her roommate, Rebekah, teased Danusia for using the old-fashioned, yellow No. 2 pencils that had to be sharpened every morning before she started work. Danusia firmly maintained a mechanical pencil was not the same. She grabbed the No. 2 and put a check beside another anomaly in the research.
These results simply did not make sense in the face of the company’s claims of a breakthrough in nanotechnology for medical treatment.
She put the pencil back in her mouth and flipped to the next paper in the stack. This one listed results exactly as she’d expected them to be. Her brows drawn together, she put the two printouts side by side.
A big warm hand landed on her shoulder and she gasped, spitting the pencil out. It clattered as it rolled across her brother’s glass tabletop.
Her heart galloping, she jumped up and spun, knowing on one level that it had to be Max and another not so sure.
It was Max and he was smiling. “You know, after this morning, I expected a little different reaction to my return.”
She looked around frantically for her cell phone, the only “watch” she ever wore,
but it was probably buried under the papers she’d been reading. “Um, is it that late already?”
“Later.”
Then she noticed his black hair was damp and he was wearing PT shorts that exposed the full length of his dark, muscular legs. No shoes, and no shirt. Oh, man.
Her legs wobbled.
The man had a to-die-for chest. “You took a shower.”
Without her, darn it!
“I did.” He tugged her ponytail. “No massage?”
“Oh, I was going to call and then got to thinking about something I wanted to check in my research. . . .” She trailed off, embarrassed. “Um, how long have you been here?”
“A while. When you didn’t respond to my initial greeting, I found you studying in here.” He looked around the dining room she’d taken over for her work area.
“Roman’s desk isn’t big enough to spread out on.” She bit her lip. Like Max cared where she studied.
“You get really lost when you’re working, don’t you?”
No use denying it. “Yes.”
“That could be dangerous.”
“I don’t study away from my apartment at night.” When all of her older siblings kept harping on it, she’d finally promised them she would do her library work earlier in the day.
“It’s cute.”
“Seriously, you’re not irritated?”
“Nope.” And he didn’t look mad either. Not even a little annoyed.
“Oh.” Cool.
“You looked pretty intent when I first got here, and not very happy.”
“It’s these results.” She indicated the printouts on the table. “They’re supposed to show Luminescent Pharmaceuticals’ breakthroughs, but they’re pretty much the opposite.”
“You think Luminescent is making false claims for their research?”
“They could be. Maybe this data is older, but they’re really sloppy about some stuff. It’s hard to tell.”
“What do you mean?”
“They keep meticulous records of results, but there are no dates anywhere on three of these reports, or names for the projects. It’s odd.”
“It sounds suspicious, if you ask me.”
“Yeah, that’s what worries me. Luminescent is a major supplier for pharmaceuticals for third-world countries and the Middle East. If they’re supplying products that don’t work, but make things worse, that’s . . .” Words failed her.
“Dangerous.”
“Right.” Not to mention, unethical. Despicable. Just plain rotten.
“I mean, dangerous for you.”
“What? Why for me?”
“You’ve got to wonder if you were supposed to be given this set of data.”
He had a point. “The woman helping me get the downloads was a little ditzy.” Then it was like Danusia’s brain finally switched on and she shook her head. “What are we doing talking about my research?”
“Just discussing our days, right?”
He wanted to do the how-was-your-day thing? It was her own fault, so she backed up and asked how his was.
He laughed. “If you could see your face, Professor. My class was a wash. I nearly sent two of the participants to the infirmary.”
“That doesn’t happen very often?”
“Try never.”
“Why today?” she prompted, wanting him to say it.
“Wasn’t paying enough attention to pull my punches properly.”
“Oh.” She liked hearing that. A lot.
“Yes, oh. Want to take a guess what I was thinking about?”
“Your best friend’s Bar Mitzvah?” she couldn’t help teasing. She was feeling giddy.
“Not Jewish and neither is he.”
“The government cover-up of alien visitations?”
“Not a conspiracy nut.”
She was grinning as he reeled her into his body. “How best to utilize your retirement fund?”
“Brat.” Then he kissed her and all desire to tease fled, along with coherent thought.
His mouth fit perfectly over hers, his lips using just the right pressure to send tingles of awareness radiating outward until she could feel this one perfect kiss in her toes. She responded, letting her tongue dart out to taste. He groaned and suddenly their tongues were sliding against each other and his arms were around her, pressing their bodies together.
His skin was so warm and soft under her hands, his muscles so hard.
She caressed along his sides, around his back and over his chest, loving the feel of his curly chest hair under her fingers. Her hands could not stay still though. They sought out one treasure after another. Hard male nipples, well-defined pecs, biceps that bulged under her fingertips, inviting her to grip them tight and hard.
She mapped his every bulge and valley of muscle with the investigative fervency of an obsessed topographer.
This man could so easily become her obsession, probably was already, if she was honest with herself. And she did try to be.
She couldn’t believe she could touch and feel to her heart’s content. Was there such a thing? She didn’t think she would ever grow tired of caressing this man, her desire to touch never completely sated.
His hair was cut Marine short, the high and tight even more compact than on other men because of Max’s tight nap. It felt amazingly sexy against her palms and she writhed against him, her hands on his head, pulling him closer, moaning into the kiss.
His arm made a shelf under her buttocks and then he lifted. They were moving, his hold on her strong, his mouth masterful.
Both their eyes were open, but while his were watching where he carried her, hers were fixed on him. He was just so incredibly gorgeous and even more so with that look of desire in his sherry-brown eyes.
She landed on the guest room bed with him on top of her. And wasn’t that just perfect?
He thrust his hips against her, his hard-on pressing, teasing, making her whimper. “You’re wearing too many clothes, Professor.”
She’d heard that word tens of thousands of times in her academic career, sometimes directed at others, sometimes at herself. Never before had it sounded like a synonym for sweetheart.
“So’re you.” Naked would be good. Oh, yes. Really, really good.
He gave that delicious laugh even as he started unbuttoning her blouse. He pulled it open and then gave a low whistle. “Nice.”
She wiggled out of the top. “Nice would be naked.”
He nodded, moving so he could get her jeans too. She didn’t like wearing shoes or socks, if she could get away with it, so he didn’t have any hindrance to pulling the jeans right off. Other than the fact that they were the tightest pair she owned, but that didn’t seem to hamper his efforts even a little.
She’d never gotten this particular pair of pants off as fast.
When they were gone, he stopped and just shook his head. “Damn.”
It sounded more like damn fine than a curse so she let him look his fill without worrying what he was thinking.
“I like the panties.” She was wearing a fire-engine red thong. “But you’re missing your bra today, professor.”
“I thought it might help my cause.” That and her tight jeans. She could admit she’d brought them along on the extremely off chance she somehow saw Max while she was in Boston.
“You really are a brat.”
“Determined.”
“Calculating.”
“A scientist knows to take the right tools into the lab.”
“You consider your breasts tools?”
“In attracting you, I sure hope so.”
“You’re so damn refreshing.”
“That’s better than irritating.”
“Not the same at all.”
“I’m glad.”
“I’m horny.”
She burst out laughing. “Then, I guess you’d better do something about it.”
“You take off those tiny little panties and I just might.”
“Might?” she asked with
a teasing look as she hooked her thumbs in the waistband and started pushing down.
“Will.”
“Better.”
She tossed her thong away and then waited for him to do the same to his shorts. Only he hadn’t moved a muscle and his gaze was fixed on her nudity. “You’re exactly like I dreamed.”
“You had dreams about me?”
“I did.”
“I had dreams about you too. That means something, don’t you think?”
“It means we should have made it like bunnies at your sister’s wedding.”
She found herself laughing again as he pushed his shorts off. Her laughter ended on a choked gasp as she got her first glimpse of his hard penis.
Okay, so her previous two encounters had been with much smaller men overall, but Max wasn’t just big. He was huge.
“You got a license for that thing?” she asked on another choked laugh.
He prowled toward her. “It’d have to be a Class OIC #3 for large weapons.”
“You’ve got that right.” Was he even going to fit?
She was going to try. Really, really hard. And like she’d told him, she was very determined.
He climbed up onto the bed, slinking over her until his body completely dwarfed hers, his hardened flesh a hot brand against the apex of her thighs and up her stomach.
Definitely big. Really, really.
“You okay, Professor?”
“Oh, yes.” More than. Really.
“You sure?”
“Why do you ask?”
“You keep saying really over and over again.”
“Oh, um . . . it’s just a word.” And she’d been thinking out loud again. Aargh.
“And you are just adorable.”
Again, huge improvement over how her other sex partners had seen her—as irritating.
She leaned up to kiss him for that. He responded immediately, his mouth molding to hers in that way that felt so, so perfect. This time, he didn’t stop at her lips though.
He kissed down her neck, paying close attention to where it joined her shoulder, sending chills of pleasure along her nerve endings. Then he moved down to her collarbone, using his tongue tip to trace along each clavicle bone before lapping between her breasts. She’d never realized she was sensitive there, but he showed her she was and so much more.
He avoided her breasts and the small bit of flesh pulsing with a hungry need between the folds of her labia.
Bodyguards In Bed Page 4