Chapter Fifteen
He thought rubbing the pad of his thumb across her nipple was payback?
Brooke let out a ragged breath, melting against him as a riot of sensation ricocheted through her. She allowed the moment of insanity to stretch because...well, because it felt so damned good!
She immediately tensed again as he began to walk her toward the bed, his thumb moving relentlessly against her hard nipple. He released her mouth and shifted his other hand down to lay it against her belly, causing her to clench her stomach in reaction to the heat of his hand.
When they reached the bed he turned her around in his arms and pushed her gently backward.
Brooke fell onto the neatly made bed because her legs wouldn’t work. Her arms wouldn’t, either, for that matter. Why else would they reach out for him when she should be pushing him away? He was her boss—another power-wielder like Kyle. Not only her boss, but the very man who had blackmailed her as casually as he might order a pizza.
But reach she did, and into her arms he came, every rock-hard inch of him pressed along her body like a hot, steaming iron against cotton. He locked that power-mouth onto hers and proceeded to make her mindless with wanting him, so mindless she didn’t even care when he raked her top up to expose her surging breasts, and when his hot mouth searched and found a nipple, she closed her eyes and groaned instead of shouting for him to stop.
And when he closed his teeth gently over that shameless point thrusting upward for attention, she didn’t berate him as she should have. Oh, no. She clutched his head and pressed his mouth harder against her flushed, aching breast, shameless in her need.
This was what she wanted, and she knew he wanted it too.
Why not? Why not just forget who he was and get lost in his arms—his very strong, very irresistible arms? Rid herself once and for all of that tingling throb he’d caused from the moment they’d met?
At the moment, Brooke couldn’t think of one single reason not to go ahead and just do it.
So she stopped thinking, and started feeling and enjoying and participating...
As Scarlet O’Hara had declared in the classic Gone With The Wind, tomorrow was another day.
****
Alex was in heaven.
She was a perfect fit—for his hands, his mouth, and that part of him that throbbed and threatened to burst the strong denim of his jeans.
She cradled his length as if she’d been custom-made for him and him alone, closing around him and pulsing against him until he had to grit his teeth to keep from snarling like a wild animal.
Her essence, a mysterious, womanly scent, called to him like one jungle beast to another. She smelled of a summer breeze and sunflowers, but beneath those more obvious scents, Alex was lured by the sweet, sweet smell of desire.
She wanted him.
Brooke Welch, of no-man’s land, wanted him. He could smell it, sense it, and feel it.
The knowledge caused his heart to flood with a mingling of pride and pure, arrogant, male satisfaction. To find the one woman who could make him forget everything but the moment at hand, and then have her arching and writhing with need beneath him was the ultimate fantasy-come-true.
He wanted to make the most of it. To make her pant and whine like a woman with an itch, and snarl and growl like an animal in heat.
He also wanted to make the moments last, to draw them out and make slow, sweet love to her so that when it was over and done she couldn’t forget. Make her feel cherished. Make her aware of how precious she was, of how very unique he thought her to be, and of how very privileged he felt just being with her now...this close.
But Brooke, it seemed, entertained no such womanly thoughts of a leisurely hour of lovemaking. She tugged his head up and reached for the buttons on his new shirt with a zeal that was uniquely Brooke. Alex rose, straddling her to give her better access. Through the faint light from the window, he looked into her liquid brown eyes and saw an uncensored hunger that stole his breath.
This fiery woman beneath him on the bed meant business.
“Get out of your clothes,” she commanded in husky whisper. “Before I rip them off.”
The sound of her sex-roughened voice and the touch of her frantic fingers against his skin as she fought with his buttons was enough to make Alex growl a warning. “If you plan to change your mind, you’ve got about five seconds.”
A button popped from his shirt, landing on the floor with a ping. Her penetrating gaze never wavered from his. “One...two,” she chanted. Another button came undone, then another. He inhaled sharply as her knuckles grazed his stomach. “Three...four...five.” Her small, perky breasts rose and fell with each agitated breath she took. “Now, let’s get naked.”
Alex gave a laugh that ended on a groan as she finished the last button and splayed her hands across his chest. She raised forward and trailed her tongue from one nipple to the other, lingering to nibble and suck each peak as he had done to her moments before. Her hard, pebbled nipples scraped his belly.
He prudently grabbed her wrists and held her away, his voice now hoarse from the strain of holding back. “If you keep doing that, you’ll be counting even less when I’m finally inside you.”
Her eyes glazed over, proving to Alex what he’d only suspected—and hoped. Brooke loved pillow talk. It was a good thing, too, because he was in the mood to talk it.
But while Brooke might have been distracted by desire, her witty tongue wasn’t. Above her glazed eyes, she arched a pert brow and drawled breathlessly, “I’m beginning to wonder if we’re ever going to get to that part.”
Alex grinned, slowly shrugging his shirt from his shoulders. He reached out, lifted her up, and single-handedly drew her tank top over her head, exposing her bare breasts to his hungry gaze. No...Brooke definitely had no need for a bra.
She was magnificently formed with firm, just-right-sized breasts topped by dark, jutting nipples. He closed his hands over the quivering mounds, watching her as she arched and closed her eyes, her obvious pleasure his own.
With her eyes closed, she tucked her lip between her teeth as he rolled her nipples between his fingers. Blindly, she reached beneath his arms for the button on his jeans, unfastened it, and slowly opened his zipper, drawing it down inch by torturous inch.
Alex filled his hands with her breasts and watched her tense, flushed face. He tried not to think about what she was doing, because he hadn’t been kidding when he hinted to her that he didn’t have much control left in reserve.
She didn’t stop until he’d sprung completely free of his confinement.
The shock of her fingers curling around him made Alex let out a harsh gasp and surge forward. He nearly exploded in her hand, baring his teeth as he fought for control. The minx was fire and temptation beyond anything he could imagine.
For the second time, Alex grasped her arms and held her away from him to save himself and her from certain disappointment. Her fierce frown made him smile. He kissed her fingertips, then drew her finger into his mouth and sucked hard.
Her eyes widened in surprise.
“The fun has only just begun,” he whispered, still smiling. He reached for the snap on her jeans and flicked it open. Mimicking her earlier torture, he slowly drew the zipper along the track until he glimpsed the top of her skimpy panties.
White, lacy strips of silk, hardly enough to cover the soft V of red-gold curls his fingers yearned to touch.
But not yet. Now that she wasn’t touching him, he was ready to extend the foreplay. He wanted to explore every inch of her firm, trembling body. Taste her skin, nibble and lick every hollow and curve.
Find her secret places. All women had secret places, Alex had discovered long ago, but not all were willing to share the knowledge with their partner.
Before this night was up, Alex vowed he would know Brooke’s secret places. Each and every one of them.
And he would start right now.
He drew her jeans along her thighs, down to her knees,
and onto her ankles before tossing them to the floor. When she tried to reach for him, he shook his head, his smile both rueful and tender. “No, don’t. Trust me, you don’t want to touch me right now.”
Her sultry gaze dropped to his hard, jutting length. He watched, fascinated, as her swollen lips moved.
“I don’t?”
Disappointment had never sounded so sweet to Alex.
“No, you don’t.” He hooked his fingers in the tops of her panties and edged them down the path her jeans had taken. “I want to see all of you...touch all of you.”
She licked her lips, her breath coming faster as she watched him through heavy-lidded eyes. “And then it’s my turn?”
“Yes.” The word came out on a satisfied sigh as Alex removed the last piece of clothing and drew his gaze slowly along her body. She was a tiny thing, but there was nothing tiny about her sex appeal.
“I want to taste you,” Alex said hoarsely. He didn’t add that he’d never wanted anything more in his life, but the thought was there. He knew instinctively that her flower held the sweetest nectar in the garden.
Brooke, apparently, was innocent enough to misconstrue his words. She reached for him with eager arms to pull his mouth to hers.
Alex gently pushed her back and shook his head. “No, not that kind of tasting.” He placed the tip of his finger in the center of her red-gold curls. Her startled cry as she arched her hips against his hand nearly drowned out his next words. “I want to taste you.”
But she heard. Her eyes, so dark and luminous with desire, flooded with confusion. She glanced at his hand, then back to his face. Comprehension slowly dawned. “You—you mean you want to—”
“Yes.”
The air between them became hushed with tension.
Alex took advantage of her silence. He lifted her ankle and nibbled his way along her leg to her silken inner thigh. Once there, he paused to look at her.
She stared back at him, her eyes huge and eloquent with apprehension...and anticipation.
Close to exploding again, Alex took several ragged breaths before moving up to place his hungry lips where the nectar was the sweetest.
Her fingers grabbed frantically at his head, first trying to pull him away. Alex ignored her; it wasn’t hard to do, for he was having the time of his life.
She was exactly as he’d thought—sweeter than the sweetest honey. Hot and throbbing against his lips.
But after a few seconds she no longer tugged at his hair. She pressed him close, squirming and bucking beneath him. Alex held her firmly, relentless in his quest to bring her the ultimate sexual pleasure.
Within moments she began to shudder and spasm, crying his name.
It was a beautiful sound, and every bit as satisfying as he thought it would be.
When her shudders gave way to trembling, Alex moved his body over her, kissing his way along her navel, then latching onto a quivering, turgid nipple. Although he ached to bury himself inside her, he tempered his need, taking his time until he finally reached her mouth.
Her whimper of gratitude inflamed his already ignited senses. He could wait no longer. He shifted his hips and came to rest between her thighs as if he’d been there a thousand times.
A perfect fit, just as he had instinctively known it would be. Only Brooke transcended everything and anything he’d imagined...
“Wait.”
That one single, breathlessly whispered word froze Alex from head to toe. With remarkable control, he kept that one quivering, pulsing, hard part of him from ignoring her and plunging ahead.
Wait? Was she serious? Wait—now? He was poised at the gates of heaven and she wanted him to wait?
“You have to use a condom.”
Protection. Alex gave his burning forehead a mental slap. Of course she wanted a condom! He was a stickler for those himself, and until tonight he never would have considered making love without one.
Until tonight and Brooke.
It was a sobering thought.
Then his next thought obliterated his first one.
He didn’t have a condom.
For a while after his divorce from April, he’d kept a condom in his billfold like a lot of red-blooded males hoping to get lucky with the right girl. It had finally worn through the package and he’d thrown it in the trash.
After April, he hadn’t cared much for courtship or sex, finding it more safe and satisfying to bury himself in his work.
Until Brooke.
And she wanted a condom. Her baby sister was pregnant, so of course she’d want a condom. She hardly knew him—knew nothing of his sexual habits—so of course she’d want a condom. In this day and age, anyone with any sense at all would want to use a condom. Under normal circumstances—which had been far too few since April—using a condom would have been as natural as breathing to him.
Alex moaned, burying his sweaty forehead against her neck. Unbelievable. Incredible. Totally inexcusable. He owned a condom factory, and didn’t have a condom.
Embarrassed, frustrated, his voice muffled, he said the damning words. “I don’t have one.” Then, not bothering to hide his desperation, he added, “Aren’t you on the pill?” It didn’t solve the problem of disease, but he trusted her—although he didn’t know why—and knew due to the recent battery of tests his doctor had performed that he was as clean as a whistle. Maybe he could convince her.
He felt the negative shake of her head against his shoulder before she whispered, “I don’t do this kind of thing...very often.”
His rueful chuckle sadly lacked humor, and his voice literally squeaked with frustration. “I own a damned condom factory and you work there, but between us we don’t have a condom.”
It was a reasonable assessment. Nothing out of the ordinary. Or at least Alex didn’t realize he’d said something wrong until she went very still and stiff beneath him. Her voice startled him with its clarity.
“Thanks for reminding me. And before you waste your breath trying to persuade me, boss man, I don’t intend to go any further without protection. So get off me.”
Alex was too surprised to resist the sudden shove. He rolled with the punch, landing on his back. Bewildered, he lay there as she rose from the bed and gathered her clothing. Boss man. He discovered he much preferred Hot Shot, or Lover Boy. Boss man was something he never wanted to hear from Brooke’s lips. He’d known from the start he wouldn’t like it.
“You just had to go and screw things up again,” she said, stepping into her tiny silk panties and jerking them over her hips.
It wasn’t easy, but Alex managed to ignore the sharp throbbing in his groin. God, she was beautiful! Squashing his desire for the moment, he said, “You can’t keep pretending I’m not who I am, Brooke.”
When she flashed him an “Oh, yeah?” look, he added in a hard voice, “I’m Alex Bradshaw. I can’t change who I am.”
She zipped her jeans and snapped the button into place. The rest of her remained deliciously, arousingly bare as she stood straight, planted her hands on her hips and looked him in the eye. At the sight of her pointed nipples, he had to clench his hands to keep them from reaching out.
“I wish you could,” she said in a tone that left him convinced she meant it. “I really...wish...you could.”
Chapter Sixteen
Alex studied the closed bedroom door for a long moment before he flipped open his briefcase. Extracting his cell phone charger, he tip-toed across the room and plugged it in, then retrieved his cell phone from his boot. He connected the two together and, quiet as a mouse, slid the phone out of sight behind a dusty, fake potted fern in the corner of the room.
By morning the phone would be charged and ready. He could call Gloria. She in turn would alert the local authorities and they would call off the search. Sooner or later Brooke would realize they were no longer looking for him, but by that time Alex hoped she would be involved enough in his investigation to want to stay and help him.
That is, if she got over wanting to
strangle him.
An image of her standing by the bed, bare-breasted and trembling, flashed through his mind. Heat shot to his groin like white-hot lightning. He felt as if he’d been sizzled and fried.
Hell no—that wasn’t right, because he was still sizzling! He’d been so close to sinking into her eager warmth when she’d whispered those words.
“You have to use a condom.”
Alex closed his eyes. How close he’d been to babbling like a sex-starved idiot, telling her he’d recently been tested for everything under the sun, assuring her that if a baby resulted from their union, he would gladly marry her.
Gladly? Alex swiped his hand over his face and took a deep breath. Okay. Yes, he was losing his head over Brooke. She was the freshest, the most invigorating woman he’d ever met. Oh, and don’t forget the sexiest, most arousing...
He wanted her so badly his teeth ached.
And if that meant he had to use underhanded means to keep her around, then he would. Once she fell in love with him, she’d forgive him for his dastardly deeds.
Wouldn’t she?
He grinned foolishly behind his hand, trying to imagine Brooke in a forgiving mood, especially when she discovered he’d never intended to press charges. Hell, the way she turned him on now—when she was furious most of the time—he dared not imagine how he’d react to Brooke when she was in a loving mood.
Tonight at the motel, her mood had been almost...savage. Once she’d acknowledged her desire, she’d surpassed his wildest expectations. And while she might have fooled herself into believing she was angry because she’d come to her senses, she hadn’t fooled Alex.
Brooke had been angry because their lovemaking had stopped short of consummation over something as practical as not having protection.
Alex glanced at the box of condoms sitting beside his briefcase—the ones Brooke had brought him from the factory, at his request, along with Daisy’s useless file. He didn’t try to kid himself into thinking he’d have a chance to use them now, but just in case, it was comforting to know they were there.
A Perfect Fit Page 12