Slowly, she turned her head against the couch back to look at him—and for a second he thought she was going to cry. The mere idea scared the shit out of him.
Luckily, however, she lost the tears-are-imminent look and nodded. “Yeah,” she said in a low voice. “I’d like that a lot.”
He picked her up and carefully arranged her on his lap. Tucking her head beneath his jaw, he rubbed his chin against her crown as he wrapped his arms around her. They were quiet for several long moments.
Then he tipped his chin in to look down at her. “It’s been a long time since I’ve given a back rub, but I used to have seriously mad skills in that department. I might be a little rusty, but for you I’d break out my best moves.”
She sighed. “That would be really nice.”
He climbed to his feet and set her gently on hers. “You wanna lie on your stomach on the sofa? I’ll sit astride you.” When she looked doubtful, he added, “Don’t worry. I won’t crush you.”
“Why don’t we take it to the bedroom instead?” she counter-suggested. “There’s more room to spread out.”
His dick loved the idea, but he mentally issued it a stern Down, boy. “The bedroom it is,” he said casually and followed her there. “Get comfortable,” he advised and walked over to the window to close the blinds to dim the room. There was a charger with several half-burned vanilla-scented candles on her dresser, and he dug out a book of matches he carried in his change pocket and lit them.
When he turned back, his heart slammed up against the wall of his chest to find her pulling her rag of a sweatshirt off over her head. She unhooked her bra, tossed it aside, then flopped face-first onto the mattress.
The corners of his mouth ticked up. “So, you’re on board with this idea, I’m guessing.”
“I so am.” Pushing up slightly, she smiled at him over her shoulder. “I don’t remember the last time I had a good back rub.” Then she turned back to lie on her stomach once again, her arms crossed on the mattress and her right cheek turned to rest upon her uppermost forearm.
He knee-walked across the bed, slung a leg over her thighs and settled, making minute corrections until he bore most of his own weight. For a moment he simply gazed down at her long, creamy back. Then, leaning forward, he curled his fingers over her shoulders and kneaded them while massaging the heels of his hands rhythmically into the muscles on the opposite side and digging his thumbs into the tightness she carried in her neck.
She groaned long and low, and his cock nearly gave itself a concussion ramming its head against the zipper of his fly. Biting back a groan of his own, he tried to concentrate strictly on the back rub. This was supposed to be just for her, to chill her out and loosen her knotted muscles, but she kept making little noises that did nothing to help his hard-on subside.
He did, however, get the satisfaction of feeling her start to relax.
“You do have mad skills,” she sighed, turning her head to the other side.
Once her neck and shoulders lost their rigidity, he moved down her back. At one point, his fingers curved over her sides, their tips brushing the crease where her breasts rose away from her rib cage. Every time he pressed and rotated the heels of his hands, his fingers tugged her breasts against the comforter.
He was so busy keeping his own body in check that it took him several moments to realize she was beginning to lift her upper body a bit with every tug. “Tasha?”
She undulated beneath him, and the low sound in her throat this time had a definite sexual component to it.
Leaning over her, he pressed a kiss against the side of her throat, then moved to lip her earlobe into his mouth and give it a gentle nip.
She shivered.
“Tell me what you want,” he ordered in a voice made hoarse with need.
“Touch me,” she whispered roughly.
“Isn’t that what I’m doing?” he asked, but even as he put the question to her, he slid his fingers more fully onto the side curves of her breasts. “Or did you have something more along the lines of this in mind?”
She twisted her shoulder to rotate her left breast closer to his palm.
Oh, yeah. A rough noise sounded deep in his own throat, and he slid his hand forward to cup the offered breast. And, oh, Jesus. It was full and soft, and he massaged its jiggly weight before capturing her nipple between his thumb and index finger to give it a tug.
“Oh, God, Luc,” she breathed—and you would’ve thought she was spouting the dirtiest words in the universe, so hard did it hit him. His gut twisted, and his heart pounded, and if his dick grew any harder he was afraid one inadvertent knock would splinter it to dust.
Climbing off her, he rolled her onto her back and reached for her jeans. He had them unfastened and around her ankles in seconds flat.
Then simply stared for the next several seconds.
Finally he got his power of speech back. “Look at you, all commando,” he murmured—and damned if he didn’t sound easy. As if the sight of that neatly groomed little patch of ginger curls at the base of her smooth torso and the jewel crowning the glory of those long, shapely legs hadn’t damn near pushed him right over the edge.
Surging up onto his knees, he fell over her, catching himself on his palms and bending his head to kiss her. She lifted her hands to cup his neck and kissed him back.
And he was lost.
He had no concept of time and lost track of how much had passed when he finally raised his head. Knowing it was time well spent, however, he smiled down at her. “God, Tasha. Everything about you just knocks my socks off.” And because that was true and he was still uncomfortable exposing how vulnerable it made him, he forced a little wryness into his smile. “It doesn’t suck that you’re so damn beautiful.”
“I know, right?” she agreed dryly. “I am quite the beauty. That’s because I’m so great at dressing to accentuate my best features.”
The wryness he’d been half faking turned real as he thought of the cleaning duds she’d worn.
She’d been poking fun at herself, but her hands suddenly flew up to pat her head. “Good grief, I still have my bandanna on.” Her crooked smile exuded a wealth of self-deprecation. “I really am one helluva fashion plate.” Reaching behind her to untie the knot at her nape, she pulled the bandanna off, then shoved her fingers in her curls to fluff them up. She gazed up at him. “You obviously go for the Seattle Grunge look in a big way.”
“Yeah, I like my chicks a little rough. I just love a woman who can keep me in line.”
“With what, a whip and a chair?” She grinned at him, however, slung her arms around his neck and hauled herself up to kiss him.
And just like that, he was fired up again. He kissed her in return for several long, heated moments before pushing away to slide down her body. Pausing when he reached her navel, he paid homage to it for a moment before moving lower still to stroke her thighs and study her up close and personal.
He raised his gaze to meet hers. “I love the contradictions in your body,” he said. “Love that your legs, your arms, are strong as an athlete’s. Yet over all that fine muscle is this sweet, sweet, girlie-soft skin.”
She’d pushed up on her elbows to stare down at him, and Luc felt the heat of embarrassment climb his throat and onto his cheeks. What the hell, man? Undercover agents didn’t talk all mushy. Partly to counteract the fact that he’d just done precisely that and partly because it was exactly what he wanted, he thumbed her labial lips apart and dipped his head.
For a second he merely looked. At the sweet, wet, flushed-pink lips, the frilly inner ones and the tiny pearl of Tasha’s clit. Then he lowered his head and gently lapped the flat of his tongue from her opening to the top of her slit.
“Ohhhhhh,” she breathed, spreading her legs. And he got lost in her sweet-and-salty slickness, in her complex textures. Long moments passed before he became aware of her fingers tangling in the emergent curls he hadn’t gotten around to buzz-cutting since his arrival in Razor Bay. And he heard t
he hitch in her breathing as her grip on him tightened.
“Oh, God, Luc,” she panted, “that feels so—” She inhaled sharply as he used the tip of his tongue to feather just above her clitoris, and her thighs tightened around his ears. “Oh, God, I’m going to com—”
“Not yet, bebe, not quite yet.” He pulled back. “I want to feel you come all around me.” He looked for his pants.
Then looked again. “Where the hell did they go?”
She rolled away but came right back. “Here,” she panted. “Condoms. Hurry.” Then, shaking her head, she scrambled to her knees and closed the distance between them.
“Yes.” He watched as she tore the wrapping off and rolled it down his length. “God. Yes. I need inside you. Now.” And he turned her away from him.
She fell onto her hands and knees and looked at him over one pale, smooth shoulder. “I want you in me, in me, in me.”
“Ah, Jesus, Tash.” He smoothed a dark hand over the pale curve of her ass at the same time he inserted his knee between hers and nudged her legs farther apart. Then, thumbing down his erection, he aligned it with her opening and pressed his hips forward, watching as his cock disappeared into her hot depths, inch by inch. Seeing it, feeling her inner sheath wrap all around him like a lubricious rubber band, had him gritting his teeth to keep from going off like a fourteen-year-old. He whispered to her in gutter Spanish he was grateful she couldn’t understand and pulled out almost all the way before giving her ass a slap and thrusting back in.
She made a sound both high-pitched and guttural and pushed back against his dick. He pulled almost out again, slammed in and swiveled his hips.
Reaching back, she gripped his wrists to hold him deep inside her, arched her back, and with a series of long breathy moans, came with cyclone force.
He hissed through his teeth as her interior muscles clamped down around him. When he felt her start to come down, he recommenced a strong, steady thrusting. And grinned with feral satisfaction as she started in once again.
This orgasm was shorter and sharper and, as the last contraction faded, her upper body slid in a boneless heap against the mattress, her arms stretched out toward the headboard. Luc grasped her still-upthrust rear and lasted six, seven, eight more strokes. Then, her name spilling from his lips, he pushed deep one last time and ground against her as he came as if he’d been saving it up for years instead of a couple of days. When the last pulsation faded, he, too, collapsed like a sack of bricks.
Directly on top of her.
* * *
THIS IS YOUR IDEA of keeping your distance? Tasha’s inner survivor demanded. She was feeling way too good at the moment to give the question the consideration it deserved—but she knew it was a valid one. Because she’d gone and done it now.
She’d fallen moon-faced in love with Luc Bradshaw. It was no doubt the dumbest thing she could have done, but if she truly valued honesty so much, she had to admit it to herself at least.
Because the truth was, she had never felt this way with anyone else, and love was the only explanation. It went so far beyond the physical it wasn’t even funny, although she certainly didn’t sneer at that part. But he was intelligent and patient and had a great sense of humor, the latter of which she’d discovered in the Bahamas but had buried when everything turned to shit. He was just...a good man, and she loved him. Part of her thrilled right down to her toes at the knowledge.
But her pragmatic side knew if she didn’t start holding a part of herself aloof from him and all this out-of-control feeling—and fast—she was going to end up hurt in a way from which it could take her forever to recover. She just had to find a happy medium, a way to enjoy him and the special way he made her feel.
Yet hold enough of herself in reserve that she wouldn’t be destroyed when the day came that he went back to his job.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
LUC LIFTED HIMSELF off Tasha, rolled onto the mattress next to her and turned to pull her into his arms for a little after-the-lovin’ snuggle. Before he had a chance to reach for her, however, she turned away and climbed from the bed, shooting him a smile over her shoulder.
He didn’t miss the fact, however, that her gaze focused on something over his own shoulder. “Gotta use the loo,” she said.
That could very well be true. But he noticed she paused to sweep her discarded clothing off the floor, and he knew damn well she wouldn’t climb back in bed with him when she returned. She’d be dressed and have something that needed doing elsewhere.
In the week since they’d first made love, he’d felt her pulling away. She was a wildcat in the sack, but everywhere else she’d been growing a little more distant with each passing day. And he didn’t know what to do about it.
Okay, that wasn’t entirely true. It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that he was partly at fault here. He’d had a helluva lot of opportunities to verbalize how he felt about her.
He hadn’t taken advantage of one of them.
Defensiveness caused his shoulders to tighten. Hey, he’d grown accustomed to keeping his own counsel, and in his line of work it wasn’t smart to break a habit like that. Not to mention that telling someone you loved them was a big-ass step—and one he had never taken in all of his thirty-five years. Well, if you didn’t count his parents, at any rate, which he didn’t. So, yes, he’d put it off.
But he sure as hell had done everything except perform gymnastic back bends in an attempt to show her his feelings. Weren’t actions supposed to speak louder than words?
Apparently not, since they had gotten him goddamn nowhere. Because while she’d shown evidence of appreciating his gestures, the more he tried to demonstrate how he felt, the more tightly she seemed to hang on to the status quo of this lovers-for-however-long arrangement they seemed to have.
The really stupid part was he didn’t even remember making such an arrangement. But he supposed it had been implied between them, at least in the beginning. And it likely hadn’t helped that he’d never actually told her about his almost-cemented decision to give up undercover work. Women seemed to need the words when it came to that sort of thing.
Thinking of all the stuff he’d recently discovered about that night on Andros Island, he realized there were a whole hell of a lot of things he should have put in words.
He got out of bed and reached for his jeans. So, big deal, this was an easy fix. He’d tell her now. Yeah, yeah, so he should have already done it. But what the hell. Better late than—
She came out of the bathroom and, as he’d suspected, she had dressed in the jeans she’d arrived in an hour ago, along with the lightweight orange sweater that should have clashed with her hair, yet somehow worked instead. Seeing him, she paused in the doorway. “Oh. You’re up. I’ve gotta go back to my place and grab some stuff for work. I need to get the fire started in my oven and do up a batch of sauce.”
“Spare me ten minutes before you go,” he said. “Or if you’re pressed for time, I’ll come down with you, because what I have to say may take a while.”
“Is that so?” She’d started for the door to the hallway, but his words stopped her in her tracks. Slowly, she turned back to carefully study his expression. “Care to give me a hint what this is all about?”
“Sure.” Yet, given the opportunity, he suddenly wasn’t sure where to start. So he simply went with the truth. “First off, I need to tell you I love you.”
* * *
TASHA GAPED AT HIM for several silent moments, her heart thundering furiously in her chest. With desperate, joyous hope. With scared-right-down-to-the-bone terror.
The fear won—and that made her furious. So she did what any self-respecting red-blooded woman would do: she kicked defensive mode into high gear. “Don’t tell me that,” she snapped. “You do not get to tell a woman you love her when you plan to just turn around and take off any day now for some god-awful life-risking job in South America. One, I might add, that will keep you gone for God alone knows how long.”
&n
bsp; He stepped close. “Maybe I will have to take off. But maybe I’m staying.”
Maybe. She looked up into his tough-eyed face. Dear God, Tasha—this is what you want to hang your hopes on—a flipping maybe? How many Good Time Charlies had she watched over the years giving her mother the same kind of weak so-called incentives to fall face-first in love? “Wow,” she said coolly. “What an amazingly definitive statement. It must be a real treat to have all your bases so thoroughly covered.”
“Hey!” His blacker-than-a-crow’s-feather eyebrows met over his nose. “Who the hell said I planned to take off in the first place?”
“You did.” When he gave her an infuriatingly incredulous look, she qualified, “Maybe not in those exact words, but you told me you love your work.”
“And I do.”
“Well, we both know what your job involves! So, I rest my case.”
“Oh, no. Not quite yet.” He stepped even closer yet. “Yes, I love my work. I freely admit that. But maybe I love you more.”
“Quit saying that!” Note again the maybe, she warned herself fiercely. When a man qualifies his feelings like that, you do not get your hopes up. Do. Not—you hear me? She tried to shove him away, but all that accomplished was to knock a curl loose from her braid. Luc, she didn’t budge an inch.
“Why not tell you?” he demanded. “I do love you more than I love my job.” Brushing the curl back, he tucked it through a more well-anchored strand. “Think about it, Tash. You and me? We’re good together. Dynamite good. So, what if I did stay?”
The hope she kept warning herself not to feel bloomed as lush and extravagant as a cactus flower in the dead of winter. It was so sweet and so damn scary—and it sent her into a full-blown panic.
She had, however, learned her lesson about trying to move him and this time took a huge step back herself. “And do what? I built a life, you know! All by myself, I did that—you can’t just come waltzing in here and decide on your own to turn it upside down without even consulting me. We had a deal. This is a fling and that’s all it is. You don’t get to go and change all the rules.”
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