Thieves In The Night

by Tara Janzen

  “I meant—”

  “Shh, I know what you meant.” He tousled the last pins out of her hair and ran his hand through the silken tresses, giving them his utmost attention until every strand was free. Then he started on the buttons of her jump suit. “Chantal, listen to me. I need to sleep in the bed, with you, or I’m not going to be able to sleep at all.”

  The delectably full curve of her lower lip beckoned, and he bent down and brushed his lips across hers. “I need your loving, Chantal,” he murmured. “I need to be around you—inside you.” He slid his tongue in and out of her mouth, easily, slowly, tasting the tang of lime melding with her honeyed sweetness. And he prayed he wasn’t starting something he’d have to stop, prayed that soon all he would taste was her. “I need you tonight.”

  He lifted his head and watched the myriad emotions play across her face—a promise of passion, a desirous need, and an uncertainty that tore him up. The night before, he would have accepted desire, but tonight he wanted more, wanted her to need him as much as he needed her, wanted no uncertainty. He needed her to say yes in all the ways a woman could.

  Her voice was barely a whisper when she spoke. “Sounds like you need sex.”

  “Sounds like sex,” he agreed huskily, knowing he was walking a tightrope. “But it hurts like love.” He brought her hand to his chest and spread her fingers over his heart. “Can’t you feel it, Chantal?”

  She felt the strong, steady rhythm, the heat of his body, and she felt his other hand slide over her breast until he held her life pulse in his palm. “Yes,” she admitted so very softly. “It does hurt like love.”

  Eight

  “It doesn’t have to hurt anymore, babe.” His deep voice rolled over her in soothing waves. “Not tonight. Not unless you ask me to stop.” His fingers played with the third button on her jump suit, and he captured her gaze with a burning light shining deep in his gray eyes. “Don’t ask . . . please.”

  The roughness of his voice, the pressure of his hand on her breast, suffused her with a need she refused to deny. Desire heightened to a tangible entity with every moment lost in his eyes. It caught in her throat; it came alive under her hands.

  She had known, long before he touched her, what the night would hold. Stranger, friend, lover, the progression was as old as time and new every time it happened. No matter the circumstances, no matter the briefness of the hours since they’d met. Love didn’t have to be slow to be real, and it was never rational. It came upon you like a kiss on a roof, surprising and tender, pulling at you and never letting you go. Jaz’s seduction of her heart wasn’t meant for denial, not tonight, not when she couldn’t ask him to stop. With a single tug on his shirt she told him of her need, and then she continued pulling the cloth free of his jeans.

  The action swelled his chest with a heavy breath that came out as a shuddering sigh. His eyes drifted closed, and he bent his head and nuzzled her neck, moving his mouth in a gentle trail of sensation. Pressing his thighs against hers, he urged her back toward the bed, step by step, his skilled fingers undoing each button in turn, opening her to his touch. When she stepped up on the dais, he stopped moving and pushed the soft cotton down and off her arms, using her dominant position to gain access to her collarbone and throat with his mouth. His tongue laid a wet trail of eroticism across her skin, lingering at the top of her camisole.

  “Pink satin,” he murmured softly between her breasts. He raised his head, a languorous smile lifting the corner of his mouth. “You were made for me, Chantal.”

  “Are you so sure, Jaz?” The question came out breathlessly, her hands tangling in his hair, one thumb lightly tracing the bruise on his cheek.

  “I’ve known it forever. It just took me a long time to find you. A lot of years, a lot of lonely nights. I’m not going to let you go.” He kissed her cheek, her brow, the bridge of her nose. “All my dreams promised me you.” A faint chuckle caressed her. “And finally, when I least expected it, they delivered.”

  In her heart Chantal knew that his dreams had promised him better than her. But fate had promised her him, for as long as it lasted, until he asked for a past she couldn’t reveal. Unless General Moore traced her name to Paul’s. If she never asked the general for his help, maybe there was no reason for him to pursue a name. Jaz had given him what he really wanted, and now Jaz was going to give her what she really wanted—his loving, to hold back the loneliness for a night.

  She tunneled her fingers through the thick brown hair layered over the back of his neck, delighting anew in the strength of his body as he drew her close. “My dreams promised me you, too, Jaz.”

  He flexed his knees, and she felt his right arm slide across the back of her thighs and scoop her into his embrace. “No dreams tonight, Chantal. Only you and me and a reality that will put all your dreams to shame. I promise.” He sat on the edge of the bed with her in his lap, her sweet weight more than a promise between his thighs. He tugged the jump suit off her, then rolled them back on the bed, pinning her with an arm on each side of her shoulders. “Or we’ll do it again” —he pressed her back into the quilts—“and again . . . and again. Until we get it right.”

  She slid her hands up around his neck and ran his tie through her fingers until the piece of silk was free of its knot. “And if we get it right the first time?” Her voice broke on a whisper, her fingers slowly working down the buttons on his shirt.

  “Then we’ll do it again just for the ecstasy.” Trapping her head between his hands, he lowered his lips to hers and thrust his tongue into the moist mystery of her mouth. She met each erotic foray with one of her own, rediscovering the taste and magic of Jaz.

  When the last button was freed and she opened his shirt, he lowered the rest of his body onto hers, caressing her with his length in gentle surges that rocked her with an ancient song. A slow, coiling tension began where his rough jeans rubbed between her thighs, spiraling upward, encompassing all the rhythms of her body and drawing them into his.

  Hot, wet kisses trailed down to her breasts where he teased her with his mouth, dampening the pink satin, and Chantal felt the coil inside her wind and unwind, pulsating with a need echoed in the unconscious movement of her hips against his.

  His groan rumbled through her chest and his body picked up her cadence, pressuring the softest, most feminine part of her with the hardest, most masculine part of him.

  “Jaz,” she pleaded, wanting so much more. She pushed his shirt off his shoulders, taking care with his bandaged one.

  He levered himself up and straddled her hips, shrugging out of the shirt, his gaze roaming over the delicately flushed contours of her face, the responsive light warming her eyes. “It still hurts, doesn’t it?” He tossed the shirt aside, revealing all the dark, supple muscle and tight curves of his arms and chest.

  She was incapable of anything except a sighed affirmation.

  “For me, too, Chantal.” He leaned over her and took each satiny strap of her camisole in a hand, pulling them down, trailing heat along the creamy skin of her arms. “But it hurts so good,” he drawled slowly, his eyes half closed.

  When the slippery pink cloth slid below her breasts, he inhaled deeply. “You’re even prettier than I imagined.” Incredulity made his voice rough. “I didn’t think it was possible.”

  And even in her wildest dreams she’d never thought she could be drawn this tight, could ache this badly for something that remained just out of reach—until she did reach.

  Her fingers grazed the path of skin above his jeans, following the edge of material to the snap, the peach color of her skin a sensuous contrast to the rich brown of his body. His taut belly jerked in as if she’d burned him, but he didn’t stop her or reach down to help her.

  She felt the shivering response of his muscles on the backs of her hands as she curled her fingers around his jeans and added the pressure to open the snap. A fundamental shyness kept her from going any farther. Her hands lingered in the gap between his pants and his body, wanting to touch, e
xplore, discover, wanting to feel what she had only glimpsed that morning.

  Sensing her hesitation, Jaz rolled his pelvis forward, increasing the contact, and his hand moved from her waist to lower his zipper. “Don’t stop now,” he said softly, “not when you’re this close. I need you to touch me.” Then, as her fingers smoothed under the waistband of his shorts, “Ah, yes, Chantal. Just like that and more.”

  Holding her tightly against him, he eased down on the bed beside her. With his hand he urged her onto her side to face him.

  He was hard and smooth beneath her hand, and each of her touches elicited a low breath of pleasure from deep in his chest, giving her the courage to seek more of him. She followed the silky strands of hair down from his navel until he was fully in the small grasp of her hand.

  Jaz stopped breathing for the longest time, watching her eyes darken past blue into a midnight hue of passion. Physical awareness of his arousal sent a glowing blush over her cheeks and softened her mouth. This was the dream that had seduced him through the shadows of sleep, but only part of the dream. The rest trembled beneath his hand.

  With the utmost care, and with a strength born of desire, he lifted her body up with his hurt arm wrapped under her waist, and used the other hand to slide the camisole and the lacy scrap of her underwear over her hips and off her legs.

  “Your shoulder,” she said with a gasp. “Oh, Jaz, you shouldn’t.”

  “My shoulder is not the part of me I’m worried about right now.” A lazy smile graced his mouth. “Only a woman would remember that at a time like this, when she’s holding something in much more need of care.”

  She snatched her hand back as if she’d been caught in the cookie jar, and her blush deepened.

  He chuckled. “You’re so shy—and so very, very pretty, Chantal. Worry about any part of me, sweetheart, because every part of me wants you, not just the obvious ones. But I’ll admit some parts are more obvious than others.” He winked and rolled onto his back, then kicked out of his jeans and shorts.

  He was darkness to her lightness, with only the patch of white gauze, the pink on his nose, the crazy blond streaks in his hair, and the clear gray of his eyes brightening the all-over duskiness of his body.

  The last remnants of her shyness disappeared in a wave of pure appreciation. “And you are so very beautiful, Jaz.” She ran her hand up the corded strength of his thigh and over his jutting hipbone, the tips of her fingers tantalized by the soft-hard feel of him. “Where did you get this tan?”

  “Mexico,” he replied absently, more intent on getting closer to her, edging his thigh between hers and drawing her slender leg over the top of his.

  “I meant this particular tan.” She trailed a finger along the curve of his buttocks.

  “I got that one in a very private place where I’d love to take you. Coconut palms, limestone cliffs, endless sea—”

  “Oh!” The sound caught in her throat at the new pressure he exerted in new places.

  “Don’t panic, babe. I can handle this . . . a lot of different ways. Some of which may amaze you. None of which is going to hurt.”

  And he proceeded to do just that, amazing her with his mouth and hands in ways that would have made her dreams blush, amazing her with the more obvious parts of his passion, until she could hardly breathe and relief from the sweet torture had to come.

  “Jaz . . . Jaz,” she pleaded softly, her hands sliding over his sweat-dampened body, trying to hold him where he had only teased.

  His mouth captured his name on her lips, stroking her tongue as his body drove deep and deeper, taking them beyond the passion into a fantasy realm of sensation. A realm where his elfin princess melted and tightened around him. A realm where he didn’t die, but was reborn in her love.

  * * *

  In the soft hours of starlight before dawn, they loved again. Dream shadows played with the edges of reality, blurring the conscious and unconscious, interweaving the trails of their spirits into one.

  “Chantal?”

  She kissed his mouth and smoothed the hair off his brow. “Sleep, Jaz,” she murmured, drawing his head back into the cradle of her arms. “Sleep.”

  * * *

  “I’m hungry,” he growled in the ear he was attempting to eat. Sunlight tracked a hazy pattern through the lace curtains, touching the dais, but leaving the bed in a veil of opalescent shade.

  “You can’t have my ear,” she mumbled, turning her face into the pillows.

  “You’re the most edible thing in the whole cabin, my darling cupcake.”

  Shades of Little Red Riding Hood, she thought with a giggle. “There’s food in the refrigerator. Coffee’s on the counter.”

  “You call half a bottle of ketchup and four lime wedges food?”

  “Crackers in the cupboard. Have a sandwich.”

  “Pretty fantastic, huh?”

  Without any more clue than that, she knew exactly what he meant, and rolled over with a morning-after smile on her face. “Better than fantastic, Jaz, awake or asleep.”

  “Especially asleep. It was a religious experience.” A broad grin widened his mouth.

  “Well, don’t go telling your pastor about it.”

  “You don’t know Pastor Johns. He’d like my finding religion anywhere and anyhow, even in the sweetest lady the Lord ever put on earth.”

  She kept her smile in place with an effort. It was too soon to let the magic of the night go. She wouldn’t think about the black marks on her heart, not now. “Last one in the bathtub buys breakfast,” she teased, sliding out of her advantageous side of the bed and making her dash.

  He caught her halfway to the door and slung her over his good shoulder.

  “Jaz!” she squealed, and squealed again when he gnawed on her hip.

  An hour and a half later they emerged from the bathroom. Chantal was still giggling and slightly embarrassed. The bathtub would never be the same, and the places he’d dried with her hair dryer didn’t bear remembering. The man didn’t have a shy corpuscle in his whole body and he was loving all the shy ones out of hers.

  “Let’s take the Jeep,” he said, tucking the tails of a blue plaid yoked shirt into the black jeans. Chantal watched the last of his body disappear under the cloth and reminded herself to keep more food on hand.

  She pulled a red star-splashed sweater over her head and mumbled, “Don’t you like my Land Rover? Or is it my driving?” She drew her loose hair out of the cotton knit and pushed it off her face by running a hand along each side, turning the shimmering strands into two high-swept arcs around her ears. The sweater matched her pleated red corduroys. Jaz had chosen the outfit, going into a lengthy discussion and revelation of what elfin princesses wore to breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Stars were always de rigueur for elves, royalty or not. She had loved the analogy. As a child she’d thought she was a princess, always waiting for her mother, the queen, to come and claim her. But there had been no queen and no mother, only a picture of a beautiful woman on her father’s dresser. At twelve she’d stopped waiting and started begging her father to teach her the ways of the Cochard men. She had wanted to belong. Last night she had belonged to Jaz, and, even more miraculous, he had belonged to her.

  “I’ve got nothing against your Land Rover or your driving,” he said. “I just look more macho in a Jeep that looks like it’s been in the rough stuff and survived.” He zipped up the jeans and flashed her a devastating smile, his specialty . . .

  She gave him a wry once-over, twice. “You’d look macho on a scooter.”

  They took the Jeep.

  She directed him downtown, to a restaurant the size of a breadbox a block away from the Little Nell lift.

  “What does O.B. stand for?” he asked, reading the hot-pink neon sign above the door.

  “Only Breakfast. They open at midnight to catch the bar crowd, feed them, clean the place up in time to catch the early-rising ski crowd, feed them—”

  “Clean the place up,” he filled in.

  “A
nd catch the late risers, then close at noon. The waiters work a twelve-hour shift straight through, three or four times a week. They get great tips and a ski pass.”

  “You sound like a regular customer.”

  “Best-looking waiters in Aspen, and in this town that’s saying a lot.” She winked and gave him her own version of the devastating smile.

  He crooked his elbow around her neck and planted a hard kiss on her mouth. “Just keep your baby blues on the boss.”

  With his arm around her shoulders they walked into O.B.’s. The place was packed with late risers. At a table set for four in the middle of the dining room, two chairs were occupied. Chantal led him toward the two empty ones.

  When he realized where she was going, he stopped her and said, “This one’s already taken. Maybe we could go somewhere else.”

  “Don’t panic. Trust me.” She tugged on his hand and slid into one of the chairs with a cheerful hello. The other couple said hello and went back to eating breakfast.

  Remembering not to shrug, Jaz sat down. He had no sooner gotten his body on the chair before the waiter arrived.

  “They don’t mess around here,” Chantal informed him.

  Dressed as casually as any of the customers, and acting more casual than some, the waiter greeted them, or rather, her. “Hey, baby cakes. What’s shaking?”

  Chantal flirted back. “Hi, Peter. The world since last night. I’ll have a blue stack and one egg, over hard.”

  Casual Peter gave Jaz a curiously surprised look, and Jaz gave him a forced smile. “Whatever it is you’ve got, you ought to bottle it, guy,” Peter said. “And save a little for me. What’ll you have?”

  “The same,” Jaz said through tight lips. He didn’t like his eggs over hard—closer to raw was more his style—but he didn’t see any reason to keep Peter hanging around. The guy looked like he belonged on the cover of a magazine, but worse than his looks was his “baby cakes” routine. If anyone was going to be referring to Ms. Chantal Cochard in edible terms, it had damn well better be him, and not some oversexed waiter.