“Wow, what an honor,” he muttered.
She let out a cute snort of laughter, and an awkward silence fell.
He bore it for as long as he could stand. “Do you want something from me?”
He immediately regretted the words. They were an invitation to intimacy. The last thing he was equipped to deal with right now.
Margot stepped closer. “Last night, when I came to your gym, and saw you doing your kung fu…”
“What?” he prodded, after several maddening seconds.
“You were so gorgeous,” she whispered. “Like something out of my wildest fantasies. You hardly seemed real.”
He had no idea what to do with that. His face was hot. Hard to believe that much blood had actually managed to divert itself from his throbbing groin. He was grateful for the concealing shadows.
“Uh, thanks,” he mumbled.
She wrapped her arms around herself. “You were so sexy, I forgot all the stuff I was worrying about and started to picture, um…”
“Yeah?” His heart was thudding again, at a hard gallop. “Stop torturing me, for God’s sake. Just tell me.”
“That I was a martial arts expert, like that girl in The Matrix. Trinity. Dressed up in tight black leather.” Her voice was dreamy and hypnotic. “I would jump on you and wrestle you to the ground. Have my wicked way with you, right there on the mat.”
“Uh…wow.”
She let out a self-deprecating laugh. “But I’m not a kung fu expert. So much for that fantasy.”
“You’ve got secret weapons of your own,” he said.
“Do I?” She moved closer, and reached up, petting his bare chest. Her hand slid down his belly and stopped, uncertain of her welcome.
He grabbed her hand and dragged it lower, tugging down his sweatpants so that he could wrap her cool fingers around his cock. “When you say stuff like that, you could knock me over with a feather.”
“Really?” Her voice was soft with wonder.
“Try me,” he said rashly. “Go on. Attack. See how you do.”
Her smile in the moonlight was mysteriously beautiful. “OK,” she whispered. “Imagine that my finger is a feather.”
Her strong, slim hand gripped his cock, caressing him with bold, sensual strokes that jolted agonized pleasure through his body. She reached out with her other hand and traced a delicate, lacy pattern on his chest with the very tip of her forefinger. Her touch was so light, it barely brushed his chest hair, as ticklish as a puff of air, but his nipples tightened and his breath roughened to audible gasps.
“Just the tip of a feather,” she whispered, tracing the forefinger over his shoulder, his throat, his face. Her other hand gripped and swirled, milking him tenderly.
He couldn’t handle the feather torture for another second. He pulled her hand away from his cock and dropped backwards onto the tatami, pulling her after him so that she tumbled over his body with a startled gasp. “Uh, Davy? What are you—”
“You knocked me down,” he explained. “With your feather. I’m helpless.” He arranged her so she was straddling him. “You go for that, right? Being in control, running everything? That’s your comfort zone.”
She stiffened. “You should talk! It’s your comfort zone too, buddy, except that you’ve got eight inches and a hundred or so pounds on me. I’m not the only one around here who’s afraid to—”
“Don’t be mad,” he pleaded. “It’s not my fault that I’m bigger. Besides, I’m trying so hard. You’ve won. I’m flat on my back, at your mercy. Pinned. What the hell more do you want from me?”
Margot trailed her fingertips over his chest. “I’m not sure,” she murmured. “At the very least you should promise that we take turns running things. That way nobody gets a swelled head.”
“OK,” he agreed readily. “Anything you say. You’re the boss.”
“Oh, don’t overdo it, or you’ll ruin it.”
“God, no.” He made his voice meek. “Never that.”
She scowled in mock fury as she reached into the pocket of her robe and pulled out a condom. She shrugged the bathrobe off her shoulders, letting it drop down onto his thighs behind her.
He couldn’t believe how beautiful she was, no matter how many times he feasted his eyes on her naked body. Curvy and sinuous and lush, all at the same time. She ripped the condom open with a dramatic flourish, rose up onto her knees and proceeded to make the sheathing of his cock into its own slow, sensual ritual.
“You’re beautiful in the moonlight, Davy,” she said softly.
He was startled and embarrassed. “Uh…you’re beautiful all the time,” he offered, feeling awkward.
Her sweet, unguarded smile flashed again. She pulled his cock into position and nudged it between her slick, tender folds, arching back as she sank down onto his cock.
A groan rasped out of him. “God, you’re tight. It’s amazing.”
“I think you’re the amazing part of this particular equation,” she murmured, laughter in her voice.
She rode him, first slow and deep, massaging his shaft with all the tight, greedy little muscles inside her, and slowly picking up speed. She incited him with her hands and her eyes and her desperate, jerking hips. He bucked and surged beneath her, giving her everything she needed. Her conquest, her pleasure, her victory, whatever. Anything.
He surrendered to the moonlight, to Margot’s passionate ardor. She had him stretched out helpless and writhing on the floor. At her service, and content to be there. A sweating, whimpering sex slave.
She danced over him, her body contoured with moonlight and shadows as it rose and fell over him. Only by sheer luck did he manage to wait for her. He felt her climax building, and pulled her down on top of him as his own floodgates opened.
He flung his head back, crying out in a ragged voice he could barely hear inside the storm in his head. He was torn open. Light poured into his body. Violent pleasure wrenched through him
Annihilating him.
When he opened his eyes, Margot’s soft hair was tickling his face. She kissed his cheeks, his eyes. That was when he felt it. The hot moisture. Oh, Jesus. Not him. This was not him. He stiffened, almost panicked, holding very still as she kissed all his tears away.
She pressed her damp, salty lips to his. Kissed him, over and over with a sweet tenderness that threatened to unravel him all over again.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He shook his head, swallowed hard. “I’ve got to get rid of this—”
“I’ll do it,” she whispered. “You stay right there. You just stay mellow.” She slid the condom off him, and got up. Her naked silhouette appeared briefly in the door against the living room light.
He lay there, immobile, too weak and astonished to move. He had no words for what had just happened, no precedents. She came back quickly, and lay down next to him, cuddling herself into the crook of his shoulder. She pulled the bathrobe up, tucking it around his chest.
“Sleep now,” she crooned, as if he were a baby.
He stared down at her slender hand on his chest, her soft lips against his shoulder. He wanted to tell her that he didn’t need to be soothed like a scared little kid, that he was perfectly fine, but the words wouldn’t form. Her hands, her lips, her soft voice, were a balm for an ancient ache he was unwilling even to name.
He loved it. Couldn’t get enough of it.
He stared up mutely at the moon and gave into her tenderness, letting the moon swim and swirl into a shapeless, watery blaze of light.
Chapter
15
She was galloping across a grassy mesa on a wild stallion, flying through the air, too exhilarated to be afraid. The mesa was broken by vast rocky canyons that fell abruptly away from jewel-green grass—chasms of untold depths, full of rolling banks of mist. The huge sky was full of brilliant white and ominous gray thunderheads, glimpses of electric blue sky showing between them. Bolts of sunlight slanted through ragged glory holes, so bright they made her eyes water a
nd swim…
She blinked, squinted. Sunlight was streaming in the windows, pressing against her eyelids. She was hot, everywhere. Sweating.
And there was a big, solid male body beneath her own, his heart beat slow and strong against her ear. She was sprawled on top of Davy. His eyes were somber and thoughtful as he gazed into her face.
“Good morning,” he said.
She smiled at him, blushing as the memories of last night’s intense intimacy flooded into her mind, in vivid detail.
“Hi,” she whispered. “How long have you been awake?”
“A few hours,” he said. “I’ve been watching you sleep.”
She jolted up off his body. “What? You’ve been lying there with me on top of you for hours? You’re nuts!”
“You needed to rest,” he said quietly. “You were tired.”
“What time is it?”
“Late, I imagine,” he said. “Noon, maybe. The sun is pretty high.”
She rubbed her eyes and pressed her thighs tightly around the ache that came from having scads of fabulous, unaccustomed sex. She’d pulled the bathrobe off his body when she slid off him, and his erection stood high and thick and flushed against his belly.
His eyes followed her gaze, and a grin lit up his face.” Did you put two condoms in the pocket of that robe last night?” he asked.
“No,” she admitted. “Only one. I was thinking in the moment.”
“Huh. I guess we don’t have time, anyhow.” His voice was businesslike. “Have a shower while I put some breakfast on.”
He rolled to his feet with sinuous grace. It dazzled her. Davy’s naked, aroused body lit up by sunlight was too much stimulation for her poor nerves. She was going to short out. Emit smoke from her ears.
She flung the bathrobe at him. “Cover yourself, for God’s sake.”
He yanked on his sweatpants, grinning. “Can’t handle it, huh?”
He disappeared into the living room, leaving her alone and bemused in the middle of the beautiful, empty room.
Huh. So he was in a playful mood. Sex had smoothed out all his jagged edges. She wished she could say the same for herself. She felt so fuddled and soft. The glitter of sunlight on the surface of the lake outside was so beautiful, it brought tears to her eyes.
She wandered out of the bathroom twenty minutes later, hair still dripping, and stared at the table in awe. The man went all out, every meal he ate. No cornflakes, pop tarts, bagels or shortcuts of any kind. It was a starving lumberjack’s breakfast of pancakes dripping with maple syrup, scrambled eggs, grilled bacon, sliced strawberries, orange juice, toast, strong French roast coffee with cream. Outrageous.
She didn’t slow down until she was halfway through the second fluffy stack of hotcakes. “Don’t we have a wedding to go to? Shouldn’t we be saving our appetites? Is this a sit down lunch, or a buffet?”
“Both, I think. Don’t worry,” he said. “That’s the thing about an appetite. It never goes away for very long.”
Margot’s eyes lingered over Davy’s torso. “With your muscle mass and metabolism, you can reason like that. If I ate like this all the time, I’d be the size of a humpbacked whale.”
His eyes slid appreciatively over her body, swathed in one of his big towels. “We’ve come up with some great ways to burn calories.”
She coughed on her coffee. “Um…speaking of which.”
His fork stopped halfway to his mouth. “Yeah?”
“Maybe we should talk about, uh, what happened.”
“Let’s not, and say we did,” he replied. “We just crash and burn whenever we talk about us. Let’s just relax and go with it.”
“You mean, stick with the wild monkey sex, and conveniently not think about anything else?”
He shrugged. “Sounds like a great plan to me.”
She almost laughed at his simplistic male reasoning, but she didn’t want to start out the day by making him mad. It was too stressful in her current vulnerable state. “I wish it were so easy,” she said.
“Why can’t it be?” His eyes challenged her over the rim of his cup.
“I told you,” she said. “I can’t take ambiguity.”
He set down his cup. “I haven’t been ambiguous with you,” he said. “I’ve gone to great lengths to be honest with you. Every time, I’ve gotten punished for it. I don’t feel like getting punished this morning. I don’t feel like trying to say whatever you want to hear, either.”
“I never said I wanted you to—”
“What I want is to have breakfast with a gorgeous, fascinating woman who drove me crazy all night long. That’s all I’m aiming for. No more, no less. Let’s keep things simple. Please.”
She covered her face with her hands, unsure whether she wanted to laugh or cry. “I’m trying. Really. The truth is, with a guy like you, an arrangement like what you proposed to me yesterday isn’t really—”
“What kind of a guy am I?” he demanded suddenly.
She floundered. “Uh, gee. Let’s see. Gorgeous? Smart? Financially solvent? Fabulous in bed? Is that enough for you, or shall I go on?”
He looked bemused. “Thanks.”
“I’m not flattering you. Don’t be vain. I’m trying to make a point, but if you keep fishing for compliments—”
“Sorry,” he said meekly. “Make your point.”
“As I was saying,” she grumbled. “Even without commitment and flowers and love and yada yada, just plain old straight sex for the sake of sex with a guy like you is not a bad bargain. Considering.”
“Considering what?” He looked suspicious.
“That is, it wouldn’t be if I could separate sex from emotion,” she pressed on. “I truly wish I could. I would have a lot more fun. But I can’t. Particularly not…sex like that.”
“Sex like what?” he nudged.
She scowled at him. “You’re fishing again. It’s bugging me.”
His slow grin began to spread. “So it was good for you, too, then?”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Don’t even start. You know exactly how good it was for me. I may never recover.”
“I’ve barely even started,” he said softly. “You have no idea.”
Heat raced over the surface of her skin.
Davy shoved a strawberry around on his plate with his knife. “Try not to think about it so hard,” he suggested. “I can’t leave you alone when you’re in danger. The sex is a separate issue. I told you last night. I don’t expect anything from you. If you want sex from me, you’ve got it. If not, no problem. I’m not going to bully you into being my love slave.”
She pressed her thighs together over the shivery rush that went through her at the very thought. Davy McCloud’s love slave. Ooh, lordy.
“What if I bully you into being my love slave?” she demanded.
“Bully away. I’m ready to serve,” he said promptly. “Anytime.”
Her eyes slid down to the sweatpants that showed off the length and urgency of his erection. “Wow. Are you always at the ready?”
“Only one way to find out,” Davy said. “Consider it a challenge, Margot. Wear me out. Blow my mind. Let’s see who crumbles first.”
She knew it was a bad idea even before she said it, but she couldn’t stop herself. “What if all this hot sex turns my brains to mush and I fall madly in love with you? What’ll you do then?”
His smile vanished. The teasing warmth in his eyes transformed itself to glacial ice. “I really, really wish you wouldn’t,” he said finally.
It was what she deserved, for asking such a dumb question. So last night’s sweet, lovely meltdown in the kung fu room hadn’t made a dent in his armor. There was zero possibility of something deeper between them. It was a silly, wishful fantasy, fueled by moonlight.
Gah. What an idiot she was.
“You know how it is.” She tried to make her tone light. “You play with fire, you’re gonna get burned.”
He took a final swallow of his coffee. “We’re late,”
he said coolly. “We should leave in fifteen minutes. Get yourself ready, please.”
So much for the wild, crazy strawberry and maple syrup sex on the breakfast table. The L word trashed his mood. Predictable, but it still made her feel sad. Stupid, too, for setting herself up for rejection.
“We have to drop by my place to get my dressy clothes,” she said. “And then we have to take Mikey to the pet hotel.”
He frowned. “I thought we were bringing him along.”
She shook her head. “I’ll feel conspicuous enough at a fancy wedding without being that girl with the dog. I hate to leave him there overnight, and he’ll hate it too, but he’ll live.”
A curt nod was her reply. Davy stalked off in the direction of the bedroom. Margot got dressed and was just finishing up the dishes when Davy came into the kitchen in jeans and a black T-shirt, smelling of soap and aftershave, looking gorgeous. A garment bag hung over his arm. He scowled at her. “You didn’t have to do dishes.”
She shrugged. “Breakfast was fabulous. It’s only fair.”
The stop at her place was just a brief moment of rummaging through plastic shopping bags in the trunk of the car, gathering up her makeup, hairpins, underpants, toiletries, and her one pretty outfit. Thank goodness she had one. She was compromised enough already without letting Davy McCloud buy her clothes.
Next stop, the pet hotel. Davy followed her in, glowering to the right and left as if someone might jump her in the parking lot. Mikey carried on with his usual histrionics, trembling and whimpering.
“Stop torturing me, you little twerp,” she hissed at him as she smiled at the chubby girl behind the front desk. “This isn’t my fault, and I’ll fix it as soon as I can. Hi, Amy, how’s it going?”
Amy grinned back. “Oh, hey, there. Happy late birthday, by the way. Did you have a good time at the party?”
Margot blinked. “Party? What party?”
“Your niece said…uh…” Amy backpedaled, confused. “Wait a sec.” She stared at Mikey, then at Margot. “You’re Mikey’s person?”
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