Dangerous to Love

by Sally Tyler Hayes

  She gasped. “Please.”

  “Shh. Leave this to me. Trust me. It’ll be just like before. Just as good. Better, even. Because this time, I’ll be inside you,” he promised, stroking her softly, feeling her muscles clench around him.

  “Now,” she whispered. “Please. Now.”

  And then he couldn’t wait any longer, either, stroking her with his thumb, finding that it was indeed enough just to hold her, to look at her, to be inside her.

  “Feel it?” he urged. “Feel what you do to me. Feel how much I need you. How crazy you’ve made me.”

  And then he just let go of everything else. His erection was pulsing hot as he came for the first time in his life without moving a muscle. His body collapsed, his soul soared. There was indeed nothing in the world of any consequence except him and her and the magic they made together.

  He closed his eyes, wanting to memorize the pressure of her body cradling him, the new slick heat between them, the deep shudders of satisfaction racing through him. Her body tensed, as his had. She rode him without moving a muscle, either. Clenched down hard, easing a bit, only to do it all over again.

  It was exquisite, mind-altering, earth-shattering. It was everything he’d ever dreamed and more.

  Jamie, he thought.

  Finally.

  When the roaring in his ears receded, he realized she was laughing softly, the sound incredibly sexy, as she lay heavily against him.

  He pushed her head back, just enough to find her mouth. He kissed her softly, slowly, again and again until the ache and the tension eased, leaving him utterly drained, utterly exhausted and unbelievably satisfied, given the restrictions that had been placed on their lovemaking.

  “Are you all right?” he asked when he could breathe again.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Lady, you are dangerous,” he said.

  “I didn’t do anything,” she reminded him. “I was just lying here having a bath.”

  He swore. “All you have to do is breathe, and I’m as hard as a rock.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Really.”

  “And that’s a problem?”

  “It used to be.” Now he planned on making it his pleasure. Watching her breathe. Watching her smile. Watching her come again and again.

  He took her chin in his hand, tilted her face up to his, waited until her gaze met his. “You are so beautiful, babe,” he said.

  “Dan, the whole side of my face is one big bruise.”

  “I don’t give a damn,” he muttered. “You’ve always been beautiful to me. You always will be.”

  He let himself kiss her once, carefully, softly.

  “I can’t believe how much time I let us waste. I can’t believe I managed to live without you this long, but that’s over. You need to understand something. You’re mine now. I won’t let you go again.”

  He wanted to make sure she understood, wanted to hear her admit it.

  “All I ever wanted,” she whispered, “was to be with you.”

  And then she smiled up at him, kissing him this time, one of her hands sliding into his hair and pulling his face down to hers. He kissed her back, hungrily, greedily, thinking he could spend a lifetime pleasuring this woman. Learning all of her secrets, taking all of her fears away, standing between her and anyone else who dared lay a hand on her.

  When this was all over and she was healed, he was going to take her far away from here. They were going to lock themselves away from the rest of the world and discover everything about each other. Every secret. Every yearning.

  He could give her what she wanted, what she needed. It would be enough, he told himself, panicking a little at the thought of how very much he needed her in return.

  Chapter 14

  They lingered in the tub. Jamie was relaxed and tired and so wonderfully satisfied lying there in his arms. He’d soaped her body all over again, teasing her, soothing her, seemingly happy just to have his hands on her.

  “Don’t you dare go to sleep on me,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because somehow, we’ve got to get out of here. I need to get you back to bed.”

  She smiled lazily, ready to put aside for now all her lingering doubts about him, to give herself this day with him. “Really?”

  “Yes. And don’t get any ideas,” he warned. “You’re going to sleep. You’re going to be sore enough from all this.”

  “I don’t care. It was worth it.”

  “We’ll see if you feel that way in a few hours,” he said.

  The truth was, no matter how gentle he’d been, she could already feel her body protesting. She knew getting out of the bathtub and making her way back to bed wasn’t going to be any picnic. But she wouldn’t have traded these moments with him for anything in this world, no matter what the future held.

  Moving carefully, slowly, with his help, she made it out of the tub. Dan dried her off as if she were a child and completely helpless. He gave her one of his T-shirts, one that fell to midthigh on her, and nothing else to wear, grinning wickedly as he surveyed his handiwork after dressing her, toweling her hair dry and combing it out. Leaning heavily on him, while he leaned on his black cane, they made it back to the bed. He pulled back the covers and tucked her in, leaned over and gave her a gentle, lingering kiss.

  “Sleep with me,” she said.

  “I intend to.”

  She smiled, watching him make his way across the room. He checked the view from all the windows, called someone—the guard, she assumed—and talked to him for a few minutes. He picked up a gun, a nine-millimeter, placed it on the bedside table within her reach, told her it was loaded and ready.

  “Want something to drink?” he asked, standing in front of an open refrigerator. “Some juice?”

  “Yes, please. And one of those wonderful little pills the doctor left on top of the dresser.”

  “Wonderful little pills?”

  “Mmm.”

  He brought her the glass, examined the bottle of pills, shook one of them into her hand, and helped her sit up so she could swallow the pill. Looking solemn and stern, he said, “I did hurt you.”

  His concern was sweet, especially coming from such a big, tough guy like him. “Dan, everything hurt before you ever laid a hand on me. You just took it all away for a while.”

  His frown eased a bit. He checked the locks on the doors, turned out lights, looked out the window one more time, then set the cane down on the nightstand and sat down on the side of the bed. She watched as he used his hand to guide his left leg onto the bed. She was lying flat on her back, and he rolled onto his side beside her, until their bodies were barely touching.

  He stretched an arm across her stomach. His hand landed on the soft cotton of the T-shirt he’d given her to wear, and she smiled as she felt that hand burrow beneath the bottom of the fabric until his palm was pressed flat against her stomach, her skin quivering in response. Heat radiated outward from his hand, flooding through her.

  She inched closer, seeking that wonderful heat, the solid, reassuring, exciting pressure of his body, and grinned. She had a cat, once, who’d nose his way into a favorite spot at her side. He’d slide into position beneath her hand and wait for her to stroke him while he purred.

  She was very nearly purring, herself, because it was heavenly to share a bed with him. She nestled against him. His fingers spread wide, and he used his thumb to tease along the underside of her breast. Then she turned his head to hers and kissed him deeply.

  “Stop that,” he said.

  “Why?”

  She snuggled against him, feeling the tension coming into his body. He was thoroughly aroused. She felt him, hard and throbbing against her thigh, felt her whole body soften in response.

  “We are not going to do this again,” he insisted.

  “But—”

  “No way,” he said. “I already feel guilty over what happened in the tub. I’m not going to make it worse.”

  She was going t
o suggest there was no reason for him to stay this way, that she would be more than happy to take care of him. “I could...I mean, we don’t have to...”

  “Jamie, it wouldn’t do any good. I think as long as I’m stretched out on a bed with you and have my hands all over you, I’m going to be this way. No matter how many times we make love.”

  “Oh,” she said, finding she liked that idea very, very much.

  “Go to sleep,” he told her. “And if you don’t behave, I’ll sleep on the sofa again. Or in that awful chair beside the bed.”

  “Behave?” she said.

  “Yes, woman. Keep your hands and those sweet-tasting lips of yours to yourself.”

  “Woman?” she argued.

  He laughed, kissed her forehead and whispered, “You need to rest, so your body can heal. And once you do, neither of us will be getting a lot of sleep.”

  “Promise?”

  “Count on it, babe.”

  She leaned her head to the right, her lips finding his, kissing him softly and surely, marveling at the way she felt entitled to that kiss, at the idea of sleeping here in his bed all night long, waking beside him in the morning.

  For a while, when those people had her, she believed she wouldn’t get away, that they’d kill her without the slightest twinge of conscience. It made her think about what she’d done with her life thus far, about the things she’d regret if she didn’t live to see another day.

  She shivered involuntarily. Dan eased his body a little closer, put his head next to hers and whispered into her ear. “Hey? It’s all right. You don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

  “I was just thinking....”

  “Jamie? Those men? What did they do to you, babe?”

  “They pretended I was a punching bag, until they figured out I wasn’t going to tell them what they wanted to know.”

  “And then what?”

  “They yelled, smoked, drank, swore, argued about what they were going to do with me next. And then they pushed me into a car. A few blocks later, they...I don’t know. Shoved me out?”

  He swore. “Yeah. Right out the door. I mean before that. What did they do before?”

  “I told you, they hit me.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I thought... I was afraid they might have...”

  She closed her eyes, shivered again, knew where this conversation was going. “No, they didn’t.”

  He looked unconvinced. “When we were in the bathtub, and you said you wanted to be clean, that you wanted me to scrub every inch of your body and take away... something, I thought—”

  “No,” she insisted, not wanting to think how close it had come to that. She had wanted desperately to be in the water, because they’d left her feeling dirty somehow. And she’d wanted Dan, desperately, because she’d always wanted him, always needed him, never more than she had today.

  “Don’t lie to me,” he cautioned.

  “I’m not,” she said carefully, because there was murder in his eyes. Because if he ever came face-to-face with the people who’d held her prisoner for those hellish hours, she wanted him to be able to think like an agent and not like a man who was consumed by anger and a need for revenge. Not that he wasn’t already dangerously angry. She simply didn’t want to add fuel to that fire.

  “You’re afraid,” he said.

  “Who wouldn’t be under the circumstances? We’ve got a bunch of teenage gangsters who nearly shot and killed you, who may be working with someone we know. We don’t know what we’re facing, and we don’t know where to turn for help, because we don’t know who we can trust anymore. Aren’t you afraid of all that?”

  “No, I’m pissed that somebody hurt you this way, and I’m going to catch the little bastards who did it,” he swore. “They’re never going to hurt you again. No one is.”

  She smiled. It wasn’t exactly a declaration of love, but she’d take it. He’d staked his claim earlier, after all. She was his. It sounded positively primitive, but it had still thrilled her on some elemental level, in a way that surely no independent woman should ever admit. The truth was, she wanted to be his, and his alone. She wanted him to belong to her as completely as she belonged to him. She wondered exactly what it meant to Dan Reese when he laid his claim to a woman. Was it something purely sexual? Could he be this tender? This solicitous? This attentive to all the women he took to his bed? This protective of them?

  She’d always known he was charming, had never felt its full-blown effect directed at her. Oh, she was in trouble, she thought, her eyes drifting downward.

  “It’s been a long day, babe,” he said. “Go to sleep.”

  She leaned into his side and tried to ignore every ache and pain in her body. She concentrated on the feel of his big, warm hand, fingers splayed, palm pressed flat against her belly. She listened to the sound of his breathing and let her mind drift, let the medication she’d taken dull the edge of the pain just enough to let her sleep.

  She slept late the next morning, woke to find that her head didn’t hurt at all. Her ribs were still sore, but not as bad as yesterday. Her ankle was tender, as well, but she managed to hobble to the bathroom on her own, brush her teeth, wash her face and get ready to face the day.

  Dan had left her another T-shirt to wear and a pair of his swimming trunks, probably because they had a drawstring waist. She dressed, hobbled to the kitchen, found juice and muffins. Hungry, she ate two of them.

  There was a note from Dan, saying he had a session with his therapist, that there was an ex-Marine named Walt outside watching the cabin, so she didn’t have to worry.

  She ended up back in the bed, feeling tired and achy but better than the day before. Smiling lazily, she thought of sleeping in his arms the night before, thought of whispered conversations in the dark when he’d told her all the things he wanted to do to her when she recovered from her injuries and when this whole mess was over.

  She must have dozed off, because the next thing she knew, Dan was beside her. She turned instinctively into the warmth and the mass of solid muscle at her side. He was sitting up, his back leaning against the headboard. Her hands slid around his waist, her head finding a pillow in the flat expanse of his chest. She snuggled like a cat, rubbing her cheek against the soft flannel of his shirt, liking that little hitch of his breath, rubbing her hands along the powerful muscles at the top of his thighs.

  “Mmm,” she said. “Good morning.”

  “It’s almost three o’clock, Jamie,” he said, sounding worried.

  “Really?”

  “Yes.” His hand slid through her hair, pushing it back from her face and tucking it behind her ear. “Are you still hurting? Did you pop another one of those pills?”

  “It’s not as bad as it was yesterday, and no, I didn’t take anything. Why?”

  “We did too much yesterday.”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “I know we did too much, but I was afraid I really hurt you.”

  “Dan, I’m fine.”

  He kissed the top of her head, let his hand slide beneath the covers. She felt it, so warm, against her lower back. He started kneading at the muscles there, rubbing, helping her to relax even more. “How’s that?”

  “Wonderful. Don’t stop.”

  He laughed. “Bossy little thing, aren’t you? Do this. Do that. Don’t stop.”

  “Bossy? You think I’m bossy? You’re impossible. Arrogant, overbearing, stubborn, frustrating.” Jamie sighed, smiled. “You’re lucky I put up with you.”

  The hand against her back stilled. He eased her away from him and slid down into the bed beside her, leaning over her, so she could see his face, could see dark eyes and soft lips, a determined jawline and short blondish hair she longed to touch.

  “You’re right,” he said, his lips pressing softly against hers, his hand cupping the side of her face. “I am lucky you put up with me. I feel lucky just to have you here beside me. And I feel extremely lucky that you’re going to forgive me for fighting against the idea of the two of
us for so many years.” He paused, smiled just a bit. “You are going to forgive me for that, aren’t you?”

  “Well, I suppose I could.”

  He grinned, and she realized just how devastating he could be when he unleashed all his charms. “I should have been with you, babe. All along. And for damned sure, I shouldn’t have let you go after those men by yourself. I’m so sorry about that.”

  “I’m going to be all right,” she reassured him.

  He still looked worried, running his hands down her side, across her body, asking about certain injuries, fussing over her and soothing her with his touch. Finally, when he was satisfied she truly felt better, he turned his attention to other things.

  “We need to talk about this. About us.”

  Still a little scared by the prospect, she leaned closer to him. “I thought we settled things yesterday.”

  “We settled the fact that together we’re like dynamite and a lit match.”

  “Yes, we are.” That summed it up nicely.

  “And I don’t think that’s ever going to change.”

  “No?” she teased, trying and likely failing to make light of it.

  She shivered, unable to help herself, thinking of the powerful way he’d claimed her as his It had been overwhelming, earth-shattering, world-altering, at least to her.

  She’d never been a woman to take a sexual involvement lightly. But this...this had been different. She would never forget him, never forget what it had felt like to be wrapped in his arms, naked, with her body straining to take all of him inside of her. She’d never forget the dangerous look in his eyes, the utter satisfaction and contentment she felt afterward when she lay there trembling against him.

  But that was her. She had no idea what it meant to him.

  Mind-altering sex was not the same thing as love. It wasn’t commitment. It wasn’t a relationship. Or a future.

  “Years from now,” he whispered, “I think you’ll still be able to walk into a room and have me aching and ready in five seconds flat. You’ll still fit like you were made to be in my arms, probably still make me crazy and still be trying to wrap me around your little finger.”