by JoAnn Ross
“Is beautiful.” He kissed her wounded breast, then proceeded to move his hands, his lips, over her in a sure, leisurely way, feeling the pleasure seep through her.
“You don’t have to lie.”
“I’m not. Perfection is boring.” His tongue glided lower, over her stomach, then lower still. She sucked in a quick, sharp breath when he scraped his teeth along the pink ridge at the inside of her thigh, then laved the flesh with his tongue. He was telling the absolute truth. He found her wonderful. “Whatever marks you might have are merely points of interest on a fascinating tour, mon ange.”
Nate felt her going lax with pleasure, and even as he enjoyed the absolute control he knew she did not surrender easily, he reined in his own rampant need, keeping his caresses slow and gentle as he moved over every graceful curve and sensual hollow. He touched her everywhere, watching her face. Where his hands played, she burned; where his mouth warmed, she trembled and arched in utter abandonment.
And still, even as the deep, painfully sexual ache went all the way to the bone, he waited.
His fingers sketched slow, tantalizing circles in the dark curls between her legs, then tugged lightly, drawing forth a moan. He did it again, this time covering her parted lips with his, so he could feel the ragged sound as well as hear it.
“Mon Dieu, I love you like this.” Hot. Hungry. His. He trailed his hand down the soft, silky, smooth flesh of one inner thigh, then back up another. “Open for me, chère,” he coaxed. “Let me see all of you.”
She couldn’t believe what was happening to her. She’d known Nate Callahan would be a good lover, skilled in knowing how to please a woman. But what he was doing to her went far beyond pleasure. Although his caresses were achingly slow, his clever hands were everywhere as he discovered erogenous zones she’d never known existed.
Regan had never—ever—ceded control to any man. She’d always preferred being on top, physically and emotionally. But that was before Nate. Lying naked on his moss-filled mattress while he was still fully dressed was strangely erotic, and for the first time in her life she understood that absolute surrender to the right man, a man you could trust absolutely, could be glorious. There was nothing, she thought with a stunning sense of wonder, that he could ask for that she would not give. When he pressed his palms against the inside of her trembling thighs, she opened her legs, offering the most feminine part of herself to his view. Despite the rain, there was enough daylight for him to see her imperfections. But it didn’t matter. He still wanted her. Still found her desirable. Even beautiful.
She smiled, unable to remember when any man had called her anything beyond pretty.
“Lovely,” he murmured. She moaned as those wickedly clever fingers skimmed over flesh heated from the blood rushing from her heart. She was as exposed, as helpless as she’d ever been, but felt no embarrassment as he parted the tingling flesh.
“Like petals, smooth and soft and glistening with early morning dew.”
Her senses swam. Her mind was shutting down. She reached for him, needing to touch him as he was touching her. She wanted to yank down that zipper on his jeans and take him into her mouth, deeper than she’d ever taken a man; she wanted to burrow her face into the crisp male hair around his penis, she wanted to torment him as he was tormenting her.
“Please, Nate.” Another thing that was so, so different. She’d never begged any man for anything, least of all sex. “I want you.”Need you.
“Soon, chère.” He braceleted both her wrists in his hands. “There’s no hurry.”
“Easy for you to say,” she complained as he lifted her imprisoned hands above her head. Never in her life had she been so helpless. Helpless to resist Nate. Helpless to resist her own escalating desire.
“Easier to say than to do,” he agreed in a deep, rumbling voice roughened with sex. “But like I said, down here in the South, we take things a little slower than in the rest of the world.”
Just when she thought for certain that she’d die from the wanting, the waiting, his free hand cupped the source of heat and sent her soaring. She peaked instantly, sharply, and as she did, he pressed his mouth between her legs.
He was feasting on her, as a man might devour ripe passion fruit. Drowning in emotions, Regan writhed beneath his ruthless tongue and hungry mouth, the line between pain and pleasure blurring as he drove her up again. Even as this second climax shuddered through her, all Regan could think was More.
As if possessing the ability to read her thoughts, he left her only long enough to rip off his clothes. When he took the extra time to protect her, something that had somehow recklessly escaped her sex-fogged mind, she felt something powerful move inside her heart.
His long fingers splayed on her hips, lifting her to him as he slid into her with silky ease. Had anything ever felt so glorious? So right?
As he began to move with a deep, age-old stroke, slowly at first, then faster, harder, deeper, driving them both into the fragrant mattress, she scissored her legs around him and met him thrust for thrust, matching his pace. They came together, catapulting them both into oblivion. And into a relationship neither had planned, or been prepared to accept.
23
Nate had collapsed on her, loath to move, not sure if he could even if he’d wanted to. He could feel her heart beating against his chest, synchronized with the rhythm of his own as they both slowly returned to normal. He listened to the rain tapping on the roof and knew he’d never hear the sound again without thinking of Regan. He could cheerfully spend the rest of his life in this bed, he decided. So long as he could keep his delectable detective right here with him.
“Incredible.” He threaded his hands through her dampened hair, brushing it back from her face, which was flushed from her orgasms. Her eyes were closed, her long, thick lashes looking like dark silk against her cheeks. “Absolutely incredible.”
“Mmmm.” She ran a limp hand down his sweat-slick back. “I honestly never experienced anything like that.”
“Neither did I.”
That had her opening her eyes.
“It’s the truth.” Realizing that he was probably crushing her, he rolled over onto his side, taking her with him. Her lips were deep rose and swollen from kisses. Unable to resist, he nipped at them lightly, savoring her taste. “This changes things.”
What had just happened between them was no ordinary event. They’d connected in a way that would have scared the hell out of him if he hadn’t been feeling so satisfied.
“It doesn’t have to.” He felt a pang of loss as she put a bit of distance between them. “We’re both adults. It was amazing, hot, mind-blowing sex. But there’s no irate father waiting in the wings with a shotgun.”
“Well now, I’ll have to admit, that comes as a relief,” he drawled. “Seeing as how the idea of gettin’ peppered with buckshot doesn’t sound all that appealing.” Speaking of appealing…Unable to resist the lure of her silken flesh, even after what they’d just shared, he skimmed a slow caress down her throat and over a pert breast.
“I told you,” he said, when she stiffened again, ever so slightly, “they don’t matter.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I want to know, chère.”
“You do realize that you can’t always get everything you want.”
“Believe me, I’m well aware of that,” he said, thinking about the murder of his father, the agonizingly slow death of his maman.
As if sensing his thoughts, she sighed and hitched up a little in the bed as the postsex languor disintegrated. “It’s no big secret. Finn could easily have found the story. Probably even Dani, since I learned later that it not only made all the local papers but got picked up nationally. I was even asked to sit next to the First Lady at the State of the Union address, but I turned the offer down.”
“Why?” He knew a lot of women who’d sell their collection of tiaras for such an opportunity to be in the national spotlight.
“Partly because I’m n
ot a real fan of politicians. But mostly because I don’t think stupidity deserves a reward.”
“You couldn’t be stupid if you tried.”
“Thank you. That’s a very nice thing to say. But unfortunately, it’s not accurate.” She breathed a resigned sigh. “It was several years ago, back when I was still a patrol cop. I wasn’t real popular in the ’hood, because I’d been working with a community policing group and the narcotics guys, doing a lot of drug busts. I was working the graveyard shift and went to pull this vehicle over for expired tags, when it took off. I took off after it.”
Her lips curved in an oddly regretful smile Nate suspected was directed inward. “I’d never taken part in a high-speed chase before, and I have to admit, I was enjoying the hell out of it. The adrenaline was jangling in my veins, and everything was intensified—the sound of the siren, the squeal of the tires, and the smell of burning rubber as we kept tearing around the corners.”
He thought he could see this coming.
He was wrong.
“I must have been going eighty when we went into the projects.” Her voice, her eyes, turned flat and distant. “The car headed down this alley, with me right on its bumper. The minute it got back onto the street, a moving van blocked the exit. I slammed the patrol car into the side of it.”
“Christ.” His blood went cold as the mental image seared itself into his mind.
“That would have been bad enough, of course,” she continued with what he thought was amazing matter-of-factness. “But an accident’s chancy, what with airbags and seat belts, and such. The dealers I’d been screwing up came up with a plan to shift the odds in their favor.
“Right after I wrecked the cruiser, they pulled out the automatic weapons and began firing away. I don’t remember anything after the windshield shattered, but I saw the pictures afterward, and the car looked like one of those tin cans people use for target practice. There were more holes than metal left. A lot of that metal and glass ended up in me.” She sighed and unconsciously touched her hand to her breast. “End of story.”
Rage came instantly, steamrolling over sympathy. He’d always thought what had happened to his father had been tragic. But the horrific thing she’d been through was nothing short of evil. “And you went back to those streets?”
Even Jack, after being ambushed by drug dealers down in South America, had resigned his DEA job, cashed in his pension, and returned to Blue Bayou, where he’d spent several months trying to drink himself into oblivion.
“Not right away. There was a lot of recovery time and rehab.” Her slender shoulders lifted and dropped on a long, exhaled breath. “But I’m a cop. There was no way I was going to let those gangsters scare me away from doing what I’d always wanted to do.”
“Always?”
“Dani told me how you used to drag wood in from the swamp while Jack and Finn were practicing their quick draws.”
“Someone had to build the jail.”
She attempted a faint smile she couldn’t quite pull off. “Well, when I was a little girl, I used to have Police Officer Barbie arrest Ken.”
For the first time in his life, Nate understand how someone could do cold-blooded murder. A very strong part of him wanted to get on a plane, fly to Los Angeles, find those lowlifes who’d done this to her, and kill them with his own hands. Slowly. Painfully. Thoroughly.
“You’ve no idea,” he said, “how much I admire you.”
“Why?”
“For surviving such a horrific thing. For being who you are. What you are.” Words usually came trippingly off his tongue. But Nate couldn’t think of any that even began to express the emotions battering at him. “I can’t even begin to tell you.”
“Well, then.” The light had returned to her remarkable eyes, and her lips curved in a slow, seductive smile. “Why don’t you show me?”
Outside, the rain continued to fall.
Inside, with slow hands and warm lips, they lost themselves in a shimmering, misty world of their own making.
Afterward Regan lay snuggled in his arms, listening to the sound of the rain on the roof, and knew that from this day forward, every time it rained, she’d think of Nate.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, skimming down her side with those fingertips that had stimulated every inch of her with a touch like the finest-grade sandpaper.
“How much I used to hate the rain.” She caught his hand as it slid ever lower and lifted it to her lips. “And how I’m never going to be able to think of it the same way again.”
“Great minds.” He pulled her tight against his body. His kiss was slow, deep, and possessive. “I was thinking earlier how nice it’d be if I could just spend the rest of my life right here in bed with you.”
That sounded wonderful. Too wonderful. If she wasn’t in such a blissful mood, she might have been unnerved by how perfect a scenario he’d just painted.
“Unfortunately,” he continued on a long deep sigh, “we’re going to have company.”
“Company?” She touched her mouth to a small scar on his knuckles.
He glanced over at the watch he’d taken off and put on the bedside table. “I figure we’ve got about ten minutes before Josh gets home from school.”
“Oh, my God, how could I have forgotten about him?” Regan leaped up and raced around the room, gathering up discarded clothing where it had landed on the wide plank floor and furniture. Making love with Nate had wiped her mind as clear as glass. She shot him a frustrated look. “Would you please get out of bed?”
“You don’t have to be in such a tizzy, chère.” He unfolded himself from tangled sheets that had slid mostly to the floor. “There’s still plenty of time.”
“Don’t you have any other speed but slow?” Where the hell were her panties?
“You weren’t complaining a little bit ago.”
“Actually, I was.” There they were. How on earth had they gotten on top of that floor lamp across the room?
“Next time we’ll try for a slam-bam-thank-you-ma’am session,” he said obligingly.
Regan suspected he’d turned her into a sex addict, since even that sounded appealing.
“What are you doing now?”
“Opening the windows.” Thank God for the overhanging roof and wide porch that allowed her to do so while the rain poured down. “It smells like sex in here.”
“Well, I’d say we’d probably have had a pretty disappointing time if it didn’t. He won’t have any reason to come in here, Regan.”
“You never know. I don’t want him to know that we were having hot, wild sex in the middle of the day.” She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had afternoon sex. Years, perhaps. She’d always been careful to arrange for dark rooms brightened only, if her partner insisted on light, by the soft glow of a single flickering candle.
“I think he knows men and women have sex. Sometimes even in the daytime.”
“It appears he knows a great many things he shouldn’t. I don’t want to set a bad example for him.” She turned to see how much progress he was making and discovered he was still as naked as the day he was born, leaning against an old bureau, with the strangest smile on his face. “What?”
“I don’t want to scare you, chère. But I think there’s something you should know.”
“What?” she repeated impatiently.
“Now, you’ve got to understand, I may be wrong. I’m not real familiar with the feeling, having never experienced it before—”
“Nate, you’re a wonderful man—kind, caring, talented, and a marvelous lovemaker—but time is running out here. Could you please, this one time, just cut to the chase?”
“I think I could, just maybe, fall in love with you.”
The bra she’d retrieved from the bedpost dropped to the floor from nerveless fingers. Stunned speechless, she could only stare at him. A yellow school bus lumbered to a stop outside the house. Jesus, did she need any more complications in her life? “Don’t.”
Sh
e scooped up her bra and disappeared into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.
“Well.” Nate pulled on his briefs and, since he had no idea where his shirt had landed, pulled another from the cypress chest. “She certainly took that well.”
24
After a long, hot shower intended not only to wash off the scent of their lovemaking but to clear her mind so she could deal with this latest problem, Regan took the time to blow-dry her hair so she wouldn’t look like a drowned spaniel.
Before getting dressed again, she unwrapped the fluffy white towel from her body and studied herself in the bathroom mirror, running her fingertips over the curved raised lines that truly hadn’t seemed to distract him from his goal of making sure that she’d never be able to enjoy sex with any other man ever again.
When she finally came out of the bedroom, she found Josh standing at the old soapstone sink, husking corn. He glanced up. “Hi,” he said almost cheerfully. “Nate’s outside. He’s said you’re invited to dinner, and he’ll be right back in.”
She wasn’t at all eager to stay after Nate’s out-of-the blue declaration, and Josh’s matter-of-fact attitude about her being there made her feel even more uncomfortable. And what had Nate done with the foul-mouthed delinquent when he’d replaced him with this Stepford teen? “How was school?”
“Okay.” He shrugged shoulders clad in a normal denim shirt. “I thought I might be behind, but all except for geometry, I’m pretty much ahead of a lot of the class. The counselor’s thinking of putting me in the accelerated program. If I’m going to be staying around, that is.”
“That’s terrific.” Her heart tugged as she realized that the chances of that were slim unless Judi Welch could find a family for him to stay with here in Blue Bayou. “I always had trouble with geometry. The teacher said if you just memorized the theorems you’d be able to solve any of the problems. But even though I could recite them all, it never helped me know what to do with them.”