CROSSFIRE (28 page)

But she could try.

They hit the bed in a tangle of arms and legs, hands shoving against the denim of his jeans, the cotton of his underwear, the silk of hers. Dizzy, blind with need, she pushed up and drank in the sight of him sprawled beneath her, gloriously naked except for his dog tags, dark blond hair falling against her pillow, the contrast between the deep tan of his skin and the soft pink of her sheets, the smooth, sculpted planes of his chest. His eyes were on fire, lips moist and slightly parted.

But he said nothing, did nothing, just watched her like a big cat tracking its prey.

She refused to let herself be afraid. She'd wasted too much of her life contained in that tight restrictive cocoon, and it had cost her terribly. She'd turned her back on this man, not because of him, but because of the out-of-control way she felt with him. She wanted to indulge that freneticism now, go with it, see where the wave took them.

An amazing rush of feminine power curled through her. She savored the glow in those eyes of deep decadent butterscotch, the gleam, the gold and red whiskers against his jaw, the way the candlelight cast shadows along his chest. And lower. She wanted to follow that trail. She wanted to explore every hot, hard inch of him with her hands and her mouth. She wanted to feel and to taste, to remember in full living color what survival had tried to make her forget.

With a boldness she'd never experienced, she slid down the length of him slowly, tasting as she went, until she took him in her mouth.

And felt him tremble. Wesley. Her big, tough, rough-around-the-edges bodyguard, trembled.

The thrill of it streaked like lightning. She wanted to give back to him, this man who'd given her so much, even as she'd tried to push him away, to deny.

"You're killing me," he gritted out, twisting against the sheets, and with his hands he reached for her, fisted fingers in hair. "Killing me."

Before she could so much as breathe, he had her pulled up and underneath him. She cried out when he found a breast, first with his hand, his fingers, toying, teasing, destroying. Then his mouth, closing around her nipple. Pleasure streaked through her like fire, had her twisting beneath him, needing so much more.

"Yes," she murmured, reaching down and finding him hot and hard and completely ready for her. "Please."

He pushed up on an arm and held himself propped up over her. Dark blond hair fell against his face but didn't hide the glitter in his eyes. "Please what?"

Her throat went unbearably tight. Answers, truths, desires tumbled through her.
Please don't stop now. Please keep the promise burning in your eyes.

Please love me.

"Don't make me wait," she whispered.

"Ah, Ellie." His tone was as gentle as his touch. "Sometimes waiting is the best part."

"And sometimes it hurts." The truth staggered her. She'd
been
waiting. For so long. Waiting and wanting, but not knowing how to reach for what she wanted.

He went very still. He was still poised over her, his hand still at her breast, but his fingers no longer teased.

"That was never my intent." He skimmed a finger down the side of her face. "I only wanted this," he added, lowering himself over her body. His mouth came down on hers, and she knew the waiting wouldn't last much longer. Pleasure screamed to every nerve ending in her body, demanded more.

This man. This was who she wanted, who she'd wanted since her father first introduced him as her bodyguard. He'd fascinated even as he'd infuriated. She'd never known a man like him, one who walked so boldly through life, who knew what he wanted and wasn't afraid to admit it. But she'd come to realize all those hard, jagged edges, all that in-your-face sexuality, masked a tenderness that made her heart bleed.

"Yes," she murmured, loving the feeling of flesh to flesh. The weight of him, the heat of him, seeped into her blood. All those nights alone in her bed, when she'd tried to blot him from her memory, this is what she'd remembered instead. His touch. His feel. That wildly masculine scent of musk and incense that had fired her blood long after he'd left her life.

But he'd never left her life, she realized now. Not fully. Not when he'd lived on so strongly in her heart, a quiet little voice waiting for the day it could sing again.

It sang now. Every part of her sang. She twisted beneath him, let her legs fall open. He settled between her thighs, slid a hand to her stomach, all that delicious warmth fanning out, lower still, until he found just how badly she burned for him.

"Ah, sweetness," he whispered, then skimmed his mouth along the trail of his fingers.

White light consumed her. She arched back against the bed, her hands balling in the fabric of her comforter. He kissed her intimately, just as he'd kissed her in her dreams. It was almost unbearable. She writhed, felt moisture gather in her eyes.

Blindly she fumbled for the nightstand. "Here," she said, thrusting the blue box at him. "Now."

He tortured her a moment longer before looking up, seeing the offering in her hand. His hair fell against his eyes, but didn't hide the glimmer burning deep. Slowly he reached for the packet and tore the foil. Her mouth went dry as she watched him ready himself, as need lit through her.

And then he was there. Lowering himself over her, pushing her knees back, poised between her legs, sliding home. She barely recognized the sound that broke from her throat, had to fight to keep her eyes open, when they wanted to slide shut in ecstasy. She wanted to drink in, drown in, every moment, every nuance.

He went slow, allowed her to adjust to his size before pushing deep. And then he was there, inside her, not moving, not yet, just … filling her. She struggled to breathe, struggled against the emotion leaking from her eyes.

The movement was slow at first, a gentle, seductive rhythm. She curved her arms around his neck, lifted her hips in greeting. Through the soft light of the moon she saw him over her, saw the hair falling into his face, the sheen of sweat against his shoulders. He picked up the pace, moving in and out with deep, deliberate thrusts and sending her dangerously close to the edge. And that's when she realized it. His eyes. They were … closed.

His eyes were closed, just like the night at the auction.

But just like that night, she saw the emotion, the pleasure in the lines of his face, the ecstasy in his parted lips.

Wave after wave of sensation washed through her, gathered deep. There was something wholly primal about his lovemaking, completely uninhibited. She arched up when his mouth found her neck, when his hand toyed with the pearls she still wore. Thrashing against the pillow, she turned and saw.

And forgot to breathe.

Chapter 14

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P
rojected against the taupe wall of her bedroom, shadows moved rhythmically. Man and woman joined. His face buried against her neck. Her knees back, him moving between them.

Fascination whispered through her. She'd never watched anyone making love before, certainly not herself. To see the shadows moving together on the wall, sinuous, erotic, and to know she was one of those shadows, the one arching and accepting, and that the other was Hawk, her bodyguard, Wesley, the man who'd slipped into her blood over two years before, electrified some place deep inside. The shadows moved with a grace that stunned her, an erotic poetry of bodies. All that heat and pent-up desire, the out-of-control, edge-of-oblivion hunger, translated into a fluid beauty that stole her breath.

"You like to watch?" he murmured, and from the deep quality of his voice, the wicked gleam she found in his eyes, she realized he'd caught her.

The thrill of the forbidden tangled seductively. "And if I do?"

A hard sound broke from his throat. "You're going to kill me yet." He took her hand and thrust it over her head, threaded her fingers with his. Then he had his arm under her leg and urged it against her stomach.

Elizabeth
needed little urging. "No one," she whispered through the raw emotion swamping her. "There's been no one since you."

He stilled, looked down at her. "What are you saying?"

"Just you." Her voice was raw, drenched. "Only you."

Incredulity stamped his face. "Just you," he returned, going deeper. "Always you."

Pleasure almost blinded her. For so long she'd struggled to hold herself together, but now she just wanted to let go. She curled her other leg around his and twisted, welcomed him deep. Sensation streamed through her, hot, liquid, seductive, carrying her to the edge of control. With a final thrust, the shadows against the wall jerked, melded, and everything, all that control, all the desire, the denial, the longing, shattered into the sweet gift of oblivion.

* * *

He didn't wake up this time, because he never slept. Couldn't, wasn't about to miss one moment. He lay in the darkness, in
Elizabeth
's bed, savoring the feel of her sprawled over him. Naked. Her head rested on his chest, her arm curled around his ribs, her legs tangled with his. Her breathing was deep and rhythmic, completely relaxed.

Memory played through him, the feel of
Elizabeth
beneath him, over him. He'd teased her awake through strategically placed kisses, and she'd responded in kind, with more strategically placed kisses, seeming to enjoy torturing him. He'd accused her of just that, but she'd merely laughed and climbed atop him, straddled him with a confidence that had stunned him, had taken him deep, brought them both to a climax that still had his heart slamming against his ribs.

And then she'd gone to sleep. She'd made love to him like a vixen, then quietly and sweetly fallen asleep against his chest, like an innocent little kitten.

Never in a million years, he thought, staring at the wall, where hours before their shadows had magnified their lovemaking. Never in a million years had he dreamed she would come to him, want him. He'd thought her too locked away in her tidy world, too attached to her rigid plans.

She shifted against him, sighed, and his heart damn near broke right then and there. For two years he'd convinced himself this woman meant nothing to him. That only heat flared between them. That all he wanted from her was an admission.

Now the truth circled his heart like a vise. He wanted far, far more from Elizabeth Carrington than a stupid admission.

But first he had an admission of his own to make.

And God help him, it could cost him everything.

* * *

The sound of the shower nudged her from the web of sleep.
Elizabeth
shifted against soft sheets, rolled to find the pillow next to hers empty. But she smiled, anyway. She could feel him still, his hands roughly claiming her, his body moving within her. All she had to do was breathe and she drew him inside her, the scent of musk and incense that still managed to fire her blood, even after a night of bone-melting lovemaking.

Stretching, she glanced at the clock and realized why sunlight flooded the bedroom. It was after ten in the morning.

The temptation to join him in the bathroom was strong, but she rolled from bed and pulled on her robe, her slippers. Wesley had a voracious appetite. She knew he had to be starving. She would surprise him with breakfast, and then, if they were still hungry, they'd take it from there.

Their clothes littered the floor, her dress in a puddle, her thong dangling from the side of the nightstand, his jeans in a heap by the bed. Memory licked through her, but she didn't move the clothes, just slipped from the room and down to the kitchen, where she put on a pot of coffee and started on Belgian waffles.

Upstairs, water stopped rumbling through the pipes.

She broke an egg and mixed it with the flour, jumped at the pounding on the front door. "
Elizabeth
!"

Startled, she went to the foyer and deactivated the security system, fumbled with the locks and pulled open the door. It beeped, part of the upgrade Hawk had insisted upon, a way of announcing when any door or window was open.

"Nicholas."

He pushed inside and shoved the door shut, took her upper arms in his hands. Wildness glinted in eyes normally calm. "Are you okay?"

He was a khaki-pants-and-knit-shirt man, but today he wore jeans and a T-shirt, wrinkled, as though he'd thrown them on in a hurry.

"Of course I'm all right. Why wouldn't I be?"

"I've been trying to call you all morning."

The words cut like an accusation. "I'm fine," she said, twisting from his arms. "Really."

"Then why didn't you answer the phone?"

She fumbled for the right words. "I didn't hear it—"

"Ellie?" The sleep-roughened voice came from behind her, and her heart flat-out stopped. She whirled to see Wesley coming down the staircase, his wet hair combed back from his face, his chest and feet bare, jeans covering his long legs but not fastened. "You down here?"

The breath jammed in her throat. Oh, dear God this was not how she wanted Nicholas to find out. He would have to know at some point, she'd realized that, but not like this. Not so rudely and crudely.

Wesley stopped the second he saw the man standing in her foyer. "Ferreday."