Follow My Lead (16 page)

“I’ll walk you to your door.”

* * *

D
ARLA WAS INCREDIBLY NERVOUS
as she walked the narrow tenth-floor hallway with Blake on her heels. It wasn’t as if this was the first time she’d been with Blake, but this time felt different. This time not only had she decided to take a chance on Blake, she knew he had taken a chance on her, as well. She’d seen the look on his face when she’d asked who had burned him. And now she knew he was diving into territory he wasn’t comfortable in, but that he was doing it for her. She didn’t have to know the details. She just wanted to know him. She wanted to understand him. She wanted to wipe away the pain she’d seen in his eyes before he’d looked away.

Her stomach fluttered as she reached her loft’s tiny entryway. She reached for her purse, only to realize it was in the bag Blake was carrying. She turned. The space was small. He was big. He was good-looking. He was sexy. She was suddenly burning up, her cheeks flaming right along with the rest of her body.

“My keys are in my purse.” She motioned to the bag. “In there.”

He shifted the bag from his shoulder to hold it in front of him. She unzipped it and dug in her purse and somehow her shaking hand found her keys. She dropped them and immediately bent down to get them. So did Blake. Their hands touched and they both abandoned the keys.

“Blake,” she whispered. “I—”

He snatched the keys and helped her to her feet. “I’ll unlock the door for you.”

“Okay.” Though neither of them moved. A second later he abruptly tossed the bag and the keys to the floor.

His hand slid into her hair at the same instant his mouth came down on hers. She stood on her toes and leaned into him, meeting his kiss with her own. His breath was warm, his body hard. Sandwiched between Blake and the door, she couldn’t think of a better place to be in that moment.

The first stroke of his tongue sent a sizzle down her spine. The second turned the sizzle to fire. She was burning up all over again, and he was the only way to cool down. She pressed herself against him, seeking that cool heat. He answered by deepening the kiss and running his hands in all kinds of places she wanted them, needed them. There was a wildness in her she’d never experienced, a hunger only this man gave her.

His free hand skimmed her waist, her breast, her nipple, sending a rush of sensation between her thighs—where she wanted him so very bad right now. Actually, she wanted to get lost in him. Her palms pulled him closer, caressing his powerfully muscled back. Yes. Lost. Please.

Voices suddenly echoed in the building, followed by the sound of keys jiggling in a lock. Blake pulled back, holding himself away from her. His breath was thick, his eyes dark. “I’m sorry, Darla. I didn’t mean—”

She leaned in and kissed him. “I did.” She bent down and snatched up the keys, then stood again. “Let’s go inside.” She turned and unlocked the door. Blake stepped in close to her, his hand sliding to her stomach, his lips lowering to her ear.

“I’m not coming in,” he said, his voice low and gravelly. “I—”

“You are,” she said. “You’re coming in.” She reached to the ground by his feet and grabbed her bag and shoved it inside, behind the door.

He rested a hand on the door frame above the ringer. “I promised myself I wouldn’t do this again until I knew you couldn’t write this off as just sex.”

Instinct told her that he wanted to know she was taking this risk with him. “There’s two of us in this relationship, Blake. And I should tell you right now, you don’t get to set all the rules.”

He went completely still. “Relationship?”

“Yes. Relationship. You were right, back in Denver. This was never a one-night stand.”

“What about the competition thing?”

“You’ve proven to me that you’ll look out for my best interests,” she said, thinking of his expression again when she’d asked him who’d burned him. “I hope you believe I’ll do the same for you, because I will.” She reached out and drew his hand with hers. “I want you to come inside and not for one night. I want you to come inside my life. We’ll figure out how to make that work together.”

Still, he didn’t move, and she started to feel sick, to anticipate rejection. Maybe she’d misjudged this—him, them. Maybe he had simply wanted the challenge of pursuit. The chase. Men liked the chase. He was going to walk away. He was going to leave. She retreated a step, feeling foolish and exposed. And that’s when he took a step forward.

16

“
B
LAKE—”
D
ARLA GASPED
as he kicked the door shut and took her in his arms, his mouth soon on hers. She moaned against his lips and desperately tried to resist him, to reason with herself. But when his tongue stroked hers and his hand caressed down her hair, she did what she always did with Blake. She surrendered to what he made her feel, to that unnamed, ever-important something he always made her
need
.

“Whatever you were thinking when you started to back up,” he breathed against her lips, “was wrong.”

“You—”

“I what?” He kissed her, a deep passionate kiss that must have distracted Darla because she realized they were next to the couch. Again he asked, “I what, Darla?”

The heady masculine scent of him enveloped her, engulfing her in need. “You have this bad habit of having too many clothes on,” she answered, shoving his jacket over his shoulders and caressing his powerful shoulders.

Blake caught the jacket at his elbows and reached up to frame her face with hands too big to be so gentle.

“What were you thinking when you backed away from me?” he demanded gently. “I want to know.”

Her heart stilled a moment during which she considered avoidance or denial, but she quickly decided against any strategy at all. She didn’t want secrets with Blake. She wanted what he had claimed he wanted: honesty.

“I thought,” she admitted, “that you only wanted me when you thought I was a challenge. That when I invited you into my life freely, you would no longer want me.”

He drew back, slightly surprised. His gorgeous, heavy-lidded eyes probed hers. “No,” he said, shrugging his half-removed jacket off and letting it fall to the floor. His fingers framed her neck. “No. That’s not the case, Darla. We are so much more than that. You do things to me that I can’t even try to understand. I just want to keep feeling them. I want…I need to know I make you feel them, too.”

Emotion swelled in her chest. Her hand went to one of his. “You do, Blake. I’ve just been freaked out because of our jobs and because I… My…” She stopped herself before she confessed her family struggles, her gaze dropping to his chest. There was a difference between being honest and revealing your most personal private secrets. She didn’t want him to feel obligated to help or support her because she was struggling. No. Honest was what honest was, but he didn’t deserve to carry her family’s burden. Still, he just felt so big and strong, such an easily created hero, and it would be equally easy to just let him take care of her. And wrong and weak and…

He drew her fingers to his lips. “Tell me, Darla.”

She blinked him back into view. She was tempted by the gentle prod he’d spoken once before back in the hotel, as well, and comforted by the fact that she was certain he wouldn’t push her to reply, as she hadn’t pushed him earlier on the street. She liked that. She liked that he’d wait on her to be ready, just as he was willing to wait before making love. Not that she wanted to wait. But he would wait—
for her.

She touched his jaw, letting the light stubble rasp against her fingertips. “I’m just glad you’re here, Blake. Right here, where you can be all mine.” Her hand traveled the wall of his chest, then she pulled his shirt from his pants. She smoothed her hands underneath, over taut skin and flexing muscle. “Thank you for what you tried to do, but no thank you. Stay. I want you to stay.” She nibbled his bottom lip, felt her core clench with anticipation. “I promise to make you as sleep-deprived as I’ll be tomorrow.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, molding her closer with a spray of longer fingers at the base of her back. “Not unless you make me.” He leaned in and brushed his lips over hers, a soft caress and a flicker of tongue just past her teeth, a delicious tease as he murmured, “You taste too good.” He pushed her jacket over her shoulders as she had his. Darla shrugged out of it and Blake was already pulling her to him again, claiming her mouth with his, making love to her with his tongue, his hands bringing her closer and driving her wild. Need charged every nerve ending in her body.

Darla fumbled with his shirt buttons, eager to touch him, to explore every last inch of his hard, hot body. He seemed to feel the same. He fumbled with her blouse, his anxious touch sent buttons flying. She didn’t care. She just wanted skin against skin. He shoved down her bra on one side and palmed her breast, squeezed her nipple, rough but right. Oh,
so
right. Darla moaned with pleasure, covering his hand with hers.

He slipped a hand beneath her skirt, over her lacy thigh-high stockings and then over her bare backside. He moaned at the same time she did, nipping her bottom lip with his teeth. “Darla, do you have any idea how badly I wanted to do this when you were sitting on that desk during the photo shoot today?” His fingers dipped lower, teasing her with how close he was to the wet heat of her core. He lowered his head and she felt warm breath on her neck before his lips brushed her sensitive skin. “All I could think about was how easily I could have just pulled you close and tasted you again. How much I wanted to lick you and tease you until you called my name.” He squeezed her nipple, flicked it. “Did you think of me touching you, Darla? Of me tasting you?”

“Yes,” she whispered, shocked that she was admitting such a thing, that she had indeed thought those things in the middle of a public place. But she had. Yes, she had. She’d thought of everything, from him tasting her with his mouth on her in the most intimate of ways, to Blake, in all his naked glory, riding her, buried inside her. It had driven her wild. He was driving her wild now. He made her feel free and uninhibited.

“I’ve waited hours for this,” Blake growled huskily. “Hours that I told myself I couldn’t have you. Not tonight.”

She leaned into him. He was strong and solid, and perfect in ways she couldn’t begin to name or understand. He just…was. “I bet you say that to all the women.”

His hands framed her face, his eyes finding hers. “Just you, Darla. You get that, right? There’s just you.”

Emotion expanded in her chest at the unexpected confession. “Good,” she whispered, because it was all she could manage to get out before she could even think about perhaps holding back, being guarded.

“I like that answer,” he said a moment before his mouth slanted over hers, his tongue caressing hers with sensual strokes that she felt from head to toe. There was something more happening between them than a few wild nights, something that had no place in the midst of their jobs, but she couldn’t seem to care.

She lost herself in the sensation of him touching her, barely aware of how her skirt, his as well, even her bra, had disappeared, just as her inhibitions had the instant this man came into her life. There was only a momentary return to reality in which she realized she was giving him total control. That she trusted him enough to allow him to have it. To enjoy his hands on her bare breasts, to cover them with her own and silently beg him not to stop. His lips brushed her ear, his warm breath sending a shiver down her spine, as he repeated, “Are you going to show me what’s under that skirt, or leave me in painful anticipation?” He slid her side zipper down.

“I’d say I’d tease you a little but I think that might have to wait until later,” she confessed, letting him inch it down her hips. She kicked it away the instant it hit the floor.

He set her at arm’s length, his hands resting on her hips. The heat of his sizzling inspection was as arousing as his touch. Her skin flushed and she still felt sexy, and with Blake, it felt good.
Trust.
She felt trust and freedom with him that defied their short relationship. It was the second time she’d had such a thought and it spurred her into action, piercing the protective walls she maintained, making her want to please him. To show him how good he made her feel.

She approached him, her lips parting at the hungry expression she’d captured on his face. Hunger that bled into her, fed her desire, her passion to show him just how much she wanted him. Darla scraped her teeth over her bottom lip.

“Show
me,
” she whispered. Then in a louder voice, “Undress.” She leaned against the couch with her hands behind her, comfortable in her nakedness with him. She liked that. She didn’t remember ever feeling as playful or comfortable with any man before. Not that there had been many, but then, maybe that was why—they hadn’t ever made her feel this way.

His gaze raked over her body and he took a step toward her. She pointed, the corners of her mouth lifting. “Not until you have undressed. Halfway wasn’t good enough the first time, and it still isn’t.”

He didn’t laugh. In fact, he looked like he was going to combust with the effort to control himself, but he stopped and reached for his pants and toed off his shoes. Her hands immediately went to his waist, then slid over his broad chest, and lower still to his cock.

He made a rough, primal sound and reached for her. But she instantly went down on her knees. His erection jutted forward, thick and pulsing, and she wrapped her hand around it, forming a tight grip. She licked the head. “I’m going to show you how glad I am you stayed tonight.”

“You did that when you told me to stay.”

“Not as thoroughly as I wanted to.” She lapped at the head of his cock, swirling her tongue around it. “You like that?” she asked, playing coy.

“Hell, yeah, I like it,” he replied, his voice laden with desire.

Now, she felt in control. She licked him up and down. His expression darkened and he let out a long breath. She licked him some more, drawing him in her mouth and swirling. She was teasing him and he knew it. She wanted him to want her so bad that he couldn’t hold back.