Hot Property (13 page)

Michael’s arms slid around her, holding her a willing prisoner. She felt safe from danger when he held her this way. Nothing outside could harm her. But who or what could protect her from him, and from her own crazy self?

She wasn’t sure how or when they decided to make love, but neither one of them made even the slightest move toward stopping. There was no hesitation as one kiss turned into many, one caress flowed smoothly into another.

She didn’t care that they stood in the entrance hall without even a carpet to lie on, thanks to her redecorating efforts. She didn’t flinch when he reached under her shirt to touch her breasts through her whisper-thin bra. She didn’t feel shy or embarrassed when he worked frantically at the buttons of her crisp work shirt until he’d freed her of the cumbersome garment. And she felt nothing but awe when he began stripping his own clothes off.

Oh, Lord, he had a beautiful body, all planes and angles, not a square inch of anything soft on it. He seemed bigger, somehow, after shedding his shirt, filling the room, overwhelming her senses.

She didn’t wait for him to finish undressing her.
She shucked her jeans and socks in a heartbeat, watching his face as she did, watching his dark, deep eyes.

The hunger she saw in his expression fascinated her. She was positive no man had ever looked at her that way before, as if she were the most gorgeous creature on earth.

Michael paused as he reached for his belt buckle. “If you’re going to stop this insanity,’ do it now,” he said, his voice hardly more than a hoarse whisper.

She wouldn’t dream of it, and started to say so. But just then he dropped his jeans, and no words came. She shook her head emphatically. Right or wrong, the heat of the moment ruled. Hesitation was for wimps. Regrets could wait till another day. She, Wendy Thayer, felt more alive than she had at any previous moment in her life, and she was taking full advantage of it.

When they were both naked, they stood and stared at each other once again. Now Wendy was the one who couldn’t get enough breath, gasping loud enough to scare a paramedic.

She thought she would die before he touched her, and then he did so with such gentleness, such respect, that her heart came near to shattering. Where was her tough cop now?

“Come to me,” he said. “Seeing you safe and sound isn’t enough. I need more proof.”

She understood. Dealing with death and danger on a daily basis, as she imagined he did, must make it doubly important for him to reaffirm life any way he could, as strongly as he could. She wouldn’t have understood
that concept a few days before, but at this moment she did. You couldn’t be scared inside, she reasoned, while you were making love. And right now she needed not to be scared.

She took the two steps that closed the gap between them and pressed her body, naked skin to naked skin, against his. His arousal jutted against her abdomen, reminding her how virile a man he was. At any other time, his sex might have intimidated her, but not here, not now. She wiggled, deliberately rubbing herself against him, and he groaned in response.

She imagined him scooping her in his arms then and taking her to bed, but it didn’t happen that way. A low table against one wall of the entrance hall sported a tacky plastic flower arrangement, which Wendy hadn’t gotten around to replacing. With one sweeping gesture Michael sent it flying. Then he lifted her and sat her on the edge of the table.

Oh, yeah, this was going to work, she caught herself thinking. Since when had she become such a wanton creature? But now was not the time for self-analysis. She parted her legs and pulled him against her, then squeezed his hips between her thighs. His shaft brushed against her femininity, and she gasped at the sparks of pleasure that shot through her body.

She was suddenly consumed with the need to have him inside her, to claim and be claimed by this magnificent male animal. She reached between their bodies and touched him, stroking gently at first as he accustomed himself to her, then more boldly.

Not that he needed any help. He was like steel covered in velvet. She started to guide him home.

“You can’t be ready …” he started to stay, but she nodded.

“Oh, yes, I can.” She barely recognized the sultry, throaty voice coming out of her mouth.

As he slid inside her, it became obvious that she was more than ready. She was literally hot for him, and he filled her in one swift stroke. It was almost too perfect, and she cried out with sheer joy.

He didn’t move at first, letting her get used to the feel of him inside her. She closed her eyes and threw her head back, letting her hair cascade down her bare back. When he did move, she found herself making strange, involuntary noises like some untamed creature from the jungle.

Her vocalizations seemed to excite Michael. He began moving, slowly at first, then faster, grasping her buttocks to pull himself even more deeply inside her. The most exquisite pressure built inside her, bringing tears to her eyes and a thickness to her throat. It wasn’t just the physical sensations, she realized through her sensual haze. This was Michael, who was both her adversary and her champion, her devil and her angel. And at that moment she felt something very fierce and elemental, a possessiveness that bordered on insanity.

The moment she was waiting for came without warning, with no effort on her part. One moment she was floating along on a sea of indescribable pleasure, and the next she was drowning in it. Her cries echoed
inside the little house, mixing with Michael’s guttural noises as he lost control and emptied himself inside her.

She’d never experienced such a moment of joint exultation, as if they’d just won their own private Super Bowl.

Wendy wasn’t sure what she expected him to say. She would have thought she’d be prepared for everything. But after they caught their breaths, while they were still clinging to each other, their bodies sheened with sweat, he shattered the mood.

“Wendy, please tell me you’re on the Pill.”

Michael knew it was the wrong thing to say the moment the words left his mouth. Of all the insensitive, boorish moves, asking about birth control
after the fact
had to be right up there at the top of the list.

Her mouth dropped open and she stared at him, her leaf green eyes blinking rapidly. Oh, Lord, he hadn’t made her cry, he hoped.

He ran his fingers through her autumn-hued hair and caressed her cheek with one thumb. “That didn’t come out the way I meant. It’s just that normally I would think of that first, but you made me so crazy …” The Wendy Thayer Effect.

Her muscles relaxed. He could feel them loosening where her legs were wrapped around him, where his hand supported her bare back. “I’m not protected,” she admitted.

Michael tried not to show panic, or any of the other myriad feelings stirring around inside him.
What if he had a child out of wedlock? What would that do to his plans, not to mention Wendy’s?

But some traitorous part of his imagination took another tack. What would Wendy look like waddling around like Maggie Courtland? Would the baby have her auburn hair and green eyes?

Abruptly she turned those frightened eyes up to him. “Would they still make me go to jail if I’m pregnant?”

“Don’t borrow trouble, Wendy. It was one time.”

“Yeah, famous last words! What were we thinking? I’ve never done this, done
it
with no birth control, not ever.”

He eased away from her, then turned and looked at the clothing-strewn entry hall. This had been a first in many ways for him. First time he’d ever done it on a hall table. With a suspect. And, yeah, with no protection. His father had drilled it into his head from the time he was thirteen—don’t take chances, don’t play Russian roulette with your DNA.

Looking back at Wendy, he wished he’d never brought up the subject, though she probably would have thought of it on her own before long. “Don’t panic, please. On the infinitesimal chance that there are … consequences—”

“Don’t call our baby ‘consequences’!” she cried, hopping off the table. In one swift movement she scooped up her clothes and fled down the hall.

Michael stared after her, shaking his head. He’d just made love to a nut. He ought to regret it, the impulsiveness, the fact that he’d compromised his ethics
all over the place. But he didn’t. He found himself smiling as he put his own clothes back on.

He found Wendy in the bedroom, sitting against the scarred wooden headboard, fully clothed once again in a pale blue shirt and jeans. She had her knees pulled up and a pillow hugged to her chest.

“Can I come in?” he called softly.

She shrugged. “Sure.”

He entered the humble room, where apparently Wendy’s decorating urges hadn’t yet penetrated. He sat on the edge of the bed, far enough away from her that he couldn’t touch her if the urge struck him, which he was sure it would. Though not five minutes before, he’d satisfied himself with her to the
n
th degree, he still wanted to touch her.

She gave him a sheepish smile. “You must think I’m some kind of nutcase.”

“The thought never crossed my mind,” he lied.

“I need to explain something. You know how some women, when they have an orgasm, they laugh or cry, or scream or fall unconscious or whatever?”

“Yeah …” He wondered where
this
was going.

“Well, I get emotional. Whatever I happen to be feeling gets magnified a hundred times.”

“Is this your cute little way of telling me you might have overreacted a minute ago?”

She cracked a smile, which for some reason filled Michael with relief. “Yeah. I get all illogical. Then it passes. Everything happened so quickly, I didn’t have a chance to warn you.”

“It’s all right. No harm done. And, believe me, I
won’t ever refer to little what’s-its-name as ‘Consequences’ again. That would be a tough name to have to go through life with.”

“Michael!” She threw the pillow at him, which he neatly dodged. It sailed past him to the floor, and he leaned over and snagged it.

“Wanna play rough?”

She grabbed the other pillow and held it in front of her like a shield, actually laughing. “No, no, I quit, uncle.”

The playful mood deserted her as quickly as it had arrived. Wendy tossed the pillow aside. “You’re right, there’s no use worrying. But I think we should visit a drugstore immediately. Being caught unprepared once is one thing …” She let her voice trail off.

Damn. He hadn’t wanted to have to make this speech. He’d thought for sure Wendy would be the first to start hollering about what a terrible mistake they’d made and they should never,
ever
repeat it. But apparently she didn’t view their recent indiscretion as a one-time thing.

The possibilities shimmered between them like an electric current, tantalizing. He started to formulate a rationalization before he stopped himself.

“Wendy, we can’t …” He ran his fingers through his thick, wavy hair, which hadn’t seen a comb in too long. “What I mean is, I’ve got more to worry about than an unplanned pregnancy. You have to realize that I didn’t just cross the line here, I jumped over it and stomped around.”

“Oh.” She cast her eyes down. He wished she
would look at him. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings. “I guess this was sort of one of those wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kind of things, huh?”

She made their lovemaking sound cheap and casual, which it hadn’t been. But how could he explain?

He stood up and paced the small room, then started another explanation. “I’ve always been a good cop. My record is spotless. But this falls into the category of abusing my power, my authority, as a peace officer.”

“Oh, baloney,” she said flatly, scowling at him. “You didn’t abuse anything. What just happened out there had nothing to do with you being a cop and me being a suspect. Unless you thought I might confess in the heat of the moment.”

“No, I certainly wasn’t thinking about the case,” he said, unable to suppress an evil grin. When he’d been inside Wendy, he’d thought of nothing but her heat and her passion and his need to possess her completely.

“So what’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is, if anyone found out about this, my application to the Bureau would get kicked back so fast, my head would spin. Hell, I might even lose my job. No, make that a certainty.”

“And how, pray tell, would anyone find out about our making love?” she asked succinctly. “You think I’m going to call a press conference?”

He scratched his head. Didn’t she get it? “Wendy, I wouldn’t blame you if you did. You could probably get your whole case thrown out.”

“Really?”

He didn’t know why he was telling her this. He might as well call the damn press conference himself and sign a written confession. “Really.”

“Well, I’ll keep that in mind if the case should actually go to trial,” she said with a toss of her head. Then she grew serious. “Michael, I’m not going to tell anyone. I don’t believe in using sex as a weapon. I’ll beat these charges against me with honesty and good old-fashioned detective work, not sleazy legal tricks.”

Michael couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He’d long ago given up on that kind of integrity. It seemed as if everyone he knew, everyone he dealt with, was out to beat the system and screw whoever it took to win.

Later he would realize that that was the moment he’d started to fall in love with Wendy Thayer.

“Thank you,” was all he could think of to say.

“Now that we’ve got that out of the way, if you want to walk away from a night of indescribable pleasures, don’t do it because you think it’ll derail your career.”

She was a tricky one, all right. She’d just argued him out of all his sensible reasons why they should forget about getting naked ever again.

“I can’t offer you any promises,” he said. “As soon as I’m accepted at the Bureau, I’ll be shipping out to Quantico for training, then to Washington.”

She thrust her chin out in a gesture he was becoming very familiar with. “I’m not looking for a longterm relationship,” she said. “I just got rid of one
boyfriend, and I’m not keen on finding a replacement any time soon. But I’m scared and feeling all alone, and you’re real and warm and solid, and I just … I just need you tonight. Stay here with me. One night.”