Lord of Rage & Primal Instincts (28 page)

Like jelly.

Ava wanted to raise her gaze. To see into his eyes. To gauge his expression, and see if it matched the husky aroused sound of his voice. But she didn’t. That’s what made this experience so unique, so intense and yet slightly detached. Western cultures placed a lot of emphasis on meeting another’s eyes. By not, the whole dynamic between two people completely changes.

Like now.

“He could slide his hands down. The skin behind the knee is very sensitive. Or she may suggest he find her inner elbow with his mouth.”

Ian did both. The warmth of his tongue was a purely erotic sensation against her skin. Detached? Who was she kidding? She felt fully engaged.

“When does he kiss her?” he asked, his voice rough and low and sexy as hell. Ian had even added a move of his own, gently blowing against the bare skin of her stomach, the warmth making her tingle.

“He doesn’t,” she said, her voice sounding close to a moan. He tugged her closer toward him and his tongue began to wind a lazy path along her collarbone and slowly moved to below her ear.

Ava was losing the upper hand. She needed to stay focused.
Fall back on research.

“You know there are many cultures that never kiss, the Inuit in Alaska being the most well-known. Across the world from the Americas, the Pacific areas and Africa, we find many people that never touched lip to lip. Although researchers documented the kiss first in India, dating it as far back as 1500 BCE.”

His hands curved around her hips and drew her still nearer to the heat of his body. She lost her balance and landed in his lap. Startled, she finally met his eyes. Dark brown and full of intense heat and hunger. Intimate.

“Good thing that no-kissing rule doesn’t extend to my culture.” Then Ian lowered his head, his lips on hers. Heaven. His lips were firm and something elemental exploded inside her.

She wanted more, but Ian broke off the kiss. He smoothed the sweep of her hair over her shoulder and kissed her neck. Licking that place below her ear.

“This is not what we’re supposed to be doing here. The Bogani women are always in control and would never allow the man to take over like this.”

“Oh, yeah?” He nipped her earlobe. “Tell me what else we’re not supposed to be doing.”

Her fingers traveled up his to grasp the muscles of his shoulder. Then she sank her fingers into the hair at his neck. She’d loved the feeling of his hand stroking her scalp. Loved hearing his breath quicken when she did the same.

“I shouldn’t be on your lap like this.” His thighs hardened beneath her.

“Maybe you shouldn’t press your breasts against my chest. I’d hate that.”

Her nipples drew taut, the sheer fabric not hiding her body’s response to his words. Ava flattened herself against him, and he groaned.

“A Bogani widow would spend a whole day teaching a man how to touch a woman’s breasts. To caress and stroke and finally lick.”

“I don’t know if I could last a whole day,” he said next to her throat. His hand moved to cup her breast, his thumb finding and circling her nipple.

She cried out at the hot pleasure of his touch. “I have faith in you.”

“Glad someone does,” he said as his lips claimed hers once more.

This was no playful, teasing kiss. Ian almost growled when she touched her tongue to his. She hadn’t expected the near-instant sexual connection she’d have with Ian to be so strong. So primal.

But sometimes that’s what you got, and it was a rare, precious thing, so why not go for it? His fingers dipped for the ties holding the Hidali costume in place. “I had about a million reasons in my mind why we shouldn’t have sex.” His whispered words sent a thrill through her veins.

“Me, too.”

His gaze sharpened. “You did? You’ve been thinking about having sex with me, but discounted it?”

She blinked up at him, missing the heat that was now fading in his eyes. “Sure. I want you. DNA programming. I found you attractive the moment you spoke.”

His eyes narrowed. “So, it’s just biology? Has nothing to do with me…personally.”

“That’s right. Sex is a normal, natural part of life. If I’ve observed anything since I’ve been back, it’s that people seem to make such a big deal about doing the deed,” she said with a shrug.

He didn’t respond for a moment, as if he were considering her words carefully. “Well, if it’s just sex, a totally biological function, then let’s do it.”

“Do what?”

A dark flame lit in his brown eyes. “Let’s have sex. Right here. We don’t even have to break out the paints. Just you, me and that rumble-drum music.”

She tightened her arms around him. “Sure.”

Ian made a strange sound in the back of his throat. “I know you’ve been away for a while, and so have I for that matter, but usually women aren’t so…so…”

“So what?”

“So okay with just being biological.”

“What do you mean?”

He gently pushed her out of his lap and stood. “We’re missing the game playing, the pretending. Me trying to ramp up the action. You countering with a token denial.”

“And that’s what you want?”

He began to pace. “No, but it’s what I’m used to.”

“Ian, look. I don’t know what to say. Obviously my experience level with dating normal people isn’t very high, but it seems to me most problems between a man and woman could be cleared up with one good sit-down conversation.”

He stopped his pacing and faced her. “You’re right.”

“I don’t want to give you a token denial, but the truth of the matter is I didn’t really act on my attraction to you because this…this tension between us, this heat, I think it will translate on the page of the book. We could get…biological now. I have these great oils I’d love to try—they’re all the way from Bolivia. Or we could work on the book and wait.”

Strange how at that precise moment the intensity of the drum music lessoned. Near silence descended upon them as she waited for his decision.

Ian sank against the cushions of her couch. His breath came out in sharp frustrated exhalations. Then his gaze cut to hers.

“You have a natural instinct for picking customs that would be interesting and instructional to today’s lovers. But you’re terrible at choosing chapter titles and you bog down the flow with too much history.”

“I won’t be left out of the writing.”

“I don’t plan to cut you out. Before, when you told me of the Bogani women, that was exciting. That was different, and that’s what people would want to read about.
When you tell me about these people, their beliefs, you make them come alive. Seem like living, breathing people that anyone can relate to, can swap lives with, even for just an evening. That’s what this book needs.”

She glanced down at the manuscript pages covered with his red scribbles. “Obviously I’m not very good at putting my thoughts on paper.”

“That’s where I come in. I’m going to interview you. Every ceremony, every food, every dance you’ll share with me. Together we’ll get this book written.”

She nodded, liking the idea. “I think that could really work.”

Ian stood, reaching for all the papers of her manuscript and stuffing them into the empty space in his laptop bag. “We won’t be needing these. We’ll start from scratch tomorrow, when we’re fresh.”

Ava followed him to the door. She leaned against the wall after he left, picking at a bead on her bodice.

Ian had chosen the book over making love to her.

She would ignore that let-down feeling.

A
VA GREETED HIM WEARING
jeans and a light gray hoodie. She’d pulled her hair back in a ponytail, and Ian realized he liked this casual Ava. Hell, he just liked looking at the woman.

Today they’d be working on the chapter on scents. With that damn cinnamon, Ava had made him a believer that a man did respond on an elemental level. At least in a small way. But he wouldn’t be lying if he said he’d been looking forward to this day of writing as a relief from the sexual tension brewing between them. Just how out of his mind would he get from smelling a few vials?

She smiled when she spotted his laptop case. “Don’t you think we should experience this together before writing about it?”

“I like to be prepared.”

“I’ll remember that about you,” she said with a wink.

She was doing it again. Turning his innocent comments into something that sounded like a double entendre. As if he was prepared for sex with a condom all at the ready. Or maybe that was in his own mind. She spent most of her life out of the country—did she even know what she seemed to be implying? He was going crazy.

“I’ve set everything up in the front room.”

He’d expected vials and incense and containers of oil. Cotton swabs to capture the scents. What he hadn’t
prepared for was the scene she’d set up. Ava had been very industrious, pushing back the couches and making a pallet on the floor with colorful blankets, no doubt weaved on the bare thighs of women preparing for sex or some such story designed to push him over the edge.

Two large pillows, presumably where he was supposed to sit, were surrounded by lit candles.

Holy hell.

She reached for his hand. “Take off your shoes and come with me,” her voice an invitation to be wicked.

Her soft fingers tightened around his after he’d kicked off his shoes, and she led him to the pillows, reclining on the one facing him.

“These candles are unscented so they won’t mask the smells we’re trying to explore, but set a nice mood. Rather than just list the fragrances that the opposite sex finds attractive, I thought it would be far more interesting to dab the oils on our bodies.”

Of course she’d have that idea. Ava Simms had lots of great ideas on how to torture him sexually.

“Are we talking pheromones?”

She shook her head. “As subconscious sex attractants, nothing can beat them, but it’s thought that only eighty percent of humans have the organ to even sense them. Some researchers think even less can detect pheromones due to disuse. Those odds are terrible. Why leave something like that to chance?”

He was beginning to think Ava didn’t leave much to chance. Him, he’d take a little mystery.

“So humans found a way to maximize the senses we do have.” Ava reached for a lighter and lit a thin stick. “Patchouli awakens sexuality, and comes from the tropical areas in Asia. Incense is the easiest way to find it.”

He watched as Ava delicately blew out the flame on
the stick and waved a cloud of smoke around them. Despite his late night, he was now wide-awake.

She’d closed her eyes and took a deep breath. His body hardened as he watched her enjoy the smell surrounding them. This woman took pleasure in so many things.

She opened her eyes and smiled. “It’s kind of sweet and earthy,” she said as she placed the stick on an ornately carved holder. “Patchouli is thought to alleviate anxiety, so it might be a good scent for first-time lovers.”

She kept bringing up the topic of first-time lovers, which always brought the prospect of the two of them being first-time lovers.

Ava reached for a vial beside her. “This is ylang-ylang. That means wilderness, and is used as a true aphrodisiac in the South Pacific.” She rubbed a small drop of it on the crease of her elbow.

“Every aroma takes on a whole different personality when on the skin. It mixes with our own natural scents and musks and creates something totally unique.” She shifted toward him. “Smell.”

He’d kissed this woman. Stroked her skin, cupped her breast, but there was something about lowering his head to breathe in the scent of her that was wholly intimate and erotic.

Ian wasn’t up on his scents. He couldn’t tell you the difference between jasmine and lavender, but he could say that what Ava rubbed on her skin made him think of nothing but raw lovemaking.

A slow smile curved her full lips. “Powerful, isn’t it? Ylang-ylang boosts the attraction between a man and a woman. Enhances energy and open-mindedness.”

His imagination sure wasn’t having any trouble.
Right now his mind was coming up with all kinds of energetic scenarios from pushing Ava back against that pillow to—

“Vanilla is particularly attractive to women.” She reached for a brown bottle. “This is pure vanilla extract that you can find in any grocery store. Not good to taste, but if you were to put some on your neck, I would keep getting closer and closer to you as the evening progressed.”

And here he’d been wasting all this money on expensive colognes.

“So do you think this will work for the book?”

All Ian could do was nod.

M
IRIAM WATCHED AS
J
EREMY
stretched in her bed, the sheets twisting around his flat stomach. She’d taken the day off. In fact she’d taken two. Unheard of. Now she was lazing around in bed past noon. What was with her?

Jeremy. His kiss. His hands on her body. His mouth on her skin. He was sexy, funny and…

And young.

She’d ask herself what did she think she was doing, but the tenderness of her breasts and the achiness between her thighs was a pretty good reminder.

She’d never been with anyone younger than her. Not even by a month. She didn’t need to consult Dr. Freud to know it stemmed from watching her father date women who were less than his age. First five years. Then seven. Finally fifteen.

Damn, was she using Jeremy? Using him to make her feel good about getting older? About gravity? About a lot of things? Was she that far off from her father?

Jeremy rolled over, reaching for her in the dark. Grasping her breast. He smiled in his sleep as her nip
ple hardened against his palm. That wasn’t the only thing hardening.

Even half-awake, he’d explored the terrain of her body with ease. His mouth had sought the sweet spot below her ear where she loved to have him kiss. Lick.

The way he made love to her was beautiful. The way he made her feel, amazing. She didn’t want anything ugly between them. Anything that remotely resembled the kind of relationships her father had had with his younger women.

“Jeremy?” she whispered. If he didn’t wake up, she could postpone this little conversation until morning.

He lifted his head. He smiled at her sleepily. “Is something wrong?” he asked, automatically reaching to comfort her.

She scooted away from him, as if she didn’t quite trust herself to get through this without dropping the whole subject so she could make love with him instead.

Okay, here it goes.
“What do you see happening here?”

Jeremy nodded, as if he’d suspected this would occur. The mattress squeaked as he sat up and rubbed his eyes.

“A guy driving halfway across the country doesn’t exactly speak one-night stand,” she said quickly.

“The way you hightailed it out of my hotel room back home tells me you aren’t looking for anything long-term.” His tone had changed. Slightly negative.

Why should she be surprised? They’d shared a weekend of no-strings sex. Weren’t twentysomething men supposed to be into that? And bonus, she’d left him before there could be any weird, awkward parting moments. There’d been no faux “Let’s keep in touch” or uncomfortable hug. Leaving that way had done them both a favor. Right?

“It was best that way,” she said quietly, dropping his gaze.

“For you?” But he wouldn’t let her block him out. He reached for her hands, his body on edge. “Miriam, I was worried sick. I didn’t even know if you’d made it home safely.”

Something warm and gooey formed around her heart at his words. Yuck. She was a grown woman. Ran a business. She could take care of herself.

And yet, that yucky gooey feeling wasn’t all that bad. It was kind of nice to think someone cared whether or not she was stranded by the side of the road. She couldn’t help it. She smiled.

“I never thought you’d worry about me.”

Some of the tension he’d carried in his shoulders relaxed. His lips turned up in a smile. “Well, I did.” His gaze captured hers for a moment, and he swallowed.

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. Wondering what you were doing. When I forgot about the blind date my sister had set up, I knew I had to figure out what was going on between us. I’d never stand up another person. I felt terrible.”

Miriam didn’t. The idea of him being with another woman made her stomach clench, and she’d never been the jealous type. Not once. She’d read enough articles in her magazine to know jealousy was not a productive emotion. But then she’d never been so attuned to a man’s every movement as she had been that weekend. And still was, based on their latest performance between the sheets.

“So, this trip is to get me out of your system?”

“The timing was right to see what we have. I’m between jobs right now.”

Yes, of course he was.
Dad’s women never seemed to keep a job for long.

His hand settled on her thigh, sending shivers along her skin, and the fact that he didn’t have a job wasn’t such an issue at the moment.

“But given the last two days, it might take a long, long time before I get you out of my system.” His hands cupped her hips and he lifted her to straddle him. He was already hard and ready for her, and her nipples tightened in anticipation of his touch. Jeremy was a breast man.

His fingers slid into her hair, and he gently drew her head toward him. “This can be whatever we want it to be,” he whispered against her mouth.

T
ONIGHT
I
AN WAS TAKING
her on a date. With him and nineteen other men. They were going on something called a speed date. Once again she had researched what she should wear, but the predominant answer was “business casual,” and that was even more difficult to fathom than going out to a nightclub.

Finally she opted for a black calf-length skirt with a bit of a kick pleat at the bottom. Her top was a salmon-colored scoop-neck blouse with a business jacket in case she got cold.

She did a quick turn for Ian when she met him outside the Bricktown restaurant where the event would be held. “How do I look?”

“My sister would approve.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “But you don’t.”

“Maybe I prefer paint.”

Her skin flushed as she remembered the way she’d first presented herself to Ian. He’d liked what he’d seen and she reveled in it now. Suddenly she didn’t want
to “date” anyone. Even if it were for seven minutes at a time.

Right now she just wanted to get to know Ian better. Away from her book. Away from customs. Just the way normal North American men and women met one another.

Unfortunately, speed dating seemed to be the way they did it. What a strange social rite. “How did this whole system develop?” she asked as he opened the door for her.

“Look at us. We spent a lot of our time in school, then out in the field with our careers. A person wakes up one day and realizes they forgot to date. So here’s the most efficient way to meet people who might be about your same age, experience and education, who have the same problem.”

Ian led her into a banquet room with a large sign proclaiming Speed Daters Welcome.

“Men on the left, women on the right,” came the loud voice of a woman standing on a chair and calling to them from the other side of a bullhorn.

“Have fun,” Ian said as he made his way to the left, and she joined a group of women dressed similarly to her. Whew, she hadn’t blown that.

“We’ll take a few moments to get everyone checked in with their name tags in place. There’s wine at the front of the room, may I suggest you partake of it?” said the woman with the bullhorn.

Several of the people laughed and made their way toward the wine table. Five minutes later, she was in her seat, sporting her name tag, as well as the number eighteen, just in case the man couldn’t remember her name. She had a score sheet and a pen, and was armed
with strict instructions not to write anything down until after she’d been on all the dates.

“When I blow my whistle, the men move to the left. Please do this quickly as we only have the room until nine. Let’s begin.”

A nice-looking man of about thirty or so sat across from her first. He had a sweet, friendly smile. “Hi, I’m Zach. So, do you want to have children in the future?”

Ava found herself longing for the whistle.

Luckily Ian was her fifth “date.”

“How is it going?” he asked.

“This feels more like a job interview than dating. I’ve been asked about my religion, my sexual health and my politics.”

“Well, you’re interviewing each other for the job of significant other.”

“Sounds inspiring.”

“Do I detect a note of disdain? From the woman who has no problem with a bunch of men wearing penis carvings around their necks, this,
this
is what you find unusual?”

“It’s so clinical.”

“Remember what you said about how most problems between a man and a woman could be solved with just a simple conversation? Think about how easy it would be if you had all potential dating land mines already out in the open?”

She hated to admit it, but he did have a point. And using her own words against her. How irritating.

The whistle sounded and Ian stood. He was successful. He was smart and funny, and in his chinos and long-sleeved polo shirt he was amazingly handsome. The epitome of what a twenty-first-century woman should want.

And although she sometimes dabbled in ancient cultures, she was all twenty-first-century woman tonight. She’d much rather spend the next seven minutes and the seven minutes after that talking with Ian. Laughing with Ian. That initial physical attraction she’d felt for him was beginning to deepen. She was beginning to want more.