Paradise County (25 page)

“Alex. Look at me.”

She did, opening her eyes to meet his gaze.

“Tell me what you want.”

“You.” It was a mere breath of sound.

His eyes were so dark they were almost obsidian. His mouth was slightly open as he drew in air with short, harsh, breaths. Tiny beads of sweat had popped out on his brow.

“Me? Where?”

Her body moved in instinctive answer, shifting beneath him, pleading without words. But still he held back, his shaft pulsing and burning as it just barely prodded the hot moist folds of her flesh.

“Where?” The question was insistent.

She gasped. “Inside—me.”

“Ah.” It was a low, guttural sound. Slowly, slowly, slowly, he began to push inside her, thick and hard and hot, filling her to capacity, stretching her… .

She cried out.

Twenty

L
ater, much later, Alex stirred. She was lying back to front against a warm male body, his arm hard and possessive around her waist, his chest rising and falling against her back, his breathing regular in her ear. She was drowsy, lethargic. Her mind might not be quite awake yet, but her body felt soft and totally sated, and she knew, in some vague way, that she had just been well and truly fucked.

Her movement must have awakened him, because he stirred too. The hand that had been resting heavily across her stomach now slid up to cup her breast.

Alex smiled without opening her eyes.

“Oh, Paul,” she said huskily. “Paul, darling, that was
so
good.”

The hand caressing her breast stilled. The arm lying across her rib cage went rigid. The body behind her stiffened.

Alex’s eyes popped open as she realized what she had done.

“Oh, God,” she said, rolling onto her back. He was still lying on his side, but he raised himself up as she watched, supporting his upper torso on a brawny bent arm. Their gazes met. Wide, horrified blue eyes looked into narrowed aqua ones.

“Wrong guy,” he said, and levered himself off the bed.

Alex sat up, supremely conscious of her nakedness as his eyes raked her. “Oh, Joe, I’m sorry! It’s just—I was half asleep and …”

“No problem. Glad to fill in.” His tone was hard and clipped. He was already pulling on his clothes, first his jockey shorts and then his jeans… .

She watched him with consternation, almost babbling in an effort to make things right. “Joe, it was just a slip of the tongue, I swear. I’m so used to being with Paul—when I woke up next to a man I just naturally assumed—but like I said, it was so good. The sex, I mean. I feel so much better now.”

He pulled his flannel shirt over his head, thrust his arms through the sleeves, bent to pick up his boots, and looked at her. His eyes were flinty, his mouth a thin straight line.

“Honey, next time you feel like indulging in a little sex therapy, leave me out of it, okay?”

“Jo-oe!” She almost wailed his name as he turned on his heel and stalked through the door.

“I’ll wait for you in the kitchen,” he said over his shoulder, and disappeared from view.

For a moment Alex sat where she was, stunned, while the events of the last couple of hours replayed themselves in her mind. They had made love a total of three times. After he had brought her to a shattering climax the first time, he had given her only a few minutes to recover before turning onto his back and pulling her on top of him. At his direction she’d ridden him while he’d looked and played. She hadn’t thought she could come again so soon, but he knew just where to touch her and what to do, and she had, crying out at the end and collapsing on top of him. Finally, when she’d been lying on her stomach, exhausted and just about to fall asleep, he had wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her up onto her hands and knees and entered her from behind. His thrusts had been slow and deep, and in between he had kissed the back of her neck and run his tongue along her spine and nibbled on her bottom. Her climax had been spectacular, and afterwards she had just died, tumbling fathoms deep asleep, for how long she couldn’t say, but with disastrous results.

It had been the best sex of her life, too.

Oh, God, now she had to go find him and tell him so. Men were so sensitive.

Making a face, Alex got up, gathered up her clothes—she had left her twin set in the kitchen, she remembered with just the teeniest niggle of embarrassment—dropped them in the mesh bag she was using as a hamper, and took a quick shower. Operating in the dark bathroom was tricky, but she was sweaty and covered with his body hair and juices, and she just couldn’t stand herself. The shower, which was on the cool side as the water in the tank was, apparently, gradually losing its heat, took no more than three minutes. It took only slightly more than that to don fresh clothes from her suitcase—soft gray corduroy slacks, a white sweater, and her boots—and brush out her hair, wincing only a little as she smoothed the area around the stitches. Smoothing gloss over her lips with a fingertip, she headed downstairs.

He was in the kitchen, as he had said, leaning against the far counter, his expression meditative rather than angry as he sipped a Diet Coke.

She smiled contritely as soon as she saw him and walked across the kitchen to plant a kiss on his cheek. He suffered the kiss but did not respond, slanting a look at her that told her she still had a considerable amount of fence mending to do.

“Joe,” she said plaintively, a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry.”

“No apology needed.” His face and voice were impassive. His body language was relaxed even as he moved away from her and stood in front of the sink, pouring the remaining contents of his can down the drain. But his eyes as they met hers were wintry.

Alex gave a wry little laugh. “That’s obvious. You’re being ridiculous, you know. Saying Paul’s name like that—it was just an accident.”

“The kind of thing that could happen to anybody, in fact.” He crushed the empty can in one hand.

“I meant the other part of what I said, though—the sex was good. Great really.” She smiled at him coaxingly. “The best I’ve ever had.”

“Yeah, it was good for me, too.” He moved, throwing the can in the trash. “Come on, I’ll take you back to the house. It’ll be dark in an hour and I’ve got some work I need to do.”

“If you’re going to be crabby, I’m not going anywhere with you.” The threat was half playful.

“Fine by me. Stay up here in the dark for as long as you like. If you think you see a ghost, you can always run screaming down the hill again.”

Alex’s eyes narrowed at him. “You know, that was uncalled for.”

“Hey, Princess, truth hurts.”

Alex felt her temper begin to heat. “If you want to talk about truth, let’s talk about a man who’s so ego-sensitive that he gets his feelings all bruised over a perfectly innocent slip of the tongue.”

He smiled at her, a quick stretching of his lips that was utterly devoid of humor. “Or we could talk about a woman with so many lovers, she can’t keep their names straight.”

Alex’s jaw dropped. “You know, I’m really not going anywhere with you.”

“Like I said, fine by me.” He turned and headed toward the door, then stopped when he reached it, stood stock-still for a moment, and pivoted to face her. “You don’t even have a damned flashlight. Get whatever you and your sister need for the night together, and be quick about it. I’m not leaving you up here.”

Alex met his gaze with a glittering one of her own. “You know, I don’t know where you get off thinking you can give me orders.”

“You liked me giving you orders earlier.” His tone made it perfectly clear which orders he was referring to. Her face crimsoned as she heard them again in her mind:
take off your bra; take off your pants; now those.

“Get out of my house!”

“Get your things together.”

“Like hell I will!”

“Fine, don’t.” He came toward her. Knowing what he was about to do—he was a fine one for picking her up and carting her off—Alex turned tail and ran. The bedrooms all had doors that locked… .

He was close behind her, his boots loud on the brick pavers and then muffled as he chased her through the front hall. Casting a single hunted look over her shoulder, Alex managed to beat him to the stairs and was halfway up when, without warning, the front door opened.

Joe had just reached the foot of the stairs. He, and she, froze in their tracks as Neely bounced into the hall, followed by Eli.

“There you are,” Neely said, spying Alex, while Eli, after a single quick look at Alex, focused on Joe.

“When you were late seeing to the horses, I thought I better come check on you,” Eli said.

Joe had let go of the banister and turned to face the new arrivals, his posture carefully casual. Now he managed a smile for his son.

“What, did you think I got lost? Miss Haywood here was just getting a few things together so that she and her sister could spend the night at our house again, since the electricity doesn’t look like it’s coming back on.”

“Oh, yay,” Neely said, looking at Eli.

“Actually, I thought we’d go to a hotel.” Alex addressed this to Neely, then directed a glittering look at Joe. “I wouldn’t dream of imposing on your hospitality for a second night.”

“A hotel?” Joe sounded like he was on the verge of letting loose with a derisive hoot. “’Fraid we’re fresh out of five-star establishments hereabouts.”

“I saw a hotel on the way to the hospital last night.” It was all Alex could do to keep her voice relatively pleasant, and a smile pasted on her lips.

“You did?” For a moment he looked at a loss. Then genuine amusement lit his eyes. “Oh, you mean the Dixie Inn.”

“That’s right.”

“By all means, if you don’t want to impose, you should certainly spend tonight at the Dixie Inn.”

“But Dad …” Eli protested under his breath.

“Alex, I really don’t want to go to a hotel.” Neely’s voice was louder.

“Too bad. Because that’s what we’re going to do.” Alex shot Neely a killer look.

“Actually, that’s probably a pretty good idea, now that I come to think about it. The Dixie Inn has electricity, and this
is
a school night.” Joe’s voice was bland.

“Dad …” Eli groaned.

“Alex …” Neely wailed.

“Hey, that’s the end of the discussion,” Joe said. Eli, being his son and, Alex thought, thus long inured to taking orders, shut up. What was surprising was that Neely, after a single thoughtful glance at first her sister and then Joe, was silent too.

About an hour later, Alex and Neely were driving in the white Mercedes down U.S. 60 toward Shelbyville and the Dixie Inn. It was shortly after six o’clock, and night had fallen. Only a single car passed them going the other way. Alex flipped the headlights on high, the better to see through the darkness. At least, she thought, it wasn’t raining.

“So how was he?” Neely asked as she fiddled with the radio dials, trying to find an acceptable station.

Alex shot her sister a quick, wary glance.

“What?”

Neely grinned at her.

“I said, how was he?”

Alex tried, with, she hoped, some success, to keep her face perfectly blank. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Come off it, sister. Daddy Studmuffin. You did him. I can tell.”

“Neely …” Alex got a mental grip. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said again, firmly.

“Fine. Don’t tell me. But if you’re going to hold out, I won’t tell you about Eli.”

This time the look Alex sent her sister was truly appalled. “Neely—you didn’t.”

Neely laughed.

Alex was still trying to figure out whether her sister was teasing—she was horribly afraid she was not—as they pulled into the Dixie Inn. It was a one-story building, Alex saw with a glance, that could more properly be described as a motel rather than a hotel. It was long and low and
U-shaped, built around a rectangular courtyard that served as the parking lot. Alex remembered Joe’s amusement at the idea that she and Neely would spend the night here, and braced herself for less than stellar accommodations. At one end was a glassed-in restaurant that also functioned, apparently, as the motel’s reception area. It was toward this that they headed.