Shadows and Silk (12 page)

“Speaking of wiggling,” Darcy said, running those long, slim fingers up and down his
arm.
He caught her hand and kissed her palm before
nipping at
each of her fingers. Her nipples spiked to hard points beneath the excuse for a bathing
suit top, and if
someone
didn’t
come and
show them to their room soon, he was going to look for the nearest dark corner
so
he could
relieve the
ache
in his balls.

“Who’s that woman with Max?
” she asked
, her voice breathy
.

“I haven’t noticed any other women since we walked in. Just you.”

Brant skimmed his fingers over her bare middle and slid them under the fabric of her
bikini top,
rubbing slow circles on
underside of her breast.
They were pressed together in the middle of the hotel lobby, the st
olen touches hidden from
the smattering of other couples scattered around, but it was obvious that
something
naughty was happening between them.
Her
hands clenched against his shirt, and he could see the pulse pounding in her throat.

“Liar,” she moaned against him. “You always notice everything.”

“That’s Jade. You’ll get a chance to meet her later.”

“
Stop teasing me,” she moaned.
“
Unless you’re living out some exhibitionist fetish that I d
o
n’t know about.”

He chuckled and removed his fingers from her bikini top. “You’re the tease. And I’m
past the point of caring who’s watching so long as I can be inside you.”
She shuddered against him and he held her close as their bodies settled down.

“She’s beautiful,” Darcy said out of the blue. “Jade, I mean.”

There was no doubt that Jade was a beautiful woman.
She was tall, a couple of inches shy of six feet, and she had a lean muscular body
and arms
like
Linda Hamilton’s in Terminator 2. Her skin was the color of dark caramel and her
black
hair was cut in a pixie style around her angular face.
Her green eyes matched her name
,
and the
exotic
tilt of them reminded him of a sorceress ready to cast a spell
.
You couldn’t tell by looking at her that she could kill a man with
only
the touch of her fingertips.

“What’s beautiful is the way that woman handles a weapon,” Brant said. “You’ll never
meet a better sniper.
She’s saved all our
asses
at one point or another.
”

Darcy shifted again, and he had to bite back a groan at the way she fit against him.
He leaned down and kissed his way up her cheek to her ear and whispered, “You know
you’re driving me crazy, don’t you, sugar?”

He felt her smile
against his chest. “Of course. But if it makes you feel any better I want you so bad
I can barely breathe.”

“God, Darcy,” he groaned. “We need to talk before we let this go any further. There’s
no doubt I’m going to be sliding into that hot pussy before the day is out, but there
are things we need to discuss.”

“There’s no need to discuss anything,” she said
, her eyes wide and serious
. “
I’ve made a decision, and I think we can have fun these next weeks without any of
the baggage you despise
. And if you don’t have me naked and screaming in the next forty-five minutes
,
I’m going to cause a riot. I’m a big girl this time around
, Brant
. I don’t expect anything more than you can give me. And when you walk away, I’ll
finally be able to move on to the next stage of my life without any regrets.”

“Will it be so simple to move on, Darcy?” he asked, his heart clutching at the thought
of how cold she sounded. How
final.
“I’ve made some decisions of my own. What if neither of us walk away this time?”

She pulled back so
there was a hairsbreadth of space between them
, but he couldn’t read her expression for once. “What are you saying, Brant? That
you want to get married and live happily ever after? Has an alien taken over your
body or something?”

He swallowed and nodded his head. “I’ll marry you. I can give you
that promise. We both keep our promises. And I can give you children.”

Her lips trembled with emotion and she shook her head in denial. “What about love,
Brant? Can you give me that, or are you making some magnanimous gesture just so you
can get your cake and eat it too?
Because really, it’s not a problem.
I’ll give you the cake for free,
and
let you eat it.”

Something terrible felt like it was ripping inside of him, but he knew that more than
one set of eyes were on them
,
so he pulled her back into his arms and buried his face against her neck
to hide the sudden tension between them
. He got the feeling that she was mocking him, but he hadn’t seen any humor in her
face.

Isn’t this what she wanted?

“So you’re telling me you won’t marry me unless I pretend to give you an emotion that
doesn’t even exist?
” he asked
, fury touching his voice
.
“
I could just lie and say the words you wanted to hear. That’s what most
people do, isn’t it? I thought you of all people would want to approach something
like this
with honesty, but I can say the words if you need
to hear
them
that bad
.”

“We should talk about this later,” she said. “People are staring at us.”

“They’re staring at you because you look like sin and sex. And I think we should
definitely
talk about this now.”

Brant felt something close to panic rise up and grip his heart, and he looked around
for a place where they could talk privately. He caught Max’s eye and the other man
raised his brow in question, but Brant ignored him. He’d never thought Darcy wouldn’t
want to marry him. It wasn’t an option
now that he’d made up his mind, and that might make him the worst kind of arrogant
bastard, but he was giving her the future she’d spoken of less than twenty-four hours
before.
What more could she want from him? He never thought he’d be able to offer her
even
that much.

“Stay here,” he said, leaving her
alone
as he headed to one of the
bellboys who
was
loading up their luggage
on a cart
.
He got directions to their cottage in broken English, but he got the general idea,
and
tipped him twenty bucks for his help
.

Something more was driving him now, and he
was
sorely afraid it was because Darcy had set the stakes higher and he was
at
risk of losing
something he hadn’t known he’d had
.
He cared for her, and the thought of her belonging to him forever was starting to
sit comfortably on his shoulders.
He could trust her. She wasn’t like Vivian, no matter how much they resembled each
other in looks.

Brant
made his way back to Darcy and grabbed her by the hand, leading her
out into the tropical gardens that surrounded the resort. The pathways were mostly
deserted, but just to be safe he veered off to one of the
lesser-worn
areas.

“Brant, you’re overreacting,” Darcy hissed. “You don’t really want to marry me, so
what the hell is all of this about? I told you, I’m happy to scratch your itch. You’ll
be doing me a favor by scratching mine right back. You’re acting like a spoiled child
who isn’t getting his way.”

Brant lifted her over a fallen palm tree, and he slowed his pace when a pink stucco
building came into view.
He pushed her towards one of the two wooden doors, not caring which one they entered.

“Are you insane,” she said, her voice strangled. “This is the ladies room. Someone
will come in.”

He looked around the small space and grunted, satisfied that the room was empty.
He was losing his mind. There was no other explanation. Of course, he’d lost it four
years ago when he’d
been buried deep inside the spitfire beside him.

“No they won’t,” he said, locking the door behind them.
“This is a lot nicer than the men’s room. No wonder it always takes women so long.”

The floor was
square adobe tiles
and the countertop was a quartz granite that picked up the colors in the floor and
walls.
A small wicker loveseat and two chairs sat against the opposite wall, and lotions
and tanning oils were lined across the counter.
It was clean and smelled of lemons, and best of all, it was private.

“I think you’
r
e
insane
,” she said. “I don’t understand this at all.”

“Men tend to lose their minds when women are involved. Now answer my question. Do
you need to hear the words before you’ll marry me?”

Her eyes narrowed and
her hands fisted at her waist
.
“Of course I need to hear them, you
dumbass
. But what you don’t understand is that I need you to mean them. That’s why I won’t
marry you. Now let me the hell out of this bathroom so I can go enjoy my goddamned
honeymoon.”

He caught her as she tried to walk past him and lifted her
against him, dodging the knee she tried to jab between his legs and the elbow that
glance
d
off his jaw. He hoisted her up on the counter and
pushed her legs ap
art. The kiss he gave her was rough, a
kind of
conquering, and his teeth nipped at her bottom lip once before his tongue slipped
inside and devoured.
H
is
hand fisted in the back of her hair and he yanked so her mouth was tilted higher
, and he felt triumph as she moaned into his mouth
.

Her nails raked over his chest and her fingers gripped his shirt and ripped it open,
sending buttons scattering across the floor. They broke apart, panting for breath
and staring at each other as if they were strangers. He shouldn’t take her in anger—he
knew that deep down—but dammit, he
was
angry. And hurt.
Her logic didn’t make sense to him.

She licked her swollen lips and leaned up so she could kiss her way across his chest.
And then she bit him—hard—and he lost the rest of his control completely. Maybe she
was a little angry too.

He pushed her thighs wider apart and growled at the sight of the
G-string
that was barely covering the folds of her pussy. The fabric was dark with
her desire, and he slipped his fingers beneath the fabric and touched the syrupy folds.
They both groaned at the touch, but he wanted so much more. He wanted to brand her—to
make
her his
in every way. His hand fisted around the fabric and he tugged sh
arply, tearing it from her body and letting the tatters fall to the ground.

“Fucking beautiful,” he rasped, pushing her legs further apart so she was completely
bared to him. “Look at that sweet cream waiting to cover my cock. I want to taste
you, but that’ll have to wait. I’m too impatient.”

“Brant,” she cried as he slid two fingers inside of her without warning, thrusting
hard and fast and taking her right to the edge of pleasure before she could draw a
breath. He pulled the cups up her bikini top down so her breasts were exposed and
his mouth clamped over a turgid nipple, sucking it with hard stroked that had her
pussy rippling around his fingers.

“You’ll be the death of me,” he said, kissing his way to her other breast and this
time scraping the nipple with his
teeth. “My greatest distraction.
”

“So
walk away
,” she said through gritted teeth. “Take what you want and then leave.”

His fingers
pushed deep inside of her and then he stopped moving, feeling the way she clamped
around him and the pulsing tissue that signaled she was about to come.

H
e
kept his hand still, his thumb pressing over the hard bud of her clit, and he slowly
curled
his fingers inside of her until he found the raspy
tissue
that made her eyes roll back in her head
.

“There, baby,” he whispered. “There it is. You’re so fucking tight. So wet.”
He rubbed his fingers over the spot in slow circles, and her body jerked like it
was being shocked.