A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing (21 page)

The singing had stopped, but I could still hear water running as I returned to the kitchen. I knew I was pushing it but I quietly opened the two cupboards that framed the sink. Dishes were stacked in neat piles, mugs arranged in rows. One drawer contained towels, the other a minimal selection of flatware. Then I just had to open Sloan's refrigerator. You could tell a lot from a person's refrigerator. I'd once had Mallory Carstairs take an inventory of the contents of her current lover's fridge and decide to break off the affair. He had been planning to kill her and the telltale mushrooms were right there on the bottom shelf.

There were no mushrooms in Sloan's fridge. In fact there wasn't much in the way of food at all. He kept it stocked with bottled water and beer. The top shelf held a bottle of white wine—the same Chardonnay that he'd claimed was Cameron's favorite. Behind it was a paper bag. Opening it, I saw it contained cheese—three kinds—and a bag of plump green grapes.

“Hungry, Red?”

I dropped the bag and whirled around to face Sloan. “I—”

For the life of me I couldn't get another word out. He was standing in the archway wearing only a pair of jeans, bare-chested and barefoot. I could see that his skin was still a bit damp from his shower. Heat flooded through me. I tried to tell myself that it was from embarrassment because he'd caught me snooping, but that was a lie. It was Sloan who was making my body burn and my mouth water. Oh, I was hungry all right. Only it wasn't for food. I wanted a taste of Sloan Campbell.

“H
ungry, Red?” He definitely was, Sloan thought as she jumped and whirled to face him. He'd been watching her for some time as she'd poked through his cupboards and studied the contents of his refrigerator as if there was some secret there she was determined to discover. Her concentration had been total. He'd seen the same intentness the evening before when he'd been introducing her to family and guests, and he couldn't help wondering if she would bring that same concentration to the task of making love to a man. To him.

He'd spent a sleepless night trying to talk himself out of what he was going to do. He'd even tried
to sell himself on the idea that if he could have her just once, he could get her out of his system. He hadn't been successful at either endeavor.

He wanted her. She wanted him. That was the one truth between them. He was going to start there, and see where it would lead. And for the first time in his life Sloan was going to damn the consequences. But he'd wanted to choose the time and the place. And he had. He'd chosen the perfect spot, and he'd planned to take her there.

He studied her now as she stood silently regarding him. She was wearing Cameron's clothes, well-tailored riding breeches and one of the silk blouses Cameron always favored. He even caught a hint of the scent that Cameron always wore. But it wasn't Cameron's eyes he was looking into. Her eyes had never held that combination of heat and promise and innocence. He wasn't sure which pulled at him more or which caused the desire building inside of him to turn so quickly into a burning ache.

What he was sure of was that his plans had changed. The time and the place was now.

“I thought we'd take the wine and grapes with us,” Sloan said as he walked toward her. “There's a place I'm going to show you, your favorite place on the ranch, and I thought we'd have a picnic. But we could enjoy them now. If you think you can't wait.”

 

“Wait…” My voice was working. Now all I needed was some more words. Thoughts would be good, too. They'd drained out of my mind the moment I saw him standing there. Now that he'd moved closer, I could feel his heat and the sensation was only heightened by the coolness of the open refrigerator at my back. I felt trapped between ice and fire. I took a breath and drew in his scent—soap and something uniquely male, something that was Sloan Campbell. It made my mouth water.

I had to say something. Anything. “I…was just…snooping. I'm sorry. I once read that you can learn a lot about a person from what he or she keeps in their refrigerator. And so I thought I would take a look and—” Now I was babbling. I bit down on my lip because if I kept it up, I might give myself away.

“What did you learn about me?” He took a step closer.

“I…” Just as quickly as it had come, the power to form words and string them into sentences deserted me again. When Sloan touched my arm, I jolted.

“Easy,” he said in the same kind of tone I'd heard him use on Saturn. “I just want to shut the refrigerator door.”

Keeping his hand on my arm, he picked up the bag, replaced it on the shelf and closed the door.

When he finally turned back to me, I found myself pinned against the counter.

“So what did you learn about me?”

I cleared my throat. “You don't cook much here.”

“Thanks to Elena, I don't have to. She spoils me. Is that all you learned?”

“You like to read.” I thought of the photos in the living room. “I think that family is important to you. I looked in the other room. I was curious, and when you didn't answer my knock, I just—”

“You don't have to apologize. Given the chance, I'd love to search the place where you've been staying for the last five weeks. I'm curious about you, too.”

It was a mistake to keep looking into his eyes. The heat there was even more intense than what I was already feeling. He rubbed his thumb over my bottom lip, and I heard my breath catch.

“You're so responsive.” He lifted his other hand to cup the back of my neck.

I knew what Sloan was going to do. He was going to kiss me. So I raised a hand and pressed it against his chest. Big mistake. His skin felt like warm velvet stretched over steel. The hand at my neck was hard, too. Heat rocketed through me from both contact points.

“I want to kiss you.”

“No.” I don't know how in the world I got the word out. It was such a lie that I marveled lightning didn't strike me dead. Never had my mind and body been so diametrically opposed. “Why not?”

Desperately, I tried to remember my sister and what I'd come here to do. I moistened my lips. “That's what I came to talk to you about.”

“About kissing?” He rubbed the pad of his thumb over my bottom lip again. “No. About
not
kissing. I know that you probably were curious on the bluff and again last night in the garden, and then this morning you kissed me again to make a point to Marcie and Hal and Beatrice. I understand that. But I don't want you to kiss me anymore.”

“Liar.”

Okay. So I desperately wanted him to kiss me again. And wanted to kiss him back. And more.

“You're wrong about why I kissed you.” His thumb began a gentle stroking up and down the back of my neck. Any minute I was going to evaporate into steam.

“Each time I kissed you it was because I wanted to. Because I couldn't help myself.”

“Really?” He didn't look entirely happy about that. Still, at his admission, a mix of pleasure and astonishment flooded through me. The fact that
he could be feeling the same kind of attraction, the same level of lust that I was feeling made my knees go even weaker.

“In a minute, if you don't let me go, I won't be able to help myself, either,” I said.

“You can't say something like that to me and expect me not to act on it.”

I could have moved then. I didn't.

He did. His mouth covered mine, and there was nothing of the gentle exploration that he'd used in the garden the night before. Today his lips were hard, his tongue and teeth demanding. Little explosions of pleasure shot through me, making my hunger build with a speed I'd never experienced before. My tongue met his, tangling and caressing. I tasted the hot, minty flavor of his toothpaste and something darker that reminded me of chocolate, only better.

When he bit my bottom lip, pleasure sharpened. I wrapped my arms around him, flattened my palms against that hard smooth skin and tried to absorb him. When hard hands cupped my bottom, I scooted up to wrap my legs around his hips. Through layers of clothes, I felt the rigid length of his penis pressed against my center, and I rubbed myself against it.

With a groan, he eased me onto the edge of the counter and broke off the kiss. For a moment, we were both oxygen starved and breathing hard. He
drew away, just a little. But he didn't release me entirely. He left one hand on my side, his thumb stroking my nipple. The palm of his other hand lay heavily on my thigh, and that thumb was moving up and down between my legs, teasing, promising. The friction at both contact points had me quivering with need.

Sloan's eyes were narrowed, and his voice was husky when he spoke. “If you want me to stop, say so now.”

He was giving me a choice. But with his hands on me, I couldn't seem to say a thing. All I wanted was him, hot and hard inside of me. I couldn't think of anything else.

“If you don't say something, I'm going to take it as a yes.”

My inner Alice was shouting yes. My saner self, the part that always reminded me of the trouble I usually got into when I gave in to impulse, remained silent.

Still he hesitated as if he needed some sign from me. “Yes or no?”

This was wrong. It had to be. But I didn't care. I'd never felt this way before. Maybe I never would again. “Yes.”

It was triumph now that I saw in his eyes. Then he lifted me off the counter and carried me through the archway and into the bedroom. He laid me on the bed, and then he positioned himself on top of
me. My legs parted for him, and once he'd settled between them, he rocked against me. I arched up or tried to. But I was trapped beneath him. His legs were hard between mine, and I could feel the hardest part of him—a solid ridge of granite—pressing against me through way too many layers of clothes.

Then he levered himself off me, and settling himself beside me, he took my wrists in one hand and pinned them above my head.

I started to protest, but he countered by kissing me again. My head began to spin. He still held my hands above my head, and with his foot, he'd pinned one of my ankles to the bed. With his free hand he began to unbutton my blouse, slowly, tantalizingly. Each sensation was so intense—the heat of his body beside me, the dark, rich taste of him and the slow movement of those fingers as they released one button after another. Each time they slipped beneath the silk and brushed my skin I trembled. All the while he feasted on my mouth, exploring every part of it in slow strokes of his tongue as if there was some flavor there he hadn't yet sampled.

Sloan tugged the blouse free of my slacks and pushed it aside. Then he raised his head and looked down at what he'd uncovered. “Pretty,” he murmured in a husky voice as he ran the palm of his hand over my breast. Through my thin bra of silk
and lace, I felt the heat of his touch like a little electric shock. I did my best to arch into his palm.

“I've been wanting to touch you, really touch you.” He paused to move his hand lower until it rested flat on my stomach. “Ever since you appeared out of nowhere on that bluff.” He undid the button of my riding pants and drew the zipper down slowly. The sound it made as it opened was incredibly erotic.

“Your skin is so soft. Like rainwater.” He pressed his hand against my stomach and lowering his head, he covered my breast with his mouth. Ever so slowly, he began to stroke my nipple with his tongue. The moist heat of his mouth combined with the friction of the silk against my skin had me trying to arch upward, reaching for more….

I whimpered something, and as if he had been waiting for that sound, he moved his hand lower on my stomach, sliding his fingers beneath my panties and then between my legs until he reached the spot that felt so empty. I stopped breathing then, trapped between exquisite pleasure and the painful ache that was building inside of me.

I tried to move and found that I was trapped physically, too. My hands were still pinned above my head, my foot still held captive by his. All I could manage to do was wiggle my hips, but it wasn't enough.

“Please.” My voice was barely a thread of
sound, and just as I thought I might die of wanting, he drew my nipple into his mouth, sucking it hard at the same moment that he pushed two fingers into me.

“Sloan,” I cried out.

He drew his fingers out and pushed them in, drew out, pushed in, matching the rhythm of his hand to the movement of his mouth as he suckled at my breast. I was burning, melting, searching….

And then suddenly he withdrew from me. The sense of loss was so acute that for a moment, I couldn't say anything. Even though he'd released my hands and my foot, I couldn't move. I watched him rise from the bed and begin to take off his jeans. My gaze followed the dark denim as it slid down those long muscled legs. Beneath them he wore white Jockey briefs, and I could see the evidence of his arousal pushing at the fabric. When the underwear followed the path of the jeans, I finally saw what I'd only felt before. My mouth went dry as dust. He was so big—not just where my eyes were currently glued, but all over. His chest was wide, the bronze skin sprinkled with dark hair, and he had the shoulders of a linebacker. I had never wanted anyone the way I wanted him.

“Hurry,” I said. At least that's what I tried to say. The sound that came out was more like a moan.

And he didn't hurry at all. At least not to the bed. Instead, he moved to the bedside table, opened
the drawer and took out a condom. I'd thought the sound of my zipper opening was erotic, but the rip of that foil packet topped it. When he'd fully sheathed himself, I sat up and said, “Hurry.”

He didn't move. He simply stood there, looking down at me. My skin had chilled when he'd moved away so abruptly, but now it began to heat again.

“You have too many clothes on,” he said.

Glancing down, I realized that I was still mostly clothed. I'd been so mesmerized watching him strip that I'd completely forgotten.

“Take them off for me.” His voice was husky, but I found the thread of command in his voice arousing. And he was driving me mad. He'd been teasing and tormenting me, taking me right to the brink and then withdrawing. Maybe it was time I gave as good as I was getting.

Raising my eyes to meet his, I deliberately started with my boots. I dropped one and then the other over the side of the bed. I took my socks off next, drawing out the process as long as I could. His eyes narrowed and I could hear the harsh sound of his breathing in the room. I turned my attention to my bra next. It was a good thing that he'd unbuttoned my blouse because my fingers were growing numb. Then lying back down, I lifted my hips off of the bed and began to wiggle out of my riding breeches.

I'd only managed to get them halfway down my
legs when he joined me on the bed and dragged them off the rest of the way. Then Sloan knelt between my legs and tore away the lace that still separated us. Power streamed through me as he gripped my hips and positioned himself over me. But then once again, he paused.

I wrapped arms and legs around him. “Dammit, Sloan. Do it.”

He framed my face with his hands. “Do what?”

“Come inside me. I want you inside right now.”

He drove into me, and I went off like a rocket. The orgasm ripped through me so fast and so hard that I think I lost consciousness for a moment. The next thing I knew, my arms had dropped away from him and so had my legs. They felt like limp noodles. But Sloan was still on top of me, still filling me.