Dead End (21 page)

“What’s wrong?” Marc asked. “You look as if you aren’t sure whether to enjoy the moment, or flatten me.”

“I couldn’t flatten you,” she said. “That’s one of those differences you mentioned. And given what we know about the minds of men, it’s very unfair. Also, it’s uncomfortable to be wearing nothing but a nightie while you’re fully dressed.”

He frowned, then said, “I guess I can see that,” and pulled off his shirt. “Better?”

“Very nice,” Reb said with enough feeling to show she meant each word. She giggled.

He threw out his hands. “I look so bad you gotta laugh at me? How good is that for a guy’s ego?”

“Don’t mind me,” Reb told him. “I had a fleeting vision of you working on a building site and deciding to take off your shirt.”

He stared at her and said, “I don’t get it.”

Reb held him just above the elbows. “Loosen up. There was a guy on a TV commercial with a killer body, and when he took off his shirt, women who could see him from some windows clawed past each other and pretty much drooled over him. He had a nice body, but in a competition you’d win hands down.”

“Uh huh.” He raised his eyebrows and rested one palm against his chest. “Thank you, I guess.”

He smiled. He’d never seen himself in the alpha wolf role, but he wouldn’t mind if she read,
Come with me, I
’
ve decided to make your day,
in that smile.

“What?” Reb said. “Why are you grinning at me like that.”

He’d have to work on his mouth signals. “I spoke with my partner today. Guess what he wanted to know?”

Reb kept her gaze in the region of his collarbones. “When you’re going back to New Orleans to take care of business?”

“I’m taking care of business from here. I can do that for as long as I please. If I need to be in New Orleans, you know that’s easy. I’ll give you one more chance to guess what Len asked me.”

He could almost hear her searching for a comeback before she said, “Nope, Marc. Can’t think of anything.”

He shifted his hands to her sides and brushed slowly up and down—and ran his thumbs over the sides of her breasts at each opportunity. And his control tilted. He wanted them both naked, which could mean his timing was dangerous.

“You’re not going to get it,” he told her. “I’ll put you out of your misery. Len wanted to know if I’m bored.” The way she quickly bowed her head, covering a smile, cinched his tension another notch. “He doesn’t know the real reason I came here; he also doesn’t know about you. A man could never be bored if he was with you.”

Her expression turned quizzical.

“Reb, you once made me a great offer, remember? Given your age at the time, and our family connections, it seemed a lousy idea. But I wanted to accept. You know what I’m talking about?”

“I was an infatuated, immature teenager. Thinking about it still makes my skin crawl.”

“You were so sweet,” Marc said. “You don’t know how badly I wanted to come to you, I would have if I could have been sure I’d do all the right things. What about that offer now, Reb? Was there a statute of limitations on it?”

“Well, well,” she said, “I do believe you just said you want to have sex with me. I live a quiet life. I surely can’t remember the last time I was propositioned like this—so directly. Give me a minute and names will come to me.”

“Did you sleep with all of them?”

“Why, Marc, I do believe you sound annoyed that I’ve had a life of my own. You haven’t been pining for me—you’ve been too busy. You could have written to help me through. Being nice is cheap, but worth everything sometimes.”

Her tone stung as much as her words. “I was wrong,” he said. “I didn’t know what to write. More pain was something I wanted to avoid—for both of us. I managed to convince myself that the best thing was to leave it alone.”

“Probably right,” she said and stepped out of his reach. “I think we can help each other, but that doesn’t mean we experiment just to see if we’ve been missing a lot of good sex. We live very different lives, and they please us. Let’s accept that.”

“I’m still asking the question, Reb. Straight up. Will you let me accept your offer now?” His skin turned up the heat, but the real burn was inside his body.

“Now?” she asked quietly.

“If you’re willing. That’s one of those basic differences I mentioned. The ones between men and women. A generalization, but from experience I know men are goal oriented. I’m male, but I’m different from all the rest. They only made one like me. I live for foreplay, get off on kissing and cuddling, and…exploring every little inch, every little feeling. My favorite occupation is to lie in front of a December fire with a woman who turns me on with her head as well as her body. Hours—I could spend hours doing just that.”

Reb saw no sign that he was joking, but he had to be. He looked serious. She had been breathing through her open mouth. She shut it and straightened up. Let him see whatever he could through the nightie—she wasn’t above throwing a rope to a drowning man.
Frustrated
was the word that came to mind.

“I’m talking too much,” he said “Chalk it up to too much work and not enough play, for a long, long time. May I touch you, Reb? If you don’t like it, stop me.”

“You’ve been touching me.” But she knew what he meant, and he wouldn’t hurt her, of that she was certain. “And for the record, it’s July, not December.”

“July is as fine a month as December,” he said. “One more time. Are you telling me yes or no? Say no and I’ll try never to broach the subject again.”

“You aren’t the only curious one around here. Yes, Marc. I want to know just how far I’ve come from those days of mad infatuation.”

Most men would take a direct hit to the ego if a woman said what she’d just said. Reb waited for Marc to discover he had to leave.

“You always did have an analytical mind. I’ll take what you just said as an invitation, or at least an agreement to humor me.”

Pressing her against him, he eased the back of the nightie up enough to get his hands underneath. He gripped her hips and lifted her, stood her on an ottoman, used long, caressing sweeps from the backs of her knees to her bottom. He didn’t attempt to remove her white lace panties, opting instead to slip both of his hands inside. Sometimes he lingered where he could hold a cheek in each hand and drive her wild with a touch so light, if she didn’t tingle with each new motion, she might think he hadn’t touched her at all.

He rotated her on the ottoman so she looked over his shoulder at their reflection in an old gilt-framed mirror.

Reb looked into a face she scarcely recognized as her own. She leaned her cheek against Marc’s ear and watched her hands as she stroked his shoulders and back.

With one foot planted on the ottoman, Marc parted her legs and sat her astride his thigh.

He ran his hands up the fronts of her legs this time, and settled his thumbs on one of the places she couldn’t ignore. Startled, knowing how easily she could give him whatever he wanted, she moved his hands away.

“You don’t like that, cher?”

“I like it a lot—too much. And I feel this is nothing more than the two of us satisfying our appetites.”

“I don’t belong to anyone, Reb. Neither do you. I believe we’re going to spend a lot of time together making that past we talked about. And if you allow me to be very direct—feel free to slap me here—I’m going to admit that I never forgot you. Time and again I almost came looking for you, but I was afraid I’d find out you were already married and I didn’t think I could take that. Then, when I did come, I was too preoccupied to think about the two of us. Now I can handle it all—I want to make love to you.”

“You do not mince words,” she said. “Maybe I like that.”

While she stared silently into the mirror, watching muscle ripple in his back, intensely aware of his thigh between her legs, she tried to weigh the dangers of giving in to him. They were obvious. Wanting him enough to be able to forget potential disaster was reckless.

Softly, his fingertips flitted around her ribcage from back to front and he cupped his hands beneath her breasts. Reb put her arms behind her and braced herself on his knee. And she let her eyes close.

Marc’s mouth, seeking her nipples through her nightie, popped her eyes wide open again. Marc supported her breasts as if he were weighing them. His teeth and tongue soaked the gown, turned the fabric transparent.

“Marc.” She wished she didn’t need to talk, not now. “Marc, listen to me.”

He paused long enough to nod.

“Slow down,” she told him. “This is going too fast.”

Instantly, Marc raised his head and looked at her. “Thirteen years doesn’t seem too fast to me,” he said, breathing heavily. “I’m sorry. It’s the male, goal-oriented thing, but that’s no excuse.”

Reb said, “We don’t need excuses. I’m as ready for this as you are, but I don’t want to get hurt.” She could have said, ‘again’ but stopped herself. “So I’m doing the sensible thing and standing back a bit. Neither of us is interested in a long-term commitment. We don’t need to spell out the ground rules, but we can start by getting to know each other better.”

Women, Marc decided, were weird. He could have sworn she was ready for him. He’d felt how wet she was and the fact that she’d moved herself on his leg as if she couldn’t get enough of him. But she could have a point about rushing the sex. On the other hand, how did a guy deal with being told the lady wasn’t interested in anything more than a fling—at the pace she dictated? Praise be he hadn’t announced his real feelings for her. He’d have been the one hurt—not that he wasn’t already—and afterward he’d be the fool.

“How about it, Marc?”

“Sure. From here on, you call the shots. That way we’ll both know we’re on safe ground.”

She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his neck. Into his ear she whispered. “Bullshit.”

He frowned and asked, “What did you just say?” A direct view down the front of her nightie didn’t do a thing to cool him down.

“I said, bullshit. As in, you sound petulant because you don’t like a woman setting the pace in a relationship. You’re going to let me set the ground rules? Garbage. Let’s see how long you last without losing your temper.”

She swung herself from his knee and stood behind him to massage his neck and back. Between strokes, and frequent applications of evil little knuckles, she kissed him. And she took nips at his ears.

Pushing one of her legs between his, she threaded her arms around his waist and brushed her breasts back and forth on his back. Marc closed his eyes tightly and gritted his teeth. The lady was either a natural, or she’d learned some sophisticated methods for driving a man nuts.

“Does that feel nice?” she asked, and when he trusted himself to speak at all, he said, “So nice.”

“I’ve always thought it was a good idea for the woman to take the initiative sometimes. Why should men be responsible for all the moves?

She undid his belt and unzipped his fly.

“Couldn’t agree with you more, cher,” he told her. Her fingertips slipped through the opening on his undershorts. Given the mental workover she’d already accomplished, she didn’t have to do much to free his straining penis. She held it, stroked it, made small circles over the end with the flat of a palm.

Ecstasy or death must surely follow—fast.

“So this pace is okay with you?” he said.

“Very okay.”

“Good, just wanted to be sure.”

“Is it okay with you?”

“Oh yes.” If he told her he was close to disgracing himself all over the ottoman, she’d probably recoil, and he surely didn’t want that. He’d prefer to have this unexpected turn of events continue.

Asking her “what’s next?” might not be too cool.

“Will it be okay if I sleep on the couch?” he said.

Reb held still with both of her hands on his penis. He wished she would let go—as long as nothing was to be done about his condition tonight—let go and suggest they both get some sleep.

“I went about this all wrong,” he told her. “For some reason, in my mind, we haven’t been parted for a bunch of years. I feel as if were never separated. Being with you feels so natural.”

“If it’s meant to be, we’ll be okay with the wait. As long as we’re both satisfied with working on the way we are when we’re together.”

“You’re right,” he told her, and was glad she couldn’t see inside his fevered mind.

She moved away from him and pulled a cotton throw from a chair. “I think it’s easier to talk if you’re comfortable.”

She sat, cross-legged, on the rug and swung the throw around her shoulders.

Only one thing would relax him, and it didn’t look as if he was going to get it. “Are you cold?” he said, taking a place beside her.

“Not really, but creating the illusion comforts me.”

Well son-of-a-gun, making her feel good was his job now. She’d been the one to decide they should go slowly, but she hadn’t mentioned that “slow” meant “stop,” or pretty near.

She leaned on him and patted his back. “Being here with you, just the way we are, is perfect. Forgive me for getting a bit pushy just now.”

He didn’t trust himself to look at her. “You weren’t pushy, you were very, very nice. I’ve ruined your evening and put you out big time.”

“Not a bit of it.”

Not a bit was right on as far as she was concerned, Marc thought, she’d lost her nerve at the last moment, and he was the one who’d been put out, big time.

“You don’t need to stay here with me, y’know. Nothing bad’s going to happen this evening.”

“If I leave, you leave with me. You don’t want to do that, so I’ll stretch out in here. Is it okay if I use a cushion from one of the chairs? And maybe you could point me in the direction of a blanket.”

He put a pillow on the floor for his head and sat there.

“You said you’d sleep on the couch.” Reb had stood up but made no effort to leave.

“I like sleeping on the floor. Probably reminds me of my Boy Scout days. How about that blanket?” he asked, smiling at her. “I promise I won’t beg you for anything else.”

Without a word, or a sign that she’d heard what he said, she pulled the nightgown off and let it fall.

Marc knew his mouth was open but thought he might suffocate if he closed it.