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Warning bells pinged in the back of his head. After everything he’d been through, was he about to repeat past mistakes? His gut told him Reggie was nothing like Marly. Reggie would never use him and leave him hanging out to dry. Then again, his instincts had convinced him that Marly had actually cared about him, but in the end she’d placed all the blame on him and used the situation to generate publicity and make herself look like the victim.

All he knew for sure right now was that Reggie was warm and soft and perfect in his arms. In that, at least, his head and his heart were in firm agreement.

R
eggie awoke several hours later to the sound of Gabe snoring. He lay on his back, one arm stretched up over his head. They’d fallen asleep with the lights on, and in the lamplight she studied his face. Hard jaw, bristling with stubble, framing his unaccountably sensuous mouth. His lips were slightly parted, a soft rumble vibrating up his throat with every breath.

She smiled, slightly resisting the urge to nuzzle him awake and have her way with him again. But only because she was aware of a second, more pressing need.

Sidling over to the side of the bed, she swung her feet to the floor. Just as she rose, Gabe’s hand shot out and locked around her forearm.

“Where are you going?” For a guy emerging from what looked like a deep, peaceful sleep, his voice was remarkably clear.

“Um, bathroom?”

For a minute Gabe looked as though he was about to deny permission, but he released her wrist and said grudgingly, “Okay.”

While in the bathroom, she took the liberty of borrowing his toothbrush and tried to avoid glimpsing herself in the mirror. Unlike Gabe, her middle of the night look was not drop-dead sexy, proved by the brief glimpse she’d caught in the harsh overhead bathroom light.

Once again she remembered Marly Chase, sleek, tawny, and perfect in her electric blue bikini. Gabe had intimate knowledge of that perfection. While his cricket comment was reassuring, Reggie still wished she’d forgone the many handfuls of nuts she’d consumed earlier at the bar.

She rinsed her mouth, carefully keeping her eyes averted from the mirror until the bathroom light was off.

Gabe watched her from the bed as she walked across the room, a smile playing around the corners of his lips. The heat of his gaze hit her like a physical caress, and she knew without looking that her belly was flushed, her nipples were deep pink and swollen as though he’d traced them with his tongue. A creamy throbbing pulsed between her legs, and just like that she wanted him again.

She slid into bed next to him—snapping off the light this time—and marveled at her seeming insatiability. Sure, she’d always liked sex, once she’d gotten past the awkward first few times and figured out what she liked and how to effectively communicate those preferences to her partner.

A hot shiver ran through her as Gabe slid his arm around her waist and pulled her firmly back against him. With him, her body didn’t discriminate. It liked everything he did.

Case in point: the way he was rubbing his cock against her ass, lifting her top leg slightly so he could thrust gently against the already wet folds of her pussy. Normally she didn’t like it from behind, but here she was, squirming against him and reaching between her legs to press his cock more firmly against her slick center.

“I thought you were gonna sneak out on me again,” he rumbled, nipping and licking at her earlobe.

She shuddered and ground back against him. “Again?”

His thumb feathered across her beaded nipple. “Like you did in Hawaii.” He pinched her, sending a jolt of sensation rocketing between her legs. “When I woke up to find you gone, I spent half the next day trying to find you.”

That gave her pause. She stilled his hand on her breast and craned her neck around on the pillow. With the lights out and the drapes closed, she could barely make out his features. “You did?” When he didn’t answer, she continued, “I assumed that was standard procedure after a one-night stand. Not that I’d ever had one, but it seemed the easiest way to avoid an awkward scene in the morning, and that way I couldn’t terrify you with my bedhead.”

His chest shook against her back, and it took her a few seconds to realize he was laughing at her. He kissed her, laughing even as he did, and cupped his hand intimately over her naked hip. “When I woke up to find you gone, I wished I’d had the chance to know you better.”

The thought that he’d wanted more that night sent a curl of warmth through her chest, and now she wondered what might have happened if she’d been brave enough to stay the night, or leave him a note, anything but sneak off the way she had.

All regrets fled as his big hands took on a life of their own as they mapped the curves of her body, touching her everywhere. The inky darkness was like a deep well of lust, where she could only feel.

He slid his knee between her thighs, urging them to part as his hand flattened against her belly. A shuddery moan escaped her throat as she felt him there again, sliding against her, covering himself with her hot juices.

“Do you have any idea how hard it’s been for me to keep my hands off you?”

Groaning, she reached down between her legs, teasing the thick head of his cock with her fingers. “I have a pretty good idea.”

“I don’t think so.” He caught her hand in his, closing her fingers around his shaft. “All I have to do is look at you and I get hard.” He thrust himself against her to demonstrate. “I’ve already come twice tonight, but you barely touch me and I’m ready to go again.”

Whimpering, she guided his cock until it rested against her clit, rasping the oversensitized bud every time he moved. “It’s the same for me,” she gasped, squirming against the insufficient caress. Her body clenched and throbbed, reacting instinctively to his primitive, possessive hold.

His fingers parted her pussy lips, two fingers coming to rest on either side of her throbbing clit. “Is it?” he whispered, his fingers closing against her in a delicate kneading motion that sent bolts of sensation through her core, yet wasn’t nearly enough to drive her over the edge. “Right now, are you already thinking of the next time you’ll fuck me? Thinking of all the places you want to touch and taste, but know you won’t get to because you know you have to have me inside you right now?” He reached over her toward the bedside table and she moaned in anticipation at the sound of foil ripping.

“Please,” she whispered as he removed his hand from between her thighs. “Please don’t stop…” Her protest melted into a moan as he gripped her leg, drawing it up toward her chest as he buried himself to the hilt in one sleek stroke.

His ragged sigh wafted across her cheek. “Christ.” Sounds of sex echoed in the darkness, flesh sliding against flesh, low murmurs and groans as he held himself deep inside her, grinding firmly against her ass, fingers pinching her nipples and dipping into the wetness where they were joined.

Her orgasm built slowly, coiling in her belly until it was a tight knot tingling at the base of her womb. Slow, shuddering contractions shook her, the waves of her climax pulsing up her spine, down her limbs until every inch of her skin tingled with it.

She came back to herself to find Gabe hard as granite inside her, shaking now as he drove into her in quick, shallow thrusts. She reached down, cupping his balls, drawn tight with his impending orgasm. He gave a choked cry as she pressed her finger firmly against the base of his sac, simultaneously squeezing him inside.

His cock jumped and pulsed, her name an oath against her neck as he came. He rained lazy kisses across her shoulder, his chest heaving as he slipped from her body.

He rolled over onto his back and cuddled her close, tipping her face up for a kiss. Lips smacking, he said, “Did you brush your teeth?”

Busted. “I used your toothbrush. I figured since our mouths have pretty much been everywhere else, it wasn’t such a big deal. You don’t mind, do you? I didn’t want to scare you off with my morning breath.”

Sighing, he cuddled her close in a way that made her feel unbelievably cherished. “Trust me, darlin’. Right now I can’t think of a damn thing that could chase me away.”

Reggie was still smiling at that when she fell asleep.

That smile was on Reggie’s face when she woke up the next morning and it remained throughout the short flight to Santa Fe. Though she’d had almost no sleep, energy coursed through her, enabling her to get an astounding amount of work done on the plane. She was still way behind on her book (as Sharon reminded her in multiple daily calls), but at least she was getting some traction.

Reggie marveled at the stark beauty as Gabe drove the hour from the airport in Albuquerque to Santa Fe. “I never realized how beautiful it is here,” she murmured as she took in stunning rock formations and, off in the distance, the pine-covered tops of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

“You should see it in the summertime,” Gabe said, tilting his chin up to the blindingly blue sky. “Every afternoon you get these big purple thunderheads, and if you’re really lucky, a lightning storm over the desert.”

Reggie turned to him in surprise. “You’ve been here before? How come you never mentioned it?”

“It’s not in my nature to offer up personal details to my clients,” he grinned. “And since we’ve gotten more personal, we haven’t spent a whole helluva lot of time talking.”

Her whole body blushed as she vividly recalled how they’d been spending their time. She asked him again when he’d been to New Mexico.

“We lived here for a few years when I was about eight or so, before we moved to North Carolina.”

Since for once he actually seemed inclined to talk about himself, Reggie drilled him with questions about his childhood, learning that he moved six times by the age of eleven and had lived in such exotic locales as Alaska and Hawaii. Then, at eighteen, he’d started his own career in the army and had been stationed all over the world.

“Wasn’t it hard, moving around that much? Leaving your friends all the time?”

He shrugged, big broad shoulders rippling under the cotton of his shirt. “Sure. I think that’s part of the reason so many military guys get married so young. If you have a family, you have a guaranteed connection with at least one other person. And when you’re stationed overseas, you always have someone to come back to.”

“Were you ever married?” She immediately clamped her lips shut, as though she could call back the question.

He gave a shocked laugh. “Hell no.”

“You have something against it?” Now why did the thought of him as a commitment phobe make her feel like her intestines had morphed into a den of snakes? She’d had sex with him exactly three times (well, seven actual times, but on three separate occasions), and it wasn’t as though she was picking out china patterns, regardless of what that little apron-wearing bitch in the back of her brain who was building a three-bedroom ranch house surrounded by a perfect picket fence had to say about it.

“No, I’m not against marriage,” he said defensively. “I just wasn’t ready for it myself. Besides, I saw how hard it was on my mom, raising four kids, getting them and herself settled only to have to move again. Then when I joined the Special Forces, it was even worse. We go overseas, and the guys who are married can’t even tell their wives where they’re going, or when they’ll be back for sure. Or if they’ll be back at all, given how dangerous most of the shit was.”

Reggie shivered a little, thinking about the scars that decorated Gabe’s body—the slash across his back, the palm-sized starburst on his right thigh. Weird to think that the man sitting across from her had been to the most dangerous parts of the world, that he had actually been shot. How many times had he flirted with death?

God, what he must think of her trivial fears about a perverted fan.

After they’d checked into their hotel, Reggie met briefly with Carrie to review the shoot for the next day. Afterward, she and Gabe went out and gorged themselves on what Reggie declared to be the world’s best enchiladas.

The next morning, Gabe forced her out into the crisp fall air for a brisk run. Though she grumbled nearly the entire way, she figured she’d better work off those enchiladas.

And he made up for his drill sergeant demeanor by giving Reggie possibly the best shower she’d ever had in her entire thirty years.

By the time they got to the plaza to film the segment’s introduction, Reggie was grinning like a fool. They walked to where the crew was setting up. Carrie looked up and cocked her head. A knowing smirk spread across her face.

Reggie’s cheeks heated as she tried to ignore the sly glances of the rest of the crew. Just what she needed, the entire set speculating about her sex life.

“Reggie, we’re ready whenever you are,” Carrie snapped impatiently.

Flustered, she took her position in front of the row of vendors selling their wares in Santa Fe’s central plaza. Gabe stood off to the side; his gaze was cool and businesslike as he continuously scanned the crowd, barely sparing her a glance.

Why did she find it so irritating, his ability to completely shut off and go into work mode, when she could barely keep herself focused on smiling for the camera?

“Reggie, hello!” Carrie snapped.

Reggie realized that she’d managed to completely miss her cue.

Mentally kicking herself, she tried to completely ignore the gorgeous man hovering in her peripheral vision and tried again. “Today we’re in Santa Fe, home to some of the nation’s hottest restaurants.” Her gaze flicked inexorably in Gabe’s direction, just in time to catch him smiling at her. “No wonder, since it’s also home to some of the chookin’ hot—dammit!” She smacked her head and looked down at the cobblestones that lined the plaza. “Can we try that again?”

She flubbed the next take, and the next. Carrie shot her an irritated look as she moved Gabe out of her line of vision, shooting Reggie a very pointed look.

For the next two hours Reggie did her best to ignore Gabe as they changed locations to a restaurant for the afternoon shoot. Once she met the chef and they did a quick run-through of the recipe, she settled herself into a corner and pulled out her laptop.

She felt a prickle of irritation as Gabe seated himself two tables away. She scolded herself. Having him act like her boyfriend on set wouldn’t go very far in solidifying her reputation as a professional. And it was best if he kept his distance so she could get some work done. Gabe was proving to be too much of a distraction already, and she needed to figure out how to remain productive while suffering from hormone overload.

Finally, they were ready to shoot. As the guest chef cooked, Reggie chattered nonstop about all the different spices used in the chef’s Navajo Indian–influenced recipes.