Getting Lucky (15 page)

“Ah, man, look at this,” he said hoarsely, and Lily felt one of his hands slip forward. “
Pink
.”

“Pink?” She couldn’t seem to concentrate, and she blinked up at him. “What’s pin—?” A high-pitched
uh!
exploded out of her when her left nipple was suddenly captured between Zach’s finger and thumb and gently compressed.

“This,” he said, watching as he tugged at the small, stiff crest in his grasp. “I wondered what color your nipples would be, and now I know.” He flashed her a wolfish smile then went back to gazing at his captured bounty. “Pretty, pretty pink.” He gave it another pinching tug, and Lily moaned.

Heat flared in Zach’s eyes. “I want you naked,” he growled and laid her back on the bed. “Now.” Knees splayed wide as he knelt at her side, he bent to tease her nipple with his teeth and tongue as he reached for her waistband. But despite his words, he didn’t immediately divest her of her jeans the instant he unfastened them. Instead he slid his hand inside the opening.

He stroked her stomach, and eased beneath the elastic band of her bikini panties. His fingers lightly brushed the downy stripe of hair on her mound before moving lower to cup her in his hand. He pressed with his fingers, then slid deeper to alternately cup and flatten his palm over her. She was so wet with arousal his actions caused a faint squelching sound, and her face
flamed with mortification. But Zach groaned in wholehearted approval and insinuated his fingers between the dewy lips of her sex.

“Oh, God,
sweet
,” he said reverently, and his eyes slid closed. They reopened almost immediately, but his eyelids remained at half-mast when he stared down to where his hand disappeared beneath her open fly. “This is exactly what I wanted—to feel you hot and wet.” He licked his lips and raised his gaze to her eyes. “To feel you all slick.” His fingers slid leisurely up and down slippery feminine folds, and every nerve in Lily’s body screamed for more.

He gave it to her, too…but just as her breath grew choppy and the rocking of her hips began to strain upward in search of release, he eased his hand out of her pants. “I want you spread out naked beneath me,” he said, and tugged at her pants.

“Do you?” Disgruntled at having been brought so close, only to be left hanging, she nevertheless lifted her hips to facilitate her jeans’ removal. “How very macho of you. What happens if
I
want to be on top?”

“Then, honey, climb aboard and show me how you like it.” He grinned at her. “You want on top, you get the top. You want the bottom, it’s your choice whether you wrap your legs around my waist or prop your ankles on my shoulders. You prefer it doggie style, I’ll grab those gorgeous hips and bark with the best of them. I’m not fussy about position, sweet thing, as long as you let me in.” He finished peeling her pants down her legs, but ran into a snag when they puddled around her faux alligator Cuban-heeled shoes. There was no way the legs of her jeans would go over them.

“Damn,” he muttered. “Guess I have to take these off you after all. There goes
my
big fantasy.” He unbuckled the straps around her ankles and slid the shoes from her feet.

Lily laughed, kicked free of her jeans, and pushed herself to sit up, clad in only a minuscule pair of wine-colored panties. “Tell you what,” she offered. “I’ll put them back on while you make things a little more equitable by taking off your pants.”

He climbed to his feet. “I like the way you think.” He watched her put her shoes back on and fasten the straps as he shucked out of his pants. “You’ve probably heard this a lot, but you’ve sure got one killer body.”

Pure pleasure suffused her, leaving no room for even a flicker of her usual compulsion to catalog her flaws. She simply flashed him a radiant smile. “Thanks.” Watching him slide his hands beneath his jockeys and push them down his narrow hips, she blinked. Then she blinked again. And licked her lips.

“Wow,” she whispered.

He gave her a crooked grin. “Thanks yourself. I’m hardly in Rocket’s class, but I can promise you I’ve never had any complaints.”

This time when she blinked it was in confusion. “You’re not in a rocket class?”

“No, I’m not in
Rocket’s
—” Smiling wryly, he shook his head. “Forget it. It’s not important.”

“Wait, are you talking about your friend John?
That
Rocket?”

“Yeah.”

She stared at his erection so long it began to bob and weave, and he reached down to hold it still. Then she
raised her eyes to his. “I don’t know, soldier boy. If a guy came at me with something more than what you’ve got there, I’d probably run for the door. Seems to me that’d be a major case of overkill.”

Damn
. He dove onto the bed and snatched her up. Clearly surprised, Lily gave a shriek of laughter, and Zach found himself laughing, too, as he rolled them both over and over until they rocked to a halt perilously close to the edge of the mattress. The playfulness caught him by surprise. The kind of sex he was used to was all about being hot and driven and getting to the goal. He’d never thought of it as having fun. But this
was
fun. And when Lily, who’d ended up draped atop him with her fingers tangled in the hair on his chest, pushed up slightly to grin down at him as if she were queen of the mountain, Zach suddenly felt happier than he had in ages. For a brief moment the realization made him uneasy. Because it didn’t pay to get attached to people.

Then he shrugged it off, telling himself not to be an idiot. Hell, he was about to get lucky, and it had been an age since that had happened. So big surprise he felt happy about it.

“You look good on me,” he said and ran his hands along Lily’s soft-skinned shoulders and down her back, appreciating the tinyness of her waist before smoothing his palms onto the voluptuous curve of her lace-clad butt. Her breasts rested warm and heavy against his diaphragm and they were full, pale, and pink-tipped. He slid his hands back up to cup her elegant little jaw, tunneling his fingers into the soft hair at her nape. “
Damn
good.” Thumbs softly pressing her flushed cheeks, he exerted pressure to bring her face down to his. Raising
his head off the mattress to meet her halfway, he kissed her feverishly and all the heat that had been banked between them exploded back into full flame.

Usually he was big on prolonged foreplay, but he wanted inside her—and he wanted inside her now. Luckily for him, Lily seemed to feel the same, for when the head of his dick brushed up against her wet, lace-covered heat, she slowly rocked against it. When she lifted her head and stared down at him, her mouth looked debauched, her blue eyes hot and slumberous.

“I don’t think I can wait,” she said breathlessly. “You have any protection handy?” She squirmed atop him. “I need…Oh, man, Zach, I need—”

“Satisfaction,” he agreed. “I know. Me, too.” Clamping her to him, he tipped them toward the edge of the bed. “Can you reach the nightstand drawer?” He sucked in a harsh breath when her stretch for it rasped her nipples across his chest. Then she pulled the drawer open. “Excellent. Inside there’s a—”

“Got it.”

Her hand emerged from the drawer clutching the tin foil packet, and he immediately rolled them back to their former position. Hands on her narrow waist, he scooted her up until one of her beaded, pink nipples was directly above his mouth. Raising his head, he gently bit it.

She cried out and dropped the condom. While he enjoyed himself nursing away the small hurt he’d inflicted, she swept up the protection and ripped it open with her teeth. Reaching behind her, she patted around blindly until her hand suddenly brushed the head of his cock.

She immediately glommed onto it, and then it was he
who rapped out a curse. His mouth went slack, Lily’s nipple eased free, and she pushed up to sit astride his stomach. A second later, she climbed off as if dismounting a horse, and knelt by his side to roll the condom down his erect length. He hissed through his teeth not only at the feel of her small competent hands unfurling the rubber down his hard-on, but at the sight of them.

“Are you dead set on being on top?” he demanded, then gritted his teeth when she tightened her grip on him. He thrust up into her touch.

She seemed to have her work cut out dragging her gaze away from his erection as it pumped through her fist. “Hmm?” she asked vaguely. But then she blinked, gave her head a slight shake, and smiled up at him. “No.”

“Good.” And in a few efficient moves, he had her flat on her back beneath him. “Then let’s satisfy
my
fantasy.” He patted his shoulders. “Let’s see those pretty shoes up here.”

She laughed and started to comply, but before she could follow through he reached between them.

“Whoops—forgot to remove these,” he said, and pulled her bikini panties off her hips and down her legs. Tossing them over his shoulder, he looked down at what he’d revealed and smiled. “And here I thought you were a natural blonde.”

“I am,” she replied dryly, then sucked in a breath when he eased his thumb into her silky-wet cleft and slid it up and down. “A natural L’Oreal number ten, Lightest Ultimate Blonde, blonde,” she informed him breathlessly. Then her eyes lost focus. “Ohmigracious, Zachariah. Oh. My.
Gracious
.”

He tapped his shoulder again with his free hand and
experienced a possessive sort of satisfaction when she immediately swung her feet up to prop her heels on them. Wrapping his hand around her slender ankle, he turned his head to press a kiss into her instep. Then reluctantly disengaging the hand that stroked between her thighs, he used it to grasp his hard-on and line up its broad head with her entrance. Leaning forward, he slowly pressed himself into her until he was buried to the hilt in her wet, furnace-hot, vise-grip depths. Pleasure shivered over his skin as he held himself still deep inside her. “Damn, you feel good.”

“Oh, my gosh. Do I ever.” She moved experimentally. “I. Feel.
Full
. So full. Which feels
won
derful. Except—”

He eased his hips back, then pressed them forward. “Except?” Eased them back again, and pressed them forward.

“Well, except, you’re too far away. I want to hold you.”

He dropped forward, catching himself on his palms on either side of her shoulders. It drove him deeper into Lily, and she moaned as her legs slid down his arms until they hooked on the inside bend of his elbows. She reached up and locked her fingers behind his neck. “Oh, please,” she murmured. “Zach, please.”

And he began to withdraw and thrust back into her, withdraw and thrust, with increasing speed and force. Lily started making desperate noises deep in her throat and her Cuban-heeled pumps bounced in the air with every slam of his hips. Zach stared down at her, and she returned his look with an unfocused, lust-blinded gaze. “Christ,” he muttered, and lowered his head to catch her mouth with his own. She kissed him back hungrily and
sank her fingernails into his shoulders. Then her soft moans began to escalate and grow higher in pitch, and she strained to meet his pistoning hips. Suddenly she stiffened all over, her pelvis thrust high, and hard contractions deep inside of her clamped and released around his dick, milking its length furiously.

Ripping his mouth free, he threw back his head. Then, grinding out her name, he slammed his hips forward one last time and in scalding, bone-rattling pulsations, he began to come.

And come.

And felt her climaxing around him all the while as he continued to come.

Until, finally, totally boneless and feeling like a homeless stray suddenly in possession of his very own hearth, he collapsed atop her.

L
ILY'S ARMS SLID AWAY FROM
Z
ACH'S NECK AND
flopped onto the mattress. Her legs, released by his collapse, followed suit and splayed bonelessly upon the duvet. Holy petunia.
So this is what really good sex feels like.
She was perfectly content to lie crushed beneath the weight of Zach’s inert body—until it occurred to her that she couldn’t hear him breathing and was far from sure if that was his heartbeat she felt, or merely the thundering of her own. Summoning all her energy, she raised her right hand and petted his damp, muscular back. “You still alive?”

“Dunno,” he muttered into her neck. But one of his hands lifted to stroke her from armpit to hip, then eased into a slow return caress back up her side. “I think I may have died and gone to heaven.”

That’s nothing. I think I may have gone and fallen in lov—

No.
Shocked, her hand dropped back to her side.
That’s not true, so don’t even think it
. It was simply a case
of having a sexual experience beyond anything she’d ever known.
Don’t confuse it for anything else, Lily.

But it was hard not to panic when Zach, obviously reacting to her growing tension, raised his head to look down at her. “You okay?”

“Yes. Sure. It’s just…you’re kind of heavy, and I, um, have to use the bathroom.”
Oh, jeez, you are such a liar. Not to mention a coward.
But she was still relieved when Zach immediately lifted himself off her. She eased to the side of the bed, then sat up with her back to him while she took a couple of silent, restorative breaths. When he suddenly ran his fingertips down her bare spine, she just barely refrained from leaping straight into the air like a spooked cat. Instead, she flashed him a smile made vague by the fact that she didn’t quite make eye contact when she glanced back over her shoulder.

“I’ll be right back,” she murmured to his hard jaw, and rose to her feet, tugging the top sheet free of the bed and winding it around her as she padded to the bathroom.

A moment later found her with the door firmly closed between them, and her hands braced on the vanity as she stared at the worried expression looking back at her from the mirror. “I’m not falling in love,” she vowed in a low voice. “I am
not
falling in love!”

“Did you say something?” Zach called.

“No. That is, I’m just talking to myself.”

She heard him laugh and looked back at her reflection.
Dear God
. She met her own horrified gaze.
I’m falling in love
.

This was awful. If she had to go fall for some guy,
why him? He was the
worst
choice she could make—the complete and utter worst.

It was pure reflex that thrust her chin in the air.
So, big deal, then. The answer to that is don’t…. Just don’t fall in love.
A little distance, a little perspective, and she’d get over it. Heck, it was probably nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction to really good sex anyhow.

Oh, Lily, please.
She blew out her breath.
Lie to Zach if you have to. But don’t lie to yourself.

She’d had good sex before. Maybe not as earth-shattering as what she’d just shared with Zach, but pretty darn great. The point was, she hadn’t immediately gone from thinking
Dang, I feel good
to
I must be in love
.

Of course, she’d never tried to convince herself she lacked feelings for the current man in her life, either. Until Zach, she’d always gone into her admittedly limited relationships believing they were going somewhere. And if that didn’t tell her something right there, she didn’t know what would.

She was very much afraid this was the real deal. It might not make sense, but there you had it all the same.

The question was, what did she do about it?

For instance, even if he were to return her feelings—and face it, that was a mighty big if—was she willing to simply set aside her dream of opening her own restaurant to follow a soldier around the country?

No.
Straightening, she dropped the sheet to reach for her periwinkle satin robe hanging from the back of the door.
Let’s get real here for a minute
. Love was all very grand, but despite what the songs would have you believe, it wasn’t always the be-all and end-all of every
problem. Her dream was something she’d nourished for a
lifetime
…and that wasn’t an aspiration one just blithely tossed aside. Not to mention she’d had her fill of moving every nine months with her parents and wasn’t prepared to do it again.

Zach would probably be horrified in any case, if he had any idea she was in here attempting to decide their future. Chances were fair to decent that before he’d ever made his move, he’d figured the odds of her equating a roll in the hay with the chime of wedding bells. And considering she was a long way from anyone’s idea of a starry-eyed kid, he’d undoubtedly come to the conclusion that she was old enough to know the score—that she could be trusted not to build fantastical scenarios out of thin air simply because the two of them had finally acted on the sexual tension that had been simmering between them since they’d first laid eyes on one another.

Tweaking her hair into some semblance of order, she pulled herself up to her tallest posture, then pulled her robe closed and tied the belt around her waist. She had to get back in there before he began wondering just what the heck she was doing. About all she could do at this point was take the situation as it came and live minute to minute if that’s what it took.

Only, please, God, don’t let me give myself away.
All these new emotions left her feeling vulnerable and exposed, and she didn’t want to look like a fool. It was the one thing she didn’t think she could bear.

Zach was lying on his side with his head resting against the biceps of his updrawn arm when she walked
back into the room, but he pushed up on his elbow the moment he saw her. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, sure. Absolutely.” And his genuine concern made it easy for her to flash him a natural smile. He looked dark and powerful against the white sheet that had fallen to his waist. But for such a tough guy, he certainly was protective of her feelings.

In the next instant, as if fearing she might misread his solicitude, his eyebrows drew together. “Listen, Lily, I think we should talk about—”

Oh, gawd
. Quickly crossing to the bed, she plopped down next to his hip and reached out to press her finger to his lips. The last thing she thought she could stand right now was the big, serious this-has-been-fun-but-let’s-not-lose-perspective talk. “You don’t have to worry that I’ll expect too much from you,” she promised softly. “We’re both adults here, and I know the important thing right now is for you to get Glynnis and David back. So why don’t we just keep things nice and easy between us?”

He wrapped his hand around her wrist and pulled her finger away from his lips. “I haven’t nearly had my fill of you,” he said harshly.

Lily thought it a pretty sad commentary that his obvious frustration lit her up like a mason jar full of fireflies. Good grief, was that a measure of how far gone she was, or what? But she managed to keep her voice light when she replied, “Good. Because I haven’t had my fill of you, either.”

“Then you can be damn sure we’ll do this again,” he said. “Only—”

“I know,” she interrupted him gently, realizing she couldn’t bear to have his reservations spelled out for her. Not right this minute, while she was still raw from all these new feelings. “You have Glynnis to rescue, and I…well, my priority is getting my dream restaurant up and running. So I understand, okay?”

“Yeah,” he said roughly, and his deep voice licked goosebumps down her spine from nape to tailbone. Whipping his arm around her waist, he tumbled her flat on her back next to him and rose up over her. “Yeah,” he repeated, looking down at her with those charcoal-rimmed, intense pale eyes. “Okay.”

As the busy signal sounded in his ear yet one more time, it took everything Zach had to keep from slamming down the phone in frustration. Instead he replaced the receiver with exaggerated care, then turned to stare for about the dozenth time at the door connecting his room to the bathroom that connected to Lily’s. It was a damn good thing she was downstairs preparing breakfast for everyone, he thought, because he had a wild hair up his butt urging him to go pick a fight with her.

The thought brought him up short.
Jesus, Taylor, what is your problem? Last night was fantastic—she pretty much handed you everything you could possibly ask for, all gift wrapped with a nice gold bow. So what’s got you feeling so pissed off?
He plowed both hands through his hair. He wasn’t so egotistical that he thought one hot session between the sheets, no matter how inspired, would motivate her to declare her love everlasting. On the other hand, they had shared some
thing pretty damn special—and she’d been in an awful big rush to just blow it all off, hadn’t she?

“Uh!” Loosening his fingers from his hair, he smacked himself in the forehead with the heels of his hands. What the
hell
was wrong with him? They’d fucked like minks all night long, and he ought to be relieved he hadn’t needed to tell her not to expect a lot from him in the way of the emotional garbage that most women seemed to want. So why did the fact she’d beaten him to the punch have him all bent out of shape instead? Hell, she’d offered him the best of all worlds. She’d volunteered her kisses, and access to her gorgeous body, and all of her sweetness and smiles, without any of that messy, clingy, needy shit that usually went along with it. He ought to—

Screw
ought to. Uttering another rough sound, he turned back to the phone and snatched up the receiver again. This time when he punched in Cooper’s number, the phone on the other end of the line rang.

It was picked up on the third ring. “Yeah?”

“Coop, it’s Zach.”

“Hey, Midnight, how y’holding together? I imagine all this waiting around has gotta be a bitch, huh?”

Not as tough as it would’ve been without Lily’s brand of distraction.
The thought no sooner crossed his mind than he shook his head impatiently. “I’m hanging tough. I, uh, wonder, though, if I could ask you and John a favor.”

“Sure. Shoot.”

“We’re supposed to hear back from the kidnapper on Saturday. Would you and Rocket lend a hand with the
take-down? I could use some backup that I can trust—a reserve force that no one living in this heap of rocks knows anything about.”

There was a momentary hesitation, and Zach, already sensitive at having to ask, asked stiffly, “Is there a problem?”

“Hell no. I’m just trying to think what I’ll tell Ronnie.”

What he’d—? For the first time that morning, Zach felt a smile crook up the corners of his mouth. “The Iceman has to ask the little woman if he can go out and play? Tell me it isn’t true, Blackstock.”

“It isn’t true,” Coop promptly replied. Then he laughed. “Shit. If I hear even a whisper of the word pussy-whipped, pal, I’ll have to hurt you. But I know Ronnie, and she’s gonna want to come along to lend a hand. I have to find a way to avoid that.”

Zach was nonplussed. “What does she think she can do that three trained Marines can’t?”

“Beats the hell outta me, but she’ll want to help anyhow. In any case, count us in. We’ll come up Friday and find a place to stay. Just pick a place for us to get together to work out the logistics.”

“Thanks, Coop.”

His friend made a rude noise. “Screw that. I’d want to be there when Glynnis gets home anyway, to check out her new boyfriend. Someone’s gotta make sure the peckerwood’s good enough for her.” A voice rumbled in the background and Coop snorted.

“What?” Zach demanded.

“Rocket says the peckerwood’s got money, and the way your baby sis runs through hers, that’s at least a start.”

A bark of laughter escaped Zach’s throat.

“Here, John wants to talk to you,” Coop said, and there was a faint shuffling sound as he handed off the phone.

A second later, Rocket’s voice came down the line. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself.” Then, too antsy for small talk, he demanded, “You have any luck with those background checks?”

“Depends on your definition of luck.” At Zach’s impatient sound, his voice turned serious. “Sorry, Midnight. But just once it would be nice to investigate a family who was less Borgia and more frigging Brady Bunch. I have information, but it doesn’t narrow down the field much.”

Great.
Zach had known better than to expect an easy solution, but still his gut clenched. Squaring his shoulders resolutely, he blew out a breath. “So what are you telling me here—that the Beaumonts are all in bed together?”

John laughed. “No, it’s not that bad. No machinations with incestuous overtones. As with most things, amigo, it pretty much boils down to money. The wealth in that family belongs strictly to Glynnis’s David. He inherited the whole ball of wax when his father died.”

“No shit?” Zach looked around the sumptuous room he’d been assigned. “
Every
thing went to him?”

“Looks like. Mama Bear receives a modest annual stipend, but all the rest—the family business, the family home—went to Baby Bear.”

“Kinda makes you wonder how she feels about that, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“How long since the father kicked?”

“Three years. David was barely twenty-three. Apparently our boy’s got a head on his shoulders, though—not to mention a knack for making money. From all accounts, he took the family business and increased its net worth far beyond the original inheritance.”

“This is a fairly small island whose only industry, as far as I can tell, is tourism. What sort of business are we talking about?”

“It has something to do with telecommunications and radio or microwave towers, or some such. I’ve taken a look at the annual report, but to tell you the truth I was more interested in the financial bottom line than whatever the product is they produced to arrive at it. So I’m not real clear if it has to do with cellular phones or satellite systems or exactly what the nature of the beast is. But I can tell you this much. It’s not some hokey little nickle/dime operation. It has a net worth of over nine million dollars. The family property where you’re staying is worth a couple of million more. If you want additional details, I can give it a closer look.”