High-Stakes Playboy (15 page)

He passed by her, his hands itching to reach out and pull her into his arms. To cup her breasts and run his palms down her belly, to make her hot and needy for him, to have her writhing on his fingers and crying out her release...

Butter. Must. Get. Butter.

When he returned, she was bent over by the fire, her tush cupped in tight jeans and sticking up in the air as proud as you please. He could slip those jeans down, grab her hips and drive into her tight...

Butter. Must. Give. Her. Butter.

“I found some,” he mumbled.

“Great! I’ve got everything we’ll need right here. Is cherry okay?”

He mentally swore and narrowly avoided burying his head in his hands.

She buttered up the fire toaster, lined it with bread that she smashed flat and then she stopped, looking flummoxed.

“Need help?” he ground out from behind his clenched teeth and his raging lust.

“Can you open the cherries? I don’t have the right tool.”

He did groan aloud then. He actually had to turn away from her to hide his bulging flesh as he fished out his pocket knife and unfolded the can opener attachment. He passed the opened can over his shoulder to her and saw out of the corner of his eye when she stuck the toaster into the coals.

“Are you okay?” she asked. And, oh, God, she laid her hand on his back.

He wanted her hands all over him so bad he could hardly stand it. In desperation, he sank into the armchair beside the fire and propped up one knee to disguise his arousal at least a little.

“Yeah,” he managed to choke out. “I’m fine. You?”

“Well, I think we’re snowed in. It looks like another six or eight inches fell overnight. When do you suppose it’ll stop?”

If it didn’t stop snowing soon, he wasn’t going to make it out of here alive. His lust was going to kill him.

He shrugged, blatantly faking casualness. “Weather forecast said it should taper off sometime today and start to warm up. Could be a day or two for this much snow to melt. Could be another day or two after that for the snowmelt to run off and finish flooding the local gullies.

“You really didn’t have to come up here to rescue me. As you can see, I have things well in hand.”

He could think of something he wanted in her hand...

Stop. That.

He forced out, “The good news is Adrian’s going to have to wait for the valley to dry out enough to continue shooting. He can’t drive tanks and Jeeps through too much mud, or equipment will get stuck and make filming impossible.”

“Whew. I really can’t afford to mess up this job. I don’t have a backup gig like you do.”

His backup gig wasn’t looking all that appealing these days. The idea of leaving her behind and never looking back physically hurt to contemplate. Lord, what had she done to his head? Suddenly the cabin felt like a tiny, confining box, the walls collapsing in on him. Cursing, he grabbed his coat, threw it on and barged outside into the storm.

Chapter 9

M
arley still didn’t forgive him for suspecting her and not telling her he was leaving in a few weeks, but it had been nice of him to make a difficult journey up here to rescue her. Even if she didn’t need rescuing.

She looked up with a smile as the front door blew open on a gust of wind and snow, but her smile died the moment she saw Archer. He was soaking wet, his hair plastered to his head, his clothes clinging to him, dripping rivulets of water.

“What happened to you?” she exclaimed.

“F-found a c-creek. Un-d-der the s-s-snow. The h-hard w-way.”

“You fell in a
creek
?” She leaped to her feet without waiting for his answer and rushed over to push him in front of the fire, where she commenced peeling off his wet clothes. Darned if he didn’t look totally gorgeous with his hair slicked back from his face like that. The man really should be a model.

But then she got his sweater off and caught sight of his chest. It was unnaturally pale. And he was shivering violently. His hands were bright red and his fingertips were turning white. Good Lord. The beginnings of frostbite.

She dropped his sweater in a sopping pile on the hearth. “Good thing that’s wool, or you could have really been in trouble,” she groused, more worried than she cared to admit to him.

“Am in t-trouble.”

“We’ll get you warmed up in no time,” she said reassuringly. “We just have to get all these wet things off you.” She peeled his wet jeans down his hips and froze as she realized he’d gone commando this morning. And
hoo baby
, even cold as a Popsicle that man was
gifted by Mother Nature
. No wonder porn producers had propositioned him.

Resolutely, she leaned down, trying and failing to ignore his man parts looming less than a foot from her face. Were he not half-frozen, she would definitely have taken advantage of the moment in some inappropriate way. Doggedly, she dragged the wet denim down his muscular legs. God, his entire body was as perfect as the rest of him.

“Lift your foot,” she ordered. As he complied and she peeled the sock off—jeez, even his foot was gorgeous!—she muttered, “It’s really not fair for one man to be so hot, you know. Some other poor schmuck got no good looks at all because you double-dipped when God was passing out handsome.”

He made a noise that might have been a laugh, but it was hard to tell over the chattering of his teeth.

“Other foot,” she ordered.

When she had him buck naked, she raced for the bathroom and towels. She rubbed him all over briskly and toweled off his hair. He wasn’t getting back his color, though.

“I think you’re now getting hypothermic, Archer. We’re going to have to warm you up another way. Come with me.”

He followed her into the bedroom. “Turn your back,” she ordered him.

He complied and, self-conscious, she stripped off her T-shirt to expose her bare chest. She’d gone commando this morning, too. It was his fault, of course. She’d spent all night dreaming about having sex with him and had been feeling inordinately naughty when she woke up. She kicked off her jeans and jumped into the bed, as embarrassed as she’d ever been in her life. Holding up the comforter, she finally looked up at Archer.

“What are you waiting for? Get in.”

“C-can’t.”

“Yes, you can. And you need to. It’s Girl Scouts 101 that skin-to-skin contact is the fastest and best way to warm up a hypothermic person. Surely, even you know that.”

He stubbornly shook his head.

“If you don’t get in here with me, I’m going to have to come out there and wrap myself around you, and then we’ll both get cold. Now get your smoking-hot body over here and plaster it against me before you freeze to death!”

“W-when you p-put it l-like that...” He climbed in beside her and she gasped as his icy body rolled against hers.

“Omigod, you’re freezing!” she squealed.

He buried his ice cube of a nose against her neck under her hair and muttered. “You’re so hot.”

She laughed. “Keep saying that. Maybe someday I’ll believe you.”

His arms went around her, and even though they were bands of frost, they pulled her tightly against him. In turn, she wrapped her arms around his lean, powerful waist. They lay like that for long minutes in silence, and slowly, slowly, his shivering lessened. Her own body went from warm to freezing, and slowly back to warm.

And then other things began to register. The ways the hairs on his chest rubbed against her breasts when he moved. The way his muscular thighs gripped one of hers between them. The way his hardness nestled against her belly...and was, um, waking up.

His hand, the one resting between her shoulder blades, drifted lower, following the inward curve of her spine to her waist, and then lower to the small of her back. And then lower, to the upper curves of her tush. His fingers plunged gently into the crevasse between her cheeks and slowly eased lower.

Why hadn’t someone ever told her how totally erotic that part of her body was? She gasped and her hips undulated forward, toward him, as her entire lower abdomen melted.

“You’re so responsive,” he muttered into her hair.

His fingers slid even lower. Toward her hungry and pulsing lady parts. But then, infuriatingly, his hand stopped. What was it with him and getting right to the edge of spectacular things with her and then
freaking stopping
?

“Don’t you
dare
stop now, Archer Archer,” she warned him.

He lifted his head away from hers and leaned back far enough on the pillow to stare down at her. “Marley, we shouldn’t.
I
shouldn’t.”

“You shouldn’t, or you don’t want to?” she asked painfully.

“Are you kidding me?” he burst out. “I’ve been walking around with the mother of all hard-ons since the moment I met you!”

“Then make love to me already!”

“But...”

“But nothing,” she cut him off. “I want you. You want me. And I did just possibly save your life. You owe me. So get with the program here!”

“Yes, but there are things we should talk about first...”

She threw him a narrow, withering look. “Are you seriously going to make me beg? That’s not the slightest bit gentlemanly of you.”

A smile started in his beautiful brown eyes and slowly spread to his mouth, his cheeks, and then his whole face. He was so breathtaking she could barely stand to look at him.

This was it.
She was finally going to have sex. All the way. Her boldness deserted her and left her staring up at him without a clue as to what to do next.

“You’re sure?” he asked. “I can’t recommend me as a lover. I’m a head case on a short rotation stateside. I should have told you before.”

“Gordon told me.”

He snorted. “Bastard. Remind me to bust his nose the next time I see him.”

“You should’ve been the one to do it.”

“It didn’t occur to me to tell you until I realized I was contemplating more than just a...temporary relationship with you.”

* * *

Marley frowned up at him as if she didn’t know whether or not to believe him. Fair enough. He deserved her skepticism. Hopefully it would be enough to back her off this whole sex-right-now idea. They really did have things to work out before they did this.

He wasn’t sure he had the strength to turn away from her nakedness, her willingness to be in bed with him and her bodily throwing herself at him. He had the most honorable of intentions, but even his self-restraint had its limits.

“I want you,” she whispered. “Temporary or not. Right now. Please, Archer. Make love with me.”

He was still shaking his head in denial when she closed the distance between them and kissed him. It started slowly, just her lips brushing lightly across his.

“Please, Marley. Don’t do this.”

“Do you want me?”

A painful bark of laughter erupted from his throat. “You have no idea how bad I want you.”

“So, we’re both consenting adults. No one else will get hurt by us doing this. This is purely between you and me. I see no reason why we can’t do this.”

“Because I want it to be perfect. I want things to be good between us.”

“Then do it right, Einstein. You’re the expert at sex, after all. Show me how it’s supposed to be done.”

She pressed the entire glorious, naked length of her body against his, and he groaned, gritting his teeth until his jaw ached.

She kissed his jaw, his eyelids, his brow. Her hands roamed across his body, exploring and learning it. For a beginner, she was doing a spectacular job of finding all his most sensitive spots. Her breath against his belly button was steamy with the promise of things to come, and his entire body was stretched on a rack of desire and denial. She was torturing him. Or more accurately, he was torturing himself.

Before her mouth could slide any lower on his stomach, his fingers fanned out into her hair, and he lifted her up his body, rolling her onto her back. When she would have protested, he kissed her in desperation to silence her words.

Her tongue slipped between his lips, boldly exploring the contours of his mouth. “Please, Archer. Kiss me back.” Aching need vibrated in her voice.

He couldn’t deny her any longer. Couldn’t do it to either of them. Couldn’t hold out in the face of her full sexual onslaught. He surrendered.

* * *

Exultation roared through Marley when she sensed as much as felt Archer give up fighting against the idea of having sex with her.

Finally.

He kissed her, lightly at first, then more deeply as she plunged her fingers into his hair and pulled him closer. He supported his weight on one elbow, and slid his other hand around the back of her neck to lift her to him. His mouth opened against hers and she matched him thrust for thrust with her own tongue.

He groaned in the back of his throat, and in an instant the kiss shifted. Became carnal. Intense. Frankly, a bit intimidating. But this was Archer. He knew what he was doing. He had this under control.

She arched into him, handing over her body and her jittery nerves into his care.

“You taste like cherry pie,” he finally murmured against her lips. “I could taste you all day long.”

Immediately, her thoughts turned to that night in the truck when his amazing mouth had taught her things about pleasure she’d never known before. “That...sounds...wonderful,” she replied between kisses.

He laughed low and husky, and her toes curled into tight little knots of excitement. Under the comforter, his hands roamed her back, and he did that sexy thing with his fingers again where he traced her spine all the way down to her tush and beyond. But, praise the Lord, this time he didn’t stop just shy of her begging, swollen center of need.

“Been thinking about this, huh?” he murmured against her neck.

“You have no idea. Day and night.”

He made a sound of humor against her skin. “I know the feeling, baby.”

But then he kissed his way across her collarbone and lower, and any reply fled her lust-fogged mind. She shoved her hands into his damp hair as his mouth closed on her nipple, licking, sucking and tugging at it until she thought she might cry with the wanting it created elsewhere in her body.

His hand replaced his mouth, and his lips closed on her other nipple. And then his hand, the one that had been stroking her lower, returned, and his finger eased inside her. She was stunned at how wet and slippery she was.

“You’re so tight.” He sighed against her breast. “I can’t wait to get inside you and feel your sweet body clenching around me.”

On cue, her internal muscles tightened around his fingertip and clung tightly to it, willing it farther inside her. She ached to be filled, and her hips rocked forward eagerly against his hand.

But maddeningly, he withdrew his finger and rubbed the lubrication from it around her swollen flesh in a swirling motion that made her breath catch. “Do that again,” she gasped.

He obliged, dipping just into her juices and then slicking them over her now wildly throbbing core. Every beat of her heart pulsed through her belly, and she hovered on the edge of the same miracle he’d shown her before.

“Don’t stop, Archer,” she panted. “Never stop.”

“What do you want from me?” he asked low, his voice intense.

“Everything you’re willing to give me.”

He stared down at her intently. “Do you mean that?”

“Yes, yes,” she cried out in desperation as his fingertip swirled slowly around her and then flicked once, almost but not quite hard enough to launch her into outer space. She felt his lips curve into a smile against her belly as he slid lower, his head disappearing entirely beneath the comforter.

He pushed her thighs apart and she was more than glad to oblige, opening her body to him completely in her excess of lust.

His voice was muffled, but she couldn’t miss the note of satisfaction in it. “
Mmm.
Ready and willing. Just the way I like my woman.”

And then his mouth closed on her and all thought blew away like a snowflake in the storm outside. In seconds, he had her hovering again on the edge of infinity, right there, teetering on the precipice. His fingers drifted lower, circling the epicenter of her lust.

His finger pressed into her once more. Just enough to force the muscles to relax and accept the intimate invasion. And all of a sudden, the tension in her body let go, opening for him, throbbing eagerly in anticipation of whatever debauchery he felt could perpetrate upon her lust-crazed body.

Another finger made its way inside her. He moved both fingers gently, along with his tongue, and she cried out as her body lurched up off the mattress.

“Like that?” he asked.

“Omigosh, yes,” she panted.

His teeth closed on the peak of her breast, trapping it in his mouth, and then his tongue flicked back and forth across it fast, its slightly rough texture wet and relentless. She screamed as an orgasm ripped her apart from the inside out. She’d died. Gone to heaven. Space traveled. Heck,
time
traveled.

“
Voilà.
The screaming orgasm,” he murmured against the inside of her thigh. “Want another one?”