Just in Time (33 page)

He knew it wasn’t true, and he didn’t know what to say. So he decided to kiss her instead.

She squeaked a bit in surprise when he shoved off the wall and took hold of her, and knowing that he could do it—that was nothing but sweet satisfaction. His mouth closed over hers, he felt all that heat, all that softness as she opened for him, surrendered to him, and he lost it a little. There was nothing for it. He had to put his hands on her waist and lift her up to sit on the counter.

“Will,” she said with an unsteady little laugh. “At least let me take off my gloves.” She was stripping them from her hands, tossing them into the sink even as he was stepping between her legs. She wasn’t saying no, not a bit of it, so he reached a hand around to unfasten her hair and sent the plastic clip after the gloves.

“Ah,” he sighed, wrapping a hand through that soft mass, “I love this.” He pulled her head back gently, exposing her throat, and set his mouth to her. When he grazed the skin beneath her ear with his teeth, she shifted against him and moaned, and just like that, he was gone. His hand was tightening in her hair, and he was pulling a little harder, biting with a little more force, and she was wriggling under him, making some soft, urgent noises that were only making it worse.

He had to slide his other hand inside her neckline then, didn’t he? Because there she was, all soft and round and sweet and needing to be touched. Her slim, vulnerable neck definitely needed his teeth, too. That hollow just above her collarbone, especially, where she was arching away from him. That needed him most of all. So he did it, and she was grabbing his shoulders and whimpering, and he was sliding right down that slippery slope, because this was only going to end one way.

“Ahem.”

The cough came from the doorway, and Faith jumped beneath him. It took a moment for the message to get through the insistent drumbeat in his head, but he turned at last. And then he pulled his hand out from under her shirt.

“If you’re all done here,” his mum said, “I could use the loo.”

“Oh. Sorry,” Faith said. She scrambled down, stumbling a little in her haste, and he put a hand out to steady her. “We’re all finished.” She was shoving the cleaning supplies back under the sink, then reaching for her hair clip and gloves. “Sorry,” she said again. “We’ll just…go do our bathroom.”

“Reckon I should be glad you did mine first,” Will’s mum said dryly.

Since that was about as close to a joke as she’d got since Faith had arrived, Will grinned at her and said, “Reckon you should. We may not get to ours for a bit, actually, but no worries, we’ll do it tomorrow, now that Faith’s taught me how to clean the bath and all.”

“She has, has she?” His mum shot a glance at Faith, who was, of course, turning a delicious shade of pink. She was trying to smooth her hair while being inconspicuous about it, as if his mum wouldn’t have known exactly what they were doing, and that made Will smile some more. Faith thought she was so naughty, when she was nothing but sweet.

“We’ve got a booking just now, though,” he said. “We’ll bring back a takeaway for the match,” he thought to add. “Be back about seven.”

“We will?” Faith asked. “You didn’t say—”

“Saying now, aren’t I. And we’re late.”

She was still talking when he got her through the door into their bedroom. “You didn’t tell me we were going somewhere today. I’d have gotten this done sooner.”

“Didn’t know myself. Call it spontaneous.”

“I need to change, then,” she said, brushing at her jeans. “Outdoors or indoors? Dress up or down?”

He pulled out the drawer of his bedside table, took out a few packets, and shoved them into his pocket. “The dress code for this,” he informed her, “is naked. Except that you can grab those undies with the bow on them. You’re going to need those.”

He could see her shudder, because that was just how easy she was. Exactly as easy as him.

“Are we going—” she began.

“Yeh. We are. We’re going to a motel. Someplace where I can put you anywhere I want to, do anything I need to, and you can make as much noise as you have to, and nobody’s going to be knocking at the door. I told Kuia we needed some privacy, remember? Turns out I meant it. Because there’s so much more we need to do.”

He drove for less than ten minutes, but something had changed. His face was set, his expression intense, and he didn’t say a word, other than a curt “Wait,” before he left her in the car and went into a motel office.

He came out of it again a few minutes later, and was pulling around into a parking spot near a corner unit. “Let’s go,” he said, pulling the key from the ignition and opening the door.

“Will. Could you—”

“Could I what?”

“Could you
talk
to me? Please? I’m getting—” She stopped, then started again. “I’m getting really nervous.” She tried to laugh, but couldn’t. “You seem so…different. What are you planning to
do
here?”

“Aw, baby.” He leaned across, cupped her cheek in his hand, and kissed her, long and deep, and she was melting against the seat, her hand going to the back of his strong neck, caressing him there.

He pulled back at last and smiled at her. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m going to make love to you, that’s all. It may get a wee bit intense, because I’ve had some…fantasies, and I have to leave in a couple days, and—” He stroked his hand down her cheek, the gentlest of caresses. “It’s feeling pretty strong just now. And I don’t know what you’ve done before. I know what you put on that short list of yours, and I’ve wondered a bit about that. About how much came from you. I’m guessing, but I don’t know. So if I start anything that’s too much for you, tell me so, and I’ll stop. I can’t promise I won’t push, but we’re not going to do anything you don’t want. That I
do
promise.”

She swallowed. “All right. But I don’t want to…tell you so.”

“Mm.” He still had her face in his hand, and now he kissed her again, his mouth so sure against hers. “You like the command in me.”

“Yes.” She turned her cheek into his hand. “Yes.”

“Then I’d better see what I can do about that. Let’s get out of this car and get started, eh.”

How could she still be nervous after he’d said all that? Anyway, this was
Will,
and she knew Will. So she grabbed her purse, got out of the car, and followed him into the room.

“Think we’d better get into the shower first, don’t you?” he said, sounding exactly like Will again. “Wash all that cleaning stuff off us? Get clean, since we’re going to get so dirty later? Tell you what. You go on in there, and I’ll join you in a minute.”

“Oh. All right.” It was exactly like her scene. Except it wasn’t. It was just a
shower
. She went into the bathroom and got undressed, trying to calm her racing heart.
It’s just sex. Just good sex with Will, like you had yesterday. And last night.

Fantasies, though.
What
fantasies?

Five minutes later, she was in the shower, a huge stone-tiled thing with showerheads at either end. She turned both of them on, and was being pelted from both sides, shivering and gasping at the sensation, hundreds of individual streams of warm water hitting her sensitized flesh.

The rattle of rings, the shower curtain flying back, and he was in there with her. “Our second shower together,” he told her over the sound of the spray. “But this time, we’re doing it slow. And we’re doing it right.”

“What do you mean, right?”

She expected him to kiss her again, but he didn’t, just picked up a bottle of body wash and poured some into his hands. “Turn around,” he said. “Put your hands against the wall.”

Oh, God.
It
was
her story. And she did it. She turned and pressed her palms against the tile, and Will was behind her, brushing her hair around so the nape of her neck was bare, and then his teeth were biting hard into the side of her neck. She gasped and lifted her hands from the wall in surprise, and he let go of her, just like that, and she moaned a little at the loss of him.

“Put them back,” he told her.

She did it, even though they were trembling, because his teeth were there again, holding her, and his hands had come around to her breasts. Soap-slicked and strong, kneading and teasing, pinching and pulling at her nipples until she squirmed and moaned.

“That’s right,” he said. “Oh, yeh. That’s it. Keep showing me that.” He was pressed up close behind her, and she could feel how much he wanted her. Even so, he kept on, biting her neck again until her forehead was against the tile as well, her hips pushing back into him. Until she was liquid with need for him, burning to feel his hands on her. Where she needed him. Where she was melting for him.

“Touch me,” she begged, because she couldn’t stand it any more. “Please. Touch me.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. I think I’ll make you work for it this time.”

“Wh-what?”

He had a wrist in each hand, was pulling them down, and when she jerked back in surprise, he told her, “Hold still.”

She did, even as she felt him pull her hands behind her back. And then something was wrapping around them, again and again.

“Ah,” he said, the satisfaction dark and deep in his voice. “Oh, yeh. Turn around.”

He supported her while she did, because her legs were a bit shaky now, then reached over and turned off the faucet behind her. “It’s time to get on your knees, sweetheart, because this next bit’s yours.”

She should be upset that her hands were tied behind her back. She knew she should. But he was breathing hard, too, standing there in front of her, big and naked and so strong, his broad back being pounded by the spray. He was looking at her, at the way her breasts were thrust out by her position, and he had his hands on them, was weighing them, playing with her nipples, then bending to take one into his mouth and sucking hard, and she was leaning back against the tile again with a gasp and letting him do it. Not that she had a choice, not with her hands pulled behind her back.

He stood up again, but kept his thumbs on her sensitized nipples, pinched them again, made her twist and moan in response. “A bit surprised about the ribbon, eh,” he said.

“Uh…yeah,” she managed to say. “I didn’t know—where it had gone.”

“Went into my pocket, and I’ve been waiting all this time to use it again the way I wanted to. And this time, I’m not going to waste it. So…if you want to do this, get on your knees for me.”

She did want to do it. So dangerously close to the edge, exactly as dangerously thrilling. She wanted to do it all. Everything he said. Everything.

He had to hold her arms to help her, without her hands to support her on the slippery floor. The air was full of steam, the water pelted down against him and around her, and his hands were wrapping in her hair, pulling her into him, guiding her.

He still hadn’t kissed her, she realized fuzzily. He’d just told her what to do, and she’d obeyed. Just like she was obeying him now. Letting him move her head, direct her, pushing just to the edge. Just this side of too far, and she loved it.

And then it all stopped. He shut off the water, sank down to his knees with her, and pulled her toward him, held her up, and kissed her, long and deep. His tongue where he had been, the taste of him still in her mouth.

“I’m not going to untie you,” he told her when he pulled back at last, when her eyes had opened again to find him looking down at her, his expression so fierce, the warrior showing strong now. “Not unless you tell me to. But I’m going to tell you something. The whole day I had Gretchen like this? I wanted it to be you.”

She shivered, and he saw it, had his hands around her upper arms, and was pulling her to her feet. “Come on. Let’s get you dry.”

Once again, he was toweling her off with heated towels from the rack, and this time, all she could do was stand passively and let him do it. He grabbed a glass from the sink, poured it full of water, put an arm around her, and lifted it to her mouth.

“Drink,” he said, and she did, gratefully, leaning into his warm side. “You all right?”

She nodded. She could have talked, but something about having her wrists tied had changed something in her, too. She felt how much she was under his control, and she loved it.

He seemed to know it, because he smiled. “Yeh. Feels good, doesn’t it?” He bent and kissed her again, his mouth so gentle this time, his hand cupping her cheek. “Feels just that good to me, too, baby,” he whispered. “Just that good. Want to see what else we can do?”

“Yes.” She managed to get that much out. “Please.”

He kept his arm around her, led her out into the bedroom. Another king-sized bed with white linens. When they got there, he put a hand on her shoulder, turned her again, and untied the wet ribbon from around her wrists.

“Oh,” she said.

“Don’t worry.” He lifted her face for another kiss, one big thumb stroking her cheek. “You’re going to keep it on. But you can’t be on your back with your hands behind you, can you? And I need you on your back. So get on the bed.” He pushed her hair behind her ear with a gentle hand. “Corner to corner. Go on and do it, now.”