Playing Dirty (21 page)

She smiled as she looked at him, but her eyes held a hint of sadness that irritated him. Logically, he understood her pain. She was putting to rest a part of her life and it hurt her. He got it. Regardless of how much he wanted to understand, it didn’t stop the sharp claws of irrational jealously from ripping apart his gut.
 

He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say. That he would’ve helped? Of course he would have helped her, but he probably wouldn’t have liked it, no matter how much alcohol was involved. “I don’t have to report until noon tomorrow, so I’ll take them to the post office for you.”

“Not necessary. The shipping company is picking them up.” She took off toward the kitchen. “Are you hungry?”
 

He followed her, his gaze trapped by the sway of her hips and the length of her legs. The urge to cup her rear in his hands had his fingers itching, and his dick swelling.

“I can make you breakfast or heat some leftovers. I made stuffed shells Friday night.”

His stomach growled on cue. “I was just gonna shower and hit the rack for a few.” A cold shower, apparently.

“It’s no trouble.” She started pulling containers from the fridge. Her top inched up, showing off more skin.
 

He swallowed. Hard.
 

“Do you want a salad?”
 

He wanted her. Warm and naked and beneath him. “I don’t want a salad.” The words came out rough, fueled by his mounting frustration.
Damn it
.

“Okay, then.” She looked at him and frowned, then started tucking leftovers back into the fridge. “Bacon and scrambled eggs work for you?”

He didn’t want breakfast, he wanted his wife. He wanted to push her up against the wall, surround her with his heat and make her forget everything but him. Make her want no one else but him. Make her forget Trenton Avery ever existed.

When he didn’t answer, she looked at him again, her gaze curious. He stared at her, needing her, craving her touch. It’d been five years since he’d made love to his wife. Five, long, tortuous years.
 

“Ford? Is everything all right?”

“Fine. Everything’s fine.” He dragged his hand down his face. “It’s been a rough thirty-six hours, is all.”

Her tentative smile held a hint of sympathy, making him feel like an ass. He was tired, but he was more tired of the awkwardness. When would enough be enough?
 

“Why don’t you shower, and I’ll make you some breakfast,” she suggested. “I don’t need to be at Dad’s until three today.” She glanced at the clock. “You can sleep late and meet me there around five-thirty if you need to.”

“I’ll be fine after a few hours.” He hated that she was being so thoughtful, so fucking polite. He didn’t want polite, he wanted real.
 

She pulled a cast iron pan from the cabinet and started placing bacon into the cold skillet. “I won’t be long,” he said and took off for the guest bath.
 

A few minutes later he stood beneath the hot spray of the shower, head bent forward, the water raining down as he attempted to wash away the tension coiling tightly inside him. Slowly, the stress drained from his body, and with it, the last of the adrenaline-fueled buzz of excitement. He lifted his head and the stinging spray pelted his face.
 

In that instant, he was back in the desert, tied to a hard plank of wood, tipped back at a downward angle. The ropes were bound so tight, they dug into his flesh with every breath he took. There, under the ruthless heat of the Middle Eastern sun they’d kept him blindfolded and attempted to simulate a drowning experience in an effort to force him to reveal secrets. With no food or water to sustain him, they’d left him to bake. His skin blistered and burned, but he’d refused to give them any information. Then they’d start the waterboarding all over again.

He’d laughed in their faces and endured their torturous games, remaining rebellious and defiant until the day he’d escaped with LeCuvier. God knew, they’d tried their damnedest. They’d beaten him, starved him and tortured him relentlessly. They’d threatened him with death, and when that hadn’t worked, they’d murdered others in his place. Still, he’d hardened himself to their tactics. He’d endured, refusing to let the bastards break him.
 

He turned his back to the water and let it beat against his scarred flesh. The ability to compartmentalize had kept him sane, and he used that skill now to systematically shut down the memories, one by one. Awake, he easily conquered them, locking them down whenever they’d crept into his consciousness. Asleep, he wasn’t quite so lucky. He hadn’t had a night’s sleep without nightmares since he’d gained his freedom.

His finished his shower, wrapped his towel around his waist, then picked up after himself before he opened the bathroom door and nearly collided with his wife. Steam wafted around them, pouring out the opened bathroom door into the hallway.
 

Mattie faced him, her hand poised to knock. “I...” Her gaze locked on his chest as she slowly lowered her arm. “Um...” When she finally lifted her eyes to his, her vibrant green eyes darkened. The gentle smile suddenly tugging her lips, eased into a sensual curve that sent his libido into overdrive.
 

“Did you want something?” he asked, because he sure as hell did. He wanted to kiss her senseless. He wanted her to melt against him, to hold him and never let go, to never think of another man again.

She nodded slowly. “Yeah.” She lifted her hand and carefully settled it on his chest. Her fingers curled against his skin, tangling with the hairs on his chest. She inched closer and lifted her mouth to his. “I want to taste you.”

His heart stopped. “Where’s Phoebe?”
 

“Still in Galveston with Dad and Lily.”

“Good to know.” He dropped the clothes in his arms at their feet, then pulled her tight against him. All that separated them were a few scraps of cotton and a towel, which would take him a fraction of a second to shed.
 

His mouth came down hard on hers. She immediately opened to him, sliding her tongue along his in a kiss so sweet and seductive, he nearly fell to his knees.

Her hands slid along his arms, her fingers tightening around his biceps before she reached upward to his shoulders, and toward his back. He wasn’t ready to answer questions about his scars, or the time he’d spent in the hands of the enemy. Eventually, yes, he’d have to talk to her about what had happened, but not now. Not today.

In a diversionary tactic that fed his fantasies, he caught her hands in his and moved quickly, shoving her up against the wall and pressing his body against hers. He laced their fingers together above her head and kissed her deeply, mating his tongue with hers.

She kissed him back. Her breasts rubbed enticingly against his chest, making his dick ache and throb. She made a sexy whimper of sound, an erotic mixture of surprise and passion that fueled his lust.

He disengaged their fingers and clamped his hand around both of her wrists, holding her as his willing captive. With his newly freed hand, he dragged his fingers down the underside of her arm, around the curve of her breast, and slipped it beneath the hem of the thin, cotton camisole. She trembled against him as his fingers inched upward, across her rib cage and finally to cup her breast in his hand. The weight was heavy against his palm as he scraped his thumb over the bead of her nipple.
 

Her hips flexed and he about came out of his skin. He wanted closer. He wanted skin touching skin. He wanted inside her, riding her, pushing her until it was his name falling from her lips as she came. To remind her that she belonged with him. Belonged
to
him.

She strained against his hold on her wrists. He let her go and reached for her rear. With a flick of her fingers, the towel was history. “You’re playing with fire,” he said against her lips.

She slipped her hand between their bodies and wrapped her slender fingers around the length of his cock. “That’s not all I want to play with,” she said, her husky tone filled with the promise of sex. Hot, mind-blowing sex.
 

His dick throbbed in her hand. “You sure about that?”

She pulled back enough to look at him. Her eyes glittered with desire. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my entire life?”

Twelve

MATTIE FORGOT ABOUT bacon cooling, or eggs waiting to be scrambled. When Ford’s tongue mated roughly with hers, she sighed and pressed her body closer to his. His hands went from her hips to her bottom, where his long fingers kneaded and massaged, inching closer to where she craved his touch the most.
 

A familiar heaviness settled in her pelvis. Need tugged and pulled insistently inside her. When he lifted her, she wrapped her legs around his waist and held on tight. No hesitation. No second thoughts. She’d waited five years for this moment, and she needed him to make her forget the long, tortuous months she’d spent without him. Forget the crippling pain she’d endured. Forget how much effort it had taken for her to crawl out of bed each morning, when all she wanted to do was hide in the darkness, hide from the pain, from the heartbreak.

She welcomed the pressure of his tongue gliding against hers, the heat of his skin beneath her fingertips. The press of his erection against her heated center. A part of her wanted to weep from the sheer pleasure of being in her husband’s arms again. The other part of her wanted him to carry her to the nearest bed and love her until they were both too exhausted to move.
 

She dragged her mouth from his. “Take me to bed.”
 

The quick flash of uncertainty in his eyes took her by surprise. Indecision had never been an issue in the past. But there were five unaccounted years between them now. There were things he didn’t know about her. Sixty months worth of history they’d been denied. But now was not the time for that discussion. The only conversation she was interested in having included two bodies, sliding against each other, coming together in a passionate explosion of longing, culminating into pure exhaustive, physical gratification.

She looped her hands around his neck and looked into his eyes. From the moment she’d met him, she’d known he was the only one for her. When she’d married him, she’d known they’d be together forever. No one had warned her that their forever could be derailed, that she’d have to learn to live without him. It hadn’t been easy, and she almost hadn’t made it, but in the end she
had
survived losing him. Despite her relationship with Trenton, she’d never stopped loving Ford simply because it wasn’t in her DNA. And now, by some miracle of fate, he’d been returned to her, and that was all that mattered. As she gazed into his eyes, she knew without a shadow of doubt, she’d made the right decision to stay with him.
 

“Make love to me, Ford. I want you inside me.” She nibbled at the corner of his mouth, licking, tasting. “Now.”

With her legs still wrapped around his waist, he carried her the short distance to the guest room. He made love to her mouth as he carefully lowered her to the bed. His weight pressed her into the mattress, the heat of his skin seared her hands, while the crisp brush of cold air from the AC vent chilled her. Need ripped through her, causing every possible point of pleasure on her body to thrum and pulse in anticipation of his touch, his tongue, his body.

She rocked her hips against him, rubbing against the hard length of his penis. Pleasure shot through her when he answered with a moan, and deepened the kiss, his tongue stroking hers in a hot dance of seduction. Long before she was ready, he broke the kiss and rested his forehead against hers. “Keep that up,” he said, his voice strained, “and this is going to be over a lot sooner than either of us want it to.”

Initially, perhaps. But it had been five years. The odds were in her favor that he’d be ready, willing and more than able again in record time.
 

“I’m not too worried.” She slid her hand between their bodies and took hold of him. He was hot and heavy as her fingers skirted his length.
 

He let out a hiss of breath between his teeth. “Don’t start what you can’t finish,” he warned.

An easy smile tugged her lips. “Is that a promise or a challenge?”

“It’s what ever you want it to be.” He bent his head, and through the flimsy fabric of her camisole, took her nipple into his mouth and suckled. The rasp of the fabric, the heat of his mouth, sent a sharp tug low inside her. She jammed her fingers into his hair, holding him to her. He sucked harder and his name fell from her lips on a whisper, untried and rusty.
 

He pulled back long enough to remove her top. “Say it again,” he demanded, before he drew her nipple into his mouth. He pulled the tip deep, and her nerve endings sizzled. She arched her back, wanting, needing more. So much more.

“Ford,” she whispered again, tasting the word on her tongue. She dragged her hands over his torso, reacquainting herself with the beautiful, familiar landscape of her husband’s body. The flex of muscle beneath her questing fingertips encouraged her.
 

She grabbed a handful of his hair and gently tugged. “Stop.” When he looked at her, she said, “I need to taste you.”

She pushed at his shoulders. Slowly, as if being apart from her defied logic, he pulled away and stood. She scooted off the mattress and snagged a pillow from the bed, tossing it at their feet, before she settled to her knees in front of him and took him in her hands.