Present Danger (23 page)

“You’ve been cheating on me, Aunie,” James said in a flat voice as he moved nearer, and Aunie nearly shivered. She hated this part … when James used words that Wesley had used the last time he’d hurt her. She picked up the phone behind her back and felt along it for the M1, M2, or M3 buttons, all three of which had been programmed to dial 911. Pretending to push one, she dropped the receiver on the couch cushion. James had told her that police responded quickest to calls that were on an open line yet gave no information or were cut off in the process of giving information. 911’s computer automatically scrolled up the phone number and corresponding address for the incoming calls.

He was moving in on her and Aunie experienced the spurt of adrenaline that never failed to surprise
her. She knew that this was James; yet her body forever insisted on recalling Wesley’s attack during these sessions.

Never removing her eyes from him, she edged around, angling for the door. That was her primary objective, if at all possible.
If the opportunity presents itself, Aunie, don’t dick around. Get the hell outta there.
But James suddenly moved, blocking her way. She correctly judged his intent on his next three moves by watching his body language and she successfully dodged him.

Then he was on her.

Aunie reached for his eyes, and this time her nails were only centimeters away before he got a grip on her wrist. With her other hand, she jabbed for his Adam’s apple. James’s hand whipped out to stop her. She slammed her knee up between his legs.

She came the closest she’d ever come to reaching her objective. But ultimately she failed, and in the end, he had her down in her usual position, spread-eagled on the floor, her wrists pinned to the hardwood on either side of her head, his body weighing her down. Dammit!

He released her hands and placed his own on the floor to push himself off her. Suddenly enraged, she gripped his hair, twisted her head to the side, and yanked with all her might, trying her damnedest to smash his face into the floor. James grunted as he felt several hair roots give. Instinctively, he grabbed her wrists and slammed them back to the floor.

“Good girl,” he panted. “That last was a great little piece of improvisation. You came close this time, Magnolia.” He released her wrists once again and started to push off. “Okay, let’s give it another try.”

She made no move to rise. “No.”

That single, flatly stated negative halted him in his tracks. He dropped back over her, propping himself up on his forearms. “Whataya mean, no?”

“Just what I said.
No
. Ah’ve had enough.”

James didn’t consider how hard he’d been pushing her. He overlooked the signs of strain on her face. He had demons of his own riding him; her defiance enraged him, and he reacted with instinctive aggressiveness. “You’ve had enough?” he demanded furiously. Unreasonably aggravated, he jammed a hard muscled thigh between her legs and curled his hand into the thin material at the loose neckline of her Betty Boop T-shirt. He twisted his fingers and hauled on the material, making her back arch. “Is that what you’re gonna tell Wesley when he shows up?” he snarled, his face thrust close. “Ah’ve had enough? Dammit, Magnolia, he could have this little shirt ripped off of you in two seconds flat and rape you where you lie. Now, what’re ya gonna do to stop him?”

That did it! He’d done this before—in fact, he did it all the time. He was forever introducing the possibility of rape into the conversation whenever she dared balk, but she was way past allowing such tactics today. “Wesley would never rape me,” she snarled right back. “How many times do I have to tell you that before it’ll sink into your thick skull?
You
want to rip my shirt off, James? Then rip it! But don’t go attributin’ that particular motive to Wesley. He never much cared for my little ol’ lily whaht body.” She lay on her back, knees bent around the thigh pressed up hard between her legs, breasts heaving against the backs of his fingers.

James was twisted into a thousand knots. He’d just spent the past couple of weeks hammering at her not
to allow her emotions to go unchecked, and here his own were totally beyond discipline. For weeks, for months, he had denied, denied, denied.

Something different was pushing him now.

“Yeah, well maybe I’m not old Wesley,” he said with soft menace. “Maybe I’m the phone guy from the college, and doll baby,
he’d
rape you in the blink of an eye.”

It suddenly hit Aunie that he was aroused. She could feel him against her inner leg, hard and hot, and it infuriated her. Because she knew him and his insufferable self-control. He’d go stick it in a knothole before he’d avail himself of her. “I don’t think we’re talkin’ about Wesley
or
the Campus Caller,” she said venomously. “I think we’re talkin’ about
you.”
The irony of it hit her and she laughed bitterly. “Gawd, James, that’s funny.”

He stared at her with uncomprehending fury, denial written all over his face, and she sighed. “Oh, James, you just don’t get it, do you?” she asked. “You just don’t get it at all. I guess I’ll have to spell it out for you. Because, if we’re talkin’ about you here … if you’re the one who wants to make love to me, Jimmy … then, sugah, go ahead; I’m more than willin’. It sure as heck wouldn’t be rape!”

“Christ!” James recoiled from her as if he’d been scalded. He released her shirt, withdrew his thigh, and shoved to his feet. “Listen, Aunie,” he croaked, thrusting his hands through his hair. “Don’t talk like that. I’ve told you before, you’re not…”

“If you say I’m not your type one more time, I swear I shall scream,” she bit out between clenched teeth. She rose to her knees, staring up at him defiantly. “I’m sick of you tramplin’ all over my ego with that excuse. If I’m not your type, why are you sportin’ that?” She indicated the erection straining behind the fly of his worn jeans. He opened his mouth as if to reply, but she rode right over whatever he would have said. “And why is it you can’t seem to be in my company for more than five minutes without introducin’ sex into the conversation? Y’ do, y’ know … every darn time we’re together. So, what’s the story, Jimmy? Either you’re nothin’ but a big ol’ lily-livered
coward or …” She tilted her head as if she were considering. James was standing only feet away, his big hands now at his side, clenching and unclenching into fists. “Or,” she continued slowly as she climbed to her feet, “you’re one of those men who’s all talk and no action. Is that it? Ooh. I bet it is. James Ryder,” she imprudently mocked him, “thinks he’s a stud, but he’s only a pony.”

James forgot all the reasons why he couldn’t touch her. All he could think of was that he didn’t have to take this. Not on top of the past couple of weeks he’d had. Shit, he’d put himself on the line for her, exposing his dark side in order to teach her a little street savvy. He hadn’t wanted to do it. Up until now, she hadn’t seemed to fully realize just how different the worlds from which they came were, and he hadn’t wanted to be the one to clue her in. He’d known damned well that once she’d seen what he was capable of, it would be driven home to her like a stake through a vampire’s heart.

And, dammit, it had been. He knew she hated these sessions; he’d seen her fear of him every time he’d had to test her on how well she was learning, and it had twisted him up in knots. To cap it off, he’d thought he’d go nuts, rolling around on the floor with her, keeping his hands to himself, and now she was calling him a
pony?
Well, no more Mr. Nice Guy. If it was a stud she wanted, then it was a stud she’d fucking well get. He almost laughed aloud at the thought. Appropriate choice of words, those.

He was towering over her in two giant steps. “What did you call me?” His hands wrapped around her hips and he picked her up and stood her on the couch so their eyes were on a more even level.

If he thought she was going to back down, he was
crazy. Aunie’s chin jutted towards the ceiling. “A lily-livered—”

“No, after that.” His eyes ran over her from head to foot, taking in everything, missing nothing: her bright eyes, her flushed cheeks, the long, white neck, that T-shirt that had taunted him all afternoon with its cropped neckline that slid all over her shoulders, those skin-tight little grey leggings. “Say it to my face.”

“I said it to your face the first time, you big blond baboon. You think you’re a stud, but you’re only a … umm …”

James’s long fingers had tangled in her hair and his mouth cut off her words. He wanted to force her to eat her words, literally, but then he tasted her mouth under his, felt her bare arms wrap around his neck, felt her body plaster itself up against his, and his brain short-circuited, all coherent thought erased.

His mouth was avaricious on hers, lips tugging greedily, tongue pumping insolently, licking up her flavor, showing her who was boss, demonstrating what she could expect if she messed with James T. Ryder. She moaned and opened her lips wider, raking the newly grown nails of one hand across his scalp until her hand reached the coated rubber band that clubbed his hair back. She wrapped her small fist around it.

He bit her bottom lip, tugging on it, worrying it, then opened his heavy-lidded eyes in time to see her tongue snake out to lick along the edge of her upper teeth. He groaned and went after it, sucking it into his mouth. Releasing it a few moments later, he gripped a silky handful of hair and tugged, forcing her head back, exposing the long white arch of her throat. He sank his mouth into the soft skin just below her
earlobe, then slowly dragged it down the length of her throat, pausing to lick, to suck, to rake it with his teeth. Small patches of red began to bloom against the milk white expanse. Aunie shuddered and rolled her head to the side to give him better access.

He took full advantage.

One of Aunie’s knees slowly rubbed up the outside of James’s thigh and hip, eventually hooking around the back of his waist. James laughed low in his throat and slid his hands down her back until they were cupping her buttocks. He hauled her up and she wrapped both legs around his waist. “Oh, God, you like this position, don’tcha Magnolia?” He bounced her up and caught her bottom in his hands again, squeezing lightly. His mouth returned to her throat.

“Umm,” she agreed and rubbed her hands down his spine, grasping handfuls of his shirt and inching it up his back. James bent his knee into the couch cushion and lowered her to a prone position, falling across her, her ankles still locked around his hips. His shirt was bunched under his armpits, and she reached over his shoulders to grab the bottom edge and tug it over his head. It stretched from bicep to bicep in front of him as he planted his hands on the couch next to Aunie’s head and stiff-armed his upper torso away from her. She wrestled it down his arms, sliding it off over each of his large hands as he picked up first one and then the other. She tossed it aside.

James dropped down upon her, driving her into the cushions, sliding his arms beneath her back to arch her into his mouth. He slid down her body and nosed her T-shirt away from her stomach. Kissing the skin there, he found it to be white and firm and of an incredibly soft texture. He nosed the material higher, then looked up at her, his eyes more green
than usual, the grey burned out by the force of his emotions. “Take it off,” he demanded.

It never occurred to Aunie to argue. She reached down and crossed her hands over her abdomen, grasping the hem and pulling it up over her head. When she shook her hair free and looked down again, James had gone very still. He was staring at her little lace bra and swallowing hard.

“Jesus,” he whispered hoarsely and eased one arm out from under her back. He pushed up on the other elbow and the fingers still lodged beneath her back splayed across her spine. The hand that he lifted to touch her shook with a fine tremor.

His long, hard fingers lightly traced the outline of her bra, then slid inward to chart the pattern of pink lace that covered her breasts. He hesitated a second over her nipples, which poked like little pink pencil erasers against the material constraining them. Then he brushed his fingers against them, back and forth, back and forth, inflaming them further with the abrasive rub of the lace. They distended yet more and he caught one between his thumb and finger and pulled at it, squeezing it gently. Aunie sighed deep in her throat. James groaned deep in his.

His heart pounding furiously, he fumbled with the front catch between her breasts. He was usually adept at removing a woman’s bra, but wouldn’t you know that with her the damn thing would behave as though she’d bonded it together with superglue. Abruptly, it gave, and he peeled aside the little lace cups. His Adam’s apple rode slowly up and down the column of his throat as he stared at the alabaster perfection of the curves he’d exposed. He brushed the straps off her shoulders and Aunie shrugged off the wispy garment. “Jesus,” he said again, and for once in his
life it wasn’t a curse. Reverently, his calloused fingers grazed the delicate curvature of her breasts.

Aunie watched him. For some reason, the sight of her breasts had halted the frantic pace at which they had been devouring one another. After everything she’d ever heard about James’s propensity for women with big breasts, she had half expected him to be disappointed in the size of hers, but he seemed to be fascinated by them instead. His eyes hadn’t left them since the moment she’d removed her top. His fingers roved over their dainty curvature with a delicacy that made her wonder if he thought they’d fall off in his hands if he handled them roughly.

“Jesus, these are sweet,” he whispered to himself, gathering them cautiously in his rough-skinned palms. Little jolts of electricity skittered to Aunie’s loins. She watched the wry smile that tugged up one corner of his mouth and creased his cheek. “Almost a handful,” he whispered.

“Yes,” Aunie agreed dryly. “And if you push them together or sit me up, you’ll even see a little cleavage.” She didn’t know whether to be offended or amused that he’d apparently forgotten the breasts he found so interesting were attached to her.

James’s startled eyes flew to hers and then he grinned at her sheepishly, licking his lower lip. “That a fact? Let’s see.” He shoved to his feet, pulling her upright. Taking a seat on the middle cushion, he tugged her onto his lap, guiding her leg over his hips to kneel astride him. She braced her hands on the hard rounded muscles of his bare shoulders while she found a solid purchase for her knees on either side of his hips, then lowered her bottom to sit in his lap. She adjusted her position and felt the sensitive cleft at the juncture of her thighs bump against his
erection. She sucked in an involuntary breath and, hands sliding down to grip his biceps, rocked back and forth helplessly. Her head fell back and her eyes drifted shut as she ran the tip of her tongue around suddenly dry lips.

“Oh God, Aunie!” James dug his fingers into the supple skin of her back and jerked her against him, arching his hips to maintain contact. For the first time their bodies pressed together skin against skin, and he thrust rhythmically with his hips while his wide-splayed fingers on her back moved her upper body in slow circles, flattening her breasts against the solid wall of his chest, feeling her softness glide and rub against his hair-roughened hardness.

His fingers gripped harder and the muscles of his biceps stood out tautly as he pressed upward, forcing her to rise up on her knees. She moaned a protest over the loss of the delicious hardness upon which she had rocked, but James was relentless. He moved her until her breasts were on a level with his face. Watching for her reaction, he slowly extended his tongue to delicately lap a straining pink nipple.

Aunie jerked. “James?” She thrust her shoulders back, pushing the breast be was attending closer, needing more … needing less gentleness. “Jimmy?”

Her responsiveness, her unapologetic desperation, made James feel powerful, more so than he’d ever felt in his life, and he laughed deep in his throat. “What do you want, Magnolia?” he demanded in a low, raspy voice. “Tell me what you want.”

She gripped the back of his head and tried to force it nearer. With her other hand she cupped the underside of the breast he teased and pushed it up, bringing it in closer proximity to his lips. “Suck me,” she whispered. “Please, Jimmy, touch me harder. Please.”

“Jesus.” She was staring down at him, her pupils dilated and her eyelids heavy, begging him—oh, shit,
begging
him—to do what he’d been dying to do anyway but had been half fearful she was too fragile to withstand. His hard hand replaced hers on her breast, gripping it until the distended pink nipple stood out in stark relief; then his lips clamped down on it and pulled strongly. She moaned and clutched his hips with her knees, thrusting her pelvis forward in an age-old rhythm, seeking a relief that wasn’t forthcoming.

James tipped over onto his side, laying her down on the cushions. Raking his teeth over her nipple, he hooked his thumb into the waistband of her stretchy grey leggings and thrust them down to her knees. His hand slid back up her thigh and wedged between her legs, shaping itself to the feminine mound that arched greedily into his touch. Her little lace panties were damp beneath his fingers, and James groaned.

“Ah God, you’re so wet.” He delved beneath the lace, using his fingertips to separate slick petals of feminine flesh, sliding them up and down, rubbing a plump, slippery lip between his thumb and fingers. Then the rough pad of his thumb was reaching higher in search of her clitoris. He felt it, small, sleek, and hard, peeking out of its hood, and he rubbed light circles around it, pressed it with his thumb, flicked it with his thumbnail. Her little moans, the sweet way she opened and closed her thighs around his hand, drove him on.

Aunie clutched his ponytail in one hand. The other fumbled desperately at his fly, small, delicate fingers rubbing at the distended hardness behind it one moment, wrestling with the zipper the next. “Oh
gawd,” she whispered. “I want you inside me. I’m goin’ to … James, I want you
inside
me!”

The hand between her legs grew more insistent. “Next time,” he promised, watching her. “This time’s just for you. Let it go, Aunie. I want to see you come.”

“Oh no,” she protested weakly, but she could feel it building. “Oh no, James … oh please
… oh God
!
”
And she thrust into the fingers working their magic, clamping her thighs around his hand as all that interior sensation exploded with volcanic power. Her hips jerked helplessly and the hand in his hair pulled mindlessly until James’s neck was arched beneath the force of her grip. Her stomach muscles rippled once, twice … then she went limp, burying her face against his chest.

Triumph, like potent brandy, exploded in James’s brain. He’d known a few power junkies in his life and had never quite understood what it was that drove them. For perhaps the first time in his life he appreciated the rush that absolute power could produce. Watching his big, rawboned hand slide out of her little pink panties, he admitted he’d
enjoyed
being able to control her that way. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly, inhaling the scent of her hair as he rubbed his jaw against the crown of her head, tugging her up higher to bury his lips in the contour of her neck. He was stiff as a pike and throbbing painfully, but he ignored it, knowing his turn would come. Right now, he just wanted to savor this feeling of mastery that making her climax had given him, to feel her soft skin for a minute, hot and damp against his stomach and chest, to revel in her tiny shudders and clinging arms. Oh, Jesus … he wanted to relive again the sweet music of that soft,
escalating whine as she had exploded beneath his fingers.