Ready (13 page)

Somehow she’d made all this happen and there was nothing she could do to make it right. She had to rely on Joshua and his skills. A new kind of helplessness filled her, a sense that she could never make up to her family for what the problems in her life were costing them.

She needed space. Joshua was too close. Everything was too close. Her skin felt too tight for her body, like she was going to explode out of it. Nemesis’s words rang in her head and Joshua’s conversation with Nitro jumbled over them.

She had to get away.

She tried to move Joshua’s arm, but he wouldn’t cooperate.

“Joshua…” She pushed at his wrist, but she might as well have been trying to move a tree.

His gaze fixed on her as he spoke to Nitro.

She glared at him. “Let me go.”

His eyes narrowed and he looked down to where she was trying to drag his arm away from her.

He shook his head, just once; then, instead of moving away, he scooted her closer to him so her thighs were touching his beneath the blankets.

He said, “Relax,” before he went back to discussing possible ways for Nemesis to have gotten into her medical files.

Tangible pressure pushed against her, the stress of her circumstances like a vise, slowly squeezing the life out of her.

She hated this
.

He put his finger over the mouthpiece. “Just to be clear—no one but you and your doctor know about this female problem?”

It wasn’t a problem, except in Nemesis’s warped mind, but she wasn’t going to argue the point. If she opened her mouth, stuff would come out that she had to keep inside. Fear. Frustration. Anger—and this carrion guilt that was sucking her soul dry.

So she nodded her head.

“You didn’t tell your brother?”

She actually laughed at the thought, the sound as mechanical as Nemesis’s voice, and found she could speak after all. “No.”

If Bella talked about her menses with her brother, they had a much different relationship than she had with Jake and somehow she just couldn’t see it.

Joshua’s eyes narrowed with concern and he studied her face as if reading sign. Jake had taught her to track when she was eight, but somehow she thought Joshua was probably better at it than she was.

Suddenly, he dipped his head and before she could protest, he kissed her full on the mouth. It lasted only a second, but the contact went all the way to her anxious soul.

“It’s okay, honey.” He spoke against her lips and then brushed his mouth against her temple before speaking into the phone again. “It has to be the medical records. Find out if they’re online, or if he broke into the clinic to get them.”

Nitro said something and Joshua agreed.

Lise tried to get up again. She couldn’t give in to the need to lean on Joshua.

In one of his powerful, swift moves that were forever taking her by surprise, he pulled her right into his lap. Wrapping his free arm tightly around her, he continued the conversation with Nitro. Joshua’s body language was clearer than a billboard. Stay put.

She didn’t want to.

She struggled, but if his gentle cage had been difficult to get out of, this intimate hold was impossible to break.

Joshua finished his conversation and then flipped the phone shut before tossing it on the nightstand beside her cordless phone. He wrapped his other arm around her and rubbed her back with his big hand for a long time, saying nothing.

“I don’t know what he means by me leading other women astray,” she finally said when the silence had stretched beyond what she could stand.

“Shh…we’ll talk about it in the morning.”

“But—”

“We can’t do anything about it tonight.”

“What if—”

“Let it be.” His tone was firm.

“I don’t like you telling me to shut up.”

Incredibly, a chuckle rumbled in his chest against her ear. “Heaven forbid, but do you really want to dissect it tonight, Lise?”

“Yes. I’m too wound up to sleep.”

“Okay, what do
you
think he meant?”

She thought about it, but her train of thought derailed as Joshua’s caresses strayed lower on each downward sweep until he was smoothing his hand over the upper curve of her bottom.

The more intimate stroking made her acutely aware of her physical surroundings.

Joshua wasn’t wearing a shirt and her cheek was nestled against the silky curls on his chest. He smelled good, warm and musky, and she couldn’t help nuzzling him just the tiniest bit to inhale more of his scent. His heartbeat was steady, but increasing, and the corded muscles of his thighs weren’t the only hard things under her bottom.

Her muscles contracted in an involuntary Kegel and she grew warm and wet where the apex of her thighs fit over his growing erection.

Good night!
How could she be so upset one minute and so turned on the next?
Was she depraved?
Her family was in danger and here she sat, wanting to devour the man under her. She could see herself doing it, kissing and nipping at his body in a way she’d never even fantasized doing with another man.

Remnants of the emotional storm buffeting her fought with the sensual images and she grasped at them to stop herself from doing something stupid. Like attacking him in a passionate frenzy.

“I did it,” she whispered against his chest, not wanting to meet his eyes. “I put my family at risk. What am I going to do, Joshua?”

J
oshua tipped her chin up and forced her eyes to meet his stormy brown gaze. “You’re going to trust me to protect them and you’re going to stop believing that bullshit about it being your fault.”

The anger in his voice startled her as much as his glare; his jaw looked hewn from granite.

“But it is. If it weren’t for me, they wouldn’t be forced into vacating their home. Jake’s going to hate that. He’s really attached to the ranch.”

“He’s more attached to my sister and niece.”

“I know, but he’s still going to be upset.”

“This image you have of your brother as some emotional wimp really doesn’t jive with the man he is, Lise.”

She grimaced. “This is not about his ability to deal with the tough stuff that comes his way. It’s about me being the conduit it comes by.”

Joshua squeezed her, the comforting gesture at odds with the fury still glittering in his eyes. “
You’re
not the one forcing him to go. That would be the lowlife scum stalking you.”

“But that’s the whole point.”
Didn’t he get it?
“He’s stalking
me
!” Her lip quivered and she bit it.

Joshua pressed his forefinger against her bottom lip, gently disengaging it from her teeth. “He’s crazy. You’re not. Your supposed
sin
is all in his head. Look at the twisted way he views the breakup of your marriage. Your husband falls in love with another woman and ditches you and this Nemesis creep tries to make it out to be your fault. Whatever he’s got against you is going to be just as distorted and removed from reality.”

Her rational mind said she should believe him, but her heart was struggling with a debilitating fear that her family was going to be hurt. “What if something happens to Jake, or Bella, or
the baby?
” The last came out as an uncontrollable wail of distress.

She had to protect her niece.

“I won’t let it.” He cupped her face in both hands when she jerked her head in a negative. “
I won’t
.” His fingers were warm against her shock-chilled skin, their bodies so close she could feel his heartbeat against her shoulder.

“You are not responsible for the actions of a madman.” He spaced each word out as if it were its own sentence, driving the point with the intensity of his expression.

She opened her mouth to speak, but he shook his head and his lips pressed the words back into her throat. The intimate connection electrified her and excitement roared through her, destroying everything in its path.

Every inhibition was gone.

Every argument against making love to Joshua ceased to exist in her mind.

Nothing was left but a need to bond on the most intimate level possible with this man.

Joshua was done talking.

He stoked the fires he could feel ignite in Lise with all the expertise thirty-six years had given him.

He hated the way Lise was trying to take responsibility for being the victim of a piece of vermin like Nemesis. He was going to erase those thoughts from her mind if it took all night to do it.

His cock twitched under her thigh.

Okay, so his motives weren’t totally altruistic, but she needed what he could give her, as much or more than she needed his protection. He might not be anyone’s idea of a knight in shining armor, but he could do things for her that her Dudley Do-Right ex-husband hadn’t been able to.

He was going to make her scream.

His name.

When she came.

He cupped her cheek, the skin soft like silk, and pulled his mouth from hers. “You’re so beautiful.”

Her eyes fluttered shut as a look of total sensual abandon came over her features. “Joshua…”

He had to taste her lips. Really taste them, not just kiss them. He closed the slight distance he’d created between their mouths. She parted her lips on a soft sigh and he licked them, tracing the pretty pink contours before slipping his tongue inside her mouth and savoring the sweetness waiting for him there.

He explored the silky, warm depths, teasing her with advance and retreat forays until her tongue followed his back into his mouth. He sucked on it and she moaned, an earthy sound that went straight to his dick. Her fingers dug into the muscles on his chest, her body tense with sexual energy.

He continued to throb under her bottom, but made no move to alleviate the torturous need.

He wanted to feel her hands on him, was aching for the release he knew she could give him. But even more than that, he wanted to touch and taste every square centimeter of her luscious body, saturating his senses with the very essence of her. He wanted to experience her as he had never experienced another woman.

Completely.

The way she was kissing him back told him she wanted to do the same thing, and the knowledge was about to send him over the edge of his control. Sliding his hand down her rib cage, he teased himself with the seductive warmth of her skin through the thin cotton. When he reached the hem, he let his hand rest there, testing his ability to wait to touch bare skin.

She groaned and wiggled and he felt the t-shirt slipping upward as she tugged at it. He could not deny the invitation, allowing his fingers to glide upward, this time under the loose shirt. Her lips and tongue went wild under his, devouring him with a passion that seared his insides with raw fire.

The petal-soft mound was tipped with a turgid, swollen peak and he teased it with his palm. Then, cupping her completely, he got drunk on the taste of her mouth and the perfect sensual weight filling his hand.

An animal-like sound vibrated through her mouth to his lips and he pulled away to look at her passion-contorted face. “You like this, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes.” Her lips were swollen and glistening from his kiss. “Can’t you tell?” And she pressed her breast against the hand cupping her.

He squeezed, gently fondling her, his body trembling in a way he’d never admit to as she offered her ripe flesh so generously to him. “You’re one amazing, sexy woman, Lise.”

“Oh…” Emotion he wasn’t ready for welled in her eyes.

He kissed her again, blocking it out with a deluge of desire stinging their bodies with each driving drop.

He played with her, clasping her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, rolling it, pinching it and then soothing it to almost softness before starting all over again. Her fingers locked in his hair, and she kissed him with the ferocity of a she-wolf claiming her mate.

The sounds she was making drove him crazy, but not as insane as the feel of her bottom squirming against his hard length. He wanted to be inside her. Only the minute he got sheathed in her tight wetness, he knew it would be over and he wasn’t ready to give in to the all-out drive for fulfillment.

He switched his attention to her other breast, giving it the same teasing torture until she broke her mouth away from his and screamed, not in release, but with a surfeit of tension and pleasure. He felt pre-cum wet the tip of his penis in reaction.

“I want you!” She glared at him, her expression as primitive as he felt. “You’re teasing me.”

“I’m pleasuring you.”

She turned in his lap, drawing a long groan from deep inside him, and straddled his legs. With ferocity he would never have thought she was capable of, she shoved him backward and followed him down, licking and kissing his chest, his neck, his shoulders, his face, inhaling against his skin.

His she-wolf imprinted her senses with him.

She sucked his male nipples, making him buck under her. “Take off your clothes, Lise.”

She smiled, all teeth and no humor. “Why?”

He couldn’t believe she’d asked that. “I need to be in you, you little witch.”

“Maybe I want to play for a little while.”

He flipped her under him with a move he’d learned in the Rangers and whipped her shirt off over her head to expose curves flushed with desire and swollen from his ministrations.

She covered them with her hands, hiding them from his view, an unmistakable look of challenge glinting gold in her hazel eyes.

“Uncover them,” he growled.

“Make me,” she taunted.

He did. Grabbing both her small hands in one of his and stretching them above her head. “There.”

“What are you going to do now, look at them?” The taunting quality of her voice demanded mastery, but his mind told him this woman would never be mastered.

“
Yes
,” he hissed.

And he did. Stretching her arms lifted her curves so that the dark, engorged nipples were prominent and tantalizing. Her breasts rose and fell with each panting breath she took and she watched him watching her, her expression as mesmerized as he knew his was. Her nipples puckered more tightly and the scent of her arousal surrounded them both.