Shameless (The Contemporary Collection) (21 page)

“Such as what I hope to gain?” He swirled the amber liquid in his glass, watching the agitation that matched his own.

“That sounds like a good place to start.”

“You don't believe it's your beautiful body?”

A soft laugh left her. “Hardly.”

“Good,” he said, and drank the still-turning liquor before setting the glass on the nearest table and moving closer. “Then you won't think I'm collecting a reward….”

She watched him come and stood statue-still, though the pupils of her eyes dilated and her lips parted. He bent his head with slow deliberation, holding her gaze, being careful not to intimidate, alert for the slightest sign of resistance.

Her mouth, as he pressed his own to the warm and perfect contours, had the heady sweetness of whiskey combined with the lingering mint of toothpaste. He felt her jerk of reaction as his arms closed around her, then she was quiescent. Her lips under his slowly warmed and molded to his own. The tension eased from her, and he drew her closer until she rested against him, every warm and scented curve passing into him like warm clay adhering to a mold.

He brushed his mouth over hers, enjoying the tactile sensation and her small movements in response. He touched his tongue to the sensitive line of her lips' joining, tasting the moisture there, probing the dainty indentations of the corners. The skin was so delicate, so fine, that he thought he could feel the soft pulsing of her blood under it.

With an inarticulate murmur, she eased closer. He felt her fingertips as they began a warm slide from his shoulders to the back of his neck. A prickling of pleasure tingled along his spine, and he increased the pressure on her mouth, probing deeper.

The touch of her tongue was subtle. Ladylike. It suggested a conscious effort toward restraint that was more enticing than the most blatant of hot, thrusting passion. It invited exploration, promised rich wonders of wantonness if he were patient enough to discover them. He was enchanted, possibly meant to be, and didn't care. He had seen the wanton once before, and needed desperately to find her again. Blind, deaf, without conscious thought, he followed the lead of his spinning, seeking senses.

Until he felt her grow still, then begin to withdraw as insidiously as she had advanced.

Seconds, short seconds. That was all it had taken for her to destroy his defenses.

He was, he knew, dangerously close to the edge. There was a deep trembling at the center of his being as, one by one, he began to close down his responses.

She drew back, her eyes liquid, not quite focused. Her voice was husky as she said, “I don't like you.”

“You never did,” he agreed, his voice not quite steady.

“I hate what you're going to do to this town, this parish.”

“I know.” He touched his lips to the space between her brows, to the fragile curvatures of her eyelids.

“But I understand now, since I thought the mill might be mine, how hard it could be to disappoint people.”

He tried to collect his thoughts, to hear what she was saying as well as the murmurous seduction of the tones that were produced in her throat and the feel of the gentle vibrations that her voice set off in his own chest. It wasn't easy when he was trying at the same time to fight back rampaging inclinations. “Do you?” he said, and was uncomfortably aware that the comment was less than articulate.

“So, even if the proof that I had some interest in the mill is gone, you don't have to feel responsible for me.”

He leaned away from her, his gaze searching her face. “Is that what I'm doing?”

She frowned. “You said I could figure it out for myself.”

“It was a dumb thing to say.”

She slid from his arms. She didn't push or shove — he didn't remember releasing her of his own will — yet one moment she was there, and the next she was standing six feet away. “It made perfect sense,” she said. “And still does.”

He watched her as she turned and moved toward the bedroom door. When she was almost inside, he said, “Does that mean you're going to stop fighting me — and the sale?”

She gave him a smile that did not quite reach her eyes. “Never.”

“Good,” he said. “You had me worried.”

She braced one hand on the door frame, looking at him over her shoulder. “You can go home now.”

“You know better than that.” His smile was twisted.

Was it relief that crossed her face, or resignation? He would have given much to know. She turned away before he could be sure, and disappeared into the dimness of the room.

Reid stood for long, endless minutes where she left him. Finally, he shuddered with such violence he felt the ripple of it to his toes. Swinging around with a slicing movement, he left the house.

He prowled the outer perimeters of the property, skirting the house, walking the edge of the lake. Near the dock he stopped. He took deep breaths as he stood staring out over the water. Turning squarely toward the silver-gold path of the moonlight that streaked the glassy black surface, he accepted its glow on his skin like a caress. And he tried not to remember.

He couldn't help it. It was there at the end of the boat dock that he had first tried to close the distance between Cammie and himself. It hadn't worked; he had been too aggressive, too abrupt, too much at the mercy of hormones gone wild at the slightest touch of a particular female. Even now he winced at his clumsiness.

He wasn't that boy anymore. Or was he?

Maybe he was still trying to redeem himself, at least in his own mind. Maybe he had something to prove, a festering wound to be lanced before it could mend.

Sex as a knife to cut out old poison, old pain? Now there was a weird concept. It didn't say much for him or for the woman who might be the weapon. Yet what else was there, for him?

Reasons.

Was he so desperate that he would accept anything as an excuse for holding Cammie one more time? Could he ignore tomorrow for the sake of tonight? Even if he could, would it be fair? Or right? Or even halfway intelligent?

Taken in turn, the answers were: Yes. Yes. And no. No. God, no.

Was he going to do it anyway?

He set his shoulders, standing with his feet braced and his hands on his hips as he faced the flooding, passionless glare of the moon. His features hardened. As if drawn, he pivoted slowly to gaze up at the dark camp house. He lowered his hands to his sides. With deliberate steps he began to walk up the slope.

What he would do depended a great deal on Cammie.

But not entirely.

CAMMIE WATCHED FROM HER BEDROOM WINDOW
as Reid made his way back up to the house from the lake. His long-legged stride, the swing of his arms and set of his shoulders, gave her an odd feeling of vulnerability. His face in repose was dark and even intimidating. The moon touched his hair with the sheen of silver-gilt, and the wash of it across his features made him appear as implacable and set on his private course as some ancient knight on a desperate quest.

She had little compunction about studying him while he was unaware. It should by all rights be her turn.

She released the breath she had not known she was holding as he passed from view and entered the house. Still she stood, thinking of the easy strength and quiet assurance of his movements, thinking of the way he smiled and the flashes of acute understanding that gleamed in his eyes.

She wished she knew what she believed of him. Instinct and logic, habit and justice, anger and attraction warred inside her, and she was left hovering, distracted, in the middle of them all.

She didn't hear him, didn't sense him, didn't know he was there until she felt the slide of strong arms around her and the warmth of him at her back. She gasped and tried to turn, tried to yank herself out of his hold. He shifted, and abruptly her arms were caught and clamped to her sides. She couldn't bend, couldn't turn, couldn't free a hand, couldn't move. The quick, short breaths that lifted her chest pressed her breasts against his hard forearms, crossed in front of her. His close clasp was neither tight nor hurtful, but there was no weakness in it.

The urge to fight swept through her. She subdued it with an effort that brought the dampness of perspiration to her forehead. Struggling would not only be undignified, it would be useless against this man. That was a lesson she had already learned.

Recognition of her helplessness sent a strange flutter of sensation through her stomach and into the lower part of her body. Her voice tight, she said, “Let me go.”

“I don't think so.” The words were low and without inflection.

“What are you doing? You just got through annihilating Keith for this.”

“I don't intend to force you, if that's what you're afraid of.”

She gritted her teeth against a wave of dizziness that had nothing to do with fear. “No? What, then?”

“Friendly persuasion.”

“I don't feel friendly!” she snapped.

“No?” He moved his arm so that it brushed across her nipples. The response was immediate, and obvious to them both.

“Don't,” she said, the single word quieter, with a ragged undertone.

“Then listen to me.”

There could be no harm in that. She gave a reluctant nod.

He settled his hold more firmly, so she was drawn even closer against him. “I was wondering,” he said against her hair, “if you could consider me in the light of an endangered species? I'll pretend to be a woodpecker, and you can pity me.”

“I never knew a man who needed pity less,” she answered in low tones.

“Compassion, then. I'm not proud.”

But he was, and she knew it. And so knew, too, the effort required to make his plea, and also to keep his voice even and leavened with humor as he did it.

Around the tightness in her throat she said, “Only for a single moment, a single night?”

“It's the way they come, one at a time and with no guarantees.” His lips brushed the hair at her temple, as if in apology.

She didn't trust him, no matter what he thought. There were too many things that were unexplained. And yet, her body was tired of fighting the unbridled attraction that lay between them. It overwhelmed her with sensations that could not be ignored. It made her think that doubts and suspicions were frail things compared to the magic of the desire spilling into her blood.

“What do you want me to say?” she asked, the words shaded with distress.

“Yes, that's all,” he answered quietly. “Just — yes.”

She stared straight ahead, out into the night. It was a moment before she answered. “Will you kiss me first?”

“Turn your head,” he said, as if he suspected a trick and was wary of loosening his hold.

She did more. Leaning her head back into his wide shoulder, she relaxed, allowing her body to rest fully against his taut form. She shifted a little, tilting her head back as she turned her face toward him.

He bent to touch her lips with his, feathering their satin surfaces with light strokes of his tongue, tasting her surrender. He took his time, as if there was nothing but time left in the world, or as if this one kiss might be all that time allowed.

With gentle care he laid the length of his mouth along hers, fitting upper and lower lips together, matching edges and corners. Brushing his head back and forth, he used delicate friction to increase the heat between them, then flicked along the line of the joining with moist pressure that allowed him to slip inside. He skimmed the fragile inner lining, flicked across the sleek porcelain smoothness of her teeth, and plunged in abrupt, velvet penetration to engage her tongue in his play.

She could not escape, but it was the last thing she wanted. Rapture vibrated along her nerves with the sweetness of a chord struck by a master musician. She felt it swelling, invading her every pore with its sensual melody. She met the sinuous heat of him, twining, following his lead. The flavor of scotch and heated male melted on her tongue, assaulting her senses. Indulging every whim and need, she explored the silken sleekness of his mouth in her turn, returning incitement for incitement.

Shock and delight rippled through her as his hand cupped her breast. She felt the firm globe tighten, straining into his palm with a rush of escalating sensation. He rubbed the ball of his thumb across the nipple, teasing it to beaded firmness with care and close attention. His hard hand and her yielding flesh, his vital strength and her defenseless hunger, made point and counterpoint of a passionate melody. She shivered with the piercing rise of it inside her, with its clear, vibrant harmony.

His heart throbbed in his chest; she could feel it against her shoulder. He tested the corner of her mouth, then blazed a trail of kisses to the point of her chin and along her jaw to her ear. He flicked her earlobe with his tongue and drew it between his lips. She felt the gentle nip of his teeth, the suction, and her breasts tingled while pleasure writhed along her nerves.

“Take off your gown for me,” he whispered, his warm breath fluttering over her ear.

She would have liked to comply, but she wasn't sure she could stand alone. “You take it off,” she said with an ache in her voice. “Please?”

His breathing was deep and not quite steady. His hands were sure, however, as one by one he released the small pearl buttons that held her scooped neckline. Tilting his head to watch over her shoulder, he spread the edges of the opening wide. His chest expanded as he exposed the smooth curves of her breasts to the light of the moon falling through the window glass. Tucking the extra material out of the way, he drew his fingertips over the twin satin-smooth rises, outlining them, fitting them slowly and completely within the cages of his long fingers.

For long moments he held her, gently plucking her nipples to tender, elongated peaks. Then he turned her in his arms, brought her to face him. He brushed his lips across her brow, the tip of nose, her lips, her chin, then lowered his head to moisten first one nipple, then the other, with his tongue. Settling on one, he took it into the hot wetness of his mouth, drawing on it with wickedly gentle adhesion.

Desire ran with the effervescent glide of liquid moonlight through her veins. In it also flowed an element of enchantment for his consummate skill and the courtesy that caused him to exercise it. Some close-held fastness within herself that had never succumbed to force, that was held fast against crudity, crumbled soundlessly under the onslaught of his intuitive caresses.

“Reid…” The broken whisper was involuntary, a soft plea rather than a protest.

He lifted his head. Doubt and passion were dark in his eyes as he searched her flushed face and heavy eyelids. His voice hardly more than a rough whisper, he said, “You want me to stop?”

She shook her head in a violent negative. What she wanted was impossible to put into words.

The smile that rose in his eyes was strained, yet luminous with satisfaction, before he shielded it with his lashes. He pressed his face into the valley between her breasts, exploring it with lips and tongue. His warm breath drifting over her skin brought prickling sensitivity to the surface.

He pushed the cap sleeves of her gown from her shoulders and down her arms. The neckline caught for a moment low on her hips, leaving her like some living nude statue with the gown's draping fullness in folds around her calves and ankles. He drew back, his gaze tracing the curves highlighted in moon glow and the hollows left in shadow. Slowly he followed with his hands. As his palms smoothed into the slender curvature of her waist and down over the swelling of her hips, he dislodged the clinging gown. It whispered down, settling in a crumpled pile around her feet.

The expression on his face was almost like pain. It did strange things to her. She felt some deep tenderness ripple through her while she stood unmoving, with her hands held with palms out at her sides. She had never been worshipped before, never felt exalted, never in her life known the incredible sense of infinite giving that pervaded her. She wanted him, wanted to do and be whatever he needed of her. In that moment the giving seemed the reason she had been created, the ultimate answer to her own intolerable craving.

There was urgency in the grasp of his hard fingers as he knelt and drew her toward him. She rested her hands on his shoulders and closed her eyes, letting her head fall back, her hair hanging in a shining, tapering mass below her shoulder blades. The wet heat of his tongue swirling around her navel took her breath. The tracery he made across the flat surface of her belly enthralled her. The nuzzling of his face in the triangle of fine curls where her thighs joined caused her legs to tremble. The feel of his warm breathing there at that most secret entrance to her body, sent her mind tumbling, rootless, into uncharted realms of sensation.

Thorough and without inhibition, he followed the fluid creases, testing their petal-smooth texture, seeking her essence. He drew out her response, encouraged it, reveled in it. While her hands tangled in his hair, clenching and unclenching, he found the dainty protrusion nestled at the apex of her being, and lavished his most exquisite care upon it.

The low sound she made had a fretted edge of desperation. Her hands curved into talons indenting his skin under his shirt before some last vestige of recognition made her relax them. His hands gripped her hips tighter in response. He kneaded the firm curves, as if he would mold them to fit his hands alone. Then he freed one hand, sliding it forward between their bodies and upward along her inner thigh. With his fingertips he parted fine curls and moist, tender flesh, probing with one finger into her soft depths.

The pleasure was so abrupt, so ferocious, it took her breath, her voice, the brightness of the night. She arched over him, her hands loosing their grip, the fingers flexing wide with the sudden, uncontrollable release of tension. She felt herself collapsing, but could not prevent it.

He supported her as he lowered her to her knees before him. His eyes burned with intense blue fire as he gathered her close. He took her mouth with hungry force, demanding that she meet it. She gave way, acquiescing, murmuring in wordless gratification. He thrust his tongue deep, withdrawing it, plunging again. Holding that intimate invasion, he skimmed downward over her body once more to the heated softness spread open for him. With unremitting skill he pressed into her.

Her body welcomed his touch, beckoning with rhythmic internal pulsing. He followed that heartbeat cadence, insinuating a second finger as her muscles relaxed enough to accept it, as her own hot wetness eased the way.

Mad, she was going mad with the paroxysms of feeling that rampaged through her in waves. She could not bear it, could not contain it in body and mind and remain sane and whole. Release had to be found; he had to join her in it or she would explode. Groping blindly for the front of his shirt, she tore at the buttons.

He came to her aid, ripping his shirt open with a single hard wrench, dragging it from his jeans while she reached for his belt. He brushed her faltering fingers aside while he unfastened it with one hand, then released the snap of his jeans and skimmed down the zipper.

He didn't halt her questing fingers as she found the heated length of him that lifted from his briefs. Still, his indrawn breath sounded hard-pressed, especially as she gauged his thickness and springing rise with intense gratification.

As if to distract himself from her careful ministrations, he weighed her breasts in his hands. And he watched, barely breathing, as the dusky rose nipples with their flaring aureoles contracted into puckered sweetness under his kneading touch.

“You are so beautiful,” he said in low wonder, almost as if to himself.

“And you.” The whisper was so soft it was like the sough of a night breeze.

His hold tightened. Her hand clenched.

Abruptly, he dropped his hands to her waist, lifting her even as he unfolded his long legs and lowered himself to his back on the floor. She was pulled between his hard thighs, drawn upward to lie on his chest. She rested there a moment, pressing her cheek into the crisp gold mat of hair on his chest, rubbing her face against the hard thud of his heart.