Shattered (33 page)

He was, she saw, breathing hard.

"Lisa," he said, then took a deep breath as she reached for his shirt buttons. Even as she flicked him a sultry glance and curled her fingers around the top button just below his open collar he leaned into her, kissing her, a blistering kiss that made the hot quickening inside her start to spiral out of control. She was kissing him back, clutching his shirt front because she had forgotten all about his buttons, when she felt him unhooking her bra. Just as quickly and dexterously as that, it was done: Her bra fell by the wayside, and she was naked except for her panties and shoes, with her bare breasts pressed up hard against his chest. She felt the heat of his skin and the taut wall of his chest, with only the fine cotton of his shirt separating his flesh from hers. Lisa's heart gave a great shuddering leap as her nipples instantly tightened into hard points. Pressing against him, clinging like she would never let him go, she arched her back to deepen the contact and felt the world start to spin out. Then his hands flattened on the bare warmth of her outer thighs. She shuddered as he slid them upward, slowly, seductively. They felt warm and utterly masculine and faintly abrasive, a working man's hands still. She thrilled to their touch. When he hooked her panties and began to tug them down, she moaned into his mouth. Her knees, which had been weak before, threatened to give way entirely. When he bent to pull her panties all the way down her legs, she had no choice unless she wanted to slide like melted butter to the floor: She leaned back against the wall and pressed her palms flat against the cool plaster for support--and felt her bones dissolve.

When, at his urging, she stepped out of her panties, she was burning inside with excitement. Heart thudding, breathing way too fast, expecting him to rise and take up where they had left off, Lisa was surprised when he didn't, when he stayed crouched in front of her. The sight of him, of
Scott,
of the thick brown hair; blunt, masculine features; and broad-shouldered form that had been the stuff of her dreams for years, still fully clothed, crouched in such intimate proximity to her nakedness, was the most erotic thing she had ever seen in her life. Heat raced through her like a flash fire. She felt her loins clench. Shivery with arousal, she must have moved then, or made some small sound, because he gripped her hip bones as though to hold her still and pressed her back against the wall. Then, to her shock, he put his mouth on the cleft between her legs and kissed her there, using his mouth and tongue to ignite a wildfire inside her until she was clutching at his hair and writhing with helpless pleasure.

Finally she cried out, then cried out again as she experienced an explosion of passion so fierce and primitive that her insides turned to steam. She would have slid down the wall then, because she was spent, because her knees had absolutely given way, but she didn't get the chance. He pulled her down to him, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her mouth and laying her on her back on the carpet and stripping off his clothes in a frenzy before coming down on top of her.

He didn't say a word, just came inside her so fiercely that she cried out again. Then he was kissing her mouth and kissing her breasts and taking her (taking was the only word that would do), hard and furiously, with such carnality that all she could do was hold on and, in the end, call out his name as she came with an intensity that she had never even begun to imagine she was capable of.

Then he drove into her one final time and found his own release as he held himself shuddering inside her.

She was still floating back to earth when he rolled off her.

Her eyes flickered open. For a moment she found herself looking up at the ceiling, white and smooth, unremarkable, a plain generic hotel room. The foot of the nearest bed loomed beside her. A little more foresight, a little less heat, and they'd have made love on a presumably comfy mattress instead of the floor. She 'd lost the shoes sometime during the previous fifteen minutes, so she was completely nude. Various sensations fought for her attention: the prickle of the inexpensive-feeling carpet against her back, the rattle of the window unit as it pumped out air that felt too cold blowing across her sweat-dampened skin, a faint piney scent that she thought might be room freshener. Then she turned her head to find Scott. He was lying flat on his back beside her, close but not touching. He was stark naked, one brawny arm flung over his eyes, presumably to shield them from the soft glow of the lamp that stood on the table between the two beds and not the sight of her. Of their own volition, her eyes slid down his body. She hadn't had much of a chance to look at him earlier--after he'd gotten naked, everything had happened fast--so she was interested. She had known that he was built like an athlete, had known he was muscular, had known about the wedge of dark brown hair on his chest that narrowed down to a trail that led over flat abs. She'd even known how long and powerful his legs were, and the size and shape of his bare feet. What she hadn't known was that even at half-mast, as he was now, he was as well endowed as the stud muffin Nola had once called him.

Looking at him, remembering what they had done together, she felt a warm glow start to build inside her. But then she frowned, and her gaze moved up his supine form to stop on that protective arm over his eyes. She 'd never had sex with Scott before, of course, but she knew him well in other ways.

And she was willing to bet almost anything she possessed that this was not the typical way he expressed postcoital bliss.

Something was up.

Grimacing, she sat up and, casting a quick glance around at the various items of clothing strewn nearby, selected his shirt. As far as she was concerned, being naked when she was not lost in the throes of lust was just embarrassing, especially when she meant to have a meaningful conversation with the object of that lust in the very near future. She was just pulling the shirt on when his arm moved, dropping away from his face. Then he opened his eyes and looked at her.

Warily.

25

It was without a glimmer of a doubt
the best sex he had ever had in his life. That was the good news. The bad news was, it was with Lisa.

He'd wanted her for years. Fantasized about her forever. Lusted after her with a constancy that was one of the ongoing themes of his life.

Now he'd had her, and the net result was that he was in trouble, just as he'd known he would be if he was ever such a fool as to succumb to that particular temptation.

The things we regret most in life are the things we don't do.

Somebody had said that to him once, and those words had come back to haunt him while they were dancing. He'd been absolutely intoxicated by the feel of her in his arms, by the soft scent of her hair under his nose, by the proximity of her mouth to his when she'd reared her head back to talk to him, by the way she had looked at him, by her smile. The thought that she was with Peyton, not him, was driving him around the bend. They were just dancing, just like he'd danced with a dozen other women that same night, but with Lisa there was chemistry, passion, smoldering desire so intense that he could almost feel the flames licking at his body every time she moved. By the end of that dance, he had wanted her so much that he would have walked barefoot over hot coals to get her, and he had absolutely no doubt that she wanted him, too.

If he let her walk away from him again, if he turned his back on this window of opportunity now that they were both adults and both single and both eager to see what things would be like between them in bed, he might never get another chance. And he would kick himself forever, he knew.

That was the conviction that had sent him after her to the hospital, where he'd hoped against hope she would be. That was the thought that had caused him to reverse the hands-off-Lisa policy of a lifetime.

That was the reasoning that had brought them here to this hotel room and seduced him into the quagmire he found himself in now.

But what was done was done, there was no taking it back, and even if he could take it back he wouldn't do it, not in a hundred million years.

So, all that was left to do was deal.

She was sitting cross-legged beside him, buttoning up his shirt, which she had put on to cover a body that had been everything he had ever dreamed it might be and more, her long black hair spilling over one shoulder, her slim, tanned legs bare. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips were rosy and slightly swollen, and there was a mark on the left side of her neck that he thought might well darken into a hickey by morning. She looked as though she had just been thoroughly fucked, which was the truth. Very thoroughly, in fact.

She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life, just looking at her provided the kind of rush he'd never expected to feel this side of illegal substances, and she was scaring the shit out of him.

She was also frowning at him. Not the reaction he was looking for, considering that he knew for damn certain he'd just rocked her world into next week.

"Hey," he said, and sat up.

"Hey, yourself."

Her steady gaze was unnerving him. They knew each other so well, and he was afraid she could read something in his eyes that he really didn't want her to know. Not yet, anyway. Maybe not ever.

So, better start acting normal.
How would he behave if he'd just had sex with, say, Nola? A great time, with no emotional minefield a ttached?

"You're beautiful," he said, and leaned over to kiss her. Her lips were warm and luscious, and she kissed him back, sliding one of those slim, cool hands behind his neck, no hesitation whatsoever. Which made him start to get hard again, and not coincidentally showed him the best way forward.

He could sleep with her. They could have red-hot sex until the cows came home. They could even have a relationship, a steamy, no-holds-barred, let's-do-it-till-we're-tired-of-each-other-or-the-lady-runs-off-to-Boston affair.

What he couldn't do, at least not if he was smart, was fall in love with her.

Only he was afraid it was already too late for that.

As soon as he pulled back from the kiss, she was fixing him with that unnerving look again.

Damn.

"So, what's up with you?" she asked. Those gorgeous golden eyes were unblinking on his face.

"What do you mean what's up with me?"

In sheer self-defense, he got to his feet, and then held a hand down to her to help her up. She took it, and he pulled her up, pulled her tight against him so that he could feel every warm, curvaceous, silky-skinned inch of her, which, plastered against his nakedness, felt erotic as hell. Even the sensation of his own shirt rubbing against him was sexy, because she was inside it. Wrapping his arms around her, he kissed her again, partly to end the conversation but also because he really, really wanted to kiss her. She slid her arms around his neck and kissed him back, hot and sweet, a long, lingering kiss that sent his libido--and everything else--skyrocketing. He was naked, she was almost naked, and when she pulled her mouth away to frown at him again, undeterred, he was pretty sure she could now, at the very least, tell definitively just what was up.

She said, "You're wary. You're defensive. You're acting funny. So, what gives?"

"I'm horny," he clarified, trying not to sound defensive, which answer was absolutely not a lie even if it was not the answer to the question she was asking. "This is how I act when I'm horny." He let her go, took her hand, pulled her toward the nearest bed. "Come to bed."

"You're staying the night?"

"Of course I'm staying the night. You think I'd leave you alone in a hotel room at this hour with this whole cold-case thing still up in the air?"

"You can't think I'm going to come to any harm in here."

"I don't think you're going to come to any harm in here. But I think, if I were to leave, you'd be scared. You'll never admit it, but I know you: Your imagination will go into overdrive, and you'll be awake the rest of the night."

She didn't say anything, just narrowed her eyes at him, which he knew meant he was dead-on, and pulled her hand from his. The nettled look she gave him was so typically Lisa to him that it underscored the whole punched-in-the-stomach feeling that was making him as antsy as a perp in a lineup.

"If, having had your wicked way with me, you're ready to kick me out, you're shit out of luck. You don't want to sleep with me, I'll sleep in the other bed." They were standing in the narrow space between the two beds by then, and in an effort to avoid more eye contact than was absolutely necessary, he was pulling back the covers as he spoke. He just happened to glance at the bedside clock. Jesus, it was three a.m.

"You know I want to sleep with you." Her tone was almost sulky, and he had to smile a little. She hadn't liked being called out on the scared-to-go-to-sleep thing. "But just for the record, you weren't worried about me sleeping here alone before this."

"You've spent every night since the fire with your mother at the hospital. Think I don't know that?" He'd done what he could with the bed, and they were facing each other now. He couldn't help it: His eyes slid over her. His shirt had never looked so good. As his eyes rose to meet hers she smiled at him, a beautiful, sexy smile that told him she was no slouch in the mind-reading department, either, and made his heart skip a beat and had his eyes lingering on her face despite his best intentions. The bottom line was, he decided, he wanted her, she wanted him. That relegated everything else--such as the endangered state of his heart--to a problem to be dealt with later. "You planning to sleep in my shirt?"

"Not necessarily."

She was already reaching for the three or so buttons she'd fastened earlier as she spoke. Brushing her hands aside, undoing the buttons for her, he then flicked the sides of the shirt apart preparatory to sliding it off her shoulders, and felt his pulse go into turbo-charge mode as he was treated to a view of as sexy a pair of breasts as he'd ever seen. Round and firm and creamy-skinned, they curved out from her chest in silent invitation. Her nipples jutted toward him, dark pink, fully erect. He couldn't resist. He bent his head and drew one into his mouth, just sampling but in the process making her gasp and clutch at his shoulders, and somewhere about then he lost his grip on every bit of rational thought remaining to him.