Taming Tess (The St. John Sibling Series) (17 page)

Strangely, she understood his conflict
…though she suspected he struggled to stop for a different reason than she had the night they'd lain naked on the floor at the foot of her bed. She'd stopped them then because reason had prevailed.

But for Roman, the prevailing emotion warring with his passion was vengeance.
She'd recognized it in the way he pinned her to the wall and the way he growled at her.

Anger.

Vengeance.

He wanted to pay her back for frustrating him.
He wanted to leave her hungry for him. She almost welcomed his betrayal. It would make him like every other man in her life. It would kill this desire she felt for him.

It would make him
…safe.

But
the emotion in his eyes changed. The lines pinched around them telegraphed his decision before his ragged voice even spoke the words. "Do you still have those condoms?"

No
. "In the dresser in my room."

He scooped her up
in his arms and took the stairs two at a time. The thrill of it tickled Tess' stomach, and raised a trail of gooseflesh up her spine. What was wrong with her? This was what she'd intended to happen when she'd set out to seduce Roman. Wasn’t it?

She buried her face against his shoulder.
But, what if she was wrong? What if once would not be enough?

He dropped her beside the bed, spun toward the dresser, and began opening drawers, demanding, "Which one?"

Don't tell him
. "Top right."

He faced her, condom box in hand.
He was magnificent, standing there before her naked, damp, and fully aroused.

Last chance to stop this train wreck of an affair.

In one fluid movement, she peeled the crop-top off over her head and slid the shorts down her legs. Kicking the shorts aside, she stepped close to him and reached into the condom box.

"Let me help you," she said in a
husky voice, so tremulous she almost didn't recognize herself.

His pupils flared, devouring his eyes, turning them a smoky shade of passion.

She tore open the foil wrapper, knelt before Roman, and placed the sheath on the tip of his cock. The condom box crushed in his fist and foil packets spilled out onto the floor.

"I better do that," he said in a tight voice, his fingers replacing hers
.

She rose and stroked his chest, his shoulders,
his arms. He trembled with restraint. Against his own passion? Or against her?

"Roman," she whispered raggedly, "Are you sure--"

He cut her off with a kiss, a kiss that seemed to meld their lips together and send sparks down her throat, through her stomach, and into her womb. She opened her mouth wider, taking him as deep into her as she could, swallowing every passionate syllable he moaned and answering him with her own.

Beneath her hands, the muscles bunched across his shoulders,
rippled down his spine, and contracted in his butt cheeks. His groan echoed through her mouth and into her soul. No one should have this much power over another. Not her over him. Not him over her.

But she loved the abrasive stroke of his broad, callused hands down her back.
She loved the possessive wrap of his arms and the promise in his moans. She loved that he shuddered with need at her touch.

She hitched a leg over his hip, opening herself to him, inviting him closer.
He caught her by the back of the knee, leaned down and nipped her throat.

She threw her head back and thrust her pelvis forward, begging for more.
He bent and drew her nipple into his mouth, his suckling sending darts of pain and pleasure through her. So absorbed was she in his artful handling, she didn't notice him lowering her leg, not until her foot touched the floor.

"Please," she pleaded, trying to raise
her foot again only to find he held her planted as firmly on two feet as a woman could be while a man trailed kisses down her stomach.

The tip of his tongue touched the ring in her belly button and a jolt as powerful as a
lightning strike shot through her as though searching a route to exit. She knew where she wanted it to exit. She knew which part of Roman needed to connect with her in order for the path to be completed.

She struggled against the broad hands clamped over her hips, holding her in place while a masterful tongue explored the tiny gold ring and the terrain in which it had been planted.
She gripped him by the shoulders to steady herself when he trailed feathery kisses across her abdomen and gasped approval when he hooked her leg over his shoulder.

One darting
flick of his tongue and she crumpled against him. He lifted her onto the bed and finished the kiss he'd begun. Then he knelt between her legs and thrust himself inside her, at last bringing to ground the lightning bolts of pleasure zigzagging through her body.

#

In the first tentative grays of false dawn, Tess woke in Roman's arms, sated and deliciously sore. Roman had proven to be a thorough lover, not once, not twice, but three times.

The first time had been hot and frenzied.
The second, they'd awakened on top of the covers in a tangle of limbs, still hungry for each other. But, playful this time, they'd wound up tumbling to the floor when reaching for the spilled condoms. Taking the dominant position, she'd ministered as thoroughly to him as he had to her the first time.

She purred with satisfaction and snuggled into the cradle of his body.
God he felt good pressed against the length of her back. All that hot, hard flesh.

He stirred against her, making her body twitch in the most distracting of places.
She wasn't going to let him sleep if he kept moving against her like that.

But four times in one night?
What could they possibly do that was more sating than their third love making session, the one that had been tender and sweet? It was more cuddling than fireworks and, in some ways, the most satisfying of all.

…
And the most unsettling, now that she thought about it.

One of Roman's
calloused hands slid from her hip and splayed across her belly. Possessive? For a woman who'd sworn never again to allow herself to be possessed by any man, she liked far too much the notion of belonging to Roman. She squeezed her eyes shut, finally putting into words what had freaked her out about him the first time she'd looked into his eyes.

Soul mate
. That's what she'd seen when she'd opened The Castle door to him the day they first met face to face. And soul mate equaled love. One did not seduce a soul mate and expect to walk away unscathed. She'd known that all along. That's why she'd held him at bay with terse words and petty complaint…until last night. She clearly hadn't thought her choice through as thoroughly as she thought she had.

Roman's breath stirred
against her neck. She wasn't going to figure this out as long as she stayed in his arms, relishing his breath on her neck and tingling to his touch.

She eased out from under his arm and out of the bed where they'd made love through
out the night.

Made love.
She stifled a groan. Why couldn't it have been just great sex?

That had been the plan.
A night of great sex and the itch would be gone. What a fool she'd been.

S
he slipped into The Bargain Mart robe and fled down the steps.

The scene that greeted her
when she turned on the kitchen light was little better than what she ran from. The meal they'd left forgotten when passion had taken over covered the kitchen table like a battlefield post skirmish.

Cinching the robe closed, she went about picking up the mess. Activity always helped her think. But, swiping the spilled spaghetti from tabletop into garbage bag reminded
her how shocked Roman looked when the pasta landed in his lap--of how she'd had all she could do to keep from laughing. Not so funny now that she realized sex hadn't been the answer to her itch.

She dumped the wilted salad into the bag and loaded the
dishwasher, nagged by the one question that hung over her like Damocles' sword. Could she and Roman keep this conflagration of an attraction confined to the bedroom?

With dampened dishcloth in hand, she turned to the table.
Through the open door of Roman's bedroom, the corner of his bed was visible--his
marriage
bed. Roman St. John wanted a wife to keep his house and to be the mother of his children. She wasn't that woman. That was the problem. She couldn't be what he needed in his life without losing who she was.

A
step squeaked behind her. She stilled. Roman reached around her, taking the cloth from her hand and enclosing her in his embrace before she could answer her own question.

"W
e could have cleaned this up together in the morning," he said.

Together?
Could he be that partner oriented? Or was he courting her? In her experience men tended to say even do whatever it took to get a woman to put on his ring. But Roman had proven himself a man of his word.

Tentatively, she laid her head against his shoulder.
"What are we going to do now?"

He
tossed the rag onto the table, turned her, and brushed his lips across hers. "How's that for starters?"

A kinder, gentler Roman was not what she needed when she was trying to figure out if there was a way for them to both get what they wanted.
Better for her if Roman was snapping and snarling at her.

No.
His sparring with her had acted more like foreplay than anything else. Six weeks plus of foreplay. No wonder their fiasco of a dinner had ended in the best sex of her life.

She groaned
and pressed her face into his shoulder.

Roman's arms tightened around her.
"Tess? Is there a problem?"

She rolled her head back and forth.
"Having sex was supposed to have ended the frustration."
Not make me want more
.

She could almost hear the smile stretch across his lips.
"It did a pretty good job for me. I'm not nearly as wired as I was before. Didn't it work that way for you?"

"We're too different," she
said.

"We're supposed to be different," he murmured against her
temple. "That's what enables a man's body and a woman's body to fit together."

"We want different things," she argued, trying to
extricate herself from his arms.

"Just tell me what you want," he murmured,
brushing his lips across her ear. "I'll be happy to try again."

"It wasn't a good idea last Friday night and it still isn't a good idea."

He nipped her earlobe. "You're the one who charged into my shower telling me it was the only thing we could do."

"I was wrong.
There. I said it. Just the thing you've been waiting weeks to hear from me. I was wrong."

He
laughed a deep heady, nerve-provoking laugh. "Then let me show you all that's right between us, Princess."

He
reached under the satin robe.

"This isn't about sex," she protested.

Still, her insides turned liquid in response to his touch. She wanted to enjoy more of what they had shared through the night. But, there were issues to settle.

"Roman--"

He stopped her with a kiss.

"We need to talk," she mu
ttered against his lips.

"
Shhh," buzzed his command against her mouth.

"But--"

He pulled her against his hard, naked body and backed her into the table. The chilly Formica made her jump against him. His resulting moan reverberated clear down her throat to the center of her being. Roman St. John was every bit as intoxicating as she'd feared he would be.

And she was drunk with him.
Drunk with the feel of his hard angles and planes pressed the length of her body. Drunk with his soul-devouring kiss.

Drunk with her need for him.

He picked her up by the waist and deposited her on the table, whispering against the corner of her mouth, "Am I getting it right?"

No! Yes!

She clung to a sanity fast slipping away beneath the sweep of his thumbs across her abdomen.

"Roman, wait," she breathed even as her legs spread to accommodate him.

He stood between her thighs and smiled down at her. "Did I start on the wrong end?"

"No," she exhaled before catching herself.
"I mean--"

"
Maybe you'd have preferred I start with your hungry-for-attention breasts?" He palmed her through the sateen fabric, making her ache all the more for him.

"I thought you found my breasts lacking," she countered in an attempt to cool his ardor
…and hers. Anything to get him to stop so she could think things out.