The Black Sheep and the Princess (23 page)

“I think it's Shelby,” she said quietly, so he could barely hear her over the spray. “I didn't think it was him at first. Then I waffled. Then I tried to convince myself again it just couldn't be him. I've tried to think it through, figure out why he'd be doing this. I'm still not sure it all follows.” There was a long pause, then, “But my gut tells me he's probably behind this. I don't have a clue how, but it would just be too typical of him.”

Holding the curtain closed in front of his body, Mac poked his head out. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. It's not like we have any love lost for each other. I just didn't think he'd go to these lengths to screw me over. Do you think there's a chance he's not involved? That maybe the developer contacted him and he turned them down, so now they're going after me, knowing I'm the future owner?”

Mac just held her gaze. He hated seeing her look so defeated. “Not much of one, no. If it was just them behind this, they'd come straight to you and offer a buyout.”

“Except I'm not the owner. So they went to Shelby.”

“Looks that way.”

“Even if he's in it with them, why the stupid graffiti threats? If I back away from wanting this place and agree to renege on our inheritance deal, he stands to lose so much. Why would he risk that?”

“Maybe the development deal is bigger.”

“Could that really be?”

“I don't know. Maybe he's trying to find a way to keep both, or to just buy you out altogether, and by sabotaging the place, he can get it from you for a lower price. You said he felt he deserved it all; maybe that's what he's angling for after all.”

“So why not just tell me flat out he's not signing, that he wants a new deal?”

“Because he thinks you'll fight him and tie things up longer, and maybe he can't afford that either. So maybe he's trying to make you want to walk away. I don't know.”

“Where does Ralston fit in, then?”

Mac pressed his forehead against the tile and sighed. “Let me finish up here, and we'll sit down and develop a plan of attack, okay?”

He looked up in time to see a surprising hint of a smile curve her mouth. “Oh, I'm fine right here.” She crossed her legs and leaned back, her gaze dipping pointedly lower.

He realized he'd released his grip on the curtain just slightly while they'd been talking and quickly snatched it closed again. “Okay, you've had your little revenge.”

“No, not really. It's not every day a girl gets rejected bedside. Her own bedside, for that matter.”

Mac sighed. He was going to turn into a prune at this rate. “I explained about that.”

“I know.” She hooked her arms around her bent knee. “Go on. Don't let me bother you. After all, you won't let anything happen. And if this is the only way I can get your undivided attention, then…”

He'd show her his undivided attention. His grip tightened on the edge of the curtain. Did he deserve this little power play? Well, yeah. But if she thought ignoring the roar of chemistry between them was easy, she was sorely mistaken. For a whole second or two, he allowed himself the luxury of imagining her expression if he just reached out and yanked her into the shower with him. Fully clothed. Although that would be of limited concern, as he'd peel her wet clothes off, one delectable inch at a time.

He swallowed. Hard. And considered begging her to leave.

She rocked back and forth, smiling at him.

“You know,” he warned. “You play with fire, you get burned.”

“But that would mean you're hot. And you already proved you run cold where I'm concerned.”

His gaze narrowed. “Are you testing me?”

She lifted a shoulder in a dismissive shrug. “Why would I do something like that?”

“Why, indeed.”

“I just wanted the edge for once, that's all. I can't help it if you're in there naked, thinking whatever thoughts naked men think. I'm just sitting here, quite innocently, trying to determine the fate of my entire future. But sure, if you think I have ulterior motives—”

His hands were on her before he even realized his patience had snapped. And her eyes did widen in surprise when he bodily pulled her into the shower with him. She even squealed, much as he imagined she would. Only it was in delight…not protest.

“Naked men are so easy,” she said, laughing as he yanked her up against him.

“Has that been your personal experience?” he said, more mad at himself for caving than at her for taunting him.

“I don't have that much experience.”

He turned, pushed her up against the tiled wall with his body, and scraped his thumbs across the wet strands of hair that clung to her cheeks. “I find that really hard to believe.”

Her eyelashes were wet and clumped together by the spray, which somehow managed to make her eyes sparkle all that much more brightly. Or maybe it was the impish edge to her smile that did it. “I said I don't have that much. But maybe what little I have is enough.”

“Who are you?” he asked, his body raging to have her, his mind as muddled as ever.

The gleam faded a bit. “You know who I am.”

“No,” he said, studying her, trying to clearly see who she really was. “No, I don't. One minute you're all vulnerable and worried you'll lose your camp. The next you're all self-assured and seducing your way into my shower.”

“Do I have to be all of one or the other? Can't I be both?”

He shook his head. “I've never claimed to understand women, though I have made an effort from time to time. But you…”

She reached up then, and undid what little defense he had left, flimsy though it already was, by tracing her fingertips over his face. His forehead, his cheeks, his lips. All the while staring steadily into his eyes. “I'm not supposed to be something you solve, Donovan, like some kind of puzzle. Or case file. Don't analyze me so much. Just go with your instincts.”

“That's the problem,” he said. “My instincts with you are all over the place.”

She frowned a little, and her fingers paused in their journey of discovery. “What's so wrong about me?”

It wasn't the question that gave him pause. It was the immediate answer that came to his mind.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with you. That's the problem. You're perfect for me
. Or the fantasy of her was. Logic told him he didn't know her, that he was confusing the fantasy of his youth with the woman of his present. His heart told him he knew all he needed to know, only wanting to know more.

“There's nothing wrong with you. I just—”

“Don't want to get involved with a client? I'm not paying you. You're here by choice.”

“You cloud my judgment already. Who's covering expenses is beside the point.”

She smiled a little at that. “And ignoring this”—she nudged her hips against the rock-hard length of him—“is going to make things clearer?”

He groaned at the contact, and it took every scrap of will he had not to drill his hips into hers. He dropped his chin, swore under his breath. “I don't know what the hell to think anymore. You're driving me crazy.”

She nudged his chin up until he met her gaze. “Good. I'd hate to be alone out here in crazy land.”

He smiled a little at that. He couldn't help it. “You need me clear-headed and focused if you want my help in finding a way out of this.”

“And here I was thinking I needed you naked, so maybe we could take the edge off all this…muddled thinking.”

“So this”—he risked nudging himself between her thighs, catching his breath when she moaned a little, went a little more pliant against him—“is all about muddled thinking, is it?”

“Maybe only a little about muddled thinking,” she managed on a short gasp as he pushed against her again. “Although I am feeling pretty muddled at the moment.”

He nudged her head to one side, dropped his mouth to the spot below her ear. “Do you honestly think one time will clear things up?” He placed a hot, wet kiss on the side of her neck, then gently sunk his teeth into her earlobe, making her gasp, and his body jerk. “Or do you think it will only make me want you naked and underneath me as often as I can get you that way?”

“I—I don't know what to think.” She sunk her fingers into his shoulders and tilted her head back on the tile, allowing him greater access to the sensitive underside of her chin. “I just don't think ignoring it is going to make it go away.” She sighed when he began to drop kisses along the underside of her jaw.

“No, probably not. But it complicates things, Kate. I'm not good with…complications.”

She was silent for a moment, then said, “Understood.”

He paused and pressed his forehead against her cheek. His body was one big hard-on at the moment, but his heart…She'd always had a way of tangling that up without even trying. “Are you?”

“We have our own paths. Like I said before, we're adults. We're not kids anymore, with fantasy dreams and unrealistic expectations—” She paused, he waited. “I won't lie. I've always wanted you.”

He lifted his head then, looked her directly in the eyes. “Kate—”

“But I'm not a kid. And I know what I'm asking for.”

A lot of trouble, was all he could think. For them both.

“Maybe even that is more than I can give.”

“Maybe. But I won't know that till I ask.”

He'd denied her—and himself—once. He'd like to think he was strong enough to do the right thing every single time, no matter how difficult, no matter how challenging. But he already knew he was far from perfect. And he also knew he was about to be far from perfect with her.

“I've always wanted you, too,” he told her, which made her eyes darken with need, her body soften in anticipation of him, and what was left of his resolve disintegrated. He wanted to see that look in her eyes again and again. He wanted to see it when he was inside of her, when he was making her climb the peak, when he was the one who pushed her over. He wanted to be the only one who saw that look, ever, and it was that fierce, ridiculous surge of possessiveness that almost gave him back the edge he so desperately needed.

“Then stop denying us both what we've always wanted. Not many people get the chance. I want mine. Don't you want yours?”

Put like that…

“Yeah,” he said, his voice rough now, with need, with anticipation, and not a little apprehension. “Yeah, I want mine.”

S
he hadn't planned this. Not really. Yes, she'd come in with the intention of making him squirm just a little; he'd deserved that much. She'd wanted to let him know that she had her own mind in this. But maybe she'd been lying to herself. A tiny bit. Because, if she were being brutally honest, and now was the time for that really, then the rest was true, too. This was exactly where she wanted to be.

Maybe with a few less sodden clothes on, but still…

“Donovan—”

He paused in the string of devastatingly seductive kisses he was dropping along the line of her jaw and looked into her eyes.

“I mean Mac,” she said, belatedly realizing the slip. God, leave it to her to screw up the second chance she didn't think she'd even have.

“No.”

“But—”

He pressed a finger against her lips. “I mean it's okay.”

“I shouldn't—”

He didn't move his finger away; in fact, he continued to press the pad of his finger against her lips as she spoke, then stopped her by pressing his fingertip inside her mouth. Her thighs trembled at the soft penetration. The contrast to the rock-hard length of him currently pressing between her thighs was a sweet paradox. He watched her eyes as he slid his finger along the surface of her tongue.

She watched him back as she closed her mouth around it, pulled it in, and sucked on it, reveling in the brief surprise, followed by the punch of desire she saw in eyes that were already almost swamped with it. It was heady, powerful stuff, knowing she moved him like this. She tried not to think about how ambivalent he'd been before about doing this with her. Logic and rational thought were not going to stop this from happening.

She sucked harder, then groaned deep in her throat when he slid another finger inside her mouth. She pushed up on her toes, allowing him to tuck himself farther between her legs, wanting nothing more than to make her soaking wet clothes magically disappear. He groaned now, too, and bucked against her.

She slipped his fingers free of her mouth and simultaneously pulled his head down to hers. She wanted something more immediate than his fingers inside of her. She kissed him hard, and he returned it with equal fervor. He tugged her hands from their grasp on his hair and pinned them on the tile wall beside her head, then slowly slid them upward, until her body bowed away from the wall, pressing the wet shirt covering her breasts up against the hard planes of his water-slicked chest.

He crossed her wrists, then slid his hands down her arms to the ragged neckband of her sweatshirt, and with excruciating slowness, he ripped it right down the middle, baring her to him one inch at a time. She thought she'd scream with need as he slowly peeled away the heavy wet cotton, wanting nothing more than to finally be free of the stupid thing so she could feel something equally wet but far warmer covering her skin.

His gaze flickered up to hers as he finished the last bit with a yank, then slowly, deliberately, dragged the shirt open, so it slid across nipples that were achingly tight and sensitive.

“My beautiful Kate. But then, I knew you would be.”

“Nothing special,” she managed, knowing it to be true. She'd been genetically blessed with silky blond hair, and a nice facial structure, she knew that, but her body was quite average. No matter what Donovan thought. Her waist was straight rather than narrow, and her shoulders a bit more broad than was strictly feminine. When you added breasts that had blossomed small and remained quite defiantly so, it all added up to—her thoughts scattered instantly as his warm lips closed around one of those aching tips.

She gasped and arched into him, the exquisite sensations spearing through her rendering her speechless as well as mindless.

“You taste pretty damn good, too.”

She was focusing on trying to keep her knees locked and herself from sliding down the tile wall into a puddle at his feet as pleasure shot through her, from the tips of her breasts, like an arrow straight down between her thighs.

He left her sweatshirt hanging open, clinging to her sides, as he slowly began sliding his hands, and his body, downward. “I wonder where else you taste good.”

“Oh, my God,” she breathed, not at all certain she would survive that. But pretty damn sure she wanted to find out.

He slowly peeled down the heavy cotton sweats that molded to her thighs. He paused briefly when he got to the wisp of lace at her hipbone and glanced up. “Camp girl on the outside…all woman on the inside. I like that.”

If he only knew. She'd dug through her drawer of undies, wanting to put something on that would make her feel sexy, bold confident, even if she was the only one who knew. Okay, so maybe there'd been some latent fantasy that at some point he'd be overcome by lust, rip off her clothes, and see her in them. But she'd never actually expected it to happen. She'd certainly never expected this.

He hooked his fingers around the stretch of lace and tugged. Slowly. Excruciatingly slowly. She wanted to tip her head back, close her eyes, and just focus on feeling every sensation, every ripple of pleasure. But she couldn't take her eyes off him. She tried not to tremble so hard but she couldn't seem to stop. The warm water sheeted across her naked torso, tapping her aching nipples, sliding across her skin, drenching his hair, dripping off his jaw as he continued baring her skin to his intently focused gaze.

Her thighs quivered in anticipation of his touch. Even with the clouds of steam hanging heavily in the air, she could feel his warm breath brush against her oh-so-sensitive skin. She wanted to sink her fingers into his hair, urge him closer, urge him to please put an end to the torturous wait. But he continued pushing her clothes and panties down her thighs, over her calves, slipping his palms up one leg to help dislodge her foot from the wet pile, one then the other.

And then she was naked to him, except for the torn sweatshirt. He slid his hands slowly back up the front of her shins, then around the backs of her knees, and slowly up the back of her thighs, nudging them apart, just slightly.

She sighed as, once again, his breath fanned across her inner thighs. And thought she'd scream if he didn't stop there and finally—“Oh!” Something that resembled part whimper, part moan, slipped from her mouth as he slowly drew his tongue along her most sensitive flesh.

She realized her arms were still crossed above her head when she lowered them, looking for something to brace herself on, trying to stand despite the exquisite bliss literally shuddering through her as he continued his dedicated mission. She slapped her palms to the tile and arched her back as he slid his fingers around the backs of her thighs…and upward, until he was inside of her. His tongue never stopping its delicious assault, until she was forced to bend over, brace her weight by gripping his shoulder with one hand, the back of his head with the other, as long moans, one after the other, poured out of her while she spiraled up and up…and finally over the peak.

She was shaking so hard, she wasn't sure how she remained upright as wave after wave continued to rock through her. He slid up her body, bracing her between himself and the wall, as he trailed his lips up over her torso, peeling the sweatshirt down her arms and off before pushing her hands up again, and linking his fingers through hers as he pressed them to the tile beside her head.

“That was…” She had no voice. The words were barely formed. Her thoughts weren't much more gelled than that either. She was still trying to come back to her senses. “I should be…you need…”

“Shh,” he told her, then pulled her arms down around his neck and tipped her chin up, and kissed her.

She was pliant in his arms, thankful for his strength, his guidance, his support of her, as she was nothing but a languid pool of bliss at the moment. Any moment now she'd regroup, she'd be a more active partner, giving as well as taking…but at the moment, his kisses were almost as drugging as his tongue had been, and she was swimming again, floating away on waves of pleasure. Later…later she'd return the favor. He didn't seem all that insistent at the moment anyway. And this felt too damn good. Nothing had ever felt this good.

He was both gentle and urgent, making her feel both cosseted and desired at the same time. He tucked his hips against hers, still kissing her deeply, twining his tongue along hers as he slid his hands down and pulled her thighs up over his hips, pinning her to the wall. “Kate…,” he murmured against her lips. “I don't want to stop, but—”

“Then don't.” She buried her fingers in his wet curls and tugged his mouth back to hers. “Not this time. You can't. You wouldn't.”

“Protection,” he said, his body tensing as she hooked her heels behind his thighs.

“I'm safe,” she said. “It's okay.”

He lifted his head, looked her in the eyes. “Are you sure?”

“Very.”

His eyes were so very dark, she'd never seen him this intense, which was saying something. And it was all in want of her. A heady rush raced through her all over again.

“Kate—”

“I'm protected. And I'm safe. And I want you…deep inside me. Right now.” She couldn't believe she was saying this to him. She wasn't one for such direct talk, but somehow with him, it was not only expected, it felt necessary. She wanted—no, needed—him to know she was a true partner for him. In every way. And this was only the beginning of how she wanted to show him.

That feeling, that need, was as thrilling as it was intimidating. But now was certainly not the time to worry about that. Right now, all she wanted to feel was—“Oh…oh…” And the rest was one long groan of intense satisfaction as he slid slowly, fully, and completely inside of her.

“Hold on to me,” he commanded, the words more growl than anything.

She didn't hesitate to comply with this demand. She dug her fingers into his shoulders and locked her ankles more tightly behind him as he eased back from the wall, leaving her leaning back so he could angle her hips upward…and thrust. His broad palms covered her hips, guiding her down onto him. She arched, moaned, and when he began to move faster, she might have even screamed. She'd never been all that vocal during sex. With Donovan, she couldn't imagine being quiet.

This wasn't quiet, polite mating. This was basic, earthy, raw…primal.

She clung to him, both of them grunting as his thrusts grew deeper, faster. She wanted to slow things down, so she could remember every second, revel in every feeling, every sensation, but she couldn't even keep her eyes open to watch him. He was driving her up again, and she could only give herself over to it, to the powerful emotions bulleting through her.

This is just sex
. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she reminded herself of that. Or tried to.

What she felt was an irrevocable bond being forged, a union like no other. Ridiculous. A feeling she'd be thankful she never shared with him, as she was certain when it was all over, she'd laugh at herself and her silly emotional reaction to what was just extraordinary sex.

And it was Donovan. Her fantasy finally come to life. So surely she was just tangling fantasy with the moment.

Though, God, it was one hell of a moment.

And then whatever thoughts she had scattered completely as he slowed, and she could feel his body coil, tense, pull back, all in preparation for what she knew was coming. It was enough to send her over, water pouring over her sweat-slickened torso, as she gasped for air and gave back equally with every thrust he made.

He was all but growling when he came, his fingers digging into her hips in a way that she knew would leave marks, marks she felt ridiculously proud to bear, as she felt like a marked woman now anyway. She gave herself over to him, reveled in his shuddering release, tightening around him to give themselves both every last breath of pleasure.

He was shaking as he slid from her body and let her legs drop from around his waist. He rolled them both so his back was against the tile, and he held her tightly against him as they both fought for breath. Her knees were woozy, her muscles pliant on the verge of uselessness.

It was long moments before she realized the shower had, at some point, grown cool. It actually felt good on her overheated skin, but she blindly reached down and pushed the lever off. Donovan made no move to leave, or to let her go. And she made no move either. The steam slowly dissipated as their heartbeats eased to a somewhat steadier rhythm. It was the only thing steady about her at the moment.

It felt good, she decided, being in his arms. Held so tightly, both cuddled and coddled. It wasn't like her to accept that from anyone, most especially in a moment like this. She'd fought so long and hard for independence, it had carried over to all aspects of her personal life, including intimacy. So why she so willingly accepted his protection, his surprising tenderness, she had no idea. She chalked it up to the moment…and to the past. To the fantasy. Because a lot of what had just happened couldn't be reality.

Her reality was simply never that good.

She must have withdrawn then, in some way, because he tightened his hold slightly, then slid his hand up to tip her chin up.