The Black Sheep and the Princess (28 page)

I
t was full dark and had been for a short time. Kate had just about talked herself into heading back down to the burned cabin, when Donovan pushed in through the cabin door. “Hi, honey, I'm home.”

Bagel barked and wagged vigorously as he danced around Donovan's ankles, and Kate tried very hard to remind herself that his greeting, like last time, was just a joke. Not something she was going to hear every day for, oh, the next fifty years. That she'd even thought about it was a major heads-up on how not casually she was handling all of this. She forced herself to glance at him with nothing more than a quick smile from the pot of chili she was stirring. “Hey, Superhero. How goes the stealth hunt?”

Her entire body hummed in anticipation when he crossed the room toward her. Not that she could really fault the reaction. He'd done some pretty amazing things to her body earlier; of course, it was going to hum a little. Okay, a lot. But there were more important things to be thinking about than how long it was going to be before they discussed tonight's sleeping arrangements. Even if she'd spent more time than absolutely necessary on that very topic and very little on the actual important ones as she'd put dinner together.

She'd have to be disgusted with herself later, however, because he came up right behind her, not stopping until she could feel his breath fan the back of her neck, as if her personal space had a huge open sign hovering over it exclusively for him. Which, apparently, it did, as her immediate response was to lean back into him. Or try to.

He took a quick step back. “I'm disgustingly filthy and you smell incredible.”

“That's just dinner.”

He leaned in and brushed his lips just below her ear, inhaling deeply. “Nope. It's you.”

She couldn't help it; she was impossibly charmed, even if he did smell as if he'd slept inside an old barbecue pit. Dipping her chin to hide her ridiculously big grin, she continued to stir the mix of beans and hamburger meat. “I thought you might be hungry.”

“Mmm,” he hummed. “Very.”

Her body went from humming to outright singing, and it took considerable willpower to keep from tossing the spoon down and turning into his arms, maybe even pushing him down on the small kitchen table and having her way with him, smoke stench or no.

“You didn't wait for me,” he said, still hovering, still sniffing.

“I did for a bit, but when it looked like you were going to be out there for a while, I thought it would be a good idea to put something together to eat, and I didn't want to do that all covered in soot and grime.” She had every intention of asking him what he'd found in the cabin that had kept him down there so long, and then grill him on whatever his new theory was, until he told her everything, so it was as much of a surprise to her as anyone when she smiled over her shoulder at him and said, “Doesn't mean I can't scrub your back.”

His eyes, ringed in grime and soot, flashed a bright silver that turned her insides to mush. “I don't suppose it does.”

No law that said she couldn't ask questions in the shower, she told herself as he nudged her hips and shifted her around to face him. She lifted the spoon between them. “We're going to talk business at some point. Fair warning. I want to know what's going on.”

He covered her hand and guided the spoon to his mouth, where he slowly licked the chili sauce off, while watching her with twinkling eyes. “Mmm hmm,” he agreed.

Her knees went decidedly wobbly, and she knew she should be ashamed at how easily he could seduce her into putting everything important in her world on hold, but damn the man, he made it really hard to concentrate. And it wasn't like there was anything they could do to solve the mystery in the next fifteen minutes anyway. Or the next hour. Or two.

Or three.

“I'm serious, Donovan,” she told him, the reprimand aimed more at herself than him. But if she'd been hoping to enlist some of his control in the matter, she was going to be sorely disappointed. Except disappointment wasn't really what she was feeling at all when his eyes went dark and he slid the spoon from her hands and placed it back on the holder on the stove, deftly popped the lid onto the pot, and turned the burner all the way down to simmer.

“What you do to me,” he murmured as he backwalked her from the kitchen all the way to the bathroom, without ever once actually touching her, but staying so deep in her personal space, she felt intimately connected to him nonetheless.

But then, she always felt that way around him.

“Did you find anything suspicious on your prowl?” she asked him, hearing the thread of need in her voice, even as she tried valiantly to keep from going under his spell without a sign of struggle. He wouldn't be around long, and she was warring with the need to indulge herself mightily while she could, and preserve some sense of control to keep from coming to want too much. Certainly more than she was ever going to get to keep, as that was going to be precisely nothing.

“Depends on what you define as suspicious.” He kicked the bathroom door shut behind them, keeping a very disappointed Bagel on the other side.

“Confirm your theory?” she asked, although the words weren't much more than a hushed whisper as he leaned past her to turn on the shower.

Maybe she just needed to jump him and keep on jumping him until they both burned their need for each other out of their systems. Apparently they hadn't come close to reaching that point yet. Not if the inferno of sexual tension currently raging between them in the small confines of her bathroom was any indication.

“I need to do a little more investigation,” he said, keeping his eyes pinned on hers as he started to peel off his shirt. It wasn't until he started shimmying down his pants that the amused smile tautened the corners of his mouth. “You're not planning on getting in the shower completely dressed again, are you?”

She'd been so caught up in watching him, she'd forgotten that part. Stepping out of his pants, he pushed aside her own fumbling hands and lifted her shirt himself. “I guess not,” she said, smiling herself, shamelessly enjoying how his hands felt as they brushed against her skin. “You wouldn't be seducing me in order to keep me from pestering you about your latest opinion on matters, would you?”

He tugged her sweatshirt over her head and tossed it behind him. “Would it work?”

She shook her head.

“Then I guess the answer is no.” He stepped in closer and tugged at the waistband of her sweatpants. “Have I mentioned how much I like your easy access choice in clothing?”

“No, but I'm considering wearing just a T-shirt from now on. This is taking way too long.”

He yanked her sweats down in one motion, which put him in a convenient crouch in front of her. She let out a gasp and balanced herself by gripping his shoulders when he took a wicked detour with his tongue. “We're so completely shameless,” she gasped.

“Great, isn't it?”

“Yeah,” she said, torn between a laugh at how freeing it was to be with him, and a soft moan on how deliciously good the things he was doing with his tongue made her feel. The soft moan won as he continued his very focused, tender assault on her most sensitive little bundle of nerve endings. “It's a little insane how great it is. Have I mentioned that your idea of foreplay is pretty damn incredible?” She groaned when he slid his tongue away from where she needed it most, up over her torso, gasped again when he captured one turgid nipple for a brief, succulent moment, then moved up to nip her chin. “You stopped,” she said, perhaps pouting, just a little.

“I hate being predictable.”

“Remind me to shut the hell up more often.”

He simply continued to nip along the line of her jaw as she felt the rock-hard length of him brush between her thighs. The muscles there clenched repeatedly, and heedless of the shower running behind her, she gripped at his hips, wanting some part of him inside of her right that very second. Only to be disappointed again when he continued kissing and nipping along her neck as he turned her around. “Watch,” he whispered against the side of her neck.

She opened her eyes to find herself staring into the rapidly steaming mirror over her sink. Her gaze locked on his as he pulled her hips back. Black soot streaked his face, his hair, and his hands, leaving marks on her skin where he touched her. Instead of turning her off, it made him look wildly primal, and her ache for him intensified.

The sound that slid from her was deep and guttural as he pushed fully into her. She was so ready for him, and pushed back onto him, but there was nothing hurried this time. His strokes were slow, controlled, and oh so deep, but the connection she felt with him as their gazes held with each thrust was as visceral as it got. She braced her hands on the sink as he leaned over her, nipping at her ear, while his hands slid up her torso, streaking her skin with black. He toyed with her nipples, wrenching groan after groan from her, but nothing matched the low shout of pleasure he wrung from her when he slid one hand between her thighs.

She crested quickly, almost violently, and he kept his fingers there, slick and clever, kept her quivering and shuddering, until he was shaking with the effort to stave off his own imminent climax. She pushed back against him, needing more of him somehow, and yet feeling so completely full of him, she wasn't sure what more there was to have.

His hands slid back to her hips, his fingers digging in tightly as he began pumping harder, faster. She met him thrust for thrust, her hands slipping on the porcelain of the sink as she fought to keep her grip. The mirror had fogged completely over at some point, but she didn't need to see him now. She felt him so thoroughly it was as though she was part of him, as he was part of her. His climax, when he finally let it overtake him, was almost mindless in the frenzied way he drove into her, body slapping against body, animal grunts—his and hers—filling the steamed air.

He collapsed over her, and they both fell over the sink. She braced their weight on the mirror, leaving handprints on the steamed glass, as he wrapped his arms around her waist and held her tightly to him, his body still shuddering in the aftermath.

It was hard to breathe in the thick air, the shower still pumping out more steam as their hearts raced and their bodies quivered. She had no idea how much time passed before he finally lifted her up and turned her around, saying nothing as he pulled her into his arms. He shifted, resting his weight against the sink as she leaned into him, oblivious now to the soot, the smoky smell, still trying to slow her pulse, breathe. He seemed to be doing the same as he stroked her hair, pressed his cheek against the top of her head, and just held her.

Hot and dirty sex
, she thought. Literally, figuratively, any and every which way she wanted to look at it. It had felt like more, a lot more. It had felt like…She couldn't find the words.
Bathroom fun, sweaty and intense, but fun is all it is
, she told herself. That was all it was, all it could be. Then she felt him press a kiss to her hair, and her heart bloomed so swiftly it made her eyes burn.
So stupid, so silly
, she scolded herself. Mistaking sex for love. For anything other than what it was. Pleasure. Profound in this case, life altering even, but mere physical gratification nonetheless.

Yet there was so much more there for her, and no amount of silent scolding was going to change that. She knew then just how much she'd gambled, letting him in at all. It wasn't money, or success, or anything with an absolute value she'd risked. It was priceless. It was her heart. How had she been so foolish as to think it was something she could give away and not suffer for in the end?

And it was all she could do not to cling to him. She couldn't force herself to step away, climb in the shower, toss off a light laugh, make some pithy remark about the mind-blowing sex they so effortlessly managed to have, as casual lovers would.

He slid his fingers beneath her chin, nudging it up, and she resisted for a second, not wanting him to see what might be in her eyes at that moment. She felt unmasked, naked, and vulnerable in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with her physical state at the moment, and everything to do with her emotional one. Donovan missed nothing. Even if he was unprepared for what he might find, she doubted he'd miss that either.

Selfishly, she wasn't ready to let this go yet, to let him go. If she was going to risk it all like that, lay her heart out like that, shouldn't she get as much out of the devil's bargain as she could?

But then, she already knew there wasn't going to be any getting enough where Donovan was concerned. More now was only going to hurt more later. And yet the battle waged.

He nudged a little harder. “What's going on in there?” he said, his voice hardly more than a gravelly rasp.

Sighing softly, knowing she had no other choice, she let him nudge, let him tip her chin, until their gazes met. And realized she was the one who was going to find the unexpected. Stunned, she could only stare into his eyes. Eyes that weren't just filled with desire, or satisfied pleasure. In those silvery gray depths, she saw an easy, honest affection, so direct, so open, so…naked. Exposed. As exposed as she felt. He looked so far into her, with such blatant need, she felt touched so deeply she didn't know it existed within her.