The Tin Man (27 page)

“What’s wrong?” she asked, frowning down at him.

“Maybe we should wait until I’ve had a chance to brush my teeth,” he suggested.

She batted her
long lashes “I think we’ve waited long enough, don’t you?”

“I do,” he said
, meaning it. “But I don’t want you feeling put out.”

She ran a finger along his sandpaper jaw.
“I’m more put out by your reluctance than by the way you taste.”

“It’s not
reluctance,” he said, eyes narrowing. “It’s consideration.”

“I appreciate that,
” she said, tapping the finger softly against his lips, “almost as much as I appreciated the feel of your tongue in my mouth.”

He couldn’t stop the laugh that popped out
and chased her finger away. “Oh, aye? Well, in that case…”

H
e seized her face between his hands and pulled her mouth down onto his in a savage, heartfelt kiss. He slipped her his tongue, which she captured between her lips and suckled in a way that reached all the way to his groin. As he felt the first feather-soft undulations of budding desire, he remembered his condition with a pang of nerves. Would his cock fail him tonight? He flung the thought away, knowing the fear alone could defeat him.

The kiss intensified, as did his arousal.
He might taste revolting to her, but she tasted wonderful to him. The kiss was intoxicating. The best ever. Even better than those stolen snogs in the back garden with Carol Brody. And those were pretty bloody inspiring.

As their tongues continued to
tango, his hands roamed downward, exploring the long, lean muscles of her thighs. He eased up her skirt, ran his hands over her lace-encased buttocks, remembering how sexy she’d looked in just her underwear. She had a gorgeous body and a face to match. And her hair smelled of honeysuckle. Fresh hay and honeysuckle. What man in his right mind wouldn’t want her?

Jealousy sparked, but doubt quickly doused the embers. Was he in his right mind?
The flashbacks, the fear of commitment, the failure to feel more than physical desire for a woman. And lately, he couldn’t even feel that much.

He felt it now, though, didn’t
he? Oh, aye. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this hard. He cupped her cheeks and pulled her on top of him, and flexed his hips, letting her feel how much he wanted her. She moaned her approval into his mouth, throwing gasoline on the fire down below. She moved against him, lighting sparks that made the need to penetrate her nearly insufferable.

Breaking out of the kiss, he wrapped her in his arms and rolled them both over in the hay, so he was on top.
He looked down at her, into her eyes, which mirrored all that he felt, but couldn’t express.

“I’m not very good at this.”

She smiled and bumped against his erection in a playful yet meaningful way. “Aren’t you? I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I
don’t mean that part,” he said, smirking. “I meant the part that comes after.”

H
er expression grew serious. “You mean the relationship part?”

“Aye.”

She blinked at him with hurt in her eyes, which made him feel like an undeserving heel. “You can’t even say the word, can you?”

Could he? He wasn’t sure. “I just don’t want to disappoint you.”

“All I ask is that you try, Alex,” she said softly, sincerely. “And that, if the time comes when you feel you can’t even do that much, you have the decency to tell me to my face.”

He thought about Helene with a pang. Had
he been an insensitive prick to end it on the phone? He’d thought it little more than a business arrangement—flatmates with benefits—but she clearly thought it had the potential to be more. Should he have waited to tell her until he returned to New York? Should he have waited to move forward with Thea? Ah, shite. All this second-guessing himself was making his cock lose its starch. He rolled off her, feeling like the world’s biggest disappointment.

She must have sensed his growing despair, because she
turned toward him, set a comforting hand on his chest, and said, “Nobody knows what they’re doing, Buchanan. We’re all just a bunch of aging, frightened teenagers trying to figure out what the hell we want and what we don’t.”

A tense smile twitched on his lips.
That about summed up how he felt most of the time, he just never realized other people might feel the same way—which, astonishingly, might actually put him somewhere in the range of normal.

H
e stroked her hair, pulling free a few straws of hay. “I want you, Thea,” he told her hoarsely. “I know that much.”

“I want you, too,” she said, bringing her mouth down on his
.

As their tongues entangled, he felt her body move against his, felt her fumbling with the buttons on his shirt.
He moved the hand in her hair to her breast and began to tease the pert nipple through the layers of knit and lace. The tempting picture from this morning came into his mind unbidden: two scoops of mocha ice cream spilling out of black-lace cups. The image, coupled with the feel of her teasing tongue, sent a sizzling bolt of lust charging southward. His erection, to his great relief, rekindled within seconds.

She’d opened his shirt and was now stroking his chest hair and playing with his nipples, which tingled appreciatively. His cock was tingling, too—most
agreeably.

He
slipped his hand under her sweater, eager for the tactile experience of the picture in his mind. He ran his fingers over one supple, bra-encased mound, rubbing the nipple through the lace. She shivered against him, shooting another searing arrow of lust to his crotch. Her fingers worked their way down with a slow sensuality that sent thrilling shivers spiraling through him. The fingers moved between his legs and proceeded to probe his highly innervated engorgement.

As she lowered his zipper, she broke out of the kiss.
“Boxers or briefs, Buchanan?”

“Neither, at the moment,” he replied with a
wheezing chuckle.

Reaching inside his trousers, she wrapped
her fingers around his pulsing organ. Shuddering with pleasure, he swept his own hand to the hem of her skirt and began to inch it up. Her thighs were velvet, the sheer swath between them deliciously humid. His fingers slipped inside her knickers, feeling wiry hair and luscious flesh. He proceeded to explore her topography. Her clitoris was firm and pronounced, her vagina lush and tight, her labial folds swollen and juicy.

“This is the feminine equivalent of the head of a man’s penis,” he said, docking his fingertip against her sweet spot. “Did you know that?”

“I did, actually,” she said, teasing the comparable part of his anatomy in a way that made his eyelids flutter.

“Use my cock,” he said huskily, “to show me what you like.”

“You got it.”

To his surprise, she slid down his body,
burrowed between his legs, and unbuckled his belt. The next thing he knew, she was flicking her tongue against the underside of his glans. His breath hitched as pleasure swept across his body like a wildfire.

“Oh, aye,” he whispered raggedly.
“I like that, too.”

S
he proceeded to fellate him like a champion, provoking a bittersweet mixture of feelings. Pleasure, oh, aye. Extreme pleasure, but undercut by a powerful, almost painful, feeling of frustrated ownership. How many other pricks had she similarly pleasured with that beautiful mouth of hers? The thought of it was at once unbearable and bewildering. He had no interest in younger women or, God forbid,
virgins
, so what the devil was his problem? Did he expect Thea to have burst full-grown and fully experienced from a giant seashell or something?

He pushed the
childish notion away, telling himself jealousy was for hotheads and romantics—two things he was not.

H
e strove to shut out everything but the pleasure she was administering with that masterful mouth and those fingers caressing his bollocks and taint with such finesse. If she kept on like this much longer, she would bring him to orgasm and, given his limitations, an encore performance was extremely unlikely.

Setting his hands on either side of her head, he tugged, urging her to desist. “
Thea,” he rasped, “let me reciprocate for a bit, eh?”

She didn’t argue.
Instead, she crawled over him and brought her mouth down on his in a lingering, tongue-tussling kiss that made his cock yearn for her absent orifice. The minute she dropped beside him, he set upon her with lips and tongue until she was begging him to take her.

Happy to oblige, he pushed up on all fours and
moved over her. His gaze swept across her beckoning body before meeting a gaze as hungry as his own. He stilled himself and looked into her eyes deeply, reverently. “You take my breath away,” he whispered, meaning it from the bottom of the heart he didn’t know he had a few days ago. “You are my paper ballerina, Thea.” A wry smile quirked as he added, “Fate brought us together, eh? Let’s just hope it ends better than the story.”

“I
t will,” she assured him. “It has to.”

He hovered over her
for a moment, skin to skin, as she reached out, groping for her purse. He heard the snap of the clasp and the rustle of contents. She tore the wrapper in her teeth, freeing the condom. She fumbled with it for a few moments, trying to slip it on.

“Let me,” he said, taking over.

When he was ready, he moved on top of her and kissed her savagely. She opened her legs, wrapping them around his hips. He took her with an ardent thrust, quivering as he sank into slippery heat.

“
Jesus wept, you feel good.”

“
You feel pretty good yourself,” she whispered, rearing up to deepen his penetration.

He began to move his hips, in, out, and around.
Under him, she moved like the ocean, rising and falling in great, rolling swells. He dove into her warm wetness again and again, feeling uncommonly fulfilled. Each time, she rose up to meet him, squeezing, swallowing, pulling him down, hips slapping against him like surf on wet sand. He clung to her as if drowning, relishing every moment as though it were his last. Under him, she was open, soft, and beseeching. His orgasm was building like deepening pools swirling through every cell, dissolving him until nothing remained but a whirlpool of pure sensation. The precipice was near. He held back, feeling the need to say something.

“
Thea,” he croaked. “I—”

He felt too choked to get the words out.
Choked and bitter and pathetic. All at once, he despised himself and his inadequacies. Why, if his heart was open should his mind still be closed? Closed and cowering. He was still inside her, still potent, but felt a sudden impulse to withdraw, to escape. Resisting the urge with everything he had, he resumed the act and finished quickly before rolling off.

He lay still, receding into silence, feeling lost and far away. His mind stood apart, but his heart yearned to feel again the connection he’d known only moments before.
Even so, he just lay there on his back, looking up at the moon through the battered eaves of the barn, saying nothing, feeling like a stone on the shore, left behind by the waves.

She got up on one elbow, set her hand on his chest, and
endeavored to meet his eyes. “Is something the matter?”

“I think there’s something wrong with me.”

“Oh? Like what?”

He licked his lips, which felt
chapped all of a sudden. “I’ve come to care for you.” He strained to expel the words. “More than I thought possible.”

“I care for you, too,” she said
, kissing his cheek. “So, what’s the problem?”

He
met her gaze with a lump in his throat. “Why can’t I seem to say it?”

She ran her fingers
along his jaw with a tenderness that made him ache. “Alex,” she whispered, kissing him softly, “you just did.”

Thursday

Somewhere in rural Pennsylvania

Thea awoke in the dawning light from one of those dreams in which she was searching and searching for a toilet, but all the ones she found malfunctioned in some bizarre way. She knew all too well what the dream meant. Her bladder was full. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. Buchanan wasn’t beside her. Panic reared. Looking around, she realized that the headlamps were no longer on. Had he gone down to shut them off?

“
Alex?”

Silence.

Worry growing alongside her need to pee, she threw off the blanket and slid off the haystack. It was freezing inside the barn. Shivering, she squinted into the darkness. His clothes weren’t there. Neither was his gun. Prickling with alarm, she quickly pulled on her clothes and boots. She caught a faint whiff of smoke. Of course, she thought, feeling foolish. He’d just gone outside to have a cigarette.

Now d
esperate for relief, she made her way to the stairs, listening for him. There was fluttering in the rafters, which startled her a little. She looked up, but couldn’t see anything in the darkness. Probably just bats or an owl, she figured, praying nothing would swoop down on her.