Uncommon Passion (33 page)

“Hi,” she said.

“I’m Seth.”

“Rachel,” she said.

“Buy you a drink?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” she said, then looked at the group he’d just left. “You’re here with friends?”

“Guys I work for,” he said. “They just landed a big contract. They’re celebrating.”

“What kind of work do you do?”

“Security,” he said. “You?”

“I’m . . . in school.”

“So you’re not an admin?” he said. “They need to hire an admin.”

She shook her head. Conversation was nearly impossible in this place. The noise level both deafened

and frightened her. Seth leaned close, and she caught the scent of cologne. “Want to dance?”

“Sure,” she said. It was almost impossible to hear him over the music, talk, and laughter, and in any

case this wasn’t about talking.

She left her wineglass on the bar. Seth slipped his hand into hers and led her to the dance floor. While

some of the dancers were clearly showing off practiced moves, others were immersed in the beat, eyes

closed, hips and arms moving to the primal heartbeat she felt in her ears, low in her belly. That she knew.

That she could do.

Apparently she did it well enough for him, because after a few bars he slipped his arm around her waist

and drew her against his body. His strength and confidence carried over to the dance floor but despite the

bump and grind he didn’t light her up like Ben did. She remembered Rob’s words, that it was possible to

have amazing sex with someone totally wrong for you, and mediocre sex with someone you liked very

much.

The knowledge tasted bitter, like honey gone rancid.

The song started to shift into the generic thumping drumbeat that signaled a change in songs. Seth

tipped his head toward his group of friends and said, “Come on.”

Why not? She followed him to the periphery of an entire group of people. He replaced her glass of

wine, and she paid attention to the conversation, to the way they finished each other’s sentences. Standing

off to the side, she eventually pieced together that the men were former military, now working together here

in Galveston, and Seth was a contractor. While their friendly banter and sense of community only

heightened her awareness of what she’d lost when she left Elysian Fields, it did help block out the aimless

noise of No Limits, the emotional high without any meaning, the emptiness of the looks, dancing. The

distraction, desperation, and not just for someone to take home. Avoiding life.

She didn’t want to be here. The knowledge slid sharp and sure along her spine. Even if Ben brought her

here, danced with her, took her home, she wouldn’t want to be here. The surface appeared wildly different

thanks to the slick gloss of sex and skin covering everything, but underneath, No Limits was exactly the

same as the empty rituals and routines of her life at Elysian Fields. She didn’t belong there, but she didn’t

belong here, either. She didn’t know how to do this.

She didn’t
want
to know how to do this.

Seth’s gaze sharpened just as a hand slid along Rachel’s waist and a voice murmured low and rough in

her ear. “Dance with me, darlin’.”

Ben. She didn’t even have to turn around to know it was Ben. His scent, his touch, that hard body at her

back and she lit up like a live wire. In that instant she understood why wiser voices recommended delaying

sex until marriage. Would any other man call that response from her body? Was she supposed to go to bed

with her husband knowing this hot, sharp longing would never be hers again? Was she supposed to choose

between all-consuming passion and a lifetime love?

“Actually,” she said, evenly, “I was just about to leave.”

“He’s your choice?” Ben murmured in her ear as he sized up the other man. She knew what he was

doing because Seth’s expression shifted from assessing to pure challenge.

“You know this guy?” Seth asked.

“Yes,” Rachel said.

“Protective,” Ben said. The sharp bite of whiskey drifted to her nostrils as he spoke. His hand slid under

the halter’s hem and he stroked his thumb along her bare stomach. “A nice touch. But he doesn’t do it for

you like I do.”

She didn’t bother to deny it. “My goodness, you’re charming when you’ve been drinking.”

“Rachel,” Seth said evenly, “if you want me to make this individual leave the premises, it would be my

pleasure.”

Ben’s smile flashed in her peripheral vision. “He’s a Galveston police officer,” Rachel said.

“I don’t give a fuck,” Seth said, his smile not all that different from Ben’s.

Just like that she was drowning in testosterone. “Thanks for the offer, but we have some things to talk

about,” Rachel said. “Enjoy your evening.”

Ben’s fingers encircled her wrist in an unbreakable grip. He towed her through the crowd, but she dug

in her heels and jerked away from him. “What’s the matter?” Rachel said, not liking the mocking tone in her

voice. “You told me to pick up a stranger. You said you wanted to watch.”

He put his hands on his hips, claiming space from everyone around them. “I didn’t think you’d do it.”

“Ben, have I given you the impression that I don’t do what I say I’m going to do?” she shouted over the

insane noise. His gaze never left her face. “I was leaving, but not with him. But eventually, I will. I will

choose another man the way I chose you, and I will sleep with him. You don’t have any right to have a

problem with that.”

“I do,” he said so low she thought she’d imagined the words. She wasn’t sure if he meant he had a

right, or that he had a problem with her going home with another man, and she suspected he didn’t know,

either. “I do. You have to do this sometime, but God help me, I don’t want it to be tonight.”

“Then it won’t be. You’re like a stranger to me anyway,” she pointed out.

Emotion flicked across his face so fast she couldn’t name what she saw. “Dance with me,” he said.

He led her through the crowd to the dance floor, and oh God, this was how it was supposed to feel, hot

and slippery and electric. Relentless. He wove their legs together, snugging her up against his torso, pressing

his hard shaft to her hip. It thickened as they danced, one hand flat at the small of her back, holding her

close, the other sliding under her hair to loosely grip her nape. She wound her arms around his neck, used

his strength to press herself against his body and let the percussive bass draw her under.

Everything left her mind, the words, the other people in the room, the music itself, except for the

thumping beat and Ben. Her hair stuck to her arms, to his, slipped into her face so that when he kissed her,

he had to smooth it back from her face. The shock of hot lips, quick breath, and then his tongue dancing

against hers sent a bolt of electricity sharp and jagged between her thighs. His abdomen tightened, and he

pulled her closer. One song became two, then she lost track of time and the relentlessly sexual lyrics.

A woman backed into Rachel, stepping on her heel and jerking her out of the hot haze. Ben looked as

dazed as she did, desire etched into his face by the sweat streaking from his temple to his jaw. She reached

out with her fingers, grazed the side of his face, trailed the tips along his cheek to his mouth. He bit the tip

of her index finger, then soothed it with his tongue.

“If you think we’re a good fit, stranger, I’d like to dance somewhere else,” she said.

“I’ve got a room at the motel across the street,” he murmured.

At this odd statement she pulled back, looked into his eyes. Torn halfway between fantasy and reality,

she bit her lip and looked up at him. He leaned forward and used his teeth to tug her lip free, soothe the

spot, then bite down on it himself. The heat and danger so tightly leashed.

“Let’s go,” she said again.

Chapter Twenty

Ben took her out through the storeroom, past a redheaded waitress in killer heels whose “Hi, Ben” got

a curt nod as he opened the door to the alley. They wove through cars in the parking lot onto the sidewalk,

then jaywalked across the street. The motel across the street had nothing to recommend it, a listing arrow of

white neon with a red VACANCY flashing over two floors of doors facing the street. Ben led her up the

stairs to the second floor and unlocked a door.

When she stepped inside, she saw a round table with two chairs, a single queen bed with a faded spread

and thin pillows, and a dresser with a mirror hanging from the stuccoed wall above it. Ben closed the door

on the streetlights and traffic, then stepped away from her, leaving her in the faint scent of industrial-

strength cleaning products while he turned on the lamp above the table. When he closed in on her, all she

could smell was Ben, heat and musk rising from his skin, almost as palpable as the tension simmering just

under the surface.

He flashed her that smile she so distrusted, the one that meant he was stretched thin, the veneer of

attitude barely covering the raw ache inside. Then he picked up a worn leather case sitting on the table,

opened the snap, and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. He didn’t ask, just opened them, the ratcheting sound

loud in the still air.

“My turn.”

She tilted her head and studied his face. He held her gaze with nothing in his eyes. She recognized that

expression, had seen it in her own eyes those last tortured months at Elysian Fields.

“This is what you’d do with a stranger?” she asked.

The single lifted eyebrow, mocking, amused, was answer enough. She turned around, felt the awkward

strain on her shoulders when she brought her wrists together at her tailbone. The steel, warm from his

body, closed around her wrists.

Ben tossed the case on the bed, then rested his chin on her shoulder and his hands on her hips. His hard

body shifted against her back and bottom, shoulder to shoulder, erection brushing her restrained hands,

while his breath riffled the silky halter top. He unfastened the halter top’s ties and the cups fell forward,

baring her breasts. The backs of his fingers skated down the side of her breast, along her ribs, then he

unzipped the side and worked the top down over her hips.

He walked around her in a slow circle, the heat of his gaze a physical caress on her bare back, ribs, and

breasts. Aroused by memory and eager for his touch, her nipples peaked. One corner of his mouth lifted in

response. He reached out and laid his big hand on her ribs just below her breast, then stroked the soft

underside with his thumb. The pressure, so tantalizingly close to where she wanted it, made her eyelids

droop.

It should have felt awkward to stand half-naked in front of him. Doing so in front of a true stranger

would, but this was Ben, and all she felt was a little dirty. Not bad dirty, but the kind of dirty that struck

sparks and drew dampness between her legs. The kind of dirty spurred by a connection between them so

fundamental and raw she could hardly stand it.

A connection he studiously ignored. “Touch me,” she said softly.

“Only if you watch,” he replied. He wrapped long fingers around her upper arm and guided her over to

stand in front of the mirror, but didn’t look into the reflective surface. “You like to watch?”

The words were murmured into the slope where her shoulder met her neck; between his hot mouth and

the shockingly carnal sight of his hands on her, a shiver ran through her body. They both knew she’d never

watched this before. “Yes,” she said faintly.

His hands were so dark against her pale skin. They started at her shoulders, flexed down her arms

before turning slightly to brush the full sides of her breasts, then continuing down to her waist, then the

curve of her hips before skimming back up her ribs to cup her breasts. He squeezed gently, almost

distractedly but ignored her nipples, now hard for his touch. Instead he brought one fingertip to her mouth.

She watched her tongue flick out and dampen his skin, then kept watching as that fingertip brushed over

each peak. The wetness heightened the air-conditioned coolness, and her nipples tightened even more.

But his hands moved low again, this time to unfasten and unzip her jeans. He didn’t push them down,

didn’t slide his hand inside, just left them open, and the dirty-hot sensation ratcheted up another notch. She

was nearly naked to his fully dressed, restrained to his free, slender and delicate to his broad shoulders and

heavily muscled body . . . a body she couldn’t see.

“Take your shirt off,” she said.

He just shook his head. “Watch yourself. Watch me turn you on.”

As long, heated moments passed, she did just that. When his fingers finally alternated between cupping

her breasts and pinching her nipples, her head lolled back against his shoulder.

“Look at you,” he growled. “So hot.”

Her breath eased from her parted lips in soft, irregular pants. She couldn’t control the shimmy or the

slight whimper she made when his hands dropped lower to push her jeans to the tops of her thighs,