Fever (30 page)

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Authors: Joan Swan

BOOK: Fever
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He shook his head. “With a brother who could obviously take care of you, with resources you could use while the mess is getting straightened out, you could be doing this research from anywhere in the country with Mitch’s contacts. Where you’d be safer, comfortable. Why are you
here
?”
She planted her hands on her hips, pressed her lips into a thin line and kept those eyes on him. “You walked out on me. I fully understand that what we had may have been a fling for you. A biological need. I knew that going in. But the least you could have done was face me when you left. After everything, I deserved that much.”
Regret, guilt, loss grew in a burning pressure at the center of Teague’s chest. “We both know how that would have gone, Alyssa. Look at where we are now. There is no easy goodbye for us.”
The anger in her eyes flattened into resignation, but the pain he’d sensed before remained. She walked toward him, stopping only a foot away. Her sweet scent swirled in his head, bringing memories of her taste, her touch, that were forever burned into his mind. Everything inside him screamed to act. Take what he wanted. What he needed. What he loved. Ease her pain. Fix this mess. Make it right. Only it wasn’t that simple.
“There is,” she whispered. “Just tell me you don’t want me. To my face. Right now.”
The look in her eye told Teague she would accept nothing but an answer. There would be no excuses, no rationalization, no middle ground.
He drew a shaky breath through a tight throat. “I ... don’t ...”
“You are so full of
crap
.” She nailed him with a glare as hot as the flames snapping in the fireplace. “You know what you are? You’re a coward. Plain and simple. I should have seen it before. Oh, yeah”—she made a sweeping gesture over him from head to foot—“you’ve got the macho exterior, the bark, the occasional bite, but underneath it all, when it comes to the strength that really matters ... nothing,
nada
.” She leaned forward. “Go ahead and lie to yourself if you want, if it makes you feel safe. But we both know better, Teague. We both know you are full of
shit
.”
She dropped her arms and turned away.
He should have let her go. That would have been the end of it. But he was pissed—because she was right. Too damned right.
He barely had to touch her to have her whipping back around, ready for a fight. Her hair swung around and over her shoulder. Her eyes sparked with fire. Her hands balled into fists at her sides.
“You’re right, dammit. Is that what you want to hear?” He sucked in air and forcibly lowered his voice. “You’re right, okay?” He darted a glance at the stairwell for signs of the others, but the hallway remained dark and silent. “My God, you are a pain in the ass. Do you always have to push? Can’t you let anything go?”
She crossed her arms, cocked her hip and pressed her lips in a firm, frustrated line.
“This is so screwed up.” There was too much to say and it was all too little, too late. “I didn’t want ... I’d already made such a mess... . I left because—” He dropped his head, rubbed his face with both hands. He was so screwed. So utterly, royally screwed. “Dammit, Alyssa, I can’t tell you I don’t want you, because I want you more than I want to breathe.”
“Well, you sure have a piss-poor way of showing it,” she muttered, the fight gone from her voice.
Teague huffed a humorless laugh and squared his eyes with hers.
“I know why you left,” she said, dropping her tight stance. “I just had to hear it from you. That’s why I’m here.”
He closed the distance between them, squeezed her shoulders and slid his hands down her arms. “I know it’s not enough, but I’m sorry.” He looked down at their hands, entwined. “I’m so sorry, for so many things.”
“So make it up to me.”
“Huh?” He looked up at her, confused.
She opened her hand and threaded their fingers. The slide of her strong, lean fingers along his sent sparks up his arm. “Make it up to me.” She took one step closer, but didn’t press up against him. “I know you know how. And as I recall, you’re pretty damn good at it.”
The invitation was on the table, but she wasn’t going to make the move. She was giving him the opportunity to back out. He could still walk away. He
should
still walk away. But those beautiful eyes were searching his with a film of pain he wanted to erase. Everything in him said yes—mind, body and soul.
“Alyssa.” The last syllable of her name floated in his throat as he leaned in to kiss her.
She returned his kiss with an immediate hunger that shocked him—a mixture of passion and anger and frustration and need that shot sparks through his body. He answered her demand, increased pressure, swept his tongue past her lips and rolled it against hers. She murmured into his mouth, part whimper, part moan. Her hands slid up his chest and locked around his neck. Her body pressed against his in all the perfect places, and his mind evaporated in the sweet heat.
He lifted her, and she immediately wrapped her legs around his waist, putting direct pressure against his erection. Alyssa added fuel to the fire by running her hands under his shirt, over his chest and belly. On a groan, he turned and pressed her against the wall, driving his hips into the softness between her legs. He held her head with both hands, slanting it so he could kiss her one way, then the other. No matter what he did, he couldn’t get enough. He needed more, needed to fully and completely reconnect with her.
A sound caught Teague’s ear. The
click
of a door, followed by running water. Reality chilled over his shoulders.
You don’t have anything to offer her.
He gripped Alyssa’s waist and set her feet on the floor.
“What ... ?” Her eyes opened, glazed with passion.
“I think that was a wakeup call, baby.” His excuse didn’t relieve the choking regret. “Too many people here. Your brother’s right upstairs.”
With a spark in her eye, she flattened her palms against his belly, turned until they’d switched positions and pushed him back against the wall. “I don’t care who’s where.” She slid her hands under his shirt again, scraped her nails across his lower abs. Heat gushed into his groin. “But this is your call.”
His call. Oh, man ...
“Jesus, Lys.” He looked around the open room. No private corners, no enclosed spaces. “This isn’t the best place.” His hand lifted to brush the hair out of her eyes. “Not that I’m complaining, because Lord knows I’m not, but you’re not exactly quiet, baby.”
She rested her chin on his chest, eyes heavily masked by low lids and thick lashes. “Ever think that might be your fault?”
A grin started in his chest and traveled to his mouth. “God, I hope so.”
“I have a place.” She took his hand and led him to a door a short distance away made out of the same paneling as the wall.
“What’s this?”
“Wine closet.” She took his hands and walked backwards into the darkness. “Found it earlier.”
Teague squinted around the space. Sparse light drifting in from the living room, illuminating rows and rows of wine bottles stacked neatly in racks along three walls, leaving a walkway five-feet wide and one solid, flat wall.
You don’t have anything to offer her.
“Lys ...” He searched for the strength to turn her down, but his body pulsed with need and his soul ached for the connection only she could give him.
“Teague.” She pulled him into the closet and shut the door. The intoxicating aroma of sweet wine and pungent spices filled his nose, wafting through his head.
“Wow.” Her surprised whisper made a smile creep over his face. “I didn’t expect it to be so dark. I can’t see a thing.”
“You don’t need to.” Excitement pulsed through his blood. He
might
not have anything to offer her in the future, but he had plenty to offer her in the moment. “I know your body. I know what you like.”
He slid his hands down Alyssa’s body until he felt the hem of her halter and swept it off over her head. Her deep-throated murmur rippled through his body, urging him to satiate the white-hot burn radiating from his groin. But his heart begged for slow and deep, longing to mend the bond he’d damaged by abandoning her the night before.
With nothing but blackness surrounding them, he swept his hands over her shoulders, down her sides and across her belly, avoiding her wound. She was so warm, so soft. He pushed her against the one free wall and trailed his hands up to cradle her breasts. The supple masses teased his hands with their swaying weight. He rubbed his thumb over the nipples and kissed his way along her neck, over her collarbone and finally replaced one thumb with his mouth, exciting the flesh with slow, hard, suckling strokes of his lips and tongue.
Alyssa’s initial high-pitched cry drifted into a sighing moan. When her back arched off the wall, she pushed her breast into his mouth. He added pressure, and bit gently at her nipple.
“Teague,” she groaned as if she couldn’t stand another minute, her hands clawing at him. She had a way of making him feel like a superior lover, which only made him want to work harder to both prove her right and maybe even outshine her wildest fantasies.
Her hands slid from the back of his head, scratching her nails over his scalp and all the way down his back to his ass. She gripped him hard, pulled his hips to hers and rubbed against him with a groan of barely restrained patience. “I want you inside me.”
She pushed at his shorts and boxers, and the fabric slid past his hips and dropped on the floor. Then her hands skimmed his belly as she reached for her own pajama bottoms.
Teague grabbed her wrists and pinned them against the wall at her sides. “That’s my job.”
“Then hurry up.”
“You’re getting a little bossy, Lys.” Teague bit his way down her neck. “I like it.”
He bent his knees enough to get his hips between her legs and with heavy pressure rubbed his way to her soft center, wedging himself there. She shivered with need. One he could fill, right here, right now. Being wanted, needed, to this degree, by this woman, was so incredibly erotic, Teague could hardly hold back. But he wasn’t ready for this to end. Wasn’t sure he’d ever be ready. She was a heady mix of sex and sweetness he wanted to possess.
He lifted both hands above her head, clasped both wrists in one hand and held them against the wall. With his other hand, he explored. When he caressed her face, she turned her head and took two of his fingers into her mouth and sucked. He ran his wet fingers over her lips, down her neck. Circled her nipple over and over before moving on. Scraped his fingers down her belly, as she’d done to him, and smiled when she trembled.
When his hand dipped below the low waistband of her pants, Alyssa lifted her hips to him. A sexy offering he couldn’t resist. As slowly as he could, he let his hand drift lower. Hers strained against his hold, even as her fingers wrapped around his. He toyed with the thin strip of curls between her legs, let her hips rock and sway beneath his hand until she whimpered.
“Teague, please.”
“God, that sounds good.” He kissed her, gently. Sucked her lower lip between his, then her upper. “Say it again. Just one more time.”
“Teague,” she put more deliberation behind the word and lifted her hips higher. “Please.”
He pressed his hand downward, pushing between her legs. Simple sensations passed through his foggy mind: hot, soft, wet, sweet, good. And those simple concepts kept replaying over and over in his head, music to the amazing sound of Alyssa’s pleasure.
Rocking his hand deeper into the soft flesh between her legs, Teague searched. With the tips of his fingers, he stroked the wet crease. Pressed his finger into her.
“Yes.” Her whisper sounded high-pitched, a little frantic, like she was about to lose it. Too soon. But it couldn’t happen too soon for Teague.
He pressed deep and hard, massaging her clitoris with his thumb.
“Wait,” she breathed. “Teague. Wait.”
“No waiting, baby. You wanted it. You got it. Now give it back to me.”
As Alyssa approached the peak, Teague released his grip on her wrists and used his hand to cover her mouth, muffling her cries of release. He kept pressure between her legs until the thrust of her hips eased.
He pulled his hand from the throbbing heat. With a nudge of fabric, her clothes fell to her feet. She swayed, and gripped his waist with both hands.
“Don’t wimp out on me now, Lys. The best is yet to come.” He smiled. “No pun intended, but it works, don’t you think?”
She let out a breathy laugh. “I can’t think.”
“That’s okay, you don’t have to.” He lifted. “Put your legs around me.”
The feel of her hands braced on his shoulders, fingers biting into his skin, only made his cock throb harder.
Teague pushed in a few inches and pulled back. “Jesus, you’re so wet.”
“Mmm.” She lifted her hips to take him in again, deeper. “For you.”
He gritted his teeth, letting her lead at a comfortable pace. The result was excruciating pleasure. The complete darkness focused his attention on every detail of sensation. A quarter of the way in. Out. Halfway. Out. Three quarters. Out. And finally—finally—she took him completely.

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