Guilty as Sin (27 page)

Behind that buttoned-up, ice-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth proper exterior, Kate was a raging sea of sexual desire. Just remembering how hard she’d come and how quickly made his balls pull tight.

And her soft, unsteady “I’m sorry,” as though having her come, shaking, around his cock could be anything to apologize for.

Just like when they kissed, she’d had that surprised look, as though her body’s reaction to him had caught her completely off guard.

He felt a strange pressure in his chest, like a mass of something trying to break free from its confines. He was struck by a sudden familiarity, and he started a little at the memory of the last time he’d felt it.

Fourteen years ago. Kate’s mouth hot and wet under his, her skin warm and soft under his hands. Her breathy moan
in his ear as she whispered that she wanted him to be her first.

That same bundle of tenderness combined with an insane level of desire tried to burst free. Tommy ruthlessly pushed the tenderness aside. It had no place between them, not anymore.

Tonight had nothing to do with tenderness. Tonight was about scratching a long-suffered itch once and for all so he could finally free himself of the inexplicable hold she still had on him, despite everything she’d cost him.

Still, that didn’t keep his hands from shaking as he ran them up the length of her legs or his mouth from watering as she parted them at his urging. Offering him an unimpeded view of the tidy patch of red-gold curls at the juncture and the gleaming pink folds underneath.

She was as beautiful there as she was everywhere, a wet, exotic fruit beckoning him to take a taste. He bent his head, slid his lips up the inner curve of one thigh. The taste of her, the scent of her, musky and mysterious, made his cock throb painfully.

He parted her with his thumbs, loving the hitch in her breath as he closed his lips over the throbbing bud of her clit. Loving even more when she moaned his name and rocked her hips, urging him closer.

Heaven, he thought as he licked, sucked, and stroked. She was as delicious here as she was everywhere, her salty-sweet flavor washing over his tongue, her high-pitched moans vibrating through him, sending sparks of need straight to his cock.

He felt her stiffen against him, her fingers knotting into his hair. She was so close, on the razor’s edge.

He reared up over her at the first tremor and sank into her in one smooth thrust. He threw his head back, his eyes
squeezed shut at the feel of her squeezing around him like a tight, wet fist.

He rocked in and out, barely able to move, she was so tight around him. He held himself deep inside her until the last tremors faded, then rolled to his back so she was sprawled on top of him.

He could feel her breath coming in soft, hot pants against his throat, feel her heart thudding in time with his behind her delicate rib cage. He ran his hands up and down her back in a slow caress, feeling his cock swell even bigger inside her as a wave of purely masculine pride washed through him.

He had done this to her. From the first moment he touched her hand, felt the heat spark between them, he’d fantasized about this. Breaking through her cool, composed facade to find the heat and need that raged inside.

For him. Only for him.

For tonight, anyway. Tonight he wasn’t going to worry about consequences. Tonight he was going to steal this scrap of time with her like a starving man stealing a crust of bread.

And just as a mere crust of bread couldn’t fill a yawning void created by months of deprivation, he had a bad feeling that a couple hours in Kate’s bed weren’t going to do much to scratch his itch.

He shoved the thought aside. It would be enough. It had to be.

He threaded his hand in the silk of her hair and tilted her head up for his kiss. Though his cock throbbed insistently, urging him to take her fast and hard again, Tommy kept an iron grip on his desire as he savored the taste of her, the feel of her.

He explored her mouth in slow, lazy kisses, ran his lips down her neck, over her ears, rediscovering all of the secret spots that made her shift and sigh and squeeze around him.

She rediscovered him in turn, sucking on his earlobes, nipping at the juncture of his neck and shoulder, making him surge deeper inside of her.

They stayed like that for endless minutes, kissing, touching, stroking, his cock buried deep inside her, savoring every squeeze and ripple of her delicious body around him, the slide of her smooth skin against his.

He felt her breasts against his chest, her nipples firm little points pressing against him. He broke the kiss, lifting her until he could capture one between his lips. He sucked hard, groaning as her body spasmed around him. Again he sucked her, hard, pulling a moan from her throat as her inner muscles clamped down tight.

Kate braced her hands on the mattress and started to move, sliding up and down the thick column of his erection as he sucked and licked at her breasts. Slowly at first, then gaining more urgency as he sucked and teased.

A high, keening cry came from her throat and her body went tight against his. She came with his name on her lips, sinking down on him until he was as deep as he could possibly get.

Tommy let out a guttural cry as she milked him hard. His balls pulled tight against his body, and the muscles of his thighs went rock hard as his orgasm bore down on him. His eyes squeezed tight, red sparks flashing as his body shook with a climax that was even more intense than the first.

He didn’t know how long he lay there in a daze, absently stroking Kate’s back as she sprawled across his chest. Half of him was screaming to get out, now, before he got pulled even deeper under her spell.

The other half wouldn’t have moved if someone had put a loaded gun to his head. He’d never felt this way after sex. Shaken to his core, as if he’d been blown apart and put back
together. Like nothing could ever go wrong as long as he held this woman in his arms. Like he was exactly where he needed to be and he never wanted to leave.

The thought sent a spike of panic down his spine. It was crazy emotional shit like that that had screwed up his life in his first go-round with Kate. And while he wasn’t a clueless kid who was at the mercy of a vengeful father, Tommy knew that if he let Kate get under his skin again, there would be hell to pay.

Let her get under your skin?
a snide voice asked.
Look at you—one kiss and all of your resolve to stay away from her crumbled to dust. You with your so-called iron-clad control, couldn’t even last a week with her. I’d say she’s pretty firmly embedded there.

All the more reason to make an escape.

Yet he couldn’t make himself pull away from her just yet. It felt too damn good—
she
felt too damn good. The soft weight of her on his chest, the warm puff of her breath against his throat. The silky strands of her hair tickling his wrist as his fingers circled the unbelievably smooth skin of her back and shoulders.

Several minutes passed and she stirred against him with a little sigh. He tensed as she propped herself up on her elbows, her brows knitted in a quizzical look.

Crap. Here come the questions about what does this mean and where do we go from here and all the other shit he never wanted to deal with after sex.

To his surprise, Kate didn’t ask for a debrief on what just happened. “How did you know where the bedroom was?”

“All of the units have the same layout. If you’ve been in one, you’ve been in them all.”

“Oh,” she said, and he felt her stiffen against him, her mouth, swollen and red from his kisses, pulled tight.

He knew immediately what she thought, that he’d been in at least one more bedroom in this complex. While technically it was true—he’d been in all of the bedrooms of all of the townhouses when he’d done the wiring for the security system—it wasn’t in the way she thought.

He didn’t correct her. “I should go,” he said, seizing the chance to get out, even as his conscience pricked at hurting her.

“Right,” she said, and rolled off him, scrambling to get under the covers. He pulled on his clothes and turned to see her hunched against the headboard, her hair hiding her face as she stared at the bedspread.

“You okay?”

Her gaze snapped to his, and the look on her face made his stomach clench. Gone was the misty glow, the look of surprised delight she’d had on her face as he sent her over the edge. Now she looked disappointed, her mouth pulled in a rueful smile. “I’m sure this is all routine for you. I’m not exactly up on proper etiquette after a one-night stand. That
is
what this is, isn’t it?”

Tommy stayed silent. He felt like a jerk but couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t give her the wrong idea. Or, God forbid, let slip that while he’d come here tonight hoping to satisfy his craving for her once and for all, he was afraid all he’d accomplished was ripping down the last barriers of defense he’d had against her.

Even now he could feel it all bubbling up inside him, everything he’d felt from practically the first moment, the summer she was sixteen, when he realized that Kate was no longer a little girl. There had been lust, sure, but also a fascination. A curiosity, a need to know everything about her, inside and out, and a knowledge that he could spend a lifetime learning her and still discover something new.

And then there was the drive to protect her, to keep her safe and wipe away all the hurt the world might pile on her. Like he was piling on now.

Her eyes snapped with anger. “That being the case, I’ll spare you the part where you lie and say you’re going to call me and that we should do this again sometime. And I’ll spare myself the part where I dissect everything that happened and try to determine what it all meant, because in the end, it meant nothing, right?”

Yes. The lie stayed locked in his throat. “Kate—” he began, then trailed off. There was nothing he could think to say that wouldn’t dig him into a deeper, more dangerous hole. He’d already shown himself to have changed from the love-struck boy he’d been into a cold, unfeeling jerk. Best to let her continue to believe that.

She waved a slender hand at him. “Don’t worry about it. I get it. We never got to experience what it would be like to be together. Now we know. Curiosity satisfied. We can move on.”

But as he took one last look at her, clutching the sheet to her like armor, her posture forlorn despite the hard look on her face, Tommy felt his own heart squeeze in his chest. Far from satisfying anything, he was afraid what had happened here tonight had only rekindled a need in him that went beyond lust, beyond sex.

A need that made him weak, vulnerable in a way he promised himself he’d never be weak again.

K
ate was so tired she almost felt drunk the next morning when she walked into the volunteer headquarters. She greeted the women who were manning the phone lines and made a beeline to the coffee station that had been set up in one corner.

As she took a drink, she made a mental note to stop by Mary’s and thank Erin, who continued to replenish the coffee and pastry stores like some kind of coffee elf.

Kate finished her coffee quickly but didn’t hold much hope that it would do much to clear the cobwebs in her brain. Contrary to what she’d said in her lame attempt at bravado, she’d stayed up most of the night going over every second, every detail of what had happened from the second Tommy walked through the door until the second he left.

What he said. What he didn’t say.

And, dear God, the things he did. Even with her heart and pride bruised by his callous exit, her body clenched and flooded with heat at the memory of his mouth and hands on her, his thick hardness buried deep inside her.

She’d fantasized about it endlessly, what it would be like to actually have sex with Tommy. To be naked, skin to skin, taking him inside her, as deep and close as two people could be.

None of her imaginings could even come close to the reality of the pleasure.

But she hadn’t bargained for the pain, which had settled in her chest and wouldn’t go away. No matter how much she scolded herself that she was a big girl. Lots of people—men and women—had sex without any expectation of it going any further.

Logically she knew what happened last night didn’t mean anything.

And yet the way he’d kissed her, the way he’d touched her, it was like something had broken free inside of him. Gone was the stone-faced warrior he’d become. For a while, it was as though she’d held in her arms the Tommy she’d fallen in love with. All the passion, the tenderness, the way he touched her like he couldn’t get enough of her.

The way he looked at her, seemed to revel in her pleasure as he pushed her over the edge. Naively, for a fleeting moment Kate thought he felt it too, that crazy, undeniable connection she couldn’t seem to shake. The pull between them that was so strong it was like gravity, hurling her into his arms time and again.

But then it was over and he’d gone silent and distant, hadn’t offered up any soft words to reassure her that it was anything more than two bodies coming together to satisfy a long-held curiosity.

Even as the memory stung, she knew she had only herself to blame. For all that he’d stormed in like a bull in a china shop, thrilling her with his loss of control, he hadn’t made any bones about how he felt about the situation.