Into the Crossfire (29 page)

Sam was staring at her hips, at the small bruises which were nothing in

comparison to what was going to be a real doozy on her back tomorrow morning.

He looked absolutely horrified.

"Sam?"

"I did this," he said again hoarsely, eyes glued to where his hands framed

the small dark spots. "These bruises came from me. From my hands."

She covered his hands with hers. "It's okay. I bruise easily, don't worry

about it. "

He was breathing heavily, face tight with some strong emotion. He raised

his eyes to hers and she winced at the pain in them.

"Is that why you ran?" he asked hoarsely. "Because I hurt you? Because

you were afraid I would hurt you some more?"

Nicole opened her mouth to answer, appalled that he could even think such

a thing. She'd run because she was a coward and couldn't face her feelings for him.

"No, God no, Sam. I--"

But he drowned her out, his voice strong and adamant. "Because I don't do

that. Could never do that. I don't hurt women." His jaw muscles bunched, he

opened his mouth, then clamped it tight, throat working. It was as if he wanted to

say more, but nothing else besides that stark statement would come out.

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Nicole started to say Of course you don't hurt women, but stopped when

she looked closer at him. He looked like a truck had run over him. As if something

had scraped him raw.

In Nicole's world, of course men didn't hurt women. That went without

saying. The man she knew best, her father, had been the most gentle, loving and

affectionate of fathers and husbands. She couldn't even begin to imagine her father

raising a hand in anger to her or to her mother. Or to any woman or child for that

matter. It was simply unthinkable.

But that wasn't where Sam had grown up. Sam had grown up in the feral

underbelly of the world--a place of brutality and cruelty, where men regularly beat

up women and children, simply because they could. And because no one stood up

for them. At some point in Sam's childhood, something strong in him must have

risen up, rebelled against the cruelty and the violence around him, led him to make

his stand and forged him into the man he was.

I don't hurt women.

The words had clearly come from the deepest bedrock of his being.

Looking up at him, at that strong face, now trying to mask how deep his

feelings were, something big, something important shifted inside her.

Sam Reston. At first she thought he was a lowlife, a thug, the kind of man a

woman instinctively avoided. Then he turned out to be the sexiest man alive. Last

night had been, hands down, the most incredible sexual experience of her life, a

potent combination of heat and laughter and pure hormonal overload.

She'd been wildly attracted to that Sam Reston, the man who had taught her

more about sex in one night than in all her twenty-eight years taken together.

Attractive and attracted, sex on a stick. That Sam Reston had turned her on so

powerfully he'd turned her inside out.

But this Sam Reston--the man who protested hoarsely that he didn't hurt

women, as if the very blood in his veins would stop if he did...Well, that man was

more than an incredibly hot date.

The feelings he aroused in her were like a complete realignment of her

being, right down to the molecular level.

The French had a name for it--les atomes crochus. Where the very atoms

that made up your being hooked up with another person's, so that you were one,

permanently, irrevocably.

The night of amazing sex had somehow sparked off the process, and Sam's

horror at the idea he could have hurt her set it ablaze. The violence in her office

had been a defining moment, watching Sam come to her rescue, unflinching even

with a gun in his face.

He'd defended her with his life.

His hands were stroking her hips, right over the bruises. Gently, so gently,

as if he could somehow wipe the bruises away. He watched his hands, face tight

and grim, etched in regret at what he'd done.

There was nothing wrong with what he'd done last night. She'd been with

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him every step of the way.

He'd given her so much. Wooed her, seduced her, protected her, defended

her. It struck her that she had the power to give something back to him, something

he desperately needed.

His pride. His knowledge of himself as a man who didn't hurt women.

"That wasn't why I ran, Sam," she said softly, holding his beard-roughened

chin in her hand, forcing his head up so she could meet his eyes. His gaze kept

going in horror to the small bruises on her hips.

She took a deep breath, looked at him solemnly, shoulders back, standing

ramrod straight.

He stared at her, unblinking, jaws clenched.

He was hurting. It was so clear, now that she had eyes to see. This big,

strong, tough, magnificent man was hurting.

She couldn't stand another second of it.

His mouth worked and he finally managed to get a few hoarse words out.

"So why did you run?"

"Because I was afraid--" He was already wincing. "I was afraid of what I

felt for you. Last night--it was just so intense, it was like there was another woman

in the bed with you. When I woke up I ran, because I could hardly recognize

myself."

She leaned forward, kissed his chest right over his heart. She could feel its

slow, regular beat.

She tipped her head back to study his face and told him the stark truth. "I

was so rattled by you, by what was happening. It just scared the hell out of me."

Nicole rose on tiptoe, cupped his shoulders, lifted herself up against him

and bit his lower lip until he let her in. It wasn't a slow kiss. She took it straight

from zero to a hundred in a second.

She was naked and could feel everything that happened to him as she kissed

him. At first he froze, surprise coming off him in waves at the unexpected kiss.

She was plastered against him.

The sudden sharp breath, the heavy erection trying to rise under his jeans

against her lower belly, such a powerful movement it made her vagina contract in

desire. His hands on her hips moved to her buttocks as he pulled her tightly against

him, positioning her to rub against his penis--and he froze. Carefully, as if he were

handling something full of nitroglycerin, he eased back and away, the only

connection between them his hands still loosely at her hips.

Nicole's eyes fluttered open, the heat that had flared up so fiercely and

brightly slowly dissipating.

"Sam?" she whispered. He was pulling away? But he was aroused,

massively. She had felt it against her own skin.

"No."

"No?" she echoed hollowly.

"Not right now. Not yet, anyway." He looked down at her, at the drops of

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blood on her white shirt on the floor. "You need to be ready."

Ready? She was ready all right. Blood pooled heavily between her thighs,

her breasts felt full and heavy. She didn't need any foreplay.

"I'm ready, Sam." If Nicole hadn't felt the words leave her lips, she would

never have believed that that throaty, velvety voice laced with sex could possibly

be hers.

"Mmm."

Shifting sideways, Sam did something complicated to the complex shower

control and a rush of hot water came flowing out, steam billowing out in the room,

shrugging off his shirt. "First things first."

He bent to kiss her cheek.

He was moving slowly. Last night, half the time he had moved at warp

speed. So this was going to be his show and he was going to take it slow. Okay.

Some of that sexual tension relaxed a little. They were going to make love, but

clearly not right away.

He picked her clothes up from the floor, put them on a chair together with

his own shirt and rose, big thigh muscles flexing, jeans clinging to him like a

lover. Oh wow. Who knew she could be so susceptible to beefcake? Who knew

that his enormous chest could take her breath away, that watching his thigh and

stomach muscles contract as he rose slowly from a crouch could make her own

thigh muscles twitch?

He shot out a hand to test the temperature, grunted, then eased her into the

stall as if she were the queen of Coronado Shores.

Ah, the hot water pummeled her sore muscles. It felt wonderful. She turned

under the showerhead, face uptilted, eyes closed, savoring the sensation.

She opened her eyes and saw that he was getting drenched. He still had on

his jeans.

Nicole gave a half laugh and pointed at his jeans. "Shouldn't you take those

off?"

Sam's dark eyes gleamed as he opened a bottle of shampoo and poured a

little into his hand. "Nope. Denim chastity belt. Best in the world. Worked in high

school, works now. Boner's got no place to go. Now turn around and tilt your head

back."

She obeyed, sighing with pleasure as his strong fingers began working up a

lather. A strong scent with a deep note of sandalwood washed over her. Sam's

shampoo. She remembered smelling it in his hair as she ran her fingers through it,

then clenching her fists in his hair as she started coming. Scent memories are

locked into the most primordial part of the brain, she knew, and this one nearly

knocked her off her feet as she remembered the hot feelings connected with this

smell. She moaned.

"What? Did I hurt you?" His large hands stilled. Oh man, this was

embarrassing. She was being turned on by his shampoo.

She leaned against him heavily, head tilted back onto his shoulder. "No,"

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she said, as the water rushed over her. "You didn't hurt me."

"Good," he grunted. His strong hands went back to kneading, fingertips

digging in, somehow knowing exactly where the knots of tension were. She could

feel every inch of him against her naked back. The dark swirls of chest hair tickled

her upper back and she could feel his tight abs contract as he moved to pour more

shampoo into his hand.

His penis was huge behind the wet denim, hard and hot enough to radiate

heat through the stiff material. She wiggled her bottom and felt him surge against

her, fingers stilling in her hair.

That denim was less of a chastity belt than he thought. She wiggled again,

rolling against what felt like a moving hot steel rod in his pants.

He made a noise deep in his chest and she smiled. She held all the power

here and it made her feel...whoa. Ten feet tall.

The man who'd held her prisoner against his body had used his strength

against her. It had been a terrifying, horrific experience and, deep down, a

humiliating one. Nicole had never been manhandled before, never physically

forced to do anything.

The intruder had overpowered her with contemptuous ease, and it burned.

Everything about the experience had been--I'm stronger than you and you will do

what I want. Brutal and primitive.

Sam's body language was exactly the opposite, though he was even stronger

than the intruder. Sam was the strongest man she'd ever seen. She'd held him in

her arms all night and she knew how deeply powerful he was. If he wanted to, he

could force her to do anything, bend her completely to his will.

But with every move, he gave all the power to her. Even now that she was

being deliberately provocative, rubbing herself against his arousal, she could

sense, could feel his self-control, so deeply a part of him.

"Close your eyes." She could feel the vibrations in his chest of his deep

voice through the skin of her back. She obeyed, and he pulled her gently right

under the showerhead until all the shampoo was rinsed away.

The water stopped. "Stay there."

Nicole stood watching as he got two big, blindingly white towels from a

cabinet and held them, waiting for her to get out.

"No conditioner?" she asked as she emerged dripping. He looked blank.

"And moisturizer? I don't think I've ever taken a shower without moisturizing."

"Ah..." Panicked, Sam looked around, as if conditioner and moisturizer

could suddenly, magically appear.

Most of Nicole's previous lovers had been good-looking, vain metrosexuals

who used the same products she did from the same houses, only the male version.

Her last lover, Sergey, had had every Clinique men's product on the market and

Nicole had never had any problems with sleepovers. All she'd needed to bring with

her was her toothbrush.

Sam had towels, soap, a toothbrush and toothpaste in view and she

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somehow suspected that was it. Looked like she was going to have to stock Sam's

bathroom with some essentials.

She looked him straight in the eyes. "Be prepared to have your bathroom

full of creams and lotions. Do you think you can handle that, big guy?"

His mouth lifted on one side as he wrapped her hair in a big towel. "Honey,

I survived Hell Week. You have no idea what I can handle. Hold out your arms."

She obeyed as he gently patted her torso and arms dry.

"Tough guy, huh?"

"Hmm?" He'd been staring at her breasts and suddenly lifted his gaze to

hers. She nearly stepped back at the blazing heat in his eyes. Though he was

almost smiling, the skin over his cheekbones was pulled tight, his eyes narrowed.

"Yeah, I guess I think I'm pretty tough."