Major Attraction (12 page)

“No.” Ethan said roughly, clutching her tight and trying to recapture the rhythm of the music. Where the hell had Black come from? What was he thinking? “Find your own woman. This one's taken.”

It was an outrageously possessive thing to say about someone he'd known for barely twenty-four hours. But he felt the rightness of the claim in every oversensitized cell of his body.

“Nicely played, sir.”

This time Ethan did stop. He frowned at the comment and the fact that J.C. was pulling away. “What does that mean?”

But Black was already retreating. “I'll see you in the
office tomorrow at 0-900, sir. Enjoy the rest of your night.” He nodded to J.C. “Ma'am.”

“What the hell—?” He should have made that request an order.

J.C. tugged on Ethan's arm and pulled him out of the circle of dancers. “I told you he was suspicious of us. Maybe that was his idea of a test. But don't worry. I think you passed.”

“I don't like it.” Black was up to something.

“Maybe he was just hitting on me.”

Yeah, like that explanation was any better. The instinct to pursue the problem and settle it had him stalking around the perimeter of the dance floor with J.C. in tow. “If he's got something to say, he needs to say it straight out, or else keep his yap shut. I'm not playing these games with him.”

“Ethan.” J.C. put on the brakes and he spun around to face her. That utterly expressive, blue-eyed gaze dropped to the tented bulge at the front of his pants. “Not right now.”

Her arched eyebrow was reminder enough that he wasn't in any shape to accuse Black of trying to pull something. The term
fake fiancée
rang an uncomfortable warning against his conscience. Of course, there was nothing fake about what he'd almost done to J.C. on the dance floor. About what he still wanted to do.

And he was worried about Kyle Black playing games?

Seething with a mix of suspicion and raging sexual frustration, Ethan jumped in his skin when J.C. touched his chin and tilted his face down to hers. “Is there any reason why we have to stay any later tonight?”

“No.” They'd said their goodbyes, and he'd gotten the details for their next joint appearance in front of Craddock and the committee. “Tired?”

“Not really. But I do think it's time you took me home.” She stroked her fingers down the column of his neck, adjusted the hook of his collar, then splayed her fingers with suggestive familiarity across his chest. All that crazy hunger came rushing back. She wasn't tired at all. “I'd like to finish that dance.”

Despite Bethany Mead and Kyle Black and his own noble intentions, after one year, four months and however the hell many days it had been, it just wasn't in him to resist.

“Yes, ma'am.”

 

“T
HANK YOU
.” Ethan's low voice enveloped J.C. with the same sense of intimacy that the limousine's smoke-tinted windows and privacy screen did. Washington, D.C.'s bright lights were but a blur from the world outside as the driver on the other side of that screen took them back to her apartment.

J.C. bent down and unbuckled the straps of her high-heeled sandals. “For what?”

Surely Ethan didn't mean that erotic dance lesson.
She
was the one who'd learned some brand-new steps in the seduction process. Her skin itched beneath the smooth material of her dress and lingerie, as every raw nerve still craved the heat of his body and the imprint of his hard thighs and unmistakable erection. Whatever hang-ups he had about talking and dancing, there was absolutely nothing to complain about when it came to sex.

Unless it was the fact she couldn't get enough of it. She couldn't get enough of him.

Ethan placed his gloves inside his white hat and set them on the black leather seat facing them on the opposite side of the bar console. “You're a hit.”

“You think?”

“The candidates are invited to the Craddocks' home near Mount Vernon day after tomorrow. The general warned me not to show up unless I bring you with me.” Ethan shifted, searching for a comfortable position on the plush seat. His legs veed open as he adjusted his cummerbund and plucked a crease from his black wool pants. “You must have said something to impress him.”

“Walter was easy to talk to.”

“Walter?”

She pushed her shoes off her swollen feet and let the painful flood of restored circulation clear her mind so she could concentrate on the conversation instead of the bulge of lingering desire still visible between Ethan's legs.

J.C. quickly glanced away and rubbed the arches of her feet. Ouch. She hated wearing high heels as much as she loved dancing. Too bad tennis shoes weren't better suited for embassy balls.

“He asked me a lot of questions. I think he went with first names to put me at ease. By the way, you and my mom have only spoken on the phone, but she was impressed when you sent her flowers for her birthday last month.” She slid Ethan a sideways glance to check his reaction to that whopper. “I made up the story when he asked how we get along with our prospective in-laws, so it would sound as if we'd known each other longer.”

“Did you tell him you've met my dad, then?”

“No.” J.C. flinched at the cramp forming beneath the toes of her right foot, then explained. “I said your dad invited me to go fishing on his boat this summer, and that I was looking forward to it. I know you don't like lying. But they were plausible little white lies. It's what I came up with off the top of my head. Is that okay?”

Instead of answering, Ethan reached down and grabbed
her ankles. He lifted them, turned her, and pulled her across the seat until her feet rested in his lap. “Let me.”

“Is that a yes or—? Oh, God….”

Her whole body convulsed at his touch, and J.C. grabbed the armrest behind her for balance. But just as quickly, she calmed to the permeating scents of buffed leather and fading gardenia. Pain gave way to pleasure, and she rested her cheek against the back of the seat and let him have his way with her feet. Ethan's big hands were warm and rough against her skin, like the rasp of a cat's tongue, yet just as gentle.

As he kneaded away the soreness, the strokes reminded her of the intimate way he'd massaged her last night on the edge of her car. Her kegel muscles clenched in vivid response at the memory, and a warm, moist honey lubricated the slit between her legs.

“Is that better?” he asked, pulling her farther across the smooth leather seat and pushing the layers of her dress up to her knees to rub the tension from her ankles and calves.

“Are you kidding?” Any time he touched her she felt better.

In this position, the backs of her thighs and the slick, swelling heat of her womanhood pressed into his trunk-hard leg. Instinctively J.C. squirmed against the resistance of muscle and bone, seeking relief from the building pressure but finding little satisfaction through all the clothing that separated them.

When she moaned in frustration, he misinterpreted the cause. “Did I hurt you?”

J.C. reached out and fingered the gold braid on his sleeve, not wanting him to stop the tactile favor. “Your hands should be registered as lethal weapons, Major. That feels amazing.”

He shrugged off the compliment, missing the suggestive undertones altogether and resumed his handiwork. “I don't know about that. At least they're a little more coordinated than my feet.”

J.C. smiled. That was a joke. His control was slipping.

About damn time.

Seizing the moment she'd been waiting for all day long, J.C. slipped her fingers inside the cuff of his jacket to tease the crisp, golden hair on his wrist and knead her fingertips into the warm expanses of skin and sinew underneath. “Now that we're alone, there's something I want to discuss with you.”

Ethan's hand stilled on her knee beneath the folds of her bunched-up skirt. He looked up and snared her in the endless, knowing depths of his eyes. “Opportunities?”

Taking a steadying breath, J.C. boldly toed his crotch.

“J.C.!” Ethan barked her name like an order, jerking at the purposeful squeeze, expecting her to release him. But she was too fascinated by the uniquely female contrast of pink-painted toes clasping his black wool pants and curling around the masculine bulge inside.

He grabbed her naughty foot and tugged it down on the other side him, unwittingly splitting her legs apart and pulling her halfway across his lap. “I thought you wanted to talk.”

Curling the other leg beneath her, J.C. braced a hand on Ethan's shoulder and pushed herself into an eye-level position facing him. He was a solid force beneath her hand—strong, fit, primed with chained-up energy. There was friction at her fingertips, from the starched texture of gabardine and the pervading heat of the man inside the proud, proper uniform.

J.C. touched her finger to the point of his chin and
traced a tremor of tightly coiled tension along his jaw. “Actually I want you to do the talking.”

“About what?” His jaw never flexed, his eyes never blinked. He fought her efforts to soothe his discomfort by pressing his mouth into an unyielding line.

J.C. moved her attentions there, stroking the flat, smooth surfaces, coaxing them apart. “Tell me about that last dance tonight, Major. And whether or not you intend to finish what you started.”

He snatched her hand from his mouth, but had to release her foot to do it. “Dammit, J.C. It's no secret that I'm attracted to you. That dance lesson just got…” He let go just long enough to scrape his palm over the crown of his head. “Hell. It got way out of hand.”

A self-damning curse and ragged sigh rippled down the length of his body and he looked away. J.C. rode the movement of his body, then settled back atop his thigh. Either the big guy couldn't find the right words, or he didn't want to say them.

“You wanted it to go further, didn't you?” She said the words quietly, succinctly.

When his head snapped back to face her, she flinched at the raw desperation that marbled his eyes into a kaleidoscope of silvers and grays. She'd been playing with a live grenade, she now realized, and Ethan was making a heroic effort to keep it from blowing up in her face. “I'm trying to do the right thing here, Dr. Gardner. You're doing me a huge favor already. I'm not going to take advantage of you.”

He waited expectantly for her to understand.

She wasted no time in helping him understand.

J.C. pushed herself up onto both knees and straddled Ethan's lap. She slipped her fingers beneath his cummer
bund and unhooked the snap of his slacks. “Then I'll have to take advantage of you.”

“Jo…” He dragged her hands away and held them out to either side.

“Ethan,” she protested, twisting to free herself to resume the seduction. Her unsatisfied hunger hummed along at the same pitch as the limo's tires against the pavement. Her breasts butted against the wall of his chest, jingling the medals pinned there, exciting her with tiny, teasing caresses. Her knees clenched around his thighs, trying to regain some leverage.

His chest expanded in one sharp breath. “Stop it,” he warned. “I can't take much more of this.”

J.C. went still. Years of study and observation finally gave her an answer. Of course. Ethan was on the brink of giving in to the same desire that consumed her, but fighting his body every step of the way. He would give pleasure, but he wouldn't accept it for himself. It was a classic case of involvement avoidance.

He was the polar opposite of what her father had been. Earl Gardner was a taker. He weaseled out of relationships by selfishly refusing to give anything meaningful back to any of his wives, lovers or daughter. Ethan McCormick was a giver. He would give pleasure, protection—even his life—for another person and not want to be rewarded with anything in return. Because sharing implied a relationship. Friendships, marriages, families thrived on the symbiotic give and take.

A man who didn't want a commitment could either take or he could give. Poor Ethan, with his chivalric principles and old-fashioned ideals, hadn't yet learned that a man and woman
could
share—sex, that is—without committing to anything more than a promise to use a condom.

But she could teach him a new way of thinking.

She'd taught him how to dance. She could teach him this.

J.C. had never felt so wise, so womanly, so sure of what a man wanted.

Who needed hands? With a smile that stemmed from Eve herself, J.C. sank into Ethan's lap. She scooted closer, splayed her legs wider, rocked from buttock to buttock until she found it. Even with a dress and petticoat wedged between them, she felt the prodding knob of his desire push against her.

“J.C….” He released her arms and grabbed her waist. But J.C. had resumed the dance, and now he was the one who seemed to be at her mercy. She rotated her hips one way. “Jo…” His deep voice tried to sound tough, but the uneven catch of his breath betrayed his need. He was strong enough to set her aside, but his hands anchored her in his lap.

A sweet, sweet heat drizzled into her most private places, making her feel heavy, swollen. She dug her fingers into his shoulders and twisted the other way. “Honey…” She brushed against the stiffening rod straining in his pants and played with it, trying to catch it between her nether lips. The groan in his chest vibrated through her palms and skidded along every nerve ending until she whimpered with the need to feel him inside her.

“Ethan, please.” She slipped one hand inside his jacket, palmed the hard curve of his pec and flicked the aroused male nipple through the crisp weave of his shirt. His hands tightened convulsively around her waist, holding her in place as he bucked up against her.
Oh, yes. More. No!
“Ethan?”

“We can't.” Though his arms trembled with the effort, he lifted her and set her back on his knees. His ragged breaths matched her own. There was no mistaking the stiff
peak rising between them. “The driver. I forgot we had an audience.”