T is for Temptation (10 page)

His intent scrutiny and the bald words prompted her to shift, and she squeezed her eyes shut. “You think I stole your money?”

Even uttering the words chilled her to the core, and she braced for his response.

“It wasn’t my cash. It was your husband’s. I’m almost positive he was laundering money.”

“And you think I’m involved?” She gritted her teeth.

He edged down the sofa, the widening distance reflective of their conversation. “Why were you a virgin?”

“I think I want you to leave,” she said and swallowed.

“No, babe, no way. For the record, I don’t believe you capable of any criminal activity.”

“Thanks heaps. Tony didn’t want me. He said I was repulsive.”

“Huh? He actually said that?”

The surprise in his voice couldn’t be faked, and a bit of bravado squared her shoulders. “He said a lot more, believe me.”

“Jesus. What a complete bastard.”

Jake grabbed her hand and spread her palm over his groin, outlining his erection. “You couldn’t be repulsive if you tried. This is what you do to me. I’ve had a constant hard-on from the moment I met you.” He curved her thumb around the thick head of his penis. “Why on earth did you marry him?”

“It happened much the way I told you—I sort of fell into it. Dee, my friend, thinks Tony sabotaged my tryouts so he could bulldoze me into marrying him.”

Damn, the impulse to slip her hand inside of his pants had her palm sparking with electricity. A flurry of rose petals swirled in a happy dance behind Jake’s head, and she snatched her hand away in panic. Damn, damn.

“You’re blushing,” he murmured, and in a second, no gap separated them. “You turn pink, and I’m hard. Jesus, Tee, I don’t think I can wait much longer. Babe?”

His lips feathered kisses down her cheek, and he settled into the curve of her neck, licking and teasing. “I haven’t even tasted you yet, and I’ve been dreaming of that for months. Let’s go to bed, babe, and we can talk all you want afterwards.”

She closed her eyes and savored the feel of Jake’s warm hands lifting the soft cotton fabric of her tank top. He left soft moist kisses as he bared her skin and her toes curled into the soft carpet.

Through hooded eyes, she watched his pupils dilate as one fingertip traced the outline of her breast.

“Jesus, you’re perfect,” he said, his breath fanning her chest and pebbling her nipples into throbbing points.

His mouth found a peak, and the hard tugging of his tongue flamed away her thoughts. He shifted and positioned her prone on the sofa, undoing the button of her jeans, and the metal zipper separated under the swift action. He slipped his finger between her thighs, stroking her moist folds, while his lips trailed across her chest and latched onto an aching breast, covering the whole mound in an avaricious laving.

“Oh my,” she groaned.

“You screamed that on the raft,” he growled. “I’m going to make you scream it again tonight.”

“Oh yes,” she agreed as his thumb grazed a circle around her nubbin. “Oh my.”

“This is nuts.”

He stretched her out and grabbed the waistband of her jeans. She arched in helpful approval, and the pants came off in rapid time.

“Take off your top,” he ordered and stripped right there and then, his cock hard and jutting straight up, purpled at the head.

Too bemused to comply, she stared at him, licking her lips and leaning on her elbows, naked from the waist down, her turquoise T-shirt rolled up above her electrified nipples.

“Too late,” he muttered and lowered on top of her, settling that rigid prick at her center, and setting his mouth to her left breast.

He plunged inside her and sawed her nipple between his teeth. The simultaneous stimulation sent her into wrenching clenches. She exploded, and a vague awareness of his erotic approval, his low, rumbled comments ignited a raging inferno.

“Jesus, babe. We have to slow down.” He gripped her hips and nipped at her bottom lip. “Steady, Tee.”

Raising her arms over her head, he clamped one hand around both wrists and let his weight pin her wriggles to a standstill. Undeterred, she lifted her hips and moaned when his length rubbed too low. Managing to free one leg, she hooked it around his waist and sighed when her elevated position flattened her folds on his pelvis.

“Oh yes,” she whispered. “Oh my, oh my.”

Jake bit her shoulder, let go of her wrists, and ordered, “Both legs. Now.”

He grunted when Tee complied, and she slipped her arms around him, raking his back with her nails, instinctively scooping her pelvis, and the friction tripled in intensity, hurdling ingrained reserve, unleashing her wild, tempestuous passion. She captured his right nipple and explored, licking it, and smiled at his harsh gasp.

“Bite, babe, bite.” His groaned plea pooled wetness between her thighs, and she complied, grazing the taut point lightly, uncertain how much pressure to apply. His hot palm cradled her head, and he urged her closer. Mares nipped their stallions during the moment of penetration, and the image burned her pupils, insecurity vanished, and she sank her teeth down.

“Jesus, I’m done for.”

Taking possession of her mouth, he slowed the pace of his thrusts, and she wanted to scream in frustration, but his tongue tangled with hers, sliding in and out, matching the cadence of his plundering. She cupped his ass, relishing the feel of his hard roundness, insisting on more, faster, harder.

In a final concession, his pillaging reached deeper, tongue and cock penetrating inner recesses, finding hidden pleasure spots. Tee surged upwards, and his fierce plunge hit a sweet point that sent her over a cliff, sparking like a broken electrical wire, and she collapsed, curling her arms around him, scraping fingernails over tense muscles.

She felt rather than heard his muffled words as his mouth nuzzled the crook of her neck.

“Hmmm?” It was all she could manage.

“I said I’ll make up for this quickie next time.”

“This isn’t good?” Heavens, sex proved addictive, and her lips curved as she noted the promise of the next time.

“Hell, it was great. Just not long enough. I want to taste you, babe, lick you from head to toe. Have you wrap those long, sexy legs around my head.”

He rose on his forearms, and those dark eyes sparkled with devilish intent. Tee melted when he grinned, the cocky boyishness lighting his features, coating warmth across her chest.

Lines formed on his forehead, he sniffed and then asked, “Do I smell chocolate?”

Damn, damn, damn. She glanced over his bare shoulders and sure enough, miniature cupcakes filled every empty space on the sideboard. This would never work. She had to distract him until she’d cleaned up the evidence of her damned unreliable witchy powers.

Latching on to the first clear thought that hit her brain, she blurted, “
Dee
said I should ask about your sexual history. And what about the condom thing?”

That stoic expression she disliked curtained his features, and he slipped out of her, avoiding her gaze. When Jake bent to retrieve his clothes, Tee scanned the room, sent the cakes and the rose petals into purgatory, and shoved her T-shirt into place.

He handed her the discarded jeans, she slipped them on, and a sudden unease wrenched a distanced tension between them.

“That was completely irresponsible on my part.” He picked up the wine bottle and refilled their glasses. “I can get the morning-after pill couriered here tomorrow. It works within a three-day span.”

“Why do you sound angry?”

“I’m annoyed with myself, not with you, about the obvious repercussions.”

“A baby,” she said and wondered if her progeny would inherit her powers.

“I don’t want children,” he said in a clipped, terse tone. “A family is not part of my plan.”

“Bully for you,” Tee retorted. “Then you should have used a condom, and I’m not taking any morning-after pill.”

“I won’t marry you because of a child.”

Temper flared sweet and hot. She shot to her feet, hands balled.

“The last thing I want after Tony is to get married. To any man. And no one’s making any decisions for me, not anymore. And now, I think you can leave.”

Gladiators, Vikings & Cowboy Acrobatics

“So I was right before. I’m good enough to screw but not to marry?”

As soon as Jake barked out the question, he regretted it.

“You know, I always thought you a logical man, but over the last two days you’ve blown hot and cold like there’s no tomorrow. You just said you didn’t want to get married, and I agreed with you. What is your problem?”

Her harsh emphasis on the word
is
escalated a rising irritation. Frustration and discontent laced his veins, and he couldn’t pinpoint the source of a sense of betrayal. “I said I didn’t want a family.”

She plopped onto the couch and cupped her hands over her face.

“I don’t think this is going to work.”

Lamplight dusted the room with a golden hue and set Tee’s complexion glowing like Tinker Bell’s fairy dust. He shook his head and slumped onto the sofa so that their hips touched. “What?”

“Whatever this is between us,” she mumbled.

He snagged his arms under her knees, hauled her into his lap, and leaned his forehead against hers. Tipping her chin up, Jake commanded, “Look at me, Tee.”

A wary skittishness chased those honey-colored eyes. The urge to have them glisten with longing for him tornadoed his brain, and he fought for control. “I’ll use a condom from now on, and we’ll deal with any issues from the last two times if they arise. Can we agree on that?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t leave it alone, this thing between us. And I won’t settle for making love to you only two times. Do you want to be with me again?”

She looked away, and his lungs stopped functioning. A concrete drill rattled Jake’s chest, and the seconds lengthened into hell’s eternity.

“Yes.”

The barest of whispers, but it sheathed something bleak and despairing in him, renting the darkness away for a little longer. Flickering flames in the fireplace to their right warmed the surprising chill of the tropical evening air and cast her profile into soft shadows.

“But, not in the
Caribbean
, and my parents can’t know, um, about us.”

The telltale flick of her pink tongue contained his rising anger. Turning her chin with his forefinger so their gazes met, he asked, “Why?”

“Dad likes you, Jake, and if he knew, um, about the sex, he’d probably kill you. And as for Tricia, let’s just say I have enough problems with my mother. I don’t need to add to them.”

Her conditions jangled emotions long buried, and a craving to flaunt their relationship under Tricia’s snooty nose waged battle with her rational explanation. Even her hair smelled of roses. Jake buried his nose in her silky curls and inhaled, and the rubber band around his chest split apart.

“Meet me in
London
. I have to go anyway to deal with this property I’ve inherited.”

“I, um, Jake, weren’t you raised in an orphanage?” Her tawny skin colored a delectable hue, and she ducked her chin.

Embarrassed a tad, he gave her a succinct accounting of his recent discovery, and her reaction puzzled him. She beamed.