Trust No One (28 page)

That nightmare must’ve really shaken him.

She stayed.

As his breathing deepened and he drifted on the edges of sleep, she turned to seek a more comfortable position. He pulled her close, spooning behind her, pulling her butt close into his crotch, it was still obvious he was semi-erect. She caught her breath, waiting for him to make another move, waiting for him to get hard and ready again but he never did.

Eventually she relaxed and thinking she heard thunder off in the distance, she fell asleep.

MJ, still half-asleep the next morning, relished feeling comfortable and secure until she realized the feeling came from being wrapped in a man’s arms. What the hell?

Her heart pounded, blasting away the remnant fog of sleep, and she remembered where she was at the same time she noted Ben’s breathing was too shallow for him to be asleep.

She jerked and twisted in reaction.

“Easy,” he said, his hold remaining loose enough that she was able to turn again to face him.

She blinked, met his gaze. “Sorry, for a minute I didn't know where I was.”

He grinned. “Right here in bed with me.”

“You’re not starting that again, are you?”

“Staring what?” He sounded convincingly innocent.

She did no more than raise an eyebrow before she rolled to get up.

He stopped her at the edge of the bed. “Thanks. You’ve done a lot for me.”

She looked over her shoulder, read the appreciation in his gaze. “No more than you did for me,” she reminded him. “We’re even. Now, get up and out of that bed.”

“Why? It’s raining.”

MJ paused and listened. He was right. Rain pounded off the roof. “Rain’s not going to stop us from looking at those dead senators.”

“Oh, joy, just the way I want to spend a day,” he grumbled and followed her out of bed.

Aside from the boredom, the sexual tension between her and Ben continued to grow all day, in spite of her best efforts to build walls neither could scale. And yet, she still felt it on the other side of the wall, as they sat side by side studying countless bios of the senators she’d downloaded, trying to find a match to the pictures they had, and then trying to find some connection. Through all the tedious brain work, the sexual tension remained, building, pounding, pulsing, and trying to break through.

As calm and easygoing as she’d discovered Ben to be, he was showing signs of enforced confinement as well. Finally after they’d been at it for a solid hour after dinner, he announced, “I gotta take a break,” and escaped to the front porch. 

She stayed at the computer another fifteen minutes before she gave up and joined him to watch the rain drip off the roof. He had resorted to sitting on the porch and whittling tree limbs into slender arrows. She chose to pace.

“I don’t think she’s going to show,” he said, holding a newly stripped limb out for inspection, marking the place to make his first cut to trim it to size.

MJ stopped pacing and waited for a rumble of thunder to pass. “Unfortunately, I’m beginning to think you’re right.”

Still, MJ felt something, like they were being watched. Though she saw no evidence. Of course, the steady rain obscured many things. If Tasha were here, what the hell was she waiting for?

“If she killed that last guy, she would’ve had time to get here by now. Even if she were walking.” Ben started twirling the knife blade around the limb.

MJ chuckled at the image of Tasha trudging on foot, most likely in those Italian designer heels she preferred, across the state line. “Maybe she got sidetracked.” Like MJ believed that, but what else?

“Maybe she just wanted us out of the way.”

Yes, there was that. “A definite possibility,” MJ admitted. “But I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit here watching you whittle enough arrows to take down an elephant while Angel’s back in Texas."

“I’d need to make a bow first.”

“What?”

“To take down an elephant. I’d need to make a bow to shoot the arrows. A big bow.” When MJ only sighed, Ben slid his knife into its sheath and asked the question pressing on her mind. “We going after Tasha?"

Oh, being stuck with him even longer was not high on her want list either. MJ frowned. “Pack up your arrows, Tonto. Tomorrow we take off. You can make a bow on the way.”

“Maybe the rain will stop by morning.”

MJ didn’t bother to answer. She headed for bed.

* * *

A hand over MJ’s mouth startled her awake. Instantly alert, her fingers formed claws, moving in for attack when Ben saved his eyes by saying, “Easy, it’s me.”

He moved his hand from her mouth.

Eyes wide, muscles trembling as the wild adrenaline rush receded, she asked, “What the hell are you doing here? Is Tasha here? Another bad dream?”

She’d been having her own dream, she recalled. One that involved both Ben and her being naked.

He answered her with a kiss. Still caught in the remnants of her dream, she kissed him back without hesitation.

Wait. Her brain caught up. Though her body, already primed and ready, protested, she made herself lean away.

She tried again to get an answer, even though it wouldn’t take an Einstein to figure it out, maybe Ben was sleep walking or something. “What are you doing?” she repeated.

“If you have to ask, I didn’t do it right.” He kissed her again. His firm lips moved in a delicious rhythm, seducing her own lips to cooperate. Nope, not sleep-walking.

Willpower, don’t desert me now, damn it.

“Ben.” Too much time of enforced isolation and sexual innuendos, she told herself. But logic didn’t stop a different sort of trembling, this time from desire, not adrenaline, from rolling through her body. Logic versus desire turned into a damned fierce battle within herself. Logic finally won, even as he was still laying small kisses on her mouth during the battle. “I thought you understood I’m not interested,” she said against his lips.

“You don’t kiss like you’re not interested.” Another kiss.

“You. . .you startled me.” No reason to admit the truth. Just stop this before it starts. Ignore those persistent signals as pesky as Ben himself that her body was sending.

“So stay startled.” He moved his mouth to plant small kisses down one side of her neck. Further protest died before the words formed leaving her mouth open in a perfect circle of delight. Delicious, delicious shivers down her neck, down her spine, hurtling onward, downward–

Finally she gathered her strength to resist before she started moaning and rubbing against him, begging him not to stop. From somewhere, she didn’t know where, she found the words and managed to say, “You did have another bad dream.”

“Maybe.” He nibbled on her ear.

Oh, man, that was supposed to stop him cold. Bad plan A, she needed a plan B.

Which her mind refused to cooperate because it was floating off to pleasure land while desire swam in her stomach, worked its way in delicious tickles up her backbone. Another couple of minutes and she’d be beyond the ability to make him to stop. The last of her willpower seemed to be floating away.

His lips found hers again.

Oh, hell. She kissed him back this time. Resistance is futile.

No. Resist. Resist, damn it. There was something she needed to say before– She twisted away and gasped, “Wait.”

He raised his head, eyes glittering in moonlight, the rain having stopped sometime earlier in the night.

“I’m not your wife.” There, she said it. Hallelujah how she found the strength she didn’t know. But she wanted to make damn sure he knew she didn’t want to be a substitute.

“No, you’re not.” He stared at her. “And I’m not Keith.”

Ouch. Didn’t see that one coming. Protect herself. “Good thing, I’d have to kill you.”

“I won’t betray you, MJ. I won’t hurt you.”

“Of course you won’t. This is just sex.”

“Is that a yes?” he asked.

“It’ll never be more than sex. We’re not going to get into a relationship.”

“God forbid,” he agreed, pulling her nightshirt up and over her head. “Just sex. Happy?” His hands found her breasts, his lips followed. She forgot to answer. She forgot the question.

“See, I didn’t waste my money,” he murmured.

“Waste. . .money?” The condoms. “Smart ass.”

His mouth closed over a breast, pulling a pleasure-filled moan from her throat. She touched his hair, wrapped her finger in the thick wavy strands.

The sensation.

It had been too long, sex just for pleasure. Not comfort, not love. Pure just-because-it-feels-good-do-it pleasure.

There’d been no time.

No desire.

No need.

He tugged off her pajama pants. His boxers followed. Warm skin. Hard ridges meeting with soft curves. Her body swelled in anticipation, throbbed with emptiness.

His erection pressed hard and heavy and tempting.

Now there was time. Desire. And need.

Oh, yes, her body needed this. A night of sex, of being wanton, and then she could go back to being MJ the mom. MJ the small town mechanic. Her nice predictable life, just like she liked it.

For this moment, however, she was MJ the wanton woman, who wanted Ben the very sexy man.

She was fast losing her need for foreplay. Besides, foreplay created intimacy. She just wanted relief. No intimacy necessary. Just a nice satisfying orgasm over and done with.

Yet Ben had other ideas. His fingers traced her body, his lips followed. She tried to stay patient, tried to enjoy the sensation but her need for release bordered on pain. She tugged on his hair just as his lips landed between her legs. Her body convulsed. “No,” she gasped.

He untangled her hands from his hair, held them firmly by her side. She twisted away. He followed, continued his relentless assault with his mouth until he took her high enough to plunge over the edge.

“No,” she complained, the sweet tension fading away.

“No?” he repeated, kissing his way back up her body. “You’re objecting to an orgasm?”

“Not like that.”

“There’s more to come.” He paused, she could see his smile, his white teeth glittering in the dim light. “Pun intended.”

“Ha. Ha. So not amusing.” He planned to drag this out, prolong the intimacy, and damn, that was the problem. She wanted it over and done with. He reached beside the bed, and she realized he’d brought the condoms with him.

“You don’t need one, you know. After I was shot…I can’t… get pregnant.”

He absorbed what she said. “You were gut shot.”

“Yeah, they took everything out, couldn’t save it.”

“I’m sorry.”

She didn’t want pity. “Of course there’s STD’s, so maybe a condom’s a good idea."

“You have an STD?”

She could see the whites of his eyes. Feeling more relaxed, not so frantic, she decided to tease him, pay him back for forcing intimacy on her. “That’s probably something you should’ve asked before . . . um, before you did what you did, don’t you think?”

He frowned, and then somehow seemed to catch on she was teasing, which was as disconcerting—and as intimate as what’d he’d done with his mouth. His smile had a mock evil glint promising pay back. “I have a death wish, anyway, remember? Sex or drinking, what’s the difference?” He dangled the condom package in front of her. “What about you? Do you have a death wish?”

“You have an STD?" This was such a bizarre conversation, lying here naked with a virtual stranger. Only he didn’t feel like a stranger. In some way being here felt too familiar. Alarming. But nothing to be alarmed about, this wasn’t a relationship. Just sex.

“No STD here. But something you should ask, don’t you think?” He echoed her words.

“Hey, you’re the one who climbed into my bed.”

“True. Trust me, or not.”

“Put that way, definitely not. Besides, there’s your wife.”

“What?”

In spite of the hard edge to his voice, she plunged on. “You said she was raped, got pregnant, those soldiers might’ve had–”

“I never slept with her.”

“Okay then.” She sensed pain, understood the edge in his voice, and felt the need to comfort him again, definitely not a good sign. She pulled the condom out of his hand, tossed it on the floor. Get back to the sex, not the feelings. “Looks like you wasted your money after all.”

She kissed him, even though the conversation and the orgasm had dampened remaining desire. She didn’t want to stop though; it would be unfair to leave him unfulfilled. And Ben seemed determined and competent enough to get her back to the point of willing and ready again.

“It was worth it,” he whispered in her ear.

“What?”

“Wasting my money.”

She smiled, but lost the ability to form coherent thought as her body clamored again. Ben poised over her, his erection probing. She opened her legs, grabbed his hard muscled butt and urged him to enter.

Though she was relaxed from the first orgasm, and aroused again, he was well endowed and her body resisted. She writhed in frustration.