Wedding Survivor (21 page)

It was? He inadvertently looked down at himself.

"But I just can't
picture
you doing it. You don't seem like the kind of guy to go flying through air and spinning and twirling. You seem too… uptight for that."

"Uptight? I'm not uptight!" he protested.

"I think you are—at least a little," she said breezily.

Okay, she had him. He grinned. "Maybe a little. But I love the thrill of those big movie stunts. It's exhilarating. It's the best kind of sport there is."

She smiled alluringly, and slowly closed the scrapbook. "I know an exhilarating sport I'd like to try," she said huskily.

Eli's male antenna went straight up. He turned and faced her fully. "And what sport would that be?"

"Canyoning," she said instantly. "It sounds like a blast" She picked up her wineglass, slid off the bar stool, and padded into the kitchen to check out what he was doing. "I could really get into canyoning."

"No," Eli said.

"Why not?'

'Too many liability issues."

"I swear I won't hurt myself. I'm pretty athletic. I can do it!"

"Marnie. You couldn't even climb a rope, remember?"

"Hey, that's not fair! I wasn't prepared for that! I'll learn how before we go, I promise."

"Nope. Not this time," he said, and threw onions into a pan.

"Eli!" she cried. "Come on," she said, a little softer, and when he turned around, she was standing right there, the wineglass in her hand, her maple eyes sparkling. "Come on, dude… wouldn't you have fun sliding down some slippery little slope with me?"

Okay. Eli was not exactly a novice when it came to women coming on to him—it happened more than he cared to admit But there was something about this woman that was really stirring his blood, and he wasn't certain if he liked it or not.

But he did like her neck, he thought, glancing down at the long, slender column. And her breasts, round perky things that were, at the moment, peeking up at him through the fabric of her dress. And he liked her smile a whole lot, he thought, lifting his gaze from her boobs to that pert mouth, and that cute little nose, and those giant maple pancake eyes with dark lashes.

So what was it again that he didn't like? She was a damn good-looking woman. She was giving off all the signs of wanting to do him. His wanker was voting yes. So what the hell was his problem?

Oh right… he
liked
Marnie. That's what was wrong with this deal. No, really, he liked her a whole lot. What he didn't like was going anywhere near liking her. No way, not again. At least not yet. He still hadn't figured it all out.

Unfortunately, Marnie had other ideas. They seemed to have created one of those highly charged instances that made a guy's hair stand up on the back of his neck, and to make matters worse, she moved closer. He could feel some very sexy vibes coming off her body. "Do you think I'm being too forward?" she asked in all seriousness.

"Yes."

"Oh," she said, and smiled like she thought that was a compliment. "So… do you mind?"

"Honestly?"

"Honestly."

"I'm not sure," he said. But he didn't move. Not even an inch.

Marnie grinned and lifted her hand and poked him through the open collar of his chest. "For the record, I don't usually come on to guys."

"Then why are you?"

"Because, Eli McCain, there is something about you that just begs for it," she said softly, and rose up on her toes, lifted her face, and very lightly, very easily, pressed her lips to his.

It was just a feathery little kiss. But it struck like a bolt of lightning, in every vein, in every neuron. And as he was getting used to the idea, Marnie caught his collar in her hand and pulled him closer as she pressed her lips a little more urgently against his, flicking her tongue against the seam of his lips.

It was very disturbing to Eli to learn that his defenses against the female sucked. He had absolutely nothing to work with, not even a whimper of protest. In fact, all his pure male offense suddenly revved into overdrive, and he slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her to him, angling his head so her plump little tongue could go wherever it wanted. His personal body throttle liked her tongue, too—it immediately sprang to attention, inching its way up to his belt line, hoping for a peek.

The sound Marnie made in the back of her throat woke up the rest of him, and he realized, as the knife he was holding clattered to the floor and he twirled Marnie around and pushed her up against the fridge, that he hadn't felt all his parts come together in such teamwork in a long, long time. He was feeling them now, all right, in full glory, up and alert and ready for action.

His hands were roaming her body, caressing full breasts through silky fabric, then down to the taper of her trim waist, and the flare of her hips, the meaty bottom where his fingers dug into her flesh. Their tongues tangled in her mouth, and he felt the smooth veneer of her teeth, tasted the oak flavor of the wine she'd been drinking. His senses were filled with her scent—like roses, he thought, like a bed of fucking roses.

Eli pressed against her, and Marnie pressed back, undulating a little against his fly, rubbing Junior into a tizzy. Eli reached over and turned off the burner where the onions had gone past caramelizing to black bits, and forgot about them, forgot about the knife on the floor, forgot about arches and canyoning and everything but the feel of a beautiful woman in his arms. He was one step away from pulling the thin string of her dress and taking her right there, next to the salmon, when a thought suddenly swam up from the depths and gasped desperately for air.

He didn't
want
to do this. He really liked Marnie, so he really did not want to date her or fuck her or otherwise get involved. He'd made that vow to himself, and he was not about to break it just because Junior wanted a piece of the action.

He suddenly lifted his head. As he was not the type of guy to end this sort of encounter, he really wasn't very good at it. Marnie's hand slid down his chest and dropped lifelessly to her side. Her head lolled back against the stainless fridge, and her copper hair was everywhere. Her eyes were closed, one leg was hiked up, and her lips were stretched into a very happy little smile.

That smile did not help him to bow out of this in the least. If anything, it pushed him over the edge. "
Now
who's begging?" he growled.

Marnie opened her eyes. "Some things are worth begging for," she said, and planted her lips on his again.

There was no going back. Junior took over his thinking, and the next thing Eli knew, he'd pulled that tiny little string and her dress slid down, so that her breasts were exposed and looking right at him. He grabbed her by the hips and lifted her up, to the countertop, and took one perfect breast in his mouth.

Marnie arched her back and thrust her breast into his mouth, and then her hands were in his hair, and she was making these deep little sounds that indicated she was having a good time, and rubbing her bare legs against him. Eli's hands were running wild over her body, over her bare breasts, up her thighs, between her thighs. Marnie's breath was coming harder, and she dropped her hands to his shoulders, then to his shirt front, and when Eli lifted his head from her slightly-better-than-perfect breasts, she caught him in a kiss and began to undo the front of his shirt.

Her hands slipped inside to his bare skin; her slender fingers slid over his nipples, then down his sides, her fingernails leaving an excruciatingly arousing trail across his skin. Eli deepened his kiss, caught her bottom lip between his teeth, and then suddenly let go, pressed his forehead to hers. "I'm not taking you canyoning with us. Got it?" he asked breathlessly.

"Got it," she said, and slid her hand down his pants to feel one of the biggest hard-ons he'd ever had in his frig-gin' life. "Do you have a condom?" she whispered.

Oh yeah, he had a condom, and fortunately for both parties involved, he was still in the habit of carrying one in his wallet. In a flurry of clothes and wine and slithery little dresses that made a pool on his kitchen floor, the two of them ended up naked in his kitchen, with Eli's fingers sunk deep in the soft folds of her flesh, sliding deeper still. Marnie's hands had found him, too, and now he was to the point of bursting.

He suddenly lifted her up; Marnie instinctively wrapped her legs around his waist, and he carried her like that to the living room, sat down on his red leather couch, and buried his face between her breasts again. "Marnie—" he started, but she stopped whatever he would say by filling his mouth with her breast Her knees were on either side of him, and she slowly lifted herself up and started to slide down his cock.

"
Oh God
," he groaned as she slid down on him. It had been a million years or more, it seemed. The feel of her body was making him insane, but Eli held on and began to move with her. He lifted his face, looked up at her… and saw something there he didn't want to see, something deep in her eyes that lit a fire way down inside him,
way
down, in a place buried deep beneath all the baggage and years and locks he'd put on it to keep it from getting out. How she'd done it, he had no idea, but Marnie had a bead on him, and as she began to move faster, her bottom lip between her teeth, that spark in her eye seemed to grow brighter and brighter.

Eli suddenly moved and flipped them over, so that she was on her back on the red couch, and he on top of her. Marnie giggled and put her arms around him. Eli reached between them and stroked her as he began to push deeper into her. She stopped giggling then. Her head rolled to one side, her copper hair went everywhere and she let out a growl of pure pleasure as she came.

It was all the encouragement Eli needed—he was into her now, his arm around her waist holding her hips steady so he could reach as far inside her as he could get. And all the emotions he'd kept bottled up, all the desires he'd left unattended, all the fears he'd let his mind create began to bubble up, mixing into one amazing deadly bubble. With a growl of his own that would have put a lion to shame, the bubble burst and he came.

He was instantly reduced to a quivering mass of flesh—there was nothing left inside him. He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against her shoulder; Marnie wrapped her arms around his head and sighed contentedly. They remained like that for a few moments until Marnie's stomach began to growl, and she started to giggle again.

Eli carefully dislodged himself, and they cleaned themselves up, found their clothing scattered all over the kitchen, and dressed.

He noticed Marnie had a very rosy flush about her as she freshened their wineglasses, and she began to talk as he threw out the burned onions and tried again. He didn't even mind the chatter as they made dinner together, for it was engaging chatter. They kept bumping into one another as they moved about the kitchen in their quest to prepare the meal, laughing and talking like a pair of old lovers.

They dined on his terrace overlooking the valley, on an old, low, and heavy wrought-iron table he'd picked up in Mexico. He had it between two padded chaise longues, and on those nights he sat out here and ate frozen pizza, he found it to be the perfect height. They ate salmon and asparagus and watched the lights of L. A. twinkle below them.

"Did you plant all these?" Marnie asked.

He looked at the giant clay pots planted with bougainvilleas and topiary ficus trees. "Yep."

"Dude," she said, smiling at him over the rim of her wineglass. "You just keep surprising me. You're not anything like the hard-ass I thought you were." She looked up at the open porch covering, through which he'd strung little white lights amid the ivy vines. "It looks like stars."

He glanced up. He'd never really thought of it that way, but they did sort of look like stars.

"This is like an oasis, isn't it?" Marnie asked. "A very nice and quiet place where you go to get away from it all. I bet you spend a lot of time here, contemplating the universe and your navel, right?"

That was pretty perceptive of her and made him feel a little uncomfortable, because he
had
spent a lot of time there, especially after the Trish disaster.

"So," Marnie said, putting aside her plate and turning onto her side in the chaise to face him. "Did you come up with a prize?"

"A what?"

She laughed. "
A prize
. Remember? If Vince and Olivia were still together, you got your pick of prizes."

"Ah," he said, smiling. "As a matter of fact, I did."

"I hope it's something fun," she said, drawing a circle on the arm of the chaise with her fingernail. "Something along the lines of what we did earlier would be nice."

Eli chuckled. "Actually… it involves another woman."

Marnie stopped making a little circle. She slowly lifted her gaze, and as the multitude of possibilities flashed before her eyes, they grew to the size of saucers. "Are you saying what I
think
you are saying?" she finally squeaked.

"I doubt it," he said, laughing at her conclusion. "I like females, but I do better with only one at a time. But I need your help. I've got a friend who needs some new clothes for school."

"For
school
?" she echoed. "How old are you, anyway?"

"Thirty-eight. And my friend is twelve."

Marnie opened her mouth. And there it stayed, gaping open, as she tried to figure that one out.

"So that's what I want for my prize," he said, enjoying himself. "I want you to help me shop for a twelve-year-old."

Marnie closed her mouth, and for the first time since he'd met her, she was speechless.