Kitabı oku: «The By Request Collection», sayfa 16

Six

“I did not!” Gracie said, looking scandalized. And she was sexy as hell wearing his clothes. She was sexy wearing anything, but seeing her in the oversize shirt stirred up distinct memories. Though he preferred to see her wearing nothing at all.

“Oh yes you did,” he told her. She had climbed into his lap and tried to kiss him, and as much as Roman had wanted to kiss her back, he would never take advantage of any woman in such a compromised state. If she was going to kiss him—and he didn’t doubt that she would—she was going to be sober. And she would come to him. “I practically had to beat you off with a stick.”

She glared at him.

He laughed. “Okay, I’m lying about the stick part, but you did put the moves on me. You were all hot and bothered.”

“I’m sorry,” she said with a wince.

Sorry? Last night had been the most fun he’d had in ages. The best part had been watching Gracie watch him dancing with all of those young, beautiful women, knowing she was crawling out of her skin with jealousy.

And the worst part had been watching that Dax character ogling her. That guy had his sights on Gracie, and not just for her philanthropic abilities. Roman had watched him watching her, and could tell the state senator had known as well as Roman that she’d been overdoing it on the drinks. So when Gracie left the ballroom, and Dax followed her, Roman had followed him. He’d never cared much for politicians, and that man had bad news written all over him, so Roman wasn’t surprised to find him hovering around the general vicinity of the ladies’ lounge.

Rather than allowing Gracie to find herself in a compromising position—and he’d had no doubt about the senator’s intentions—he’d collected their coats and headed for the lounge hoping Gracie hadn’t already been caught up in the man’s web. Dax was still standing there looking irritated and impatient, glancing at his watch. When he saw Roman approach he’d flashed a phony smile.

“Roman!” he’d said, as though they were old friends.

As if.

“Seems like a man in your position wouldn’t want to be caught hanging out around the ladies’ room,” Roman had told him.

Dax had laughed, but there was an uncomfortable edge to his voice when he said, “Just taking a breather.”

They both knew that was bullshit. And Roman had never been one to sugarcoat the truth. “This breather wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that Gracie is in there, would it? Or that she’s drunk?”

The man’s smile had wavered and he’d puffed out his chest. He’d known he’d been busted. But Dax stood several inches shorter than Roman, and was in what could only be considered average physical shape. Roman could take him out with one solid crack to the jaw. Not that he would hit anyone unprovoked, but damn would it have felt good to knock that smug smile off his face.

“Are you her keeper?” Dax had asked him.

“Try me and find out,” Roman had said, and his words had taken Dax back a step. As Roman had assumed, he was all talk.

He’d held both hands up in defense. “I just wanted to be sure she made it home safely. But clearly she’s in good hands.”

Yeah, the only hands she would have anything to do with that night. And when she’d stumbled out of the lounge a few minutes later Roman had gotten her the hell out of there.

“I never get that drunk,” Gracie said now. “Not off four drinks.”

Is that what she thought she’d had? Damn, she must have been worse off than she realized. “Hate to tell you, sweetheart, but you had more than four.”

She frowned. “I did?”

“I saw you hit the bar at least six times.”

Her eyes went wide again “Six? I did not!”

“Oh yes you did. You were knocking them back like a woman on a mission.”

“Why didn’t you stop me?”

“Because you’re stubborn as hell and you wouldn’t have listened. Knowing you, it probably would have made you drink more.”

Her pained look said he was right.

“What did you eat yesterday?” he asked her. He couldn’t even count how many times in the past he’d had to remind her to eat, and sometimes go so far as force-feeding her. She’d always been so busy and he doubted that had changed much.

She gave it some thought. “Breakfast. Maybe?”

“Maybe?”

“It was a busy day.”

“You didn’t eat at the fund-raiser?”

She shook her head. “Please tell me I didn’t make a fool of myself.”

“No, but that Dax character had his sights set on you. I don’t like him.”

“I worked on his campaign. He’s a decent guy.”

“A decent guy who wants to get in your pants. Or panties. And by the way, you look good in pink lace.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I thought you said it was dark.”

“It was, but I see really well in the dark.” She had been so out of it, he’d had to carry her into the house and up the stairs. And with the light streaming in from the hallway, it hadn’t left a whole lot to the imagination.

“Would it be too much to ask for a ride home?” she asked. “Or I can take a cab. Honestly I don’t even know where I am.”

“You’re not going anywhere until you get some food in your stomach,” he said.

“I’m not quite there yet. My head is still pounding and my stomach feels iffy.”

“Then sit back and relax. How about a cold compress for your head?”

“Are you sure you don’t mind? If you have things to do...”

“It’s Saturday. There’s nothing that can’t wait.”

“I usually work Saturday,” she said. “And Sunday. Mostly on charity stuff.”

Clearly they shared the same work ethic. “Not today. Today you’re going to relax.”

“I guess I could stay for a little while,” she said. “And the compress couldn’t hurt.”

“Lie down and make yourself comfortable. I’ll get it.”

He pushed himself up off the sofa and the effort made his left leg, which was more titanium than bone, ache. He had been in bad shape when he and his men had been rescued. His femur, which had been shattered in one of many beatings, had become infected. Had it been a day or two longer he probably would have lost his entire leg from the hip down. A week and he would have gone septic. The rescue had come just in the nick of time.

After several surgeries and months of rehabilitation he still walked with a limp, and was in near constant pain, but he was alive.

He grabbed a compress from the freezer and carried it back to her. She was stretched out, her hands folded across her chest, eyes closed, snoring softly.

He very gently set the compress across her forehead and she didn’t rouse. If she was anything like him she didn’t get more than five or six hours of sleep a night, so every moment of rest counted and he didn’t wake her. Or climb on the couch beside her—which would have carried the very real risk of getting slapped. Instead he went upstairs to take a shower. And considering the ache in his groin, it would probably be a cold one.

Despite his attraction to her, she was a Winchester, and the running feud between himself and her family would always be there. Gracie was very close to her sisters and parents, who all despised him. He’d seen the expression on Eve’s face last night when she looked over at him. Indignation. Raw and fresh. They would never accept him, and he would never do anything to alter their family dynamic.

But if it was just sex...

The only problem was that with Gracie, it had never been just sex.

Roman shaved, showered and pulled on a pair of boxer briefs. Having lived alone for so long, it hadn’t occurred to him that he should have shut the bedroom door. Not until he heard a breathy “Oh my God” and looked up to see Gracie standing in the doorway.

* * *

“You have tattoos,” Gracie said, her eyes so fixed on the ink branding his arms that she barely noticed he was in his underwear.

Okay, yeah, that was a lie. She’d noticed. And though he’d always been in great shape physically, now? He was ridiculously buff.

On his enormous left biceps, spanning from the edge of his shoulder to the crook of his arm, he had a very scary-looking skull and crossbones. The skull wore an army helmet, and the bones were actually military rifles. The right biceps bore a flowing American flag with red barbed wire for stripes.

She wanted to touch them. His biceps and his wide shoulders. And every other inch of his body.

“You like tattoos?” he asked, though the words barely made it through the fog that had settled in her brain. And he didn’t look the least bit scandalized that she was seeing him this way. He’d never been shy about his body.

He had nothing to be shy about.

Transfixed, she nodded. But the real treat was when he said, “There’s more,” and turned.

An American eagle in flight spanned the entire width of his back, the tips of the bird’s wings flirting with the edges of his tattooed arms. In its razor-sharp talons it clutched a banner that said Death Before Dishonor.

She couldn’t stop a very breathy-sounding “wow” from escaping her lips.

Wearing a slightly crooked smile, he looked back over his shoulder at her. “See something you like?”

Did she ever. The bird was so lifelike she imagined she would actually feel the silky softness of the feathers if she touched Roman’s back. Then he was getting closer, but he wasn’t the one moving. Her feet were carrying her across the room to where he stood, then her hands were reaching out.

She felt possessed. And she was—by lust. By a need so intense her breasts ached and her heart pounded. She flattened both hands against his skin at the level of the eagle’s breast and she could swear she felt Roman shiver. She slid her hands upward, across the wings to his shoulders.

“Gracie,” he said, in a voice gravelly and low. “If you keep that up...”

He didn’t have to finish his sentence; she knew exactly what he was going to say, and she was already too far gone. Now that she had touched him she couldn’t stop. The ache pulsed downward and settled between her thighs and she could feel herself getting wet. His skin was hot and smooth against her palms as she slid them upward across the eagle’s wings.

Over his shoulders.

Down his arms.

He moaned softly and uttered her name, and all she could think was mine. She wanted him, and nothing was going to stop her from having him this time.

She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her cheek to his wide back, threading her fingers through the thick, crisp hair on his chest, his hard nipples tickling her palms.

His head fell back and he cursed under his breath as she hugged herself close to his body, but it wasn’t close enough. She wanted to crawl inside of him, be a part of his being. A part of his soul.

He had always been a part of hers. Maybe that was why his betrayal had hurt so much.

“Last warning,” he told her. He was still holding back, but he was wasting his time. She dragged her nails down his chest to his stomach, gently, so it was barely more than a tease, then slipped her hands under the waistband of his shorts. He groaned as she wrapped one hand around his erection. He was solid and hot in her hand. She stroked him, gently at first, then she squeezed.

With a throaty growl he spun her around to face her, then wrapped his arms around her and lifted her right off her feet. She wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his hips, and when their lips met and their tongues tangled in a desperate kiss, it felt just like it had that first time so many years ago.

They fell onto the bed, Roman on top of her. He grabbed the hem of her T-shirt and pulled it up over her head. She moaned as he buried his face in her cleavage and tugged the cups of her bra down.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said, teasing the tip of one breast with his tongue, then nipping just hard enough to make her gasp. After all this time he still knew what to do to drive her crazy. He did the same to the other side, then he unfastened her bra with an adept flick of his fingers, pulled it off her and tossed it somewhere over his shoulder. Then he kissed her again, the hair on his chest tickling her nipples in the most tantalizing way.

She yanked his shorts off over his hips and used her feet to push them down his legs, desperate to feel him inside her. There was a fire building at her core, an ember burning hot on the verge of igniting.

He rose up on his knees, stripping her out of her pants and underwear in one swift motion, and grabbed a condom out of the drawer of the bedside table. Tearing the packet open with his teeth, he wasted no time rolling the condom on. Then he was back on top of her, his weight sinking her into the covers. He teased her first, sliding his erection against her. She was so slick and sensitive she probably could have climaxed just like that. But then he stopped, pulling back slightly. If he stopped now she was afraid that she actually might die from the ache building inside her.

She grabbed his muscular backside, and though she had never been one to beg she said, “Please, don’t stop.”

He grinned down at her, eyes glazed, his lids heavy. “Not a chance in hell.”

His eyes locked on hers as he slowly entered her, giving her just an inch or two before pulling back again. Slow and gentle and sweet. But she didn’t want slow. She needed him inside her now.

Digging into his buttocks with her nails, she thrust her hips upward against him. She cried out as he sank as deep as he could go. Roman moaned and buried his head in the crook of her neck as he cursed and told her with gritted teeth, “Slow down.”

But she couldn’t. She didn’t want to slow down. She arched up to meet each of his thrusts, slipping easily into the rhythm they had mastered so long ago, their bodies so perfectly in sync it was almost as if they were one person.

Across the room, in the mirror above his chest of drawers, she could see their reflection. She lay beneath him, her legs hooked tightly around his hips, his muscular backside flexing with every thrust. It was the hottest, most arousing thing she had ever seen, and her muscles instantly began to coil and tighten. He must have felt it, too. He groaned and tunneled his fingers through her hair, kissed her hard as she reached a crest of pleasure that left her weak and breathless.

Moaning as her muscles gripped and pulsed around him, Roman was only seconds behind her. He picked up speed and pressed his forehead to hers, eyes squeezing shut as every muscle in his body tensed. “Gracie,” he moaned as he climaxed, holding her so close and so tight she could almost feel the pleasure coursing through him.

Shuddering and gasping for air, they lay like that, wrapped in each other’s arms, their bodies still intimately joined. And though she tried to fight it, feelings of affection threatened to overwhelm her.

This was just good sex, she told herself. No, not good sex. Fantastic sex. Mind-blowing, earth-shattering, out-of-this-universe sex.

But still just sex.

Then he lifted his head and looked deep in her eyes, teased the tip of her nose with his own and smiled, and her insides went all gooey again. But not gooey enough to say or do something she would later regret.

She was a woman who kept her heart carefully guarded and locked up tight. He used to have the key, but it would do him no good. It had taken so long for her broken heart to repair itself that the lock had rusted shut. And she refused to let anyone, especially him, break it again.

Besides, even if she wanted it to be more, even if she could someday forgive and trust him again, her family never would. Sure, he was charming and funny and great in bed, but he had given her no reason to trust him. And far too many reasons not to.