Kitabı oku: «A Scent Of Seduction», sayfa 3

“That’s right, don’t blow it,” she lectured herself. So what if the man was a walking molten mojo, she had to keep her head on straight.

She pulled back her shoulders, picked up her pace and walked purposefully down the sidewalk. Going somewhere, having a purpose, rebuilding security, that’s what really mattered.

Which she kept reminding herself all the way home, because somehow it didn’t ring as true as it once had.

THE NEXT DAY, at 4:50 p.m. sharp, Coyote stood partway down Ocean Beach Pier looking east down the long walkway toward its entrance. Late-afternoon fog had rolled in, cutting visibility to fifteen or twenty feet. Everything else was cloaked in gray, giving the world a surreal effect.

He’d been standing here for ten minutes, watching for Kathryn.

He checked his watch again. Four fifty-one. He was never a clock watcher, except when it came to sports, but today he was on pins and needles waiting and watching for her. The award ceremony kicked off in nine minutes. At the end of the pier, several hundred or so feet behind him, surfers, family, fans and a ragtag assortment of the media—mostly from the Times—were gathered for the festivities. He’d already passed the word to his team that this story and photo were to be on page one of tomorrow’s sports section, and no way was Kathryn being late going to blow it for him. He’d be in the photo shoot solo, if need be.

Come to think of it, that wasn’t such a bad idea.

His picture, his name, his do-gooding for handing out awards. There was a whole new, younger audience who’d see that photo and cast their votes for him.

A cold wind whipped past, and he buttoned his jacket. Time to split, get back to the ceremony. If Kathryn didn’t make it on time, tough. To the Coyote would go the spoils.

He started walking to the end of the pier.

Soft running steps behind him.

He turned back and saw the form of a woman, her hair flying as she ran in his direction.

Kathryn.

As she grew closer, the mist cleared and he saw her more clearly. Her hair flying, the hem of her long polka-dot dress—make that red polka dots—fluttering behind her, a smile on her face when she recognized him.

She reached him, heaving breaths.

“Hi,” she said, sweeping a ringlet of hair off her cheek. She wore a bright red sweater that nearly matched the flush in her cheeks.

“I was worried you’d be late,” he mumbled, trying to sound worried.

“Me, too.” She laughed lightly. “Me, late! Can you imagine?”

Believe me, I tried. “No, it’s difficult to imagine.”

He wrapped her arm through his—it felt so natural, as though they’d done this a hundred times—and began walking with her. A little boy tossed a piece of bread into the air. A flutter of white broke through the mist as seagulls descended on the food, their calls greedy and shrill.

To the victor go the spoils, although it wasn’t such a pretty sight.

“If this gets any worse, nobody’s going to be able to see their awards,” Kathryn joked.

They walked in silence for a few moments, their footsteps sounding almost hollow in the mist. Yesterday, he’d barely been able to contain himself around her, but today he was more in control. She was, too, it seemed. Which made sense, considering this PR event could mean the difference between winning and losing.

Nevertheless, he missed how he’d felt yesterday after that group hug. Crazy, teetering on a thin edge of control. He’d never felt that intensely over a woman before.

He glanced at her dress, realizing those weren’t red polka dots, but cherries. Bright red cherries, all over her. A zing of attraction zigzagged through him.

“You look nice.”

“Thank you. I thought I’d wear something appropriate for a surfing ceremony.” She gestured at her dress. “Well, I guess cherries don’t exactly evoke surfing, but it’s better than one of my stuffy business suits.”

He was surprised she described her work image as stuffy. Although that word pretty much nailed it. He’d long ago learned that few people took off their rose-colored glasses when analyzing themselves—everyone seemed to think they knew the best, did the best, were the best. Or maybe that came with the territory when you made a career interviewing sports stars.

Another gust of wind whipped past, and she shivered.

“You should’ve worn something warmer than that sweater.” He knew better than to insult a woman’s choice of clothes. “I mean, it’s pretty, but you’d have been better off wearing a down jacket in this weather.”

“I picked up the outfit at lunchtime when the temperatures were pushing eighty. Never crossed my mind it might get this cold by five.”

So she’d bought the dress especially for today’s event?

Or for him?

“That’s the California coast for you,” he said. “Hot one minute, a fog layer rolling in the next.” The parallel with himself didn’t escape him. He had a reputation for running hot and cold, playing artist one moment, con the next. Juggling people and events in his quest to get ahead, the way he’d been willing a few minutes ago to snatch the photo-op glory for himself only. In his defense, he’d never acted with malice, although that justification suddenly felt thin.

He stopped and shrugged out of his jacket. “Here,” he said, wrapping it around her shoulders. “This will keep you a little warmer.”

“Oh, I can’t. You’ll get cold.”

“Let me take care of you.”

He looped her arm through his again and they continued walking down the pier. And for a moment, he felt like a better man.

FORTY MINUTES LATER, at the end of the pier, the festivities were breaking up. Some people were gathering their belongings, others stood chatting in small groups. Off to the side, several teenage boys and a girl stood with their trophies while Lacey, a Times staff photographer, peered at them through the camera viewfinder.

“Say cheese,” Lacey said.

A wave crashed against the pier. Spray rained on them. “Say shred, dudes!” one of the guys yelled, causing the others to laugh.

Lacey snapped some photos. “Great!”

Straightening, she motioned to Coyote and Kathryn. “You’re next. Stand a few feet in front of the railing over there.”

Kathryn looked past the railing into the mist. Twenty or so feet out, a wave suddenly rose, dark and ghostlike, before crashing against the end of the pier. Some people squealed as its thundering impact exploded in a rain of foam and spray.

“She’s got to be kidding,” Kathryn muttered.

“It’ll make a great picture,” said Coyote, next to her. He slicked his hand through his hair.

“We’ll look ridiculous.”

“No way,” Lacey said, adjusting her equipment for the shot. “It’s a perfect shot for the Crest of the Wave. Readers will eat it up. And maybe more important, Tallant will, too.”

Kathryn grimaced as another wave thundered against the pier, the pilings shuddering from its force.

“I could always do the shot alone,” Coyote said casually.

Women would swoon over a testosterone-and-spray-drenched photo of Coyote Sullivan in the Times. She could just hear the overloaded switchboard as women callers chipped their manicures frantically phoning in their votes.

“Over my dead body,” murmured Kathryn, accepting the challenge.

They stood exactly where Lacey told them to, side by side, taking direction—“Don’t cringe…stand straight…Kathryn, stop frowning…great laugh, Coyote!”—while waves crashed and cold ocean water spewed.

Twenty minutes later, Coyote and Kathryn hurried back down Ocean Beach Pier. Along the way fishermen lined the railing, diehards who cast their luck rain or shine, scents of French fries and hamburgers wafted from vendors’ stands, and the ever-present seagulls circled and squawked.

When they were almost at the end, a kid sporting a pink Mohawk clattered toward them on a skateboard. Kathryn jumped out of the way and dropped her purse, the contents spilling on the deck.

“Sorry, dude!” the boy called out as he rattled on down the pier.

Kathryn muttered a few choice words.

“You’re full of surprises,” teased Coyote, bending to pick up some of the spilled items.

“Shocked that I cuss?”

“Pleasantly so.” He held up a large jackknife. “Maybe more shocked at this.”

“That was a gift from my dad.” She took it, dropped it into her purse. “He thought it’d be good protection.”

Coyote did a double take. “Have you? I mean, used it for protection?”

Picking up a tube of lipstick, Kathryn laughed. “No. I mostly use it to cut up food. Before he died, he gave me other things I’ve never used—a wrench set, a power drill. What can I say—he always wanted a boy.”

Coyote moved closer. “I’m sorry.”

She nodded, not really wanting to discuss the family she’d lost. So many things in her past she wanted to keep that way. Locked-up memories in a box, best left unopened.

“For the record,” he murmured, “I’m glad you’re not a boy.”

For a still moment, they looked at each other, neither pretending that what was happening between them wasn’t.

Coyote broke the spell when he looked away and picked up a small bottle. “What’s this?”

Kathryn shrugged. “Nothing. I should toss it, but I keep forgetting to.”

“Nothing?” He held it up and examined the liquid. “Perfume?”

“No.”

It was clear, and yet on closer inspection he caught within it a hint of luminescence—a ray of moonlight captured within. And yet, when turned another way, it was clear again.

“Interesting,” he murmured.

“What?”

“Here, look for yourself.” While handing it to her, the bottle slipped and toppled down a hole in one of the wooden planks.

They both stared down the hole, watching it sift through the air before landing on a patch of sand.

Kathryn made a dismissive gesture. “Like I said, I’ve been meaning to throw it away—”

“I’ll go get it.” Coyote stood. “Tide’s low. It’ll be easy to find.”

“No, really—”

But he was already jogging toward the wooden stairs that led to the beach.

She gathered the rest of the spilled contents, thinking how she’d once pegged Coyote as unapologetically self-centered—most good-looking, charming men were—yet he’d been anything but that today. Loaning her his jacket, doing his best to make her comfortable during that drenched shoot, helping her when her purse took a tumble. And now digging around in the sand for that bogus lust potion.

The guy really did seem to want to take care of her.

Her last relationship, back in Chicago before her life took a nosedive, had been with a good-looking, charming guy who always watched out for number one, himself, with Kathryn a distant second. Or fourth or fifth if she factored in his dog, buddies, career and favorite bar. She wished she could say Steve had been the only guy who behaved that way, but he wasn’t. In hindsight—which was always twenty-twenty, right?—she chalked it up to women’s stereotypical attraction to bad boys, a habit she swore she’d never repeat.

She headed for the stairs, mentally cursing the new, too-tight sandals that were about as practical for shoes as thongs were for undies. At the bottom of the stairs, she stepped onto the sand. Her feet sank like cement.

Screw the shoes.

She slipped them off and left them, along with her purse, on a stair. She hadn’t walked barefoot on the beach in years. Embarrassing, really, to think how close she was to the Pacific, yet the last time she’d been to the ocean had been aeons ago in Jersey.

Underneath the pier, the hazy daylight shifted into layered grays. Wisps of fog hovered in the air and clung to the pilings. More sensed than seen were the shadowy figures of surfers and boogie-boarders bobbing on the distant, swelling waves.

“Found it!” called out Coyote, his tall, dark form emerging through the mist.

Her breath caught at the sight of him. Even in this surreal world, his skin still had that warm, brown glow. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his beige chambray shirt, the color almost stark against his muscled, suntanned forearms. Strands of black hair fell rakishly across his forehead. She’d once heard him say he was half Kumeyaay, the band of Native Americans who’d thrived in the San Diego area centuries ago. The Times had recently run a series of articles on local tribes, and she recalled how, in the late eighteenth century, the invading Spaniards had described the Kumeyaay as fine in stature and affable, but rebellious. They’d refused to be forced laborers and had openly revolted. Eventually, they were punished with expulsion from their ancestral homes.

She understood how it felt to leave one’s home and forced to adapt to a new lifestyle, a new community. For all their differences, she and Coyote shared something profound and fundamental.

The loss of roots.

He walked toward her, sniffing the open bottle. “Smells like…nothing.”

“Told you.”

He gave her a teasing smile. “Not like a woman to carry a bottle of something that’s nothing.”

“It’s a long story.”

“If it’s anything like your taste in books, I bet it’s a very interesting story.”

Heat flooded her cheeks. “You read it?”

“Bound in Brasilia? Yes. Well, the first four or so chapters. I bought it on the way home last night and read it after I went to bed.”

A hot wave swept over her as she imagined Coyote lying in bed doing anything.

He touched his finger to the vial opening and tipped the bottle slightly. “Is it a breath freshener?”

“It’s bogus.”

“Bogus?”

No way she was going to tell Coyote about the smarmy little man and his fabricated story of a lust potion and jaguars and sex and sex and…

She curled her toes in the sand as though that helped ground her. “Bogus, nothing, nada. All the same meaning.”

“And you’re carrying around nada because—?”

Oh, sure, she could just hear herself explaining this one. Well, it appears this weird little man dropped a vial of lust potion into Zoe’s purse, which she later discovered and handed over to Ethan who has connections to the police crime lab. It’s rumored unsuspecting tourists in dire need of a sex fix have been plunking down good money for this tap water, so it seemed wise to have the evidence analyzed. How did I end up with some? Oh, I got a wild hair and filched it.

“You’re right, it’s breath freshener,” she lied. “I’ve had it so long, it’s probably lost its minty taste.”

He righted the bottle, a drop of the liquid on his forefinger. “Let’s see. Stick out your tongue.”

She shook her head. “This is ridic—”

“You say that too much. You need to trust more.” He gave her a look. “And play more.”

The way he said play caused a flame of hot, ripe need to sputter to life within her.

She stuck out her tongue.

“Adventurous, I like that,” he teased, touching her tongue, lightly, with his finger.

She paused, tasting it. “Like I said, nothing—”

Her words halted as a subtle tingling started on the very tip of her tongue. Warm, as though she’d tasted a potent spice, or a chili, yet the heat wasn’t painful. On the contrary, it was pleasurable. Intensely so.

The sensation filled her mouth, raced down her throat, flooded her chest. She sucked in a breath, surprised how the chilly air instantly warmed upon entering her body. The tingling spread from her chest to her fingers, down her legs to her toes, until her entire body felt consumed with heat. A cascade of smells followed, crowding her senses—the ocean, fried foods from the pier café, Coyote’s masculine scent.

Oh, yes, his scent.

That was the most powerful. Soap from his morning shower, the natural musk of his skin, a splash of his earthy cologne. The sum total basic, shameless and teasing. Just like the man.

“Kathryn?”

She hadn’t realized she’d closed her eyes. She had some difficulty opening them, as though awakening from a trance. When she finally did, she stared into his eyes, mesmerized. Had she ever noticed how black, fathomless, shiny they were? Like polished obsidian.

“Are you all right?” Concern creased his features.

His rich, deep voice resonated through her.

“Everything,” she murmured huskily, “is wonderful. You’re wonderful.”

He looked taken aback, even as a grin slow-danced across his face. “Uh, thank you. You’re wonderful, too.”

“Mmmmmmm.”

One side of his mouth still curled in a sexy grin, he suddenly looked down at his hand. “Whatever that nothing in this bottle was, it’s a warm nothing.” He flexed his fingers. “I swear the feeling’s traveling up my arm.”

She nodded, half taking in his words, more absorbed with her own carnal thoughts. Such as how his skin, all deliciously brown and sun kissed, turned her on. How would it feel to press her lips against that skin? To lick, rub, bite, devour? Just thinking about it was like holding a match to an already fuel-drenched libido. Erotic thoughts and ideas ignited, fired and exploded in her mind, heating her trembling body, accelerating her heartbeat until she swore if she didn’t do something, now, she’d implode.

“Come here, Coyote,” she whispered, picking out one of the more deliciously wanton fantasies. “Let’s play a game.”

4

COYOTE STOOD stock-still. Words raced and tumbled and plummeted through his mind, but not a damn one made it out of his mouth.

She wants to play a game.

Not that he hadn’t had his share of lively propositions before. Or indulged in some imaginative romps. Life, after all, was a feast and most poor fools were starving to death.

No, what left him speechless was how Kathryn had managed to sidestep the first, and often awkward, steps of the mating dance and waltzed straight to the heart of the matter. Let’s play a game. No cajoling, intimations, suggestions—none of the push-and-pull doublespeak that typically went on between a man and a woman. It was refreshing, and frankly damn sexy, to hear a woman say exactly what she wanted.

But it was more than simply her words. That was like saying fire was simply light, or a thunderstorm merely wet. It was how she’d evolved, almost overnight, from the all-business, no-nonsense woman he’d known at work to this hot, sexy, take-no-prisoners babe.

He’d never, never again judge a book by its cover.

She leaned seductively against a pier piling, her eyes damn near scorching his with their relentless intensity. If that bold, downright carnal look in her eyes indicated what kind of game she had in mind, he’d better fasten his seat belt, because he was in for one hell of a ride.

He cleared his suddenly dry throat. “What kind of game?”

She flashed him a don’t-you-just-want-to-know look.

That did it.

Raging male instinct roared through his veins as he fought the urge to cross the space and possess her, right here and now, over and over on this vast bed of sand.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he held back and attempted to cool his need with slow, deliberate breaths. Even if all he wanted was slick, sweaty, pounding-hard sex, he didn’t want it so bad that he blew it before the coin toss, so to speak.

He never got this worked up so early in a game—any game. Even last year when he had the plum job of covering the Super Bowl for the Times—the kind of perk that made his enemies put him on their Christmas gift lists—he was more in control sitting at the fifty-yard line with thousands of screaming, frenzied fans than he was here, underneath a pier, with only Kathryn.

A breeze lifted the hem of her pretty cherry-printed dress, and his attention dropped to catch a provocative flash of thigh. And, for a blood-boiling moment, he fantasized about what lay higher. Maybe a strip of filmy, translucent material that offered a mouthwatering peek of dark, curling hair. His palms grew sweaty, his chest ached, and just as his cock filled to bursting, the dress fluttered back down.

He emitted a low, painful groan.

Obviously the elements were on her side, working in tandem to torture him. His gaze dipped past the nowdemure hem hovering slightly below her knees, over her shapely bare calves, to her bare feet—when had she slipped off her shoes? Her fair, creamy skin told him this wasn’t the kind of woman who spent much time out of doors, if at all. And yet, here she was outside, barefoot—the sand, ocean and fog her backdrop.

She dragged one foot ever so slowly, seductively, in the sand while emitting a drawn-out, needy sigh that could have enticed Adam to forgo that one measly bite and devour the entire apple whole.

Coyote’s gaze lurched back up over the red-hot sea of cherries to those devilish eyes.

“What kind of game?”

He’d barely repeated the question when the tingling he’d felt in his hand spiked. He looked down and flexed his fingers, amazed at the building warmth that radiated up his arm and infused his chest. But it wasn’t just physical warmth. He also experienced a growing euphoria, almost dizzying in its intensity.

“Kathryn,” he murmured, thinking those damn cherries seemed to pulse a brighter red. Blood pumped hard and fast through his veins and if he could think through the all-consuming lust, maybe he could express more than saying her name while devouring her with his eyes.

“You’re,” he rasped, dragging a hand through his damp hair, “so…damn…hot.”

Hot, hot, hot. Kathryn could feel the word reverberating through her entire body. She sucked in a deep breath, her heart racing at the sight of Coyote. A film of moisture sheened his broad forehead, across which a strand of his jet-black hair loosely fell. He’d always had a dangerous ambience that naturally surrounded him, but right now it seemed darker, wilder, as though the predator was emerging through the man.

They stood staring at each other, their eyes probing deeply, silently into the other’s. The game had seemed easy at first, but now it had a perilous edge. It had become a force to be reckoned with, the way a storm crackles and flares on the horizon and you frantically bolt windows and doors to protect yourself from its imminent onslaught.

She breathed in deeply, filling her lungs with the brisk salt air. As she released it, whatever lingering concerns she had flowed out. Forget bolting windows and doors. I don’t want to protect myself from feeling. I’ve done that for too long. It’s time to discover the new Kathryn.

With that last thought, some small, lingering piece of resistance finally melted. At the same time, her senses notched up, and she felt acutely aware of everything around her. The sea air was sharper, the distant sunlight near radiant as rays probed the cocoon of fog, the outlying waves thunderous in their never-ending rise and fall. She’d never before felt so alive, so charged, so ready. Nothing felt wrong, and everything felt right.

“The game,” she murmured, “is like the one at the very beginning of Bound in Brasilia.” He’d read the first few chapters, so he knew what she was referring to. “Remember when they decided to reenact a previous meeting with their sensual truth?”

“I remember they screwed on a beach.”

She couldn’t hold back a soft gurgle of laughter. Trust a man and woman to describe it differently. “Well, I’m talking about what led up to that.”

In the story, the sexual tension had been taut as the protagonist insists the man tell her what he feels and wants, in great detail, before she lets him touch her. He describes his feelings, then his fantasies until their sexual excitement can no longer be contained.

Kathryn wanted that, too. With Coyote.

“Remember at the Taboo yesterday,” she asked, “when you held up your hand?”

“To tease you about my being five votes behind.”

“We surmised each other’s thoughts and feelings.”

His beautiful lips curved into a big, lopsided grin. “That we did, baby.”

Baby. She liked the deep tenor of his voice when he said the word. Deep and familiar.

“And, for the most part, we were right in our assumptions.”

He nodded.

“But if we’d been alone, as we are now, where the only real rule is that there are none, what might you have said to me?”

She smoothed a hand down her damp dress. Funny how she’d scurried down the pier, fighting both the chill of being doused and the cool weather, hunched into herself as though that provided protection.

Yet now her body felt deliciously warm. Almost too much so.

She unzipped his jacket, relishing the rush of coolness against her hot skin.

He rubbed a hand across his jaw, watching the zipper go slowly down before his eyes returned to hers. He lifted his hand, fingers splayed wide as they’d been yesterday.

“I remember a story my mother used to tell, about the mythical Coyote being responsible, in a roundabout way, for people having five fingers. You see, he and the Lizard, who were the very first beings, tried to make humans. But they fought bitterly because Coyote wanted to make them be just like himself while Lizard argued that if they did that, people could never eat or take hold of anything. Eventually, Lizard made people to have five fingers on each hand.”

She paused, then sputtered a laugh. “I set up this fantasy, and you tell a story about Coyote and Lizard?”

He smiled somberly. “My honesty is like the Coyote’s. It’s not always what I do directly in life that makes a difference, it’s often what I do indirectly.”

The moment dragged out so long, she began to wonder if she’d done the right thing. Her entire body might be quivering in anticipation, but that didn’t stop small, betraying thoughts from creeping to the surface. Security, security…

“What does that have to do with—”

“Shh,” he said, holding one finger to his lips, before holding up his hand again. “I’m letting the honesty of my words lead the honesty of my actions.”

Which was what the game was about. Being honest. Sensually, erotically honest.

Something passed between them, something as direct and powerful and potentially combustible as a line of gunpowder leading to an explosive device. She knew he felt it, too, this wild, flammable need ricocheting wildly between them. And the only thing that mattered was satisfying that need.

As though on cue, they shared a smile and whatever last, niggling reservations she had suddenly lifted, like a wisp of fog into the air.

He waggled his fingers lightly in the air, bringing the focus back to his previous topic.

It crossed her mind that he had elegant hands. Brown, long, tapered. Beautiful, really. She’d never thought that before about a man’s hands. But then, Coyote was a man of contradictions. Crafty one moment, open the next. Coarse, then sophisticated. No surprise this tall, dark and impossibly masculine man would have beautiful hands.

“I’m going to tell you how my five fingers represent my five senses.” He held up his forefinger. “The first is for sight.” He looked at her as though memorizing the moment. “I love how you look right now. How the sea has coaxed curls in your hair and misted your skin. It makes you look more alive, more primed.”

Primed. The word slow-burned through her and she felt her body open up.

He held up two fingers.

“Two, smell.” He took a deep breath and held it for a long moment before releasing it. “You’re like the sea with its rich, tangy scent.” He dropped back his head and opened his mouth, as though willing the air and mist to pour into him.

She’d never seen a man behave like this. Like an animal. Totally unselfconscious and primal. A white-hot jolt of sensation shot through her as she imagined what he’d be like in bed. No, knew what he’d be like in bed. This was the kind of man who spoiled a woman for anyone else, ever again.

He held up three fingers. “The third is for what I hear…”

He held himself still for a long drawn-out moment, and she felt as though she stood on the edge of a precipice, hovering, waiting….

“I hear the waves crashing, the birds calling, but the sweetest sound at the center of all that is your heart, Kathryn. For all your games, the good and the bad, nothing can change your tender heart.”

She wasn’t sure how to respond. Part of her wanted to instantly deny it. She viewed herself as strong, not tender. And the only game she played was this one, which if she recalled correctly he’d been very willing to play, too.

But her defensiveness subsided as quickly as it had flared. Because, as much as she hated to admit it, he was right. Coyote had picked up on how deeply she felt life. How many times had an episode or a look—or even a word—affected her for days. She’d pretend it didn’t, which was why people pegged her as being all-business and no-nonsense, but the truth was she needed that facade to protect herself. And as far as the good and bad games, well, Coyote of all people understood that everything in life was a game.

He saw through her. Sensed what, deep down, really made her tick. And realizing this, she felt even closer to him. Just as the wall of gray that separated them from the world would eventually dissipate, so had a wall within herself started to crumble.

“Four,” she whispered.

He paused. “Are you rushing me? Because if you don’t want to do this anymore, we can stop.”

“Stop?” She shook her head adamantly. “Just the opposite. I want more.”

“More?” He feigned an innocent look as he held up both hands. “I could use all ten fingers. Find five more things beyond the senses…”

“You tease.” Her mind darn near imploded just imagining what those extra five things could be. “I’d be dead by then.”

He laughed. “All right. Let’s go back to four.” He held up the same number of fingers. “Touch.”

He trailed his fingers through the air, slowly, as though stroking back and forth. From across the space that separated them, she swore she could feel the movement, like a brush of heat, across her body. Wherever she felt his virtual touch, her body burned and tingled. Her breasts tightened, her nipples hardened, and when his hand swept lower, a delicious heaviness pressed on the sensitized, swollen core between her thighs.