In the Arms of a Stranger (Entangled Ignite), page 21
He stripped off his denim shirt and tossed it onto a chair. His white undershirt came off just as quickly and landed on the shirt. Such typically male moves, that she smiled around the rioting emotions she felt. The bandage on his side had come loose during the day. She almost offered to help him, but stopped herself. She really shouldn’t touch him. Not tonight. She was too needy. Too vulnerable. He grabbed his backpack and disappeared into the bathroom.
She turned back the covers of one of the beds, sat down, and clicked on the television. She flipped channels, searching for something to distract herself. Several movies were on, ones she hadn’t seen. But she couldn’t concentrate. She tossed aside the remote after finding a spy movie, watching without really seeing. A car chase was unfolding, the hero racing to get away from the bad guys. Shooting. Speed. Danger. Possible death at every turn. Likely death. Her mind stalled at that thought, and—
“It’s not like that, you know,” JP interrupted her spiraling thoughts. He stood at the bathroom door, dressed only in jeans, his hair still wet. “It can be tedious beyond belief.”
She blinked, and replayed what he’d said. She couldn’t picture him bored, putting up with tedium.
“Sometimes it’s a struggle just to stay awake.” He leaned against the doorjamb, his attention back on the movie.
“Then why do it?”
He straightened and met her eyes over the bed between them. “Somebody has to.”
There was more, there had to be. But she would never know. She’d never know him, not really. She could read a million things into the way he looked at her, the way he’d interacted with Cole. The way he’d touched her. Might touch her…
But in the end he’d still be a stranger. A stranger who drew her like no one ever had. A sleek but powerfully built man who made his living by risking his life.
He hadn’t bandaged his wound.
She stood up and crossed the room as he bent to put his backpack in the closet. “Let me take a look at your side.”
She’d caught him off guard. He straightened and stepped away. Avoidance.
“I’m sorry,” she said hurriedly, backing off. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“Abby,” he said, his voice a rich husky baritone, “you make me a hell of a lot more than uncomfortable.”
The charged silence that followed made the air between them crackle. Or maybe only she felt this way.
No, the heat in his eyes told her he was just as affected by her.
Just the situation, she told herself. Close proximity. Danger. Adrenaline. Like in the movies.
He reached out and touched her cheek with the back of his hand. “I’ll put on a clean bandage.”
She stood frozen to the floor, watching him close the bathroom door between them.
So what was she going to do? Throw herself at him? Get real, Abby.
Her hair had dripped down her back, soaking her shirt. She grabbed the hair dryer and began blow-drying it. With no brush, she simply held the strands out with one hand while directing the hot air with the other.
JP came out of the bathroom, his side freshly bandaged, still dressed only in jeans, and stretched out on his bed. She could feel him watching her.
The hair at the nape of her neck was still damp, so she bent at the waist, flipped her hair over, and finished drying it. All the while she could feel JP’s attention on her. When she straightened and glanced toward him, he’d placed a pillow across his stomach.
Still watching her.
Mouth suddenly dry, she carefully replaced the dryer on its stand. Their eyes met in the mirror.
If she didn’t do something rational, she was going to do something abysmally stupid.
“Did you take your antibiotics?” Her question hung in the air between them for several moments.
“They’re in my bag. I’ll get one in a minute.”
But the tone of his voice. Oh, God, the tone.
She felt clumsy, disoriented. “I’ll, um, get one for you.”
“I can do it.”
But she was already rummaging through his duffel. She found the envelope with the tablets. Concentrating intently on them, she got a glass of water from the bathroom and brought it to him.
He looked up at her and she almost dropped the glass. The heat in his eyes was now an inferno. Or was she projecting her own needs? Her own wants?
“Put it on the table,” he ordered softly.
She nearly spilled the water. Nearly. But JP jumped up quickly and grabbed the glass. And her wrist.
She’d read books that described a lover’s touch as an electrical current. She’d always considered them overdramatic and silly. But here, in a motel, in a place she’d never been, in a situation that had her stomach in a knot and her emotions riding the surface of desperation, she felt it for the very first time. Electricity in his touch.
He put the glass down and straightened, standing so close she could see his pupils in the dimness of the single light. He released her wrist, but his eyes, shadowed by his thick, dark lashes, still held her.
She should turn away. She really should. It was the safe thing to do. The smart thing.
But she didn’t.
He reached up and touched her cheek, as he had before. Only, this time she lacked the control she needed, and she leaned into the caress. His hand brushed down her cheek, to her chin, to her neck. She was sure sparks were flying from the contact.
He bent and she felt a puff of his breath on her lips an instant before he captured her mouth in a tender kiss. Soft, exploratory. Seething with constraint. With fire.
When he straightened, he rubbed his thumb across her damp lower lip and asked, “Do you want me, Abby? Do you want this?”
God help her, she did.
She nodded, not sure she’d moved her head at all. “Yes,” she whispered.
He pulled her against him, molding their bodies together, thigh to thigh, stomach to stomach, chest to chest. She wanted to burrow into his warmth, into his strength.
He pulled back just enough to gaze down at her, one hand on her lower back, still anchoring her to him, the other cupping the back of her head, tilting it back so their eyes met. “Be sure.”
Sure? She hadn’t been sure of anything in so long. In forever. Her life choices thus far had been made rationally, with great forethought. She found she didn’t like where that sort of decision-making had left her.
But this. This was an emotional choice. Not even a choice. A desperate need.
“I’m sure,” she murmured.
He kissed her then, his face tilted to one side, his mouth hot and demanding. As before, in the woods, but unlike that. Beyond that. He explored, savored. Asked her to do the same, with gentle guidance, one hand holding her face, the other holding her tight against his body.
A cauldron of bubbling desire rose up inside her. Nothing existed beyond him. Tall and strong and, oh, so tender. His scent, his touch surrounded her. Tempted her.
To want. To let go of what she’d held back. From fear. But there was nothing to fear now. Just JP Blackmon and the riot of emotions he inspired.
Heart racing, she opened her mouth, took his lower lip between hers and tasted, her tongue sweeping across the tender flesh.
A moan, deep and male, rumbled from his chest, against her breasts. The sound of him, the way he clutched her to him, emboldened her. She deepened her exploration of his mouth.
After long moments, he pulled back, gasping. “What you do to me…,” he whispered, resting his forehead against hers.
She knew. She could feel it. His erection, thick and constrained by his jeans, pressed against her stomach. She relished the hardness.
He was smiling down at her. That beautiful mouth tilted upward, his dark brown eyes intense. “Can I leave the light on?”
The light. Oh, God, she’d had a baby. He’d see…
No. She wanted the light, too. She wanted to see him. She could do this. She wanted this.
All she could manage was a nod. He tightened his hold, kissing her again, taking her beyond reason with firm pressure, his hands sliding under her T-shirt, calloused fingers brushing up and down her back. Sensitizing her.
Her own hands left the relative safety of the waistband of his jeans and rubbed up the powerful muscles of his back, smooth, flexing as she touched him. He pulled her T-shirt away, pressing her to him, and cupped her bottom.
“God, how I want you.”
…
JP never imagined how turned on he could be. Never like this. He’d been hard from the moment he walked into the hotel room and seen the bed—and Abby’s face when she’d looked at it, too. He should have known right then that this was where they’d end up. Where he’d lead her.
Only it wasn’t just him. She was with him every step of the way. He’d resisted at first, knowing she was vulnerable, especially now. Then he realized he could give her this respite. This pleasure. A moment suspended in time that would let her forget. And, selfish bastard that he was, that moment would give him this woman to cherish.
The woman he loved. Loved!
The gods were laughing. Really loud.
That caring made him pull away from the heat of her mouth. “I don’t have a condom, but I’m safe. I’ll be careful, I promise.” This was way too important to him. She was way too important to him to be careless with her.
She looked dazed in the dim lamplight, her lips swollen and damp. “There hasn’t been anyone since—” she said in a whisper. Then, “I’m on the pill.”
Irrational disappointment drilled into him. He didn’t want her on the damn pill. But it was insane to feel that way, to risk her getting pregnant. To risk anything between them. Especially now.
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
She smiled and whispered, “Oh, yes.”
With those words, he knew there would be no turning back. He couldn’t anyway. Her full breasts, soft and rounded, her nipples pebbled, pressed against his bare chest. She had to know how hard he was, how ready. But he wanted this to last forever, to give her pleasure. To love her.
He bent to her breasts, taking first one pink nipple into his mouth, then the other. Her fingers clutched his head. He straightened. When she opened her eyes, they were unfocused.
“Look at me, honey,” he said, wanting her with so much more than just his body.
She did, and traced her index finger across his brow, down his cheek, to his lips, then rose up on tiptoes to lightly run her tongue across his lower lip, to kiss him, while her hand continued downward in a gentle caress. To his neck, across his collarbone to his shoulder, touching the familiar scars, down again, through the hair on his chest, barely rubbing his flat nipple. Further, to his stomach. She pressed her palm against his cock, where he most wanted it, released his mouth, and kissed her way down the same path her hand had followed. Her tongue moistened his nipple, then cut a path to his stomach.
He felt scorched, ready to burst into flames. To incinerate.
Then she straightened, both hands on the front of his jeans. She fumbled with the button, her fingers bumping against oversensitive flesh.
“Slow down,” he said, clutching her hands. “There’s no rush.”
…
Yes there is, Abby wanted to cry out. There was this molten need, this urgency, in her. But he’d already raised her hands, placing them on his shoulders. He bent slightly and lifted her, buried his head between her breasts, and swung around.
The room spun. She loved the roughness of his unshaven chin against her skin, his strong arms. JP. All around.
He eased her onto her bed, onto cool sheets, and lowered himself over her, one strong thigh on either side, before stretching out next to her. Close. Oh, so close. With a soft touch, he brushed the hair away from her face and leaned over to kiss her again. She was sure she’d melt straight through the mattress at any moment. The kiss raged on, her heart pounding so loudly he surely must be able to hear it.
Then he propped himself up and looked down at her, his gaze trailing from her eyes to her mouth, to her breasts, to her stomach. Unbidden, she moved her hands to cover herself.
“Don’t,” he said in a hoarse voice, pulling one of her hands back down. “You’re beautiful.”
“I—”
“You’re beautiful,” he repeated, and now his mouth was on her stomach, kissing her.
She closed her eyes and touched his hair. It was safer from behind closed lids. She didn’t have to see her flaws reflected in his eyes.
Then he began unzipping her shorts, his hand caressing, searching, as his mouth once again plundered her flesh.
She needed to touch, to move, to give him the pleasure he was giving her. Her fingers found his jeans’ zipper, but she couldn’t budge it. He moved from her breasts to her mouth, his hand rubbing gently where she most wanted pressure. She heard a sound, a moan, a whimper. Need. It came from her, from what she’d kept pent up for this man. She rolled toward him, pushed him back against the bed, rose, and straddled his lean hips, her knees on either side, careful of his bandaged wound.
Passion etched the angles of his face. She watched him swallow, then moved her gaze down, past his incredible chest, farther. To her hands at his zipper.
Oh, yes. Now it was her turn to swallow.
He helped her lower his zipper. Then he was pulling his jeans and boxers off at the same time, shoving them to the end of the bed.
He was incredibly aroused.
She touched him, tentative at first, then became bolder in response to his hissed breath of pleasure. She kissed a path from his nipple to his stomach, loving the taste of him. Until he grabbed her hand, kissed her palm, and rolled her to her back. The rest of her clothes came off in a flash, whether with her help or not, she didn’t know. But he was over her, one hand again pushing her hair from her face. She should have put it back in a ponytail. The ludicrous thought resulted in a little laugh.
JP froze. “Abby?”
“I—should have put my hair in a ponytail.”
“Hell, no,” he said. “I want it spread on the pillow, just like this.” He kissed her. A quick, hard kiss. “Look at me, Abby,” he whispered. “See me.”
He moved against her, then into her, his eyes locked to hers, slowly filling her with shallow thrusts. Once buried to the hilt, he stilled, supporting his weight on his forearms.
“Okay?” he asked, watching her face.
She nodded, and he moved. Pleasure shimmered through her.
She did close her eyes finally, when he lowered his face to kiss her. Pleasure in him, in the sensations he evoked, made her hum.
He broke the kiss, once, to stare down at her. “Oh, God. Abby.”
She opened her eyes and gloried at the beauty of him, at the thrusts of his body into hers. At his strength. And she clutched him as he pulled delight, joy from her body. There was a gentle wildness to the way he loved her, a wildness she could not resist matching, meeting his thrusts until her orgasm made her moan, and her arms fell to the bed. Then, still in control of his body, he gentled his movements.
In a minute, maybe more, she wasn’t sure, he started moving again, alternating his rhythm. Her second climax pulled gasps from her—and from him. He thrust heavily into her, his head thrown back, and came with a stifled shout.
He kept his weight off her, and what seemed like a lifetime later, when they’d both recovered their breath, he rolled to her side, onto his back, pulled her close, her head on his shoulder, one of her legs over his thighs, and murmured, “Sleep, babe.”
…
Careful not to wake her, JP pulled Abby tight against him, her bottom snug against his lap, his legs against the backs of hers. All that smooth skin. One breast in his hand.
Love. Who’d have known?
He’d made love to her again. He hadn’t said the words he so wanted to say. Because in a way, loving her was a dream. A sweet dream that would not survive his truth, even when he got Cole and her brother back for her.
And if he didn’t?
No. He wouldn’t let that thought intrude on this time.
He loved the scent of her, the texture of her hair against his cheek. He was aroused again. Hard, as if he hadn’t already had her twice. But she needed sleep. He did, too.
Because nothing would to stop him from protecting her and the child he wished were his own.
Even if it meant she would see just exactly what he was so very, very good at.
And that, he knew, would be the end of the sweet dream of having her forever.
Chapter 14
She didn’t know what woke her. Not exhaustion. No. She felt renewed. Alive. She’d woken once and felt JP behind her, his body warm and hard, one hand cupping her breast. Sleeping. But he’d rolled to his back at some point.
She glanced at the clock. They’d have to get up soon. To go to the airport. Cole would still be sleeping.
Oh, God. Please let him be all right!
Moving slowly to avoid jostling the bed and waking JP, she got up. She showered and came back into the bedroom wrapped in a towel. The bedside lamp was on. JP, awake, lay on his stomach, watching her.
“Morning,” he said, his dark brown eyes serious. He looked as satisfied as she felt. “How do you feel?”
A slow, burning heat spread up her cheeks.
He laughed, rolled over onto his back, and sat up on the edge of the bed. “Come here,” he said in a soft growl.
Unsure, her hand clutching the towel to her body, she did, her legs awkward and stiff. When she stood right in front of him, between his legs—his body so obviously aroused—he reached out and pulled her closer.
“I was going to join you in the shower,” he said, his hands on the towel where she’d tucked it between her breasts. “But it would take too long.” He pulled the towel open by slow degrees, then let it drop to the floor.
Her knees nearly gave way. He pulled her closer and pressed hot kisses on her stomach, taking tender bites upward. He nuzzled the undersides of her breasts, then rose enough to take one nipple into his mouth. With little effort, he tipped her forward, on top of him. She landed on him with a sigh and gazed down at him.
