A Crazy Kind of Love (16 page)

Mike groaned and moved over him, grinding her hips against him, creating a delicious friction that sparked new flames within. She lifted both arms high and stretched, arching her back as she moved on him, rocking, swaying, setting a wild, fierce pace that thundered in the silence around them.

Cool ocean air rushed into the room, dazzling their hot bodies with the sweet kiss of the chill night. Moonlight played on their naked skin and shifted shadows around the room.

But all Mike could see was Lucas.

His eyes.

Watching her.

His jaw tight, rigid with control.

She felt his body inside her, aching, pushing, stroking, and she wanted him higher, deeper.

He dropped one hand to the spot where their bodies joined and Mike held her breath, not sure if she
could stand one more sensation ricocheting around inside her.

Then he touched her, and she knew if he didn’t
keep
touching her, she’d scream. He caressed that one, tender, fragile spot that held so much fire. He stroked her and she whimpered.

“Lucas . . .” Panting now, gasping for air that wouldn’t come, she groaned his name again, helplessly caught in a whirlwind of her own making.

“Let go,” he said, his voice harsh, strained. “Damn it, Mike, let go.”

“I can’t . . .” she laughed shortly, but it ended on another groan as she shook her hair back from her face, moving on him, riding him, rocking him.

“Don’t want it to end,” she admitted, licking her lips, feeling the challenge in speaking at all when every ounce of concentration she had was focused on what was happening to her body.

He touched her harder, stronger, stroking, coaxing.

“God, Lucas,” she shrieked. She heard the highpitched tone of her voice and winced, but couldn’t help it. “Oh God, Lucas. Don’tstopdon’tstopdon’tstop . . .”

“Come, Mike,” he urged her, voice soft, low, intimate and husky with the want she felt pulsing around them. “Come now and we’ll do it all over again.”

“Promise?” She laughed and wept and groaned at the same time as the first tremor shot through her system, stealing what was left of her breath.

“Promise,” he ground out, pushing his body hard into hers. “Now go over, damn it, and take me with you.”

She did.

And while she wailed his name and shivered atop him, Lucas followed blindly over the precipice and tumbled with her into a black void filled with stars.

“I’ve never met a more hardheaded woman,” Lucas said, minutes, hell, maybe
hours
later, when he finally managed to find his voice again.

“Mmmm . . .” Mike practically purred as she lay bonelessly on top of him. “Stubborn,” she murmured. “I prefer stubborn.”

His hands slid up and down her back and then down to her behind, touching, caressing, squeezing. He couldn’t seem to touch enough of her. He’d seen every inch of her body now and all he wanted to do was start over at the top and work his way down again.

He’d never felt like this with anyone else. Before tonight, he’d never imagined himself not only laughing during sex, but arguing, for God’s sake—and having to badger a woman into an orgasm by promising her another.

A promise he intended to make good on as soon as the paralysis faded.

She wiggled against him and his body leaped into life again.

Okay, so much for paralysis.

“Damn, Rocket Man,” she whispered and lifted her head to look down at him. “You’ve got some great hands on you.”

He laughed.

Again.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” he said and rubbed her behind, just to watch her close her eyes and purr again.

She dipped her head to kiss his chest and something inside him quickened.

His heart?

He pushed that thought away fast.

This wasn’t about hearts.

This was about flesh.

Lust.

Grade A lust, but lust, pure and simple.

It had to be.

Anything else was just unacceptable. He couldn’t—
wouldn’t
—do love again. Down that road lay nothing but misery.

“So,” she said when she raised her gaze to meet his one more time, “I remember someone promising me another ride on the love train.”

He grinned. “Is that right?”

“Damn skippy,” she said, smiling down at him. “Trust me, without that promise, I’d still be riding you like a bronco in a rodeo, dragging that moment out forever.”

“You think so?” God, she had him panting again.

“Oh yeah, I’ve got great control.”

“Now see,” Lucas said, flipping her quickly onto her back and looming over her. “You say something like that to a scientist and he’s forced to prove or disprove that theory.”

Her mouth curved and, God, it was a great mouth.

“So what? Like a contest?” she asked. “See who can hold out the longest?”

“Please.” He snorted, enjoying himself tremendously.
Mike Marconi was definitely one of a kind. “You wouldn’t stand a chance against me.”

Her smile widened, and just for a minute or two, Lucas let himself drown in the blue of her eyes. Then she wrapped her fingers around his erection and gave him a gentle squeeze and he went temporarily blind.

“We’ll see about that, Rocket Man,” she said and slid her fingers up and down his length in delicate strokes.

As she touched him, he cupped her center, and watched her eyes roll back as his fingers manipulated her sensitized skin. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. He saw each dazzle reflected in her eyes. Felt her climb, felt her tension mount, felt her control.

And he knew she was stubborn enough to hold on forever to keep him from “winning” their little game.

Shifting over her, he tasted her nipples again and again, suckling, drawing deep on the tender flesh until Mike moaned and twisted beneath him, arching her body into his mouth, silently demanding more.

He gave her more. Over and over again, he tasted every inch of her body, and when he’d finished, he flipped her over onto her stomach and kissed his way down her spine. She moved like a satisfied cat, stretching and sliding beneath his touch, moving into his hands, groaning and moaning.

Lucas smiled against her skin and used his hands to caress her body while his mouth sent her higher than she’d been before. Not enough, he told himself and wondered if he would
ever
have enough of her.

She looked at him over her shoulder and licked her lips. “Lucas . . .”

He slipped one finger, then two, into her depths and watched her eyes roll back. “Yeah?”

“I surrender,” she whispered and rocked her hips into his hand as her climax hit her hard and fast.

“Me, too,” he admitted, his voice hardly more than a breath.

Everything in him tightened. He moved over her, spread her thighs and entered her fast and hard. She groaned, went up on her knees and opened for him, welcoming him. He braced his hands on her hips and held her steady while he shoved himself home, giving her everything he had, everything he was. He moved with her, following the rhythm she set, and knew that a blinding, heart-stopping release was only moments away.

Her tight, damp heat surrounded him as he felt her body convulse around his and he gave himself up to the inevitable. Holding her, he jumped into the yawning abyss in front of them and took her with him as he fell.

A few minutes later, they were both lying on their backs in the moonlight, struggling for breath.

“I can’t feel my legs,” Mike muttered thickly on a half-strangled laugh. “That can’t be a good thing.”

Lucas snorted. “My legs are good, but the arms are gone.”

“Great. Together we make one whole person.”

“One whole very
happy
person.”

“Goes without saying,” she said softly.

Turning her head on the pillow, Mike looked at him, and even in the pale light, Lucas saw her eyes shining in the shadows. Amazing eyes, he thought, really amazing.
And her hair, long, blond curls tousled around her face, lying across her breast, tempting him.

Then she smiled.

“What?” he asked.

“Just thinking.”

“About?”

She laughed shortly. “I thought this fund-raiser thing was gonna be boring.”

“Usually are,” he admitted.

“And this time?”

“Not really.”

“Good to know.”

He rolled onto his side and set one hand lightly on the curve of her hip. She sucked in a gulp of air, closed her eyes and released it on a sigh. “What’re you up to now?”

“About seven inches.”

She laughed, and the full, throaty sound of it rolled through the moonlit room, ricocheting off the walls and landing in his chest to bubble there with a magic he hadn’t felt in a long time.

“Rocket Man,” she said when she caught her breath again, “I think I’m starting to like you.”

“Yeah?” Lucas grinned at her and moved closer, wrapping one arm around her waist to pull her tightly to him. “I might be getting a little fond of you, too.”

He kissed her, his mouth moving over hers gently at first and then more insistently. Desire spiked inside him, like a sudden fever, and he held her harder, closer, gathering her into him and holding on for all he was worth.

Time ticked to a standstill.

He broke the kiss, stared down at her in wonder, and felt . . . words crowding his throat. Words clamoring to be set free.

Before that could happen, though, a tinny chorus of “Jingle Bells” sang out into the room.

“What the—”

She flashed him a quick smile and rolled off the bed. Staggering slightly, she walked to the chair where she’d dropped her purse. Opening the small black bag, she said, “My cell phone.”

“It plays ‘Jingle Bells’?”

She shrugged. “I like Christmas. Sue me.”

“Don’t answer it,” he said suddenly as she pulled the phone free of her purse. She stood in a splash of moonlight that made her seem to nearly glow. And he knew. He wasn’t ready for their alone time to be over. Wasn’t ready for the rest of the world to come crashing back in. “Just turn it off.”

“Don’t answer a ringing phone?” she asked, clearly stunned. “That’s genetically impossible for a woman.” She flipped it open and glanced at the screen. “Besides, it’s Sam. She wouldn’t call if it wasn’t important.”

Punching a button, she smiled and said, “Sam? I warn you going in, I’m not really coherent at the moment and—”

She frowned.

Lucas watched her.

She was so easy to read.

Her emotions clouded her features and widened her eyes. He pushed off the bed and took an instinctive step toward her.

“Got it,” she said sharply, holding one hand up to
him as if to keep him at a distance. “Right. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

She closed the phone, smoothing her fingertips across the cool metal surface. She pulled in a long, shuddering breath before she lifted her gaze to him.

“What happened?”

Eyes wide, pain shimmering in those pale blue depths, she shook her hair back from her face and stared at him in stupefied shock.

“Mike,” he asked quietly. “What is it?”

“It’s my father.” She lifted one hand to the base of her throat. “He had a heart attack.”

“Sit down, Jo, you’re not helping anything with all the pacing.”

Jo flashed her brother-in-law a hot glance, then immediately dialed down her temper. It wasn’t Jeff’s fault that her insides were tied up in knots that kept getting tighter by the minute. This
helpless
feeling was one she couldn’t handle. She couldn’t stand the thought of not being able to take charge of a situation.

She supposed that if a shrink ever got hold of her—which would never happen—the doctor would tell her that she had
issues
.

Well,
duh
.

“I can’t just sit here. We’ve been
sitting
for an hour.”

Jeff Hendricks stood up with a smile for his wife, then crossed the mint-green lobby to stand in front of Jo. Dropping both hands on her shoulders, he said, “There’s nothing we can do but wait.”

She snorted and forced herself to stand still beneath Jeff’s comforting hands. But she felt something inside her tremble dangerously and she couldn’t allow herself to give in to the fear crouched within. Swallowing hard against a tide of vulnerability that could drown her if
she wasn’t careful, she said, “I’m not good at waiting.”

“None of us are,” Sam said, standing up to join her husband. “That’s why we’ve got each other.”

Jo nodded, but she wasn’t convinced. Hanging together didn’t make this any easier. In fact, it was a little harder. It was bad enough worrying alone. But watching people you love worrying was just another little pebble added to the landslide that was already crushing her heart.

As if sensing her sister’s proximity to the edge, Sam took her husband’s hands in her own and squeezed. “Honey, it’s going to be a while here. Would you go over to Carla’s? Check on Emma? Make sure she’s okay?”

“Emma’s fine,” he said, then pulled her close for a brief, hard hug. “But I’ll go, if you two need a little time to yourselves.”

“Thanks,” Sam said and went up on her toes to kiss his cheek. Once he was gone, through the double doors leading to the parking lot, Sam turned to face her sister. “Papa’s going to be fine.”

Sam looked sturdy, assured, confident.

All the things that Jo wasn’t—at the moment.

“You don’t know that.”

“Nope. But I believe it.”

“Why?”

“Because he
has
to be.”

Jo nodded, then turned away, not wanting her sister to see the fear in her eyes. Just because you wanted something to go a certain way was no guarantee that it would. If anything, Jo’d always felt that fate had a twisted sense of humor. The harder you wanted something, the more likely it was that you wouldn’t get it.

Hadn’t she found that out for herself years ago? Hadn’t she learned the hard way that
wanting
things to turn out right didn’t mean a damn thing?

She reached up and rubbed the throbbing headache lurking behind her eyes. She understood how Sam felt. After Jo left college and came home, she’d hung on to that same wild, irrational hope. When Mama was sick, she’d prayed and chanted and lit candles and gone to mass and promised God
anything
, if He’d just come through for her this one time. She’d promised that she’d never blame Him for what had happened to her. She’d vowed to become a better person—all if He’d only let Mama be okay.