Bad Boys Down Under (17 page)

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Authors: Nancy Warren

BOOK: Bad Boys Down Under
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Well, obviously now he knew her better he'd figured out that wasn't the case.
She shook her head, letting go of the brief fantasy. “That wasn't even my dress. Or my shoes.”
“I like the shoes you've got on better.”
“You do?”
“Sure. You can get about in those without tottering along like you've got bunions.”
“Well . . .” She was so delighted she was almost speechless.
He leaned a little closer. “I did like that dress, though.”
The atmosphere between them seemed suddenly too warm and she recalled that moment just before he'd kissed her back at the office, when she'd wanted him to, felt him think about it, hesitate, and then quietly move in.
She wanted him to kiss her again, so much she could hardly stop herself from making the first move.
“So,” he said, suddenly seeming to reconsider and draw back out of imminent kissing range, “are you disappointed?”
“Disappointed?” She was disappointed he hadn't taken her up on her obvious invitation and kissed her. At the moment her mind couldn't hold a lot more.
“I'm a working man. I'm not sure what you were expecting, but—”
“A surfer boy. That's what I was expecting. A party-hard, life's-a-beach, model-on-the-side-for-some-extra-cash surfer boy.”
“That's not me.”
She started to smile. It began somewhere down in the region of her normally tortured belly and worked its way up. By the time it got to her face, it was a full-blown sunflower of a smile. “No,” she said. “It's not.”
He reached across the table for her hand. “Is that a good thing?”
She felt as though something in her love life might be about to go right. “Oh, yes,” she said, the smile still stuck on her face. “That's a good thing.”
For another moment they stayed like that. She felt the warm current running back and forth between their hands, felt the calluses she should have noticed before, felt his eyes on her face, and a quick glance up told her what was going on behind them was as hot as what was going on in her mind.
He pulled out his wallet and yanked out some of the cash she'd given him, threw it to the table. “Let's get out of here.”
His urgency fed hers, but still she hesitated. “We should get a receipt. This is a deductible expense.”
He raised their joined hands and kissed her knuckles.
“Oh, the hell with it,” she said cheerfully, confident that they'd grossly overpaid for dinner, would deduct not a cent, and that she didn't care in the slightest.
Chapter Seven
It had seemed as though they'd walked quickly to get to the wharf, but that was a snail with a limp compared to the way they sprinted to get back to the hotel.
Sprinted uphill.
She gasped along, knowing the exercise was good for her, thinking maybe all her cellulite would turn to hard, trim muscle in the time it took to get back to his place, before her lungs gave out. As happy as she was that he was in such a hurry to be alone with her, she really needed to breathe.
But not to slow the pace. There was only one solution. “Taxi,” she managed to gasp.
Luckily it was Friday and the place crawled with cabs. Soon they were bundled in one and sliding smoothly uphill. Still she felt the tension in the man beside her, was certain she heard him mumble, “Come on, come on,” under his breath.
She knew exactly how he felt. She half-expected him to grab her in the taxi, but whether from shyness or manners or maybe men just didn't do that sort of thing in Australia, she was unmauled and anxiously wanting when they got to the hotel.
This time she was ready with her company credit card, which meant an instant receipt and no wasted time or money. She started to pass the card forward, caught the urgent expression in Steve's eyes, and thought, What am I doing? It was her turn to grab a twenty dollar bill for a seven dollar cab ride and toss it into the front, with a hurried thanks.
“Evening, Mr. Jackson.”
“Hi, Ralph.”
The doorman nodded to Lise. “There's a good crowd up on top tonight,” he said. Steve stopped and stared at the doorman.
“He means in the bar on top of your hotel,” she explained. “It's usually busy on Fridays.”
“That's right, miss. Wonderful view of the city from up there.”
“Thank you,” she said. “Good night.”
“There's only one view I want tonight,” Steve said in an urgent undertone.
“Shh,” she said as they broke Olympic speed records racing to the elevator.
Once the silver doors shut them in and they were fortunately alone, she wondered if he'd lunge for her the way she'd half-suspected he might in the cab.
He didn't. But the way he looked at her had the clothes damn near melting off her body. Maybe his hands didn't touch her, or his lips, but his gaze touched her everywhere, igniting tiny flames across her skin.
Anticipation, she decided, was the most potent aphrodisiac of all. He was staring at her body blatantly, and she felt all her womanly bits do their best to flirt with him. Her nipples fluttered to coy attention, her pulse thrummed to some ancient jungle beat, and her belly was growing heavy and warm with excitement.
“I've wanted you since the minute I saw your breast pop out of your dress,” he said softly. And darned if both of her breasts didn't do their level best to toss themselves out for him a second time.
She heard a soft sigh and realized that it was hers.
“It's been driving me crazy that I saw only one. I want to see them both.” He stopped to drag in a hungry breath. “I want to touch them.”
“Mmm.”
“And taste them.”
Oh, this was more foreplay than she'd had in her entire last relationship. She was so hot it was all going to be over before they hit his suite.
She should have booked him on a lower floor.
“I wanted you before we even met, when I first saw your picture,” she admitted, finally recognizing that had been the source of her dissatisfaction at first seeing the eight-by-tens. She'd felt not so much like Cinderella looking into the face of Prince Charming, but like one of the ugly stepsisters knowing that her foot would never fit the dainty glass slipper and that there could never be a chance for her.
But even as she'd wanted him so much, she'd felt twitchy and restless.
“Then I saw you in person.”
“And?”
“And I only wanted you more.”
“That's good.”
“I guess.”
“I've never had sex with anyone who wasn't Australian before,” he said, looking momentarily shocked.
“I've never had sex with anyone who wasn't American,” she realized.
“Christ, I hope I get it right.”
They'd hit his floor, but the
ding
of the arriving elevator didn't come close to blocking out her snort of laughter. She'd been petrified of disappointing him, and even his half-joking admission of his own fears had her relaxing.
Maybe it was the way he'd kissed her earlier. Maybe it was the way he'd talked so sensibly at dinner, but somehow, she knew this was going to be okay.
They left the elevator together but the hurry had dispersed. It was as though something momentous were about to happen and they wanted to savor every minute. Or the anticipation was so strong they wanted to draw it out.
Or they were so scared they'd mess it up that they were in no hurry to dive between the sheets.
He pulled out his key card and they entered the room. He flipped on a lamp and in the pool of golden light he appeared mysterious, his eyes dark and serious but oh, how they pulled her to him.
“Do you want a drink?” he asked.
“No. I just want to get the first time over with.”
She gasped when she realized she'd said those words aloud, feeling herself blush scarlet. “I mean—” Oh, he might as well know the truth. He was going to find out soon enough. “I'm just so awkward at this.”
“What, sex? Of course you're not.”
“Excuse me, but I think I'd know better than you.”
Steve shook his head at her. “It's all those flipping magazines you women read. I went through a load of them on the flight over, and I've never seen so much rubbish.”
“What are you talking about?” She did a lot of advertising in those magazines.
“Those articles,” he rolled his gaze. “How to look better naked, what men really mean when they say I love you, thirty-seven-and-a-half tricks to drive him wild in bed.” He dropped his voice back to its normal register. “No wonder everyone in America thinks they need an analyst. How can a magazine article tell them how to have better sex or more orgasms?”
Oh, she wished he hadn't mentioned orgasms. Her stomach gave its first twinge of the evening. What if she didn't have one? She was so nervous she wasn't sure she had it in her. In fact, this whole thing was a terrible idea.
“I think maybe—”
“I'll tell you what I think; if people spent less time worrying about what they look like naked and keeping scorecards on how many tricks they pulled in bed, they might actually enjoy sex more.”
“Do we have to talk about this right now?” Never mind the antacid, she was heading into Valium territory. And frankly, she wished she could have a time-out and read up on how to look slimmer when naked, have more orgasms, and hell, if there were thirty-seven-and-a-half sex tricks, she was short about thirty-five.
But he was grinning at her in a totally appealing way, and despite the fact that she was feeling insecure, she was also feeling that if she walked away from this now, she'd always regret it.
“I don't know thirty-seven-and-a-half tricks,” she said. “I don't think I know any.”
He took a step closer. “Darlin', tricks are for magic shows.” He reached forward and touched her face, skimming the leathery working-man pads of his fingers down her cheek and over the ledge of her jaw, and down the soft, sensitive skin of her throat.
It felt so good she let her head fall back, offering him the full length of her throat. She felt the increasing warmth as he neared, and then the soft brush of his lips against the hollow beneath her jaw.
“That's a trick,” she murmured.
“What is?” His words rumbled against her skin in a way that made her shiver.
“You kiss my throat and it makes my heart pound.”
“Does it?” A lazy note of amusement curled through his words and she felt herself smile along with him as his hand traveled down the left side of her chest, settling just above her breast where her heart was knocking itself out.
“It's happening to me, too,” he told her and, running a hand down her arm, picked up her wrist and placed her palm against his own chest. And he was right. His heart was beating out a nice tattoo of its own.
“I think you're beautiful,” he said, his lips cruising slowly back up her throat to her mouth.
“I'm not.” She always thought she was sort of funny-looking. Her chin was too square, her nose a little more defined than was seemly, her eyes were pretty, but they belonged in a softer face.
“That's part of your charm. You don't even see how pretty you are.”
She'd have to find that magazine. He seemed to be pulling out the whole bag of tricks and dropping them at her feet. Not that she really cared; she liked flattery. God knows she got little enough of it.
Then his mouth closed over hers and the running commentary in her head seemed to shut down.
Zap.
Like her brain had been shocked into a coma. This was all about feeling. The warmth of his lips against hers, the feel of his strong, bridge-building arms around her, the way he eased her up against him so smoothly she was pressed chest to groin before she noticed they'd moved closer.
And everywhere they touched something was happening. Little jolts and surges of electricity zapping back and forth, his body hardening, hers softening, his continuing to harden until she felt the bulge of him so far up her belly she wondered if men were built different in Australia. Maybe all that sun and football and beer did something to their development.
And maybe an entire year without sex had closed her up like a squeezed-out tube of toothpaste.
With a tiny groan, she wondered if it was too late to back out of this.
“Hey, what's going on?” he asked, raising his head to look down at her.”
“Nothing.”
“I could have sworn you were right with me and then you went somewhere. What's going on in that busy brain of yours? What were you just thinking about?”
“Toothpaste.”
“Toothpaste?” He pulled back to stare down his nose at her. “Is this some California sex thing I've never heard of?”
“No. It's just me being an idiot.”
“Well, stop it. You stay with me, got it?” He squeezed her shoulders. “No thinking.”
“I can't help it,” she wailed. “I warned you. I'm hopeless at sex. I can't turn my mind off.”
“Well, don't turn it off then. But channel it into a better direction than oral hygiene, or you'll put me off.”
“I don't know how,” she admitted miserably.
He sighed. “I can see I'm going to have to get brutal with you.”
She gulped. “You are?”
“Yes. Very brutal.” He sounded fierce, but those crazy lights were dancing in his eyes again, the kind that turned her blood to fizzy soda. While she was focusing on those eyes, she felt his hands at her chest and realized with a spurt of shock liberally mixed with excitement that he'd bared her right breast. Without any finesse or buildup, he'd simply pulled up her T-shirt and popped the thing out of her bra cup.
Now that it was free, she felt the air against her nipple and the warm, rough heaviness of his hand where she was so sensitive.
“Now what are you thinking about?” he asked her.
She swallowed. “Not toothpaste.”
“Come on.” He feathered his fingertips over her nipple and her whole body responded. “What are you thinking about when I do this?”
“Not thinking,” she murmured. “Feeling.”
“Good,” he whispered. “That's very good. Now, every time you want to go off on another toothpaste tangent, bring yourself back and concentrate on what your body is feeling at that very moment.”
“Where did you learn—? Hunh,” she gasped as a thumb and finger pinched her nipple.
“What does that feel like?”
“A pinch of fire.” She stopped to pant in a breath. “Spreading heat.”
“Good. Stop thinking. Stay focused.”
“Don't do that again.”
“Don't make me.”
He kept playing with that one breast, driving her semi-crazy, and making the other one feel frustrated and left out. “I haven't been able to stop thinking about the sight of this one breast at the airport that day. There was something about just the glimpse of that one that's kept me wondering what the rest of you looks like.”

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