Breaking the Rules (19 page)

There was sureness in her movements, a sense of utter rightness. Without shame, she let him unclasp her bra and skim it down her arms, his hands coming back to circle and lift her breasts. A sound, dark and wordless, came from his throat as he touched her, no longer rushing. She watched his face as his fingers curled around her, as his thumbs traced a circle around her nipples. His beautiful face, so ravaged…her fingers curled against his cheeks, and he lifted his gaze to her, showing her the sultriness in the green irises as his hands teased and stroked her into a quivering she couldn’t control. Over and over his thumbs skimmed her nipples, until they felt so rigid and engorged she was embarrassed.

Mattie thought she was the one in control, the one who was letting this happen, but Zeke didn’t tremble now, and there was a sense of masterful orchestration in his movements, in the way he turned, still holding her gaze, and sucked her finger into his mouth, then let her go and bent his head to her breast.

She cried out as his mouth closed over one nipple, hot in contrast to the cold rain around them. Slow, slow, slow his mouth moved, suckling, then not, scraping and laying, his head only lifting to give the same attention to the other side.

Mattie’s trembling increased until she could not control it. She clutched his shoulders. “Zeke,” she cried softly, not knowing what she needed, how to stop the quaking in her limbs.

It was only then that she realized how remote he seemed. There was nothing specific, no change in his movements, but all at once, she felt as if she were being serviced rather than loved.

He reached between them to unsnap her jeans, and Mattie froze, suddenly aware that she didn’t want this, not here, not like this. Not with him so cool and unemotional. She remembered the kiss he’d blown her back in Kismet—that aloof and cynical kiss—She grabbed his hands. “Stop.”

He yanked her closer to him, pressing the rigid weight of his arousal against that aching place between her thighs. She bit back a moan, struggling to control the shaking in her body.

“You don’t want to stop, Mattie,” he said, but she didn’t like his tone of voice. Too sure, too cocky. He moved himself against her and Mattie felt the answering rise of her body, a pulsing that began deep, deep inside.

“Damn you!” She shoved him away and stood up, crossing her arms over her naked breasts. She nearly stumbled in her haste, and scraped her upper arm on the wall. Furious and frustrated and trembling, she blindly looked for her shirt.

Zeke’s lay in a heap near her foot and she grabbed it, instead, shaking the wet, tangled fabric and yanking it on as well as she could. “You’re such a jerk!”

He didn’t move, just knelt where he was, hands on his knees, looking savage and beautiful and as angry as she. His eyes blazed. “That’s what I keep trying to tell you.”

“I didn’t ask for that.” She clasped the shirt around her closely, folded her arms defensively.

“No, you’re asking for a whole lot more, aren’t you, Miss Mary?” He stood up and advanced toward her. “You want to lead me to the light. Or you want the bad boy you thought you saw out there in Kismet on motorcycle. You can’t see me for me at all.”

“You won’t let me.”

He loomed over her in the small space, tanned and untamed and bare-chested, all his scars showing plainly. “All you have to do is look, Mattie. I’m right here in front of you.”

She stared at him, not quite understanding.

He touched her lips with his fingers, trailed his hand over her chin. “I’ve wanted you since the first time I saw you. Wanted that mouth—” he traced the curve of her lip “—and it’s just what I thought it would be.”

Miniscule trembling began anew as his hands dropped lower. “You think you’re all covered up, don’t you,” he said and touched her breasts. “I can see straight through this shirt.” Her nipple leaped to his touch and she backed away, right into the wall.

He leaned over her, putting his hands on either side of her head, bending over so his mouth hovered over hers. “I want you, Miss Mary,” he said, his voice so low it almost didn’t register. “I kept trying to tell myself to leave you alone, but things don’t always work out the way we plan, do they?” He did that excruciating thing he’d done at the pool, rubbed his tongue over her bottom lip. She couldn’t breathe. “I want you,” he repeated, and nipped a little where his tongue had been, sending a sharp, delicious pain into her abdomen. “Slow and fine, wild and hot, and right-side up and upside down. Do you want me?”

Mattie reached for him, but he caught her hands. “Tell me.”

The rain poured and thunder crashed. Mattie whispered, “I want you, Zeke.”

He kissed her then, and it was honest and deep, with no holding back. “Then you can have me, Miss Mary. And I’m gonna have you.” He lifted his head. “But it isn’t going to be here or now.”

She stared at him, acutely disappointed.

He tugged the shirt closed over her breasts. “I want you right, Mattie,” he said. “If we do it here, we’ll be freezing and have to climb into wet clothes and the ground will be too rough.” He kissed her. “I want you right.”

Mattie caught his hands. “Zeke—” she protested, but didn’t know how to go on. She didn’t know what to say or do. Her whole body felt as if it had been half plugged into an outlet, and she was neither on nor off.

“Say it, Mattie,” he said. He lifted his hands from her body, but she could feel his heat so close. “What do you want?”

He kissed her, his tongue teasing the edges of her mouth. “Tell me and I’ll tell you.”

“Touch me,” she whispered.

He brushed her shoulder. “Like that?”

“No,” she whispered. She reached for him, no longer content to be led down whatever path it was he thought he had to take. She stroked his flat stomach and bent her head to his chest, kissing his flat nipple, trailing her tongue over the light, crisp hair on his chest.

She reached for the snap on his jeans. His huge hands seized her wrists. “Mattie, I’m serious. We’ll be miserable if we don’t wait.”

“I’m going to be miserable if we do.”

He touched her face. “Trust me.”

Mattie sighed. Once again, she was going to miss out. “Fine,” she said and went to sit in the corner to wait out the rain.

E
ven without making love, the ride back to the cabin was unadulterated misery. The rain had slowed to a mild pattering sprinkle, but the wind sliced through their wet clothes with sharp, stinging needles of ice. Zeke felt his hair get stiff on his shoulders and knew Mattie had to feel even worse. She’d never been stuck in a rainstorm on a motorcycle before.

The alternative had been to stay in the cave by the stream and freeze slowly. Even with a fire, they would have grown more and more miserable. Better to cut their losses and get back as quickly as possible.

The misery, however, did perform the necessary duty of quenching the fierce desire between them. Not even Zeke felt randy by the time they got back. He sent Mattie in ahead while he unfastened their groceries from the back of the bike. “Get out of those wet clothes and start some water boiling.”

She nodded mutely. With a stab of guilt, Zeke saw her lips were pale blue.

He gave her a few minutes, then hauled in the supplies. Her clothes were in a wet pile on the floor, and she huddled on the bed, shivering, wrapped in his stallion blanket. “I’m sorry, Mattie,” he said, dropping the pack. His own teeth chattered and he kicked off his boots. “Go on down to the sauna. I’ll bring towels and coffee in a minute.”

“That’s okay, Zeke. I’ll get warm in a minute.”

“Not like that you won’t,” he returned, stripping off his shirt and rubbing his flesh with a towel. “Go on. The sauna will make you feel better. That’s why I have it.”

Reluctantly, she sat up. “Can I take the blanket in with me?”

“Yeah.” He had a spare sleeping bag in the crawl space.

Clutching the blanket around her, she hobbled out.

Zeke shed his soggy jeans and wrapped himself in a big terry-cloth robe. Barefooted and chilled to the bone, he made two big mugs of instant coffee, put generous helpings of sugar and powdered cream into Mattie’s, and carried them outside.

It was gloomy and dark because of the heavy clouds, which showed no signs of clearing out. Unusual for afternoon storms to last, but it did happen sometimes.

He knocked on the sauna door. Mattie called, “Come in,” and he entered.

Curled in the blanket, covered to her nose, she sat on the low bench. The perpetual fire was low and the room was not terribly warm yet.

He gave her the coffee. “It’ll warm you up from the inside.”

One white arm slipped from between the folds of the blanket to take the cup. “I’ve never been so bone-cold in my entire life.”

“I know, honey.” He touched her shoulder. “It’ll be better in a little while. I’ll get some more wood.”

From the pile of wood outside, Zeke selected slender bits of kindling and carried them inside to get the fire going well again. While the smaller pieces caught and began to burn, he gathered another armload and took it inside, closing the door firmly behind him as the rain began to fall again with a vengeance. “Albuquerque low,” he commented, feeding the fire some healthier logs.

“Pardon me?”

He poked the embers and watched the kindling begin to flicker. Yellow flames started to lick at the logs. “It’s a weather pattern that makes storms just hang over the mountains. We’ll probably have rain for a day or two now. Good thing we got supplies today.”

“I suppose it is.” Her hair was beginning to dry in the little wisps around her cheeks that he found so appealing. Her days in the sunshine had given her a burnished look—her skin warming, her hair taking on hints of sunny color. Feeling a stir in his thawing nether regions, he tied his robe more tightly and sat on the wooden floor by the pool.

Overhead, the rain pattered down, a relaxing sound that provided a comfortable counterpoint to the crackling fire. A smell of pine rose to mingle with the musky scent of the water, and the combination caused him to lean back against the wall. “I love this place,” he said.

“Me, too,” Mattie said quietly. “I was thinking when I was in here last night that I’ve never been anywhere that was so welcoming.”

“Starting to thaw a little now?”

She smiled. “A little.” One bare foot snuck out of the blanket. “Surely you don’t ride that bike in the wintertime.”

“I have a truck in storage in town.” He sipped the hot coffee, his own innards feeling vaguely human again. “Ready for steam?”

“Sure.”

He bent over the pool and splashed the incinerator. The steam was poor quality, but it wouldn’t be much longer before they could engulf themselves in it if they wanted to. He splashed again and heard a satisfying sizzle.

“What made you think of building this?” Mattie asked. Her other foot had emerged from the blanket, and both legs hung over the bench now, naked to the knee. Zeke wondered if she’d put on dry clothes or just wrapped the blanket around her naked body.

“There’s a hot-springs resort a little farther north,” he said. “They had one like this up there.” To distract himself from the delectable vision of those slender, bare calves, he tossed up more water. Steam floated down around them.

“We’ll need the lantern before much longer.” He leaned to give her a book of matches from his robe pocket. “It’s right behind you on that hook.”

When she leaned forward, the blanket slipped away from her shoulder and he saw that it was bare. As if she didn’t notice his suddenly intense perusal, she set her coffee on the bench beside her and adjusted the blanket so that it was tucked under her arms, removing all doubt about whether she wore anything beneath.

Anchoring the blanket firmly over her breasts, she lit the lantern. There was one bad moment when he thought her covering might slip all the way off, but it stayed secure and she yanked it up casually when she finished her task.

The pale yellow light tumbled over her, gleaming along one shoulder and arm, disappearing in the seductive hollow between her breasts, skirting the edge of the blanket to fall on her foot.

Zeke averted his gaze.

The fire roared and the rain poured. Zeke’s body came all the way unfrozen and reminded him of what he’d been in the middle of when the weather and location had intervened. He wondered if Mattie still wanted him the way he wanted her. She seemed to be sending no signals his way; in fact, she seemed quite content to just sit there, sipping coffee.

He told himself it would be best to leave it alone. Let her go. Something happened to him when he touched her, something he didn’t know if he liked. He came all undone.

Restlessly, he reached for the small wooden cup floating in the pool and tossed a solid spray of water at the incinerator. Thick soothing steam enveloped them.

Not that it helped much. The delectable Mattie closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall. The position showed off that long, beautiful throat, and Zeke gazed at it hungrily, watching as steam dewed her flesh. Lamplight glowed over the edge of her collarbone, spilled on the plump tops of her breasts, round and glowing with moisture.

He shifted irritably, hard as a scratching post.

At the cave, he’d felt something evil come over him when she’d expectantly let him take her shirt and bra from her body. It was the same thing that came over him when he ruined his past relationships, something dark he couldn’t control, that turned him into a world-class jerk.

Usually, however, he did wait until he got laid.

A cynical voice spoke deep within his mind. Nice try.

The truth was, Zeke—for the first time in his life—was vulnerable to a woman. There she had been, sturdy and strong and ripe, naked to the waist in the great outdoors, hungry for his touch—and Zeke had been pierced clear through with the knowledge that this was no ordinary woman. That this time, he might be the one to fall, the one who ended up wanting more than she could give.

He didn’t know what would happen to him if he let himself go. It wasn’t the blistering need he feared any more, either. Not the sex.

He feared for his heart. He didn’t know how she’d done it, but somehow she’d slipped through all the defenses he’d built over the years, and he didn’t know what would happen if he let his guard down enough to make love.