Face-Off (3 page)

W
HY DID HE KEEP
picturing her naked? Jarrad could not figure it out. He wasn't the kind of guy to perv around a woman he barely knew. Besides, compared to the curvy babes in his regular world, Sierra wouldn't stand out.

And yet, he realized with most of the women he knew, it didn't take a lot of imagination to picture them naked. Sure a lot of them were gorgeous, some even that lucky by nature, but there was a kind of sameness to the big-breasted, long-limbed, long-haired, Chiclet-toothed, tanned females he'd been surrounded by in L.A.

Sierra was so different. Her curves were discreet. He doubted she even filled a B cup. Her hips weren't extravagantly full or boyishly slim, but somewhere in the middle. She wasn't tall or short, but average. And because the obvious places didn't grab all his attention, he found himself noticing how delicate her wrists were. How slim and elegant her neck. How much he liked the slight imperfection of her teeth when she smiled. One of her side teeth overlapped another, giving her a charming smile. Everything was so real with this woman.

Including her intelligence. Not that he wanted to put
down his ex, but her idea of news was to check Perez Hilton daily and pass on the bitchiest tidbits to him.

He'd asked for a private room in a restaurant he used to frequent, partly because of the upstairs space. Until he was no longer news, he really didn't want to be seen publicly. Not that the media in Vancouver were anything like the L.A. bunch, but he didn't want any problems. Besides, he didn't imagine Sierra wanted her photo on some gossip blog. She seemed to be a woman who liked her privacy. And who could blame her?

So, when the maître d' had escorted them upstairs to a private room, her eyes had widened for a moment but she hadn't commented.

Which made him explain.

“I'm sorry to do this to you, but there's been some media interest in me lately. I thought we might like some privacy.”

She nodded. “I understand,” she said softly. What a relief not to have to explain.

 

W
ELL, THE EVENING WAS
going exactly as she would have imagined. He was already hiding her away, no doubt ashamed of himself for having asked her out. She couldn't imagine how much he was hurting now that he could no longer play hockey. Then he'd lost his wife to another man.

The icing on the cake would be for the media to report that he'd fallen low enough to be seen with a nobody who could barely fill a B cup.

And yet he didn't seem as if he regretted his choice of date for the evening. He acted genuinely interested in her and so like the man she'd thought he was at the rink that she relaxed and found herself telling him about some of her adventures in the classroom. Michael had always been
bored and dismissive of her job. But Jarrad laughed at her stories, and regaled her with a few stories about him and his siblings as kids.

When he talked about the past, she could see him as a little boy. The image filled her with warmth.

He talked a lot with his hands, she noticed. They were big hands, the kind that wielded a hockey stick the way a Viking might have wielded a sword.

Twice she became completely distracted watching those big hands, imagining them on her body.

She grabbed her water and drank quickly, wondering if the wonderful wine he'd chosen had completely gone to her head. Or her nether regions. It was so unlike her to be having sexy thoughts about a stranger. And yet he wasn't a stranger. He seemed familiar to her somehow, and so easy to talk to.

Stranger or not, as the evening progressed, she realized she wanted him in the most elemental way. Even though they talked about a variety of subjects, not one of which was sexual, she knew, every time their gazes connected, that he was thinking the same thoughts. Suspected he knew she was too.

But she wouldn't go down that road again. If Michael had been too far above her on the social/sexual scale, this guy was in the stratosphere.

Michael's betrayal had hurt. Somehow, she thought that Jarrad's would devastate her.

“Your wrists are so tiny,” he said, looking at her right hand toying with the bottom of her wineglass. It was the first really personal thing he'd said. He reached over, picked up her hand. At the touch of his tough, leathery fingers on her skin, she shivered. He wrapped his hand around her wrist and it was thicker than a gauntlet. “You make me feel like an oversized baboon.” He glanced over
at her, all steamy and delicious, “I'd be scared to break you.”

She held his gaze. “I'm tougher than I look,” she said. Then almost gasped at her own boldness. Where had that come from?

There was a beat of potent silence. He broke it, saying huskily, “I really want to kiss you right now.”

Her heart jumped in her chest. The idea both panicked and excited her. She licked her lips.

And the way he gazed at them, she realized he'd mistaken her nervous gesture for a provocative one. Oh, crap. She was in so much trouble.

“Shall we go?” he asked.

She nodded.

As they left, he put a hand on her back, not exactly the most sexual gesture in history and yet she felt his heat burning through the material of her dress, felt the primal drumbeat of passion between them.

He walked her to his car, opened her door for her, and when he got into his own side, he didn't start the car right away. Instead, he leaned forward, closing the distance between them with tantalizing slowness. Then he captured her mouth with his, kissing her slowly as though savoring her.

Oh, he felt so good. She loved the shape of his mouth, the feel of his lips on hers, the rasp of stubble when his chin brushed her. He touched his tongue to her lips and she opened for him, greedy and wanting.

After about a year of kissing, he pulled away. Both of them were breathing fast. “I want to see you again.”

“Mmm.”

“Could it be tomorrow? I'm probably only going to be in town for a couple of weeks. I don't want to waste any time.”

“A couple of weeks?” She felt chilled suddenly. This promising beginning already had its end?

And yet, on some level it was perfect. A brief fling with a great guy, somebody who couldn't hurt her because there wouldn't be time. He was the perfect antidote to the unpleasant aftertaste of Michael in her system. She hadn't even had a date since he'd humiliated her, she certainly hadn't kissed another man and she'd assumed it would be a long, long time before she'd trust a man enough to be intimate.

But then Jarrad had come along. Jarrad who was a celebrity, a wounded hero, a man so far above her he was more like a fantasy than an actual human being.

If he were permanently in Vancouver she couldn't put herself through the possibility of being crushed. But if he was only here for two weeks?

Then maybe he was absolutely, exactly perfect.

Besides, some demon had taken over her body, and she felt like a completely different woman with Jarrad.

If she only had two weeks, she didn't plan on wasting any of it.

She closed the distance between them, put her lips to his ear. “If we only have two weeks, why wait until tomorrow?”

He put a hand to the back of her neck, dipped her back so he could look at her face. “Are you saying what I think you're saying?”

She breathed in the scent of him. So uniquely his and so utterly seductive to her. “Yes.”

H
E DROVE BESIDE THE OCEAN,
gray and moody as though depressed by the constant rain. He'd never realized how much he liked rain until he lived away from it. There was something comforting and familiar about the pound of raindrops on the roof, the splash of puddles in the road.

“Where are we going?” she asked once, as they headed over Lions Gate Bridge and into West Vancouver.

“My place.”

“You keep a place here?”

“Sure. I bought it a while ago. I'm up here enough that it makes sense.”

In fact, this had been his first real-estate purchase, the heady plunge of a guy who'd suddenly made it. Luckily, he'd had good advisors and enough people who'd smack him down in a second if he got too full of himself that they wouldn't let quick success go to his head.

But nobody could have talked him out of buying the house when he first saw it. Tucked away in a quiet cove on the waterfront, the house had originally been a summer cottage back before a bridge connected Vancouver with the north shore. Back when you had to take a ferry across.
Of course, since then waterfront property in West Van had risen in value with dizzying speed, and the home had been modernized, but it still had the bones of the original cottage and he'd resisted all ideas from well-meaning friends and his ex to knock the structure down and build a monster house. He didn't want a fancy mansion. He wanted privacy, an ocean view and a bit of beach. And a house that felt like home. He'd spent enough nights out of town and in hotels that he'd really come to value having a home.

Somehow, the Malibu place had never really felt like home to him. It was a status symbol, he supposed, a little like his wife had been.

Sierra, he realized with a start, was like his West Van cottage. Modest on the outside but real and comfortable in the way his favorite things always were.

He drove down the winding road that led to his place and a feeling of utter contentment stole over him. He loved this place and bringing this woman to it felt right.

He pulled into the little wooden shed that was the one-car garage, killed the engine and led her out and down the path to his house.

It didn't show at its best on a damp spring evening and even the ocean seemed kind of sullen and not inclined to show off for his guest. But the lights shone across English Bay in the Point Grey homes and the waves lapping against the rocky beach played their usual haunting music.

“Oh, Jarrad,” she said. “It's beautiful.”

“I'll show you the best part first,” he said, very much hoping her words confirmed her as the ocean lover he was.

He took her hand, so small and fine-boned that he immediately loosened his grip, he was so scared of hurting
her, and walked around to the front, where a previous owner had built a deck almost as big as the house. Half of it was covered by a glass awning so you could sit out, as he often did, and watch the storms. He turned on the outside heater and together they looked over the sea. He heard her breathe in deeply. “I love it here,” she said.

“So do I. It's a special place.”

She shivered slightly and he stepped behind her, putting his arms around her, pulling her against him. She was trim and shapely. Not a hard body, by any means, but soft, womanly.

He held her like that for a while, his chin just resting on the top of her head, breathing in the scent of the ocean, and of her.

After a bit she turned and lifted her face in mute invitation. Which he took immediate advantage of, bending to kiss her. Her lips were warm and tasted sweet against the tang of rain-tinged salt air, and when he pulled her in closer, she slid her arms up around his neck, kissing him back with passion. He loved her contrasts, the shy schoolteacher one minute and the bold, sexy woman the next.

They kissed for a while until they were both panting louder than the ocean, and she wrapped one leg around him, rubbing the back of his calf with her high heel. The gesture was so spontaneous he wondered if she even realized she was doing it.

“Would you like the full tour?” he murmured.

“Oh, yes,” she said against his mouth.

He took her hand and led her inside. He flipped on a light and as he tried to see the room through her eyes, wondered if he should have hired a decorator. But she smiled. “I would have imagined that your living room
would be all big-screen TV and, I don't know, hockey trophies.”

“TV's behind there,” he said, pointing to the rustic cabinet he'd bought when he first got the place. Of course, the TV hidden behind the distressed wooden doors wasn't exactly puny and it was plasma, but he didn't bother to explain all that.

For the rest, he'd bought most of the furniture from the old couple who were selling the place. It was sturdy and to his uneducated eye he thought it all went with the place. He still thought so. The furniture was wooden-framed, a lot of it made by the previous owner out of driftwood, with all the upholstery in blues.

“It's so rustic, but real, you know?” she said.

“Yeah.” Exactly what he'd always thought.

He showed her where the bathroom was and the kitchen, which really did need a reno, even though he kind of liked the scarred old Formica counters and light oak cupboards.

Then he pointed to the closed doors that were his office (even though he didn't do any work) and guest bedroom (even though he didn't have any guests).

He really didn't want to play tour guide any more. He wanted her in his bed. And badly.

With that thought in mind, he said, “And here's my bedroom.” And he led her through the main room to his bedroom. He felt her hesitate on the threshold, her hand going suddenly rigid in his. She was so sweet, he couldn't help himself from turning to nibble on her lips, to kiss her until the rigidity left her body and the passionate woman was back in his arms.

He led her forward into the room and she pulled away from him to say, “Oh, how beautiful.” She wasn't referring
to the original artwork he'd bought at some charity auction, but to the floor-to-ceiling windows. He could watch the ocean from his bed all day and all night. It was probably the main reason he'd bought the place.

The bed and bedding were his only nod to true luxury. He figured with the beating his body had taken over the years, a great bed was a necessity. And if Egypt had been picked clean of cotton so he could enjoy bedding that had cost more than his first car, then he was sorry, but he definitely enjoyed the comfort.

He turned down the bed, then drew her forward. She was smiling, but he could sense her shyness. He had no idea what her background or her story was, but he knew quite suddenly that he had to treat her carefully. Take it slowly.

“You know what I thought about over dinner?” he asked, nibbling her lips, then kissing her thoroughly.

“What?”

“How pretty your neck is.” He kissed her again. “Long and elegant, like a dancer's.”

“My neck?”

She didn't sound like it was the greatest compliment of her life.

“Among other things.” He ran a fingertip along her collarbone. “I probably need to get you out of these clothes to confirm how pretty everything else is.”

She snorted. The most unladylike thing he'd ever seen or heard her do. “It's not all that exciting.”

“You let me be the judge of that,” he said, and then, because he couldn't resist, he pulled her in and started kissing her again.

He thought he could kiss this woman all day and all night and never grow tired of it.

While they were mouth-to-mouth, he slipped his hands under the hem of her dress, raising it and reaching under. Her skin was warm and soft and as he touched her she made soft little sounds in her throat, like unspoken words of encouragement. He felt his blood start to heat as his hands trailed up to the edges of surprisingly sexy panties.

He'd planned to go so slowly, take it easy, but he sensed a heat coming off this woman, and a need that he felt in his caveman's heart. Abandoning caution, finesse, he turned her so her back was to him, dragged down the zipper, exposing her back and the lacy strap of a black bra. And her long, beautiful neck.

He kissed his way down, from bump to bump of her spine. He could feel her excitement, feel her moving against him as he followed the zipper's path with his lips, breaking contact between his mouth and her skin only long enough to slip the dress off her shoulders and let it drift to the floor.

He turned her around, took her mouth again. She still wore those crazy green-and-black shoes, and nothing else but a lacy black bra and panties. He had her bra unsnapped and sailing into the corner of the room in seconds, and then he pulled back to look at her.

“You are beautiful,” he said, meaning it with every fiber of his being.

“No, I'm not,” she sighed. “I'm so ordinary.”

There was such sadness in the words, but how could she even think that about herself? Her neck was long, her shoulders elegant and her breasts high and firm. Her belly was slender, but slightly rounded as a woman's should be. Her stomach didn't sport a six-pack, but then he'd never
thought a woman's belly should be indistinguishable from a guy's, not that he'd ever said that aloud.

She reached for his shirt and he helped her pull it off, then pulled her close again, enjoying the rub of her skin against his. “Am I too hairy for you?” He felt like an animal with a pelt, but she buried her face against his chest, licked his nipples.

“I love it,” she said.

He pushed her back on the bed, toppling her so she fell laughing onto the mattress. He traced the waistband of her panties then dipped inside for a tantalizing touch of her soft sweetness.

All he did was touch her and she gasped, her back rising off the bed. And it was as if a bomb went off inside him. He needed to touch her, lick her, take her. He wanted to take her every possible way he could think of and maybe they'd invent a few new ones.

He was panting, already wanting to pound himself inside her body when he hadn't even begun to pleasure her yet.
Steady, boy,
he warned himself. He tried to remember that he'd planned to take this slowly, but then he hadn't known that Sierra would be so unbelievably responsive, or that her eyes would half close and she'd look at him the way Cleopatra must have looked at Anthony. Or that her skin would smell like honey and taste like rain-washed waves.

She was, in a word, gorgeous. And real.

He stripped her panties off because he simply had to see her, taste her.

While he was at it he stripped the rest of his clothes off too so they were both naked.

When he joined her on the bed, he could see her eye
ing him, her eyes big and trusting and sparkling with excitement.

She reached over, ran her hands over his hairy chest, then down over his belly. Her hand was so small and yet so sensuous when she touched him. Before he'd even realized her intention, she'd closed her hand around him. He felt the slight quiver in her fingers, excitement or nerves, he had no idea, but it was like a hot, vibrating glove and he knew that if she clutched him like that for much longer he'd embarrass himself.

So he flipped himself on top of her, kissed his way down her body until she was squirming, then he pushed her legs apart and put his mouth on her. Right there. Right where she was so hot and honey-sweet.

She cried out when he licked her, and once he got her going, he practically had to hold onto her hips to keep her earthbound.

When he pushed his tongue all the way up inside her, she grabbed his head, clutching his hair with her fingers and pretty much screaming as her orgasm shook her. Her inner walls spilled honey on his tongue and pulsed around him as the aftershocks shook her.

 

S
HE.
C
OULD.
N
OT.
B
ELIEVE.
What. Had. Just. Happened. To. Her.

Each thought word was more like a pant.

Oh, oh. Oh. He was so good. It was all she could think. He was soo good. Naturally, he'd had decades of practice with supermodels, but right now she didn't care. It was as though he'd been designed with no other purpose than to give her pleasure.

He was kissing his way back up her body and her skin
was so supersensitized that she experienced little shocks of pleasure everywhere his tongue touched her.

When he got up close enough to kiss her, she tasted her own pleasure, and wondered how she'd ever got so lucky as to find herself in this amazing man's bed.

Sierra had never thought of herself as a tiger in bed.
Hah.
More like a stuffed animal when she'd been with Michael. Now, tonight, she wanted it all. She wanted to try everything she'd ever dreamed of, every passionate, crazy, fantasy she'd ever imagined.

Jarrad had probably done it all a thousand times, but she didn't care. She couldn't imagine a man more fun to try things with.

His hands were all over her. Jarrad touched her as though he loved the feel of her. As though she were the most amazing woman in history.

When he'd kissed her mouth for so long she was light-headed, he moved south. Kissing her chin, her throat and her chest. He spent a long time on her breasts, kissing and sucking them.

She tried to hold on to sanity long enough to remind him of the importance of protection, but he was already reaching for the night table and she relaxed, knowing that he might take chances on the ice, but he wouldn't take chances with her.

The sound of the tearing condom wrapper reminded her that she hadn't anticipated sex in a long time. Hadn't wanted a man inside her as much as she wanted this one in longer than she could remember. Maybe ever.

In a second he was ready, and she opened for him as he pushed slowly inside her.

The long, slow friction was heaven. And hell. She wanted him inside her so badly, even as she realized he was
a big man, and holding himself back so as not to hurt her. But she was so hot, so needy, that she couldn't wait. She pulled him into her even as she thrust up against him.