Girl Gear 5: Wicked Games (24 page)

And her warring emotions dissipated beneath the thrill of hearing him order, "Let's go to bed."

* * *

Doug knew this was the last night he would ever spend in bed with Kinsey.

After making love with her, he was going to have to make the break, to say goodbye, to go. If he were a better man, he'd get dressed now. He'd leave before making what he feared would be a huge emotional mistake.

But being better meant spending the night alone, and that he just couldn't do. Not tonight, not after having her questions cut so close to a truth he wasn't ready to face.

A truth about who he'd become in the years since his life had taken a turn he'd never expected.

He had yet to convince himself that there was no way he could've seen Gwen's defection coming. So now he ran at the first hint of unwanted change. That much he knew. That much he recognized.

The same way he'd finally come to recognize that the changes facing Neville and Storey as the firm reached into new territory had him on the run. Broadening their boundaries would require his focus on design to lessen even as his corporate responsibilities grew. And pushing a pencil wasn't the reason he'd become an architect. He wanted to build, to hold the blueprints, if not the actual hammers and nails, in his hands.

That chance to return to the excitement of his roots was what he saw when he read Warren Sill's offer. But for some reason he still hadn't been able to figure out, he'd started jumping at the hint of change before hearing a noise. And he sure as hell didn't know why restlessness and discontent had settled so deeply into his bones.

But the biggest question of all was one he didn't think he could answer. Try as he might, he'd been unable to pinpoint the moment Kinsey Gray had become so integral to his life.

And now that he'd come to recognize that she had, why hadn't he told the Warren Sill Group that
Houston
was his home?

None of that, however, mattered now—not when he was climbing into Kinsey's bed with her. She scooted into the middle, backed up against him once he'd settled into the pillows.

"Doug?"

"Shh." He turned toward her, not wanting to talk or to listen. He only wanted to act, to take, to devour, to consume.

Strangely desperate to keep the rest of her questions at bay, he covered her with his body, climbing above her and trapping her between his spread legs.

He groaned as his cock slipped down between her thighs.

"Doug?" she asked again.

This time he stopped her from talking by using his mouth, first on hers, kissing her with the same intense pressure that was building and throbbing at the base of his cock. And then he moved down her body, nuzzling his way from her chin to the hollow of her throat.

She smelled like peaches, tasted like cream, and her plump breasts filled both of his hands like the luscious fruit that she was. He suckled, and she arched up into his mouth, as if she were offering him more than he was taking, as if she wanted him to completely gobble her up.

Back and forth he went, tugging on one nipple, moving to lap at the other, returning to the first and nipping hard enough to make her gasp.

He kneaded the fullness of both breasts, creating a valley between, where he wanted more than anything to shove his aching cock.

He wanted to take her in ways he'd never imagined, to obliterate every question, every doubt he had about himself with this woman's body. No other would offer the relief he needed tonight.

Only the woman he loved.

Heart pounding, he slid down, licking a trail from her breasts to her belly, concentrating on her pleasure so that he didn't have to consider the trouble he was in.

She shuddered beneath him as he circled the tip of his tongue around her navel, and her hands slipped into his hair, feathering through the overly long strands. When he moved lower, she released him. He urged her legs up and farther apart and slipped his arms beneath her raised thighs, lacing his fingers with hers at her hips.

Wanting to do nothing but bring her the satisfaction she'd so often and generously brought him, he opened his mouth and gave her his most intimate kiss. She cried out, lifting her body from the bed and pressing her sex fully against his mouth.

He sucked at her lips, dipped his tongue through her folds, running the tip up one side of her plumped-up pussy and down the other, circling her very center until his cock twitched and the first drops of fluid seeped from the slit in the head.

He wanted her madly, wanted to bury himself as far into her body as she could take him, wanted to feel her contractions grip and squeeze and milk him dry.

But first he wanted to bring her off with his mouth and his fingers. He released her, moving his hands between her legs, sliding his thumbs through her slickness and opening her fully to the thrust of his tongue.

He pushed into her, pulled out, simulating the driving, sliding motion of his cock between his belly and the bedsheet. Sweat broke out on his forehead, and he slid two fingers deep where he'd had his tongue.

With his lips on her cit, he pulled and nibbled and lightly sucked, fingering her with long even strokes. She shoved herself against his hand, matching his rhythm even as he increased to a speed that he feared might tear her apart.

When she came, she sobbed. He thought at first she was crying with delight, but she didn't stop, and he realized she was crying for real. Hiccupping, chest-hitching, throat-tightening spasms that had his own eyes welling.

Shit. This was exactly what he hadn't wanted to happen. And he'd been so stupid to think he could stop it, stop any of it. Not after that incredible night of passion they'd shared on the veranda at Coconut
Caye
.

He crawled back up her body, soothing her with softly whispered words of comfort and a long repetitive, "Shh."

Holding her close, he tendered tiny kisses into her hair, burying them both deep in the cocoon of her comforter and the shared heat of their skin.

It was all he could do; it was all he could do. It was what he had to do because he loved her.

* * *

Kinsey came
awake
hours later, shivers coursing through her, her skin icy and covered with goose bumps. She reached to pull down the nightie she wasn't wearing,
then
reached for the comforter a very large and warm man had stolen in the night.

She groaned. Ugh. She'd cried, and he'd held her until she'd fallen asleep. What a terribly, horribly, very bad way to spend one of their last few remaining nights together.

He probably couldn't wait to get to
Denver
, probably regretted having asked her to come along. And then she remembered that he'd asked her again, a second time, here in her house. Cuddling up to the heat of his back, she couldn't help wondering if he'd meant it when he'd said that he meant it.

Or if he'd only been driving home his point that their circumstances allowed them no future.

Funny thing, but her intuition told her he didn't believe that any more than she did. He just wasn't going to be able to come to grips with a relationship lived thousands of miles apart after what had happened with Gwen.

Kinsey understood, truly she did. Life did that to a person—convinced them that solutions were limited, that chances were often too frightening to take when spawned from bad experience.

Kinsey had never in her life considered leaving
Houston
, living away from her parents, who were aging and would one day need to have her close.

She'd certainly never thought about giving up her career with gIRL-gEAR, or seeing less of the girlfriends who for years had been a daily part of her life.

But now she was thinking about all of that because the alternative was losing Doug.

Closing her eyes, she sighed and snuggled up to his back. He turned toward her, and she lifted her head, settling it in the crook of his shoulder as he held her.

"You done with that crying crap?" he whispered.

She smiled to herself; she loved it that he was such a guy. "For now. I'm sure I have more hormonal displays stored up for the future."

"Humph," he grunted, kissing the top of her head. She slid her hand to the center of his belly. "I'm sorry. That just
sorta
came up unexpectedly."

"Good. I'd hate to think you planned it."

"No. I wouldn't sink that low to trap a man."

He was silent for a long moment, during which Kinsey found herself holding her breath. And then he heaved a sigh, the origin of which she couldn't pinpoint.

"Is that what you've been doing here? Trying to trap me?"

Oh, hell. It was a last ditch effort, but why not be truthful. "Honestly? Yes."

"Hmm."

"Has it been working? Because, if you must know, I'm giving it up."

"I see."

She wondered exactly what it was he saw. "It's not that I don't think my plan is working, it's just that I've come to realize I don't want you trapped."

He stiffened slightly, the arm around her shoulders tightening, the fingertips stroking her arm growing still. "You've changed your mind about wanting me?"

Hurriedly, she shook her head, plucking at the hairs growing below his navel. His body was certainly a wonderland. "Not about wanting you, no. Or about loving you. I do, Doug. I know you told me not to, but my emotions don't take well to being bossed around."

"Humph." He grunted again.

At least he hadn't rolled away. "I've just changed my mind about going through with any more trapping efforts."

"You have more up your sleeve?"

"Not at the moment, no. But one never knows when inspiration might strike."

"Can't argue with that."

"You can't?"

"Nope. Not when
your
trapping has been so much fun."

She pouted just a little bit. "Are you making fun of me?"

He chuckled, and she felt the rumble vibrate in her palm on his belly and through her breasts crushed to his side. "Darlin', why would I make fun when you've shown me the best time I've had in years?"

"Sex, you mean."

He inhaled slowly, deeply, his lungs inflating and his chest expanding. She knew him well enough by now to know he was trying his best for a calm and rational answer.

The fact that he was taking his time rather than resorting to banter or shutting down was a sign he wanted to talk. Kinsey didn't think she'd ever been so frightened.

She was working to steady her breathing pattern when he turned to his side and faced her. "The sex has been amazing."

Has been. He'd said "has been." A flush began to burn her skin; her heart began to race.

"But it's not all about the sex." He cupped his hand over her cheek, rubbed his thumb across her cheekbone to her ear. "I've had fun with you. Simple, good-time fun. I haven't slowed down enough to do that for months."

"But?" She hated to ask.

"No buts. I just want you to know that when I don't make it back next weekend for the auction, it's not about you. It's about settling things I need to settle in
Denver
."

"I understand."

He kissed her fully on the mouth, a hard, determined kiss. "I'm telling you the truth, Kinsey. That doesn't mean I expect you to understand."

"
It's
okay, Doug. I do understand. I know we don't have a true commitment." Dear God, it hurt to say that. "I went into this with my eyes wide open. So, whatever you have to do, do it. I'll be fine."

 
She pressed her lips together for a moment, then declared, "I'll be peachy-keen fine."

He waited one heartbeat, two, then said, "Fine without having me around, you mean?"

"Yes. Exactly," she
lied
, her focus trained on the ceiling.

"Interesting."

"How so?"

"That's not what I'd expect you to say to the man you want to marry."

She rolled her eyes. "Do we have to go there again?"

"I think we do, and I'll tell you why."

He rolled up onto his elbow and looked down at her, ruining her determination to stare at the ceiling the rest of the night.

"I'm listening," she said, though she cast him only the quickest of glances to avoid being sucked into his spell.

He didn't even ask her permission when he moved his hand and cupped her breast. "It was the bikini that killed me. You and Sydney had been on the beach in front of the house playing Frisbee with Jess and Ray. I watched from the veranda."

"Why didn't you join us?" she asked, ignoring his thumb and forefinger, which had tugged her nipple into a knot.

"I was going to, I was going to finish my beer and do just that. But then you Jove to catch Ray's toss. And you rolled right back up to your feet. And I just couldn't take my eyes off your body."

"Sexist pig."

He laughed. "Oh, yeah. The lust I felt was not in my heart. It barely fit in my pants."