He's the One (14 page)

After a few minutes of utter bliss and sheer torture, she unhooked her legs from behind
his back. “Let me go.”

He did as she asked, gently lowering her to the ground and releasing her. She dropped
to her knees. At first, he didn’t know if it was because her legs were too weak to
hold her, but then she touched the buckle on his belt and he knew what she wanted.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Tabby.”

“Oh, yes, it is. I want to taste you.” For an introverted bookseller, she could sound
bossy when she wanted to.

And he couldn’t begin to pretend he didn’t want to feel her luscious mouth on him.
He moved a few feet backward so he could lean against the wall. “I’m all yours.”

She giggled and the sound entranced him.

But all thought fled when she undid his pants and pulled his throbbing member free.
He thought he was going to come from that simple touch, but he managed to hold on.

Chapter Five

S
he explored him with her fingertips and her tongue, making sexy sounds of pleasure
when she licked moisture from his tip.

She engulfed his head in the heat of her mouth and curled both hands around him. Her
movements weren’t practiced, but they were passionate and he bit back the shout of
his release in an embarrassingly short time.

She didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she acted rather proud of herself.

He couldn’t help smiling. “They rang the second bell for taking your seats.” He had
acute hearing, a benefit in his profession. “If we hurry, we’ll be able to watch the
second half of the performance.”

“I’d like that.”

Later, when he dropped her off at home, she snuggled into him for a good-night kiss.

“Did you enjoy the opera?” he asked as he pulled away, wanting nothing more than to
stay, but there were things they needed to talk about before they took what would
be an irrevocable step for him.

She smiled saucily. “I liked the intermission best.”

“I did, too, love. Will you come by my house for lunch tomorrow?”

It was Sunday, the only day her bookshop was closed.

Her smile fell away from her lips, leaving them looking kissed and vulnerable. “Yes,
I think it’s time.”

 

 

Tabby showed up for lunch fifteen minutes early. Calder opened the door on her first
knock.

She didn’t even get a greeting out before he pulled her to him for a passionate kiss.

He swept her inside and then stepped away from her. “This is every bit as difficult
as I thought it would be. Lunch and conversation first. All right, love?”

She nodded, unable to make her still yearning lips form words.

They were eating on the deck overlooking his private beach when he broached the subject
of his past. “Your friends’ speculation about my past wasn’t far off.”

“You’re an earl hiding out in America because you don’t want the title?” she quipped.

“Actually, I am MI6.”

“Are as in you’re still a spy?” Oh, great. She had fallen in love with a man whose
life couldn’t be more different and less likely to meld with her own.

“At the moment.”

She swallowed, wishing she could cling to the implication it was a temporary condition.
“I see.”

“I doubt it.”

She frowned, not liking the amusement lurking in his brown gaze while her heart felt
like it was going through the shredder. “Even a small-town bookstore owner knows that
trying to make a lasting relationship with a spy is asking for trouble.”

“So, you finally acknowledge I want more from you than an entrée into your sister’s
life or a quick coupling we both forget about soon after the fact?”

She rolled her eyes. A lot of good that did. “Yes, but I don’t see how that can work.
My life is here . . . your life is there.” She waved her hand toward the east. “What
are the chances? Unless you want me to move to England?”

He shook his head and her bleeding heart plummeted. So much for sacrificing her comfortable
existence for love.

“Your life is here. Your bookshop. Your family.”

“Yes, I know. I’m the one who lives in my skin,” she said with more acerbity than
she wanted, but he didn’t need to rub it in.

“Tabby, I don’t know if I can explain this very well, but I’m not MI6 because I want
to be more than anything else in the world.”

Hope stirred beneath her battered emotions. “Then why are you? It’s not exactly an
easy job to come by.”

“You’d be surprised, or at least I was. I wanted adventure, wanted a career that used
both my brain and my brawn, as it were.”

“And . . .”

“And I got hired by the organization right out of university. I made agent very quickly
and have enjoyed my job, though I’m not necessarily proud of all I’ve done to achieve
success.”

“Like what?” Had he killed people?

“I seduced women with the intention of procuring information. I developed friendships
for the same thing.” He sighed. “I’ve never actually killed anyone, but I have shot
two agents from opposing governments.”

“Does all that bother you?”

“A little, but I have to be honest . . . not much. I did what I had to do to protect
my country.”

“And now?”

“Now I’ve met a woman I want more than an adrenaline-pumping career.”

“Me?”

“You. Haven’t you figured out yet that you generate more excitement in my life than
ferreting out dangerous national secrets?”

“Oh.” It wasn’t the brightest response, but she was reeling inside from an emotional
overload.

“I’ve been considering settling here in Port Diamond, but whether or not I stay depends
on you.”

She didn’t know what he wanted, what he was asking exactly, but she did know one thing.
“I love you, Calder. I want you to stay.”

There was a blur of movement and then she was being lifted from her chair against
a hard, masculine chest. The desperate intensity of his kiss stunned her, and at first
she was too taken aback to respond.

He pulled away, his gaze probing hers. “Tabby?”

“Calder . . .”

“You said you loved me?”

“Oh, yes, I do . . .”

“You want me. I know you do.”

She smiled at his arrogance. “Yes.”

“Now?”

“As you English blokes are wont to say, not beforetime.”

He grinned at her mock cockney accent and then frowned. “But you hesitated.”

She looked coyly up at him, when she’d never looked coy in her life. “I think starting
somewhere less than mach speed might help.”

Incredibly, his sculpted cheekbones streaked a dusky red. Nevertheless, the smile
he gave her was all confident, sensual male. “I think I can handle that.”

And then he kissed her again, but it was nothing like that first kiss, so desperate
and urgent.

His lips brushed hers as softly as butterfly wings. Barely there and then they were
gone, only to come back again and again, and each time she tried to cling. Only he
kept the touches light, making her hunger for the deep kisses of the night before.

She moaned with the urgency of her need.

When he’d teased her lips into swollen sensitivity, he moved his mouth onto her cheek
and she discovered that her lips were not the only sensitive skin on her face. He
blew softly in her ear and then bit down gently on the lobe. She arched toward him
and shivered convulsively.

She held onto his shoulders, knowing to let go would mean sinking into a puddle of
aching feminine desire.

His lips moved onto the column of her neck, and the sensual shivers wracked her body
as each kiss heightened her sensitivity to his touch.

She’d worn a tank top, giving him free access to her bare skin all the way to the
upper swell of her breasts. He took advantage, pressing small, nibbling kisses all
over and tasting her with the very tip of his tongue until he reached her neckline.
He stopped there, with his mouth hovering just above her skin.

She made a small, animal-like sound of need, unable to stand his teasing anymore,
and he laughed softly, his breath hot against her.

Then he tugged her top up from the hem until her bra-encased breasts were revealed.
“You’re beautiful, Tabby.”

She couldn’t respond; she was too busy experiencing the way he laved her cleavage
with his tongue. It felt like she could come right then, without any further preliminaries.
Unbelievably, she was more excited than she had been the night before.

He flicked the front clasp of her bra open and peeled it back to reveal her already
hard nipples to the air.

Her breathing fractured. “Suck them, Calder, please.”

He did, taking one into his mouth and tugging on it with just enough pressure to send
her body convulsing in a miniclimax.

She gasped, her body rigid with pleasure. “Oh, man, Calder, you’re good at this.”

Husky laughter vibrated against her breasts. “I’ve had a lot of practice.” He licked
her nipple, swirling his tongue around the aureole, but not taking it into his mouth
again, as if he was building her toward another climax.

He probably was.

She sucked in air.

Then he stopped moving and she whimpered.

“I shouldn’t have said that.” He sounded embarrassed, irritated with himself. “I’m
sorry, love.”

It was her turn to laugh, but the sound was breathless because she could barely force
her lungs to take in air over her skyrocketing excitement. “I don’t mind. If your,
um . . . enhanced experience is what makes you such an amazing lover and capable of
giving me this kind of pleasure, I’m certainly not going to complain about it.”

His mouth moved back to hers with lightning speed and he spoke against her lips. “Tabby,
you’re so bloody perfect. I love you.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, despite a wealth of evidence in favor of his words.

Years of living in her sister’s shadow had taken a toll she hadn’t fully appreciated
until this moment, when the man she loved spoke his own love to her.

He cupped her face and looked her square in the eye. He didn’t say anything, but it
was all there for her to see in the intensity of his dark gaze: knowledge of who and
what she was because he’d taken the time to find out. Not only did he know her on
a level she would have thought impossible, he approved of what he knew.

Her shyness did not bother him. He wanted her. Only her.

She had no words to react to such a thing and simply pressed her lips against his,
offering her body and her trust.

He accepted with a care that brought tears to her eyes. Knowledgeable fingers brushed
down her bare back, drawing small circles against her skin, doing things at the base
of her spine that turned the muscles in her legs to water. He caught her around the
waist and held her up, pressing her against him for balance.

There was something incredibly erotic about having her naked breasts against his shirt-clad
torso.

She wanted to touch him, too, and tunneled her hands under the dark T-shirt. His skin
was so warm, but he shivered at the touch of her hands on his back.

As sexy as it felt to be half naked while he was fully clothed, she wanted his shirt
off. She wanted to see and feel him without restrictions. She yanked at the hem and
he broke the kiss to help her peel it off him.

“Oh my . . .” she breathed.

He stood there, letting her look her fill, somehow knowing that as simple as it was,
this permitted voyeurism was the sexiest kind of foreplay to her. Last night, it had
been almost dark. His body had been nothing but a shadow, but now she could see him
clearly and what she saw entranced her.

He had a light smattering of dark hair covering his chiseled abs and well-defined
chest muscles. She reached out and brushed her fingers down his torso. The silky texture
of his hair against her fingertips excited her unbearably and she smoothed her hands
all over his hot skin, excitement melting the core of her.

She whispered, “You’re incredible,” and then blushed. “I mean—”

Once again, he pressed his finger over her lips. “It’s okay. I’m glad you find my
body as pleasing as I find yours.”

It was then she realized that while she’d been enjoying the display of his body, he
had been looking at her bare breasts because her shirt was still pushed up under her
armpits. She went to cover them in a reflexive action, but he forestalled her with
a quick movement that pulled her into his body.

Her nipples pinched tight, rubbing against him, and then pulsed with indescribable
pleasure.

He kissed her, his tongue coming out to master her mouth, but he did it with such
tenderness that her heart squeezed.

Was it possible to fall in love this quickly . . . to know you needed another person
to complete the other half of your soul? She had to believe yes.

She wasn’t sure how it happened, but they were completely naked, standing skin to
skin, heartbeat to heartbeat, at the end of a bed in a bedroom she had no recollection
of moving to.

She’d daydreamed so many times of her perfect lover taking her, sharing his body with
her as she shared hers with him. Only daydreams could not begin to compete with this
reality. Calder was so in tune to her every response, he seemed to know her body better
than she did.

He touched and caressed and tasted, while encouraging her to do the same. She touched
him in ways and places she’d never wanted to touch another man, but with Calder, she
wanted to know him completely, intimately, and forever.

Her whole body trembled with the need to be joined to him. “Calder, please . . . I
want you inside of me.”

“Yes, Tabby, damn it . . . yes!” He swung her up in his arms and then carried her
down to the soft bed.

The down comforter was soft and cushiony, but then he was lying down and pulling her
over him, and she forgot about her surroundings. “Ride me, sweetheart. Ride me hard.”

She’d never seen herself as the passionate type, but with those words, he unleashed
the primitive, sensual woman within. She lowered herself over his hardness, realizing
only as she did so that he’d managed to get a condom on sometime in the last few minutes.
Probably the same time he’d managed to get her clothes off . . . during that kiss
that had taken her under in a haze of passion.

She’d been too busy kissing and touching to notice anything else.

She pushed down on his hard penis, but she gained only partial penetration. He was
big and she was tight. It had been so long for her, and it had not been all that many
times to begin with.