Ice Cold (24 page)

He tugged the top down over her shoulders to rest across the swell of her breasts, kissing every inch of exposed skin as he revealed it to his heated gaze. “Perfection,” he murmured dropping kisses across her collarbone.

Sex talk
. She disregarded the admiration in his voice and lifted up on an elbow to offer herself to his mouth. His cool lips skimmed the plumped upper swell of her left breast, gliding over the swells and valley. He traced a finger along the damp path his mouth was taking.

She didn’t want to chat, she didn’t want to bond with him, and she didn’t want an editorial. Hell, she didn’t need or want foreplay.

As long as she stuck to what she did want—hard, driving, mindless sex—they’d both get exactly what they wanted. There was no need for sloppy sentimentality. They were two adults. Sex was just . . . sex.

All excellent sentiments if she really believed her own bullshit.

Navarro stopped kissing her and gently cupped her tight jaw. “Stop trying to qualify and analyze this, Winston. It’s real and it’s happening. Don’t think,
feel
.”

“Stop reading my mind. Feeling is dangerous.”

“And as exhilarating as skydiving and not pulling your chute ’til two thousand feet. Let go, Honey. Just let go. I’m here to catch you.”

Until you’re not.

“Here’s the thing,” she said a little desperately, trying to dampen the erotic sensations flooding her body as his lips returned to her breasts, and his finger slid the LockOut down another inch. The slick, rubbery fabric abraded her distended nipples. It was his mouth she wanted there, not work clothes. “I have a reputation as being a bit chilly . . .” A reputation she’d nurtured over the years. A persona built to protect what was left of her innermost core of emotions until she almost bought into it herself. Until Rafael Navarro systematically started chipping away at the ice, Honey wasn’t sure if there was anything warm left inside her.

He tugged the LockOut beneath her breasts to free her nipples and kissed her breasts. “Ice Princess,” he murmured before sucking her nipple into the hot cavern of his mouth. His tongue made her entire body do the flamenco as he curled it around the hardened nub.

“Men t-take that as a challenge.”

She squeezed her eyes closed as he peeled the fabric down around her ribcage, his rough jaw lightly scraping the delicate skin of her breast. “A challenge and a temptation. Then they fall in love with me.” Her tone was mock serious, but her chest ached with an unnamed need. Blocking the doubts she did as he suggested—she just
felt
as he curled his tongue around her nipple.

His pause caused her head to thrash on the mattress. “I can see how that could be problematic.”

“They try to resist me, but the pull is just too s-strong for t—That feels—amazing.” The tension inside her ratcheted up a couple of notches, as he cupped her breast, bringing it back to his mouth. “They want to wrap me in cotton and keep me all to themselves. They get possessive, proprietary, and don’t want to share. They just can’t h-help themselves. Under this icy exterior, as you’ve just discovered, is fire, Navarro. Men fall at my feet like houseflies.” Until they realize that what they saw was exactly what they got. Even her heat was an illusion.

“Messy,” he murmured, sounding amused and slightly out of breath as he slid the LockOut suit over her hips and tested the depth of her navel with his tongue. “The problem is, I’m already in too deep for self-preservation.” He slid the suit down her legs, following his hand with his mouth. “
I’m
willing to be burned by your icy heat; are
you
willing to take the chance that we’ll soar together?” Muffled against the damp curls, his breath burned her tender flesh.

Honey couldn’t help the involuntary upward surge of her hips. “Or crash and burn.”

“Yeah, or crash and burn at reentry. Life’s a crapshoot,
amada
. There are no guarantees. We both know it.” And then he stopped talking.

Honey combed her fingers through his hair and held him there as her body wound even tighter. It was all the answer she had.

Somehow, they were both naked, although she wasn’t sure how or when that happened. The sound of her own crazy heartbeat was deafening as he nudged her legs open and settled his hips in the welcoming V.

Lacing his fingers with hers, he held her arms over her head as he kneed her thighs farther apart, his eyes, in the semidarkness, fiercely primitive as they locked with hers. “I won’t hurt you.”

Yes you will.
Honey didn’t even want to think of the ways. “I wasn’t a virgin, Navarro,” she murmured, deliberately misunderstanding as her knees bracketed his narrow hips, and her arms wrapped around his shoulders when she felt the heat of him against her.

“Thank God for that. But you know what I mean. I won’t—”

“Shut up, Navarro. Just shut up!” Wrapping a long strand of his hair around her hand, Honey flipped him over, then rose on her knees to plunge herself down on the spear of his erection. He didn’t utter another word.

EIGHTEEN

 B 
ecause surging into her wetness made him go brain-dead, several minutes of heart-pounding, mind-altering sex went by before Rafael noticed that Honey held back. She was doing everything in her not inconsiderable and highly gymnastic, repertoire to make the sex good for
him,
but he knew when a woman was disengaged, and she’d left the building at first penetration. Fuck.

He pulled out. Killed him, but he gritted his teeth against the need to climax.

Wrapping his arms around her shoulders, he rolled her on her back, pressing her head against him. Her breath fanned his throat. His other hand clamped on the taut cheek of her ass, holding her in place. If she moved now he’d be screwed. Literally.

Heartbeat
thudding
in his dick and echoing in his ears, he willed the climax to back off. “Give. Me. A minute.”

She punched his shoulder. “I was just about to come, damn it.”

“You were just about to
fake
a climax.”
Again
. “Wrong time, wrong place, wrong guy,
cariña
.” He slipped a finger under her chin, lifting her face. Her eyes smoldered, her cheeks flushed. More, he suspected, with embarrassment than passion.

“Go to hell, Navarro. If you don’t want me, all you had to do was say so.” She struggled to break free, but he outweighed her by sixty pounds and knew all the same tricks. A downside to training with the same instructors. She shoved her palm against his other shoulder – an ineffectual protest.

Grabbing her shoving hand, he dragged it down between them, curling her fingers around his slick erection. “I want you,
dulzura.
I want you bad. But I want you right here with me for every thrust and parry. Not lying there, mirroring my moves because you’re not fully engaged.”

She sucked in an indignant breath. “That’s bullshit. I’m here, and this,” she said through clenched teeth as she ran her thumb up his shaft, “is all mine.”

He shuddered from the top of his head to the soles of his feet at the contact. She wasn’t exactly being gentle with his prize possession, but he nuzzled his lips gently to her temple. Just sex with Honey should make him fall to his knees in gratitude –
but-
“I want all of you.”

“Stop talking in riddles. Either we’re doing this or we’re not.”

“We’re doing this.” Her cool defense hid burning passion. Once she emotionally connected with him, they’d be unbreakable.

“Have you always faked a climax with a partner or is it me?”

“You’re terrific in the sack, Navarro. Don’t worry about it. It’s all me.”

“Why? Is there something medically wrong we need to deal with?”

“We don’t need to deal with anything. I can get myself off, but-” She shrugged. “Historically, I’ve been too shy to get naked with a man, especially on such short acquaintance. And frankly, I don’t enjoy sweaty.”

“You’ll enjoy doing both with me.”

“This?” She waved a finger between them. “Is nothing more than propinquity,” she told him with asperity. “Apparently you can have any woman you want. Can’t you wait until this mission is over before you have sex?”

“Sure. But I don’t have to wait for the mission to be over to make love with you. But we’re doing it my way.”

“There are two of us in the room. Or do you want me to give you and your fist a moment alone?”

He was gentleman enough not to mention she was a fine one to talk. “I want you to stop thinking this to death.” He nibbled her lower lip. “Just relax and let yourself enjoy what we’re sharing.” He knew she felt it too but fear kept her locked tight.

“I w—”

Rafael kissed her. She started to resist, then she went still. God, she was stubborn.

He slid his hips off her, keeping their lips clamped. The friction of her silky skin and soft moist places brushing against his painful hardness was a testament to his determination. It was agony not to finish what they’d started.

Gripping her fingers tightly around his shaft, she made a low sound of protest in the back of her throat when she realized he was moving out of reach. He flung one leg over hers, caging her body with his, but leaving all the important bits free. For later.

Her mouth was sweet, hot, wild. She used her tongue and her teeth, answering with moves of her own. The woman knew how to kiss.

Their sweat glued them together wherever they touched. The smell of her skin, the smell of her arousal, made him hotter than a pistol. This moment was too important for a quick bang. He’d never felt this way before, and Rafael wasn’t going to think about why. He just knew that this moment with Honey was too important to fuck up. Literally. If he let her get away with faking it, it would lay a foundation of lies impossible to build on. It would never be what it could be. He shoved that line of thinking away for another day as well.

Her hand was on the controls, but Rafael kept his hand on her ass and tangled the fingers of his other hand in her silky hair, cupping the back of her head. He wasn’t using force, but she’d have to exert a hell of a lot of energy to displace his body. Heart still racing, his muscles were rigid enough to make him shake. Holding back was killing him, but nothing would unknot. Not when he had been
this
close and denied what every cell in his body craved.

He broke the kiss, leaving them both panting.

“You’re a crazy man,” she whispered in a husky voice.

Crazy about you,
he realized, knowing the thought should freak him out but not giving a flying fuck. “Sweetheart, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

He released her ass to grip her wrist, unclamping her fingers from his dick and drawing her hand up and over her head, then fumbled for the other hand, which scored his back in passing. He clasped both in one hand. “Pretend I have you cuffed.”

Honey laughed breathlessly. “You and what army, Navarro?” The dim lights from the main cabin shone through the door, making her pale eyes glint, and the fall of silky blond hair spread on the plain white sheets looked like spilled early morning sunlight.

Shit. She was turning him into a poet. Next thing he knew, he’d be wearing ruffled shirts and an earring.

He reached up and snagged a pillow. Interestingly enough, she lifted her hips slightly. He pushed it under her shoulders, not her shapely ass, lifting her head slightly so she could see down the length of her body.

She cocked a pale brow, arms extended over her head, her position baring the sexy hollow of her underarm and the impossibly soft swell of her breasts. “And now what?”

“And now you don’t move until I release you.”

“And if I don’t want to lie here in my pretend shackles?”

“Then you get dressed and go back to your seat.”

“No sex?” Her tone was disbelieving.

“We just had sex. Almost, anyway.” He caressed her cheek with gentle fingertips then learned the stubborn shape of her jaw with the lightest touch as if he was gentling a wild animal. “I’m going to make love to you. Slowly and thoroughly. You don’t get to participate until I say so.”

Her eyes narrowed. The pulse at the base of her slender throat pounded hard, and her fingers curled into her palms. “You’ll do unto me, but I can’t do unto you? That hardly seems fair.”

“Encanto,
life rarely is. Close,” he murmured, brushing his lips over her eye, then trailed them over her nose. Long lashes flickered like a butterfly’s kiss at the corner of his mouth. “All you have to do”—Rafael tasted the fluttering skin over her eye—“is feel. No matter what, no moving. Just breathe and feel.”

“If—”

“We’ll be on the ground soon,” he reminded her, feeling almost feverish with his need to say to hell with it and plunge into her wet heat. At least one of them would feel a whole hell of a lot better. It would just be the wrong one. This was what manning up meant. He could do this. He trailed his fingers lightly up her rib cage. “Want to waste time negotiating terms?”