Kiss and Tell (20 page)

He felt her hands on his back, on his sides, on his scalp, gripping his hair. Wherever she touched, flames licked and spread. Her hand clenched in his hair as his mouth left hers to blaze a trail down the sweet, silky valley between her breasts.

When he took her nipple in his mouth again her back arched and she cried out, her breath strangling in her throat.

His stomach contracted as she started to unbutton his shirt. She stroked his chest. Touched his nipples. Made him shudder.

Another button sprang free. Her hand skimmed down his midriff.

Another button. Fingers brushed across his belly button.

The last button.

Two fingers dipped into the waistband of his jeans. He dragged in a breath, and they slipped down farther, fingertips brushing his sex.

His hand slid between her thighs. Through the shorts he felt her wet heat, slick with desire. She whimpered and her hips curved up off the couch at his touch. Her scent surrounded him, made him hotter. Harder. He couldn't get enough of her. Wanted to taste, to touch, to devour everything before him like a man presented with a banquet.

His hands moved over her body, demanding, seeking, pressing. Frantic, bruising caresses – hers were no more gentle.

She gripped the waistband of his jeans so tightly he thought his penis might tear free through cotton and denim.

"Jake. Jake. Jake."

While kissing her he managed to get his jeans unzipped. He sprang free, pulsing, ready. Pleasure, pain.

Her hand found him, her fingers curling, cool around his hot flesh.

Judas.

His eyes closed and his stomach muscles clenched as she stroked and teased with just the right pressure to make him even harder. His stomach muscles clenched convulsively.

"Enough..." He sucked in air as her fingertip found the head of his sex, rubbed at the bead of moisture there.

He wanted to touch all of her, to feel her nipples pressed against his chest, feel the moist heat of her pressed intimately against him, open to him. He wanted it all. The couch was wide enough, the bed six feet too far away.

He found where she was most responsive, most sensitive, and brought her close to the brink. She was vocal in her pleasure, making inarticulate sounds that went through him like the sweet notes of a violin. He played his fingers over her, in her, until she begged for release.

"Please, Jake..."

Half standing, he dragged the cotton boxers down her legs. "Hmmm. I knew I was gonna enjoy being debriefed." She opened slumberous eyes, level with his groin. "Mmmm-mmmm-mmmm." She licked her lips. Suggestive, sexy, eager. "Is that for me?"

"Think you can handle it?" He came down into the cradle of her thighs.

"After." It was a promise. "I don't want to rush you. But could you
please
hurry? Oh, god. Jake."

With his jeans around his ankles, Jake slipped into her wet heat, entering her on one long, deep, gut-wrenching thrust. He watched as her eyes lost focus, felt her breath snag, felt the internal throbbing of her muscles clamp him like a fist.

Her heels dug into his flanks as he reaffirmed life with every pump of his hips, every flex of his muscles, every thrust.

"That's it," he said through clenched teeth, in near agony as he thrust powerfully again. "Take. More. Take it all."

He watched her climb closer and closer until he just couldn't focus on her features anymore.

Her breath tore on a strangled sob as she peaked. With a wordless cry, Jake followed a few seconds later.

Chapter Ten

T
hey finally made it to the bed. Jake had stripped her in seconds flat. And as erotic as it was making love with his jeans about his ankles, Marnie wanted to try it bare skin to bare skin. She'd made short work of his clothes.

After making love again, she could barely move. Yet she sensed within Jake a restlessness, despite the seemingly relaxed sprawl of his body.

Both times they'd made love he'd withdrawn at the last moment, spilling himself outside her. Despite knowing she should be grateful, Marnie felt somehow cheated. Having Jake's child didn't seem such a terrible thing. In fact, the idea was extremely appealing.

Not that she'd terrify him by saying so.

"I wish I smoked." She smiled down at him as she sprawled on his large, hard body. Arms folded across his chest, she enjoyed the tickle of his chest hair against her sensitized breasts. "It always looks so sexy in the movies."

Jake pushed a dangling curl out of her eyes. "It doesn't
smell
sexy." He nuzzled her throat, his breath warm and damp on her skin. "You smell like—"

She traced the curve of his ear with a fingertip. "Like?" she asked softly, feeling the shift as the muscles in his chest flexed against her breasts. His eyes were hooded when he looked up.

"Like promises. You smell like promises." He frowned.

Clearly the perfume of promises was like stinkweed to Jake. The very mention of the word made him acutely uncomfortable. Her heart skipped a beat as he morphed back into the Jake who'd threatened her off his property. Had that been only the day before yesterday?

Short, dark lashes closed for an instant, covering the blue ness of his eyes. Then his gaze flickered to the monitors across the room, where clouds scudded to cover the sun again, and wind whipped through the trees hiding the bad guys.

Although he wasn't making any overt movements, Marnie felt the unleashed energy seething and snarling beneath his skin.

Promises? Oh, God. I want to make you promises, Jake Dolan. A whole raft of them. But they wouldn't mean a thing to you, would they?

Her hand trailed lightly down his side, over his lean flank, and cupped a hard cheek. She wanted to savor this moment of closeness as long as possible. Any second now he was going to roll over and say he had to leave – before promises and lies became interchangeable.

"I'd rather smell like silk sheets and candlelight." She lowered her voice to a purr and fluttered her lashes like a vamp. "Of Paris nights." She stroked his hair back and wiggled her hips suggestively. She felt him stir against her delta and felt a wild surge of power. Of hope. "Or tropical breezes." She lowered her mouth to an inch above his and whispered. "How about a sex slave in a hundred and one Arabian nights? Will you slay dragons for me?"

"You don't need a knight to slay your dragons." He traced his knuckles down her cheek, his eyes flat and hard. "You'd be out there carving them up yourself. Making them your slaves, cutting their hearts out before they even knew it."

The force of his conviction sent a shiver down her spine. She pretended to scowl. "Hmmm."

He groaned; she felt the vibration low in her belly.

"What?"

"If someone bottled those damn sexy noises you make, they could sell them and become millionaires."

He
smelled so darn good she could have eaten him with a spoon. And she wouldn't sell one mouthful for any price. It was part soap, part outdoors, part sex, and wholly Jake's own unique scent. Blindfolded, she could pick him out of a lineup.

This man would make no promises.

She ran her hands up his hip and kissed him gently, nibbling at his stern mouth, at the taut muscles that held his smile in check.

She'd heard of chemistry. She'd read about attraction. But she'd never experienced anything like this in her life. It was as though her body wanted to absorb his. As if she could close her eyes and melt into him. Marnie wanted to taste him, learn him, and know everything there was to know about him.

But she wasn't stupid enough to say so right at this moment. She searched her brain for something to say, some words that would keep him in this bed with her a little while longer.

"Tell me about your friends. The other Musketeers. What were their names?"

He took so long to answer, she was afraid he was going to spring out of bed and leave.

"Paul Britton, we called him Brit. Your tall, blond, and handsome type." Marnie shivered as Jake ran his hand lightly down her back. "Had more women after him than a movie star. Embarrassed the hell out of him. We used to rag him all the time about his looks."

"And the other two?"

"Ross. Ross Lerma." Jake's eyes did that internal smile she was becoming familiar with. "Lurch. Hell of a partner. Looked a little like Gene Kelly. Moved like him, too. Judas, he got in and out of the direst situations. Saved my butt a time or two. We knew each other so damn well, how the other guy's mind worked. It was magic when we paired on assignments. Perfect synchronicity, you know?" Jake got a strange look on his face. Part sad, part angry.

"What about the other one?" she asked softly, resting her hand on his chest and rubbing lightly over the springy hair she found there.

"Joe Skullestad. Skully. Big. Black. Bad." Jake smiled. "The kind of guy you'd want at your back in a dark alley. And Skully and I were in a few. He's the one that saved my ass when this happened." Jake touched his throat.

Marnie gently moved his handout of her way.

"What happened to them?"

"Brit was killed six years ago while defusing a bomb on a commercial flight stuck at Orly. He was a valuable T-FLAC agent. They knew of him. The tangos took him in exchange for the passengers. Saved three hundred people. They took him out with them.

"Lurch, almost a month to the day after Brit. South America." Jake's jaw tightened as he looked right through her. "Lurch offed the woman who gave me this scar necklace as a memento. She shot him before she went room temperature. He died in my arms. Skully hauled my ass out, got me home.
He
died five years ago. Embassy bombing, Beirut."

"And what did they call you?"

"Anything they wanted."

"Come on, Jake. You must have had a nickname, too."

"Tin Man. They called me the Tin Man."

"Why?" Marnie already knew the answer.

"Haven't you figured it out yet?" Jake said flatly. "They called me the Tin Man because I don't have a heart."

Oh, Jake
. Marnie slid over his body and wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face against his throat.

"Yes, you do," she told him softly. "You wouldn't care so passionately about finding this Dancer guy to avenge your friend's death if you didn't."
You wouldn't make love to me so sweetly if you didn't have a heart,
she thought, the ache in her own heart sharp and sweet.

In a way she wished she'd never tried to find a subject to hold him in bed. In another she was grateful for this small bit of insight into what had shaped him. No matter what Jake said, he was a hero with heart.

The true meaning of a hero was not his willingness to fight, but his unwavering determination to defend good against evil, weak against strong, right against wrong, no matter how unpopular his choices might be. A heartless man couldn't be all that.

He shifted restlessly, and she gave him space, moving to lie beside him. A shadow flickered across his suddenly taut features. He was sorry he'd revealed so much; Marnie could tell.

She wanted to comfort him, to tell him everything would be alright. But she couldn't do so with either knowledge or truth. She had no idea what demons drove him. And the chances of her ever knowing were slim to none.

The best she could do was to make her presence here easier for him.

"Thank you for telling me about your Musketeers. They must have been special men. And they were lucky to have you as their friend."

"Yeah, right."

With studied casualness, Marnie rolled off his body to sit on the edge of the bed. "I'm going to take a quick shower." She tried for a friendly glance over her shoulder. "Unless you want one before you leave?"

His eyes darkened and his lips became a hard line. He rolled to the other side of the bed and stood. She got her first good look at him in all his naked glory.

He felt incredible, and he looked spectacular. Jake was a big man, and everything was magnificently proportioned. She could attest to that, but
seeing
him...

Marnie resisted clutching her heart or fanning herself.
Gorgeous legs, a fabulous chest...
Her eyes skimmed down.
And other stupendous parts. Even in repose
.

It wasn't easy to hold a casual smile, but she did it. It never occurred to her to cover her body. The body he'd loved, licked, and fondled for the past hour. His eyes took a leisurely journey from her nose to her toes and back again. Her nipples peaked.

She knew he'd seen her response by the flare in his eyes before he carefully hooded his expression.

"That's it?" Jake asked, voice flat. "You sure you don't want to roll over and take a nap?"

Uh-oh. Another wrong choice.

Keep it light. Keep it casual.
"We had mind-blowing sex. You're an incredible lover. Is it politically incorrect to want to shower?"

A muscle ticked in his cheek. "Perhaps we could have showered together."

She didn't miss the past tense of that. "If you weren't in such a hurry to get outside. Right?"

His lips tightened. "Yeah, right."

On an impulse Marnie rose and walked around the bed. She took Jake's face in her hands. His jaw was tight and bristly with five o'clock shadow. She didn't want the best afternoon of her life to deteriorate into one of the worst. She had to give him a graceful and easy way out.

"I thoroughly enjoyed our lovemaking, Jake. I've never experienced anything like it, and I probably won't again." Her throat burned, but she dredged up a bright smile. She'd rather he thought her flaky than know she was halfway in love with him. "We didn't make a lifetime commitment, you know. It was only sex."

"Was it?" he snarled, eyes dark and flinty. "Had a lot of experience, have you?"

"Actually, no."
Are you jealous?
She looked at him.
Nah!
"There was only the time Tommy Bishop rented a hotel room when we were nineteen. Quite frankly, it wasn't so hot then. One of those insert-tab-A-into-slot-B sort of things. Not terribly romantic, but we were both tired of being virgins, so we decided to see what the fuss was about. It turned out it was no big whoop after all."