McCloud's Woman (13 page)

When he’d been nineteen, one of his greatest fears had
been that his size could overwhelm the virginal sixteen-year old he’d
adored too much to harm. They both had more experience now. No barrier
stood in their way.

No barrier other than his trouser fly, and TJ unfastened that without a hitch, shoving his jeans to the floor.

Mara’s hungry whimpers escalated as he caressed moistened
curls, seeking access. TJ tried to slow down enough to appreciate the
tanned curves of her small waist, the bikini line at her hips. He ached
so deep inside that he couldn’t slow down more than that. The day’s
infuriating events and the evening’s tortured contest of wills had
aroused a primitive need to win the woman who should have been his long
ago.

He slid his hands beneath Mara’s slim buttocks and lifted
her hips. She tried to keep her grip on his shoulders, but he teased his
fingers between her thighs, and she intuitively fell back against the
mattress and wrapped her legs about his waist.

She opened her eyes then, and stared at his seminude body
in such wide-eyed amazement that TJ felt like the eighth wonder of the
world. If he took time to think—

He didn’t want to think. Leaning over to catch her mouth
with his, TJ entered her and with a single shove, drove all the way
inside, swallowing her scream with his kiss. Ecstasy and relief poured
through him as her inner muscles stretched to sheathe him, and her
scream became a seductive moan of pleasure.

This time, it was his turn to close his eyes and absorb
sensation. He registered her first shock with his body, not through his
eyes. They both held still for a moment, adjusting to the newness,
savoring the experience. Liquid heat caressed and aroused, and he
struggled to hold the moment.

Mara’s inner muscles tightened, and a burst of light
shattered TJ’s reserve. He pulled back and drove deep again, matching
his rhythm to her moans.

It had been too long, and he wanted too much. She was
slender, and he tried to be gentle, but every time he held back, his
body rebelled by demanding more. At first she writhed and fought the
onslaught, but then she cried out and met him in the middle,
surrendering to the rhythm he set, until joy pulsed through his blood
and they moved as one, with only one purpose.

She exploded first, in small lightning movements that
pumped him dry in a shattering ecstasy. Shaken by the intensity of his
release, he instantly craved more. He hadn’t had enough of her—might
never have enough.

TJ lifted Mara’s hips to his, and she rubbed against him
in a bid for more. He stirred inside her, growing hard again, and she
whimpered in pleasure. His mind was mush, but the part of him that
mattered right now possessed a spine of steel.

Reluctantly releasing his position, TJ lifted her from the
mattress and stripped back the covers. Pulling her gown over her head
and tossing it, Mara eagerly slid between the sheets and watched as he
ripped off his shirt. Her admiring gaze increased his driving need to
painful intensity. She looked at him as if he were a man and not just a
brain.

Her blond upsweep of curls had tumbled to her shoulders,
revealing the hairpiece beneath, and TJ grinned at this glimpse of the
Patsy he’d known. He’d wondered how Hollywood stars managed to have more
hair than real women. Reaching over, he unclipped the piece and flung
it to the bedside table.

She watched him warily.

“I don’t make love to your hair.” He climbed in on top of
her, straddling her legs, and claiming her mouth with his. Joy filled
his soul as her fingers slid over his bare back, and she accepted him
without question, as if they were two parts merging into one. This was
how it should have been all those years ago.

Except all those years ago, he’d had sense enough to carry condoms.

Cursing his alcohol-deluded mind, TJ propped himself up. “Birth control?”

She looked stunned. Her big green eyes regarded him from
behind dark lashes that were longer and blacker than this morning’s set.
He’d smeared her mascara into dark rings, but the raccoon effect tugged
at his heart. She looked almost as vulnerable as she had at sixteen,
when he’d caught her crying behind the gym during a dance.

“No,” she whispered. “Not since I left Sid...”

He didn’t want to hear about her ex, didn’t want to consider consequences in one of life’s rare moments of perfection.

He leaned over the side of the bed and fished for his
trousers on the floor. If he was really lucky, he might find safety in
his wallet. He’d despised the uncertainty of his teenage years, but she
reduced him to the status of adolescent all over again. He’d never in
his life had sex with a woman without protection, and she’d inflamed him
so quickly, he hadn’t given it a thought. He’d analyze that error
later.

She sighed in relief when he produced the plastic package.
“You’re supposed to be the responsible one around here,” she scolded
lightly.

“Don’t wave a red flag at a raging bull next time,” he
retorted, nipping her ear and filling his hand with her breast. Her
perfume wafted through his head with more power than a drug, and her
softness begged to be squeezed.

“I’m a city girl. Teach me about raging bulls,” she whispered against his mouth.

He did, claiming her as he’d wanted to long ago. Desperate
for the ease of oblivion, TJ immersed both body and soul in a woman—or
in the promise of the girl he’d once trusted.

***

Mara hadn’t thought anyone could ease the hunger in her,
hadn’t realized how starved she was until TJ filled her. Still
insatiable, she clawed at his back, wrapped her legs around his waist,
and bucked like a mindless animal. He tore open the scars on her psyche
and flooded the open wounds, healing and soothing. Her womb ached with
need, and she wept when they finally found a second release.

She didn’t want him to leave her again, physically, emotionally, or in any other way.

He would though, and probably not as gently as he pulled
away now. The air-conditioned chill crossing her skin as he withdrew his
warmth reminded her that they had nothing more between them than sweaty
bodies.

But at least she’d had that much, she thought in
satisfaction as TJ rolled off and lifted her to rest on the rounded
muscle of his shoulder. She—Patsy Simonetti—had driven the
self-contained Tim McCloud out of control. She squirmed to a more
comfortable position, and tried to believe that was enough.

Damn the man for reducing her to the lonely child she’d
once been. She refused to become that needy child ever again. He hadn’t
come back to rescue her all those years ago, and she wouldn’t count on
him helping her out now.

She punched TJ’s hard abs and rolled back to the pillow to stare at the ceiling.

“I don’t think I can talk right now,” he muttered, with eyes closed. “Can you save that thought until morning?”

Morning. She could have him again in the morning. Crossing
her leg over his so he couldn’t slip away, Mara nodded. He was probably
already asleep and couldn’t see her nod. That was okay too. He meant to
stay the night. The long string of lonely nights that were her past had
been broken.

The riot of emotions welling up inside terrified her.

***

A large male body occupying three-quarters of Mara’s
queen-size bed presented several dilemmas the next morning. The most
immediate was that of a daunting obstacle between her and the supersize
aspirins in her nightstand drawer.

Bright Carolina sunshine poured in the windows—she’d not
closed the shutters last night. She would definitely start drinking
tonic water at those damned cocktail parties from now on.

Rather than crawl over that wide expanse of muscled flesh,
she supposed she could crawl around the bed, but at the moment, she
couldn’t even open her eyes. Stupid of her, insisting on a room
overlooking the harbor. She hadn’t grasped that she was on the East
Coast, and the sun came
up
over the water—at disconcertingly early hours.

She lifted one eyelid to admire the hurdle blocking access
to relief. TJ slept on his back, and bronzed, hard shoulders covered
her lace-bedecked pillows. She sighed in admiration and closed her eye
again. She could endure a headache with all that masculinity a
hairbreadth away.

It amazed her that she could still feel the ache of
desire. Once a week had been more than enough with her ex-husbands. Not
once had it occurred to her to instigate their occasional couplings, but
she was definitely considering running her fingers through TJ’s chest
hairs right now. She didn’t know if it was possible—or even wise—to
satiate a need this strong. She might be in danger of addiction.

TJ resolved her dilemma by rolling onto his side and
trapping her legs beneath a heavy thigh. His erection hardened against
her hip, and Mara smiled in pleasure without opening her eyes again.

“I’m out of condoms,” he muttered against her hair. “Shove me out of bed now.”

The hungry desperation in his voice thrilled her to the marrow.

“What do you think I am, a weightlifter?” She snuggled closer.

He crushed her breast in his big hand, and her nipple rose
to scrape his palm. Desire seeped directly from her breast to the place
between her legs. She squirmed restlessly, thinking she’d better move
now or regret the consequences later.

Too late. She’d teased the tiger. TJ angled his body over
hers, covered her mouth with a mind-bending kiss, and settled in to
caress her until she demanded more. With the same urgency as she felt,
he parted her thighs, and slid home.

She wept with the startling force of the need sweeping
through them. Never had she known it could be like this. She might as
well have tried to tame a hurricane as to stop what was happening to
her, to him, to both of them. She’d never dreamed such insanity existed,
but she reveled in it, let him sweep her up in it, and became part of
the maelstrom as much as a leaf driven by the wind.

His primitive shout of triumph erupted in her ears like as
they reached the heights together. Mara dug her fingernails into his
powerful shoulders, arched to take all of him, and climaxed as he poured
himself into her.

This was how it should be. This was what the love stories
in movies promised. Hollywood had been a disappointing illusion until
now.

Aware of his heaviness, TJ rolled back to the mattress,
wrapping her in his arms to keep their connection. Mara sprawled across
his torso, conscious of the heat of his skin, the perspiration sealing
their flesh, the way his heart beat next to hers.

“I wonder what our lives would have been like if we’d done
this back then instead of just thinking about it?” she murmured
sleepily.

Every muscle in TJ’s body stiffened beneath her. “If we hadn’t thought about it, Brad would be alive right now.”

He tumbled her back to the bed and climbed out, heading straight for the shower.

Well, so much for reminiscing. Mara covered her eyes with
her arm. The ugly memory of that night would haunt them for the rest of
their lives. No wonder he’d never looked for her after her family moved
away.

While she was lying here vibrating with life, her
beautiful, honorable older brother lay cold in the ground, never having
lived to fulfill the promise of his genius.

She’d wept those tears long ago. She wouldn’t do it any
more. She might carry the guilt forever, but she couldn’t stop living
just because Brad had. She’d had counseling and had chosen to live life
to its fullest, rather than burying herself in grief.

She wondered about TJ, though. Macho men didn’t “do”
counseling. Had he buried himself in his work to assuage his pain? It
was too much for her pounding head to analyze. She just knew he was
leaving her far sooner than she liked.

TJ emerged from the bathroom tugging his shirt over the
rippling muscles of shoulders and chest, and she experienced a pang of
regret wondering if she’d ever see him that way again.

He stopped beside the bed and gazed down at her
dispassionately, which meant nothing at all. TJ had dispassionate down
to a science. Only she knew the chaos roaring behind the mask. She’d
tapped into it last night. She didn’t know if she had the strength—or
the courage—to do so again.

“I’ll look for another assistant to speed up the job,” he
said calmly. “I wish it could be easier, but once I’ve uncovered
everything in the mound, I’ll move out.”

“How long will that take?” she demanded, not bothering to
draw the sheet over her breasts to hide her lack in that department. Sid
had wanted her to have implants, but she’d never been brave enough or
stupid enough to risk them. Padding and push-up bras worked well enough
for clothes. She was tired of disguising her faults. If TJ didn’t like
what he saw, screw him.

His gaze lingered a little too long on what she left
uncovered to believe he wasn’t interested. Her nipples rose to inviting
peaks.

“Two months, if I don’t come up for air,” he replied doggedly, tearing his gaze away to meet her eyes.

“I can’t wait two months!” Mara shot up from the pillow,
carrying the sheet with her. No more free rides for the monster. She
needed that beach, and she needed it now.

“Your pirates will have to sail in.” He picked up his jacket and walked out.

Mara screamed and heaved her travel alarm after him. She
followed it with a martini glass and a guidebook—none of which shattered
sufficiently to match the devastation in her heart as he smashed her
foolish dreams all over again.

Choking on sobs of fury, she stumbled out of bed,
determined to overcome still one more male obstacle thrown in her way.
She had lots of experience in circumventing stone walls. Sometimes,
that’s all that kept her going each day.

***

TJ debated driving straight home, but this was Monday, and
if he meant to hire an assistant, he’d have to drag out his address
book and begin making inquiries. The address book was in his office.