Page 15 of Something Has To Give

He started laughing again, but not because he was amused. He sat up, rolling over, his palm itching even before he saw the bump of her bottom rounding up under the blankets and thrusting back at him. She lay on her side too, stubbornly facing the door, knees drawn up in preparation for another night spent in sleep-off battlefield. The urge to give her a smack was barely resistible.

“You have exactly two seconds to give back half of those blankets,” he said instead.

She snorted. “Or what?”

“Or I’m coming in there after them.” His belly heated at the thought. Languid need like molten ribbons twined around and around in his guts, stroking at his cock from the inside until all he could feel was the steady throb growing with every second shehesitated. When she rolled over to stab him with that narrow-eyed suspicious glare, he felt such a surge of desire that it could only be described as crazy. He didn’t even like her (but she was growing on him) and she certainly didn’t like him (maybe he was growing on her too). Definitelysomethingwas growing between them and it couldn’t just be his cock.

“What the hell does that—” she started, but he didn’t let her finish.

Grabbing the blankets, with one strong yank, Quint ripped her out of her swaddling cocoon. She actually flipped over, bounced flat on the mattress, her nightshirt riding up to reveal that sexy strip of white panty rounding the curves of her bottom before flowing down between her legs. Like a red cape flashed before a red-blooded bull, that tiny scrap of white inflamed him like nothing else could. Like nothing else had. Not in a very, very long time.

He wanted her. It wasn’t in his best interest. Hell, it could only work against him, but he wanted her.

And that kinda pissed him off, really. She had to know what she was doing to him. She had to be doing it deliberately, manipulating him every way she could just to keep this damn house. His blood burned; his cock wasn’t listening to reason. It was all he could do right now not to fall on top of her, catch her sassy lips beneath his and just consume her.

Would she wrap her arms and her legs—those long, soft legs—around him and kiss him back with all the same passion and hunger that was raging inside him now, or would she tell him to go to hell? Oh, the urge to find out.

“Hey!” she snarled, and sat up so close and so fast she almost cracked her forehead into his. In the pale glow of the moonlight, he could see the anger on her face, but damn if that didn’t make her even more kissable. He wavered, wanting so badly just to taste her.

“Someone ought to teach you a lesson,” he growled. “Women who crawl into bed with strange men deserve what they get.”

“Men who do the same deserve to get neutered,” she shot back, incapable of backing down. Her whole small, soft body was trembling now, just inches away from his. When she breathed in deeply, her breasts rose like a challenge and, in the pale moonlight, his eyes locked on the peak and shadow of her nipples tenting the front of her nightshirt. “You think you can scare me—!”

She yelped. It was all she had time to do. That and to throw up her fists, bracing them against his shoulders when that last tenuous thread of self-control snapped under the sight of those come-hither peaks and Quint closed the distance between them. He kissed her so fiercely, wanting to scare her (yeah, right), send her running away from him (like hell), out of his bed and maybe even out of the house all together. She tasted so good, just like a spitfire ought to, her hot little mouth all full of sass and squeak and freshly brushed teeth that likely would have sunk into his bottom lip if he hadn’t jerked back then every bit as brusquely as he’d charged in to kiss her.

“You son of a bitch!” she gasped, staring at him with those huge, shocked eyes. “What the hell do you thi—”

He kissed her again, noting (in the small part of his brain that was not completely scrambled by her) not how she stiffened up like a length of lumber, but how her tightly-clenched fists flexed against his shoulders, flashing open before snapping closed again. She didn’t push him away. She didn’t even try, and she didn’t bite him either. Her soft breath was a trembling hitch that caught on her next gasp and the sound intoxicated him. He felt drunk on her kisses, his head spinning, his pulse racing, and the next thing he knew, he had her flat on her back with the plump heat of one burning breast filling up his palm and the searing brand of her panty-clad hips pressed right up against his. Shedidn’t just open her legs, she wrapped them around him. Her tiny, punch-capable, linebacker fists didn’t just soften, but they clutched at him, gripping at his shoulders to pull him closer. And her mouth, that sassy, mewling, gasping little taste of paradise wasn’t just meeting his kisses—it was kissing him back. Chasing him with wanton, hungry abandon and groaning, first with loss and then with renewed urgency, when he tore his lips from hers and abruptly dropped to lick and kiss and taste his way down to the bountiful feast of her breasts.

He captured one peak right through her nightshirt, tormenting mercilessly with his teeth and tongue just to hear her groan again. And that moment when her hips began to rock up against him, twitching and rolling with escalating need, set his blood on fire. The pressure of his swollen cock was beyond need, it was unbearable.

Condom. Where the hell were the condoms? He rose only far enough to rip open the drawer of the night stand and shoved wildly through the contents until he found—thank God—one. He came up with that individually packaged, pre-lubricated, ribbed for her pleasure and cherry-flavored prize as if it were the single greatest discovery of all mankind. Then they were hip to hip and chest to chest, and he was tearing the condom wrapper open with his teeth while she pulled at him with her hands to hurry. Her small white teeth bit and chewed at her bottom lip and her dark eyes had turned dazed and smoky with desire.

“Do you want me inside you?” he asked, husky and raw. It was a wonder he could even speak at all. Everything felt too tight right now, and every second he spent not inside her was a second spent in the most agonizing anticipation of correcting that monumental oversight.

“Yes,” she breathed, her voice every bit as lust-filled as her eyes.

He had the condom wrapper open and, as his helicopter buddies liked to say, all operating systems were a definite “go”, but it was then, as he lay staring down at her beautifully willing face, that something stopped him. A tiny kernel of conscience, a smidgen of doubt, a whisper of suspicion that crawled up into his throat and refused to be swallowed before he asked, “Is it me you want, or are you doing this because you think it’ll get you the house?”

At first, Elsie didn’t seem to hear him. She blinked twice, her gaze rising up from his chest to fix and focus on him. “Wh-what?”

That was his answer right there. She wanted him. She was totally absorbed by him and by her need for him. He grinned. Yeah, now systems were a total go.

He swooped down to capture her mouth again, to tease and lick and nibble both of them back into a state of complete mindlessness once again, but her hands suddenly braced against his chest, blocking him before his lips could reach hers.

Her eyes were no longer dazed. Somewhere in the mahogany depths, they were still smoky with desire, but they were also flashing with anger once again. “What?” she said again, glaring now. “You think I’m going to whore myself out for your house?”

He frowned. “I didn’t say that.”

“The hell you didn’t.” Shoving at his chest and bucking upward with all her might, Elsie heaved him off her. She scrambled from the bed, swiping at her lips as if she could scrub the taste and feel of him off her.

“Now, wait a minute—” He tried to go after her, but already she had slammed out of the bedroom and was storming off down the hall. “Elsie…Elsie, wait…”

“Keep your damn lips to yourself!” she bellowed back. Throwing herself into the bathroom, she slammed that door too, and then locked it.

Quint swore, violently at first and then, as the full realization of what he’d done began to weave with the lust still pounding inside him, softer. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he scrubbed his fingers back through his hair. If it were possible to screw things up even worse, at the moment, he couldn’t think of how.

Chapter Seven

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