Page 55 of Drop Dead Gorgeous

I had to stop at a traffic light, my left blinker on, and wait for oncoming traffic to pass. When I turned left, so did three other vehicles. But I immediately turned left again into the service station parking lot, cut across, and went back into the street from which we’d turned off, except going back the way I’d come. Anyone following me would have to do the same thing or lose me, and, well, that would be noticeable.

No one followed. Breathing easier, I drove to where Wyatt was waiting for me.

We went home—to his house—after that.

The minute I drove into his garage, exhaustion overtook me. I’d had maybe two hours’ sleep last night, and I doubted Wyatt had gotten any more than that, plus both of us had burned a lot of adrenaline. I went to the table, scribbledIf you don’t mind, call Mom and Dad, bring them up to speed. I’m going to take a shower.

He nodded, and stood watching me as I stumbled toward the stairs. At the top, automatically I turned toward the master bedroom, where I had slept with him so many times. I was actually in the master bath before I realized my error and reversed my steps down the hall to what I now thought of as “my” bathroom. After taking a quick shower, brushing my teeth, moisturizing—the usual stuff—I pulled on his robe and wrapped it around me, almost literally, before tying the belt as tightly as I could so it would stay snug. Man, I hoped there were sheets on the bed in the guest room, because if there weren’t I didn’t have the energy to make the bed and I’d just have to sleep on the bedspread.

Except he was waiting for me when I left the bathroom, patiently leaning against the opposite wall. He wore only a pair of navy blue boxer briefs, and he smelled of soap and water, telling me his shower had been even quicker than mine, but then he didn’t moisturize so in a way it wasn’t a fair comparison.

I immediately held up my hand, which he simply took and used to pull me into him. Before I knew it, he’d lifted me in his arms and was carrying me to the master bedroom.

“You’re not sleeping alone,” he said sharply when I thumped his shoulder with my fist and pushed at him. “Not tonight. You’ll have a nightmare.”

He was probably right about that, but I’m an adult, I can handle a nightmare alone. On the other hand, I believe in making things easy on myself. I stopped thumping and let him put me on the big king bed.

He pulled on one end of the belt and the damn thing came untied. Robes…you just can’t trust them. I was naked beneath it, which was no big surprise; like I’d have been wearing it if I’d had any pajamas there? He pulled it off me and tossed it aside, then stripped down his shorts and stepped out of them. Despite my conviction that we shouldn’t have sex until we had settled all of our issues, despite how tired I was, despite the fact that I was still mad at him about locking me in the squad car—okay, so I wasn’t nearly as mad as I had been—naked, he was mouthwateringly delicious, all broad-shouldered and muscled and nicely hung.

When he slid into bed, it was all I could do to stop myself from instinctively turning into his arms. He yawned, and stretched out one brawny arm to turn off the lamp, plunging the room into darkness. Hurriedly I pulled the covers over me, because he’d followed his usual practice of turning the air-conditioning down low enough to form permafrost on living tissue. Snuggled under the blanket, his body heat already spreading through the bed to warm me, I turned on my side and slept.

He was right about the nightmares. My subconscious always dealt with bad situations for me, which is a handy thing for a subconscious to do. Most of the time I didn’t have real nightmares, just vivid, sort of upsetting dreams, but that night it was a real nightmare.

There was no big mystery to figure out, no symbolism, just a straightforward reenactment of my terror. I was caught in a fire, and I couldn’t find the way out. I tried to hold my breath but the oily black smoke slid into my nose, my mouth, into my throat and lungs, and its suffocating weight pressed down on me. I couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe, and the heat kept getting more and more intense until I knew this was it, the flames were about to reach me, and then I would burn—

“Blair, shhh, I have you. It’s okay. Wake up.”

He did have me, I blearily realized. I was in his arms, cradled against his warm body, the specter of fire fading into unreality. The lamp spilled its mellow light over the bedroom.

I relaxed with a sigh, feeling safe for the first time in days. “I’m okay,” I whispered. A second later realization hit, and I blinked at him. “I whispered!”

“So I heard.” His mouth curved in a smile. “Quiet time is over, I guess. I’ll get you some water; you were coughing a little.”

Disentangling from both the covers and me, he went into the bathroom and came back with a glass of water, which I sipped cautiously. Yep, swallowing still hurt some. After a few sips I handed the glass back to him and he drained it to the bottom on his way back to the bathroom.

Then he came back to bed, grasped my hips, and pulled me to the edge of the mattress, onto his outthrust erection.

Chapter

Twenty-four

Igasped, my entire body jolted by the hard intrusion. He pulled me up and reversed our positions, sitting on the edge of the mattress with me astride him, his arms supporting me as I arched back in sheer, overwhelming pleasure.

“Remember that Tantric sex you wanted to try?” he murmured, his voice low and dark. “I checked it out. No moving…how long do you think you can go without moving?” He lifted my torso up to meet his mouth, sucking hard at both my nipples, pulling them into erect peaks before moving on, kissing his way up my chest and then clamping his mouth to the side of my neck.

Maybe it was because we hadn’t made love in over a week; maybe it was because death had come close to separating us forever. Thewhydidn’t really matter, not when the sensations of our joined bodies and his mouth on my neck were surging through me. I don’t particularly like having my breasts touched; it’s either boring, or painful. But something about what he’d just done, that single hard, pulling suction on each nipple, made my whole body tingle. And my neck…oh, God, my neck…kissing me there always made fireworks go off behind my eyelids.

“Do you think I can make you come by kissing your neck?” he whispered, before taking a small bite just where my neck joined my shoulder, and flicking his tongue rapidly against the captured flesh. My throat was too raw for me to scream but I could moan, almost, the sound not much more than a broken whimper. My body flexed under the surge of intense pleasure, my hips arching inward to take more of his penis inside me.

He released the grip of his teeth on my neck, his breath feathering along the wetness as he said, “Uh uh, no moving. We have to be still.”

Was he crazy? My God, how could I possibly be still? But the idea tantalized and tempted. Feeling him like this was incredibly erotic. No thrusting, no rushing headlong into climax, just this…his body hard and warm against me, his penis a hard, solid presence pushing up into me, the fluidity of my body around him. I could feel his heartbeat thundering against my breasts, my own pulse beating through me. I wondered if he could feel my pulse from inside me, if his cock was surrounded and stroked by the beat of my blood.

My head drooped on his shoulder and I panted against his warm, damp skin. Instinctively I turned my head and lightly bit the side of his neck, just as he had done to me, and felt the answering throb of his penis. He groaned, a harsh sound in the quiet room.

Thoughts swam through my mind, things I hadn’t considered earlier when I’d been listing my immediate needs. My birth control pills had gone up in flames that morning. There was little or no chance of pregnancy right now, I knew that; my body needed to return to my natural cycle first. But the act suddenly seemed fraught with possibilities, with both power and vulnerability. My body felt oddly lush, magically female. I wanted to have his baby, wanted everything our bodies promised.

I dug my nails into his shoulders, lifted my mouth enough to bite his earlobe. “No birth control pills,” I whispered into his ear, the words not much more than a breath.

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