“See something you like?” Jace turned his head, lids hooded.
She shrugged. “I've seen better.”
He rolled over and crossed his arms behind his head; his triceps pulling tight like rubber bands. The top button on his jeans was undone. A thin line of pale blonde hair beginning at his chest disappeared there. “Oh yeah? On skinny old Jimmy Ray? He wasn't exactly a muscle man.”
“I don't know. His muscles didn't matter.” She did her best to paste on a nonchalant look and pretend not to let on that Jace's flat, bare belly made her tingle in private places. “I'm not into jocks.”
“What are you into then? Drug dealers with earrings and lotsa tattoos?” His grin went wicked. “Or cons who swear they're innocent?”
Yeah, I'm into you, brickhead
. She wanted to scream it at him, but shrugged again. “I like guys who aren't afraid to be different. Who think for themselves.”
He snorted. “Sure. I bet every guy you ever brought home was a perfect little clone of ole Daddy. Nice little college boys who only wanted to do the right thing. Bet you never even spoke to anybody Daddy wouldn't approve of before you got tangled up with Jimmy Ray.”
Why was he pressing her? The truth was he hit too close to home for comfort. She hadn't dated much, and the boys she had gone out with had been safe. Even Candy's crowd had been under her spell. Jimmy Ray had been her one mistake. She'd underestimated him. All the others had been easy to control. “Why do you care?”
“I don't.” He placed one foot on the other knee.
She pretended not to notice how the action pulled the denim jeans tight over his bulging crotch. “Then quit talking about this.”
He grinned wickedly. “Why? You're the one who's started it.”
Frustrated, she snapped her mouth shut. She wasn't going to win this battle.
“Wanna finish it?” His smile disappeared and the look in his eyes made her blood run fast, and her knees shake.
“What if I said yes?”
“I'd say you were trying to piss off your old man.” The teasing was gone from his voice. He sounded bitter, mean. “I'd say you wanted to use me to get even.”
“Then you're a bigger idiot than I thought you were.” A wave of humiliation washed over her. She'd told him the truth in a moment of weakness and he threw it back in her face like a used hankie. She turned away to hide her embarrassment.
“Lindy.” His voice slipped across her skin like a velvet robe.
Her back to him, she halted.
She didn't hear him move, but in the blink of an eye he stood at her back, his palms on her shoulders. The heat seared her and she flinched away from it. “What?”
“Wait.” His word floated across her ears and she shivered.
“Why?” she managed. Every inch of her was on edge, ready to explode in every direction. The tiniest thing could shatter her. She stiffened her body in preparation for his next assault. He turned her around, gentler than she expected. The pupils dominated his dark blue eyes. She couldn't look away. It was if she stared into a magic glass reflecting her future. Desperately, she tried to read the message hidden there.
“I could stand being used by you.”
Not the prettiest apology ever, but it would do. She slugged him in the stomach as hard as she could, but he didn't even flinch. “Don't say that again.”
“Okay.” The expression on his face frightened her, the look in his eye changed to one of something she'd never seen before. Her breath caught in her throat and she backed up until her spine was pressed against the doorjamb. With nowhere to run, she lifted her chin. She touched her dry lips with her tongue. What had she done? There was no going back this time.
Slowly, like a lion stalking its prey, he moved in for the kill. Cupping the back of her neck with his hand, he brought her mouth to his. He tasted her lips with a gentleness that surprised her. With tiny nibbles at the corner of her mouth he teased until she opened her lips and their tongues met in a tentative touch. Slowly at first, they tasted each other. Unclenching her fists, Lindy touched the flat, sculpted plane of his chest. Under her seeking hands his skin was warm; a light path of soft hair tickled her fingers.
He deepened the kiss.
Lindy drank in the sensation of his tongue and passion-warmed skin. She moved closer, mashing her hands between them. He allowed her to explore his chest, and she longed to search every inch of him. Her breasts, pressed into him, ached for attention. A damp heat beaded between her thighs and she instinctively spread her legs so that his jean-clad erection pushed against her belly.
He took his mouth from hers and brushed it across her forehead. “Do you want me?”
Yes! Yes!
She couldn't have spoken then if the whole world waited. Instead, she nodded her head.
He tipped her chin up and their eyes met. “Say it.”
She tried to look away, but he held her chin fast. “I ⦠I want you.”
“There's no one here, but you and me,” he said. “Not your daddy or Jimmy Ray or anybody else.”
“What are you saying?” She stared into his fathomless blue eyes. “I know what I'm doing.”
He loosened his grip, but held her still. “You have to be ready. I can't deal with it if this is just one of your games to piss off your daddy.”
He thought she used sex as a weapon. Why wouldn't he? He hadn't seen any evidence otherwise. She took a deep breath as heat burned up her cheeks. “I have to tell you something. I ⦠well ⦠um ⦠have waited. For the right time, with the right person.”
He dropped her chin like it burned him. “What?”
She felt a hot flush burn over her cheeks. Didn't he get that she was a virgin? “Come on. Don't make me spell it out. I'm saying I haven't slept around.”
“Why now? Why me?” He reversed a step. If she hadn't been half offended, she would've laughed.
“I think you know the answer to that.” She followed him so that their thighs touched.
He gave his head a quick shake and stepped away again so that the back of his knees bumped into the bed. “No. You don't want me.”
“Yes.” She stepped forward and touched his chest with one pink-polished nail. “You.” She couldn't explain the reason she wanted only him. Weren't there animals that mated for life? She was like them; she'd instinctively chosen her partner. No way was she letting him get away.
“I can't.” He sounded like he was drowning. Sweat misted his chest.
What was this? Every other guy she'd had to fight off tooth and nail, and now the one she wanted was saying no? Had prison turned him on to men or something? She frowned. “I don't understand.”
He looked wildly for a way around her, but she stood between him and the door. “You don't get it.”
“No, I don't. A minute ago you were hot and heavy. Now you're ⦠” She let the sentence drop. She wanted to crawl under the bed and hide from embarrassment. “I'm chasing you around like a dog after a bone.”
“Just let it go.” He sounded desperate. He looked over her shoulder and she wondered if he was going to jump over her or something.
“What's wrong?” Her embarrassment turned to anger. What had she done to turn him off so suddenly? Maybe she shouldn't have told him she hadn't gone all the way before. Apparently she should've just gone along and pretended to be an old pro. She wasn't naïve. She knew what a man and a woman did in bed together. But it was important for some reason that he know he was the first. “Why won't you tell me?”
“I don't know how to make love to a ⦠virgin.” His face blazed bright, deep red. “Happy now?”
Lindy stopped dead. He couldn't have shocked her more if he had hit her in the face. “What? Are you joking? Haven't you done it before?”
“Yes,” he ground out between clenched teeth, “I've been with a woman. And no, not any men if you're wondering. I didn't turn in prison. I haven't been with anyone who hasn't had a lot of experience.”
“That's good,” she said calmly. “So we figure it out together. That's what people who lov ⦠want to be together do.”
“I don't want to hurt you.” His hand cupped her face and she leaned into it for a moment. “You deserve better. Someone who will be around ⦠”
“There's nothing you can do to me that would hurt me.” She turned her face and kissed his palm. “Except not make love to me right now.”
She gave him a gentle shove that pushed him backward onto the bed. She landed on top of him, laughing. Her laughter faded at the look of desire on his face. A shiver of delight rocked her. This man was the one. The only one she'd ever wanted. Bending forward, she kissed him.
He wrapped his arms around her with a muffled groan.
Suddenly, all of Lindy's bravado fled.
She couldn't believe she'd been so bold as to tell this man she wanted to sleep with him. Straddling him, all she had to do was roll off and flee. His hands gripped her waist, although she knew he would let her go in an instant. But something held her still. She looked into Jace's eyes and delicious shivers rocked her body. This is where she wanted to be.
Leaning forward, she touched his lips with hers. The gentle kiss lasted only a second before she sat up and studied him. His eyes were closed, his lips parted slightly. Her hands roamed across his bare chest. Slipping her palms across his flat, brown nipples and the light trail of blonde hair trailing down the middle of his chest, she reveled in the sensation. His body, so different from hers, fascinated her.
His chest rose and fell faster, but his hands stayed motionless at her waist as she toured his bare upper half. Like a masseuse she gripped his shoulders, skimming her fingertips down his muscled arms until their hands met and intertwined at her middle. A kind of frustration was building in her. She longed for him to touch her, too. Her nipples pushed against the soft cotton T-shirt she wore and wet heat pooled between her legs. With a gentle tug, she guided his hands under the hem of her shirt, and then dropped them.
Her breath came in short, heavy rushes as his fingers splayed out over her ribs. And stopped. Stealing a glance at his face, she was surprised to find his dark eyes on her, a slight smile on his lips. As she stared, caught in his gaze, he removed his hands from her ribs and caught the back of her head with his palms bringing her down to kiss him again.
This time the kiss wasn't soft or short.
His mouth tore at hers like a starving animal. His tongue plunged in and out of her mouth like a preview of what his body would do with hers. Twist for turn, move for move, they met, retreated; their mouths arcing together like a current. Lindy felt his hands in her hair, holding her to him. Even if she could have, she wouldn't have pulled away. Her body needed to have him inside her, now, and she reached for the waistline of his jeans, her fingers curling around the denim material.
With a quick, seamless move, he rolled over, turning Lindy under him. Their mouths still locked in battle, he released her head and tugged the hem of her gray tee up over her belly and breasts, leaving it pooled under her arms and chin. Leaving go of her mouth, he moved to her right breast and breathed across her sores, now scabbed. His warm breath seemed to heal her. The sensation of him taking her nipple in his mouth was so remarkable she cried out and dug her nails into his belly.
“Did I hurt you?” Tenderly, he kissed the swell of her breast, where she was uninjured.
“No.” It was all she could manage.
Somehow he fit his hands between them and slid her denim shorts over her thighs and legs and feet. With trembling fingers she unsnapped his Levi's. Then he took over, removing them himself. Only a tiny scrap of material â a lace thong â stood between them becoming one. Lindy curled her fingers around the edge of the lace and froze as his hand skimmed over hers.
So many sensations were bulleting through her, she couldn't begin to think. Breathing was an effort. His wonderful mouth, tugging at her breast, was making her arch her back. When his finger slid under the lace, across her soaked center, she nearly screamed. Instead, she bit him on the shoulder. His finger slipping inside her made her crazy ⦠mad with a need she'd never had before. Her body began to pulsate, wanting something ⦠more.
No one had ever been this far with her and no one else ever would. No matter what happened after this, she was with the man she wanted. Unaware how tightly she had been stretching the satin strap, she gasped when it snapped. She tasted a metallic, rust-like sensation in her mouth, and pulling back a fraction, she noticed she had drawn blood on his shoulder. Guilt grabbed her and she smoothed her palm over the bruised spot. Leaving it, she moved her hand over his back, to his hip, smearing a trace of blood as she went.
Taking her hand with his, he guided it to his penis. With uncertain movements she circled him with a quaking hand. When he took a harsh indrawn breath, she nearly released him. But if her hand on him felt as good as his did on her, she had to be doing something right. She stroked his soft, yet hard body and he moaned. She did it again. And smiled when he shuddered.
Shifting so that he was again poised over her, he looked into her eyes. His upper lip and brow were misted with a fine sheen of sweat and his arms holding him above her, shook. His erection pressed against the damp blonde curls between her legs. But he didn't enter her.
Her hands fell to her sides. “Jace?”
“You've got to be sure.” He sounded like he could barely force the words out. The muscles in his neck corded like an athlete's. “It's not too late to stop.”
“I don't want you to stop.” Lindy moved her hips, instinctively trying to induce him to enter her. “Don't make me beg. Please?”
He closed his eyes and thrust into her.
Unprepared, Lindy screamed.
He froze.
A pain so intense it seared her insides threatened to tear her apart. Desperate for him to stop, she writhed and pushed at his chest. Tears ran down her cheeks. She tossed her head from side to side. “Can't.”