Edge of Midnight (McClouds & Friends #4)(67)

“I’m sorry you’re so offended.” His voice was clipped. “I thought you’d be glad to know that all the nasty shit I said wasn’t true.”

“Oh. Yeah. That.” She shook with painful, ironic laughter. “Like, the pool you had going with the construction crew? Did you invent that right off the top of your head? Like, how bored you were at the prospect of deflowering me?” She grabbed the phone, dialed for an outside line.

He yanked the receiver out of her hand. “Who the f*ck do you think you’re calling?” he snarled.

“A cab,” she shot back. “I’m out of here. I’ve had enough of this.”

He slammed the phone back, and shoved her down onto the bed. “I did what I did because I loved you. Does that count for anything?”

She shivered, staring into his fierce gaze. “If that’s what it means to be loved by you, I don’t know if I can survive it,” she whispered.

He shook with tension. “No. You promised you wouldn’t go cold on me. I hold you to that goddamn promise. You owe me that much.”

It was an impossible demand. He couldn’t hold her to that stupid promise. Feelings were feelings. Anger was anger. The past could not be changed. “What are you trying to accomplish by squishing me flat?” She demanded, struggling to keep her voice from shaking. “Using sexual intimidation to bully me into not being angry?”

“Sexual intimidation is as good a plan as any I can think up,” he said. “Would it work? I’ll do anything that works.”

The blaze of predatory energy from him took away what little nerve she had left. She shook her head. “Won’t work,” she whispered.

“Let’s see.” He pushed her thighs apart, fitting himself to her tender opening, and shoved himself deep inside her. “Does this work?”

She turned her crumpled, tear-blurred face away, but her body answered to his, helplessly, instinctively. Opening, yielding, rocking.

“It sure feels like it’s working,” he muttered, against her ear.

She shook her head against the crumpled wad of sheet. She would have screamed, but her throat vibrated too hard. The charge was already building, stoked by his hard, pounding rhythm. The molten eruption burst through her, wrenching jolts of dark pleasure.

Her lungs couldn’t expand, she realized, when she could think again. The solid weight of him was collapsed across her body.

She shoved at him. “Air,” she croaked. “Can’t breathe.”

He rolled off. The air was cool on her body, where the sweat had glued them together. She struggled up, reached between her legs.

Whoa. Holy crap. She was a lake. They hadn’t used a condom.

Or, to be fair, he hadn’t. She hadn’t had a thing to say about it.

Sean shot her an uneasy glance. His eyes slid away. “I didn’t mean to do that. I never…f*ck.” He sounded almost bewildered.

Liv slid off the bed, struggling to remember how long it had been. She’d gone without sex for so long, she’d stopped paying attention to her cycle. She was somewhere smack in the middle. Right in the danger zone. Great. Another element of uncertainty to jazz up her life.

She felt big hands behind her, hoisting her up to her feet. He swept her up, which made her squeak with alarm, but he held her against his hard, sinewy chest as easily as if she were a child. He set her down on the tub, grabbed the detachable showerhead and set the water running. He pushed her legs apart, lathered her up. Apologizing with his hands. She stared at the top of his head, relaxing into the soothing, tender caresses. “I don’t know what to think,” she said. “Fifteen years of nothing. Then my life falls to pieces, and you come out of the woodwork, and get all intense about me. I don’t know what to feel.”

“Me neither.” He blotted her dry with the last remaining hand towel. “I think I got imprinted by you, or something. You know, how some dogs bond with one person, and that’s it? No one else will do?”

She snorted. “Um, yes, you do have many doglike qualities.”

“What?” He grinned. “Loyalty? Steadfastness? Selfless courage?”

Yes, and yes. “I don’t think you’re imprinted, though,” she said crisply. “I think you made do just fine.”

“Because I slept with other women?” His voice hardened, and his hands stopped moving. “Do you think for one instant that what’s happening between us is not important to me? It rocks my world.”

“I’m not on the pill,” she blurted. “I could get pregnant.”

He kissed her hands. “For some reason, that doesn’t scare me.”

She pried her hands away and covered her face with them. “Don’t say stupid things like that. It’s irresponsible. It messes with my head.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “You turn my brain into mush, you know.”

“Oh, my. How gratifying to have such a powerful effect on a man. Don’t you think the timing is bad? On the run from a bloodthirsty murderer while urping with morning sickness. Cool.”

“We can talk about it more rationally if we eat something,” he said. “Anyway, there’s that morning-after pill, too. But you’re wiped out. You need fuel.”

The first bite that hit her mouth made her gasp with delight. It was just a honey-nut granola bar, but it tasted like heaven. So did the crackers with peanut butter, the oily sardines, the can of warm Coke. They sat cross-legged on the bed together and went at it like wolves.