In For the Kill (McClouds & Friends #11)(46)

“Oh, God.” She covered her face. “Sam. Don’t.”

“Shit,” he muttered. “Forget I said it. Shutting up now. Crisis averted. Give me the bathroom for a few. I need to wash.”

She stared out at the surf, unsoothed. He emerged a few minutes later, clad in a towel and a cloud of steam. “Your turn,” he said.

When she finished her shower, he was still there, fully dressed and seated on the bare mattress. “Sorry I’m still in your face,” he said. “I know you could use some time alone, but you have to go down first. So they all know I haven’t done anything unspeakable to you.”

She snorted as she pulled items out of the drawer and threw them on. Underwear, jeans, a fresh tee, a sweater. She ran her fingers through her damp hair, checked her pale face in the mirror. “I’m ready.”

“No bra?” He sounded scandalized. “You can’t go down like that!”

“Get out,” she scoffed. “I’m small, and I have a big, baggy sweater. No one could ever tell that I’m not wearing a—”

He dragged her toward him and wrapped his arms around her.

“I can tell,” he announced. “I feel every detail of those tight, suckable, rose-tinted tits. My own nipples are hard now. They’re saying hi to yours. Mmmm. Hello.”

She dissolved in nervous giggles, wiggling in his grip as he rubbed his chest against hers. “You’re being silly!”

Sam just hung on, staring into her eyes. She realized, abruptly, that a fight as frivolous as this one was a waste of her precious energy.

She sighed out the tension. “All right. I’ll put on a bra, if it makes you happy.” She waited. “If you let go of me long enough to do it.”

His arms dropped. He stepped back.

She grabbed the first thing she found in the drawer, and was chagrined to find that it was a sexy, peach-toned lace balcony confection. Tam had given it to her for Christmas some time ago, as a joke, and a nudge. She fastened the clasp and propped her boobs to the appropriate height. Which was to say, jacked up and in your face.

She adjusted her clothes and turned to him. “Better?”

The hot sparkle in his eye made her hairs rise in a shivery ripple, up her back, to the nape of her neck. He turned her to face the mirror and cupped her breasts, circling his fingertips.

She caught her breath as her nipples went stiff.

“A little bit better,” he conceded. “The lace doesn’t provide much coverage, though. I feel every last detail of your nipple hard-on.”

“My nipple hard-on is entirely your fault to begin with,” she said primly. “And you’re being primeval.”

“It’s your fault,” he told her. “I was cool, before, and then you come along in that red dress and I turned into a Stone Age maniac.”

“I didn’t wear a bra with that red dress,” she pointed out. “At all.”

“I was intensely aware of that fact,” Sam replied. “And I’m sure I wasn’t the only one.”

“There was nothing inappropriate about that dress! Did you see what the Venus Ensemble wore? Mine was nothing in comparison!”

“Who knows? I wasn’t staring at their tits. Just at yours.” He rubbed his cheek against her hair. “Tell me something, Sveti. In what universe could you be with me? What impossible things would have to be true before you could say yes to anything other than my dick?”

She tried to pull away. “Oh, Sam, please don’t. Do we have to?”

“Yes, we do.” His eyes demanded the truth.

The halting words hurt her throat as they came out. “The past would have to be different,” she said. “I would have to be different. I couldn’t be me. Who I am, with my history. My bad, weird shit. It won’t let me rest. But it’s not your fault, Sam. It’s not about you, not at all.”

“That’s not much of a comfort,” he said.

“I know,” she said fervently. “I’m sorry.”

He nuzzled her ear. “I wouldn’t want you any different than you are,” he said. “Nothing. Not by a hair.”

She jerked away from him. “We, ah, should go downstairs now.”

He stepped back, his hands flexing and clenching. “Yeah, right.”

She grabbed the tablet that lay on the dresser and marched out the door ahead of him. Roiling inside, with conflicting feelings.

So he didn’t want her any different? Hah. He didn’t know what the f*ck he was talking about. She wanted to laugh, snarl, slap him for his presumption. Like he had any right to say that, when she wanted so badly to be the heroine of a different story, with another ending.

Anything other than what she was.





CHAPTER 10

A long, punishing internal monologue ran through his mind as he followed her through the house. Keep a few respectful steps behind your lady fair. Don’t presume. Eyes down.

God, what an *. He never learned. Offering his sword like a samurai warrior, when all she wanted from him was what dangled between his legs.

Sveti walked like she did everything. Graceful, no wasted movement, down to business. She wanted her sex like that, too. Just jump astride her chosen mount, ride til she was done, then waft away.

It didn’t matter. She could want what she wanted, and so could he, but the sex had its own agenda. It was not fun, or playful. It was like being sacrificed to the god of fire, stabbed by holy lightning, flung into the heart of the sun and being reduced to smoke and ash. It was a massive, painful shift in consciousness, every damn time. And after only two nights of it, he was totally strung out on that wild intensity.