French Silk(141)

"No I won't."

"Yes, yes you will."

"Shh."

He massaged his way down her back and unhooked her bra. Claire moaned when his hands slipped beneath the lace-trimmed cups. He palmed her breasts, reshaping them with gentle squeezes. Then he caressed the nipples with his fingertips until they were stiff and distended. His mouth moved to the other side of her neck and took tender love bites.

"Cassidy, don't. I don't want to be a blot on your conscience. This isn't right. You know it. Please stop."

Her pleas sounded weak and insincere even to her own ears, and when his hand slid down her belly and into her panties, she stopped making them altogether. She could lie to him, but her body couldn't. At her center, she was creamy and warm.

He pushed down her underpants; she stepped out of them. He unfastened his trousers and moved closer to her, until she felt the firm pressure of his sex. When he sent it deep into her wet, silky heat, their sighs of gratification harmonized.

Bracing herself against the porcelain sink, Claire was able to meet his slow, deep thrusts. He took her hips between his strong hands and drew her against the warm fuzziness of his middle. Then splaying his hand over her abdomen, he held her motionless in place. She used her interior walls like a tight fist to squeeze him. He grimaced in ecstasy and turned his face into her neck.

"Oh, Jesus," he groaned. "I could never get too deep inside you."

Claire tilted her head and ground it against his. "Cassidy." He reached around and laid his fingertips against her parted lips, then covered them with his hand. She kissed his palm, sponged the pads of his fingers with her tongue, sank her teeth into the fleshy base of his thumb. His thrusts grew faster, more urgent, animalistically possessive. Claire's passions, too, rose to a feverish pitch. She couldn't contain the cry she uttered when he slid his hand from her tummy to between her thighs and fondled the swollen, sensitive hood of her sex, which he so amply filled. At his stroking touch, a current of electricity shot through her body. It radiated through her thighs, and she clenched them tightly. It shimmied up through her belly and into her breasts and concentrated in their tight centers.

Cassidy folded both arms around her waist and leaned over her until she was bent over the sink and his chest was resting on her back. She was totally surrounded by, filled with, immersed in him. The glory of it made her heart soar. With a joyful sob, she submitted to a burst of love and fulfillment. When the hot rush of his climax filled her, she turned her head and captured his mouth in a deep, long, searching kiss that was seasoned with her tears.

* * *

"You didn't have to say that you love me," Claire whispered as she threaded her fingers through his hair. It had been neglected and needed a trim. She liked it better this way, shaggy and unmanageable. "I would have succumbed to your charms anyway," she teased.

"I told you because that's the way it is." He adjusted his leg more comfortably against hers beneath the bed sheet. "I started falling in love with you from the minute I met you. Or maybe it was when you blew those damn bubbles at me from that vial you were wearing around your neck. It was symbolic and suggestive and erotic as hell."

"I didn't intend it to be."

"No? Maybe it was the way you held your mouth." He ran his finger over her lips, smiling wistfully, before his expression turned bleak. "Every time Crowder accused me of letting my feelings for you get in the way of my investigation, I denied it. But he's right." He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. "I didn't want the killer to be you, Claire."

She burrowed her face in his chest hair. "I don't want to talk about it. Please. Let's talk about something else, something that ordinary lovers talk about."

"We aren't ordinary, Claire."

"But for an hour, let's pretend we are. This is Nawlins, where anything's possible. So let's make-believe that we met under normal circumstances. We were instantly attracted to each other. We've made love but are still in that magical getting-acquainted stage." She propped herself on her elbows and gazed down at him. "Tell me what hurt you so badly."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't insult my intelligence, Cassidy. There's something very painful in your past. I recognize the symptoms. What hurt you? What made you angry and determined to do well at all costs? Was it your wife? The divorce?"

"No. That was amicable. I didn't love her." He rubbed a strand of her hair between his fingers. "Not like I love you."

"You're changing the subject."

"I'm trying."

"It won't work. I'm as persistent as you."

He sighed with exasperation. "It doesn't make very good pillow talk, Claire."

"But I want to know."

"Why?"

"Because I've got so little time with you," she cried impatiently, all joking aside. Softening her tone, she added, "I want to make the most of it. You're the last lover I'll ever have, Cassidy. I want to know all I can about you. It's important to me."

His eyes stayed linked with hers for a suspended moment before he said, "You'll be sorry you insisted." She shook her head. Following a brief hesitation, he related the painful story he had recently told Tony Crowder.

Claire said nothing, giving him time to tell it in his own way. When he finished, he said, "Know where they found the bastard? Playing pool and drinking beer with his buddies. He'd left an eleven-year-old girl raped and murdered in a dry creekbed, and he was out partying with friends. He didn't fear arrest. He didn't think anything could touch him. I helped make him that arrogant."