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She made a frustrated noise in her throat. “Why do you always have to be such a gentleman about everything?”
“’Cause I like to irritate you,” he said easily.
She flipped back to face the wall. As he was about to snap out more witticisms, her shoulders started shaking.
“Hey,” he called. “Are you crying?”
“No,” she hissed, followed by a wrenching sob.
“Aw, honey, please don’t cry. If it’ll make you feel better, you can call my mother and yell at her for teaching me manners. Either way, I’m not sleeping in the bed unless you do.”
This pronouncement was greeted with a flurry of sobbing. Every ounce of temper drained away.
Obviously, his manners weren’t as well practiced as he’d bragged, and he’d been too worked up to remember arguing and prickliness were Cia’s way of deflecting the comfort she sorely needed but refused to ask for.
He scuttled forward and cursed the binding sheet and sandpaper carpet impeding his progress, but finally he wormed close enough to gather her in his arms. “Shh. It’s okay.”
She stiffened as the war going on inside her spread out to encompass her whole body. Then, all at once, she surrendered, melting into a puddle of soft, sexy woman against him, nestling her head on his shoulder and settling her very nice backside tight against his instantly firm front side.
Hell on a horse. He’d only been trying to get her to stop crying. He honestly expected her to kick him away. The sheet chafed against his bare erection, spearing his lower half with white-hot splinters. He sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. It didn’t help.
Prickly Cia he could resist all day long. Vulnerable Cia got under his skin.
Her trim body was racked with sobs against his, yet he was busy trying to figure out what she had on under that pile of sheets. Moron.
He shut his eyes and pulled her tighter into his arms, where she could sob to her heart’s content for as long as it took. His arousal ached every time he moved, but he stroked her hair and kept stroking until she fell still a million excruciating years later.
“Sorry.” She sniffed into the sudden silence. “I’m just so tired.”
He kept stroking her hair in case the torrent wasn’t over. And because he liked the feel of its dark glossiness. “That wasn’t tired. That was distraught.”
“Yeah.” A long sigh pushed her chest against his forearm. “But I’m tired, too. So tired I can’t pretend I hate it when you calm me down. I don’t know what’s worse, the day I had or having to admit you’ve got the touch.”
His hand froze, dark strands of her hair still threaded through his fingers. “What’s so bad about letting me make you feel better?”
She twisted out of his arms and impaled him with the evil eye. “I hate being weak. I hate you seeing my weaknesses. I hate—”
“Not being able to do everything all by yourself,” he finished and propped his head up with a hand since she was no longer curled in his arms. “You hate not being a superhero. I get it. Lie down now and take a deep breath. Tell me what tall building you weren’t able to leap today, the one that made you cry.”
Her constant inner battle played out over her face. She fought everything, even herself. No wonder she was tired.
With a shuddery sigh, she lay on the pillow, facing him, and light from the TV highlighted her delicate cheekbones. Such a paradox, the delicacy outside veiling the core of steel inside. Something hitched in his chest.
Oh, yeah. This strong woman hated falling. But he liked being the only one she would let catch her.
“One of the women at the shelter …” she began and then faltered. Threading their fingers together, he silently encouraged her to go on. A couple of breaths later, she did. “Pamela. She went back to her husband. That bastard broke her arm when he shoved her against a wall. And she went back to him. I tried to talk her out of it. For hours. Courtney talked to her, too. Nothing we said mattered.”
He vaguely recalled Courtney was Cia’s friend and also her partner in the new shelter. A psychologist. “You can’t save everyone.”
She pulled their fingers apart. “I’m not trying to save everyone. Just Pamela. I work with these women every day, instilling confidence. Helping them see they can be self-sufficient …” Her voice cracked.
She looked at this as failure—as her failure. Because these women, and what she hoped to accomplish with them, meant something, and she believed in both. It went way past fulfilling her mother’s wishes. Her commitment was awe inspiring.
The line between her eyes reappeared. “She threw it all out to go back to a man who abused her. He might kill her next time. What could possibly be worth that?”
“Hope,” he said, knowing his little psych minor couldn’t see past her hang-ups. “Hope people can change. Hope it might be different this time.”
“But why? She has to know it’s got a one hundred percent certainty of ending badly.”
“Honey, I hate to rain on your parade, but people naturally seek companionship. We aren’t meant to be alone, despite all your insistence to the contrary. This Pamela needs to hope the person she chose to marry is redeemable so they can get on with their lives together. Without hope, she has nothing.”
Hair spilled into her face when she shook her head. “That’s not true. She has herself, the only person she can truly rely on. The only person who can make sure she’s taken care of.”
“Are you talking about Pamela or Cia?”
“Don’t go thinking you’re smart for shoving a mirror in my face. It’s true for both of us, and I’ve never had any illusions about my beliefs, particularly in relation to men.”
“Illusions, no. Blind spots, yes.” He ventured a little closer. “You’re so black-and-white. You saw the trust clause and assumed your grandfather intended to manipulate you into a marriage where you’d be dominated by a man. You said it yourself. He wants you to be taken care of. Allowing someone to take care of you isn’t weakness.”
Her mouth tightened. “I can take care of myself. I have money, I have the ability to—”
“Darlin’, there’s more to being cared for than money.” He swept a lock of hair off her shoulder and used the proximity as an excuse to run his hand across her silky skin again. “You have physical needs, too.”
“Oh, my God. You do indeed have a gift. How in the world did you manage to drop sex into this conversation?”
He grinned in spite of the somber tone of their illuminating conversation. “Hey, I didn’t say anything about sex. That was you. I was talking about holding you while you cry. But if you want to talk about sex, I could find some room in my schedule. Maybe start with telling me the most sensitive place on your body. Keep in mind, I’ll want to test it, so be honest.”
She smacked him on the arm without any real heat. “You’re unbelievable. I’m not having sex with you simply because we’ve been forced into sharing a room.”
Touching him on purpose. Would wonders never cease? He caught her gaze. “Then do it because you want to.”
Her frame bristled from crown to toe, and the sheet slipped down a few tantalizing inches. “I don’t want to, Wheeler! You think you’re God’s gift to women and it never occurs to you some of us are immune to all your charm and … and—” her hungry gaze skittered over his chest, which he had not hidden under a sheet mummy-style, like she had “—sexiness. Stop trying to add another notch to your bedpost.”
Could she have protested any more passionately? “Okay.”
“Okay?” One eye narrowed and skewered him. “Just like that, you’re giving up?”
“That was not an okay of concession. It was an okay, it’s time to change the subject. Roll over.”
“What? Why?”
A growl rumbled through his chest. “Because I said so. You need to relax or you’ll never go to sleep. If you don’t go to sleep, you’ll keep arguing with me, and then I won’t sleep. I’m just going to massage your shoulders. So shut up and do it.”
Warily, she rolled, and he peeled the sheet from her as she spun, resettling it at her waist. Tank top with spaghetti straps. Not the sexiest of nightclothes, but when he lifted the dark curtain of hair away from her neck, the wide swath of bare skin from the middle of her back up to her hairline pleaded for his touch.
So he indulged.
First, he traced the ridges of her spine with his fingertips, imprinting the textures against his skin. Once he reached her neck, he went for her collarbone, following it around to the front and back again.
She felt amazing.
He wanted more of her naked flesh under his fingers. Under his body. Shifting against his skin, surrounding him with a hot paradox of hard and soft.
The stupid floor blocked his reach, so he settled for running his fingers over her exposed arm, trying to gauge whether she’d notice if he slipped the tank top strap off her shoulder.
“What, exactly, are you doing?” She half rolled to face him. “This is the least relaxing massage I’ve ever had.”
“Really?” he asked nonchalantly and guided her back into place. No way was he missing a second of unchecked access to Cia. “Someone who’s immune to my charms should have no problem relaxing while I’m impersonally rubbing her shoulders.”
“Hmpf.” She flipped back to face the wall. Must not hate it too much.
He let the grin spread wide and kneaded her neck muscles. “Darlin’, there’s no sin in enjoying it when someone touches you.”
She snorted but choked on it as his hand slid up the inside of her arm again and a stray finger stroked her breast. He needed the tank top gone and that breast cupped in his palm.
“There is the way you do it,” she rasped.
“You know,” he said, closing the gap between them, spooning her heated back to murmur in her ear, a millimeter from taking the smooth lobe into his mouth. “I don’t for a moment believe I’m God’s gift to women. Women are God’s gift to man. The female form is the most wonderful sight on earth. The beautiful design of your throat, for example.”
He dragged his mouth away from her ear and ran his lips down the column of her neck. “I could live here for a decade and never completely discover all the things I love about it,” he said, mouthing the words against her skin.
He was so hard and so ready to sink into her, his teeth hurt.
Her head fell back onto his shoulder, her eyes closed and her lashes fluttered, fully exposing the area under discussion. Her sweet little body arched in wanton invitation, spreading against his. He wanted to dive in, find Dulciana’s gorgeous, gooey center and feast on it.
This visceral attraction would be satisfied, here and now.
“Lucas,” she breathed, and his erection pulsed. “Lucas, we can’t. You have to stop.”
“Why?” He slid a hand under her tank top, fanning his palm out on her flat stomach and working it north. Slowly. Familiarizing his fingertips with velvety skin. “And if you use that smart mouth to lie to me again about your lack of interest, I will find something better to do with it.”
“I doubt even I could pull off that lie anymore,” she said wryly.
The admission was so sweet, he couldn’t help it.
He found her lips and consumed them, kissing her with every bit of frustrated, pent-up longing. And God Almighty, her lips parted just enough, and he pushed his tongue into her mouth, tasting her, reveling in the hot slide of flesh.
For a few magnificent seconds she tasted him back, triggering a hard coil of lust.
But then she ripped her lips away, mumbling, “No more,” as his thumb brushed the underside of her breast.
She bowed up with a gasp, and his erection tingled. She was so responsive, like it had been ages since she’d … He pulled his hand free and gripped her chin to peer into her eyes. “Hold up a sec. You’re not a virgin, are you?”
That would explain a few things.
He let his fingers fall away as she sat up. “My past experience is not the issue. We agreed to keep this business only.”
No. No more of this endless circling. Business only disappeared eons ago, and she knew it as well as he did.
“Why are you here, in my bedroom? You could have easily moved your stuff and still slept in your room. But you didn’t. Your signals are so mixed up, you’ve even confused yourself. Talk to me, honey. No more pretending. Why the roadblocks, when it’s obvious we both want this?”
She crossed her arms and clamped her mouth shut. But then she said, “I don’t like being some big challenge. If I give in, you win. Then off you go to your cave to beat your chest and crow over your prize.”
“Give in?” He shook his head to clear it. They should both be naked and using their mouths on each other. Not talking. “You better believe you challenge me. Something fierce, too, I’ll admit. You challenge me to be better than I ever thought I could be, to rise to the occasion and go deep so I can keep up. I dig that seven ways to Sunday. Feel what you do to me, Cia.”
Her eyes went liquid as he flattened her hand over his thundering heart, and when the muscle under her cool palm flexed, she curled her fingers as if trying to capture his response. She weaved closer, drawn by invisible threads into his space.
“You’re so incredibly intelligent,” he continued, fighting to keep from dragging her against him and sinking in like he ached to do. She had to choose this on her own. “How have you not figured out that gives you all the power? I’m just a poor, pathetic man who wants to worship at the altar of the goddess.”
She hesitated, indecision and longing stamped all over her face. Whatever stopped her from jumping in—and it wasn’t dislike of being a challenge—drove the battle inside of her to a fever pitch. She spent way too much energy thinking instead of feeling and way too much time buried in shadows.
And here he was trying to help her fix that, if she’d lay down that stubborn for a minute.
“You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met, and I like that about you,” he said. “We both know strings aren’t part of the deal. This is about one thing only. Sex. Fantastic, feel-good, uncomplicated sex. Nobody gets hurt. Everyone has fun. Sounds perfect for an independent woman with a divorce on the horizon, doesn’t it?”
“Seducing me with logic. Devious.”
“But effective.”
The curve of her lips set off a tremor in his gut. “It’s getting there.”
Hallelujah. He threw his last-ditch inside straight on the table. “Then listen close. Let me take care of you. Physically. You give to your women till it hurts. Take for once. Let me make you feel good. Let me help you forget the rest of the world for a while. Use me, I insist. Do I benefit from it, too? Absolutely. That’s what makes for a great partnership.”
He’d laid the foundation for a new, mutually beneficial agreement. The next move had to be hers. She needed to be in control of her fate, and he needed to know she could never accuse him of talking her into it.
“Now, darlin’, the floor sucks. I’m going to get in that nice, comfortable bed over there and if you want to spend the next few hours being thoroughly pleasured, join me. If not, don’t. You make the choice.”
Eight (#ulink_3091e82a-e8ca-560a-abe6-3ae6357e81e2)
Choice.
Instead of seducing her, Lucas had given her a choice. And with that single empowering act, Cia’s uncertainty disappeared.
They were partners—equals—and he’d done nothing but respect that, and respect her, from the very beginning. He got her in ways she’d only begun to realize. Domination was not part of his makeup, and all he wanted from her was to join him in taking pleasure from sex, the way he took pleasure from every aspect of life.
She longed to indulge in the foreign concept, to seize what she wanted—Lucas.
To let his talents wash away all the doubt and frustration and disappointment about Pamela and help Cia forget everything except how he made her feel. He’d stripped the complexity from the equation and, suddenly, sex didn’t mean she’d lose something.
The only way Lucas Wheeler could take a chunk of her soul when he left was if she gave it to him. She wouldn’t. Simple as making a choice. Who knew the secret to avoiding emotional evisceration was to lay out divorce terms first?
She stood and crossed the carpet with sure steps until her knees hit the side of the bed. Lucas lounged against a pillow, watching her, sheet pulled up to midtorso, bisecting the trio of intriguing tribal circles tattooed along the left edge of his ribs.
His eyes were on fire.
He was so gorgeous, and he was all hers for the night. As many nights as she chose, apparently. A shiver shimmied up her back, part anticipation and part nerves.
“You want to know what tipped the scales?” she asked, arms crossed so it wasn’t obvious her hands were shaking.
