T is for Temptation (32 page)

She kissed the tip of his finger and took it between pearl teeth.

From tenderness to raging hard in less than two seconds, he stifled a groan.

“How about you? Are you okay?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Her breath smelled of chocolate.

“Jake?”

“Mmmm?”

“How does it work?”

“You touch me, and I’m hard.” Busy nibbling on her ear, all defenses shattered, he dragged one of her small hands to his cock.

“Sometimes, all it takes is the smell of you, especially here.” Jake touched his tongue to the sensitive hollow of her throat, where her pulse throbbed.

“Stop. Please. I want to say something.”

She planned to break it off. Panic lit him.

“No, no talking. It’s been three days.”

“If you still want me to, I’ll move in.”

A dinosaur stomped on his chest. Nothing worked—words, thoughts, breathing. Nothing. Jake closed his eyes, and his mind played the words. Thank you God, thank you God, thank you God.

One hot palm traced the length of him, and the caveman in him, the one who roared victorious licentiousness, rioted. “I bought a house.”

Jake trailed his hands under her skirts, up her thighs, and found her sex bare, moist, heated.

“I’m going to explode the minute I’m inside you.”

“I’ve been dreaming about the way you feel inside me,” she murmured. “Please? Now?”

She fumbled with his pants and he helped, freeing an erection so rampant, it twitched and jerked. She stroked him, and he caught her hands.

“No, don’t. Too ready.”

Mouth open, he possessed hers, hands bunching her skirt up to her waist. Rubbing his cock against her bare pelvis, her hot mound, he cupped her bottom cheeks, and thrust into her tight sheath, instant orgasm threatening. Lifting his head, he panted, and gripped her hips when she wriggled under him.

“Stay still. Don’t,” he paused, and stared at her, his mouth curving as her eyes glazed over, and her inner muscles contracted around his cock, wringing and releasing. He growled, “You’re coming, my sweet witch, you’re coming.”

A breast brushed his cheeks, and like a nursing babe, he nuzzled for it and drew the whole tip in, tongue rapacious, cock voracious as she milked him, clenching and covetous muscles wringing his hardness.

Angling her hips, he drove deeper and hit a spot that squeezed an
oh my
from her swollen lips, and he kissed her. Sliding his tongue in and out, accelerating his stroking rhythm, as her hands clutched at his waist, and she arched to meet him thrust for thrust.

“Oh me—uh my,” she mewled.

He nabbed a pillow and shoved it under her firm, muscled rump.

“Another,” he coaxed. “One more.”

One arm coiled around her waist, the other reached between Tee’s leg’s, and he rubbed soft circles, relishing the honeyed cream drenching his fingers, the scent of her musky arousal filling his nostrils

“Oooooh mmmmy.” Her high-pitched squeal commanded his mouth, breaking it into a dizzy, foolish grin. Pre-orgasmic oblivion chased thought away, his pounding penetration the sole focus of life. Driving in and out of her heat over and over, until his testicles tightened, and sperm burst from his cock in burning spurts. Somewhere in the back of his mind as he collapsed, Jake counted another
oh my
.

“Oh my,” she whispered and kissed his shoulder.

Unable to speak, he cupped her chin and brushed his lips over one eyebrow. When breathing no longer required effort, he rose onto his forearms and examined her face. Flushed cheeks, reddened mouth, the amber in her eyes glowing satisfaction, and a lick of prideful, swaggering machoness slapped him into adolescent territory.

“Four,” he said.

“Pardon me?”

“I like those too, but the
oh my’s
, those are the clinchers.”

Every inch of her exposed flesh pinkened, and he liked that too, he realized. What not to like about an exotic witchy woman who’d agreed to move in with him? The thought prompted another. What
 
had changed her mind?

“I’m almost afraid to ask.” Her eyelids fluttered. “Four?”

“When you climax, you squeal, ‘oh my.’ Four, this time.”

“I do? Oh…my,” she whispered. “I do, don’t I? Oh, how embarrassing.”

“Sexy, hot, anything like that. Never embarrassing, nothing that happens in our bed is embarrassing. Deal?”

“Deal.”

“You’re blushing again.” Unbidden, his finger trailed the color as it deepened. “If you don’t like the house, we can shop around for another one. I imagine you’ll want to fix it up, decorate it, so we can live in my condo until it’s ready.”

She shuttered her eyes and shifted under him.

“Unless you have other ideas?”

The anxious silence pervaded his sated brain.

“Tee?”

“I’m sure your house will be more than adequate.”

“What’s wrong? Why are you lapsing into your polite cocktail conversation mode?”

“Pardon me?”

Ouch. Fire blazed in the amber, and those luscious lips tightened. He stared at her angled chin, and realized his tempestuous and temperamental Tee’s mood had done an about-flip.

“It’s your house, your responsibility. You bought it. You can decorate it.”

His thickening erection waned.

“Forget the house. This isn’t about the house. What’s bugging you?”

“Nothing. You got what you wanted. I’m going to move in with you.”

“I got what I wanted? It isn’t what you want?”

Damn it, why pursue the issue? He had gotten what he wanted, but blast, she should want it too, be as eager as him. All women liked decorating, spending money.

“I’ll provide the funds, if that’s what’s bothering you. I don’t care how much you spend.”

“No,” she said and shook her head. “I can’t do it. I was wrong to agree to it. It’s never going to work.”

A roar in the hallway drowned the rest of her words.

“Jake, Tee. Break it up. You have two minutes to get decent, and then I’m coming in.”

“This isn’t finished,” Jake gritted, his thoughts splintering from the blow her words delivered.

Complete, strained quiet ruled their rushed dressing. Her temper vanished, replaced by a sad, defeated slumping of shoulders, and she looked about to cry.

Before he opened the door, Jake surrendered and gathered her into his arm, cradling her chin. “Don’t cry.”

He thumbed her tremulous mouth. “I can’t fix things unless you tell me what’s wrong, Tee. Tell me.”

Her swimming brown eyes met his.

“I’m never teary. I hate it. I feel pulled every which way with all these changes. You’re asking me to move to another country, to leave everything that’s familiar.”

“Blast. I didn’t think of it from that viewpoint. Tell you what—let’s not make any decisions now. Let’s agree to find a way to be together and figure out our options. I can fly down on weekends until we decide. Deal?”

“That assumes we’ll find a way back.”

“We agreed on that too, remember?”

She nodded.

Alex burst into the room, followed by Tiny.

“We’ve a crisis looming.”

“Wonderful.”

“It seems your parents are on their way to Brodick.”

“And?” A muscle under Jake’s eye twitched.

“As in a messenger appeared with a note. They could arrive at any moment. We have to do something.” Alex’s cobalt gaze shifted to Tiny. “Disappear, Green Giant. The laird and I have legal issues to discuss.”

Grazing a thumb over his chin, the giant’s scrutiny swept the three of them, and his aqua eyes seemed to hold a question.

“What, Tiny?”

“’Tis perplexing, the lack of joy to see your mother and da after these many years.”

“My lack of joy relates directly to the fact that eight men and two armies are trying to force me to marry some woman I’ve never seen.”

“Tell him the rest of the good news, Green Giant.”

“What do you mean, forcing you to marry?” Tee latched on to that pronto.

“Nothing.”

“Handfasting.”

“Tomorrow evening.”

“Who’s telling the truth?” she demanded, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“I am.”

“I’ve seen the way you tell the truth, Jake. You take a thread of it and weave it in the direction you want. Alex, is something happening tomorrow?”

A wash of pink stained high cheekbones, and Alex rocked on his heels and dug his hands into deep pockets. “Uh-uh, you’re not putting me on the spot.”

“Tiny, would you mind giving us some privacy?”

“I’ll wait in the hall. Raise your voice, lass, and I’ll be here.”

“Thank you Tiny, but I won’t need you.” Tee wore a pasted smile as she shrugged out of Jake’s embrace.

As soon as the door closed, Tee folded her arms across her chest, tapped one foot, and said, “Spill it. Everything.”

“His fiancée’s father intends to handfast Jake and his daughter tomorrow.”

Her face paled, and her knees seemed to give way as she collapsed against the wall. “There’s a good side to this, I guess. Handfasting isn’t legal unless it’s consummated, and if I remember correctly, if you don’t, it’s dissolved.”

The warning look Jake shot Alex made him close his opening lips.

“You said there was more?”

“Oh yeah, apparently that duke remark didn’t go unnoticed. Everyone thinks I’m this Undefeated Knight. A sense of humor doesn’t seem to be appreciated in this century.”

“What the hell did you do?”

“Bluffed.”

“You started a fight?”

“No such thing,” Alex said, tone affronted, his complexion acquiring a rosy tint.

Jake groaned.

“Merely accepted obnoxious challenges.”

“Wonderful, you blasted brain-dead lawyer. Thinking with your prick again. Blast, it’s amazing you survived this long.”

“You challenged Tiny to a fight?” The question came out as a wail, and Tee slapped her hands on her hipbones. “Don’t we have damned enough on our plate?”

He had the grace to blush and even averted his eyes. “Actually, it’s all seven of the Ramsay brothers. No Tiny.”

“Hell, Alex, are you insane?”

“It’s done now. Does improving skill sets count as part of your powers, sweetheart?”

“I don’t think so,” Tee answered, as tiny creases formed between her eyebrows.