A Demon in Waiting (Crimson Romance) (9 page)

She looked at Hitch then, and he gave her an encouraging grin. He seemed to be enjoying the half of the conversation he could hear.

She smiled and gave him a little wave.

“When you arriving?” Momma asked.

“Saturday, I hope. Two days. I want to spend Sunday recuperating before dragging my sorry ass into the agency on Monday for orientation, so cross your fingers.”

“I’ll say a prayer.”

“That’ll work. I’ll pick up some pie stuff on the way to the coast.”

“What kind?”

“I’ll surprise ya.”

She disconnected and felt better for the short conversation. She knew Momma would sleep well, too.

“Sounds like you two have a great relationship,” Hitch said. Now he was propped up on his elbows, laying on his belly, watching her.

“Yeah. I’m her only grandchild, so, I imagine there’d be some possessiveness there.”

“Only one. Wow.” He sat up. “My mother has thirteen, no …
fourteen
kids. Forgot about the baby. If I tried to tally up how many grandkids Gramma Margo has, I’d probably run out of numbers.”

“Nice exaggeration.”

He shrugged. “Think about it. Exponential propagation. Like guppies or bunnies.”

She crooked an eyebrow up at him and leaned her butt against the table edge. “You find propagation distasteful?”

That made him chuckle. “If you’re fishing for information, sweetpea, come straight out and ask.”

Fair enough. “Do you want kids?”

His thumb hovered over the remote control’s power button for moments as if he were meditating on the red target, then he mashed it. “I change my mind from day to day. I think, though, I see myself having one or two. What I can’t see is being in a stable enough situation to be responsible about it.”

“Rolling stone, huh?”

He shrugged. “I guess I am.”

At least he was honest, she figured.

“What about you, Ariel? You seem suited to maternity.”

She rolled her eyes. “Goodnight, Hitch.”

“What?” he laughed. “I’m serious. You’ve got an infectious happiness about you that little kids should get to be around.”

“Maybe I’ll moonlight as a preschool teacher.”

“You don’t see yourself playing mommy?”

She turned her back and strode to the bedroom. “I try not to think about it,” she mumbled.

This time, when she slipped beneath the covers, Hitch lingered in the doorway.

“Do you need an invitation?” she asked before closing her eyes.

“Yeah.”

“Seriously?”

“I don’t want to overstep my bounds.”

She sighed.
This guy kidding me?
“Hitch, turn off the light in there and come help yourself to half the bed. You can think about hot Belgian waffles until you fall asleep.”

“Waffles?”

“Mm-hmm. They’re why I plan to spend half an hour on the treadmill tomorrow morning. I’m going to slather so much syrup on those … ”

When Ariel opened her eyes again, the room was very dark and very quiet. The only noises were the whir of the air conditioner and Hitch’s gentle breathing on the other side of the bed. He had his back turned to her and the gulf between them was so large, Moses could have led the Israelites through it.

She reached to the nightstand and angled the digital clock toward her face. Four. She’d planned to get up at six, but maybe this way, she could get her half hour of cardio in and have a nice, long soak in the tub, just like Momma prescribed. By the time Hitch got up, they could have a hot breakfast and hit the road.

She scoffed. It was funny that she’d started including him in all her plans as if it were a sure thing. Maybe he was ready to bounce by now. There was only so much of her one man could take, and he’d been with her pretty much non-stop for two days. That would grate on anyone.

She sat up and pulled the covers back.

Hitch stirred.

She froze.

“What are you doin’? Didn’t hear the alarm.”

“I was going down to the gym. Get a run in.”

He rolled onto his back and stretched his arms over his head, yawning. “Are you some kind of fanatic, Ariel?”

“No, I feel guilty if I don’t try to make up for my bad food decisions.”

“If you’re desperate to exercise, I can help you out.”

“How so? Gonna take off in my car and make me chase you?”

“Ha ha. No driver’s license, remember? Come here.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and dragged her toward the bed’s center. “I hear kissing burns calories.”

“You really want to kiss me after watching me eat half a junk pizza last night?”

“Why wouldn’t I want to?”

“I … ”

“What?”

Her shoulders sagged. “Look, Hitch, the last guy I was involved with wasn’t great with the intimacy stuff. So maybe I’m not good at feeling sexy.”

“Are you kidding me?” He sat up and rested his chin atop her shoulder, tightening his hold on her waist.

Her body felt as if it were unfolding to the sun like a flower — his energy transferring to her, waking her up, tearing down her walls. She didn’t understand it, but she liked it. She closed her eyes and pulled in a deep breath.

“You’re incredibly sexy. You’re sexy without having to try. And smart, too. I like that a lot.” He gave her ponytail a playful little yank.

“And yet you haven’t once tried to get into my shorts this evening.”

His hold on her tensed momentarily, then relaxed. “I didn’t want you to feel taken advantage of.”

“Why would I feel that way?”

“Because I’m a bummy hitchhiker who owns just enough stuff to pack into one knapsack.”

“I’m pretty sure I could have evicted you from this little adventure a lot of miles ago if I were ready to get rid of you.”

“So, what are you saying?”

“I want to make love, but I wanted you to initiate it. I don’t want to feel like I’ve corrupted you by taking your virginity.”

He tensed again, but before she could question him on it, he let go of her and crawled around so he was facing her front.

“You corrupting
me
?”

“It’s true. You were probably going to save yourself for marriage.”

“In the world I came from, for me? There wasn’t going to be any marriage, so where would that have put me? Eternal virginity?”

“That’d be a damned shame.” She hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but it was just as well.

“So why not you, Ariel? You’re not going to break me.”

“You sure about that?”

“Why don’t you try and see?”

There was a bit of challenge in his voice, and it was one she was more than willing to answer. She pulled her legs under her body and sat back on her heels. Her eyes had adjusted a bit in the dim light so she could see his shadowed face, his gaze locked on hers watching and waiting.

“I think it’d be easier for me if … you were the aggressor here.”

“Are we playing submission games, Ariel?”

“What would you know about submission, Hitch?”

“Enough to know that if I took over this ride, you’d completely zone out. I don’t want you to zone out. I want you present.”

“I will be.”

“Easy to promise.”

She sucked in a breath as his thumbs found her nipples and flicked at them through her thin shirt.

“Why don’t you turn on the light?”

She didn’t want to turn on the light. She wanted to hide out in the dark and make ugly faces while working up to her Big O. Still, it was his first roll in the hay, so it was the least she could do. She tapped on the light.

When she’d crawled back to the center of the bed, Hitch was peeling his undershirt off. She watched him expose the sinewy planes of his belly, his firm chest, and broad shoulders, and more as he tossed his shirt over the bed’s edge.

She couldn’t wait. She pressed her hands against his chest and just felt him. Solid and warm and
present
.

He didn’t have his hands darting from here to there all over her. He just sat there, watching her. Letting her connect. Waiting for a cue, probably.

She gave him one. She leaned in close and teased her lips over his.

“You smell wonderful,” he whispered.

“You like that?”

“It’s nice. Kinda fruity. I like it a lot more than the floral stuff everyone back home uses. I think every woman at the compound uses the same bottle. Must get it in bulk size.”

“That doesn’t sound stimulating.” She dragged her tongue across the crease between his lips.

“It’s not. Think about it. Every girl smelling like your mother?” He reciprocated, touching the tip of her tongue with his, then slowly, carefully claiming more real estate in her mouth.

His hands grazed the skin of her waist beneath her shirt, slowly gliding up until they met her breasts.

Her body tensed in anticipation, but he kept her lingering there on the edge. It was like he’d put a key in an ignition, but hadn’t turned it yet. She began to feel a bit dizzy between the work of his talented tongue and her mounting arousal. Where did all the blood in her head go?

He drew back and fisted her shirt’s bottom in his hands. “The women there. They all start to blur together over time. Look the same.”

She lifted her arms as he eased the shirt over her head.

“Smell the same.” He tossed it on the floor toward his own discarded shirt and pressed his nose into the crook of her neck. He took a deep inhale as his hands found her breasts and cupped them.

“Act the same.”

When his thumbs flicked at her nipples this time, she reared up onto her knees and sank her fingers into his muscular back.

“They don’t think for themselves.” He dipped his head and pulled one aching nipple between his teeth.

Right at that moment, she felt like she wasn’t very good at thinking
herself
. She shuddered and arched her body toward him.

“I think you’re putting me on a pedestal I don’t belong on,” she said as his teeth grazed her other nipple.

Strong arms wrapped around her and gently lowered her to the bed. He kissed down her neck, visited her breasts with his tongue for a while, then dragged his tongue lower, lower, and stopped at the elastic of her shorts. He hooked his fingers in and eased them down in one swoop along with her panties, which weren’t anything special to start with. If she’d known she’d be entertaining company, she would have packed a few pairs of underwear that hadn’t come out of a five-for-eight-dollars pack.

His tongue was back, now laving her most erogenous spot with a skill a virgin shouldn’t have had. Or perhaps virgins were more thorough when it came to things that weren’t quite sex?

She didn’t have any plans to research that.

“You belong on a pedestal, Ariel. The tallest one they make.”

She panted as he spread her further and dipped his fingers into her eager sex. “Flattery will get you everywhere, Hitch.”

He paused, and rolled those sea blue eyes up to hers. “My name is John. John Marshall Tate. Can you remember that?”

Remember it? Why wouldn’t she? She let her face show her confusion.

“Because that’s the name I want to hear you calling out. Got that, Ariel?”

Oh.

He wanted to take it back. Every single bit of it. The part where she’d ripped open a glow-in-the-dark condom and rolled it onto his aching erection. The part where he’d wrapped her legs around his waist and bent in low to kiss her.

The part where he’d breached her tight sex and eased in so deliriously slow.

He wanted to take it all back and do it again, because he was almost done.

It didn’t take Ariel much. She’d already called out his name
twice
, and his full name once, each time clamping harder around him and making him grunt like a raging bull. He tried to hold on because it felt so good, and her being pressed beneath him, holding him so tight seemed so right — like they had been sculpted for each other.

Admittedly, there was the small problem of having to hold back a second floodgate. One that would darken her soul and doom her to an eternity of … how had Gulielmus put it? Ennui. Ennui and eternal bunny cuddling. She deserved better than that, but right then, she was there and so warm and receptive to him, to every single touch of his skin to hers, he couldn’t do the right thing. Couldn’t let her go.

He was getting near and wanted her eyes focused on his, so he slid his fingers under her neck and tilted her head up, grazing his left palm against her skin as she opened her eyes.

It was like some trigger, and when he let go, so did that other thing, and it threatened to coil out of him and snake through — to feed him, while starving her. He pulled back and let her head fall onto the pillow, clenching his hands into fists and staring at her with horror.

No!

He eased off her legs and moved further away, nearly to the edge of the bed. Away from her. Out of her reach.

Ariel sat up, slowly, her face a confused mask as she pulled the covers up over her naked torso. It was obvious she didn’t know what to say. He’d yanked his body away from hers as if he’d realized what he was doing with her was so distasteful, but it wasn’t that, and he couldn’t tell her.

“Ariel, I — ”

She shook her head and wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Don’t.” There was an emerald ring on her right hand she twirled again and again as she chewed her lip. “You don’t have to explain.”

With a hiss, he eased the condom off and slipped over the bed’s edge. “You don’t understand, Ariel. I — ”

“No. Please don’t. It’s easier if you don’t try to explain. I get it. Really, I do.”

She couldn’t, so whatever it was she thought she understood was not only wrong, but scared him a bit. What had this woman experienced that would render her so cynical about intimacy?

He padded to the bathroom, tossed the condom, and washed his hands, paying special attention to his left palm. It itched as if some irritant had gotten under his skin and wanted to burn its way out. He rubbed the palm against a hand towel, chafing it again and again until it became some sort of mania. Maybe he could make it stop. Make it go away. But, no, the more he rubbed, the deeper it seemed to imbed, although he knew that had to be psychosomatic — only in his head.

He shut off the water and growled, pounding his fists on the countertop.