California Girl (12 page)

He tried to think beyond the physical but he’d lost control
of his mind the instant she’d stripped off her shirt. He was standing up and
didn’t know how he’d got there.

“Life is meant to be lived, isn’t it?” she was saying into
the vacuum inside his head.

He wanted to ask her to define “life,” but his tongue wasn’t
capable of coherent speech. Her delicate rosy nipples pointed upward as pertly
as her nose. They were tight and hard and begging for attention.

“We can get a little of this tension out of our way and
concentrate on Mame with more positive energy,” she offered, a trifle
nervously.

He was making her nervous. That wouldn’t do. She’d offered
herself up for his rejection, and he couldn’t hurt her like that. She was newly
widowed and needing release as much as he did.

“The body needs sex, doesn’t it?” she asked, as if she’d
heard his thought . . . and maybe sought some reassurance that
she wasn’t being foolish.

“It’s a healthy, physical activity,” he agreed, cursing himself
for sounding like a radio talk-show host.

How in heck would he know how to talk at times like this? He’d
never had a time like this in his life.

“I have no communicable diseases,” she whispered when he
stepped within touching distance of her.

“I haven’t had the time or the opportunity to pick up any,”
he murmured. Did those lovely pink whorls just pucker and extend more?

“Condoms?” she asked brightly when he reached to touch.

Elliot halted in his tracks.

She winced at his hoarse expletive and looked as if she’d
like to pull her shirt around her, had she been wearing one. Instead, she
crossed her arms over her beautiful breasts.

Elliot drove his hand through his hair and forced himself to
meet her gaze. “You deserve better than this.” He couldn’t believe that inane
sentiment had tumbled from his mouth.

She had a heartbreakingly expressive face. Not glamorous or
striking, and maybe not even pretty. Her big eyes were spaced too far apart,
her nose was too short, and her luscious mouth was small to match her narrow
chin. But together, her features were mobile and perfect. He read
disappointment and relief and curiosity all at once in the way her lips curved
and her dark lashes tilted over her disconcertingly light eyes.

Daringly, he brushed a silky strand of hair from her cheek
and tucked it behind her perfectly formed ear. She ought to have pointy ears
like a fairy sprite. She had a child’s soft skin, and it colored as easily as a
little girl’s. Without thinking, Elliot dipped his head to taste an
apricot-colored cheek.

She tilted her head, and his mouth encountered lips sweeter
than wine.

Instinct routed civilized thought. Or maybe it was
testosterone. He had to touch her.

Elliot wrapped his arm around her supple waist and lifted
her against him so he could taste as well as touch. He almost staggered beneath
the flood of sensation.

Her bare breasts crushed against his chest, and he would
have stripped off his shirt to feel her skin to skin if she hadn’t sank so deep
into his kiss that he couldn’t bear to let her go. She clung to his neck and
returned his kiss with a hungry urgency that escalated his body temperature in
a flash.

She tasted so damn
good
.
Like steak and chocolate and rich wine and all the things he’d denied himself
for so long. She parted her lips and he probed deeper, needing to be so deep
inside her that he couldn’t come up for air.

Their tongues met and clashed, and they toppled backward
onto the bed. Alys tugged at his shirt, until Elliot tore it off and flung it
across the room. Finally, he had her beautiful breasts rubbing his chest, and
he fastened his mouth hungrily to hers to keep from seeking lower.

Her hips bucked under his, but he wasn’t ready to give her
that yet. He wanted it all, every savoring minute and all night, if he could
have it. A nagging reminder at the back of his mind warned him against
something, but in full rut, he couldn’t remember what.

He hadn’t dared imagine this moment, but now that it was
here, he couldn’t think beyond it.

She had slender, smooth hands that curled enticingly around
his back, exploring with the same sense of wonder that he felt. Sinking into
the myriad sensations of her kiss, Elliot didn’t think he could ever learn them
all: the way her lips softened, and her tongue caressed, and her breath tasted
of peppermint. He could spend the night just kissing her.

But like a child in a candy shop, he couldn’t resist asking
for more. Sliding his hand between them, he filled his palm with the weight of
her breast and brushed the aroused tip with his thumb. He squeezed gently, his
whole focus on the sensual give of womanly softness.

If he hadn’t been on top of her, she would have levitated
from the bed. Instead, she moaned and writhed against him.

Reaching for his fly— He remembered why he wasn’t supposed
to be doing this. Hell of a time for his brain to kick in.

With every ounce of the willpower that had driven him to the
peak of his career, Elliot rolled off and stared at the ceiling. His chest
heaved and his groin screamed in stiff protest.

“No condoms,” he reminded her gruffly before she could say
anything.

She lay so still, he wondered if he’d hurt her. Fearing the
worst, he propped himself on one elbow to study her. Crystal eyes stared up at
him with wonder and admiration, and all of a sudden, he felt like Adonis. He
dug his fingers into the bed to prevent them from straying to her breasts.

She closed her eyes, and he figured that was the signal for
him to back off. Gingerly, he rearranged his too-tight underwear and rolled
from the bed. She didn’t move. They hadn’t made it all the way onto the huge
mattress. Her knees hung over the end. He could lift her hips from the mattress
and . . .

Sighing, Elliot turned his back on her. He should have at
least waited until he’d removed her leggings so he could have seen all of her.
“I think I’ll run around the block a few times. We’ll leave early in the
morning, so get some sleep.”

“Better find some penguin pajamas while you’re out,” she
muttered.

Some women considered his brains sexy, but Elliot couldn’t
remember any of them finding his body so irresistible that they wanted him to
cover it. “I’ll bring a pair for you while I’m at it.”

Alys listened while Elliot pulled on a shirt and jogging
shoes and let himself out. She didn’t dare open her eyes until she heard the
door close. Maybe she should have gone running with him.

Her entire body hummed. Heck, it sang out loud in a raucous
chorus of “I want you, babe,” complete
with drum roll and crashing guitars. Maybe she should be a songwriter.

She didn’t think she could attain a meditative position
while remembering the silky feel of the dark line of curls down the middle of
Elliot’s impressive chest.

She didn’t think she could sleep, either. She lay there
trying to relive the sensation of Elliot’s hungry mouth devouring hers, the
possessive urgency of his tongue sliding between her teeth, the exquisite
pleasure of his thumb on her breast, and she almost cried with the pain of
unquenched desire.

At least she wasn’t numb anymore.

All she had to do was figure out how to live without
fulfilling desire. Neat trick.

Maybe Elliot would buy condoms instead of pajamas.

More likely, he was hunting a vibrator. Like he needed an
airhead flake in his life right now. A lost waif in the woods of life. A woman
determined to let his beloved aunt die if she so chose . . . at
least to his way of thinking.

That doused her with the efficiency of a cold bucket of
water.

There wasn’t much future in a man who would hate her.

Not that she wanted a
future with Elliot Roth,
she told herself, rolling from the bed. A brief
fling in the sack was all she needed. Tomorrow, maybe. They’d have all day. The
next stop on the itinerary wasn’t even two hours away.

Seek inner peace
,
Alys cautioned her rampaging libido, watching Elliot drape the shoulder strap
of her heavy bag over his shoulder, rippling muscles she’d barely had time to explore
last night. In his formfitting blue golf shirt and draped trousers, he was
every woman’s dream come true. She suspected a sleeping tiger might lurk
beneath the Doc Niceness, but he’d proved his trustworthiness in her eyes.

She couldn’t handle roaring tigers or alpha apes right now.
To step out into the world, she needed the security of a purring cat. With the
proper handling, Elliot fit the bill.

He’d come in from jogging last night after she’d fallen
asleep, and he’d been up and jogging before she woke. If he’d slept in that
acre-wide bed with her at all, she’d barely known it.

In packing this morning, he’d folded a fresh pair of blue
pajamas into the overnight bag she was wheeling out of the room for him now.
He’d done more than jog when he was out last night. What else had he bought
while he was shopping? A shiver of anticipation brightened her day.

When he checked the room for anything they’d left behind, he
caught her staring. His gaze dropped to her mouth, and unconsciously, she
licked her lips to see if she’d applied lipstick.

“Breakfast,” he said, not lifting his gaze.

“Healthy,” she agreed.

The electricity between them was so powerful, they were
thinking each other’s thoughts.
Dangerous
her primal instincts screamed.
Necessary
overruled instinct.

He dangled the car keys he’d usurped last night. “You, or
me?”

Clinging to the potted orchid, Alys let the warmth of
appreciation fill her. He might occasionally seem stressed and remote, but he’d
paid attention to her need to see everything. She could give him this little
piece of the pie. “You. It’s a short journey today. We have time to find a
store where I can buy a book on orchids.”

“We aren’t going to catch Mame until she’s ready to be
caught, are we?” He closed the bedroom door behind him, and brushed a stray
hair from her cheek as if he had some need to verify her reality. When she
continued hugging the plant, he picked up the suitcase again.

“No. She needs to come to terms with her own mortality.” She’d
thought about that a lot. Deep down, she understood Mame’s rebellion.
Understanding didn’t prevent her from panicking if she let herself think about
Mame slumped over a steering wheel. To maintain her positivity, she’d rather
stay in the moment and go with the flow.

“And while she’s at it, she’s teaching us a lesson about
living?” he asked dryly. “When my brothers were little, they used to threaten
to run away when Mame wouldn’t let them do something foolish. She would hand
them a backpack with lunch and a bottle of water and tell them to give her a
call when they got where they were going.”

“I take it you were too smart to run away?”

“Maybe, or maybe I lacked the courage. I was the oldest. I
remembered too clearly the night my parents died. You could say I had
abandonment issues.”

He was showing her who
he was
. Along with satisfaction and wonder that Doc Nice had chosen to
share himself with her, Alys discovered a burning hunger to know more. “I know
you lost them in a car crash. Did they die instantly?”

The elevator let them out in the lobby, and she thought he’d
forgotten the question by the time he’d handed in the key and progressed to the
parking garage with their suitcases.

But he’d simply been biding his time. Opening the Caddy’s
trunk, he picked up where they’d left off. “I like to think they did. Dad had a
heart attack and probably wasn’t conscious. It was pouring rain and dark, and I
don’t remember hearing anything but my brothers crying. I’d been told it was
important to get out of a broken car and get away from the road until help
arrived, so I pried Eric out of his car seat and helped Ben out of his seat
belt. We were lucky that the car landed as it did. We climbed out of the back
seat on the side away from the road.”

“How old were you?” she asked in amazement.

“Seven.”

He didn’t seem to think that required comment. “Are we
eating here?”

“I checked the telephone directory and there’s an IHOP by
the interstate,” she said to take her mind off his story.

“Carbohydrates,” he protested.

“They serve eggs. You need protein. It’s cheaper than the
hotel.”

He opened the passenger door for her, then climbed in behind
the wheel and steered the Caddy into early-morning traffic.

Elliot slanted a glance at her but drove back through the
city in the direction she indicated. Alys sighed in contentment. It had been
years
since she’d indulged in sticky
sweet crepes. Besides, if he was buying meals, she didn’t want to cost him too
much.

Holding the tall plant in her lap so it wouldn’t fall over,
Alys tried to imagine the terrified little boy he’d been, standing in the rain
with his brothers protectively cuddled in his arms while he waited for his
world to right itself again. Tears formed, and she wiped at them, knowing he’d
hate to see her cry.

“How long was it before Mame came to get you?” she asked,
continuing their conversation while they waited to be seated in the
air-conditioned cold of the restaurant.

He didn’t miss a beat. The connection between them was still
there. “At the time, it felt like years. The police arrived, and the
ambulances, and they took us to the hospital. By that time, my brothers were
shaking and crying, and I had to try to comfort them. But I’ll never forget the
relief of hearing Mame’s voice outshouting doctors and nurses and cops. It was
the most welcome sound I’ve ever known. She walked all over them to get at us.”

Alys nodded, too caught up in the tragedy to trust speech.
How old would Mame have been that night? In her thirties? Widowed for years,
with a life of her own, Mame had loved enough to sacrifice everything for her
nephews.