Drop Dead Gorgeous (33 page)

I gasped, my entire body jolted by the hard intrusion. He pulled me up and reversed our positions, sitting on the edge of the mattress with me astride him, his arms supporting me as I arched back in sheer, overwhelming pleasure.

"Remember that
tantric
sex you wanted to try?" he murmured, his voice low and dark. "I checked it out. No moving… how long do you think you can go without moving?" He lifted my torso up to meet his mouth, sucking hard at both my nipples, pulling them into erect peaks before moving on, kissing his way up my chest and then clamping his mouth to the side of my neck.

Maybe it was because we hadn't made love in over a week; maybe it was because death had come close to separating us forever. The
why
didn't really matter, not when the sensations of our joined bodies and his mouth on my neck were surging through
me.
I don't particularly like having my breasts touched; it's either boring, or painful. But something about what he'd just done, that single hard, pulling suction on each nipple, made my whole body tingle. And my neck… oh, God, my neck… kissing me there always made fireworks go off behind my eyelids.

"Do you think I can make you come by kissing your neck?" he whispered, before taking a small bite just where my neck joined my shoulder, and flicking his tongue rapidly against the captured flesh. My throat was too raw for me to scream but I could moan, almost, the sound not much more than a broken whimper. My body flexed under the surge of intense pleasure, my hips arching inward to take more of his penis inside me.

He released the grip of his teeth on my neck, his breath feathering along the wetness as he said, "Uh
uh
, no moving. We have to be still."

Was he crazy? My God, how could I possibly be still? But the idea tantalized and tempted. Feeling him like this was incredibly erotic. No thrusting, no rushing headlong into climax, just this… his body hard and warm against me, his penis a hard, solid presence pushing up into me, the fluidity of my body around him. I could feel his heartbeat thundering against my breasts, my own pulse beating through me. I wondered if he could feel my pulse from inside me, if his cock was surrounded and stroked by the beat of my blood.

My head drooped on his shoulder and I panted against his warm, damp skin. Instinctively I turned my head and lightly bit the side of his neck, just as he had done to me, and felt the answering throb of his penis. He
groaned,
a harsh sound in the quiet room.

Thoughts swam through my mind, things I hadn't considered earlier when I'd been listing my immediate needs. My birth control pills had gone up in flames that morning. There was little or no chance of pregnancy right now, since I had missed only one pill, but the act suddenly seemed fraught with possibilities, with both power and vulnerability. My body felt oddly lush, magically female. I wanted to have his baby, wanted everything our bodies promised.

I dug my nails into his shoulders, lifted my mouth enough to bite his earlobe. "No birth control pills," I whispered into his ear, the words not much more than a breath.

I felt his response deep inside me, a flexing,
a
seeking. His arms tightened around me and he sank one hand into my hair, cradling my head as he fused our mouths together, his tongue moving, probing,
taking
. And I took him too, took his mouth, his breath, while deep inside I tightened and flexed muscles that held him, massaged him,
drew
him groaning to the brink of climax.

He left my mouth and all but attacked my neck, his hand in my hair holding my head arched back so he had complete access. The fierce throb of pleasure that shuddered through me almost took me all the way, almost, so close the first hot flare shot along my nerve endings.

"Don't move," he groaned against my neck. "Don't move."

I wanted to move, I desperately
needed
to move, to rise and fall on his penetrating flesh and end this exquisite torture. I would need only one thrust, just one… and yet, because the torture was exquisite, I didn't want it to end. I wanted to quiver here, just on the edge, and feel the shudders rippling through his big body as he struggled with the same need.

"No moving," I whispered back to him, and desperately he grabbed my bottom.

Our bodies were hot, steamy. Where our skin was plastered together we sweated, but the cold air of the air-conditioning washed over my back like the breath of frost. He was kneading my bottom in his big hands, the motion pulling, opening me so that I felt the chill touch damp places that were normally protected. The contrast between hot and cold was disorienting, sending my senses spinning. His fingers slid along my bottom, down, down, until he stroked the tightly stretched skin where he entered me.

I would have screamed, tried to scream, but my throat balked at the effort and refused to work. I tried not to move. I quivered and shook, my head falling to the side while his mouth worked my neck. I clenched him, hard, trying to hold him and take him deeper, and he quivered, too. I loved feeling that, feeling all of his hardness and strength responding to me. I loved the piercing expression in his green eyes, the way he watched me, the complete and utter abandonment of all defenses as we strained together.

And then I broke, shuddering, crying, my entire body in motion as I rocked against him in the most total dissolving of sensation I've ever felt. The spasms were like waves spreading through me. I
felt
him groan, felt the vibration through his whole body, and just as I collapsed
bonelessly
against him he turned us, pinning me to the mattress beneath him as he broke, too.

We slept like that, without turning off the lamp, without getting up to wash. And if I dreamed, I didn't know it.

In the morning, we made love in the shower, which, yes, we both needed. We practically had to unglue ourselves with the aid of warm water. As intense as the night's lovemaking had been, the morning's was playful, at least until the last minute or so. I was glowing when I bounced down the stairs.

I always took longer getting ready, of course, so he already had breakfast started. He turned his head and winked at me as I headed for the coffee. "Do you think you can eat real food today?"

I took the first swallow of coffee, considered, then rocked my hand in a "maybe, maybe not" motion.

"Oatmeal it is, then," he said. "Don't try anything that'll make you cough."

I had tried to talk, of course, and could actually make sounds this morning. Unfortunately, the sounds were those of a dying frog. Just being able to whisper, though, was an enormous relief, because I had a busy day ahead of me.

While we were eating he said, frowning, "I can't stay with you today, so your first stop is for a new cell phone. Got it? You can't be out of communication."

I totally agreed with that.

"You
gotta
tell me what happened to your old one, though."

Just because I could whisper didn't mean I should. The less I used my voice, the faster I'd get it back. So I pantomimed beating the cell phone against the window.

"That's what I thought," he said after a moment, his tone strained.

You'd think no one had ever broken a cell phone before.

"Now.
What I want you to do today is stay out of work. Don't go to any of your usual places, places where she could expect to find you. Don't go to your parents' house. Don't go to
Siana's
. You have a lot of shopping to do, so do it. I'll take you to a car rental agency and you can drive something completely different from that little eye-catcher out there in the garage." He was all
cop
now, his eyes narrow, his mind working. "I'll have the Mercedes collected, and we'll put one of our blond female officers in it and have her cruise around—to Great
Bods
, to your bank, to wherever you usually get lunch. This woman may be lying low for a while, a day or so, but eventually she's going to come after you again. But it
won't
be you. There's no negotiation on that."

I reached for the notebook and scribbled,
I have no problem with that
. Yeah, if I'd been able to get to her the night of the fire I was so mad I'd have gone vigilante on her ass, but in the light of day my head was cooler and a big reality was staring me in the face: I needed to get this wedding taken care of, and I couldn't let there be any more delays. Tonight, even if I had to write every word, Wyatt and I would have that conversation I'd been putting off, but I couldn't afford to wait even until then.

Thanks to
JoAnn's
promising skill behind the desk, she and Lynn could handle things until this nutcase was taken care of. I, in the meantime, would be racing the clock to get my wedding organized. How many days had I already lost because of this woman, assuming she was also the woman who had tried to run me over in the parking lot? She might not be, but hey, she was available to blame, so I blamed her.

I would feel perfectly safe in an anonymous rental car, going to Sticks and Stones to face Monica Stevens in her den, shopping for my fabric, shopping for new clothes—at a different mall, though—going to see Sally. None of that was my usual routine, and I was starting out from a completely different place, a safe place. She didn't know where I was or how to find me, and it felt great.

After breakfast, Wyatt took me to get another cell phone. To my surprise, he didn't take me to my cell service provider, but to his, and added me to his account. I kept my same number, of course, but combining our accounts felt startlingly… permanent.

That reminded me of other details I had to attend to, such as canceling my home utilities. I was pretty sure both the phone company and the cable company would continue billing me, even though no home existed there now. And I would need to get an inventory to my insurance company. Man, I'd thought I had my day mapped out, but more and more things were cropping up to eat into my time.

Our next stop was close to the airport, where all the car rental companies were. I got a Taurus—they have nice suspensions—but guess what? It was white. White seemed to be the predominant color for rental cars. I wasn't entirely happy with white, but Wyatt was totally against the apple red. "Too noticeable," he said.

I guess.

Then he kissed me and we parted company for the day.

It was just nine A.M., too early for Sticks and Stones to be open. With time to kill, I went to another fabric store. No luck. That was discouraging, but by the time I'd searched the store over, I'd killed almost an hour, so I drove to Sticks and Stones.

The same stick-thin woman as before came to greet me, her smile chilling a bit as she took in my jeans and lightweight sweater. "Yes, may I help you?"

No way out of it, I had to talk—whisper, rather. "I'm Blair Mallory. I left my card day before yesterday, but Ms. Stevens hasn't called." I saw her expression as she drew back a little, as if I were contagious. "Yes, I have severe laryngitis. No, you can't catch it. My house burned down yesterday morning and this is from smoke inhalation, which means I'm not in a great mood so I'd really like to see Monica.
Now, if possible."

That was a lot to say, and even whispering was a strain. I was scowling by the time I finished. I didn't like that woman.

Strangely enough, she brightened at the news that my house had burned down. It took me a moment before I realized she knew a new house and all new furniture meant redecorating. I wondered if she scoured the newspapers looking for news of house fires, the way shady lawyers looked for car accidents.

She led me through the store into the back, where the offices were set up. Back here the feel was completely different; huge books holding swatches of fabric were stacked helter-skelter, different pieces of furniture were jumbled together, framed art leaned against walls. I actually liked this better; this was where work was done. There was energy here, instead of the coldly stylized feel of the front showroom.

The woman knocked on an office door, and at an invitation from within, pushed the door open. "Ms. Stevens, this is Blair Mallory," she said, as if she were introducing me to Queen Elizabeth. "She has laryngitis because her house burned down yesterday—smoke inhalation, you know." With that tantalizing tidbit, she returned to the showroom and left us alone.

I'd never met Monica Stevens before, though I'd heard about her. In a way she was what I expected, but in a way she wasn't. She was
fortyish
, with sleek black hair in a dramatic, asymmetrical cut—thin, stylish in a studied way, with noisy bangle bracelets on both wrists. I like bangle bracelets only if I'm the one wearing them. Hey, it's different when you're the annoyer instead of the annoyed.

"I'm so sorry about your house," she said, and her voice had a warm tone that made her seem more approachable. What I hadn't expected about her was the friendly expression in her eyes.

"Thank you," I said, whispered, and pulled Jazz's invoices from my tote, placing them in front of her before I sat down.

She looked at the invoices, puzzled,
then
read the name. "Mr.
Arledge
," she said in her warm voice. "He was a darling man, so anxious to surprise his wife. I loved working with him."

There hadn't been any working "with" Jazz, who had zero sense of style or decoration. Jazz had given her carte
blanche
, signed the check, and that was it. "His marriage broke up because of this," I said baldly.