Flashback (7 page)

“Absolutely. That and the begging.”

He let out a huff of low laughter against her skin, and then because his mouth was right there against her neck, and because she was touching his butt, and because she smelled good, he took a little nibble.

Her fingers dug into him, telling him how much she liked it but she shook her head. “No more touching until you beg.”

“I wasn't touching, I was kissing.”

“No kissing until you beg. No anything until you beg.”

“I've never begged for this before.”

“No? Well, it's good for your character to try new things.”

He laughed again. Laughed while trying to get laid. That was new. “Okay.” Lifting his head, he cupped her face between his hands and looked into her eyes. She was smiling, too, and it was good to see her doing so. It was good to see her period; his smile slowly faded. “Can I kiss you, Kenzie?”

“Is that the best you got?”

“Can I pretty-please kiss you?”

“Well, I
suppose…
”

That was all he let her get out before he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her. She let out a little murmur of surprise and what he sincerely hoped was pleasure, because
holy shit,
it was like taking a time machine back in time, back to that sweet, hot, most amazing summer he'd once spent in her arms.

She made the sound again, the one that drove him crazy with wanting, and then she entwined her arms up around his neck, gliding her fingers into his short hair and tightening them, as if she didn't want him going anywhere.

Fat chance.

When he slid his tongue to hers, it was another homecoming, and this time her shuddery sigh was pure, hungry delight with a sprinkle of unadulterated lust on top.

Oh, yeah.
Pulling back just enough to look into her eyes, he found the same sense of bewildered wonderment across her face that he imagined was across his. Because, yes, they were attracted to each other because of their past, but suddenly it was much, much more than that. Then the next thing he knew, they'd lunged for each other again, trying to climb into each other's body, just like old times.

Only it was new, all so damn new, and all the more heart-wrenching and gripping for it. They were no longer young and stupid. They were old enough to know better, old enough to know exactly what they were doing, old enough that he knew that this time, there would be no escaping unscathed.

It didn't stop him.

O
H
. M
Y
. G
OD
.

Kenzie struggled to think, but Aidan had taken her breath away And, as he surged up to his knees between her spread thighs, his hands fisted in the hem of his own shirt, his intention perfectly clear, he nearly stole her sanity—but she held on by a thread. “Wait,” she gasped, putting a hand to his chest. “Hold it.”

Still kneeling between her sprawled legs, his hands on the big T-shirt, about to strip her as naked as he was, he looked into her eyes. “Wait?”

She could have drowned in his gaze. Happily drowned. “You stopped begging.”

He arched an eyebrow, which was highlighted by the slants of moonlight across his face. Stripes of light and dark, and in them, he was beautiful. “I mean it,” she managed. “Absolutely nothing else happens here without some serious begging.”

He stared at her, then lowered his head for a moment. When he lifted it again, she expected him to tell her he never begged for anything. That this—she—wasn't worth it. After all, she hadn't been once.

But he surprised her. “When we were together,” he said quietly, “I dreamed about your body on the nights we didn't sleep in the same bed. Did you know that?”

“No.” She shook her head. “You never said.” He'd never said a lot of things. He'd held back so much.

And to be honest, so did I….

“I'd get off on it,” he said, not holding back this time. Which did exactly what she hadn't wanted—it opened her heart to him.

“On you,” he murmured. “For years afterward, I'd get off thinking about you.”

She stared up at him. “You mean you…”

“Uh-huh. I jerked off.” Leaning over her, he was nothing but a shadow until he bent even closer. Through the shutters, rectangles of light slashed over him as he let her look into his eyes, which were dark and scorching. “So much I'm lucky I'm not blind.”

She laughed but also swallowed hard, surprisingly aroused at the thought of his touching himself while picturing her. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.” His eyes glittered with heat and memories and suddenly both the heat and memories were making her feel awfully warm from the inside out.

Actually, they were making her hot.

Very hot.

“Tonight, just looking at you…” He let out a long breath and shook his head. “It brings it all back, but it's even stronger.”

His mouth was in the shadows. She couldn't see his lips moving but his voice washed over her, as did the images he evoked. He was bringing it all back for her, too.

“You were beautiful then,” he said. “But you're even more beautiful now. I want to take this shirt off of you, Kenz. Please let me.”

At his words, she nearly turned the tables and begged
him
. She could feel the T-shirt caught high on her thighs. His hips were holding her legs open to him, and with just a little nudge of the shirt, he'd be able to see all her god-given goodies, along with the fact that she was already wet.

“Please,” he murmured. “Please let me.”

Oh, God.
“Yes.”

He shifted, and then she could see his mouth, which rewarded her with a smile as he made his move, his fingers closing around the hem of the shirt, slowly tugging it up, revealing her body.

She'd wanted this, sought it out under the guise of getting her long-needed revenge, but that was really just a lie, and her first flicker of doubt hit.

Just who was going to get hurt here…?

The night air brushed over her breasts as he pulled the shirt all the way off and over her head. Her nipples hardened. Goose bumps spread over her flesh, and it wasn't because she was cold. There were five stripes of moonlight across her body, one across her eyes, her throat, another highlighting her breasts, her belly and her crotch. He couldn't have lined her up more perfectly for his perusal, and he definitely perused.

“Aidan—”

His hand stroked over her hip, and her breath backed up into her throat. She opened her mouth to say maybe she'd been hasty about this whole breaking his heart thing, but before she could, he'd put a hand on her inner thigh and pushed, further opening her to him.

The slants of shadows hampered his view, but he didn't seem bothered, not with his front row seat.

The only sound in the room came from him as he let out a groan. “God, Kenzie. You're so pretty.” He lowered his head, then paused, his mouth a hairsbreadth away from her trembling belly. “I want to kiss. I want to taste. I want that more than I want my next breath. Please let me…”

As far as begging went, it was pretty good. “O-okay,” she managed, and almost before the word was out, he'd nudged her legs open even wider, wedging them there with his broad shoulders. He slowly lowered his head. “Pretty please,” he whispered across her flesh.

Her wet flesh.

“Yes.”
Her heels dug into the mattress as he “pretty pleased” his tongue over her, and then his teeth, and then his warm lips, over and over again leaving her a panting, gasping, quivery mass of sensitized nerve endings, and when she exploded for him, he surged up, produced a condom and slid into her with one sure, powerful thrust.

“Oh,” she gasped, reaching up to hold onto him because her world had just spun on its axis. The feel of him deep inside her—and he was deep, as deep as he could get—had her spiraling. Gone were all thoughts of hurting him, or revenge. She could think of nothing but this, but him. Not that she would admit such a thing. “You…you didn't beg for that.”

Cupping her face, he tilted it up to his. “Pretty-please may I drive you out of your living mind?”

Oh, God.

“Kenzie? May I?” His voice was thick with the same hunger and need that was driving her.

“Yes.”

“Good. May I also pretty-please make you scream my name?”

In answer, she arched up, her breasts pressing into his hard, warm chest, her legs wrapping around his waist.

He groaned, a low, rough sound that scraped at all her good spots but he didn't move. “Can I?”

“I don't usually do much screaming.”

He just smiled, and then took her mouth as he took her body, indeed driving her out of her mind with all too disturbing ease, and when she exploded again, she cried out his name.

Loudly.

She might have even screamed it.

As the blood finally slowed in her veins, as the roar of it lowered to a trickle in her head, she became aware of the fact that she was gripping him tight, holding him close with her arms and her legs, not letting him escape.

He didn't say a word, just nuzzled lazily at her neck as his breathing slowed.

Hers wasn't slowing. Embarrassed at how tightly she was holding him, she forced herself to let him go, certain he'd roll away.

But in perhaps the loveliest thing he'd done all night, he didn't. Instead, he remained right where he was, turning just his head to press his lips to her jaw, murmuring her name on a sigh.

It was one of those defining moments, where she suddenly knew the truth—she'd not exacted a single ounce of revenge. In fact, she'd made things worse.

She'd risked her own heart.

But for that one moment at least, she didn't care, because maybe he'd changed. Maybe things could be different this time, and—

“You screamed my name.” He lifted his head, revealing a strong smile. “You begged.” He out-and-out grinned then, not broken, not even a little bit. “We still work hard.”

“There's no
we
.” She pushed him off her, suddenly and irrationally irritated. “No we at all.”

Completely oblivious to the picture he made sprawled out on the bed, buck naked, he put his hands behind his head and continued to smile like an idiot. “Are you telling me you have no desire to do that again?”

“None.”

“Ah, Kenzie. You're such a pretty liar.”

Yeah.
Yeah, she was. A pretty liar, and a good liar. But she had no idea how else to hide the fact that she still had feelings for him in spite of their past—or maybe because of it.
God.
She needed to get out for a while, needed to clear her head. Get some answers.
Alone.

“Stay,” he murmured.

“Okay.” She looked at him. “I'll stay if you tell me this. Why did you really dump me?”

At that, his amusement faded. “I told you I was an idiot back then.”

“Granted. Why else?”

He looked at her and she nearly backed down; she certainly held her breath, but he touched her face. “Because I didn't know what I had.”

 

A
IDAN SLEPT
like the dead. Or like a man who'd been far too close to serious exhaustion. When he opened his eyes, he felt the various aches and pains from the fire, and from the mattress gymnastics he and Kenzie had executed, and was grateful to know he had two days off, because more sleep was on his To Do list. Much more.

So was more mattress gymnastics.

Considering that Kenzie was wrapped around him like a pretzel, that shouldn't be too difficult to manage. As he looked into her face, taking in each of the cuts and the bruises there in the light of day, he felt a tug in his belly.

He wished like hell he could say he was just hungry, but he knew the truth.

He was a goner.

She was as cut up and bruised as he was, more so, and if
he
hurt like hell, he could only imagine how she felt. He was used to such injuries. She wasn't.

“I realize I've spent my days on a television set, where my worst injury was a paper cut from that day's script,” she whispered, eyes still closed. “But I'm not feeling as bad as I probably look.”

Her face was relaxed now; and he realized it hadn't been before—not on Blake's boat, not when she'd crawled in bed with him, not even when he'd stripped her out of his shirt and proceeded to make her scream.

That he'd undone her so easily didn't stroke his ego. She'd undone him just the same. It'd always been like that for them, a virtual explosion of need and lust and hunger.

But he'd attributed much of that to being young and horny. He hadn't anticipated a resurgence of those feelings, And he doubted she had either. But that's exactly what they'd gotten.

With a sigh, she slid out of his arms and off the bed. He enjoyed the view as she walked to the bathroom, but when she shut the door, his smile faded. She needed sustenance, and a bandage change. Getting up, he pulled on his jeans and went into the kitchen, where he grabbed a pan and eggs and went to work getting them both some protein so that they could go back to bed and burn it all off again.

His doorbell rang and Aidan stopped dicing peppers long enough to sign the clipboard of a pudgy guy in brown shorts, who handed him a slim package.

When he heard the shower go off, he finished the eggs and then grabbed his first-aid bag and knocked on the door. “Bandages, aspirin and breakfast. And your package from L.A. is here.”

“Perfect timing—I've got to run.”

“You mean back to Los Angeles?”

The door opened and steam came out. As did Kenzie wrapped in another of his towels. “Not back. Not yet.”

The towel was tucked between her breasts, which pushed them up and nearly out, a fact he'd have taken the time to thoroughly enjoy except for the nasty bruise arcing along her left collar bone. “You need rest.”

“I need clothes.” She moved past him and into his bedroom. “Can I borrow a pair of sweats?”

“Sure.” He opened his dresser and handed the clothes over.

“Thanks. I've really got to go.”

She was going to go snoop. Get in Tommy's way. Get herself arrested. “Kenzie, listen to me. You need to stay out of the investigation. The chief doesn't want you digging—”

“I don't work for him. He can't tell me what to do.”

“If you stay—”

“No. Thank you, but, no.”

Usually in the light of day, with a woman in his bedroom,
he
was the one who had to go. Usually.

Okay, always.

It felt odd to have the shoe on the other foot. Especially given the magnitude of what they'd shared last night, and he wasn't alone in feeling it, dammit. He knew he wasn't.

But Kenzie moved carefully away from him, slowly, as if still in pain, but with conviction. She was set on going, leaving him with a disconcerted feeling in his gut.

Was this how he'd made women feel? Like they'd already been forgotten? “Let's change your bandages—”