Hotbed Honey (12 page)

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Authors: Toni Blake

BOOK: Hotbed Honey
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He was getting hard again just watching her. Which was not good. Hadn't he just told himself this kind of crap had to stop? Hadn't he just realized he was putting everything in jeopardy by letting his body take over his mind?
He ran one hand back through his hair and kept gaping at her. She was asleep, which somehow made this seem all the more bad. She didn't even know what she was doing to him—she was completely innocent—and all the logic and reasoning in the world wasn't gonna make the hardness in his shorts disappear. Damn it, he was only flesh and blood. And she was … beyond tempting. Just look at her, he thought. Perfection in the sun.
Then he remembered how she always burned in the sun, how she never took the time to put on sunscreen, always so anxious to bask in the rays, to just soak it all up.
So he stepped outside and went to the small pool house across the way. Inside, he found sunscreen—a vast array of the stuff—so he chose a medium protection, and exited without a plan.
Just give it to her
, he told himself.
Just wake her up, fill her in on what she missed with Carlo, and give her the damn sunscreen.
But inside he was trembling. Trembling with how badly he wanted to touch her. Wondering, would she welcome it, would she want it, too, his hands on her body?
Max knew things were out of control now. He knew he was way too turned on to push down his desire for her, way too turned on to do anything but act on it. He knew it was suicide, in more ways than he cared to acknowledge. But he couldn't keep himself from going to her, not even for one more second.
He walked across the patio and gazed down on her, all the heat in his veins making his entire body pulse with anticipation.
Then he kneeled next to her … and reached out to touch her.
Chapter 5
I
n Kimberly's dream, Max was touching her. His fingers drifted over her bare stomach, moving in slow wide circles. He was rubbing something—lotion—onto her, making her hot skin feel moist and slick beneath the sun's heat. It was a good dream.
She pulled her breath in with a slow hiss when he ventured farther down, moving his touch over her belly button and lower, to the edge of her bikini bottom. She bit her lip when his fingertips slid inside. Oh yes, this was a
very
good dream.
When he slid them back out, she suffered a small stab of disappointment. But after a wet dollop of lotion connected with her thigh, she began to think sleepily,
Oh, what if this isn't a dream? What if Max is really touching…?
She tried to grab on to the thought, but half sleep kept her from thinking clearly, from waking fully. She finally found the strength to ease her eyes open then, and she found … dear God, Max bending over her, applying lotion to her legs. "Oh," she breathed.
Max looked up and their gazes met, but he didn't stop massaging the lotion. He worked it into her calf now, his touch deep and slow, like the penetrating caress of a lover.
"Didn't want you to burn," he finally whispered.
"Where is…"
"Not here."
"Oh, then it's…"
"Just you and me. For now."
"Mmm." She bit her lip as his fingers plied deeply into her thigh, moving back up her leg. It felt so good. Too good.
"Close your eyes, babe," he whispered.
She didn't argue or protest, just did what he asked. She closed her eyes and let him keep touching her, and touching her, and touching her.
He used both hands, smoothing the lotion into her other leg, down her thigh, over her knee and down her calf. Then he slid his hands warmly back up, still rubbing, massaging, making her tingle with heated desire as they came higher, closer to where she longed for his sweet touch.
Max pulled away then and shifted his ministrations to a new place, rubbing lotion onto her shoulders and slowly down each arm. Kimberly lay there drinking it all in, each sexy touch, each sliver of excitement that it injected into her soul.
Then his fingers were near her neck, smoothing, pressing in small rhythmic circles, working their way down one strap of her bikini top, moving onto the exposed ridge of her breast, fingertips reaching just past the top's edge, sending her desire to a fever pitch. She bit her lip in response to the throbbing sensations below. She wanted him to touch her more,
everywhere
. Wanted him to slide one hand into her top, another into her bottoms. Wanted to move against him and seek her pleasure and explode for him in wild release.
Her lips were trembling now.
Kiss me,
she thought.
Oh please, Max, kiss me.
But Max, who had always been a slow and very thorough lover, continued in the same pattern, his fingers now leaving the valley between her breasts and gliding up onto the curve of the other. Kimberly bit her lip harder to keep from whimpering, to keep from begging.
Her heart beat a frantic cadence when he moved his caresses back down her body, the cool lotion being smoothed into the skin at her hips and the tops of her thighs. So close, so achingly near to the center of her desire. "Oh, Max…" She hadn't meant to utter it, but it had come naturally with her escalating need.
"I didn't get around the edges of your suit before." He spoke in a husky timbre, making it clear to them both that this was not the real reason his touch lingered in this particular area. She opened her eyes and their gazes connected. "Should I stop, babe?"
She let out a heavy breath she hadn't realized she was holding, then gave her head a short shake. An emphatic
no
.
His dark, sexy eyes narrowed on her with a heat so intense that it might have frightened her coming from anyone else. But it didn't frighten her with Max.
Nothing
frightened her with Max. She loved him, and she wanted him to touch her so badly that she could taste it.
He slid the tips of his fingers beneath the thin strip of material at her hip. She sucked in her breath again, wanting this sweet, horrible teasing to end, wanting him to touch her
there
.
Now
. "Max," she whispered. "Please."
She heard his labored breathing above her and let her eyes fall shut. His fingertips were moving, sliding ever so slowly, ever so hotly, getting nearer, nearer, until she wanted to scream. She realized that she was gripping the arms of the chair as if holding on for dear life, and she was panting wildly. Then his strong fingers moved over and down through the small thatch of hair and slid warm into—
His hand was suddenly gone.
"Damn," he said.
Kimberly's eyes bolted open and she raised her head. "Max?"
He stood above her, looking down. "I just heard a car door. He's back."
"Oh," she sighed in utter disbelief.
He was back? How could this be? How could it happen?
They stared at each other for a long, awkward moment, thrust unpleasantly back to the reality of why they were here. Kimberly longed to say something, anything, to make this seem less strange and uncomfortable, to make it seem normal and right, but she couldn't find any words.
"I'd … better go meet him," Max finally said. And then he was gone, disappearing through the French doors, leaving Kimberly alone to hold back tears of frustration.
Oh damn it! she thought. Now Carlo was here and the role-playing would begin again. She had to be ready for him and she had to be tough and she had to be that way
right now
.
She'd be damned if they were both going to come back out and find her lying here looking scared and bereft and nervous. She refused to let Carlo come upon her stretched-out body and gawk at her and feel all the things she wanted to make only Max feel.
So she rose from the lounge chair and dove into the pool, and tried to let the cool water swallow all her frustrations.
* * *
"Here you go, babe. Medium-well, just the way you like it." Max set a sizzling-hot steak in front of Kimberly on one of the teak tables on the patio.
"Thanks," she said, returning his smile, although she wondered if his smile was real or fake. All the lines were getting blurred.
She really did like her steaks medium-well, and he hadn't had to ask. But considering what had happened just before Carlo had arrived, Kimberly could hardly concentrate on how much she liked it that he remembered another detail about her. There were bigger things on her mind, like Max himself and the strange sensations that rushed through her still—passion tainted with embarrassment. Or was that embarrassment tainted with passion?
Temper that with the ghoulish feeling of having her breasts ogled by Carlo while she cut into her steak, and things got icky. She'd just figured out that it wasn't merely Carlo's blatant lust that bothered her—she'd had problems with men like him before, men who saw women as nothing more than sexual objects. It was dealing with this at the same time as she tried to deal with wanting Max that made things so hard. It was difficult putting up the tough wall of
un
emotion required to deal with guys like Carlo while she was immersed in her very
emotional
response to Max.
She gave her head a slight shake, recalling the encounter they'd shared over the sunscreen. That was the last thing she'd have expected from Max, especially after last night when he'd left the bed she slept in. She couldn't have been more shocked.
"Pass the salt, will you please, Kimberly?" The voice belonged to Carlo and the move required a long reach on her part, toward the other side of the table and then back to him. His eyes drank in her every move.
Pig
, she muttered to herself as she handed the shaker to him and watched him sprinkle only the tiniest bit on his food.
Under the table then, Carlo leaned his knee into hers. Her body instinctively froze. Instincts also told her to shift her legs away from his and toward Max, who was just now taking a seat on the other side of her at the round table, but she knew leaning her legs away would be the wrong move, casewise. It was time to start being a little more responsive to the suspect, a little more inviting. She'd not exactly been pushing him away up to this point, but if Carlo was to make his play sometime this weekend, she needed to start altering her actions and letting him know she liked him. The thought nearly made her gag, but it was what the job called for.
So she forced herself to leave her knees where they were, disgusting as it was. She even tossed him a coy little smile. She didn't look at Max to see if he noticed, but she was glad he was there, just the same. And she was glad he'd be in the closet when Carlo tried to seduce her, too. She still hadn't figured out the sunscreen encounter—what it might mean, where it left them now—but she needed Max's protection with this guy. And besides, he owed it to her. After all, it was him and his amorous attention that had left her feeling so volatile right now.
She let Carlo's knees touch hers for two minutes, maybe more, then moved. That was enough—a good, bold, teaser-type invitation—and it was all she could stand.
After she finished her meal, Kimberly lay her napkin on the table and leaned back in her seat. She'd gotten a slight cramp in her neck, probably from falling asleep in the lounge chair earlier. Emotionally tired, sated from the large meal and practically ready for another nap, she let her eyes fall shut and rolled her neck slowly, trying to work out the kink. Bad move.
"Here, let me help you with that." It was Carlo, of course, rising from his chair and moving behind her to massage her shoulders. "I took a class on this," he went on, "so I know just what to do to make it feel better." She'd completely forgotten what a blatant opportunist the little skunk was.
But she knew when to make a situation work for
her
, too. "Thanks, Carlo. That feels wonderful." She let the last word drag out in a sensuous sort of way she knew he would appreciate. And she put up her little emotional wall that allowed the creep to touch her without her wanting to turn around and strangle him.
Yes, lead him on
, she thought.
Make him think you want him. Let's get this show on the road.
Because the sooner the mission was accomplished, the sooner she could go home and get off this crazy roller-coaster ride with Max once and for all.

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