In Bed With the Opposition (11 page)

“I don’t do this kind of thing,” Grace said.

“Have fun, you mean? I know. It’s something I plan to change about you.”

“Don’t you like me the way I am?”

Oh, he did, which was puzzling because she was a truly maddening woman.

Grace surrendered, kicking off her heels, and fifteen minutes later, she was throwing jabs like a pro. Their on-screen boxers pummeled each other until Ethan sent hers to the mat. “Knockout!” he called.

Grace laughed with girlish abandon, spikes of her dark hair angled in wild directions. “You said you’d let me win.”

“I lied. It’s just not in me to let anybody win.”

She whacked him in the stomach, for real.

“Ooof!” Ethan used the opportunity to grab her wrist and pull Grace toward him. She was warm and damp from boxing; he loved the scent of her. He tilted her chin toward him, and saw the reservation in her eyes. She was probably drawing up one of those infuriating lists of all the reasons that she should go, so he kissed her long, hard, and convincingly.

When he finally stopped, she looked dazed. “What was that about?”

“I’m making a point,” he said.

“What point would that be?”

“That you want me.”

Then he kissed her again. This time she wilted in his arms, and he could see that she had no plans of leaving now. “What point were you making that time?”

“That I want
you
,” he said, his voice dropping.

He tried to calculate exactly how much longer his volunteers would be gone on their doughnut run and whether or not he could just walk Grace back into the bedroom-cum-supply closet and bend her over the copy machine.

She must have had the same thing in mind, because she asked, “Is there—is there somewhere
private
?”

Ethan gave it a moment’s thought, glad that he’d leased a very fast sports car for the duration of the campaign. “We could break all land-speed records back to my hotel…but how about I just lock the door? Hell, what if I
barricade
the door?”

Chapter Eleven

She wanted him
. She’d shown up here hungry, guilt-ridden, and angry. He’d fed her, reasoned with her, and even made her laugh.

He’d taken care of her.

And more astonishingly, she’d let him.

Now he searched her eyes for permission to take care of another need altogether…an urgent need that burned inside her like a five-alarm fire. She wanted him
so bad
that her heart beat double-time and readiness ached between her thighs. This time, Ethan Castle wasn’t just going to
happen to her
. This time, he was a choice. Her choice.

With a deep steadying breath, Grace walked to the door, locked it, then leaned back with a playful smile. “Okay.”

“Okay?” He grinned, eagerness in his eyes.

It made her giddy. “This is going to be good, right?”

“Oh, we can do better than
good
, Grace. We can do
amazing
.”

He moved to pounce on her, but a few last niggling worries made themselves heard over the rush of her own blood in her ears. “Can we close the blinds?”

Ethan reached over and snapped the slats closed so hard he nearly ripped them off the window. “Done.”

“The ones in the back room, too?”

Using one hand to hurdle over the chair in his way, he hurried to what appeared to have once been a cramped bedroom now filled with electronics, campaign pamphlets, and charts. Grace followed. “You know, I could come up with a better organizing system for this.”

Ethan pulled the blinds closed, plunging the room into semidarkness. “Forget about the mess. There’s something else in this room that needs your attention…”

That’s when he yanked her onto the bed. She shrieked, landing on her back with a bounce and sending a flurry of papers into the air. “There aren’t any cameras in here, right?”

Ethan squinted. “Whoa, slow down, speed racer! Let’s save the kinky stuff for later.”

Relaxing, she undid the top button of her polka-dotted blouse. Then she snared him with a seductive look and he froze, slack-jawed.

“Don’t you want to help undress me, Ethan?”

“
Hell
, yes. But I’d rather you undress me, one button at a time.”

Grace’s nose crinkled. “You’re wearing a sweater!”

“That’s not the button I had in mind.”

Too turned on to be scandalized, Grace threw her head back and laughed. Then she hooked her fingers into the loops of his jeans and pulled him closer. “C’mere, then.”

Wow, where had this person been all her life? And she didn’t mean Ethan. She’d scoffed at the idea when Molly suggested she was hiding an inner sex kitten, but what would she really be like if she did what she
wanted
to do for a change?

The bulge of Ethan’s erection pulsed under his pants and it made her heart pound in an answering rhythm. Popping open his fly, she tugged down his zipper and licked her lips. She needed to see it. Touch it. Stroke it. Kiss it…

He caught her chin with his fingers. “First, we’re going to play a game.”

Grace groaned. “Not another game!”

“You’ll like this one. Trust me. In Strip Twenty Questions everybody’s a winner. You answer, you get to take something off me. I answer, I get to take something off you. You go first.”

He was kidding, right? He had to be kidding! In case he wasn’t, she asked, “Cat lover or a dog lover?”

“Lame,” Ethan said, shoving himself onto the narrow bed next to her.
Oh God
. He was so good-looking. And she was on a bed with him—the one place they might have never actually done it before. “Cat lover,” he said.

Something in his tone made her doubt him. “I think you’re lying!”

“I’m pandering to the voters. There’s a big difference. Now I’m going to take off your blouse.”

Grace thought she might hyperventilate waiting for him to undress her with his unexpectedly clumsy fingers. Ethan scowled. “Why are these buttons so tiny? And why are there so many of them? I’m worried I’m going to rip it.”

Grace gasped, scaring herself with the realization that she might like him to rip it off her if only it weren’t for the fact that she loved this blouse with its polka dots and frilly collar! Fortunately, he got the hang of the row of buttons. “There,” he said with a note of triumph, peeling back her blouse to reveal her bra and bare belly. He dipped his head and nuzzled her belly, glancing up at her only long enough to say, “Your turn to answer. Name the guy who gave you the best orgasm of your life?”

“Ethan Castle,” she said, without hesitation.

“That is
so
the right answer,” he said, warm hands stroking her sides. “But that was seven years ago. Heck of a dry spell.”

He looked way too satisfied with himself for her to let him get away with it. “What do you mean? You gave me an orgasm last night. You just weren’t there to see it.”

Ethan coughed, almost as stunned at her brazen admission as she was. “I’m gonna want to see a reenactment…”

“Maybe later. I get to take something off you now.”

She claimed her reward, tugging his jeans down over his hips. The sight of his long, lean legs brought back all sorts of memories; her craving for him was starting to be more than she could bear. How many questions had it been? If she shot them at him rapid-fire, they’d be naked that much quicker.

“What’s your favorite sport?”

“Politics,” he answered quickly, sliding her skirt down her legs, leaving her in nothing but her underwear. “And sex. Two sports that are even more fun played together.”

As the cool air kissed her bare skin, a little shyness crept into her. Ethan was staring down at her underwear-clad body so intently, she was suddenly aware of every curve and dimple. “My hips are kinda…”

“Slammin’?” Ethan asked, his voice husky. “They make me want to grab you hard and hammer into you. Which is exactly what I’m going to do once we’re naked.”

Oh
. Her whole body reacted to that promise, twin coils of pleasure twisting just below her belly. She nearly forgot the game until he said, “Tell me the first rule you ever broke.”

A dark memory flashed through Grace’s mind. “Pass.”

“There’s no passing in Strip Twenty Questions. You pass and you lose more clothes.” Ethan made his point by unfastening the hook at the front of her bra. Her breasts spilled out and he cupped them, a low feral sound in his throat.

His warm hands on her body thrilled her. She wanted more of this. More skin. More touching. But, infuriatingly, he insisted, “Tell me the first rule you ever broke.”

She nudged him in the side. “If you’re going to make up new rules as you go along, I don’t want to play!”

“That’s how I play every game. Come on now, no quitting,” he said, taking the opportunity to press the rigid length of his erection against her side. He was so hard, so ready for her, that she couldn’t help herself.

She slipped her hand into the tight space between them, took him in her hand, and began to stroke him. At the feel of her hand on his cock, Ethan made a harsh wounded sound that dissolved into a growl of pleasure. “You’re trying to distract me, Grace. And it’s working. But I want to know. What was the first rule you ever broke?”

“Ethan, it’s not a sexy answer.”

“Everything you say is sexy. Besides, you’re running out of clothes,” Ethan pointed out, sliding his own hand down her bare stomach, into her panties. All she wanted was for him to touch the spot he’d touched in the coat closet on New Year’s Eve. Instead, he tugged at the waistband of her panties and eased them down. She bent her knees for him, letting him strip her, then turned slightly to the side on the faded floral bedspread.

His eyes traveled hotly up and down her naked body, leaving a tingling trail on her skin. “Wow.” He inhaled several times. “I’ve spent seven years trying to imagine what you’d look like
completely
naked and your body is so much better than anything I dreamed up that I can’t even catch my breath.”

Could this really be happening?
Being with him made her feel so good it felt like a dream. “You’re still wearing way too much,” she said, reaching for his sweater to push it up over his head.

When she tried to take off his undershirt, though, he stopped her. “Hey, you’re cheating. You’ve gotta answer the question, Grace.”

“Fine. I’ll answer it. I went swimming.”

“Swimming is against your rules?”

“Not my rules. Mama’s rules. I wasn’t a good swimmer, so I wasn’t allowed in the pool unless she was there.”

Ethan ought to have sensed that this was too serious a topic for their various states of undress, but he wouldn’t let it go. “And you went without her?”

The surge of pain inside her heart threatened to crowd out the arousal. “We were living in a motel at the time. My dad was supposed to take me to school, but he decided to have a beer by the pool instead. He was with his friends; he wasn’t paying attention to me. I knew I shouldn’t have, but I wanted to go swimming so bad. So, I jumped in the algae-ridden water and almost drowned.”

Ethan’s hand went to her hair and he softly brushed her bangs out of her eyes. “Hey, I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

He couldn’t know what he’d touched upon. He couldn’t know unless she told him. And even though she was so needy right now, so vulnerable to him in every way, there was so much else she couldn’t explain to him that it didn’t seem fair to keep this from him too. “Luckily, someone pulled me out of the water but when my mother got home and found out what happened, my parents had a huge fight. My dad slammed out the door that night…and he never came back.”

She was
really
naked, now. She was naked before him, inside and out. Ethan stared at her, several different emotions warring in his expression, as if he was scared to say the wrong thing and shatter her. In the end, he didn’t say anything. Instead, he kissed her. A deep, lingering kiss that drove some of the sadness away. And when his lips parted from hers, he whispered, “You know that wasn’t your fault, right?”

“Of course.”

But he saw right through her. “Your dad leaving had nothing to do with you.”

“I know. I mean…in my head, I know.”

“Your heart should know it, too,” he said, lowering to press a kiss just beneath her breast, right where her heart thudded in her chest. They both knew the game was over now and he moved on top of her, their legs tangling together. Something stirred in her, sultry and steamy. She tilted her head back and wet her lips. A little puff of air escaped her lungs. This wanting, this needing, was so foreign to her. It gave him such power over her.

“Will you let me, Grace?”

“Let you do what?”

His eyes locked on hers. “Anything I want.”

Grace moaned and nodded in a stupor. “Yes,” she said. It was a pure moment of connection. Of happiness. And Grace wanted to embrace it.

His lips slid down her collarbone, over her breasts, teased at her belly, trailing down, down, down…

All Grace could think about was pleasure, until a knock echoed through the walls. Hearing voices outside, she nearly scrambled out of her own skin. “Who is that?”

Ethan kept her pinned to the bed with his body. “Relax, it’s the volunteers with doughnuts.”

Grace squeaked. “They’re knocking! What do we do?”

Ethan abruptly pulled her knees up over his shoulders. “We let them knock.”

Oh,
this
position was sinful. Even the slippery pamphlets sticking to her overheated body made her feel wicked. “What if they won’t go away?”

“Then they can freeze to death for all I care,” he said and the brush of his stubbled chin against her the inside of her thigh made her shiver. “I’m going to make you come now, and when I do, I wanna hear you say my name.”

“Ethan…” she whispered, taking frantic little breaths as he kissed the damp curls between her legs.

“That’s a good start,” he said, tangling his fingers with hers while he bent his head to taste her. The feel of his mouth on her was so intense she might have been able to forget about the knocking.

Until a phone started ringing.

Ethan looked up and growled. “If that’s mine, I’m going to put it down the garbage disposal.”

But it wasn’t his. Grace recognized the ringtone as her own and disentangled her hand to reach for it inside the pocket of her discarded skirt. Ethan tried to wrestle it away from her but she twisted, laughing, holding it away from him for fear he’d smash it to pieces. “Ethan, just let me turn it off—oh.” The caller ID caused her laughter to die in her throat. “It’s the hospital…”