Killing Time (One-Eyed Jacks) (19 page)

So that kiss, the lingering pangs of longing . . . it was simply about action and reaction, nothing more. This she could comprehend. It made sense.

If only it was even remotely true, because, damn it, she was thinking about him again.

Was he lying awake, too, thinking of her?

Or was he thinking about Cooper? Had he made the call?

It couldn’t have been easy for him.

The thought sobered her.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” she sputtered and threw back the covers. She wasn’t going to get any sleep. Not until she knew.

On a deep sigh, she sat up, finger-combed her hair away from her face, and got out of bed. Because he probably could use someone to talk to, she told herself. He wouldn’t talk to Gabe because guys didn’t spill those kind of personal pains with each other. They trash-talked, joked, and skirted the tough issues. A slap on the back, a quick silent glance. Problem solved.

Not so much. She opened the bedroom door. She knew what it was like to be alone. To cope. To deal. To try to make sense of something that was senseless. Why she felt that it was up to her to make certain Brown was okay, she didn’t know.

Or maybe, she thought with disgust, she did.

Gabe’s office was dark, but there was a light on in the kitchen. She followed the smell of brewing coffee—and found Brown. Alone. Standing with his back to her at the counter, shirtless, barefoot, wearing the pants she’d bought him.

Tan chinos hung low on his hips, emphasizing taut, hard buttocks and a narrow waist, the whipcord leanness of his ribs. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. He was all defined muscle and ropy sinew. Canned ceiling lights in front of the cabinets cast soft light and shadows on his broad shoulders, showcased a scar beneath his left shoulder blade. It was about three inches long, the skin puckered and raised.

She stared at it, wondering how he’d gotten it, suddenly knowing she’d made a major mistake. She needed to go back to the bedroom.

Then he turned around.

For a long moment neither of them said a word. The soft gurgle of the coffeepot, the ticking of the
clock above the sink, and her uneven breathing were the only sounds.

She needed words to break the quiet. “Couldn’t sleep?”

He nodded. “Apparently you have the same problem.”

Oh, she had lots of problems. Most of them were wrapped up in six-plus feet of this ridiculously gorgeous, shirtless male.

She cleared her throat. “Did you call Cooper?”

Raw emotion put gravel in his voice and so much vulnerability in his eyes that it made her heart hurt. “Yeah. I called.”

She didn’t know why she was so sensitive to him, and yet she was. “Is he . . . is he coming?”

He leaned back against the counter, crossed his arms over his chest, and propped one bare foot on top of the other. One broad, bare shoulder lifted in a shrug. “I don’t know. Doubt it. I got his machine. Left a message.”

Her heart dropped. “I’m so sorry you didn’t make a connection.”

He compressed his lips, gave another shrug, but he wasn’t fooling her. He was hurting.

“Look, Eva. I’m a little raw around the edges. Lack of sleep. Ketamine. It’s probably not a good idea for you to be here right now.”

She agreed, this was not a good idea at all. And yet she stood there.

“Probably not,” she said finally, her gaze locked on his.

His eyes were so dark and so tortured as he watched her, trying to get a read on why she was still standing there.

God, why was she? She should definitely go.

But she didn’t want to leave him. She wanted to wrap him in her arms and hold him. To feel the press of his lips and be more to him than a warm body who understood this kind of pain.

She stood there. Heart racing. Breath caught.

While he watched her, eyes piercing, eyes searching. Finally understanding what she was offering.

He slowly unfolded his arms, stood up straight and pushed away from the counter, never taking his eyes off her face.

Her heart nearly exploded when he started walking toward her. She held his gaze, smothering a cry of relief when he finally stood in front of her, their bare toes touching, his strong arms drawing her hard against him.

She tipped her head up to his. It was all the invitation he needed. His mouth slammed down on hers and she stopped thinking, stopped doubting, and reacted. She opened her mouth under his, met his tongue with wild, hungry strokes, and wound her arms around his neck when he picked her up and carried her back to the bedroom.

There was no talking. No reasoning. What happened now was all about feeling, all about loss, all about giving as his rough hands tunneled under her shirt and slid against her bare back, then reached for the hem and dragged it over her head.

She gasped as he bent her backward onto the bed and followed her down, his mouth hot and wet and ravenous on her breast. Electric shocks fired to her core as he suckled and licked and fed like a man whose appetite had not been satisfied for a long, long time. Like a man whose desire was in frantic need of slaking. Like a man whose heart was in desperate need of healing.

She arched against him, reached between them, and slipped her hands inside his pants to cup the hard, pulsing length of him. He groaned and gently nipped her, hard enough to sting, soft enough to excite, and rocked his hips into her clasping hand.

Out of body. Out of mind. Her responses were primal, raw and consuming. When he reached down and undid his pants, shoving them away, she was right there with him, wriggling out of her borrowed boxers and parting her thighs, making room for him there, where she was wet and achy and . . .
Oh, God . . .
so much in need.

She bit his shoulder when he touched her, rubbing her all the right ways until she rocked against him, digging her nails into his back and begging him to come inside her.

She didn’t know where he got the condom. Only cared that he got it on. Then he was holding himself above her, his biceps bunching, his hands braced on the bed on either side of her waist, nudging her center with the tip of his erection, asking her with his eyes to guide him home. She raised her knees to
her chest, open, vulnerable, and did exactly what he wanted. She surrounded him with her hands, tilted her hips toward him, and centered him over her core.

“Hurry,” she begged. “Deep,” she demanded, gripping his hips and offering everything she had as he slowly entered her. “Hard,” she all but whimpered as he stretched her with the thick hot breadth of him and drove to her very center.

Sweet, hot, rough friction, unbelievably perfect. She didn’t question how she could barely know him yet
know
him. Instinctively. Know his rhythm as well as she knew her own heartbeat. Know what pleased him. Know what moved him. It wasn’t possible to feel this level of intimacy and trust, to feel his need and know exactly how to fulfill it—and yet she did.

He thrust; she met him stroke for stroke. He plunged, she tightened and flexed; losing herself in the union, the incredible sensations, and the welcome weight of him pressing into her.

And then the rush consumed her, transported her to that place where body met mind and pleasure courted pain and nothing,
nothing
mattered but the wild, reckless release that shot her into a pulsating orgasm that had her gasping and grasping him closer and deeper, marrying body and soul.

•   •   •

Mike sat on the bed in the dark with his back to Eva. His feet were on the floor, elbows propped on his thighs, head in his hands. Utterly, totally spent. Lightheaded and sweaty.

She’d fallen asleep behind him.

He was still reeling.

He wasn’t a man to rhapsodize about sex. It was a basic human function. Sometimes necessary. Primarily physical, and if done right, purely pleasurable. No hearts, no minds, no souls involved.

But what he’d shared with Eva went beyond anything he’d ever experienced. And he was an experienced man.

“How will I know she’s the one, master? The final one? The only one I’ll ever want to be with?”

“Well, Grasshopper, when the top of your head blows off and your heart explodes along with it, you can pretty much bet your sorry ass that you’ve entered dangerous new territory.”

He dragged a hand through his hair and fought a flat-out panic that told him he was in some deep, serious shit here.

The woman had played him, for God’s sake. She’d drugged him. Cuffed him to a frickin’ bed. Held his own gun on him and accused him of every crime known to man short of killing puppies.

Not much more than a day later, he wanted to crawl back under the covers with her, saturate his senses with her scent, the touch of her skin, the taste of her breast, and stay there for the next millennium.

What a putz.

Gabe had known he was in trouble even before he had. Just before he’d turned in, he’d pressed a couple
packets of condoms into Mike’s hand. “Jenna and I don’t need these at the moment.”

Mike had glanced at the foil packets with a snort. “And what makes you think I do?”

“Because the chemistry between you two could blow up a science lab.”

Had he been that transparent with her, too? Had he let her see how damn needy he was? Is that why she’d come to him? Because she’d known how important—yeah, important—what they’d shared would be to him?

God, he hoped not. Because this couldn’t go anywhere.

And he didn’t want to be
that
man. The man he’d never understood, who needed a woman in his life.

Carefully, so as not to wake her, he made himself leave her bed. Made himself, because he sure as hell didn’t want to go. Another first.

He groped around in the dark and finally found his pants, dragged them on, then walked quietly out of the room. Once outside, he leaned back against the door, made a gun out of his index finger and thumb, pointed it at his temple, and pulled the trigger.

Thin wisps of daylight peeked beneath a closed blind when Eva woke up after not nearly enough sleep. She hadn’t expected to find Mike in her bed come morning and wasn’t surprised that he was gone. She
had
expected to feel exactly the way she did: weighed down by a mix of satiation, stupidity, and second thoughts.

Brown knew his way around a woman’s body; she’d have been shocked if he didn’t. What
had
shocked her was his attention to her needs. Men who looked like him leaned more toward selfish than selfless, in her experience.

Guilt stopped her cold when she realized she’d been comparing him to Ramon.
Don’t go there,
she warned herself as she rose and got dressed. Thoughts of Ramon did not belong in a bed she’d shared with a man he had despised. And second thoughts about last night were pointless. There was no taking it back, and she wouldn’t if she could. But a replay wasn’t going to happen for too many reasons to count, starting and
ending with the fact that they both had too much baggage to make any kind of a relationship work.

Relationship?
Okay. That soaked it. They’d had great sex, and yes, maybe they’d even tapped into something deeper. They’d both needed an emotional outlet, had given and taken mutual comfort, but that’s where it ended.

Her head back on straight, she stepped out of the bedroom. When she saw that the light was on in Gabe’s windowless office, she stopped in the open doorway. Both men were already hard at it. Neither saw her there, and she took advantage of the moment to look, really look, at the stunningly beautiful man who was so much more than she’d expected him to be. If he’d lived down to her expectations, this would be much easier.

She could tell by the fatigue etched on Mike’s face that he hadn’t slept much. Still, he was clearly revved and chomping at the bit to get things moving. Just like it was clear that he was as determined as she was to avoid revisiting last night. Because when he sensed her standing there, he looked up, then directly away.

A classic case of buyer’s remorse.
Well, take it times two, buddy.

She moved on to the kitchen in search of coffee, glad they were on the same wavelength. They had bigger fish to fry. Armed with caffeine and her own determination to let that sleeping dog lie, she walked back to the office and joined them at the small conference table.