Satin Pleasures (12 page)

If her knees weren't shaking so badly from that one light touch she would have bolted from the accusation. "Dan, I'm sorry."

Her backside bumped against the cupboard when he trapped her by placing both hands flat on the counter. His heat seeped through her kimono, scorching her skin in ever-widening circles from two separate fronts. "'Sorry' doesn't tell me why you created a man to hide behind, Tess," he said, his voice low, rough. "Who the hell are you hiding from?"

Desire, desperately close to the surface whenever he was near, flared and released the words.
"You...me...us."

Something tangible shifted in the air between them. Tess had taken a step off an emotional cliff, like a lemming seeking destruction, and she wasn't sure she'd survive the crash waiting for her on the rocks below.

"And we'd be a bad thing together, wouldn't we?"

His agreement shouldn't have hurt, but it did. "Terrible."

His head lowered until his lips were less than a promise away. "Then tell me, Tess, why 'terrible' feels so right because I'll be damned if I can figure it out."

Without waiting for a response he closed the infinitesimal distance between them, the emotional storm she saw in his eyes breaking on her lips in a hard, scorching kiss. There was demand in his kiss, a question. Weeks of restraint crackled between them, his or hers, she couldn't tell.
Didn't care.
All her fantasies had culminated in this one, primitive assault of his mouth.

An eternity later, Dan's fingers drifted through her hair, softening the caress, his palms cool against her hot cheeks. The world around her disappeared, until her only points of reference were Dan's hands and mouth, his scent, his breath mingling with hers.

There was nothing terrible about the way he plundered one corner of her mouth and slowly – God, ever so excruciatingly slowly – worked his way to the other side, little nips he soothed with his tongue. Each touch fanned the fire in her belly, setting off another series of goose bumps under her skin, until she shivered under the heat.

Sweet mercy, she wanted to make love to this man! His kiss, alone, held so much, promised everything. A tangle of emotions and feelings washed over her again and again, a cleansing tide, until she eagerly awaited the next wave.
Anticipated it with delight.
Expectation.
Yearning.

Suddenly, kisses weren't enough. Her love-starved body screamed for more points of contact. A voice at the back of her mind whispered urgent messages that propelled her to touch the silky curls on Dan's chest, to draw closer so she could taste his warm skin.

He jerked back. "Whoa!"

Stunned by his abrupt withdrawal, Tess stared. "What's wrong?"

"If you don't want me," he said, a pained look on his face, "just say so. Pouring coffee into my pocket is a bit drastic."

"But, I didn't—"

She bit back the denial when she saw the empty mug in her limp hand, the dark stain spreading down the front of his jeans clearly defining his arousal. With a cry of horror at what she’d done, she brushed past him to pull an ice pack from the freezer. When she spun around she ran directly into Dan, crashed back against the open freezer dislodging stacks of TV dinners and pot pies which fell over her shoulders, bounced off his bare chest, and then scattered to the floor.

His hands closed on her arms. "What are you doing, Tess?"

How he could sound so nonchalant when he had to be in pain, Tess didn't know. "We need to put ice on this burn." She lightly touched the damp bulge.

Dan closed his eyes briefly, groaned, and she quickly snatched her hand away, sure she'd completely emasculated the poor man. "If you’d only let me
hel
—"

He held her off. "That would be adding insult to injury, don't you think?"

When she saw his eyes twinkled with humor, not pain, that his smile was genuine, she felt her face flush. The coffee must have cooled before she dumped it all over him in her eagerness to climb under his skin. "I should have gone with my first impulse and punched you in the nose."

His crooked grin unraveled her resolve. "I liked your second impulse better."

She did, too. If Dan hadn't broken off the kiss, she'd be tearing off his clothes and making love to him on her kitchen floor right this minute and, from all appearances, Dan wouldn't have objected. Her attention now drawn to other, thankfully undamaged, parts of his anatomy, she couldn't tear her eyes away. As she watched, Dan seemed to grow fuller, larger.

"Tess?"

Stifling a low moan of frustration at the way his husky tone wrapped around her name, she turned away. Her fingers fumbling, she busied herself picking up the packages of frozen food and shoving them back in the freezer. Oh, to cool the fire that raged through her traitorous body as easily!

She rearranged the same small stack three different ways before Dan spoke up behind her. "Are you setting up shop in there?"

The underlying amusement in his question stiffened her spine. She closed the freezer door, pivoted, and promptly lost steam. "I...."

No matter what she may have heard in his voice, Dan's face told another story.
"
Shhh
.
I know. We need to discuss what's happening between us." His gaze raked her body to her bare toes and back again. "But, maybe you'd better dress first while I finish breakfast."

The suggestion was sound. The kiss had pried open their relationship, exposed feelings she could no longer deny. Removing Anthony as a protection had changed the rules, set her emotions free in some strange way, and she wasn't prepared to relinquish the control she'd wrestled from her life. That didn’t mean, looking at Dan’s erection pressed against his coffee-soaked jeans, she wasn’t tempted! "You should probably
chang
—"

Dan yanked her to him and fumbled with the silk tie at her waist. "Please, Tess," he growled. "Get out of here, now, unless you want me to change the breakfast menu."

She read the raw hunger on his face and glanced down at the irregular knot that now closed her robe over her nakedness. The temptation to ignore his warning was almost her
undoing but with one last look into his blazing green eyes, she summoned the good sense to bolt for the dubious safety of her bedroom.

***

Tess broke the tense silence that carried them through breakfast and a short walk to the rocky beach several blocks from her apartment. "Maybe we should forget this."

With his own thoughts traveling along multiple lines of self-reproach, Dan knew she wasn't referring to the brisk Pacific wind tugging at their hair and clothing. Kissing Tess first thing this morning was not one of his brighter ideas. In fact, it rated right up there with thinking about her lying in his bed every night.
Under him.
Surrounding him in her heat, her burning intensity.

He dragged his gaze from the horizon and the outline of a loaded freighter sailing toward the bay. "I won't apologize for kissing you, Tess." He shook his head. "Don't get me wrong. I've wanted to do it for a long time. But...."

But, what?
Did he tell her the truth? He'd given in to an urge he'd sworn to crush. He'd misplaced his vow, forgotten the differences that lay between them. Fact was he'd lost his mind completely and hadn't cared if he was swallowed alive. It would have made more sense to skinny-dip in shark-infested waters than kiss Tess Emory. At least then, his aching, tormented body would be out of its misery.

"Dan," she said, "we can't forget who we are."

"No, we can't."

And, therein, lay the heart of his problem. If he forgot who he was, he had to remember who
she
was.
His nemesis.
His trial.
He'd returned to civilization and confronted the one thing he dreaded most, failure to find a balance between his past and his future. And, it had only taken one pair of luscious brown eyes to knock him off beam. "We want different things from life."

She nodded. "We're on two sides of the fence. I'm a
Thorgram
Group employee. You're a
Thorgram
tenant. I have commitments and obligations you can't imagine that makes a relationship difficult, if not impossible."

He was irritated by her belief whatever happened between them was influenced by their positions. "One kiss does not make a relationship." At least, one normal kiss didn’t. The problem was the kiss they shared in her kitchen an hour ago dragged his intentions beyond normal...way beyond.

"I didn't mean to imply that you, that I—"

His anger turned inward when he saw distress swamp her face before she turned away. Tess rarely failed to present a strong front to the world, but he'd gotten close enough to see the minute cracks in her armor. Inside, she was vulnerable.
Passionate.

Yes. He wanted that passion thrown his way, for a while at least, but he suspected it would take a hell of a lot longer than three months to get her out of his system once he made love to her. He was moving on. Wasn't he? "Tess?"

Her back remained stiff, rigid. "What?"

"It takes two people to build a relationship, and we both know time and circumstances are working against us. If I weren't leaving, it might be another story. I'd—"

Tess confronted him. "You're leaving?
When?"
She barely paused to take a breath. "When will you be back?"

The barrage of questions surprised him. "I’m not coming back. I'm only filling in here through June. Didn't you know?"

"I do, now!" She waved her hands in the air and stalked past him toward her apartment, muttering under her breath. "I can't believe...we could have—"

Switching direction, she came back to poke her finger into his chest. "You should have told me."

"I thought you knew."

The misinformation—if that is what it was—could only have originated with his aunt. Dan could think of no reason for her to keep such crucial news to herself, unless his suspicions were correct and his family still had hopes of convincing him to stay in San Francisco. It was their intent when they approached him with the proposition, but he'd committed to a temporary arrangement.
Nothing more.

Dan explained as much to Tess. “That’s why it isn’t a good idea for us to get involved. You deserve more than an affair.”

Her eyebrows rose. "Are you offering?"

"What?"

"You."
She gnawed on her lower lip. "An affair with no strings attached."

Dan's throat tightened, strangling the first response to jump into his mind. "I don't think—"

"So, you don't really want me?"

Between the vulnerability in her alluring eyes and the hot, spicy scent he'd forever associate with her, Dan was drowning. The question was when hadn't he wanted her? The nature of his stay in San Francisco, the differences in their lifestyles, his plans for his future, his knowledge of a supposed live-in lover...none of it
mattered
a damn to his irrational desire to get close to this woman.

He shook his head to loosen any sane thought that might still lurk at the back of his mind.

"I see," Tess said, misinterpreting his movement. "Then, it's a good thing we both agree it wouldn't work."

Dan ordered himself to let it go. Instead, he dragged her into his arms and snugged her length up close until there could be no question of his response. Then, as her enticing mouth parted with shock, he leaned down and stole the rest of the kiss he'd denied himself earlier in her kitchen.

He took his time and savored it, demanding and coaxing Tess’s participation. Her lips softened beneath his, separated to invite him in. When he tasted her, she moaned sweetly into his mouth and wove her fingers through his hair. He was prepared to drag her down to the sand so he could love her properly when the cries of children playing nearby swept through his beleaguered senses like a tsunami.

He lifted his head with a harsh curse. “Make no mistake, Tess. One thing about us works and, if we weren’t out in the open, I’d show you how much I want you.”

“If we weren’t out in the open, I’d let you, and that’s what’s so crazy.” Tess took a deep shuddering breath and pulled her arms from around his neck. “So, what do we do? I was counting on you to keep my hormones in check.”

Her attempt at a joke was feeble, but it gave Dan an opportunity to step out of the sensual fog he’s built around them. Sooner or later, he was either going to make love to Tess or go out of his mind. But, too much had changed in the last few hours and it was time to clear his thoughts.

He fell back on the humor that had become comfortable between them in recent weeks. "I suggest a public place and an extra-large bread bowl of clam chowder."

Tess laughed.
"Sort of a cold shower and consolation prize?
Does that work?"

Her grin cut smoothly through his sexual tension. He smiled back. "There's always the fall back plan.”

“Fall back plan?”