Under the Wire (4 page)

"Come with me. I will make you forget everything but the moment."

She sucked in her breath on a gasp when he made another pass of his fingers across that place he was dying to taste.

"I don't know you. I must be crazy to even ... to even think of going with you."

"Crazy? But no,
mi amor.
Lonely. You are but lonely. And hurting. Very badly, I think. Let me make it better."

And at this moment there was nothing Manny wanted more than to hear her lusty sighs of pleasure, smooth those lines of pain on her tragically beautiful face.

He turned her toward him, drew her against him until they meshed, belly to belly, breast to chest. She searched his eyes. Her breath feathered out, shallow and thready, telling him that her arousal was at a level that mirrored his. And yet she wavered.

"Pobrecita."
Poor little thing.
He folded her gently into his arms then. Eased her cheek against his chest and held her. "Is it really so hard to do something just for yourself?" Ever so slowly, her arms wound around his waist.

"Casual sex ... it's never been my strong suit. You must think ... you must think that I'm foolish to be so skittish."

He drew back and framed her face in his palms, forcing her to look at him. "What I think is that you're beautiful. That this is a big step for you. And can you honestly believe that what I want from you is casual?"

Even he was surprised to realize there was nothing casual about it. He was a sexual being, yes. He was young. His blood ran hot. But the life he led did not allow for lasting love. Yet something ... something about this woman intrigued him. Something he had yet to comprehend. He only knew he couldn't let her go. Not yet.

"How can it be anything but casual? You don't know me, either." Tears glistened again as she searched his face with those depthless black eyes.

He brushed silky hair away from her temples with his thumbs. "You are so wrong, Lily. I knew you the moment I saw you. I know you are gentle and kind and that your spirit does not break easily. Yet, tonight you cry."

Because he couldn't resist any longer, he lowered his mouth and kissed her. A gentle touch. An endless taste of this lush, amazing woman. A delicious beginning to what he was certain would be a very important event in his life.

Her lips were unbearably soft, achingly tentative, and tasted of both her sweetness and her tears. With great reluctance, he lifted his head, laced his fingers at her nape, and caressed her jaw with his thumbs. "So you see, I do know you, beautiful Lily. And it is important, I think, for you to know me, too."

"Come," he murmured between kisses. "Come with me."

His own heart beat as wildly as hers as he watched her face and waited.

For an eternity.

Maybe longer.

Until she finally smiled for him and with that small gesture of trust, agreed to let him take her anywhere he wanted to go.

CHAPTER 3

She was out of her mind. Over-the-top, certifiably insane, Lily thought as she allowed the seductive young Lieutenant Ortega to tuck her under his broad shoulder and steer her back inside the general's house. She stood mute as a post as the lieutenant convinced a darkly scowling Poveda that she was feeling ill and that Manolo would see her safely back to her quarters across the city.

At least that's what she thought the Latino soldier was saying. Though her Spanish had improved since she'd arrived in Managua five months ago, she still had some difficulty grasping the rapid-fire conversations between the locals. Had special difficulty tonight given that she was still reeling over the most instantaneous and arousing physical response she'd ever had to a man.

She followed enough of this particular conversation, however, to understand that in addition to being an accomplished flirt, Manolo Ortega was a skilled liar and an impressive negotiator. Poveda appeared suspicious, even angry—which could prove dangerous—but since it would be bad form to deny an ill woman's request to leave early, the general eventually relented.

Yes, the young soldier was a skilled manipulator, she thought again as she walked toward the front door beside him. And a practiced seducer of women—as were many of the men she'd encountered during her limited stay way, way south of the border.

So why haven't you let any of the others talk you into bed? Why this man?

Because, she admitted reluctantly, tonight she was more needy and more vulnerable than she'd realized. Because this man was outrageously attractive. And because his words were seductive and convincing. At least they had been in the moment. She'd needed to hear them. Needed to hear that she deserved to feel something other than lost and alone. And she so wanted to believe that something could make her forget about her empty life for a little while.

She brushed the bougainvillea blossom over her cheek and glanced up at him, at his bold, dark profile, his exotic good looks, and thought,
Why not?
She'd been a good girl all of her life. Good daughter. Good wife.

And what had it gotten her? She was a disappointment to her parents, who considered her nursing degree a failure because they had wanted her to be a doctor. She was divorced. A disappointment to herself—and apparently to the man whose interpretation of "forsaking all others" only applied if he didn't get caught.

Maybe Manolo Ortega was offering her exactly what she needed. Despite all of his insistence that this wouldn't be casual, that he
knew
her, knew who she was, and wanted something more with her, she suffered no illusions.

He was offering her nothing more than a no-strings, no-strain night of intimacy. A wild night with a virile younger man, a hot Latin lover.

But more than that, he didn't know that he was
offering relief from the real world that seemed to be closing in with grief. For Kara. For Lily's own life that had once been long on dreams but now seemed seeped in despair.

With his hand riding the small of her back, she let him walk her out the door toward an armed soldier who opened a tall, ornately scrolled iron gate and let them out of the fenced-in grounds.

"My sister has an apartment only a short walk from here." Manolo pulled Lily close to his side as they descended stone steps to street level. "She's out of the city on business and invited me to stay while I'm on leave."

If Lily was going to back out, now was the time to tell him that her moment of insanity had passed. That her brain had re-engaged and that one-night stands with young, sexy strangers were back on her "don't even think about it" list.

Yet she kept on walking. With the moon shining down, the warm, masculine scent of this impossibly gorgeous man holding her close against his side, the strong hand wrapped around her ribs hovering tantalizingly close to her breast, she kept on walking. Remembering the commanding presence of that hand on her breast, the touch of his fingers against that part of her that said yes a hundred times to every one time she'd tried to muster up a no.

How long
had
it been since she'd let a man touch her this way? A year? Longer? God, she couldn't even remember.

And how sad was that?

His kisses make me feel alive.

Alive. Yes. Lily needed to feel alive.

Because Kara was dead.

Lily stopped abruptly as guilt slapped her in the face. She stared at the sidewalk, then up at him.

He frowned, more concerned than curious. "Lily. There is that sad look again. The one I cannot bear to see."

"I'm sorry. I thought I could do this."

He touched a hand to her face. "So, so hard on yourself. What sin, sweet Lily, do you think you have committed that you cannot allow yourself one night of pleasure?"

A consuming ache filled her chest. "It's so easy for you, isn't it? Sex. Seduction. Living for the moment."

He looked charmingly perplexed. "But of course it is easy. It is natural, yes? God gave us this gift... for man to pleasure woman. For woman to pleasure man. The only sin is in denial. In not accepting His generosity."

The ache intensified, sweet and deep and knotted in yearning, and she waffled again.
Good Lord.
Why couldn't she just embrace what seemed so easy for him to accept? Quit being a wimp.

"It does not have to be so complicated," he said gently, making her weaken again in the face of the earnest guile in his dark eyes.

"Lily." He whispered her name in that way he had of breaking it into two words and making it sound as if he adored each one. Adored
her.
"Do not complicate things,
mi amor.
It is so simple. Just come. Come with me. You will see. I will show you how easy love can be."

He kissed her again then. In the middle of the street, with traffic going by, he kissed her, his amazing, skilled mouth manipulating her into a pliant longing to stop questioning this gift and make it hers.

Overcome suddenly by a helpless loneliness and a raw disillusion that weighed like lead, Lily gave up.

She accepted that if this seductive creature had approached her any other night, any other time, any other place, she'd have smiled at his bold daring, told him he was a beautiful man, and sent him on his way. But the wound of Kara's death was too fresh. The guilt that it hadn't been Lily was too raw. And the fatigue and sometimes heartbreak that accompanied her profession was all too weighty. The ambitious and boorish advances of Jorge Poveda added insult to the pain she was feeling—while Manny Ortega offered a beautiful, irresistible star to light a sky shrouded by the darkest of clouds.

She allowed herself the luxury, then, of getting lost in his smoldering kisses and burning black eyes. Let herself sink into his sexy, slashing smile that said he would make things better—at least for a little while.

A little while was all she needed.

Just a little respite.

Just a little release.

And acknowledgment that she was still a woman ... with a woman's needs ... a woman desperate for affirmation that she was vital and desirable and alive.

Manny undressed her slowly. It was the part he relished most. Watching her dark eyes shift from anxiety to anticipation. From anticipation to bold, achy need. From need to insatiable hunger. And his Lily—she had been hungry for a very long time. It showed in her gaze as she watched him. Resounded in her sighs when he but barely touched her.

Hungry. Yes. She was very hungry. He would feed her. But first, he would feast. His eyes. His senses. His mouth.

She trembled as they stood beside the bed in a softly lit room that smelled of the sandalwood candle he had lit and of the woman whose skin he could not wait to expose inch by ivory inch.

"Your skin is amazing." Standing behind her, he lowered the zipper of her dress, and the creamy width of her back was revealed to him.

He pressed a kiss there along her spine, just between her shoulder blades, then ran his tongue up to her nape, humming his pleasure while he drew the dress off her shoulders and let it fall in a rustle of silk to the floor.

He kissed her neck, long, lingering kisses, and steeped himself in her scent. Slowly, he unhooked the back clasp of her black bra. Slower still, he lowered the satin straps down her arms, then filled his palms with the warm, luxurious weight of her bare breasts.

"Mi amor,
I do not know how long I can wait to be inside you," he whispered, then turned her around so he could see her. "Beautiful. Heavy and full." Her nipples hardened as she watched him caress her.

Ah, yes. His Lily was starving. He wanted her ravenous. Greedy. And wonderfully impatient as she stepped out of her dress and stood before him only in black panties and slim high heels that made her legs look a mile long.