Wild Rain (14 page)

“What about you, Reese?”

No, was his immediate response. Absolutely not. He’d made it a habit never to talk about himself. But this denial went deeper. Some part of him knew that Jillian Bonner was a threat. A threat to his privacy? Definitely. A threat to his innermost boundaries? The ones that kept the entire world at a safe, impersonal distance? A distance that made his job easier? Maybe even one that guaranteed he’d never end up like his parents?

Oh yeah.

And the very idea that he’d let her get close enough to even be considered a threat rocked him to his very core.

“What do you want to know?” he asked, his voice rough with the effort to sound casual.

“Tell me about Australia.” She ducked her head slightly. “I think I could listen to you talk for hours,” she added shyly.

His chest tightened, and the ache that was centered lower and deeper inside him grew. “Hours? You’ll be disappointed then.”

“The strong, silent type, huh?”

Her teasing tone did amazing things to his pulse rate.

“Not much to talk about.”

“What part of Australia are you from? Surely you can part with that much of yourself.”

Her perception shook him up a bit. And he had the oddest urge to tell her whatever she wanted to know. Tempted, for the first time since childhood, to share something of himself, to risk giving a piece of himself away. To her.

Dangerous thoughts. And it was precisely that sort of danger he’d avoided by avoiding intimacy on anything but the basest level. Physical. Primal.

Not mental. Never emotional.

“Western Australia in a place called Broome. It’s a pearling town on the northwest coast.”

“Pearls? That’s pretty tough work, isn’t it?”

Reese smiled. “Most women would be in rapture over the romantic aspects of pearls. You only see the hard, rough side.”

“Yes, well, most beautiful things come from ugly, harsh beginnings.”

Reese placed his hands on her face and lifted it to his. “Like you, mite?”

“I’m hardly beautiful.”

“On the contrary, I think you’re the most truly beautiful person I’ve ever met.”

“Reese, don’t—”

“Shhh.” He ducked his head and did what he’d been wanting to do almost since the instant their lips had parted. It seemed like centuries ago.

A groan surged into his throat as he took her mouth. Damn she was sweet and sensual in ways he’d never dreamed a woman could be. Never had he wanted someone so strongly, felt the need to bury himself inside a woman so desperately. It was as if there was far more to be joined than just their bodies.

It was a connection so unique, so tantalizing he couldn’t resist going after it.

He slanted his mouth across hers and took the kiss deeper. His hands framing her face gentled, and he let his fingers plunge into her hair, then drop down to her shoulders.

He felt the trembling in her, felt her grab at his shoulders as if she were hanging on for dear life. And yet he couldn’t stop, didn’t want to know she might not be feeling what he was feeling. What he’d never felt before.

He slid his tongue into her mouth, filling it, tasting her, wanting more. So much more.

She moaned and moved against him in a way
that removed all doubt from his mind. She was with him. Body, mind, soul. And spirit.

What a tremendous spirit she had. Her tongue dueled with his, demanding entry into his mouth where she ravaged him as he’d ravaged her. She wanted, she took.

He capitulated willingly, stunned by how deeply her needs moved him, motivated him to give her whatever she sought, praying like hell he had it to give.

He pulled her under him, rolling half on top of her in the small, cramped space provided by the short stack of boxes. He continued to duel with her mouth, taking turns controlling the kisses they were sharing.

He slid his hands from her shoulders to her waist, pulled her up against him, needing some contact between the softness of her and the hardness of him. And dear God had he ever been this hard? His big hands covered her stomach, and he lifted himself enough to pull her shirt from the waistband of her jeans.

Her arms were twined around his neck, urging him not to break the delicious contact of their hungry lips. He struggled to comply. She was so much smaller than him, it was hard to bend his body to reach all the places he wanted to reach.

He finally broke off the kiss, needing to explore the rest of her. She groaned her disapproval, then sucked in a sharp breath when he pushed her shirt up.

“Reese.” The whisper was harsh. She stiffened.

He scooted down so his face was even with her torso and dropped his head to kiss her flat stomach. “Let me, Jillian.”

“But I’m—” Her words were cut off on a gasp as he bared her breasts.

“Shhh.” More than anything in the world Reese wished they’d left the battery lantern on. But he was too caught up in his discovery of her to search for it now.

His hands moved up and covered her breasts completely. Jillian squirmed under his touch. “Mmmmm,” Reese groaned. “Exquisite.”

“There’s …” She broke off as he started a light massage. “Not much there,” she finished on a gasp.

“Maybe not,” he answered, tweaking her nipples gently into even tauter peaks. “But it’s like pearls; it’s not always the size, but the perfection.” He dipped his head and took one of her nipples into his mouth, then moved to the other one. On a soft groan he laid his head between her breasts. “And I’d say these are top quality.”

She’d stiffened under his gentle assault, even as she moaned and writhed. Only now did she relax under him. When he felt her hands tentatively touch his hair, then move more assuredly against his scalp, he sighed deeply.

This was far from the first time his head had been pillowed between a woman’s breasts. So why did it feel so different?

He moved his head to nuzzle her again, slowly laving each nipple, reveling in the way she arched against him more naturally this time. He knew she’d be so easy to bring to a peak, her body was fairly screaming for it.

Not that he could blame it. If he’d gone without ever climaxing, he’d have probably picked it a long time ago.

Each and every muscle in his body tensed as he contemplated moving his attention slowly southward. A million sensations rushed through him at the merest idea of how she’d respond under his lips, his tongue.

“Reese.” Her tone was urgent, demanding. Reese understood.

“I know, sweetheart, I know.” He shifted, spreading light kisses along the center of her stomach, lingering over her navel, finding the whole experience of discovering her in the dark both frustrating and immensely erotic. He unsnapped her jeans quietly, and began to pull on the zipper.

“Reese.” Her voice was rougher, deeper, but this time she leaned up and reached down for his shoulders, tugging at him. “Come back up here.”

Reese experienced a moment of deep indecision. Everything in him was urging him to continue on the path he’d begun. She hadn’t tensed under him—at least not in a negative way—and she didn’t seem to be panicking now. Far from it. Her body felt soft and languid beneath him.

“Please.”

Sighing softly against her still-zipped jeans, he carefully shifted upward, not pulling her shirt down, but wishing like hell his was off so he could feel her bare breasts against his chest. He vowed then and there that he would. Sometime. Somehow.

Shifting carefully to his side, favoring his sore thigh, he pulled her to him, bending his head down to hers. “What is it, Jillian? Was I going too fast?”

“No.”

He smiled again, suddenly not minding that they’d slowed down a bit. “You sound surprised.”

“I guess I am. Reese, I …” She ducked her head, resting her forehead on his shoulder for a moment.

He lifted her face to his with a finger beneath her chin. “You’ve never made love with a man during a hurricane?” He kept his tone carefully light, completely ignoring the fact that he’d called what they’d been doing lovemaking, when he’d never referred to it as anything but sex before.

“That’s true. And I didn’t want you to stop. Not really.”

“Then why did you?”

“Because I’m not … that is, I don’t use … anything. And I didn’t think you …” She buried her head again. “Dear Lord,” she muttered against his chest, “I’m over thirty, I’m not a virgin. You’d think I could talk about birth control without stammering.”

Reese actually felt his heart swell in his chest.
She was strong and tough, and wonderfully adorable in ways he wouldn’t have imagined he’d enjoy in a woman. “I would have stopped.” He lifted a quick finger to her lips when he felt her tense as if to speak. “I wouldn’t have liked it, but I would have stopped.” He leaned down and gave her a hard, fast kiss. Because he thought she needed the reassurance, and because he damn well wanted to. Then he whispered against her mouth, “But if I were you, I would have waited about five more minutes. You’d be feeling a lot better now than you do.”

She punched him lightly on the shoulder.

“What? It’s the truth.”

“Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

In his best Southern American drawl, he said, “Why yes, ma’am, I am.”

She hugged him tightly, and he hugged her right back. Damn but he didn’t think he ever wanted the storm to end. It would mean he’d have to let her go. And he was beginning to realize that it was going to be more difficult than he’d ever thought possible.

“Reese?”

“Yes?”

“Does this mean we have to stop kissing?”

His body answered with a resounding no. “Nah. I imagine it would irritate old Ivan to death out there if he knew how much fun we were havin’ while he was doing his darnedest to wreak havoc.”

“Can I … would you …?”

“You’re cute when you stammer.”

She thumped him on the chest. “I take it back. I liked you better when you let your actions speak for you.” Without another word, she reached down and tugged his shirt up.

“Well, never let it be said that I disappointed a lady.” He ripped off his shirt and quickly settled his mouth back on hers. Shifting to his back, he pulled her half on top of him, groaning deeply at the feel of her small breasts rubbing along his rib cage. “Damn you feel good.”

“You too, Reese. You too.”

EIGHT

Jillian woke up slowly. Awareness filtered in in fragments, like pieces of a kaleidoscope falling into place. Memories of Reese kissing her, of her kissing Reese, of her heart pounding and feeling Reese’s pulse race under her lips when she kissed his neck. His hands on her, her hands on him … She remembered Reese slowing things down by getting her to talk, teasing her into recounting stories both funny and sad about her travails as a wildlife rehabilitator.

And at some indefinable point along the way, she’d fallen asleep. Or had she?

Her eyes flew open as it occurred to her what had woken her up. If in fact she could be woken up. The noise. Or more to the point, the total lack of it.

She couldn’t see a thing. But she felt a heavy weight pressing against her chest and abdomen.

“Are we dead?” she whispered, then felt disappointed when the question didn’t sound as absurd spoken outloud as she’d hoped it would.

“God, I hope not,” came a raspy reply.

Reese shifted his head, and the bristle of his beard scraped against her left breast. Her bare left breast.

Before she could react, he turned his head and pulled her nipple into his mouth, having no problem locating it even without a bit of light. As if he’d reached for it before.

More than once.

She arched automatically under his touch as a dozen sensations warred with twice as many questions for her immediate attention. It was a toss-up as to which side was winning the battle, but when he shifted his attention to her other breast things slanted swiftly toward the sensations’ side.

“Reese,” she gasped. Something niggled at the back of her brain … something that had caught her attention, woken her up. What he was doing felt so good. But …

Suddenly she reached down and shoved at his shoulders and head. “Reese, stop.”

“Don’t wanna,” he mumbled against her soft skin. “Let me enjoy heaven before someone figures out they made a mistake and sent me in the wrong direction.”

“The storm, Reese, the storm. Listen!”

With a groan and deep heartfelt sigh that oddly enough made her mouth curl in the beginnings of a
smile, he lifted his head. After a silent moment, he said, “It’s over.”

Jillian wanted to believe that almost as much as she wished Reese would go back to what he’d just been doing. She shook off the last vestiges of the seductive drowsiness of her waking moments.

“How do you know it’s not just the eye passing over us?” she asked, listening hard for any signs that the storm still raged. She heard nothing.

“Been too long. It’s over.”

“We made it?” She whispered the question, as if afraid Ivan was still hovering outside and might overhear that he’d unknowingly left a survivor or two.

“Yeah, mite. We made it.”

Her thoughts instantly shifted to Cleo. Had she survived as well? Jillian immediately began to struggle to crawl out from under Reese. Her progress was stopped short when he pinned her back down with strong hands on her shoulders.