She whimpered, thrashed, and tried to pull her hands from his grip, but he held her tight. While his mouth worked first one breast and then the other, his mind went spinning into madness.
Belle, Belle, Belle
.
His blood burned. His heart pounded. His cock was hard as steel.
‘‘Please, Mark,’’ Annabelle groaned, her hips canting forward. ‘‘Please.’’
He released her breast, captured her mouth, and thrust his hand between her legs, his two middle fingers into her hot, slick sheath.
‘‘Is that what you wanted, Annabelle?’’ he asked as he stroked her, worked her.
‘‘Yes . . . no . . . ah . . .’’
Her thighs clamped around his hand and she ground herself against him. Her head was flung back and her eyes closed. A moan escaped her throat.
The familiarity of it shuddered through him. God, how he’d missed this. How had he survived without it? How in hell would he live the rest of his life without it? Without her?
Not personal, she says. Casual . . . something she wants to forget?
Like hell. He was raw inside at the idea of this being anything less than incredible for her.
‘‘Is this casual enough for you?’’ He reached higher inside her. Let his fingers dance. Ground his palm against her clitoris. ‘‘Just sex. Nothing personal?’’
She murmured incoherently.
‘‘How about this?’’ He removed his fingers from inside her, and sank to his knees. With one hand on her ass, he grabbed her thong’s thin line of elastic and ripped it away.
Then he leaned in and licked her. And licked her again. And again and again and again. She put her hand on his head and made a halfhearted effort to push him away. But when he slipped his hands palms out between her legs and pushed her thighs apart, allowing him better access, her fingers threaded into his hair and held on.
He buried his mouth in her damp sex and probed with his tongue, rasped with his teeth, and sucked that hard little nub that made her shudder and shake and share her soft, liquid heat.
God, she was sweet.
Casual, my ass.
Lord, I’m gonna die,
Annabelle thought as the climax slammed into her, a hurricane’s wind that sent her reeling,flying, soaring. It must have knocked her off her feet, because she found herself lying on her back, writhing. He wouldn’t leave her alone. Wouldn’t let it end.
It was the most electrifying sex she’d ever had in her life.
He’d taken control. Powerful and strong, he gave no quarter, showed no mercy. His fingers clenched on her hips, holding her still while he continued to use his mouth, driving her onward and upward incessantly. Anger hummed through him into her, giving their lovemaking an edge that was new and different.
He was a male staking his claim, and to her inner feminist’s shame, she found it utterly thrilling.
Surrender, she discovered, excited her. It was primal, honest, and real. Feminine. Completely, gloriously feminine. He’d taken command and her body no longer belonged to her. It was his. Only his. And to her surprise, she loved it.
When the second orgasm hit her, she collapsed, spent, sobbing out his name.
And Devil Callahan rolled back on his heels and showed her a smile that was all teeth.
‘‘What do you say, Annabelle? That impersonal enough for you?’’
Annabelle closed her eyes and returned to reality. She’d really touched a sore spot, hadn’t she?
‘‘Look at me,’’ he demanded. He moved, straddling her hips, his sex jutting out before him, huge and straining. A bead of moisture glistened on its tip.
He put his palms against the ground on either side of her head and stared down at her. His green eyes glittered like a mountain cat’s. A hungry mountain cat about to pounce. ‘‘Answer me.’’
But Annabelle’s dalliance with surrender was done. Such a thing could get out of hand, she decided. Exerting some control of her own, she opened her legs, arched her hips, and declared, ‘‘No.’’
With a growl, he thrust inside her. Filled her. Her body clenched, gripping him hard. He pumped and thrust, ramming into her with a feral intensity that left her gasping, stoking the cinders of her desire back into flame. She matched his rhythm, that reckless, relentless need building . . . building.
I’ve missed him. Oh, how I’ve missed him.
He hissed, he snarled, he angled her hips so that he could drive deeper. As he hammered himself into her, Annabelle sensed it coming, another tidal wave of pleasure. She strained toward it, reached—and she screamed as it broke over her, sucked her down into a swirling vortex of sensation.
Only then did he throw back his head as if in pain. His hard body jerked and went rigid and he shuddered . . . shuddered . . . shuddered.
And called out her name.
Chapter Eight
Annabelle’s first conscious thought the next morning was that she needed an aspirin. Her head threatened to explode.
Slowly, she cracked open her eyes and saw not the ceiling of her home on Oahu, not the ceiling of an anonymous hotel, but nylon. Sky blue nylon.
She smelled fish cooking.
Her eyes flew open wide as memory came rushing back. Dear God. She sat up, bumped her head on an aluminum pole, and stuck her head outside the tent flap. Her gaze flew to the fire ring where foil-wrapped fish sat over glowing coals, then scanned the rest of the campsite. Mark was nowhere to be seen. Thank God.
She brought her fingertips to her temples and gently massaged. She let loose a little moan. Not only did her head pound, but her body ached all over. If sex hangovers existed, then she had a doozy of one.
Memories of the previous night rolled through her mind like a bad dream. A hot, mind-blowingly erotic bad dream, but a bad dream nonetheless. What had she been thinking?
‘‘I’m a cliché,’’ she muttered. A pathetic cliché. You read about it in magazines all the time. Sex with the Ex. Surely Oprah had done a show about it. How many times had she scoffed at women who fell into this trap?
And it wasn’t just sex with the ex. She’d had mind-blowing, superorgasmic, incredibly amazing sex with her ex. Why the hell didn’t Oprah warn her viewers about that?
Oh, God. She had satisfied an urge and sacrificed her self-respect. Because she didn’t have it in her to detach herself from emotion and simply focus on the way sex with Mark Callahan made her feel. No, she wasn’t that kind of girl.
Which meant she’d thrown away all the emotional work she’d done over the past two and a half years— especially the last seven months—for an orgasm. Well, orgasm
s
. Plural. Multiple. Heat rushed right to her as the memory of straddling atop him returned full force.
Oh, Jesus save me. I’m in trouble. I AM that kind of girl. Who the hell am I kidding? Were Mark to climb into this tent right now, I’d jump him.
Annabelle rolled to her feet, grabbed her clothes and the bottle of aspirin from her purse, then headed for the privacy of the downstream pool she’d found the day before. When she returned washed and dressed ten minutes later, Mark had the tent down and packed away, the fire doused, and her breakfast sitting on top of a rock.
She had never felt this awkward. Not even on the morning after their wedding night when she’d awakened in his arms. That morning, he’d nuzzled her neck and spoken gentle words of reassurance. Made love to her again. Today, he didn’t speak. Barely even looked at her. Was he feeling as uncomfortable as she?
‘‘Hurry up, Monroe. Be damned if I’ll spend another night on this mountain.’’
Well.
Not uncomfortable, but unhappy. Apparently Callahan was no more thrilled about what transpired last night than she. She’d expected his familiar postsex grin. Face it. She’d
wanted
to see it. At least something about this whole ordeal could be normal, couldn’t it? Instead, he was acting like . . .
Someone who’d been used.
That took her aback. What did he have to be pissy about? He was a man! Men loved sex with no strings.
‘‘I’m ready,’’ she snapped back. ‘‘I’ll eat my breakfast while we hike.’’
‘‘Fine.’’
‘‘Fine.’’ Goody goody peppermint gumdrops fine.
He frowned down at the fresh bandage she’d put over her wound. ‘‘How is your arm? Do you need help with your pack?’’
‘‘It’s good. I’m good.’’ She would have died before she let the wince show on her face as she hefted the pack up onto her back.
Actually, I’m a basket case.
She pondered the situation while she snacked on the delicious trout and a handful of trail mix and followed him downhill. What did he have to be cranky about, anyway? He got laid, didn’t he? Wasn’t that the bottom line for men?
Annabelle snarled at his back. Leave it to Mark Callahan to look at matters differently from the average guy.
She could live to be a hundred and she’d never figure him out, so why waste her time and brain cells trying? Better to spend a few hours attempting to discern what weakness of character made her susceptible to Mark Callahan in spite of all their baggage. That way if—God forbid—they ever spent another night alone together, she would be able to resist flinging off her jersey and jumping him.
Her mother would blame it on hormones. Of course, her mother blamed everything on hormones these days.
Yes, hormones were part of it. Heaven knew she’d been a walking hormone around Mark ever since that first night in Las Vegas, but Annabelle knew it was more complicated than that. Even though they’d never officially lived together, while she and Mark were married she’d always felt an emotional connection to him. She’d missed having that with another human being. With a man.
Her desire for a child had not waned. She’d spent the last seven months trying to move forward in order to further that particular goal. Early on in the process she’d realized that reaching for the future meant letting go of the past, but doing so proved easier said than done.
Because only after he was well and truly gone had she realized how much she had counted on his staying.
Now she had last night to deal with. Without a doubt, last night had set her recovery back months. Maybe when this was all over, she’d see about getting some help. She wondered if a twelve-step program existed for idiots who wanted to go to bed with their ex. If not, maybe she could start one. She could contact all of Mark’s old girlfriends . . . probably pull in his brothers’ old girlfriends, too . . . and have enough brokenhearted bodies to form a national organization. They could meet online. Maybe hold a convention once a year in Vegas. Or maybe a spa somewhere. A cruise. The Callahans Anonymous cruise—the Anti-Love Boat.
She let out a little self-mocking giggle.
Mark glanced back over his shoulder and frowned at her. ‘‘Something the matter?’’
‘‘Oh, no. Everything is great. Wonderful. I have blisters on my feet and a bullet wound on my arm and a bug bite on my butt. Life is peachy keen, Callahan.’’
‘‘Well, aren’t you Miss Mary Sunshine?’’ he observed.
‘‘Bite me, Callahan.’’
‘‘I already did, Monroe. So shut the hell up.’’
Hiking with a hard-on was a bitch.
Mark figured he could have passed for a grumpy old bear lumbering through the forest right about now. You’d think that last night would have done him for a while. Instead, it appeared to have awakened the sleeping beast.
No,
she
had done it. This was her fault. She came at him. She put it out there and tempted him to take it. This was all about her.
But then, for him, it had always been about her. Call it chemistry or lust or brain lapse—no other woman did it for him like Annabelle.
He could jump her again right now. Every sound she made scraped across his nerves. The slightest whiff of her scent had him going on point. He didn’t need to look at her to want her because the image of her naked and hungry and lying on the forest floor was burned into his brain.
It royally pissed him off.
He wasn’t the type of man to be ruled by his johnson, goddammit. He had a well-earned reputation for icy control. Why did it take no more than one come-hither look and a disappearing basketball jersey to take him from ice to boiling? Hell, even as a swinging-dick eighteen-year-old when he started courting Carrie, he’d had more control than that. This was damned humiliating.
The sooner he could solve his teammates’ murders, the better. Otherwise, he was liable to find himself back in the sack with Annabelle again, and that wasn’t healthy for either one of them. They were divorced. They didn’t need to be in each other’s pockets or each other’s pants. Period.
But the idea of her in another guy’s pants made him snarl. Then a small voice that sounded suspiciously like Torie’s said,
Well, what do you expect her to do? Wait forever for something that you won’t give her?
Damn it all. Why did letting go of Annabelle have to be so fucking hard?
It would be easier if he didn’t like her so much. If he didn’t respect her. But dammit, Annabelle Monroe was everything a woman should be, everything a man could want. If only she hadn’t been so set on settling down and having . . .
‘‘Holy shit.’’ His heart all but stopped. He rounded on her, demanding, ‘‘Tell me you’re on the Pill.’’
‘‘What?’’ Frowning down at her shoe where she worked to free a stone, she repeated, ‘‘What did you say?’’
‘‘The Pill!’’
‘‘What pill? I don’t take any . . . oh.’’ Her eyes went round as saucers. ‘‘Oh, dear.’’
Oh, dear?
His gut dropped to his toes. ‘‘You’re not on it.’’
She threaded her fingers through her hair, pushing back the thick auburn tresses. Worry dimmed her eyes. ‘‘No . . . I’m not. It hasn’t been an issue with me.’’
His blood churned. Panic sizzled along his nerves. ‘‘Because you want to get pregnant!’’
Her chin came up. Her hands fisted on her hips and she took a step toward him. ‘‘Because I haven’t been having sex, you jerk!’’