Blindsided (36 page)

“You don’t have to worry about that. We were short on both sensors and transmitters. There’s one in the hall and at all the entranceways, but none in here. Unless you start screaming bloody murder, chances are they won’t hear more than a mumble through these thick doors. Besides, both Garret and Nolan are still outside laying traps.”

Ah. That explained why she hadn’t found any bugs with her device. She’d thought it cutting edge, but wondered when it had yielded nothing in the room. And Garret and Nolan weren’t even around to pick up any stray sounds. All sorts of possibilities raced through her head.

She nodded. “Good. That’s good, because I wanted to—” She trailed off. She’d made a move toward him and he’d backed up further, avoiding her touch. She wasn’t sure whether she was angry or hurt. Both, she decided. The jerk had had no problem with her touching him the other morning. What in the hell had changed between then and now? What had she done wrong? A horrified thought immediately came to mind.
 

“Is it because I’m a Viadal?” Maybe she’d hurt him. Maybe she’d squeezed just a bit too hard, or twisted just wrong, or…

“Is what because you’re a Viadal?”

No. He hadn’t given any indication that she’d hurt him. Maybe he’d just had time to think about things. And there were a lot of things to think about, like the fact that she was…“My blindness? Is it that?”

“I don’t know what in the hell you’re talking about, Aria. You’re making no sense.”

“Do I have some hideous deformity that I wasn’t even aware of? Something ‘down there’,” she flailed her arms helplessly toward her crotch, “that you discovered the other night? Or maybe I’m just not attractive to you.”

“Not attractive?” He sounded angry. “Aria, you’re fucking hot. And that damn thing you’re wearing right now could kill a man. Any man who saw you in that scrap of fabric would die to touch you.”

Yet he wasn’t touching her. She crossed her arms over her chest, holding the hurt in. “Then maybe you don’t like
me
.”

“Fuck,” he was pacing the room—scuff, plod, plod, plod across the carpet, scuff on the hardwood as he turned. “Why in the hell would you think that?”

She threw her arms out in a hopeless gesture. “Because you won’t touch me!”

He stilled. She felt his focus centering completely on her. “You want me to touch you.”

“Not just touch me. I want you to have sex with me.” Silence: Profound, absolute, cut-with-a-knife kind of silence. Damn. “I thought you wanted that too, but after the other day you’ve been avoiding me like I have genital herpes, and now you can’t even stand me touching your face.”

“You wanted to know what Garret looked like,” he said the words evenly, like he was explaining things to a dense child.

“Because he looks like you! And you don’t seem to want me near you, so I thought you might
possibly
allow my request if I tugged at your code of ethics.”

“Ethics.” He scoffed. “Fucking ethics.”

She cringed, folded her arms again, waiting for him to say something, anything. Or leave.
Just leave me to my embarrassment and misery, please.

He sighed. “I was trying to be a gentleman. I was trying to stay focused. When I’m around you, I get distracted. All I think about is you, not Whitesman, not Garret, not the mission, not the role we’re playing, not anything. It’s not until after that I think about those things. It’s dangerous to be distracted like that. Plus, I didn’t want any confusion about what we were doing, what was for Byron and what was for us.”

“And you thought I might think you were having sex with me for Byron?”

“What? No!” he erupted. “Whatever that hell that was you just said, no.”

Aria cringed, but no footsteps came running so she assumed no one was inside yet to hear Teigan blowing his top—again. These blow-ups seemed to happen a lot around her, or Garret, not so much around the others, at least until yesterday morning, which had been because the discussion had been about her level of involvement…and wasn’t that interesting. Hope bloomed.

She took a step forward, moving toward the source of his voice. Another shuffle and she knew he’d moved away again. Did all men play hard to get? She tilted her head to the side, playing with the strap of her nighty. “Do you want to have sex with me?”

“Here and now? Or later?” He sounded completely frustrated. It would be cute, if she wasn’t in the same state.
 

“I didn’t ask you when,” she said through clenched teeth, balling her hands into fists at her side to keep from hitting the obtuse bastard. He was damn lucky she’d already decided she loved him. “I asked you if you
wanted
to.”

“I thought we just covered this.” He stepped forward, close enough to feel his heat, close enough that his hand could pluck the strap of her negligee back up onto her shoulder. “A man would have to be dead to not want to have sex with you.”

Her inner tigress roared in victory. She dropped her hand between them, cupping his more than adequate erection with her hand. “Well…You don’t seem dead yet.”

“God, Aria. Don’t do that. I can’t take you touching me like that.” He didn’t move away as he said the words. In fact, his hips shifted slightly toward her, pressing the hard length into the palm of her hand.

She removed her hand, smiled when he gave a low groan of misery, found the top of his waistband with her fingers and yanked so he was pressed up against her belly. “Then why don’t you touch me instead?”

Chapter Twenty-five

Teigan’s ragged breathing was like music to Aria’s ears. He wanted her. Now if he’d just get over his damn case of ethics and make love to her, everything would be okay.

What did he need? A monogrammed invitation?
If that’s what it takes.
 

She let go of his waistband, took a step back. With her right hand, she ran a trail from her middle, up between the curves of her negligee and to her collarbone. There, she slipped a finger under the shoulder strap, gently sliding the slippery fabric over her shoulder.
 

He swallowed, the sound almost startling in the quiet house.

Lifting her left hand she slipped a finger under the other thin strap, plucking that one off as well. The only thing holding up the silk now was the curve of her breasts, and all it would take was a little shrug…whoops.

Her nipples immediately puckered. Partly from the cold, but mostly because she knew he was staring at her. She gave him a tentative smile.

“Shit.” He moved so fast that it took her a moment to realize he was moving
away
from her. She heard the gentle snick of the latch popping open, felt the slight change in air pressure that said he’d cracked the door.

Shit was right. And a whole slew of other four letter nouns and verbs. She wondered if there was one that could be used to describe the ripping out of one’s heart. Hell, possibly. She bent down to yank the sad, flimsy material back over what must be, after all, an inadequate body, at the same time forcing the hot ball of humiliation and hurt back down into her stomach.

“Alright. No one back yet. Tell the mutt to get out. No way I’m doing to you what I want to do with the dog watching.”
 

Her hands stilled in the act of yanking the straps back over her left shoulder, her right breast still embarrassingly bare. He wasn’t leaving. He just wanted Frodo gone.

“Aria?”

“Frodo. Out.”

Frodo didn’t move, of course. Probably had a quizzical little doggy expression on his mop-like face.

She turned toward the doggy bed in the corner and bent over slightly, forcing her tone into one of happy excitement. “Where’s Poppy, Frodo? Where is he?”

That got a response. Frodo lurched to his feet, gave a sharp bark, and bolted out of the room, heading into the main part of the house on a fruitless search. Teigan immediately closed the door, this time throwing the lock.

“Poppy?”

“Willis.” She wrapped her arms around her middle, holding in the gnawing worry that always struck when she thought of him. “And now I feel guilty. But if I’d said biscuit he would be back here barking in less than a minute and if I’d said outside, he’d try to bolt if Nolan and Garret come back.”

“Don’t feel guilty about the dog. And don’t worry about Willis. He’ll be back glowering over your shoulder in a few days,” Teigan said, and then his arms were around her and he was pressing a kiss to her forehead.
 

Sweet, but not what she’d been hoping for. She put her hand against his chest, giving him a firm shove. “Don’t coddle me. Willis is
going
to be okay and Frodo
will
survive. I don’t want to think about either of them right now. I don’t want to think about anything, but you, but us,” she corrected.

“Fair enough,” he said after a moment of hesitation.

Now that they had that worked out, she found she had no idea what in the world she was supposed to do next. Getting dolled up and then stripping down again was about the extent of her seductress routine. And if he didn’t start touching her soon, she was going to scream!

He leaned in close, his breath tickling her ear as he whispered into the locks of hair there. “What do you want, Aria? What do you like?”

She closed her eyes, drawing in his essence. “You. Touching me.”

“I think I can manage that.” She swore she heard the smile in his voice.

A hand sunk into her hair, tilting her face up. She expected him to kiss her, to ravish her mouth and take her breath away like he’d done so many times now. Instead he set about exploring her features. His other hand cupped the edge of her jaw under her chin as he dropped a line of tender kisses across her temple and then subsequently to each eyelid. Next he nibbled the corner of her mouth, his hand slipping down her neck, over her collarbone.

“I liked this better when it was off,” he said, sliding the negligee off her shoulder once more and following up with a nip to the crux between her ear, jaw, and throat.
 

The silk pooled at her feet. She gasped, thinking she might bolt out of her skin if he nipped her there again. “You do seem to have a proclivity for undressing me.”

“I have a proclivity for seeing you naked. That and touching these.” Two large hands cupped her breasts, and a calloused pad rasped across her nipple. She shivered, a zap of current radiating out from the small buds, spreading across her chest, sinking into her body and traveling out to her extremities. Wow!

“Works for me.”

He gave a soft chuckle, and began backing her up across the room. She easily gave way, not wanting to argue when he was working such magic on her senses. Her thighs hit the edge of the bed and she sat.

“Down you go.” He gave her chest a nudge.

She went with it, falling into the satiny coverlet. Willis told her the set was a vibrant jade color, but she didn’t care. She’d picked them because of the luxury of sensation the sheets provided against her bare skin. They felt even better when she was pressed between them and the hard male that had followed her down.

She must have gasped or tensed or something, or maybe he just wanted her on top. He rolled with her, pulling her firmly over him, then: “Ow, shit. Damn stunner. Hold on.”
 

He lifted her off and stood up. The quick whip, snap, plop of him hurriedly shucking his clothes filled the room. With his absence she began to have trepidations. Garret and Nolan could come back any minute. Byron could be out there at this very moment. Twenty-six years, and she’d picked here and now to do this?

Yes. Because this was Teigan. And here and now might be her only chance.

A second later he was back. Bared, the heat of his body all but consumed her and she melted into the hard embrace he gave her.

“So sweet,” he murmured between kissing her jaw line, her shoulders, the base of her neck—where he nipped her again. “What is it about your neck? I turn into a friggin vampire whenever I get a glimpse of your pulse fluttering here.”

He nipped her again, slightly harder, just enough to send a sharp spark mixing with the euphoric thrill of endorphins. The hand, which had come to rest on her hip when he moved back over her, skimmed the outside of her leg and came to rest beneath her knee. A slight tug encouraged her to lift her leg up and out, giving him free access to explore the inner curves of her thigh, where he then skirted dangerously close to the mound of curls, yet stopping millimeters away. Beneath her breast her heart beat madly, as if it was a trapped bird fluttering around the confines of its cage.

Finally,
finally
, he claimed her mouth, his tongue thrusting between her lips and branding her taste buds with a bitter-spicy mix of coffee and his own personal flavor. It made her ravenous for him and she sucked the fleshy muscle as deep as she could. He retaliated by plunging a finger between her folds.
Oh my!
She inhaled sharply. He extracted both his finger and his tongue, catching and pulling her bottom lip between his teeth, then kissing it sweetly.

“I lied. I don’t just want you to touch me. I want to touch you, too,” she murmured against his mouth. This time she could feel the wide grin split his lips.

“I think I can make the sacrifice,” he said, easing back a bit so she could get her hands between them.