Calling His Bluff (17 page)

She took a shaky breath.

“I don’t know if I like it, how you always seem to see what’s in my head,” she muttered.
“But it’s clear that you do.”

J.D.’s dark eyes didn’t look away from hers for a second. “I know you, Sarah. You
surprise the hell out of me sometimes, but deep down, we still know each other better
than you think.”

She turned her head to look at the doors far behind them that led from the ballroom
back into the rest of the hotel, and then drew them back to meet his even gaze.

She knew she’d already decided.

And as simply as that, she steadied. She still felt the blood pounding through her
veins, but now its pulse was slow and deep, instead of fast and thready. The surge
of wanting him lifted her until she smiled and tossed back the rest of her drink.

Linking hands with him, she tugged until their tangled fingers rested heavily in her
lap.

“So, are you guys going to win this award soon or not?”

He was already rising from his seat.

“I’m not making this mistake twice. They can tell me about it tomorrow.”

She was dying of thirst, every molecule of her body vibrating with a bone-deep need
and she was frantic to swallow him up.

The door to her room was still closing as J.D. spun her around and pushed her back
against it, his hands racing over her body, yanking her leg up to curl around his
waist. She dug her fingers into his hair and pulled his mouth to her, bruising her
lips against his teeth as their mouths opened and fought to deepen the kiss. He slid
a hand up the bare length of her thigh through the slit in her dress and cupped her
butt, his fingers reaching to press against the heat of her.

She felt his shudder as he found her wet with wanting. Arced her hips to press harder
against his hand.

Uncoordinated with the desperate need to feel his bare skin beneath her hands, she
pushed his suit jacket halfway down his arms and then fumbled with the buttons on
his shirt for a moment before frustration took over and she yanked the shirt up. The
muscles of his back were tight beneath her palms as she slid her hands around him
and tried to pull him close enough to erase her aching need.

She needed him closer, inside her. Now.

Tearing her mouth away from his, she panted out the words.

“Help me. I can’t—” And then she was kissing him again, his mouth open and hot against
hers as he tugged the straps of her dress off her shoulders, pulled the fabric down
until he freed her breasts and covered them with his hands. His fingers felt like
fire against her skin, her nipples hard and aching, and then his mouth lowered, closing
over the peak of one breast, and she knew a new definition of fire.

J.D. wedged a thigh between hers and she sank against it, thrusting her hips in small
circles against the hard muscles of his leg as his mouth tugged at one breast and
his hand stroked the other. When he closed his teeth in a sweet bite on her nipple,
she grabbed his hand and dragged it down, burying it between her legs. Her dress was
already pulled up around her hips.

“J.D., touch me.” She heard her own voice break on the words. “Please.”

His fingers slid beneath the narrow strip of fabric that covered her and found the
swollen, slick heat of her.

“Your body kills me. You respond so fast every time I touch you,” he said.

She was helpless to do anything else. She had wanted him nonstop for days. He flicked
his tongue against her nipple, thrummed his fingers against her, and she exploded,
every muscle in her body stiffening as she let out a cry, the orgasm ripping through
her in a swift blaze that only left her wanting more.

She threw her head back so hard it banged against the door, and she laughed out loud.
She felt flushed with power, strong and incredibly sexy. Linking her arms behind J.D.’s
neck, she jumped up on him, wrapping her legs around his waist as he lifted her.

“That ought to hold me for about two minutes.” She grinned at him, their faces level
with each other as he turned and strode over to where the bed was just visible in
the light spilling in through the windows from the glow of the Las Vegas Strip. She
wiggled her feet out of her heels as he walked and heard them thump on the floor.

“You won’t even have to wait two minutes if we leave your dress on,” he said and dropped
her onto the bed.

She looked up at him through her tangled hair and smiled.

“Oh, no. Naked. Now.” She slid off the bed and stood up, facing him. “Race you.”

With a zip and a shimmy, the pricey dress hit the floor and she kicked it to the side
with her toes. She hooked her thumbs under the straps of her G-string and paused to
dance back a step as he reached for her.

“No fair.” His clothes continued to hit to the ground as he protested. His eyes were
locked on her nearly naked hip. “Jesus, that tattoo is fucking hot on you.” Then he
reached out and caught her, his hands closing on her wrists as his mouth found hers
and she gave in, her tongue dancing with his in a furious kiss that left her breathing
hard as she stepped away again.

“You’d better catch up,” she said and slid her underwear down her thighs until it,
too, dropped to the floor.

Then he was naked and the feel of his skin against hers was glorious, hot and soft
and wonderful, and she felt the surging need for him again, wanting to be closer to
him until he engulfed her. They fell on the bed, rolling over each other until he
lay on top of her. She could only see the shadow of his face as he looked down at
her.

She felt the stretch in the tendons of her inner thighs, the weight of him settling
between her legs as she circled them around his waist, hooking her ankles behind his
back. Pressing her heels into him, she arched up against his strength.

“Wait, Sarah.” J.D.’s voice was muffled in her shoulder as he dropped his head down
to the mattress for a moment. “Just wait a second.”

“I’m on the pill and haven’t slept with anyone since my last checkup. Any chance you’ve
been tested since your adventurous ex-wife?”

“Yeah, at the hospital. I’m good. But Sarah, if we do this—”

Aw, hell no.
Not again. No
if
s. She snaked her hands down his back and curved them around the firm muscles of his
butt. Enough talk.

“I know. No annulment.” She shrugged against him and smiled in the dark. “It’s going
to cost us either way. I figure we deserve a little something for our trouble, no?”

Then she pressed her mouth to his and the taste of him on her tongue, sweet and smoky,
with lingering traces of the twenty-year-old scotch he’d been drinking, was a steady
stream of fresh air over the banked coals of her desire.

J.D. pulled his head back far enough to nip at her lower lip and scrape his teeth
lightly along her jawbone and down the column of her neck.

“I’m so glad you feel that way.” His voice wrapped around her in the dark as his hands
lifted her hips and he surged into her.

For a moment, discomfort held her still. The size of him and the length of time since
she’d last made love broke the grip of her wanting. But then the tiny flames of desire
licked through her system, her body eased and he started to move.

She felt herself climb, tension pushed higher and higher with each stroke, until she
was clinging to the edge of a precipice with her fingernails scrabbling to hold on.
She was ready to fall and burn, but she wanted this moment to last forever.

With her name on his lips, J.D. captured her mouth on one final thrust and she felt
herself go over.

Waves of heat rippled through her entire body as her reflexive rocking against J.D.’s
hips slowed and the weight of him slowly settled on top of her.

After a moment, he rolled onto his side with his arms still wrapped around her, pulling
her with him in a tangle of duvet and sheets that he managed to tug up to more or
less cover them in the cool, air-conditioned room. Her legs were still wrapped around
him and his head rested on her upper arm until he lifted it to search for her mouth
with his own.

The light brushing kisses soothed her bruised lips. Between them, warm breaths mingled
as pulses slowed, chests rising and falling in a gentler cadence. J.D. pushed her
sweaty hair back from her face and traced the line of her cheekbone with one finger.

“Well, well, well, Mrs. Damico.” She could hear the smile in his voice, even if she
could barely see the curve of his lips in the dark. “You are, as they say in the Amazon,
en fuego.
”

“Shut up. They do not.” She pushed at his shoulder and felt her cheeks lift in a grin
that ignored the flutter she felt in her stomach at the words
Mrs. Damico.
He was only teasing. On fire, indeed. Of course, it was another Mrs. Damico who’d
been in the Amazon with J.D., but she was determined to ignore that. She felt so loose
she was sure she could bend herself into a pretzel and simply enjoy the stretch. She
settled for reaching her hands high over her head and pointing her toes at the bottom
of the bed as she arched her back. “But I certainly am.”

The rumble of his laughter shook silently through him. Rolling farther onto his back,
he wedged his head deeper into the pillows and with a tug here and a push there, maneuvered
her until she was snuggled half against him and half on him. Her cheek was resting
on his chest, and she could hear his heartbeat beneath her as she struggled to keep
her eyes open.

“You were pretty
en fuego
yourself,” she managed to get out before an enormous yawn cracked her jaw wide open.
She settled back against him with a low hum of pleasure at the skin on skin contact
she hadn’t known she was missing.

“Mmm.” Their bodies sank into a slow, easy peace that wrapped muffled blankets of
sleep around them. “Fire catches.”

She drifted off to sleep, her last thoughts an incoherent wonder that she should feel
so comfortable and the question, forgotten by the time she awoke, of which was more
dangerous: that fire or this peace?

In the morning, she awoke to sunlight streaming through the windows at an angle much
too high to mean anything other than they were dangerously close to missing their
1:00 p.m. flight. After she grabbed the alarm clock, which she’d forgotten to set
the night before, of course, and gasped at the time, she smacked J.D. on his very
fine ass before jumping out of bed and racing to the bathroom.

“Get up, boy-o! We’ve got thirty minutes to get dressed, packed and to the airport
or we’ll miss our flight,” she called out before shutting the door and cranking on
the shower. She squished toothpaste onto her brush, jammed it between her teeth and
started raking toiletries into her travel kit with her free hand. She blushed when
she felt the ache between her legs. Maybe they could just pretend none of this had
happened.

The roar of the powerful shower drowned out all other sound. She didn’t know J.D.
had followed her into the bathroom until she lifted her face from spitting a mouthful
of froth into the sink and caught him staring at her in the mirror. Unbuttoned slacks
hung low on his hips, his wrinkled shirt draped open over a bare chest. She scraped
the back of her hand across her wet mouth and watched him advance on her.

When he stopped behind her, he wrapped his arms low around her waist in a tight squeeze,
nudging her hair aside with his mouth to plant a kiss on her neck. She closed her
eyes for a moment before opening them to watch in the mirror as the two dark heads
leaned against each other, the man tall and broad behind the woman whose lean length
he surrounded.

“Hi.”

His voice was scratchy with the sleepy grit of someone who didn’t wake up until his
third cup of coffee.

“Hi.”

She reached up with one hand and stroked his hair.

“Cab. I’ll call,” he managed to get out. She lost her view of the two of them as he
turned her around in his arms and framed her face with his hands. His eyes were barely
open, but he looked straight at her, unblinking, until she nodded
yes
to whatever it was he wanted her to acknowledge. Pressing his lips to hers, he paused
for a moment before straightening and leaving the room.

“Lobby. Fifteen minutes.”

So much for pretending that nothing had happened.

Refusing to analyze why that thought made her smile, she slung her toothbrush into
her kit and hopped into the shower.

In the end, she crammed everything she’d brought with her any which way into her suitcase,
except for the two dresses. Wrinkled as the Dior was after spending the night lying
in a heap on the floor, she still managed to spare sixty seconds to call the concierge
before heading down to the lobby with it and the red halter dress on a hanger over
her shoulder.

Cash and a high level of personalized customer service had guaranteed that a newly
purchased garment bag was waiting for her at the concierge’s desk.

She wasn’t about to fold an $8,000 evening gown into a wheeled carry-on.

Before she could blink, she and J.D. were shuffled into a cab and speeding to the
airport.

The commercial flight home was short enough that between takeoff, beverage service
and landing, there wasn’t much time for anything other than just traveling. She could
feel J.D. shifting restlessly in the seat next to her and avoided looking at him.
She spent the flight buried in a book.

There was no sense in tempting fate. If she just sat there staring at the seat back
in front of her, he might feel the need to start talking to her. And since Sarah had
absolutely no idea how she felt about any of this, let alone what she was going to
do next, she did her best to avoid any sudden confessions or questions.

Not until the limo that met them at the airport sped past the expressway exit that
should have taken them to her home did she sit up and open her mouth.

“Actually, that was my exit—” was all she managed to get out, tapping J.D.’s elbow,
interrupting the call he’d made on his cell phone as soon as they settled into the
hired car.