Catch (24 page)

"And if I don't come over there?" The question hung provocatively between them.

"Then I'm afraid I'll have to be firm with you."

Her smile broadened.
 
"I quite like it when you're firm with me.
 
I have a particular fondness for firmness in a man."

A rush of heat took him by surprise.
 
He continued to be amazed at his body's reaction to the slightest suggestion from her that she found him desirable.

"Get your body over here now, you trollop."

"Or what?"

"Or you'll be sorry."

She smiled.
 
It was enough to light the touch paper of his desire; it had been smoldering - now he was on fire.

"How can a girl resist an order like that?"
 
She walked toward him, deliberately slow and seductive.
 
He'd been trying to find words to describe the way she moved.
 
She had a particular rhythm about her.
 
She'd have made a great snake charmer, he thought, parts of his anatomy behaving as if they were hypnotized by her erotic grace.

Halfway across the room she stopped and shimmied out of her skirt. He loved the way the fabric billowed around her; she looked like an elf stepping off a mushroom cloud.

In what appeared to be a single step, she covered the rest of the space between them and was on top of him, her turquoise G-string begging for attention from his eager mouth.

"You have no idea how sexy you look."

"Tell me.
 
I want to hear."
 
She gyrated that small scrap of material over his sternum and it was all he could do to stop himself exploding in his pants.
 
Catching the odd waft of her muskiness, he was painfully aware of how sensitive he was to everything about her.

"Take your top off."
 
He desperately wanted to see her nipples.
 

She obliged, teasing him, cupping her ample breasts in her hands, palms over the nipples he so longed to see.

"You just love tormenting me, don't you?"

She rolled her nipples through her fingers, allowing him a teasing glance at them.
 
"Just want to make sure I'm at my best for you.
 
I know how visually stimulated men are."

"And you like the idea of stimulating me visually, do you?"
 
Obscene thoughts about her doing a striptease for him came crashing into his consciousness.
 

"What do you think?"
 
She continued to twist her nipples savagely.

It was too much. He wanted - no, needed - to taste her.

"Come here."
 
Grabbing her wrists, he pulled her down and latched leech-like onto the nearest breast, rolling its tip with his mouth and tongue.
 
The hardened nub grated against his teeth and he clamped on tight as she wriggled against him.
 
Her moans were music to his ears and again his groin begged for some much-needed attention.

The phone rang.
 

Tamsen registered it, reaching for the receiver.
 
He wanted to yell for her to ignore it, but that would mean releasing the delicate morsel in his mouth.

"He-hello."

He suckled harder.
 
An evil part of him wanted to distract her from the phone call, see how much she could stand.
 
She stared imploringly at him but he just smiled around the flesh trapped between his teeth and continued, adding to her discomfort by tucking a thumb inside the edge of her G-string.
 
He was pleased to discover that she was warm and wet.

"Gina!"
 
There was a look of dismay and panic on her face.
 

What the hell did that nutcase want?
 
He released Tamsen’s nipple and mouthed Get rid of her.
 
Christ, the hellcat’s timing was atrocious.

"You haven't wanted to speak to me for weeks, so why do you have to wait until I'm away to decide you want to talk?"

He pulled a face again, but Tamsen seemed to be ignoring him.
 
He wasn't impressed.
 
She looked distracted and maybe a little bit in pain.
 
His feelings of resentment over
telephonus-interruptus
surfaced in a flurry.

He tried the universal sawing finger across the neck, a last-ditch attempt to have Tamsen terminate the call before his flagging libido went completely south on him.
 
She just held her hand palm up in resignation and rolled her eyes sideways.
 
All was obviously lost.

Utter despair had Tamsen in its vice-like grip.
 
Matt continued to pace the room at a frantic speed, as he’d been doing since she put down the phone from Gina.

"Matt, please, honey.
 
Just come and sit down."

"The woman's a freak.
 
You did the right thing.
 
She can't expect you to drop everything and jump on a plane just because she says she's depressed."

"But she didn't sound right."

"The mad cow's never sounded right."
 
The look on his face - how could she describe it? Revulsion?
 
She wasn't sure, but she knew she didn't like it one iota.
 
It all added to the overbearing claustrophobia that threatened to crush her.

"You can't say that."
 
She knew he could, even as she spat the words out. How had a great holiday come to be so hideous?
 
She quelled a crushing urge to escape and instead felt her soul flee.
 
It was sick of this and taking a much-needed break without the rest of her.

His features softened.
 
"Babe, look at you.
 
She wears you out."
 
He crossed the room in two easy strides, the warmth of his hand as he took hers alerting her to how cold she'd become.
 
Physically as well as emotionally.

"I know."
 
She sighed.
 
"But it doesn't make it any easier.
 
You should have heard the way she was begging for me to come home.
 
She's never been like this before.
 
I'm scared for her."

"She'll be okay."
 
He kissed Tamsen on the forehead, the sweet, simple gesture soothing her ragged conscience.
 
"People like her are survivors, emotional vampires that suck the life out of lovelies like you."
 
His smile was warm and genuine; the touch of his full lips on hers reignited the bonfire of desire that burned in her for him.
 

He was right.
 
Gina would be okay - she always was.
 
Surrendering to his probing lips and tongue, she allowed herself to be seduced away from the worrying thoughts.
 
A small speck of doubt and fear lingered, but she closed her consciousness to it.
 
She was living in the moment, and this one belonged to her and Matt.

"You wouldn't really have shagged me in the fountain in the foyer, would you?"
 
Tamsen stretched, cat-like, enjoying feeling her senses on alert, almost heightened, and the wonderful afterglow of glorious sexual connection.
 
Her mind, body and soul all sat in perfect alignment.

"I'd like to.
 
I've always fancied being arrested for indecent exposure."
 
He flashed her a wicked grin.
 
"But it's not the done thing when you're climbing the legal ladder."

"Maybe you're not cut out for legal-ladder climbing."

He lifted his head up off the tangle of pillows and she watched with fascination as the peak of his Adams apple was reabsorbed into his neck. "The thought's entered my head on a couple of occasions."

"And?"

"I dismissed it."
 
He was starting to look uncomfortable.

"Why?"

"Do you always ask so many questions?"

"Yup.
 
Stop trying to turn the conversation around to me.
 
We're talking about you."

"Are we now?"
 
He idly circled her nipple with his finger and she was surprised it peaked at his touch.

"Yes, we are.
 
And you can't distract me by playing with my bits."

"I can try."
 
He suckled her and a shot of pain - or was it pleasure; she could never be sure - racked her exhausted body.
 

"So you have thought about giving up law.
 
You just don't want to talk about it."

He let her nipple go, the rush of cool air adding to the pain/pleasure.
 
"How do you get to be so smart?"

She shrugged.
 
"Dunno.
 
Just observing people, I suppose.
 
You really don’t want to talk about it?"

"No."
 
He grinned.
 
"But I suppose you're not about to let me off the hook."

"You got it, pal."

"All my life I was told I was going to be a solicitor.
 
I honestly had no choice."
 
He turned over onto his side, nearly in the fetal position, clutching one of the abandoned pillows to his stomach.
 
"I cruised through law school, top honors, and never really thought about anything else, to be honest - it was just expected that I would follow the path set for me.
 
I didn't want any sort of trouble."
 

He grimaced.
 
"I mean, you've met Mother.
 
Would you like to try and explain why whatever she decided was best for her golden boy might not be best for him?"

Tamsen could see his point; the thought of crossing that demonic woman made her skin crawl.
 
"But lately?"
 
Yes, she was leading him, but she felt a powerful urge to keep pulling.

"I don't know.
 
I'm beginning to wonder if I've done the right thing.
 
I just don't seem to fit in.
 
You know, the day I first saw you - when you were floating a fish around in that plastic bag, talking to it - I felt something I don't understand.
 
Up until that moment I’d thought I was the only person on the planet who talked to goldfish."
 
He smiled sheepishly.

She felt an unexpected rush of compassion for him; he was as trapped as that fish had been in its little plastic bubble. She'd been there to release that little fish, could she do the same for Matt? "Everyone talks to goldfish."

"Not everyone I know.
 
And that's my point.
 
I'm a fish out of water, and it's taken you walking into my life to show me just how out of place I really am."

"Hey, less of the me-walking-into-your-life speak.
 
As I recall you dragged me in kicking and screaming."

He pulled her closer to him, abandoning the pillow he was cuddling in favor of her.
 
"Kicking and screaming?
 
Hmm."
 
He ran a hand expertly down her buttocks, reaching for her most sensitive spots.
 
"Screaming orgasms, more like."
 
He dug deeper.

"Get out of there, you horror show."
 
That appetite was most certainly whetted, but she was aware that lunch had been a very long time ago and her stomach was in desperate negotiation with her brain.
 
"Isn't it about time we ate?
 
I dunno know about you, but I can't live on love alone."

"Hello.
 
We're up to love now?
 
A minute ago you were talking about being dragged kicking and screaming into the relationship."

Tamsen smashed a pillow over his naked body.
 
"Stop being a solicitor and get that grubby body of yours into the shower.
 
I'm starved."

They skipped the restaurants in the hotel, deciding instead on a small café-style eatery along a side street by the cathedral.
 
Matt was determined to spend some time in there while he was in town.
 
He had no idea how Tamsen would cope; most of the women he'd attempted to share his spiritual beliefs with had completely shut down on him.
 
But he had a strange feeling Tamsen would be different.
 
Either way, he found himself happy to take the risk.

Maybe it had something to do with her ability to see inside him.
 
For someone who seemed outwardly so disconnected from the material world she had a surprising knack of being able to hone in exactly on what was bothering him.
 
He hadn't been faced with himself for a long time, so maybe that was why God had brought her into his life.

"Gawd, I'm stuffed." She wiped a droplet of sauce from her chin with a starched linen napkin.
 
"That venison was out of this world."

"I still can't believe you ate Bambi," he said. Tamsen had a healthy appetite for food that he'd not seen in a long time.

"Get over it, pal."

"But aren't you spiritual-plane types supposed to abhor eating meat and live on lentils?"

"I tried that but it didn't work.
 
I got really anemic and couldn't concentrate on anything. Ended up obsessing about hamburgers to the point I couldn't function."

"Sounds scary."

"It was, believe me."

"So you eat meat all the time now?"

"No, I wouldn't say that. I still struggle with the suffering of mass food production - or any kind of food production really.
 
I can never look at a dead animal without wondering if its last remaining moments were in terror.
 

"Yeah, but I suppose everything suffers one way or another.
 
Even your beloved fish.
 
I'm sure they'd much rather be out swimming around in a huge lake than stuck in a little glass prison in the foyer of my office."