Country Roads (28 page)

Her strength sapped, she melted back against the warm, smooth rock as her eyes fluttered closed. She felt Paul slip out of her and heard some splashing before a warm touch brushed the
outside of her thighs and a weight settled on her shoulder. She slitted her eyes open to see him braced over her on his forearms as his head rested on her shoulder.

“You think you can drive the bike home, sweetheart?” he mumbled against her shoulder. “You’ve wrung me dry.”

“Wimp. I had two orgasms. You only had one.”

“That was not an orgasm. It was a nuclear blast.”

She felt a smile of satisfaction tug at her lips. She might not be experienced, but she could sure as heck improvise.

She felt the huff of his breath against her damp skin and shivered.

He lifted his head and grabbed her wrists to tug her upright. “Let’s get you out of this cold water and onto a nice warm blanket.”

“I’m really not cold.”

“You will be soon.” He lifted her off the ledge and let her down into the water, taking her hand to lead her back to the natural stairway up the boulder. He scooped up her panties and the condom foil on the way past.

“Oh no, my bra!” Julia said, feeling around her bare back at the reminder she had been wearing her fancy new lingerie when she stepped into the water.

Paul put up a hand to shade his eyes as he scanned down-river. “I think I see it. Take these.” He pushed the panties and foil in her hand and launched himself toward a fleck of white bobbing along the shore.

“Paul! Don’t worry about it!” she called, but he was in full pursuit and either didn’t hear her or chose not to listen. She contented herself with watching the beautiful play of muscles in his shoulders and back as he stroked hard to outpace the current.

He caught the white spot and yodeled in triumph, waving it above his head before he dove into the water and fought his way back upstream. As he reached the pool, he stood up so the water
streamed down his chest, which heaved with his exertions. “You look just like my drawing, only better,” she said, letting her gaze linger on the hard-cut lines of his abdomen and the lean sinews of his thighs.

With a mischievous smirk, he spread the bra between his hands and held it across his groin in the same position as the fish in her sketch.

She laughed as she splashed over to him and ran her hands down his chest, following the rivulets of water. “You’re so beautiful.”

His breathing seemed to stop. “That’s my line.”

“Men can be beautiful too.”

He seized her hand and kissed it. “Your fingers are going all pruney.” He towed her toward the boulder and helped her up to the flat top, his touch lingering on her hips and behind as he boosted her up.

She laid her bra and panties out in the sun while Paul pulled on his briefs and jeans. As she picked up her jeans, he reached out to grab the denim. “Wood sprites don’t wear clothes when they’re in the wild.”

“You’re dressed.”

“Because I’m half-human, remember?”

His gaze turned to molten silver as it skimmed down her body, making her feel wanton and daring. She dropped her jeans and lay down on the blanket, stretching her arms over her head and pointing her toes as she basked in the heat of his eyes.

He stood over her, scanning up and down her body, his chest rising and falling as though he’d been racing the river for her bra again.

“I’d pay every penny I have for a picture of you like this.” His voice had the texture of gravel.

“Maybe I could paint a self-portrait.” She arched up, wanting his hands to follow his gaze.

He dropped onto the blanket beside her and rested his hand on her stomach, gently pushing her downward. “Stop, temptress.”

“Why?” Her skin tingled deliciously where his palm lay against it.

He shifted away. “Because…oh hell, I don’t know. Because you need a break.”

“Mmm, don’t they say there’s no rest for the wicked?” He didn’t answer so she rolled her head sideways to see him staring across the water, his beautiful back curved as he draped his arms over his jeans-clad knees. His bare feet were long and elegant like his hands, and his hair glinted with droplets of river water. The image burned into her mind’s eye as her eyelids drifted closed.

Not until he heard her breathing go deep and even did Paul allow himself to turn his gaze back to the infinitely desirable woman lying beside him. He had nearly gone up in flames when she stretched her satin-smooth body out on the coarse red-plaid blanket and offered herself to him. He wouldn’t have been able to withstand one more come-hither glance from her before he yanked her legs wide apart to feast on her and then bury himself inside that wet, welcoming heat.

He was like a horny teenager around her.

Despite her delicious sensuality, he knew she was inexperienced. For God’s sake, she’d told him so, but he would have known anyway. He needed to rein in his nearly insatiable appetite for her.

Truth was he wanted to experience everything he could with her before she disappeared from his life as suddenly as she’d entered it. The last thought sent a shudder through him, and he pushed it away, dwelling instead on the delight she took in the firsts he’d shown her.

Her first foosball game. Her first motorcycle ride. Her first time making love in the water.

What worried him was that he was no longer satisfied with being the first one to show her these things. Now he wanted to be the only one.

And he couldn’t. He couldn’t ask someone with her talent and potential to move to a place he himself could barely tolerate. He let his eyes drift over the gleaming copper hair drying in waves against the blanket, tracing down her arms to the slender fingers that held such genius. Her eyelids hid clear green eyes that saw the world in colors and shapes he never imagined.

Once the art patrons got an eyeful of her
Night Mares
, she would have that world at her feet. An actual physical pain made him wince as he realized he would not be there to see her reaction to New York and Paris and all the new places she would go.

Because he knew Julia was done with letting her family confine her. Her uncle thought she was going to meekly return to North Carolina after the show, but Carlos was wrong. She had broken those chains by coming to Sanctuary, and no one was going to be able to fasten them on her again.

He dragged his gaze away from Julia and pinned it to a river birch slanting over the water on the opposite bank as he remembered his conversation with Adam Bosch. The man could out-lawyer a lawyer when it came to being cagey about Jimmy’s chances of staying on the wagon.

But Bosch had tried to tell him something about manipulation. That was the part he kept replaying in his mind. Maybe he needed to have a heart-to-heart with his brother. In his bitterness and frustration, he hadn’t given Jimmy a chance to talk. He just shut down when his brother started spinning what Paul saw as his bullshit.

Maybe it wasn’t bullshit anymore.

A pulse of hope coursed through Paul until Eric’s face rose up in his mind.

It didn’t matter what Jimmy promised. If Paul left Sanctuary to follow his own selfish desires and something happened to Eric, he would never forgive himself.

Paul picked up a small stone and hurled it as far across the river as he could.

A
JAB OF
discomfort in her hip sent Julia’s eyelids fluttering open to find Paul glaring across the river, his face set in the bleak lines she remembered from Saturday night. She shifted away from the protrusion of rock she’d rolled onto in her sleep and examined him with an artist’s eye. From the defeated curve of his back to the slump of his shoulders to the locked muscles of his jaw, everything spoke of a deep-seated despair. If she had to paint hopelessness, she would use Paul as a model.

She frowned as she considered his thriving legal practice, his close relationship with his nephew, and the vehicular toys he clearly enjoyed. He had wonderful friends in Claire and Tim, and the respect of an entire town.

Heck, she and he had just made love, and she was pretty sure he’d enjoyed it as much as she had.

So why would this man who seemed to have so much look like he had no hope of happiness in the world? His sadness tore at her.

“Paul, are you all right?” she asked softly.

He started and turned toward her. She could see the effort it took for him to paste a smile on his face. “Never better.” He leaned down to drop a light kiss on her lips.

Sudden self-consciousness made her pull the edge of the blanket over herself as she pushed up to a sitting position. “What were you thinking about just now?”

“Are you cold?” His eyes dark with concern, he flipped the other side of the plaid wool over to wrap it around her.

“No, just a little too naked.”

His smile was genuine this time. “There’s no such thing as too naked when it comes to you.”

“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“It went clean out of my head when I kissed you.” He folded his legs under him and stood. “How about a nice cold one?”

“Cold what?” She recognized deflection when she saw it.

“Beer, sweetheart.” He climbed down and snagged the two bottles out of the water, holding them up to show her.

“Should you drink and drive?” she asked, as he returned and twisted off both caps.

He handed her a bottle before dropping down beside her, his bare shoulder brushing against hers. “If I can’t handle one beer, I shouldn’t be riding a hog.”

He clinked his bottle against hers before tilting his head back to take a long swallow. She admired the line of his throat before taking a sip of her own beer. The river water had chilled it to the perfect temperature and she purred at the deliciousness of the first taste.

“Nothing like a cold beer and a hot babe,” Paul said, his wink inviting her to laugh at his political incorrectness.

“I was thinking the same about a hot guy.” She leaned into him to get another dose of skin-to-skin contact. An imp of mischief made her press her bottle against his bare chest.

He yelped and grabbed her wrist to pull it away. He looked down at her with a devilish glint in his eyes. “That’s dangerous provocation from a woman wearing nothing more than a blanket. When I think of all the places I could put this bottle…” He let his gaze wander down her cocooned body.

Which made heat bloom over her skin under the scratchy wool. She went from being self-conscious about her state of undress to wishing he would touch every inch of her body.
Deciding to take advantage of her newfound boldness in order to distract him from his revenge, she released her hold on the edges of the blanket. As it fell away, she leaned back on her elbows. “Do your worst.”

Instead of pouncing on her as she had hoped, he groaned her name and shifted away, lifting the beer to his lips and gulping down the rest of the bottle. Baffled and a little hurt, she sat back up and stretched out a hand to lay it against his back. “What is it?”

He jerked at her touch and she dropped her hand. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, sweetheart, I did,” he said, staring across the river again. He turned back to her with a smile so sad it made her chest hurt. “You’re so close to perfect I can’t find a fault.”