Flirting With Fate (12 page)

Maybe it did. Suddenly, she could accept that.
What had she been so afraid of?

“I’d be happy to.”

She hopped up from the couch and scurried into the
kitchen, running from the inevitable even as she asked it to stay.

She poured two glasses of red wine and returned to
the living area. He sat on the couch this time, she noticed, and she lowered
herself to sit next to him. Nerves sparked in her belly.

“Thanks,” he said as she handed him a glass.

They each sipped, silence pulsing around them like
an erotic invitation.

“So, Darian and Paige are planning their wedding,”
she said, more because she wanted to break the silence than because she really
wanted to talk about her friend’s wedding.

Tanner smirked. “Yeah, it’s about time. She’s had
him hook, line, and sinker since that night she seduced him in Eden.”

“He told you about that?”

“What?” Tanner shrugged. “Like you girls don’t
talk to each other when you’re having romantic difficulties?”

“Well, yeah, but guys are…” She trailed off.

“Different? The difference is we don’t include
quite so many details, but we still talk.”

She giggled. “Have you ever talked to Darian about
your love life?”

Tanner sighed. “My SIA partners have become my
best friends. You know how it is. And, yeah, when I have to choose between
going to Darian or Fernandez for romance advice, Darian wins hands down every
time.” He groaned. “Of course, occasionally I’m desperate and Darian’s not
available. That’s always a mistake.”

Josie relaxed a little. This was what she needed.
“I don’t even want to know what Fernandez would consider romance advice.”

“Yeah, he’s really in the
Just Say No
camp.”

She laughed again and more tension leaked from her
body. “Darian knows better, though. Paige is the best thing that ever happened
to him. I just hope he knows how lucky he is.”

“Oh, I think he does.”

Josie studied her wine. She loved everything about
wine: the way it looked in a glass, the way it felt on her tongue, and the way
it warmed down to her belly and made every sense alive. “I hope so.” Suddenly,
she felt guilty for keeping so much from her friends this week. But now that
she didn’t have to go through with a DNA conversion, she could tell them all
she knew—and didn’t know. She would tell them. Tomorrow. “There’s no woman as
smart, loving, or beautiful as Paige.”

“I don’t know about that,” Tanner said, his voice
rough at the edges.

Josie lifted her head, and he was watching her,
his gaze hot on hers before dropping to her mouth. As he lowered his head to
kiss her, she let everything go but the feel of his heat near her and the tug
of desire between her legs.

Suddenly he seemed closer. The heat that radiated
off his body seeped into her core, soothing the old hurts she kept bottled
there.

Josie swallowed as the ball of warmth melted and
dipped deeper, touching and feeding the pulsing ache between her legs.

His gaze shifted to her mouth.

“You know someone better than Paige?” God, she’d
been trying for sassy, but it had come out as a husky whisper because all she
could think was
Kiss me. Touch me. Don’t make me wait. I’ve waited six
months.

“Josie.” Her name slipped from his lips like a
desperate plea, a surrender to whatever persistent fate they’d been fighting.
He lowered his head and brushed his lips over hers.

The kiss was as tentative as it was gentle. But
the slide of his hand into her hair and the way his palm cupped her chin proved
his desire.

He kissed and drew back in the familiar courtship
of lips, tongues, and kisses.

“Kiss me again, Tanner.”

He did. His mouth took hers and his tongue swept
inside—hungry, needy, desperate.

Lust pooled in her center. Her breasts grew heavy.
Her sex throbbed. She kissed him back and gloried at the heat of his body so
near hers.
Finally.

She shifted and pulled him down over her, craving
the weight of him on her body, the full heat and power and strength of him. She
was faintly aware of the soft thudding of her wine glass hitting the rug, but
she didn’t care because he was moving over her. She spread her legs to feel him
nestle there, between her thighs where she needed his weight, his heat, needed
the solid mass of his hard cock.

His hand ran down her side and back up. She bucked
slightly underneath him, wanting that hand on her breasts and between her legs.

He pulled away, a wicked, boyish grin on his face.
“Remind me again why we’ve never done this before.”

“I don’t know. But hurry.” She reached between
them and untied her robe, let it slide down her shoulders.

Tanner’s breath left him in a rush, his eyes glued
to her breasts, which were swollen and straining against the yellow lace of her
bra. “Jesus, Josie, you couldn’t be any more beautiful.”

She tugged at his shirt, and his devil-may-care
grin returned before he peeled it off for her.

It was Josie’s turn to lose her breath. “Not so
bad yourself. You...” She trailed off as his big hands grazed her breasts
through her bra, drawing out her nipples with his fingertips.

She looped her fingers through his belt loops and
tugged him down on top of her. He replaced his fingertips with his mouth, and
the heat of his tongue through the lace of her bra had her moaning desperately.

“Harder,” she said, arching under him.

He drew her nipple into his mouth, and she rolled
her hips, searching for the solid length of his cock. When she found it and
could feel how hard he was through his jeans, an involuntary moan came from
deep in her throat.

As he settled between her legs, her sex flooded.
Her need for him shifted past desire to something more inevitable, something
fated.

“Tanner, I want you—”

He cut her off with his mouth on hers, his hands
all the while toying with her nipples, cradling her breasts. “Don’t rush me,”
he whispered as he finally broke their kiss. “I’ve wanted you for too long to let
you rush me now.”

She let out a frustrated growl, but didn’t dare
argue. Every touch of his hand, every stroke of his tongue on her body was too
intense to deny.

Trailing his hot mouth down her neck, he worked a
hand to the opening in her robe and cupped her sex. She rocked into his palm
instinctively, wanting more, wanting his fingers inside her.

“I have to taste you there, Josie. I need to taste
all of you.” As he whispered the words, deft fingers found her clit through the
lace of her panties.

She swallowed the desperate scream that lodged in
her throat. “Just…hurry.”

Tanner made fast work of removing her robe and
panties. He knelt before her on the floor. Lifting her at her hips, he turned her
to face him and placed her ankles his shoulders. She’d seen this before her
shower. She’d seen it and been wet with wanting it since.

“Tanner,” she whispered, “please, don’t make me
wait.”

His eyes were hot on hers as he slid a finger
between the slick heat of her labia. “Honey, I’m about to prove just how much I’m
worth waiting for.”

When he lowered his mouth to her sex and trailed
his tongue over her swollen clit, she abandoned her protests and concentrated
on not coming apart at the first touch of his mouth.

He worked her with his tongue, tasting her,
licking her, suckling her clit until she wanted to beg for his cock. And when
he slid two fingers inside her at the same moment as he brought her clit
between his lips, she came apart, rocking against his hand and mouth and riding
the pleasure as it climbed and pulled at her, holding onto it until it burst
and she was left a satisfied pile of limbs and loose muscles.

She dropped her legs from his shoulders. “Come
here.”

“I have wanted to taste you since the first time I
saw you.”

“Then why didn’t you just say so?”

He gave her a lopsided grin. “Hell, that would
have worked?
Hello, my name’s Tanner and I want to put my face between your
legs.
”

She drew him forward and kissed him, the flavor of
her sex still on his lips. “Not a chance.”

It was her turn now, and as she carefully unzipped
his jeans over his bulge, he closed his eyes and groaned appreciatively.

“The bedroom?” he asked, standing and sliding his
jeans and boxers off his hips.

She licked her lips at the sight of his cock. Long
and solid, she suddenly knew she’d never wanted to do anything as much as she
wanted to suck him into her mouth. “Who needs a bedroom?” she muttered, seizing
the opportunity to drop to her knees before him.

She drew her tongue along the underside of his
shaft before sliding her lips over the rigid length of him.

“Jesus, Josie,” he groaned, “I’m not done with you
yet.”

She cupped his balls with her palm and his cock
jerked. Relaxing her throat, she took him deeply into her mouth to taste the
whole length of him.

“Sweet Jesus,” he groaned, fisting a hand in her
hair. “I can’t handle much more of that.”

Torn between wanting to feel him come in her mouth
and wanting to feel him inside her, she applied a little more pressure to his
balls and quickened the movements of her lips and tongue. She could feel him
getting closer, his stance growing more rigid every time she returned his shaft
deep into her mouth.

With a tortured groan, he stepped away. “I need to
be inside you.”

She licked her lips. The taste of him lingered
there. “Do you have a condom?”

He snatched his jeans from the floor and dug in
the back pocket until he emerged with a foil packet.

“Let me,” she said. The need to have her hands on
his cock again pounded through her like her own blood.

She removed the condom from the packet and slowly
slid it over the length of his shaft. Her thighs clenched in anticipation. She
wanted this man inside her. Wanted it now. “Couch,” she said, pushing at his
hips.

With a smirk, he lowered himself to the couch.
“Yes, ma’am.”

She straddled him, and as she lowered himself onto
his thick length, she fought to keep her eyes open against the pleasure so she
could watch his—the way they widened and, as she enveloped him with her sex,
the way they rolled back and his mouth dropped open as she moved slowly, letting
her body stretch to take all of him.

She rocked on top of him, watching his eyes as she
rode him.

As they found their rhythm, his hands went to her
breasts. Her muscles clenched as he toyed with her nipples, and he groaned in
response.

“You feel so damn good,” he murmured.

When he reached one hand between their bodies, the
other still at her breast, she lost control. He stroked her clit with his
thumb, and she abandoned any thought but her own pleasure, riding, sliding,
rubbing against him as it climbed. Faster, harder. She pushed herself and her
pleasure. She rode the edge of release but denied it. She didn’t want this to
end.

“Josie.” Her name rang in the silent space around
them.

His cock inside her and couldn’t hold on any
longer. When she let herself go, her sex pulsing around him, he came with her.

It wasn’t until later that she would have the
vision. Not until the afterglow began to fade would Josie see what a mistake it
had been—and why she and Tanner could never be together.

Josie was throwing her emergency overnight bag
over her shoulder when the doorbell rang. She frowned. She didn’t want to see
Tanner this morning. After the vision she’d had last night, she couldn’t get
rid of him fast enough.

She forced herself to open the door, but it wasn’t
Tanner.

“Sergeant...was it Greyly?”

The officer’s red-rimmed eyes dropped to her
breasts. “You can call me Quinton,” he said, his voice gravelly.

She folded her arms over her chest, even though
he’d politely diverted his attention to her face. “I’m sorry. I was expecting
someone else. Can I help you?”

His gaze shifted to her right arm, and he blinked.
“Didn’t—”

Oh, triple shit. Tanner had cut off the cast last
night. She’d saved it so she could wear it in public. So, of course, it was sitting
in her bedroom. “Did you find the man who broke into my house?”
Act normal,
and maybe he’ll think he misremembered.

“Your arm was broken,” he said.

Okay, moving to Plan B. “That’s what they thought
in the ER,” she said, “but I got a second opinion yesterday and found out it’s
not.” She smiled. “Isn’t that crazy?”

Quinton cocked his head. “You got a second opinion
on a broken arm?”

“If you want to know the truth,” she said,
lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “I think my ER doctor was drunk.”

He raised his brows. “Oh. Well, that’s not good.”

“Um, can I do something for you?”

He pulled a hand over his face, and she thought
she heard him mutter, “Fuck it,” before he said, “Can I see your left wrist?”

“My...?” She stuck it out, and he took it in his
hands.

He studied the pale flesh in the early morning
light of her small porch, but there was nothing to see but freshly moisturized
skin. When he released her, he looked almost disappointed. “Sorry, I must seem
crazy to you. I just—”

Josie swallowed. How did he know? What did he
know? She should keep quiet. Call her shrink. Last night she’d been given the
chance at a normal life, and she wanted it desperately.

But she needed to know more. She offered her other
wrist. “Are you looking for this?”

Quinton drew in a ragged breath and ran his fingers
over the thick S-shaped scar tissue that marred the inside of her right wrist.
When he brought his eyes back up to hers, sadness pulled them down at the
edges. “Mallory?”

Tanner didn’t like bringing the other Stiletto
Girls into the middle of this, but if Josie was going to block him out, then he
didn’t figure he had much of a choice.