Freefall (22 page)

The bedroom, like what little of the house she'd seen, revealed nothing of the man who lived here. The walls, painted in a standard rental house beige-white, showed rectangles where paintings had once hung. The carpet, an industrial-grade beige Berber, had undoubtedly been chosen more for utilitarian purposes than looks, and when he flicked the wall switch, the ceiling light was bright enough to make her blink.

"I don't suppose you have any candles?" she asked, her confidence flagging a bit.

The scene shimmering in her rnind, when she'd imagined making love with this man, had been misty-edged, lit by the flattering soft glow of candles, everything occurring in exquisite slow motion. There'd be music playing. Something bluesy, but underscored with a sexy percussive beat.

She had to laugh at herself, just a little, as she realized her fantasy had, in fact, been a soft porn video.

But still…

"There are some in the mudroom, for power failures," he said. "But please tell me you're not going to make me go look for them now."

"No." She could do this, Sabrina assured herself, even as she fought to keep the mood from slipping away.

"How about a compromise?"

He went over to the window and pulled up the shade, allowing the moonlight to stream in.

Then, thank you, God, he turned off the damn light.

"Better?"

"Much. Thanks." She managed a faint smile. "You probably think I'm foolish, worrying about such a silly thing, but I've never done this before—"

"Never had sex?"

"Never seduced anyone."

"Well, so far, for a novice you're showing incredible instincts." He ducked his head and brushed his lips against hers. "Must be you're a natural."

"Maybe I am."

It wasn't her, Sabrina knew, as much as him. Because she'd certainly never been inclined to seduce anyone else.

"As for thinking you're foolish—" He skimmed the back of his hand down her face. Kissed her again, a nibbling little peck that made her want more. Much, much more. "As it happens, I think you're perfect."

The way he was looking at her had her believing him.

"As it happens," she echoed him on a deep, throaty laugh, recklessly taking hold of the waistband of his jeans and tugging him closer, "I think the same thing about you."

She rubbed her silk-covered breasts against his bare chest.

"I've been dreaming of this," she admitted.

"Well, that makes two of us."

"So you say now." With a daring that would shock her later when she looked back on it, she moved her hand around to his butt and squeezed. "I seem to recall you mentioning something last night about me representing virgin innocence."

"You did." When he took her lips with his again, Sabrina sighed and felt herself yielding to him. "That was before I came home and discovered how well you'd grown up."

He fisted a hand in her hair and tugged her head back enough to look down at her. "I know you're the one running the show here, but am I allowed to say that that's a great dress?"

"I'm glad you like it."

"I love it. It's probably the most fantastic dress I've ever seen."

He skimmed a roughened fingertip along the crest of her breasts, then, with a casual flick of the wrist, sent first one thin strap and then the other sliding off her bare shoulders. "But the thing is, darlin', right now I'd like it even better if you'd take it off."

His eyes were dark and hungry. Looking at him looking at her, for the first time in her life, Sabrina knew what it meant to crave.

"Since you asked so nicely."

She reached around her back and lowered the zipper with one hand, holding the dress against her chest with the other.

Then let it drop to the pine plank floor.

Zach blew out a long, slow breath as he took in the sight of her, clad in a strapless bit of white satin and lace she'd bought at the same shop where Eve and the saleswoman had pressured her into the dress and shoes.

He lifted his eyes to the ceiling. "Thank you, God."

She laughed, feeling her anxiety dissolve. If she'd thought about it beforehand, she would have imagined she'd feel incredibly nervous standing in front of him in a skimpy bit of lingerie and high heels. But instead, she felt amazingly, uncharacteristically sexy.

A little like those sirens that ancient sailors used to insist dwelt on the coral reefs off the coast.

Or like Eve, tempting Adam with that shiny red apple.

"It'd probably be more appropriate to thank all the poor nuns who undoubtedly went blind making the lace," she said.

His grin was quick, but his eyes hot. "Ah, but don't forget who they work for."

Before she could discern his intention, he pulled her down onto the king-sized bed. Which moved like breakers beneath them.

"A water bed?" Sabrina was so surprised she forgot to complain about him seizing control.

"I know. It's ridiculously seventies." He rolled over on top of her. "I can't even claim it's retro, because it came with the place."

His lips glided over her flesh. "I hope you're not prone to seasickness."

"Not that I know of," she managed as he tugged the strapless lace down. "But in case you've forgotten, I'm supposed to be seducing you."

"Congratulations." His tongue dampened first one breast, then the other. "You've succeeded. I've been totally seduced since I first saw you sitting in the middle of that fairy-tale bed, looking like a sexy princess waiting for Prince Charming to show up.

"Not that anyone would ever describe me as Prince Charming." Her back arched as his mouth closed around a nipple and tugged. "But you get my drift."

As if he weren't already creating havoc in both her mind and her body, his calloused hand, feeling like the finest-grade sandpaper, stroked the back of her knee. "Christ, your skin is soft," he murmured as his mouth went to work on the other nipple.

His caressing touch moved higher. Up the back of her leg. "Like gardenia petals warmed in the sun."

He was saying something else, but as that wickedly clever hand slipped around her leg and began moving up the ultrasensitive skin of her inner thigh, there was such a roaring in Sabrina's head—like the sea during a violent storm—that she couldn't hear it.

Which was why, when Zach suddenly climbed off the bed, creating more sloshing of waves, Sabrina's first thought was that as impossible as it seemed, he was going to stop.

But then she realized he wanted to take off his jeans, and, as delicious as that rough denim felt rubbing up against her body, she wanted them gone, too.

He pulled the jeans and knit boxer briefs down together, kicked them aside, and reached into the drawer of the bedside table to grab a handful of condoms, which he scattered across the scarred tabletop.

"You were expecting this," she said.

"I was hopeful." The glint in his eyes spoke volumes.

"Also optimistic," she murmured.

"It's a long night." If he was at all uncomfortable, standing there fully aroused, he showed no sign of it. But why should he be? Sabrina asked herself as he casually ripped open one of the red foil packets.

Zachariah Tremayne was a superb example of a perfect male form. In fact, if he'd been around in Renaissance days, all the tourists who flocked to Florence to gape at Michelangelo's famous
David
sculpture, would have been looking at Zachariah Tremayne instead of some anonymous model.

"Wait." Okay, so it was more croak than sexy Southern drawl. But the hand she held out toward him was remarkably steady, considering that rockets were going off inside her. "Let me."

He might have been more experienced than she. He might have known more positions, been more comfortable with his body. But there was no way he could hide his body's response to her soft request.

"There's not a man on God's green earth who would turn that offer down." The humor faded from his eyes, replaced by what appeared to be pure, unadulterated lust.

When she took his rampant sex in his hands and slipped her mouth over him, the dark shadows of dread that had been hovering over her in the weeks since the bombing disintegrated.

There was only now.

Only Zach.

"I know you're supposed to be calling the shots here, sugar," he said, tangling his hands in her hair to pull her away, even as his hips thrust forward. "But if you keep that up, we're going to have an early blastoff."

"We wouldn't want that." Though the idea of making him lose control was certainly a heady one.

He broke the erotic contact and collapsed on the bed beside her, his mouth claiming hers with a jolting shock of possessiveness that she felt in every atom of her body.

He stripped away the pretty white lace and satin. The pace quickened. Hands that had been content to loiter now moved more urgently. Tender kisses grew eager. Hungry.

As nervous as her mind had been, Sabrina's body had been ready for this since she'd first pulled his shirt off.

No. Before that. Since she'd thrown open that heavy front door at Swannsea and seen him standing there in the bright morning glare of summer sun looking like some gilded god.

Which was why, the instant he cupped her, hard, she shattered, pouring into his hand.

"More," he demanded, plunging his fingers deep inside her.

How had it happened? How had she totally lost control of this situation?

And why should she care? When the assault on her senses was so wild and deliriously decadent?

She pistoned her hips, urging him on, shuddering, sobbing, as he brought her to another, higher, harsher peak.

"More," he said again.

"I can't."

"You can." He slid down her body and clamped his mouth between her legs.

As he took her, with teeth and tongue and lips, Sabrina's body, which she would have sworn he'd exhausted, leaped back to life.

She writhed.

Strained.

Dragged her hands through those silky dark waves, splaying her fingers against the back of his head as she arched against his mouth.

This sharp, hard climax sent shock waves outward from that hot, slick core.

But he wasn't finished yet.

Bracing over her, muscles quivering, Zach desperately struggled to hold on to what scant control he had left.

She was so strong, so unrelentingly goal-oriented, it was easy to overlook how delicate she was. How soft. How sweet.

Her long lashes rested on cheeks stained with heat. Her lips were parted, the faint breath escaping them as shallow as his own.

"Sabrina." She stirred when he touched his lips to hers. "Look at me."

Her eyes, when she opened them, were soft and dazed. "I'm sorry. You haven't… I wasn't sleeping, really, I was just…" Her lips curved in a dreamy, satiated smile. "Sort of floating." She lifted her lips to his. "Back to earth… But as fabulous as that rocket-ship ride was, I want you, Zachariah Tremayne."

She wrapped one long, smooth leg around his hip. "All of you."

Her warm and inviting smile sent emotions rushing into Zach's throat. And his heart. Myriad, indefinable emotions that expanded to fill all those dark and empty places inside him.

Filling him as no other woman ever had.

As no other woman ever could.

The thought staggered him.

"I want you, too." He kissed her again. And for the first time since he'd landed back on American soil, Zach felt as if he'd come home.

Which was why he said the words he'd never said to any woman in his life.

"And I need you."

Her mossy green eyes darkened to emerald and shone with what, goddammit, he feared were tears.

Smooth move, Tremayne. Why make a woman scream with passion when you can make her cry?

Her hands, which had been twisting the sheets by her side into hot tangled knots, rose to link around his neck.

Smiling through what were, indeed, tears, she said, "Then take me."

Zach needed no second invitation.

Beyond words, rather than plunge as his body had been shouting at him to do, he slipped into her, filling her, even as he filled himself.

Completing them both.

When he began to move, she matched his long, smooth strokes perfectly, deeper, and faster, arms, legs, and hearts entwined as she flew with him into the mists.

And this time, when she returned to earth, Zach was with her.

Titania was going to flat-out kill him. But not immediately, Nate decided. No, being of the female persuasion, and having come from a long line of Geechee stock, she'd probably be into the vengeance thing.

Maybe she'd have one of those old aunties of hers who lived out in the marsh put a spell on him. One that would, as she'd once threatened during a particularly expressive tantrum, cause his dick to turn dry as dust and blow away out across the Atlantic, where minuscule particles would fall into the ocean and be gobbled up by fish.

Or—another suggestion at the time—she would have her kitchen helper, Njanu, whose name was supposedly Kenyan for "bull"—which fit, since he was about six-foot-eight and had to weigh over three hundred pounds, all of it muscle—cut off that very same dick with a rusty carving knife and feed it to the gators out in the swamp.

The only reason Nate had taken that idea seriously was that anyone with eyes in his head could tell that Njanu had a major crush on his employer and would probably have not a single qualm about getting rid of any guy who made her unhappy. Especially one that he undoubtedly considered competition.

Even knowing it had only been Titania's temper talking, that she would never follow through on the threats, both prospects nevertheless had sent Nate's gonads up to his tonsils.

Hopefully, she'd do what she always did when he was called out at night. Punish him with the silent treatment for a day or two. Before she let him take her in a wild, no-holds-barred round of makeup sex.

Even so, he knew he was pushing his luck, leaving her in bed three nights in a row.

"Great way to convince her to marry you," he ground out as he drove through the rain that had blown in from the sea.

And hell, this wasn't even for a murder, like the call the other night. Or a break-in, like at Swannsea. It was for a damn domestic dispute, which was, hands down, his least favorite part of the job.

Ida Mae and Angus Thornton had been married for sixty-odd years, "odd" being the definitive word. And every few months during each of those years, according to the mountain of manila folders filled with complaints, one or both of them would get tanked and start destroying stuff.

This time Ida Mae, who was loudly accusing Angus of making eyes at that chippie pharmacist who'd rung up his Viagra at the Palmetto Pharmacy, had doused the model pirate ships her husband had made over the past two decades with kerosene and started a bonfire in the front yard.

A neighbor, concerned when the flames looked as if they might spread to his roof, had called in the disturbance.

Unfortunately, of Nate's three deputies, one was in bed with chicken pox contracted from his six-year-old daughter, another was in Spartanburg attending a family reunion, and the third was handling a drunk-and-disorderly down at The Stewed Clam.

Which, Nate had tried to explain to a very pissed-off Titania, left him to play Dr. Phil.

He was on his way home with a Hershey bar he'd picked up at Oscar's Gas and Go, hoping the chocolate might help ease his way back into both his woman's good graces and her bed, when he passed a car parked on the side of the road near the turnoff to Zach Tremayne's rental house.

At first he figured it'd been abandoned.

"Most likely broke down." The driver had probably decided to walk home and call for a tow in the morning.

Then, remembering those two SCAD students who'd stumbled across Hallie Conroy's body, Nate decided he'd better stop and check to make sure there was nothing going on in the backseat.

Not that he was the sex police—far from it, being able to remember his own hormone-driven days—but kids making out in the middle of nowhere while a crazed serial killer was on the loose were a horror flick waiting to happen.

He made a U-turn. Pulled up behind the car and turned on his flashers.

As he walked toward the driver's door, Nate unsnapped his holster flap.

Because you just never knew.

Sabrina had realized, as she drove to Zach's house, that her behavior was reckless. That it would change things. But she'd managed to convince herself that getting the sexual tension out of the way would make it easier for them to work together.

After all, they were both adults, both unattached without any committed relationships hovering on the horizon. It was, after all, the logical thing to do.

She'd spent a lot of time wondering what it would be like to make love with Zachariah Tremayne.

Well, after more than a decade, she'd found out.

It had been even hotter and more thrilling than she'd imagined.

It had left her feeling a little bruised. A little battered.

And absolutely blissful.

Which was the part that terrified her.

Because, for that suspended moment after Zach had told her he needed her, Sabrina had felt cherished. Like one of those pieces of Swarovski crystal her mother had collected. And, unfortunately, about as fragile.

She hadn't wanted him to care about her. She'd only wanted him to, as he'd so less than eloquently put it, fuck her blind.

She'd come here seeking sex. Not a relationship. And definitely not love.

Love?

Who was talking about love?

So, he'd used that really scary
n
word. But "need" encompassed a vast range of things. People needed air to breathe, food to eat, and yes, at that moment they'd both needed an intimate physical connection with another human being.

That's all it was.

All Sabrina would allow it to be.

Besides, sex for sex's sake wasn't all that bad. In fact, with the right man, at the right time, it could be fabulous.

She laughed at that idea.

"Something funny?" He rolled over, pulling her with him so she was sprawled across his chest.

"I was thinking how good I feel," she hedged, feeling a little foolish for having realized she'd laughed out loud, but she felt she covered well.

"Again, you're not going to get any argument from me." He ran one of those rough broad hands that had created such havoc over every inch of her body down her back, from her shoulders to her butt. "But 'good' is a vast understatement. I'd say you feel abso-fucking-lutely terrific."

She laughed again, feeling wonderfully, foolishly like the schoolgirl she'd once been.

"I should go."

"Well, now, sugar, you're going to have to rethink that decision." He cupped her breast, his thumb rubbing against her nipple, his mouth nuzzling her neck. "Because we're just getting started."

"We can't." She came close to purring as his mouth roamed down her throat. "I can't… Oh, God."

That wonderful wicked mouth began creating a trail of sparks, over her breasts, down her torso, her stomach, continuing south.

Outside, a light rain was tapping on the green tin roof.

Inside, things were beginning to heat up again.

"Surely you can't… I mean, this soon…"

"Wanna bet?"

He shifted positions again, overpowering her, trapping her body beneath his.

"You're the one who started this, New York. So you're going to have to stick around until I'm finished with you."

When his hand pressed against her, a sexual charge, just this side of pain, shot through her body like a lightning bolt.

"And when do you think that might be?"

Her skin, which had cooled in the misty afterglow of lovemaking, was hot again, the blood running beneath it feeling as if it had begun to boil.

"I've no idea." As wet as she was hot, she flowed over his hand. "But I do know I'm nowhere near done yet."

"Good," she gasped as his fingers dove into the heat of her.

It was all either of them said for a very long time.