He stared down at her, his chest heaving. She met his gaze fully, her breathing no less labored. And then he slid his hands from her feet to her ankles, her calves, stopping just short of her knees.
"Are you sure about this, Isabel?" he asked, his fingers circling behind her knees, tickling there just below her thighs.
She blew out a steadying breath before she shifted her weight to one elbow, her free hand tugging her skirt to her waist, exposing her panties and the sweet gift beneath she was giving him.
His eyes smoldering, his jaw taut, he dug into his pocket for a condom, tossed his leather wallet to the desk and reached for the button of his jeans. He did it all without saying another word.
Anticipation had Izzy wanting to lick her lips; her feet against his thighs already knew the fullness behind his fly. When he shoved his jeans and briefs down his hips and his erection sprang free, it was all she could do not to sit up and take him into her hands.
She wanted to know the smooth velvet feel of that
ripely
swollen head, the hardness,
the
firmness of his long, thick shaft. But she didn't want to feel all of that with her hands the way she wanted to know him buried in her body.
So she spread her legs wide.
Baron rolled on his condom, then moved into the welcoming V of her legs, stopping only long enough to test her wetness with the slow slide of one long finger. While she was shuddering and shivering and coming undone, he tore her panties away and took hold of her hips.
His eyes never left hers as he drove himself home, filling her, stretching her, opening her in ways she'd never experienced, never known.
She settled her weight on her elbows, her hands flat on the desk at her hips. Baron braced himself similarly, lacing his fingers with hers, while his palms bore the brunt of his weight. And then he began to rock, to pump, to shove
himself
into her body with a rhythm and a speed that spoke of needs and desperation she matched with each of her upward thrusts.
Neither spoke; both barely managed to breathe with their gazes locked and their bodies engaged and their hearts exposed and on the line. The tension in the room simmered. The tension in their bodies tightened. The tension in their mated gazes reached a breaking
point,
and Izzy felt the same burn of tears she saw reddening Baron's eyes.
Holding back was no longer an option. Letting go was a necessity as powerful as the rush of blood through her veins. She cried out, consumed, and Joseph continued to watch, loving her to completion, waiting until she took a deep breath and grabbed for one last convulsion, before he allowed himself the same pleasure.
The tempo of his thrusts steadily rose, as did the power behind them. He was strong and he was hard and he wasn't a man who held back. She hooked her heels in the small of his back and took all that he had to give.
A long minute later he groaned, and then grunted and came with a low guttural cry. She tightened her fingers in response to his hard grip and gave him her body and her heart.
When he finally slowed and shuddered and reached a place where he was able to stop, his grip loosened, as did the tautness in his body. She pushed herself up slowly, keeping their bodies joined, needing that connection as much as she needed to wrap her arms around his neck, to press her face to his chest and absorb his heat and his heartbeat.
He held her close, his arms around her back, his penis still hard and throbbing and solid inside of her. And she knew in that moment that she'd never been so close to a man.
Or so close to falling in love for the rest of her life.
* * *
R
olling out of bed at
Saturday morning, Kinsey decided that tomorrow would be the first day of the rest of her life.
Today was more about finishing details of her old existence still left undone.
The gIRL-gEAR partners, along with their significant others, boy toys and, in Lauren's case, husband, were spending today in an all-out Habitat for Humanity
buildathon
.
Today's plan was to get the structure erected, enclosed and wired so that the finishers could start on the interior tomorrow.
What with the partners, their men and the original crew from Leonard's congregation, not to mention newly recruited family and friends—many brought in by the auction—the goal was definitely attainable.
Kinsey didn't know how much help she'd actually be, but she would haul and deliver and run errands with a vengeance. All girls for one and one girl for all.
The auction money had been collected immediately and added to the donations that had been pouring in since the fire. This past week, according to Izzy's reports, supplies had been purchased and plans organized for the weekend
buildathon
.
Kinsey was still recovering from and digesting the bizarre way the auction had gone down. The fact that Baron had paid for Izzy wasn't that much of a surprise. The surprise had been the news of his money coming via a legacy from the doctor who'd taken him in as a teen.
Now, the fact that Patrick had bought Poe was quite the event, even more so than the amount he'd paid. Still, thanks to Patrick, the Habitat for Humanity project would not run short of money for a long time to come.
But it was Doug's orders to Marcus West, instructing him to see that no other man got his hands on
Kinsey, that
still had her reeling. Why would he have bothered to assign Marcus his proxy, considering that he'd made his lack of intentions toward her perfectly clear?
Or perfectly muddy, depending on whether one took the optimistic or pessimistic approach.
Doug could hardly shadow her forever and pay off future dates. If she had future dates. Right now, hanging with her girlfriends pretty much covered her social calendar.
Really, though. How much grief could she possibly have to put up with being the last single partner, since, judging by Poe's strange behavior and silence this last week, Patrick was obviously getting his money's worth?
Pulling her SUV in behind Jacob Faulkner's black Sport
Trac
, Kinsey glanced around the site. The sun was just breaking over the horizon, casting a cool bluish pink glow over the concrete slab.
She grabbed her worn University of Texas sweatshirt and tugged it on over her faded
Queensryche
concert T-shirt and her oldest pair of jeans with a working zipper. The morning's cool air stole her breath, but the zip in the breeze energized her. She caught site of Lauren and Izzy distributing supplies, and headed in that direction.
"So, what can I do to help?" she asked, shading her eyes as the sun rose higher and brighter. The constant strikes of hammers on wood echoed in the still morning air.
"Are you sure you're up to doing anything? You've been fairly cranky this past week," Lauren said, pulling the knotted sleeves of her sweatshirt tighter around her waist.
Kinsey rubbed at her forehead. "It's just been a rough week, getting used to Doug being gone. But it's over with and I'll be fine."
Lauren and Izzy exchanged a strangely knowing look, Lauren finally asking, "Are you sure about that?"
"About it being over with or about being fine?"
Izzy gave a little shrug. "Either one. Both."
Emphatically, Kinsey nodded. "Yep. I've already decided that tomorrow will be the first day of the rest of my life."
"I don't know, girl." Izzy glanced from Kinsey to Lauren and grinned. "You might want to consider making that happen today." She nodded toward the frame structure.
Frowning, Kinsey turned. It took her a minute to scan the site, the house's frame, which was already taking shape due to the
corp
of volunteers with power saws and nail guns and simple claw hammers.
And then she saw him. In that very moment her focus narrowed until everything around her faded away and nothing existed but for the man braced against the roof's triangular frame.
He wore blue jeans and work boots; she could see every detail even from this distance. A blue bandanna around his forehead kept his hair from falling in his face. Wraparound
Oakleys
kept the glare of the rising sun from his eyes. And the white T-shirt he wore revealed muscles she'd never known he had.
She'd spent hours naked with this man, yet in all that time of learning her way around his body, she'd never seen him like this. Swinging a hammer instead of reading a blueprint; working with his body, by the sweat of his brow, instead of relying solely on his brilliant mind.
She took her first step toward the structure, a slow step while she continued to shade her eyes and stare. Straddling one board, he held the end of another with one hand, striking a nail repeatedly with strong sharp blows of his hammer. He grabbed a second nail from his mouth: where he held a third, and went through the motions until he'd secured the board in place.
Then he straightened, smiling at the man on the other end of the board and laughing with a visible joy Kinsey hadn't seen on his face in ages. Perhaps since last summer's vacation on Coconut
Caye
, when he'd spent days in a marathon game of beach Frisbee.
She cupped both hands to her mouth because she was afraid to let go and cry. Her eyes welled with tears of happiness at seeing him again; when he'd left, she'd wondered if she ever would. His being here, his working alongside the rest of the usual crew had to mean something.
He'd come back. He'd come home.
But had he come home to her?
He caught sight of her then, and his smile froze. Kinsey's stomach tumbled into a pit. Surely he'd known he'd see her here today. So why did he look as if her appearance hadn't even crossed his mind?
Or maybe that was only what she was reading into it from this distance—a distance he was rapidly closing as he hooked his hammer into the tool belt at his waist and made his way across the roofing beams toward the closest ladder.
She wanted a mirror, a hairbrush, time to prepare a statement in response to whatever he was on his way to say. Her hands were twisted into knots she wasn't sure she'd be able to unravel by the time he reached her. She finally pulled herself together enough to give him a smile.
"This is a surprise."
"What? You didn't think I had it in me to do manual labor?"
His grin totally unnerved her, and she remembered how much she loved his dimples. "No, silly. I didn't think you'd be back to Houston so soon."
His hands went to his hips, and he glanced at the concrete slab for a moment before his gaze returned to hers. "I'm not exactly back."
"Well, yeah. I knew that." She checked her ponytail to have something to do with her hands. "I just meant—"
"No." He shook his head. "I'm not back because I never left."
"What?" Butterflies swarmed inside her.
"Well, I left just long enough to wrap up my few Denver loose ends." He shrugged. "But that was all."
That was all? What did he mean, that was all? "Loose ends? So, you'll be staying here for a while then?"
He
nodded,
raising hopes she thought she'd trained to lie low. "
C'mere
," he said, and turned away.
She glanced back at her girlfriends, who were both waving her on, before she scurried after him. Doug led her off the property and down the row of parked cars until they reached his 350Z. She expected him to open the door, climb in and drive away.
Instead, he simply leaned against the rear panel, hands in his pockets and ankles crossed. She stopped before she was close enough to touch him, should her inability to keep her hands to herself strike.
The silence around them wasn't the least bit uncomfortable, though she couldn't say the same about her stomach. So she prompted him with a breezy, "Well?"
"I have something for you."
His face remained completely straight, but she still couldn't help but think he'd brought her here to tease her. "Not my bikini bottoms."
He grimaced.
She rolled her eyes. "Please tell me no."
"Honestly? I never made it off the island with them. I hid them under my mattress." His mouth twisted in a wry grin. "They're probably still there."
"You dog!" She moved toward him, raised a hand to sock him one, but he caught her by the wrist, spun her around and tumbled her into his arms.
"Yes. It's true. I cannot tell a lie."
"Ha! You've told plenty the last couple of months, teasing me about that suit." When he moved to wrap his arms around her waist, she let him. She didn't know why. It was as if nothing between them had changed, when that wasn't the case at all.
Everything had changed, because she'd fallen in love. And she wasn't going to play any more of their wicked games.
She leaned back against his chest. "You said you have something to give me?"
"Yeah." He dug into one of his pockets for what looked like a uselessly bent and twisted nail. "I figured I'd see you today, so I made this when I got here this morning."
She stepped out of his embrace and turned to face him, giving him her best evil eye because she had no idea what was going on. He was quiet, his expression peaceful, and his smile, when he looked at her, was one she felt to her toes.