He smiled. “I want you to come with me to dinner at a friend’s house. Probably tomorrow night, if I can arrange it, otherwise sometime next week.”
“What friend? Is this a weirdo friend, someone I won’t like? Does she eat repulsive things like grubs and such? Because I can tell you right here and now, I don’t do grubs.”
He chuckled his sexy chuckle, the one that makes my innards go all quivery. “I can assure you there will be no grubs. My friend is a man, an author, quite a well-known one in his field. I thought you would like to meet him.”
I stopped dead in my tracks, pulling on Alex’s hand to get him to turn around. An author? He was going to introduce me to a real author? I was flabbergasted.
“Alex, that’s—I don’t know what to say. That’s very sweet of you.
Very
sweet. I’d love to meet a real writer, especially if he’s a friend of yours.”
Our gazes met and caught. A familiar flicker of heat started deep within me, making me take a step closer to him. Of its own volition, my hand moved up his bicep to his shoulder as his arms slid around behind me. The heat of the sun was lukewarm compared to his mouth, his lips branding mine with his passion and desire. Just as I opened my mouth beneath his to taste him, a highpitched titter shattered the moment of intimacy.
“I’ve never before met a woman who gets such pleasure out of public scenes.” Alex shook his head a moment later, after he had pried me off his chest. I shot a glare full of annoyance at the group of girls who stood snickering at us, then turned back to Alex with a grin.
“You’re learning, sweetie, you’re learning. I have high hopes for your complete and utter downfall into the status of a mere human being.”
One sleek chestnut eyebrow rose in question.
“
Very
high hopes,” I grinned.
“How did you get through the maze so quickly?” I asked Alex an hour later, when we had returned to Karl’s car and were on our way back to Beale Square.
Alex punched a few keys on his laptop, then spun it around to face me. I read the web page that was displayed.
“You rotter! You did cheat! That’s not fair—you knew the key to get through the maze!”
He grinned as Karl gave a hoot of laughter. I glared at both of them.
“You didn’t say anything about not preparing for the
visit. I like to know what I’m going to see before I get there.”
“Anal,” I told Karl. He nodded.
“Alix—”
I ignored the warning growl and chatted happily with Karl the rest of the way home. The day had turned out better than I had expected, with Alex and me reaching an understanding (of some sort—I still wasn’t exactly sure what it was), and the promise of a meeting with a real author to look forward to. And then there was that night.
I had plans to challenge Alex’s win, demanding that he pay me the boon I deserved by being the first noncheating person through the maze. Once we arrived home, I thanked Karl profusely for taking us out, and made him promise he’d save an upcoming Saturday night so I could repay him by cooking my famous killer lasagna for him. As I trotted up the front steps and past Alex, who was politely holding the stroppy door open for me, I smiled my most enticing smile and tipped my head to the side.
“Could I interest you in dinner tonight, hmm? Just the two of us? I have a delicious-looking recipe for chicken and olives that I’m dying to try out.”
Alex was shaking his head even before I finished speaking. “I can’t, Alix. I have to finish the report by tomorrow morning. As it is, I will have to work all night on it because I spent the day with you.”
I stomped up the stairs until I reached my door, glaring at my purse as I fumbled for my keys, and then lied through my teeth. “It’s just dinner. I wasn’t planning on seducing you, you know. Even workaholics like you have to eat sometime.”
Alex stood so close behind me I could feel his heat.
“I wish I could, but this is an important report. Without it, we can’t proceed further on charges against a man running a pornographic Internet studio out of his house.”
“Well, I certainly don’t get into porn,” I said as I opened the door to my flat, stepping aside to avoid the wave of heat from inside, “but I don’t see that a delay of an hour or two while I tempt you with olives and chicken is going to hurt anyone.”
“It’s not that at all—”
I tossed my bag, notebook, and hat onto the side table and turned to face him. “After all, what is porn? It’s just a little sex that other people are paying to watch. I agree it’s tacky and tasteless, but who is it really hurting?”
He put both hands on my shoulders and leaned forward to kiss my nose. “This particular man uses children.”
Children? My stomach roiled at the thought. I blinked at Alex for a moment, then slid my hands behind his neck and kissed a spot just next to one corner of his mouth. “Ick. That’s different. You need to get that guy closed down and in jail as soon as possible.”
He nodded, and feathered a line of kisses along my jaw.
“OK, I’ll excuse you for the evening, but as soon as you’re done with this report—”
“I’ll knock you up,” he finished.
I stared at him, wondering if he knew just what that phrase meant to Americans, then decided he did when the corners of his mouth curled up. He leaned forward for what I knew was going to be a kiss that would turn
my legs to jelly. I slipped backwards, out of his arms, placing a finger on his lips as I did so.
“I think not. I want to give you an inducement to finish early.”
He kissed my finger, then picked up his satchel and headed up the stairs. I went into my hot little oven of a flat and melted, but it wasn’t due to the heat of the day—it was the promise in Alex’s eyes that left me feeling singed around the edges.
It was difficult to write after that. Guilt over trying to pry Alex away from his job battled with blatant lust when I thought of all the things I had planned for him, but the guilt won out (it usually does), so I didn’t call upstairs the half-dozen times I wanted to.
“He’s busy catching pedophiles and child molesters, and all you can think of is how you want to jump his bones,” I lectured myself as I fired up my computer and loaded the latest version of my work in progress. “Poor little children abused and scarred for life, all depending on Alex to save them, and your sole thought is to wonder how many positions of the kama sutra you can talk him into.”
Erotic visions of Alex naked, with my legs wrapped around his waist as we perfected Kirtibandha (the Knot of Fame) danced through my mind, but I am not one to be swayed by thoughts of a little pleasure when there’s work to be done.
“Nose to the grindstone,” I told myself, and decided, after some thought, that poor Raoul and Rowena deserved a full-fledged love scene in which to demonstrate just how perfect for each other they were. Several hours later, I was deep in the middle of it when I was distracted by a quiet knock at the door. I padded barefoot over to
the door, a surge of hope swelling that it was Alex there to seduce me, but knowing it couldn’t be.
I am so often wrong about things.
“Am I disturbing you?” Alex asked with a wicked smile, his eyes dark and full of secrets as he leaned against the door frame holding a bottle of wine in one hand.
I grabbed his free arm and pulled him in, stepping into his arms as easily as if I had done it a million times before. “You always disturb me,” I said against his lips, and set my soul a-flying as I kissed him with every ounce of longing I had.
He kissed me right back, which is the beauty of kissing, really. It’s not the mere act of pushing your lips up against someone else’s lips, it’s the sharing, the give-and-take, the wonderful sense of oneness that a truly inspiring kiss generates, and Alex was nothing if not inspired. He started my blood boiling, warming the fires sleeping within me, filling me with languor and excitement at the same time.
“I think we’d better slow down a little,” he said once I peeled myself off his lips. I nodded, gasping a little for air, too overwhelmed by his passion to do or say anything that required coherence.
“I’ve come prepared,” he added, turning his wicked smile up a couple of notches. He held up the bottle of wine. “Libation.”
“Oh,” I said, still a bit befuddled by his kiss. “Wine. Nice.”
“And I brought this.” A small white and blue plastic package dangled from his fingers. “I thought it looked like it might rain.”
“You are truly a wicked man,” I smiled. “Which is no
doubt why I like you so much, but you needn’t have brought your raincoat—I have several myself. I’m sure we can find something that suits you.”
I made a valiant attempt to throttle back the leer playing about my lips while Alex opened the wine and I turned up my love-scene-writing music (Burt Bacharach and Dusty Springfield—puts me in the mood every time). My attempt at cool sophistication wasn’t successful, but it’s hardly my fault. Every time I got a hold of myself, I’d glance over to Alex and see his gaze smoldering at me.
“I feel like I should be saying I will slip into something more comfortable,” I giggled, striking a seductive pose by the chaise. “But this truly is the most comfortable thing I have.”
Alex set the wine and two glasses down in front of the chaise and snaked an arm around me, pulling me tight to his chest. “I’ve always found T-shirts to be very sexy, especially when they have Mickey Mouse emblazoned across the front.”
Little nibbles around the neckline of my oversized T-shirt followed his words. I sighed and tilted my head to give him better access to all of those spots that loved to be nuzzled. A groan rasped from deep in my throat as he kissed a hot, wet path down my neck to my collarbone.
“Alex,” I gasped, clinging to the strength of his arms lest my legs give way from under me. “You’re melting me. You make me ache for you. This isn’t fair—I want you to ache for me, too.”
Abruptly he sat down on the chaise, pulling me down so I sprawled across his lap, still clutching his shoulders. “I do ache for you,” he replied, one hand sliding up my
thigh as he nipped my bared shoulder. “You’re always in my thoughts; no matter what I’m doing, I’m distracted by visions of you lying in my arms like this, warm and sweet and so tempting.”
“Did you finish your report?” I asked breathlessly as his hand moved up over my hip. “Can you stay the night?”
“Yes,” he answered, bending me backwards against the chaise cushion. Both of his hands slid along my sides and higher, pushing my T-shirt up before them. He bent over me, kissing one breast. “And yes.” He kissed the other one. I lifted my arms as he pulled the T-shirt over my head, then I arched beneath his roaming hands.
“Oh, yes,” I agreed fervently, mindless as to what it was I had asked him, content to clutch his shoulders as he nibbled around my front side, never touching my nipples, making my breasts swell and long for the heat of his mouth.
“You’ve haunted my dreams,” Alex whispered against the underside of my breasts. Long fingers made lazy circles around them, drawing ever closer to the taut peaks. I wanted to shriek at him to stop toying with me, but oh, it was such sweet torture.
“The silky feel of your skin fills my mind,” he murmured, kissing a path around my chest. “The way your curves fit my hands perfectly drives me mad…” Both hands slid down my ribs and over the flare of my hips, then underneath to cup my behind. His fingers rubbing the satin of my underwear against my heated flesh was enough to make my toes curl. “…the taste of you flavors every breath I take.” His mouth and teeth and tongue nibbled their way across my belly, setting my skin afire wherever his lips touched me. It was too much, too
much for me, too much pleasure and pain and need and desire, all rolled together into an indescribable maelstrom of emotions that brought tears to my eyes. I grabbed his hair and tugged until his lips were above mine.
Eyes as dark as a forest at midnight held me in their gaze, wanting me, desiring me, making me feel as if I held the future in the two palms that framed his face. “Alex, there is a time and place for foreplay, but right now isn’t it. Maybe later, but right now I’m going to go out of my head if I don’t have you inside me. Please.
Now!”
A lovely deep chuckle rumbled out of his chest. “Are you saying you don’t want me to do this?”
His hands trailed down my hips and legs, pulling my underwear off and tossing it God knows where. I didn’t care, my attention was on the warmth of his hand when it returned to the inside of my thigh, sliding up slowly, going straight to where my need was the greatest. His fingers curled into me, gently probing and seeking until his thumb brushed up against the very center of my desire, making me jump with the waves of pleasure that followed his touch. One finger dipped into me as he leaned forward to reclaim my mouth, leisurely tasting me, teasing my tongue with a seductive, sensual dance.
“No,” I gasped once he pulled his mouth away, writhing against the gentle ministrations of his fingers below as they generated an exquisite pleasure that was almost pain. “You can do that, I guess, if you really want to, but it hardly seems fair since you aren’t enjoying…oh, God, right there, just do that again, please.”
He did it again, and again after that. My back arched of its own accord, thrusting my hips forward into his
hand, my breasts hard and begging for his touch. “No, Alex, no more—you’ve got to stop now. I don’t want to do this alone!”
“I’m right here,” he breathed, his lips sweet on mine as his fingers continued their erotic dance. My belly tensed in anticipation as thousands of little nerves came to life under his touch. “I won’t leave you.”
“Alex!” I shrieked, clinging to his shoulders, unable to keep my head from thrashing side to side, my body shaking with the nearness of ecstasy.
“Let yourself go, sweetheart,” he said just before he kissed me, his fingers thrusting into me, teasing me until I couldn’t stand the strain any longer. He took my shout of pleasure into him, took my shudders of joy and held me tight, safe in his arms, and by doing so, took the one thing I never thought I would give.
He took my heart.
Hot tears leaked out of the sides of my closed eyes, tears of joy, tears of happiness, and tears of sorrow because I knew what would happen. I’d been through it before, but this time I knew it would be worse. When he left me, this time my heart wouldn’t recover.