Lord of Rage & Primal Instincts (20 page)

About two seconds after spotting her.

That was a bad idea. Really bad. He’d list the multitude of reasons right now. Except none really came to mind at the moment because a nearly naked, gorgeous woman stood before him. How was a man supposed to work in these conditions?

This woman must be covered as soon as possible. Cover. That was it. That’s what he asked about. “Don’t you want to put something on?”

She shrugged again. “Not really. And this way I can show you some of the pattern work.”

It had been his experience that most women had at least one body part they felt self-conscious about. He wouldn’t have complained if his former girlfriends had wanted to parade around in next to nothing. It’s just that they hadn’t. In fact, he’d seen them go to Herculean efforts to cover their thighs with a sheet, or hips with a towel.

It was all ridiculous. Women were beautiful. The key was to find that one part they hated, and then issue compliments. It never failed.

But this woman seemed to have no problem parading around in barely anything.

She lightly touched a rounded circle of blue on her arm. “You see, the woman begins by painting the color blue on her body. This represents the sky and water. Sky and water play a large role in the lore of many cultures around the world.”

He nodded, his gaze shifting from her face to her
arm.
Don’t look to the right.
Although he already knew what he’d see. Her beautiful breasts painted yellow.

“Now did that bother you? That insertion of a little history?”

Not a bit. He shook his head as his mouth watered.

“That’s the approach I think we should take.” Ava trailed her fingers along the green lines crisscrossing on her thighs. “The green represents the earth. New and unknown. Ready to be explored.”

He grew harder as she touched and stroked her skin. His fingers ached to do the same. To trace the green lines, to smudge the blue paint on her body.

“Yellow is the past. The Wayterian people don’t place value on virginity, so a woman may have had several lovers. Do you?”

“Do I what?” he asked, suddenly feeling as if he’d been jerked out of a sex fantasy.

“Place value on virginity?”

“I’m not one if that’s what you’re asking.”

A smile curved along her lips. “Good. I wouldn’t want you cowering in the corner.”

She was laughing at him.

Toying with him, in fact. He should be irritated. Instead he found himself turned on more. Well, two could play that game. He deliberately lowered his eyes to her yellow-painted breasts. “That’s a very bright color.”

“The Wayterian women coat the yellow paint on their breasts. Once the new husband and wife are alone, she takes his hands and places them on her breasts.”

Her nipples hardened before his eyes. She might be toying with him to get a reaction, but she wasn’t immune to him, either.

“The paint never completely dries, so some of the color gets on him, as well. Together they wash the paint,
the past, away. They become one, joined by sky, water and earth.”

Ian closed his eyes for a moment, imagining washing the paint off this woman’s body. And Ava washing the color from his skin. Erotic and charged. It was perfect for the book.

“I think this ceremony is beautiful.” Her voice lost its challenging playfulness of earlier. “I’m always moved by the meaning behind the acts.”

And surprisingly, he was, too.

She swallowed, and took a step away from him. “Well, since you’re familiar with this particular rite now, I’ll just hop into the shower and remove the paint. I won’t be long and then we can get started.”

Ian raised his hand, not bothering to hide the look of disbelief he was sure was on his face. “Wait a minute. Are you about to go and take a shower leaving a man you’ve known about ten minutes alone in your apartment?”

For the first time since she’d opened the door, Ava looked unsure. She shifted her balance, and crossed her arms. “I, uh, guess that I was.”

“Lady, you’ve been out in the wild too long. You can’t be so trusting.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “You’re Miriam’s brother. It’s not like she’d send a serial killer. It will only take me a few minutes.”

He couldn’t picture sitting calmly on her couch waiting while she showered. Imagining her naked. And wet. He almost groaned.

No. Not going to happen.
He had to get out of there. “I’ll check in to the hotel while you’re getting ready. I’m going to grab a bite to eat. The sandwich on the plane could pass for a hockey puck.”

“Oh, I’m getting hungry, too. Why don’t we meet at one of the restaurants down on the canal for a late lunch? You up for Mexican?”

He was up for anything about now. “Sounds good.” Ava turned on her heel, and once again he got a view of her great ass. “I’ll pick you up from here.”

She stopped and glanced at him over her shoulder. “Is this about the shower thing? Don’t worry, I don’t need an escort to keep me safe. Besides, you looked pretty trustworthy to me.” Trustworthy.
Trustworthy?
No one had ever accused him of being trustworthy before. Like a teddy bear. Or a cute puppy. That was almost insulting. Ian straightened his shoulders. He was dangerous. A man of the world. Wanted by the law in three countries. At least. He was
not
a teddy bear.

He’d put an end to that. “Let me know if you need some help with the second part of the ritual,” he said.

“The second part?” she asked.

“The washing off.”

Her full bottom lip curled upward, and a naughty twinkle appeared in her eyes. “I’ll let you know,” she told him.

Now why did that come out sounding like a promise?

W
HILE THE WATER FOR THE
shower heated, Ava quickly typed in the website for Cole Publishing. She punched his name in the search fields.

“Bingo.” Over thirty results popped up on her screen. She selected the one at the top, and her screen immediately filled with his image. Obviously the picture on his bio page must have been taken a few years ago. In the photo, he had a friendly smile and the look of someone ready to tackle the world.

Much how she’d felt five seconds before she opened the door to him.

Now Ian wore that world-weary air. The stress lines around his mouth were deeper now than the laugh lines around his eyes. She’d seen his type in the airport. They huddled around their gates, ready to hit the next political hot spot.

She headed anyplace but there.

A puff of steam enticed her into the bathroom. Tugging off her loincloth, Ava stepped beneath the spray.

The warm water glided around her body, smearing the paint further. The yellows and blues fused together, turning green and pooling at her feet before sliding down the drain. Long, hot showers. Steam and heat and the scent of honeysuckle. Now this was something she had missed.

Ava reached for the soap and bubbled up a rich lather.
Although the paint was easy to smear, it wasn’t the easiest to remove from her skin.

Of course Ian had offered to help. She smiled again, thinking how his brown eyes had turned darker when he’d made the invitation. Ava had seen the desire in his direct gaze. He hadn’t tried to mask it. She liked that about him.

A direct man voiced exactly what he wanted. Sought to fulfill his woman’s desires. She would have hated to take suggestions on her book from a man who couldn’t handle the naturalness of sex. Afraid of his own desires.

And of hers.

There’d been sex in his eyes. Sex on his mind. Despite the warmth of the water, her nipples hardened as she remembered that brown-eyed gaze of his sliding down her body.

When had sex come into play? She wondered as she reached for a bright yellow sponge. When did sex
not
come into play between a man and a woman? Despite Ian’s obvious assumption that she was a bit on the naive side, she’d studied gender differences enough to know that one thing shared by both men and women was a charged curiosity whenever they were in each other’s presence. A curiosity about nakedness. Would he groan? Would she scream?

It all happened within the first five seconds of meeting someone new, the mind and body put that person into three categories. Yes, no and maybe.

And right now her body was thinking yes. What would sex with Ian be like? Sex had been in Ian’s eyes, which placed Ava in his hell-yes category.

If they were going to collaborate, attraction between them probably wasn’t the best situation. Far off the mark
from professionalism. But then, who was she to shy away from sexual attraction?

Come to think of it, sexual tension and desire between the two of them might be a good thing. Heat might translate onto the pages, into their very writing. Craving the carnal would implicitly lace their words with an intense hunger for sex.

A shiver raced down her spine. Now
this
was something that would sell. She should go for it. Why not suffer for her art?

Anxious to get to work, she sudsed her arms and legs, the water and bubbles turning her already sensitive skin into taut nerves waiting to be touched. Caressed. Her skin tingled.

She reached for the soft washcloth, and twisted out the excess water. Ava stroked the cloth against her breasts, wiping away the more stubborn yellow paint. As she rubbed the cloth against her nipple, the skin along her neck and her breasts turned bumpy and sensitive. Tingles from her nipples shot downward.

She washed her other breast, then slowly trailed the cloth down along her rib cage, around her navel. The material felt rougher now against the heightened sensitivity of her flesh. She imagined Ian’s work-roughened hands on her. Imagined him caressing her the same way as the washcloth.

A bit of the cloth tickled the skin of her inner thigh and she sucked in a breath. Steam surrounded her, a light caress against her body. The humid air inside the shower filled her lungs and she leaned against the tile wall for support.

The water ran between her legs, and she followed the trail with the washcloth. She clamped her eyes shut when
the cloth grazed her clitoris. Delicious sensations quivered along every nerve. She stroked herself and moaned.

Some ancients believed a couple learned to please their mate only after watching them pleasure themselves. She imagined Ian outside her shower door, watching her touch herself. Becoming aroused.

Then she imagined him joining her in the shower, imagined herself watching him take his cock in his hand. Seeing it grow harder and bigger as he stroked himself, showing her how he liked to be touched. How he wanted her to touch him.

She pressed against her clit, her body growing tense. She gasped and her muscles tightened.

No.

If she brought her own release now, some of the tension and heat that zinged between them wouldn’t be as strong. She wanted her pleasure to be on the edge, near the top. Not satiated.

An old woman she’d met in Australia once had told her the greatest aphrodisiac for a man was a woman’s arousal. Maybe now she would put that woman’s theory to the test. Might make an interesting chapter for the book. Goose bumps rose on her skin as the spray massaged every muscle. She’d definitely suffer for that chapter.

With her body still humming, she quickly finished her shower.

I
T DIDN’T TAKE
I
AN LONG
to check in to the Bricktown Hotel; a chain hotel that catered to businesspeople, where the staff was usually friendly and efficient. Since his laptop battery was dead, he plugged the computer in first thing. This hotel promised to be the “most wired
hotel in Oklahoma City.” Most hotel claims were wrong, but he needed this one to be right.

He was used to traveling light. He’d packed for a week, but figured that would be more than enough time to get this book on track.

If Ava Simms didn’t kill him. Some women shouldn’t be allowed out of the house. She definitely needed a warning label. Loss of blood to the brain.

Crossing to the sink, he turned on the taps. He splashed water onto his face, washing away the travel grime. Ava would be in the shower now. Naked and wet. No matter how good-looking a woman was, she always looked just a little bit better wet.

He imagined Ava wet and nude under the spray of the shower.

With a groan, he wiped his face with a towel. Glancing at his watch he saw he still had about fifteen minutes to kill. His cell phone rang, and he pulled it from his waist to check at the caller ID. His sister. Good. He was in a mood to harass her over this assignment.

“Did you meet the doc?” she asked.

“Two days. I’m giving this two days, then I’m out of hell.”

“I have every faith in you.”

O
VER THE YEARS
,
HER
brother had been shoved into filthy, rat-infested prisons, slopped around in some of the world’s most disease-ridden swamps and suffered weather hardships and clean-water deprivation of the likes she could only imagine. All to get the story. And yet
this
assignment was the one he compared to hell. She almost laughed.

Miriam fingered the glass paperweight on her desk. She should feel guilty about sending her brother some
place she knew he’d hate. She should, but she was in full self-preservation mode.

Her brother’s vehemence had been surprising. She’d dwell on it if another pink message slip hadn’t appeared under the paperweight. Miriam wadded the paper up into a tight ball and aimed it toward her trash can. She missed by a good six inches.

Her aim was going the same way as her judgment. She was making a poor business decision and that wasn’t like her. Things
would
have been smoother if she’d gone to Oklahoma with Ian. That was her element. What she did. Some people could cook. Some could write.
She
could multitask.

Miriam was a whiz at juggling millions of details, all while keeping overblown egos and hurt feelings to a minimum. Nothing was ever personal and people left her office with a smile even if they came away with less than their asking price.

A few days with the doc and her brother and this book would be complete and ready to go into production and she’d be making more money for the company. So why not?

Jeremy.

If she went back to Oklahoma, she would surely contact him.

On the one hand, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Who couldn’t handle six or seven times a night?

Her nipples hardened and her skin tingled under her clothes. What was she mulling over a moment ago? The book she’d risked her reputation and quite a bit of money on. That book.

This
was why six or seven times a night would be bad. She’d get nothing done. Her skin grew hot. She felt uncomfortable.
No.
Not uncomfortable…irritated.
She’d think of it as irritated and chafed. In fact, that’s exactly what she should be doing. Word association when thoughts of Jeremy popped into her mind. All of them bad.

Those gorgeous blue eyes of his. Same color as the first car that ever side-swiped her.

Those long showers together. Dry skin.

Seven or eight times a night? Bladder infection.

Miriam slumped in her chair and scanned her office walls. Here was her family history, the legacy she was now in charge of safeguarding. Rows of framed magazine covers lined each wall. Some black and white, others in bold color. Through war, the baby boom, flower power, disco to iPod, Coles had guided the company sensibly and competently.

And not a single Cole had ever blown it over a romance. Although her dad had come close when he’d married her mom. Miriam had always thought herself more like her grandfather. Now it was clear she’d inherited her father’s self-destructive romantic habits. Obviously embraced them because she couldn’t get that man out of her mind.

Her glance hit upon one of the covers. Woman in a business suit, power bun with the buttons on her silk blouse undone to reveal a sexy red bra.

Is All Work and No Play Making Jane a Dull Girl?

She reread the caption once more. Her shoulders relaxed and a smile slowly started to spread across her lips. It was strange how often something on one of these covers would trigger an emotion or a decision.

Yes. She had become a very dull girl. Miriam had been nothing but work for a very long time. When was the last time she’d gone out? How many times had she turned down her friends’ invitations to hit the town?
When was the last time
she’d
been inclined to wear a sexy red bra?

What was wrong with her? She lived in the town that never slept. And she’d been in most nights by nine. She needed to get out. Meet new and interesting men. Laugh, dance. Of course, seven or eight times seemed great when you hadn’t gotten any in seven or eight months.

This had nothing to do with Jeremy at all. She picked up her cell phone to call Jenna. That speed-dial setting hadn’t been used in ages.

Except Rich buzzed in over the intercom.

“Ms. Cole, there’s someone here to see you.”

She scanned the schedule Rich placed on her desk every morning. She didn’t have any appointments. Rich would know not to announce a drop-in. Something was odd.

“It’s a Mr. Kelso.”

Miriam could tell by Rich’s tone that this name was supposed to mean something to her. It didn’t.

“A Mr.
Jeremy
Kelso.”

Miriam clicked her phone closed.