No Escape (16 page)

“Turning my brain off isn’t that easy,” she warned him.

“You should know I can’t resist a challenge, Swiss. Come on.” Luke pushed away from the table and went into the dimly lit living room. He seated her in the corner of the couch, pulled a light throw over her, and left to play with the stereo.

He stood looking at his extensive CD collection, then reached for one with a hand that shook ever so faintly. Dave Matthews Band? No, that was blatant make-out music. Instead he pulled out a Cowboy Junkies collection and put that on. Then Lucinda Williams. Dave Matthews would be third in the CD tray.

Tessa sat wrapped in the warm throw, waiting for Luke to come back and sit beside her. Part of her was looking forward to his inevitable pass, but, at the same time, she was dreading have to spoil the peace of the evening by turning him down and leaving.

She opened her mouth to let him know that she would not be spending the night, no matter what. Instead, he interrupted her. “I’ll go take care of the kitchen. You just chill out here on the couch.”

Lips pursed in a faint pout, Tessa settled back and listened to him putter around washing dishes and cleaning pots and pans. The noises were so companionable, so very ordinary, they combined with the mellow music to help her relax. Within minutes, her eyelids drooped, and she dozed with her cheek pressed against the smooth leather of the couch.

Twenty minutes later, Luke came out of the kitchen to start a fire. The March night wasn’t that cold, but he figured the flames would help Tessa relax.

Of course, that was before he’d realized she was fast asleep on his couch.

Smiling at the picture she made, Luke quietly went to the deck to gather kindling and firewood. With a minimum of
noise and fuss, he soon had a large blaze burning in the fireplace. He stood and washed his hands, then slipped his shoes off and crawled onto the couch next to Tessa.

If she wanted comfortable, peaceful companionship at the moment, that was what he’d give her. Maybe she’d be intrigued enough to demand more. Until then, he’d enjoy the knowledge that she was finally relaxing and letting go of the tensions brought on by the investigation.

With one arm hugging Tessa to his side, he gently settled her head on his shoulder and drifted as well.

Santa Monica, California

Early Saturday morning, March 13

S
ometime after midnight, Tessa woke to the knowledge that the CDs were on repeat play and Luke had built a fire sometime after she’d conked out. Then she realized she was curled against him, and he seemed to be asleep as well. His chest moved slowly beneath her cheek with each breath he took, and she had no idea how long she’d been using him as a human pillow.

She’d been sleeping so deeply she wondered for a horrified moment if she’d drooled all over his shirt, but a quick check showed that she hadn’t completely embarrassed herself. Beyond falling asleep on the single most interesting man she’d ever met. Literally on him.

With a pained sigh at her complete lack of social graces, Tessa carefully began to untangle herself from the heap they made on the soft leather couch. The throw slid off Luke as he hooked an arm around her and pulled her back down to his chest.

“Quit wiggling. This is the best evening I’ve had in months,” Luke grumbled.

“I have to go home,” Tessa whispered back.

“Why? If you’re not comfortable here, we can go upstairs.”

Tessa gulped as Luke turned the full force of his sleepy gaze on her in the dimly lit room, the molten light from the flames reflected in his heavy-lidded hazel eyes. In the background, Dave Matthews crooned softly about watching his love from a distance and wanting with a physical ache. The music, combined with the remnants of the fire and the force of her attraction to Luke scrambled whatever polite words she would have said to decline his invitation to go to bed with him.

“Swiss?”

“Yes.” She said it softly. Even she couldn’t have said whether it was a question or a response. But Luke seemed to take it as agreement, because his eyes lit up, and his lips curved in a satisfied grin.

I can’t believe I just said that. What the hell was in the wine?

But she couldn’t blame it on the wine, or the firelight, or the seductive music. The person responsible for everything she was feeling was slowly pulling her to her feet, then taking her hand and leading the way silently up the carpeted stairs to the master suite.

Once they were inside, Tessa saw the huge sleigh bed and dug her toes into the plush carpeting in a sudden attack of nerves. Luke dropped her hand to pull the covers back, then returned to her and slowly pulled her blouse out of the waistband of her business skirt.

She swallowed hard as he put her on the edge of the bed and lifted her skirt hem. She grabbed his hand to stop it from traveling up her thigh.

“We haven’t even kissed yet.” The words didn’t make sense, and she struggled to find a better way to express that things were going too fast.

“Is that a complaint? I just wanted to get you out of those uncomfortable nylons, but if you want more…”

“No—it’s just…God,” she said, letting her head fall back as he closed his mouth over hers, stroked his tongue around her faint frown. Then he closed a strong hand around her hip and squeezed gently. “This isn’t me,” she managed between kisses.

“It’s new to me, too. But I’m not going to waste time analyzing things when we have this heat between us,” Luke said between kisses. He caught her lips again as he put his hand between her legs and began moving his palm in slow circles against her.

Tessa cried out softly and pulled her mouth away from his to gasp for air. “I should go,” she tried again. But her hands wrapped around his neck and burrowed into his dark hair.

“But coming is so much better than going,” he said with a sleepy, wicked grin. Sliding his fingers under her skirt again, he stripped the nylons down her legs in one easy motion.

She giggled, the sound unconsciously seductive—not her normal laugh at all. “You’re so bad.”

“Bad is good, right?” Luke asked as he stretched Tessa out across the bed and laid himself down beside her. He linked their fingers together, using his hold to raise her arms above her head in a position of complete surrender.

“Bad is dangerous. I shouldn’t be doing this,” she said, turning her face away in a haze of indecision so he had to nuzzle her neck instead of her lips. “We work together and it’s too soon, and you’re too—I’m not…” Tessa’s voice trailed away as he lowered his head to kiss and nibble at her breasts through the silken material of her blouse.

“Have you ever, just once in your life, let go of the rules? Done something purely because it felt right and good and was what you needed at that moment?” Luke asked.

She shivered at the temptation he offered. She’d never felt this way in her life and she had no idea of how to handle it—or him.

“Have you?” Luke prompted. “No.” Her serious blue-gray eyes looked so sad and wistful
as she breathed the word that he wanted to scoop her against him and never let go.

“Maybe it’s time to do something for yourself, then. Just relax and let me love you. It won’t affect the case or whatever rules you’ve got in your head. No one has to know but you and me,” he whispered. He released one of her hands and moved his fingers up and down her soft thigh in gentle, strumming motions. “Let go and feel, Tessa.”

“I’m not, ah, very good at letting go,” she said seriously. “I don’t want you to build this up into something, then disappoint you.”

“Darling Tessa. The only way you could disappoint me would be to get up and leave me here alone in physical pain.” Luke took her captive hand and pressed it against the front of his khakis. She could feel the throbbing heat of his erection, but the fabric was too thick for her to do more.

“I’m probably going to regret this,” Tessa said. She pulled his shirt out of the way and began to unfasten his pants.

“Then I’ll try to make it worth your while,” Luke promised solemnly. He reached under her skirt again and pulled her panties off. Then he unbuttoned her shirt and pushed the fabric aside, before she could change her mind. He laughed quietly as he studied the erotic picture she made with her open blouse, lacy bra, and the dark blond curls peeking through the folds of the business skirt bunched carelessly around her hips. She was stunning, and she was his.

“Hey,” she protested as she let go of his stubborn zipper in frustration. “Laughing the first time you see someone undressed isn’t exactly comforting. I told you I wasn’t very good at this letting-go thing.”

“I can help with that,” he replied. Without warning, he laid her back on the mattress, slid her legs apart, and buried his mouth in the tender flesh between them.

The abrupt movement—the sudden change from feeling half-dressed and protected by her clothing to being completely vulnerable while Luke nuzzled her in the most
intimate way possible—was too much for Tessa to bear.

Her hips surged against him, and her hands fisted almost painfully in his dark hair. He didn’t complain, but instead settled in deeper and dragged his tongue across her taut clitoris. She jerked again and tugged on his hair as if to pull him away, but her throaty moan of pleasure said she was loving every second of what he was doing to her.

So was he.

“My God. Luke, no, it’s too much.”

Luke blew against her moist, scented skin. He gently sank his teeth into her, then used them to trap her tender flesh for his tongue, which he used like a dagger to tenderly stab at her again and again.

Her hands tightened further in his hair, and while the pain was an exciting contrast to the burning heat in his groin, he was afraid she’d start pulling out chunks of scalp soon. He reached up and linked his fingers with hers, feeling her surprising strength as she grasped his hands and held on for dear life. Her soft, choked moans continued until he withdrew the gentle vise of his teeth and used his tongue in long, firm strokes that sent her over the edge. She shuddered and twisted and cried as she came so hard she almost passed out.

When it was over, her hands slid limply from his to land bonelessly on the mattress. She slitted her eyes open, but what she saw made her close them again as a wave of heated embarrassment and expectation swept over her. Her blouse was open, her skirt pushed up, her lace bra half-on and half-off.

And Luke was lying between her spread legs, his chin resting on the pale curve of her belly. He looked at her, waiting for her to come back, and noting with amusement the flush of heat rising from her chest into her face.

“If I get up, will you promise not to move a muscle from this position?” Luke asked as he rubbed his cheek against her stomach.

“Not unless you’re going to turn the lights out,” Tessa
replied weakly.

“The hell with that. I guess we’ll go to Plan B.”

“Which is?”

“To get you so worked up again you can’t even think of moving when I leave to grab a box of condoms.”

“I’m sorry,” she said as she raised a shaky hand to push hair out of her face. “I’m not usually so, er, quick off the mark.”

“I don’t want to hear apologies or regrets about anything we do in this bedroom tonight, okay?” Still lying between her legs, Luke propped himself up on his elbows and met her dazed blue-gray eyes.

She just shook her head and blushed more deeply.

“Now let’s see, what can we do to make the pretty Deputy D.A. let go of her remaining inhibitions?” he wondered out loud as he traced his fingers in circles around her belly button.

“Inhibitions? Look at me,” Tessa burst out. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope. Let me grab some protection, and we can find out together what it takes to make you come apart completely.”

Tessa shivered as he got up and began to strip off his clothes. “If you pull a half-empty box of condoms out of the bedside table, I’m going to be seriously annoyed, Romeo.”

“You’ll get over it,” Luke replied. He stood in his boxers and leaned over to give her a thorough kiss. Tessa got an eyeful of muscled arms, a wedge-shaped mat of hair on his tanned chest, and the taut stomach she’d only been able to imagine before. In the dim lighting, she could see a smattering of white scars from the time he’d been shot, but they did nothing to detract from his strength and raw appeal.

“I guess I could forgive you,” she agreed, tentatively running her hands over the parts of his torso she could reach. He laughingly pulled away and headed to the bathroom.

“Besides, I got this box at the drugstore today. You can check the receipt if you don’t believe me.” He returned and
threw the brown paper bag on the bedside table.

“Today, huh? Pretty cocky of you,” she said, then groaned as she heard the words out loud.

“Why, Counselor, I thought you’d never notice.” Luke grinned and unself-consciously dropped his boxers, then stepped out of them and crawled into bed next to her.

Her hands and arms were trembling lightly as she wrapped them around Luke’s body and pulled him on top of her. He held back long enough to strip away her remaining clothes, then settled in with a sigh of pleasure. He rubbed his face between her firm breasts and then kissed the taut pink nipples again and again.

He would have been content to linger there, but one of her soft hands trailed down his back to clench in his buttocks and trace an incendiary path between them. He jolted as she stroked his taut muscles, then groaned quietly against her breast as she rubbed and caressed and fondled inches away from where he most wanted her touch.

He pulled her hand away, bit gently at her fingers, and reached for the bag on the bedside table. She waited patiently for him to finish with the condom, and sweat popped out on his forehead as he looked at her naked and ready for him. Her blue-gray eyes were dreamy, pupils dilated, cheeks rosy. A slight smile curved her lips.

The smile faltered as he took her face between his hands and kissed her deeply, all play gone for the moment. She closed her eyes and arched against the gentle probing between her legs, opening her thighs wide to let him rub against her and spread the sweet evidence of her pleasure between them.

She gasped against his mouth as Luke pressed halfway into her, then retreated and returned several times. Her breath panted against his ear as he pressed his cheek to hers and entered her fully. He reached down to pull her legs around his hips so he could slide freely back and forth inside
her.

Her sounds of pleasure were soft in the late-night stillness of the room, and he moved faster and deeper to hear those cries again and again. Her nails suddenly dug hard into his back, and her head tossed back and forth on the pillow as Luke levered up on his elbows.

“Look at me. Look at us,” Luke gritted. He pushed deeply into her and ground his hips against hers, forcing her eyes to fly open as a new level of sensation was introduced.

Tessa looked down between them, and the sight of him entering her body caused the first wave of orgasm to crash through her. Luke felt her clench and contract around him and let himself go. He buried his face in the scented curve of her neck and cried out hoarsely.

She clung to him, calling his name as the world narrowed down to the tousled bed, the pistonlike motion of his hips, and the heat of his sweat-covered back under her hands.