SEALed With a Kiss: Even a Hero Needs Help Sometimes... (28 page)

Pickett bent to turn off the one lamp they had turned on earlier, plunging the room into darkness.

Through the connecting door Jax could see the flood of moonlight spilling into Pickett's bedroom.

In a minute he would go in there alone and she would go to the daybed in the therapy room.

Every instinct he had said that would be wrong.

He had come here knowing he was attracted to her and knowing he wouldn't act on the attraction. Every reason was still valid. He needed to stay focused on Tyler. His place in the SEALs depended on his getting Tyler squared away and doing it right. And it wasn't going to be as easy as he had thought. Tyler's grandmother might have physical custody, but he knew now he would insist on new agreements about visitation. That meant calls to his lawyer and maybe trips to Raleigh to negotiate with Lauren. It was more important than ever that he stay focused on his objectives.

Even if he could afford to get involved with a woman right now, he should stay away from Pickett. Damn it, that wary look she had every time he got too close said she wasn't the kind of woman who would take sex lightly She would have expectations and a whole list of demands. Taking her to dinner would just be the start of what she would want from him.

He wanted her. He was still half-aroused from their kisses earlier. He shouldn't get distracted by his dick. But God, he wanted her.

He wouldn't be able to sleep in that room tantalized by her womanly scent, a ghost of her in bed with him when he wanted hot flesh. He would spend the night prowling the house like a lion whose prey stays just out of reach.

"Pickett."

Pickett. Just the one word, her name, almost whispered, gravelly with desire, harsh with entreaty.

Pickett halted. She'd never heard a man's voice sound like that before; every cell in her body recognized its meaning.

She turned around. The plantation blinds in her bedroom had been left open and she could see the half moon just clearing the trees. Jax was a dark figure silhouetted in the doorway, one hand outstretched. Every line of his body spoke of focused intent.

Pickett's heart kicked over at the thought of that much potent masculinity calling to her. Wondered if she could do this. Knew she was going to.

She hadn't left.
She turned around. He crossed to her in two long-legged strides. He wanted to crush her to him, to plunder her mouth, rouse her until she longed for the mating of their flesh as much as he did. But the stillness of her figure warned him he couldn't be sure of her yet.

Though his night vision was better than most, he couldn't see the expression in her eyes. Was it her wary look? He hated for her to be wary of him. He wanted her yielded, soft with desire. He wanted her to look at him hopeful of ecstasy, not with wariness.

He took her hand. "Come to bed with me." Damn. His voice sounded more like a croak than a croon. Where was the low, seductive tone that always worked so well in the past?

He kissed her knuckles and tried again. "I want you so much. I said I'd take you to dinner, and I will, I promise." He rubbed her soft, slightly cool fingers against his cheek, across his brow. "But let me have you tonight."

Jax stopped rubbing her hand across his hair then felt her fingers continue the caress. Had she said yes?

"Did you say yes?"

"Yes."

The feeling of relief and exaltation was dizzying, but it was followed instantly by the cold duty he had to face. He was getting ready to break the twenty-four-hour rule: never hang around a woman's place more than twenty-four hours after making love. If you do, she'll believe you're there to stay. He had to make sure Pickett understood.

Over the voice in his head clamoring for him to
shut up, don't do it, don't mess up now, she said yes, you idiot don't try to change her mind,
he said, "You know this doesn't ... won't mean... . anything, don't you?"

Oh shit, he had said it. And now she had stopped stroking his hair and was resting that hand on his chest. Was she going to push him away? Quickly he circled her with his arms. Now that he'd made her hesitate, what could he say to get her back?

The thing was, it wasn't about the twenty-four-hour rule. He wanted to avoid scenes and tearful recriminations as much as the next man, but even more, he didn't want Pickett to get hurt. She hadn't been anything but generous to him, and kind to Tyler. She didn't deserve for him to be careless with her feelings.

"You're special. You're not a convenience store on the roadside of life or whatever you said. But, you know I won't be staying, don't you? Not more than a couple more days."

That wouldn 't be long enough.

"Or a week."

But it might take longer to get a new agreement finalized.
He firmly pushed away the hopefulness of that thought.

"Two weeks at the absolute outside, and that's all there is. Do you understand?"

"I understand."

"And you'll be all right with that?"

For an answer she pulled his mouth down to hers.

That cold, tight thing that had been twisting in his gut since the moment she reached for the lamp switch relaxed. Warmth spread instead.

Just before she reached for him, her heart pounding with the enormity of her action, Pickett considered telling Jax that the only thing that made this possible was the fact that it was temporary.

He was offering her the perfect compromise between casual sex and a meaningful relationship.

But if they kept talking, they might not ever get started, and she knew her willingness to seize the moment would only last so long.

He scooped her into his arms. He actually did! And it really was as thrilling and romantic as scenes depicted on the covers of romance novels. She buried her head in the crook of his neck, nosing aside the collar of the blue polo shirt to inhale the rich enticement of his warm masculine scent.

Still with her in his arms he closed the blinds and turned on a bedside lamp. Only then did he let her slide down his body to her feet.

Her body-hugging T-shirt had mostly pulled free of her jeans when he carried her, and with only a couple of tugs his hands were molding the silky skin of her midriff. When he tried to pull the shirt over her head she resisted, however, burying her nose against his breastbone.

"Shy?"

There was a jerky nod against his chest. He chuckled softly. She moved with such confidence most of the time. A tender amusement filled him.

"Is it the light? Do you want it off?"

Another little jerky nod.

"I'll turn it off if you want me to." He folded her in his arms and rocked her gently. "But I really want to see you. Won't you let me see you, sweetheart?"

A soft shoulder moved in a diffident shrug.

"Don't you know I'm going to like what I see?"

The shoulder hitched in another shrug as if to say, "Tell me more."

Jax almost laughed aloud. He would have, except for the rush of protectiveness that suddenly made his eyes a little wet. "I've wanted to see you, every single inch of you, since you stood on the cottage deck and watched me and Tyler."

"I wasn't sure you knew that was me." She hadn't raised her head but her hands were tracing the long muscles of his back.

"Oh, yeah. You were a marked woman from that moment on." Her ribcage shook in a soundless giggle. He stroked her back and used the motion to flip the catch of her bra. He wanted her with an intensity he couldn't remember having felt in years, and in that moment he knew nothing would satisfy him but having her give herself to him.

If he could sit motionless under camouflage for hours, ignoring ants crawling over him, letting his quarry come to him, he could hold off his cravings long enough to let her come to him.

"You make me think of a peach, all golden pink. And ripe and fragrant. I want to see all your colors, and bite into the places that are blushing red, and fill my mouth with your juices." He nibbled kisses down her neck then nipped the junction between neck and shoulder. A shiver ran through her.

Pickett raised her eyes to him, as if searching his face for clues about his sincerity.

"And your eyes. Your eyes change color like the ocean. I want to look in your eyes when I'm inside you and watch you when I make you come."

He insinuated a hand between their bodies and covered her breast, feeling fierce triumph as the nipple beaded against his hand. He stroked the little bud and felt it tighten further. In a moment she raised both arms to his shoulders and he drew the shirt over her head, pulling the bra with it.

He tossed the shirt across the room with one hand while the other sought the button at her waist.

Pickett felt his rough hands brush her jeans from her hips. His frank sensuality was both arousing and a little shocking. She guessed a little disorientation was to be expected when a
wildest dream
sort of fantasy started turning into reality. She remembered with perfect clarity watching him on the beach and being transfixed by his masculine beauty. How impossible it had seemed that he might even look at her, much less find her desirable. And yet he had fantasized about her too.

His hands found the cleft of her buttocks, one long finger stoking, barely touching, back to front, front to back. It wasn't nearly enough, and yet waiting for the moment when his touch would whisper across her most sensitive flesh was riveting.

She felt his fingers encounter moisture and begin spreading it. She wished the wetness weren't necessary. It seemed to add to the general untidiness of the whole process. And she could smell her arousal too.

He made a small sound of satisfaction. "You're already getting wet for me. Do you know what a turn-on that is?"

He
liked
it. Pickett knew a lot about sex from a clinical standpoint, but she had never considered that a man might enjoy the experience of arousing her. That he might find her wetness thrilling—not messiness to be put up with—got through to her. There was that disorientation again. As if she could feel
his
pleasure in her pleasure.

Would she be able to feel him
receive
pleasure? She had been wanting to run her hands across his chest maybe forever. Quickly she slid her hands under the soft knit of his shirt to the warm, smooth skin beneath. Suddenly, it wouldn't do—wouldn't do at all—that his skin, all his skin was not accessible to her. She had to rub her breasts against him. Feel his buttocks in her hands.

She pulled at his shirt. "Off! Get this off now!"

He obliged one-handed while somehow hardly stopping that wonderful thing he was doing with the other hand between her legs.

She found the waistband of his shorts. Where was the damn button? Everything felt backwards. She gave a grunt of frustration and jerked hard at the resisting material. "Do something! I want to feel you."

Jax lifted her face to his. His crystal gray eyes with their short spiky lashes were narrowed in a smile that touched only his eyes, and seemed to come from his soul. For a long, timeless moment he searched her face and, seeming to have found something, lowered his mouth to hers.

Jax tried to tell himself he had to take it slow. He was no longer afraid he would spook her, but he still had to make sure he gave her plenty of time. He hadn't been with a woman this inexperienced since he'd had very little experience himself. He liked his sex hot, hard, and physical. In another woman her tentative touches and shy fumbling would have spoiled the fun of the hearty game of forgetfulness that he sought.

Instead it was like she gave him her newness, and made sex something new for him too. And somehow that made him hungrier than ever.

It was a kiss of hunger and of claiming. It was a kiss that said now. Now we begin.

He dropped his shorts to the floor and stepped out of them, then pushed Pickett's jeans, together with her panties, down her legs. He spared only a moment's regret that he wouldn't get to see her in the filmy scraps. Oh well, another time, and he already knew there would be other times.

Jax picked up and placed Pickett in the high bed against the pillows piled up against the headboard. He had imagined her here so many times, all peach and gold, against the sensual excess of pillows. Triumph, hot and bright, throbbed through him, merging with the insistence of his arousal.

Yes. This was right. All the excellent reasons for resisting the attraction vanished as if they had never existed.

He wanted her. He wanted all of her. He would have her.

Her eyes, almost indigo with arousal, flared as she read his intent.

His skin gleamed in the lamplight. He leaned across her, his weight supported on one arm, muscles bunched. The brown forearm next to her hip was lightly covered with straight, silky black hair. She wanted to sleek her hand across it, as you would a cat, and feel the ripples of sinew and muscle flex beneath.

"You are so beautiful."

Heat flared in his fog-colored eyes, but one corner of his mouth kicked up, slightly. "I was supposed to say that."

"And so big."

"You know I won't hurt you, don't you? I won't do anything to you that you don't want." His touch was as light as sunshine as he stroked her breast, her belly, and finally rested on the golden curls that covered her mound. "I know how to be careful."

"You are a dangerous man."

"But not to you," he acknowledged, stroking both hands back up her torso, cupping her breasts, kneading them with firm strokes. "Never to you." He bent his head to take the nipple into his mouth.

He suckled strongly, continuing to knead the underside.

The sudden surge of pleasure that radiated from his mouth across her body to the juncture of her thighs brought Pickett arching off the bed, digging her fingers into his shoulders to keep the contact.

"Oh. You like that?" He lavished her other breast with the same attention until Pickett could hear funny little sounds coming through her throat. Sounds that cried of the exquisite sense of swelling fullness deep, deep in a place that paradoxically longed to be filled

"Tell me what else you like, Pickett." Jax nibbled kisses across her ribcage, down the roundness of her belly. "Tell me."