you will.” He arched a dark brow in challenge. “Or are you afraid of your reactions to me?”
Her eyes narrowed to tiny slits, and she stared at him, unflinching. “I’m not afraid of anything.”
“Then why not allow me inside your chamber?”
“Because I don’t trust you to stay on the floor!”
His shoulders puffed with indignation. “I have given you my word.”
“Well, I want a blood oath.”
Scowling, he ground out, “I vow to you here and now that I will not join you under the bedcovers this night. That does not mean you cannot join me on the floor.”
Why did he have to go and put such an idea into her head? She pointed a finger at his chest. “Do you swear by all that is holy that you won’t try anything?”
His nostrils flared, but his tone was quiet. Too quiet. “This I have already answered.”
No, he hadn’t. Not really. He’d promised only to stay on the floor. An image of his glorious body splayed out on her bedroom carpet filled her mind. Would she feel his heat? Hear the soft whoosh of his breath? Smell the clean scent of his skin?
She had lied to him a moment ago. She was afraid of her reactions to him. Very afraid. But despite her fear, she was going to let him stay in her room. Lord, she was. She was going to let him stay in her room.
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, her brother Erik always said. Jorlan might not be her enemy, but he was damn sure on his way up her hit list. The man wouldn’t climb into her bed, but he’d issued a brilliantly orchestrated invitation: Join me.
If he thought for one minute she was giving in to that invitation, he’d soon find out that his erection was the last thing on her mind. Well, almost the last. Okay, she couldn’t stop thinking about the damn thing. It was huge.
I’m an idiot, she thought. “Just in case you get any ideas, know that I’ll be sleeping with a can of Mace in one hand and pepper spray in the other.”
His expression turned mocking. “Just in case you get any ideas, know that I’ll be sleeping with a feather in one hand and massage oil in the other.”
With those words ringing in her ears, Katie knew she wasn’t going to get much sleep. She massaged her temples in a vain effort to ward off the oncoming ache.
I’m in more trouble than I realized.
CHAPTER FIVE
“I’M IMAGINING EVERYTHING I long to do to you, katya. Are you imagining what you long to do to me?”
Oh, yes. Yes, she most definitely was imagining.
“In my mind I see my hands cupping your breasts and gently squeezing while my tongue lightly traces a path from one waiting nipple to the other.”
As it had for the past hour, Jorlan’s husky voice slid like a rasp of silk, low, sleek and honeyed, touching Katie in the darkness, leaving a sultry haven in its wake. Toasty warm, she lay in bed, a thick, downy comforter covering her. But it was the man sprawled on her floor that was responsible for her overheated blood, not her covers.
Katie tried to recall why she was so determined to resist him. She did have reasons, right? She just didn’t know anymore, and she wasn’t sure how much more she could take before she locked caution inside her panty drawer and caved. Jorlan’s passionate assault, which had begun long before he’d ever spoken to her, was quickly eradicating all of her defenses.
“Would you like to feel the heat of my tongue?”
To keep herself from blurting out YES!, she pursed her lips together so tightly she probably incurred permanent wrinkles. Why had she let Jorlan inside her room, anyway? And why for the love of God was she still in bed and not on the floor with him?
“Your back arches, a silent plea for my touch between your legs,” he continued mercilessly. “But I do not touch you there with my fingers. Nay, I kiss my way down your stomach and taste you with my mouth, letting my tongue flick left and right, then circle around, creating a hot, wet friction.”
“You promised you wouldn’t try anything!”
“I never promised I wouldn’t speak or imagine. And what I’m imagining right now is so very naughty. You’re lying—”
Dropping her can of Mace and pepper spray onto the mattress—which, in actuality, were a can of hairspray and a water bottle—she placed her palms over her ears, muffling his voice. She began snoring like an old man with a foghorn stuck in his throat. All the while she pictured bathroom tile and drying grout—anything to keep her mind from thinking about naked bodies and potent pleasures.
You never give me what I want, her body complained, and I want Jorlan.
Shut up, her mind demanded. You’ve gotten us in enough trouble!
Tile. Grout. Tile. Grout. With Jorlan’s voice blocked and her mind picturing drying tile grout, slowly, so slowly, her overly sensitized nerves calmed. The tingles of anticipation faded. When she felt enough time had lapsed, she let her snores taper off and removed her hands from her ears.
Blessed silence greeted her.
Then, as if he was acutely attuned to her every action, every feeling, every thought, Jorlan said, “Just say the words, katya. Say the words and I will give us both release.”
“I’ll say the words, all right.” Her nails dug deeply into the sides of her legs, leaving half moon crescents. “I’ll say shut up or get out. Please! We have to get up early, and it’s two in the morning already. After I take you to the psychic, I have to go to work. I need to rest.”
Five. Ten. Fifteen minutes passed. He didn’t speak again. She didn’t even hear him breathe.
In the mounting silence, Katie’s eyelids began to grow heavy. She gripped her hairspray once again, ready to leap off the bed and whack him over the head with it if he so much as whistled through his nose. After a while, her grip relaxed, and she rolled to her side. The last thought to drift through her mind before she ultimately succumbed to darkness was That man needs a muzzle, and I need a bare-assed spanking for letting him in here.
MORNING DAWNED bright and early. “Way too early,” Katie muttered. Then she groaned. Her eyes burned, and her head throbbed. She needed a protein shake or she would soon sink into a take-me-to-the-hospital-for-a-caffeine-IV coma.
Normally she jogged five miles a morning. Today, however, she was going to make an exception. At the moment, she couldn’t have jogged to the bathroom if her bladder depended on it.
The sheets and blankets were tangled around her like a butterfly’s cocoon. She grumbled under her breath as she battled her way free. Something thudded to the floor, but it wasn’t a protein shake, so she didn’t bend down to retrieve it. Rubbing her eyes, she stumbled into the bathroom.
She washed her face then brushed her teeth and hair. The features that looked at her from the mirror were glazed with…something. Tired. Very tired. Hoping hot,
