She wanted out of her clothes and she wanted him out of his. She wanted to be skin-to-skin, wanted to feel all his impressive strength and heat against her so that she could forget what had happened to her earlier, what could still happen.
Just thinking it made her let out a little cry, and he pulled her closer. “Shh,” he murmured. “Just me. Just you and me…” He danced a hand up her spine, then down again, until she relaxed into him once more, until she was clinging and back on her way to the mindlessness she needed desperately. Then he had her bottom cupped in his palm, pressing her against an impressive erection she wanted cradled more firmly between her aching thighs. Oh, yes.
To get more, she hooked a leg over his, opening herself up so that he could thrust against her, and he did, one glorious thrust, before he went utterly, totally, carefully still.
Lifting his head, he stared down at her mouth, his breathing not nearly as steady as it had been.
“That was quite a bedtime story,” he said, and flipped her over again, to her other side, so that she could no longer see his face.
“But…”
“Shh,” he said again.
She ground her teeth. “I can’t shh.”
“Yes, you can.”
“But…don’t you want more?”
His laugh was low and mirthless. “Hell, yes.”
“Well, then—”
“It’s not going to happen, Tess.”
“Reilly—”
He reached an arm over her shoulder and put his fingers against her mouth. “Shh.”
How could he just turn it off? She squirmed a little, and felt his erection against her bottom.
So he hadn’t just turned it off at all. “But—”
“Be good and go to sleep.”
Be good?
Go to sleep?
Was he kidding? The man kissed like no one she’d ever met, touched like no one she’d ever met, and he thought she could just turn it off and go to sleep? “Reilly…”
A soft snore sounded in her ear, making her want to scream in frustration. She couldn’t decide if she hated him or wanted him. Her body was still humming and twitching, so that meant she wanted him, but he’d firmly set her away as if it’d been nothing.
Definitely she hated him, she decided.
Eventually she set her head down on his arm and tried to follow him into slumberland. As far as pillows went, he wasn’t soft and giving, but he sure was warm and smelled like heaven.
And—this was such a terrible thought she couldn’t even believe she’d had it—she was glad he’d been stripped, because feeling his body against hers could take her mind off her troubles as nothing else could.
Unless, of course, he’d kept kissing her.
4
REILLY AWOKE to a jostling that made his head hurt all over again. For a brief flash, he thought he was on a mission and it had all gone really, really bad.
A feeling he knew all too well.
He opened his eyes and promptly wished he hadn’t.
It had most definitely gone really, really bad. It was still dark outside, but that hadn’t stopped Tessa from standing on the cot at his feet and jumping up and down, trying to open the attic access herself, which stayed stubbornly out of her reach by a good six inches.
He did find himself sidetracked as the wide skirt on her sundress flew high on her thighs with each leap, but not even the quick flash of light-blue lace panties could help the hammering at the base of his skull.
Still, he watched for a long moment. Up and down. Up and down. And as she jumped, she turned so that she was no longer facing him, leaving him to notice that with each leap, those light-blue lace panties rose a little higher on those rounded cheeks of hers. She had quite a wedgie going.
“Not helping my head,” he finally said, and startled, she whipped around to face him again, then lost her balance and fell to her knees onto the cot, using his chest as a grip.
Automatically he reached for her, steadied her and she sprawled out against him, slipping her arms around his body with an ease that bewildered him. She stared, apparently enraptured by whatever expression he wore on his face, making him wonder if he’d let his lusty thoughts show.
“Are we going to kiss again?” she whispered.
Oh, yes, he’d definitely let his thoughts show. Plus, now there was a hopeful quality to her voice that made him want to groan. Instead he ruthlessly tugged her skirt down as far as it would stretch over her thighs. No more visuals of that squeezable ass. “No.”
“Because—”
“No.”
Kissing had been a really bad idea. Now that he’d tasted her, it was hard—no pun intended—to get the thought out of his brain, and other parts as well.
“I’m really going crazy,” she whispered.
Yeah, well. Join the club.
“I need out.” She made a fist against his chest and speared him with a frustrated glance. “How can you not need out?”
Simple. Just the thought of being enclosed in that dark attic, of how it would remind him of his last mission and how it had all gone bad, made him break out into a sweat.
“Reilly?” Her fingertips ran lightly over his shoulders.
He wasn’t used to being touched, not like this. Give him a good fight, give him good sex, those were the kinds of touch he was used to.
“If we can’t get out, if we have to stay here, then I have to talk,” she said. “I have to hear you talk.”
“I’m not much on talking.”
She laughed, and the sound went through him like wine. “That’s probably the understatement of the year,” she said and put her head on his shoulder as if they were old lovers.
Or worse, friends.
“My brother, Rafe, is like you,” she told him, her fingers dancing over his flesh. “He only talks when it’s really important. The strong, silent type, I guess you’d call him. Maybe that’s why he’s a good photographer. But my sister…” she said, smiling. “Two peas in a pod. I think Carolyn can outtalk even me.”
“This I can’t imagine.”
“It’s true. I’m the baby of the family, you see, so believe it or not, I didn’t talk until I was three-and-a-half. There was
