Because she’d kissed him. Kissed him.
She’d slipped her tongue into his mouth, had held his face in her hands and— dammit, his hands tingled at his sides. He was trying, and not very effectively, to keep from reaching out for her. He was thrumming with a raving need to take her body with his, lick every inch of her skin, spill days and weeks and years of wanting inside her.
“We’re spending the night here?”
Abruptly, he turned. “Yeah. You’re safe now.”
And there she was, gazing at him across the room with glimmering blue eyes and lips that were pink and glistening. It had been nothing, he reminded himself. The kiss. Nothing.
Paige had been euphoric to be alive, had felt a need for intimacy, and Zach had been on hand. He’d been willing, and able, and more.
She was curiously examining the room, and it was too damn bad the sparse furniture provided no such distraction for him. He could not drag his eyes away from her. Yeah, she was safe now. But not from him. Not from the past so quickly catching up with them.
She’d never looked so bedraggled— hair tousled, cheeks bright red, shirt rumpled. Just . . . adorable.
With some difficulty, he cleared his throat. “Cody ran the license plate. The SUV was reported stolen forty-eight hours ago.” Would that the owner had better luck finding it than Zach had his Camaro all those years ago. Damn, but these things made a man feel impotent.
He sank down on the only chair in the room, rubbed his face in his hands. “Lieutenant O’Neill wants to meet with you tomorrow. He suggests you go under hypnosis. You know something, and we need to know what that is.”
“Hypnosis?”
He dropped his hands. “O’Neill’s wife, Sue Ellen,” he explained. “She’s a master hypnotist. We don’t usually require her ser vices, but he believes that in your case, she could be of some help.”
Paige’s fingers opened on her stomach. “Mom always refused to go that route, she said we shouldn’t trust our minds to anyone.” Her smile was sad. “But I guess I must try. To remember. Sometimes I get a thought and I push it away, my stomach hurts.”
He curled his fingers into fists over his knees, wanting to reach out to her, hold her, say— God, so many things. “I’m sorry, Paige.”
She nodded. “I’m sorry, too. And thank you for . . . what you did.”
He could not tame his heartbeat, find calm, even if on the outside his voice was strangely disembodied. “No thanks necessary.”
He shifted in his chair, uncomfortable in his jeans. They were stretched to their limits. He hauled in a calming breath, but he could still feel her rubbing against him. He could still see the car screeching by inches away from her, could still feel the panic and terror clawing his gut.
He wanted someone’s blood. He wanted sex. He wanted . . .
Paige.
Needed her.
Long ago, he’d envisioned roses, wine, the best for Paige Avery— now he just wanted. Nothing mattered. She was here. If he never saw her again, if she never remembered him or felt again what she once had for him, she was here. Right now. In the shadowed little motel room. Where he could keep her safe from anyone but him.
Zach, touch me, touch me there . . .
Here? Where it’s wet and tight and hot for me?
Zach!
“What is this place anyway?” Paige glanced around the room with increasing curiosity. She studied the mirror behind the bed. The mirror above the bed. The basket of condoms on the nightstand. It was all so tacky and, in her fine eyes, probably not too clean.
“Somewhere he won’t look for you,” Zach said curtly.
Her eyes widened as though a thought just socked her. “Is this where people come to . . . to . . .”
“Fuck?” She gaped in shock, and Zach spread out his arms apologetically. “Depends. On whether or not they feel like a fuck.”
She went statuesque, like a Venus about to be beheaded. A panting Venus.
A queen bed occupied most of the room. It was more than they’d ever had before. And Zach wanted her more than he’d ever wanted her.
A year of foreplay— months of holding back, being gentle, being patient— and a week of torture knowing it would happen Friday, a week anticipating, panting, sweating, wanting . . . He’d known their lives would change that Friday— and their lives had changed, all right.
She’d never come back to him.
Restless, he rose and propped a shoulder against the wall. His eyes, traitors, kept falling to her chest. Her blouse was damp, the lace collar soiled, and two soaked circles delineated her breasts. It was a trial not to stare at the creamy rise of flesh visible through the moistness, impossible not to notice the faint dusky hue of a nipple. Christ.
“Get in the bed, Paige. Catch some sleep.”
She offered a shaky smile. “Oh, I’m not tired.” By the nightstand, head bent so that the tips of her hair tucked under her chin, she seemed inordinately interested in the bountiful condom basket. “Can you believe some of these are flavored?”
God. Zach crossed his arms and tucked his hands into his armpits, trapping his fingers. “Your shirt is wet.”
She tensed in surprise, glanced down at herself, then up with a gasp.
He signaled with one unsteady hand. “I can see your . . .” Pink, stiff, beautiful nipples. The blood rushed up to his head, dizzying him. “Get in the bed. Cover yourself.”
She didn’t move. Stared with a look so familiar, so full of longing, his heart hurt.
“Get in the bed, please, Paige.”
Flushing, ignoring his comments, she nervously rummaged through the condom basket. “Apple. Strawberry. Peach.”
He swallowed, yanked his shirt off, feeling just a hair away from insane. A breath away from begging for her, begging for tenderness, for an opportunity to feel her skin under his fingertips. “Here. Put this on.”
She caught the garment in the air. The whites of her eyes were evident around her pupils as she clutched the shirt tight, passing her tongue between her lips at the sight of his chest. Her wandering gaze was a palpable caress, feathering across his shoulders, pecs, abdomen, setting his skin on fire.
“Put it on,” he said softly.
Gnawing her lower lip, she briskly set his shirt aside and studied the basket contents once more. Her outstretched arm shook. “But now I can see your nipples.”
“And?”
Her cheeks flared with color. “And I think you’re the sexiest thing walking the planet.”
Shock, sudden and total, made it difficult to speak. “No,” he said, dumbfounded. “No, no, that would be you.”
Her lashes dropped as though it pained her to listen, and she made a little sound in her throat. Zach could feel a groan surge up his chest, more like a growl, a howl of hunger.
And then her fingers delved into the basket, and Zach felt like she was carving into his heart. “There’s raspberry, too.”
Her hand trembled, her voice trembled. He trembled.
Hoarsely, his voice thick with the arousal flaring through his body, he reached for his weapons and set them on the chair he’d occupied, murmuring, “Pick one.”
“Me?” Flustered, Paige kept investigating the basket, the color rising up her throat. “But . . . you’re the one who’s supposed to wear it.”
The thought of him sliding something on, sliding inside her, nearly drove him to his knees. “Pick one . . . for me.” For my cock. For me to make love to you until morning.
He didn’t know what she would do, didn’t know what he was doing, only knew his heart was pounding in his chest, his groin, his head.
She lifted a foil packet. Thrust out her chin. Her throat worked, but for a moment, no words came. “This one? A . . . natural one.” Her timid smile was like a kick in the heart, familiar and heart-wrenching, and the thought that she could be playing around knocked him cold.
“Don’t tease me.”
Her smile faded. “I’m not— not teasing.” She stared into his e
yes, her little tongue darting out to moisten her lips. “Please don’t tease me, either.”
“God, no, never.”
And then he couldn’t take it, couldn’t take the look in her eyes, couldn’t take her nearness. He started for her. “Make love with me.”
It was a plea.
Jolting in surprise, she backed away, around the bed, and Zach followed. “Put me out of my misery.” His voice hoarsened even more. “I want you. I’ve wanted you every day. I’ve been with you a thousand times in my mind. Every night, every single night, in my bed, I make you mine.”
With a noise of distress, she flattened against the wall, opening her hands behind her. Her eyes shone with lust and worry. “It’s just that I . . . I’ve never done this before.”
Zach planted his hands on the wall beside her, leaning in. “Do it with me now.”
DO IT WITH ME now . . .
A spasm shook her at that decadently provocative suggestion.
Her breasts throbbed, felt full and heavy, hurting. Hurting at his words, at the physical ache of wanting him, at the thought of having that bronzed, unyielding body inside of hers.
A warm moistness kept pooling between her legs. “Zach.”
Eyes alight with heat, he engulfed her face with large, dry palms, as though somehow he could hold her scrambling thoughts together.
“Zach what? What? Tell me.”
She could find no words to describe what she needed. She felt starved. Greedy.
Her stomach tumbled as he bent his head to hers. “Do you want to be touched?” he rasped. Their noses grazed, and he inhaled deeply. “Do you want to be kissed, baby?” The words he whispered as he aligned their mouths were the most erotic sound she remembered hearing. “Do you want Zach?”
“Oh God, yes.” She framed his face with quavering hands the same instant he swept down. They made a sound of craving and took each other’s mouths— and they went wild.
A fire ignited as their lips pressed. Their breaths met as they opened wide. His tongue plowed inside, swift and sure. She moaned from the taste of him, his cool, unique flavor flooding her senses.
His arms snaked around her waist, hands boldly cupping her buttocks and drawing her brusquely up against his length. “God, you’re so sweet. Feel so . . .” Heads slanted, their tongues sought, found, tangled. “So right.”
His fingers bit into her ass as he dragged his tongue across the seam of her open lips. His size dwarfed hers, his big shoulders hunched. Agonizing ecstasy ripped through her, and as she gave up her mouth to his passion, she knew not who he was, not who she was, but who he had been to her.
He’d been music, he’d been chocolate, he’d been beaches and puppies and treasure hunt stories and everything she adored.
She shuddered with emotion, slid her fingers into his silky black hair and greedily trailed her lips across his square jaw, her wheezing breaths puffing across his skin. “I want you,” she sobbed, “I’m dying with wanting you.”
He put breathing distance between them, and the hooded eyes and the heavy lids and the flare of his nostrils rendered him even sexier. “Get naked.”
She could only pant.
“Naked, Paige. For me. Now.”
Her heart froze with alarm. But he would see her. And he was so virile and magnificent, and she was so scarred and so . . . scarred.
Roughly, he hooked a hand into the waistband of her slacks, unsnapping them with two fingers while Paige, suddenly spurred to action, frantically turned around and undid the row of buttons of her shirt.
She braced her hands on the wall when he pulled her slacks down her hips, leaving her in her plain white pan ties. “All of you against all of me,” he said gruffly.
“Yes.”
Paige jerked her arms out of her shirt, tossing the garment aside as he unhooked her bra. Her breasts tumbled free, and Zach cupped one globe with one hand and swept her hair aside with the other, heatedly kissing her nape. “Me inside you.”
“Yes.”
“Fuck, come here.”
She shrieked in surprise when he scooped her up wearing nothing but her pan ties, and carried her to the bed, him in his jeans.
The mattress creaked as he climbed over and gently settled her on the bed. Propping up on one elbow, he took a long, thorough assessment of her nakedness. It took less than a second for his attention to catch on the slash cutting across her hips and abdomen; and it stayed there for a heart-stopping moment.
A ball of humiliation settled in her throat.
She didn’t know what crossed his mind as he absorbed the sight of her scars— the long gash across her hips, the dulled centipede slashes running up each of her thighs— but she knew if he stopped touching her she’d weep. She’d weep from the need for him; she burned from inside out, could feel her heart pulsing between her legs, her very soul screaming for closeness.
His eyes flashed with unmistakable fury as he visibly strained to get himself under control. Mortified, Paige sat up, folding her legs to her chest. “I’m ugly.”
“No, baby, no!”
Reacting fast, he firmly urged her back down and slid a gentling palm up her thigh, around her hip, and stroked the scar running side to side with his thumb.
“You’re not . . . not ugly. Never.”
She might have been hesitant to believe his words, but he’d ducked his head and was eating at her neck with his mouth, sounding so aroused, sliding his fingers across her waist as he brought his whisper to her ear. “The thought of you in pain makes me want to kill.” He made a fist over her stomach, then loosened his hand. “Sweetheart, you’re lovely. Look at me. Look at me, Paige.”
When she did, his stare felt like a bonfire in her chest.
“You’re lovely.”
The denim of his jeans chafed parts of her legs as he pressed into her side. His hands began roaming, igniting the skin they touched.
And now she wanted to weep not because he didn’t touch, but because he did. And he touched her as though his whole life he’d been waiting to touch her. Whispering over and over again that she was lovely, felt amazing . . . that she was his.
His words rendered her even more vulnerable than her nakedness. She had an urge to brace herself, felt her body set protectively against how fragile she felt.
“Shh. Relax.” Zach cradled the underside of one breast with his hand and kneaded out the tip. “God.” He nuzzled her with his nose. Gave a lick. “Delicious.”
Her nerves jumped when his hand slid downward. With skillful ease, his middle finger traced the elastic of her panties. They were both making sounds, half-starved pants that echoed in the room. The ones he made— long, drawn-out immersed sounds— made her shake on the inside.
“Let’s see”— he caressed through the soaked fabric, using three fingers to expertly stroke the tenderized flesh lying desperately in wait under panties—“if I remember what to do.”
He shifted slightly above her, and, gasping as he whisked the pad of his thumb across that little sensitive place, she clutched his shoulders with ironclad hands. “Zachary.” A ray of a memory played in the depths of her mind. Of crying out his name.
She closed her eyes, helplessly rotating her head when he drowned the peak of one exposed breast with his mouth. His groan, a low and famished sound, vibrated against her flesh. His mouth was a scorching vortex. His tongue swiped. Over and over. Lapping, circling, licking. Suckling.
Her head tossed, her hips circled instinctively, and she gasped in pleasure.
“That’s it.” He suckled. “That’s it, enjoy it.”
His finger. Oh God. It was sliding down her pan ties. Down down down. He tugged the cotton aside and drew back to watch as he revealed the curls at the apex of her thighs, glistening with moisture.
“Wet for me,” he rumbled.
Holding the fabric aside with his middle finger, he stroked the pad of his thumb across the slickened entry. Up and down. Teasing her clit. Rolling it under his thumb. Then he pushed into her sheath. ?
??Hot for me.”
Screaming, she wadded handfuls of the comforter into knots. She opened her mouth to beg, to say “please, goddammit, take me!” when he came up.
He nipped her lower lip, feeling his way across her mouth with gentle bites and strokes and nibbles. “Do you want more here?” He exchanged his thumb with his longest finger and plunged into her depths, that one stroke so delicious she spread her thighs wider, curving her body to take it all in. “Do you?”
Wildly she groped between their bodies to hook two fingers into the waistband of his jeans. “Please hurry!” Sitting up for best maneuvering, she fumbled with his snap, making a frustrated noise.
Chuckling, he said, “Shh, I’ll get it,” and leisurely went up on his knees to work off his jeans.
She pulled off her pan ties, watching his biceps bulge as he unbuttoned and unzipped. He too was laboring to breathe, the air soughing in and out of his muscled chest as he undressed.
The sight of his erection popping out made Paige’s stomach grip. Zach’s body was all taut, long muscles and smooth, tanned, lickable skin. A path of silky hairs started at his navel, leading down to his jutting cock. He was thick and long, the balls high and firm, the stalk flushed with wanting.
Wanting to be in her.
Blushing, Paige glanced at the far wall, then briskly at him when he said, “Don’t turn away.”
He wanted acknowledgment. He wanted her eyes. And God, they wanted him. Her inner muscles rippled at his visual, clenching lustily as a stream of moisture trickled down her thigh.
“I’m hard,” he said in a low, guttural sound. “And wet. For you.”
He was beautiful. All flushed, aroused male on his knees on the bed, his shoulders high, his glistening penis at its fullest length.
Melting inside, Paige rose to her knees with him. For a blind second, she didn’t know what to do. Then tentatively she fingered the plum-shaped tip of his shaft. It bobbed at her touch and jerked higher against his flat stomach.
He let go a groan, grimacing with pleasure. “Pet me.”
Sucking in an excited gust of air, she curled her hand around the thick width and slid her fist down the pulsing flesh. Setting her lips on his straining throat, she flattened her tongue against his collarbone, tasted the thin film of dampness coating his taut, square shoulder. “You’re beautiful, Zach.”