“I actually brought you some stuff—a couple pairs of pajamas, a few books,” she said as she dipped her hand into the large basin of warm water the girl had left next to Byron’s bed. How ridiculous was it that she was breathless at the thought of bathing Byron? It wasn’t like there was going to be anything sexual to it.
Trying to concentrate on the task at had, she wrung out the washcloth, then smoothed it gently over Byron’s face before moving lower to his powerful shoulders and arms.
“Is the water warm enough for you?” she asked.
“Yes.” His voice was low, deep. Glancing up at his eyes, she saw him staring at her with an intensity that belied the wound in his chest.
He reached for her, but she danced out of his grasp. “Oh no, none of that,” she said lightly, even as her nipples peaked against the soft cotton of her tank top. “You were at death’s door a few days ago. This is a bath, and that’s all.”
“Yeah, but I’m better now.” He reached for her hand—the one that wasn’t wet—and pulled it to his mouth. She shivered as he kissed her dead center in her palm.
She dipped the washcloth in the basin again, and took back the hand he was holding so that she could wring it out again. Then she swept the rag down the right side of his chest, and the left, being extra careful not to get the gauze covering his wound wet.
Moving lower, she brushed the cloth over his taut, rock-hard abdomen, watching as the muscles jumped and flexed at her touch. The sight was arousing, and she tried to hurry through the area without looking at him.
What did it say about her that she was ready to jump a man who, a few days before, had been at death’s door?
But he isn’t there now, a little voice in the back of her head reminded her. Now he was feeling well enough to argue with nurses and steal kisses from her. They hadn’t talked about their fight, hadn’t talked about the future, but she knew he’d forgiven her for the ugly things she’d said to him—and everything that had come after.
If only she could forgive herself.
“Hey, Lacey, are you okay?” Byron’s hand moved to cover hers, and when she looked up at him, he was watching her with concern.
She cleared her throat. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? Because you’ve been stalled out at my stomach for a couple of minutes now.”
“Oh, sorry. I was just . . . thinking.”
His hand covered hers. “If you don’t want to—”
“It’s not that.”
“Did that bastard—” His voice broke.
“No, Byron!” She shuddered, in relief and remembered terror. “You got me out before Gregory could do anything but scare the hell out of me. He was waiting for the drugs to wear off before he—” It was her turn to stop midsentence.
“I’m sorry it took me so long.”
“I’m sorry you got shot.”
“It was worth it.” He grinned, then gazed meaningfully at where her hand still rested on his belly. “It did get me here, after all.”
Lacey blushed, but didn’t look away as Byron eased the covers down past his lower abdomen, all the way to midthigh. She shuddered as she realized he was full, hard, as achingly aroused as she was. Maybe more. His cock was lying against his stomach, stretching all the way to his navel, and she could feel her hands begin to shake.
When she made no move to touch him, to bring the washcloth lower, Byron cleared his throat. “Does it bother you? It’s just that when you touch me, I—”
“That’s all right.” She cut him off. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” She didn’t want to kill the guy, not after spending seven days beside him, trying to help him recover.
“I feel fine, Lacey.”
She worried her lower lip between her teeth. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” He hissed the word between his teeth as she drew the washcloth down his abdomen—first on the right side of his erection, then the left, being careful not to touch it. “God, yes. Lacey, please.”
Wetting her lips, still not believing she was all but molesting a hospital patient, she ran the washcloth lower, over his balls and behind them, sweeping over the sensitive spot she knew was there.
Byron sucked air in through his mouth at the touch of the washcloth as it ran over his most private places. He would prefer it to be Lacey’s hands, would die to have her touch him, but for now he would take what he could get.
She washed him thoroughly, the washcloth moving closer and closer to his cock with each sweep of her hand, until he was ready to beg her to touch him, beg her to finish him off.
When her knuckle grazed across his hard-as-nails cock, he groaned. His hips flexed, arching involuntarily, and his cock twitched with the need for her to touch it. To touch him.
“Lacey,” he groaned, trapping her hand against his thigh and then sliding it up and over his straining flesh. “Please, baby. I need—”
His breath rushed out as her hand closed around him and began to stroke. “Are you sure you’re okay? I don’t want to hurt you—”
“I’m fine, baby, better than fine.” She was working him slowly, sweetly—her touch soft and tentative and so arousing he thought he would lose his mind.
For long seconds, he let her go at it, tangling his hands in the bed coverings in an effort to keep from taking over. From taking control. The last words she’d said to him before the kidnapping still echoed in his head, and he didn’t want to drive her away. Didn’t want to chance losing her again, not now when he knew how much she meant to him.
But it was torture to lay there as she stroked him, torture to have her small palm run up and down his length without ever giving him the friction that he needed. Within minutes, he was a seething mess of arousal and need, his body arching and quivering, flexing and thrusting against her palm.
“Ssh,” she said, putting her other hand on his shoulder and pushing him back against the bed. “You need to relax.”
His laughter was a harsh shout in the room. “I can’t relax. You’re killing me.” “I don’t want to hurt—”
“Lacey, if you don’t do it right now, I swear to God I’m going to have a fucking heart attack.”
When she still seemed undecided, he put his hand over hers, squeezed tightly and pumped. Once, twice, a third time. And then he was coming, the orgasm ripping through him with the force of fully loaded tank. The fact that Lacey was watching him, her pink tongue brushing against her lips again and again, as if she was staring at a particularly delicious treat, only made him come harder.
When it was over, she cleaned him up, helped him slip into the pajamas she’d brought with her.
“Come here,” he murmured, patting the spot next to him on the bed.
“No way. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t. But I want to feel you next to me.”
She didn’t move, just continued to watch him dubiously, until he got impatient. Reaching for her hand, he yanked her out of the chair and onto the bed. The movement made his chest burn, but the pain was well worth it as Lacey curled up beside him.
“Tell me if I’m hurting you.”
“You feel fabulous,” he murmured, running a soft finger over her lips. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “Thanks to you. Byron—”
“Ssh.” He tugged her closer, until her lips met his. He kept the kiss light, sweet, determined not to pressure her, though every instinct he had clamored for him to make her his.
She whimpered and pressed closer, careful not to jostle his chest, but he didn’t give a shit about the discomfort. All he wanted was to feel her.
Bringing his hand up, he cupped her breast, flicking his thumb over her nipple again and again.
“Byron, stop!” She shot an anxious look at the closed door, but didn’t pull away.
“I don’t have another vitals check for a couple hours—we have plenty of time.”
“I am not having sex with you in the middle of the hospital!”
br /> “Who asked you to?” he teased, even as he increased the pressure on her nipple.
“Byron!”
“Lacey.” He shoved her shirt out of the way and lowered his mouth to her pouting nipple, taking care to lick around the edges of her areola as she liked.
“Oh, my God! You need to stop!” But her back was arching and she was pressing her nipple more firmly against his tongue.
He continued to pleasure her, to nip and suck and kiss until she was trembling and nearly incoherent. Then he slid his hand under her long peasant skirt. Shoving her underwear out of the way, he rubbed her clit with firm strokes, reveling in the way her breath caught. The way her hands clutched at his biceps.
His chest was starting to ache, but he wanted to give this to her. Needed desperately to see her come after the sexual depravity he had witnessed at that hellhole where she’d been held.
“Come for me, Lacey.” He whispered the words against her breast. Her lower body arched into his hand and he slid first one finger and then a second inside her.
“Kiss me. Please, Byron, kiss me.”
She lowered her head, and he took her mouth ravenously, sucking her tongue into his mouth and stroking it with his own. She started to come on the third pass of his tongue, her body tightening and releasing around his fingers in a rhythm that had his dick twitching back to life.
When it was over, she collapsed against him and he held her for a long time, tenderly stroking her hair away from her face. She curled against him, but as time passed, it occurred to him that she was refusing to look at him.
“Lacey, come on.” He placed two fingers under her chin, tilted her face up so that he could see her eyes. “Look at me.”
“I’m sorry, Byron. For all the horrible things I said to you. For pushing you away. For getting myself kidnapped and needing you to rescue me. For—” Her voice broke on a sob, and he felt his own heart crack wide open in a response that had absolutely nothing to do with the bullet they’d pulled out of his chest a few days before.
“Hey, now, you’re going to make yourself sick. It’s okay. I’m okay. We’re okay.”
And in his mind, they were. Everyone fought, everyone had problems. That didn’t mean things were over. The fact that Lacey had stayed with him these last seven days had told him all he needed to know about her feelings. And if she wasn’t ready to admit it—wasn’t ready to give everything to him yet—he could wait. He was a fairly patient guy, after all.
He stroked her hair as she cried, knowing that this was about more than the fight, more than their relationship. It was about the kidnapping and everything she’d endured at the hands of that animal. If he could have killed him a second time, he would have done it in a heartbeat. The idea of that bastard anywhere near Lacey caused a murderous rage in him like nothing he’d ever felt—even now, after the guy had been dead for nearly two weeks.
When she’d finished crying, she went to the bathroom and rinsed off her face. Then settled next to him on the bed, once again being careful not to jostle him. “I love you.” She said the words that arrowed straight through his heart. “I fell for you that first night on the balcony and then just kept falling. And it scared the hell out of me. I didn’t want to feel that way about a man—about anyone. Not if it meant opening myself up to pain and fear and all those emotions that come with love.”
He started to interrupt, but she stopped him with her fingers on his lips. “I know you were upset about the fantasies I posted on the Internet—you thought I wasn’t getting what I needed from you. But that’s not true. Like you said that last day at my apartment, all those fantasies I posted on the Internet were just one more way I was striving for control. One more way I wanted to be the one calling the shots in my world.”
His heart filled with love for her until it was an actual ache inside of him. Pulling her closer to him, he murmured, “It doesn’t bother me anymore. You can be in control like that anytime, baby. As long as I’m the guy you’re fantasizing about.”
“They’re all you, Byron, and have been for quite a while now. From the second I first saw you six weeks ago, you were the one I thought of when I fantasized. The one I imagined being with.”
Shy now that she was looking into his warm eyes, she didn’t know how to do what she needed to do. Finally, she decided to just suck it up, and pulled out her laptop. “I posted a new fantasy yesterday. Do you want to see it?”
“Does it involve Rocky Road ice cream?” he asked wickedly, his hand covering hers as she carried the computer.
“No, but I’m hoping it’s something you’ll like even better.”
“Better than Rocky Road? That’s a pretty big promise to live up to.”
She shrugged, then surreptitiously tried to wipe her sweaty palms on her jeans. “Yeah, well, you be the judge.”
He grinned as she slid the computer in front of him. As he read, his grin slowly disappeared. Once he glanced at her with razor-sharp eyes, but then he went back to reading what she’d written. She waited nervously, going over the words of the fantasy in her head as he read it. Wondering if he would understand what she was saying. What she was asking for.
You come to me, bearing gifts, as a shooting star streaks across the inky blackness outside my window. You ply me with wine and chocolate and crazy, sexy poems from people who lived—and loved—long before we were conceived.
You tease me, with glancing touches of your forearm against my erect and aching nipples. Torment me, with brazen sweeps of your fingertips against my wet and swollen folds. Kiss me—a long, lingering, luscious melding of lips and tongues and teeth that wipes out all that came before—or will come after.
Together we sit on the porch of the house we built. You’ve built me a swing, and we sit on it now, my feet in your lap, your hands in my hair. You tell me of your day, of the wonderful pieces you made. I tell you about my research and how the book is going.
You gather me in your arms, hold me against you so that I can feel your heartbeat. Your hand strokes over mine, and I know that I am safe. That I am exactly where I’ve always wanted to be.
When he finished reading, the eyes that met hers were full of questions, full of hope, and Lacey couldn’t help laughing with pure, undiluted joy. Leaning over Byron, she placed her lips on his and murmured, “I’m not afraid anymore. I want everything you want to give me.”
He laughed as well, for the same reasons. Then pulled her into his arms and said, “I want everything. Are you sure you’re up for that?”
“You have no idea just how ready I am.”
Then she laid her head on his chest, being careful, very careful, of his still-healing wound, and whispered another fantasy to him, one that involved him and her and the life she was more than ready to begin.
It was good, for once, to be unafraid.
About the Author
Tracy Wolff lives in Texas and is a writing professor at her local community college. She is married and the mother of three young sons. Visit her at tracywolff.com.
If you enjoyed this seductive story, look for Tracy Wolff ’s
TIE ME DOWN
Available now from NAL Heat.
Read on for a sneak peek. . . .
It was hot as only New Orleans could be.
Hotter than a cat on a tin roof.
Hotter than the Cajun cooking her mother used to make.
Hotter than hell.
And she was burning up, fury and sorrow eating her from the inside out.
More than ready for the day from hell to be over, Genevieve Delacroix slammed out of the precinct on the fly, then cursed as she plowed straight into the sticky heat the city was known for. It rose up to meet her like a wall—thick and heavy and all-consuming.
Pausing to catch her breath, she stared blindly at the planters full of cheerful posies that lined the front of the precinct. Her partner, Shawn, had picked a hell of a time to take a vacation—in the middle of the busiest week homicide had seen in years. After working four homicide s
cenes in as many days, it was a miracle she could still put one foot in front of the other.
Today, she’d awakened to a ringing phone, news of a brutal, sexual homicide the first thing she’d heard as she surfaced from a sleep so deep it was almost like death itself. Yesterday it had been a murder-suicide. Two days before that, a domestic dispute turned deadly.
Not to mention the bizarre call she’d gotten earlier that afternoon promising her—with sexually graphic delight—that the caller would be seeing her very soon. As the only female on the homicide squad, she got her share of calls from weirdos, and this one was nothing unusual—but it still put her back up.
Sighing, she rubbed a weary hand over her eyes. This week, the Big Easy was anything but.
Taking the precinct steps two at a time, Genevieve glanced around the French Quarter where she’d worked and lived for most of her life.
Tonight she could see none of the beauty the Quarter was known for—the architecture, the colors, the history. It all faded beside the sickness she’d witnessed that morning. The most recent in a long line of sick and twisted crimes that ate away at the city’s population like a cancer.
Her argument with the lieutenant rang clearly in her head as her long legs ate up Royal Street’s narrow sidewalks.
Not enough similarities in the causes of death in the murders.
Not enough similarities in the three victims.
Not enough evidence, in her boss’s not-so-humble opinion.
But in the eleven years she’d been on the force, Genevieve’s gut had never been wrong, and right now her instincts were screaming that the case she’d caught this morning—the brutal rape and murder of a nineteen-year-old Tulane student—wasn’t a freak event. A serial killer was at large.
True, the cause of deaths in all three murders had been different, as had the body dumps—Jackson Square, Jean Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop, Senator Mouline’s house—but the feel of the scenes had felt too similar for it to be a fluke. The evident, full-out rage the killer had been in when he’d inflicted the wounds had been the same, as had the desperate need to cause as much pain and humiliation to his victims as possible.