And the scent of her…ripe. Purely sexual. The scent of a woman aroused and satisfied. It clung to his hand.
Exercising every last shred of will he possessed, he held back a groan.
This was not going well.
She got rid of the socks, ripping them off, one and then the other, and tossing them to the rag rug beside the bed. “Okay, Justin. I’m naked.”
As if he didn’t know. As if every inch of him wasn’t painfully aware.
He pressed his arm hard against his eyes. He was not going to look. Not again. No matter what.
She spoke again. “Justin. I want to get into bed. But you’re on the blankets…”
“Uh. Right. Sorry.” He shut his eyes tight and jumped from the bed, letting out another groan as his jeans dug in at the crucial spot.
He stood there, eyes shut, body rigid and burning, facing away from her. Behind him, he heard the covers rustling.
“Safe to look now,” she said at last, her tone just slightly teasing. “I’m all covered up.”
He yanked his sweater down low over his jeans, to mask the clear evidence that his body refused to be ruled by his mind. And then, with a deep breath and a silent vow that he would not climb onto that bed with her again, he turned to face her.
She sat against the pillows, shining dark hair soft and wild on her satiny shoulders, the blankets pulled up to cover those tempting breasts, looking achingly sweet, and not quite as confident as a moment ago. “I…well, I can’t help it. It’s crazy, but I almost feel as if we are married, you know? As if making love with you is the most natural, right thing for us to be doing.”
It was exactly what he’d been thinking not long before.
But so what? his cynical side reminded him. So damn what? They weren’t married. They would never be married. In a week she would hate him and know him for the enemy he was and had always been.
And, all sentimental talk of “feeling” married aside, they had no protection. They shouldn’t have gone as far as they had.
And they damn well weren’t going to go any further. “Katie.” His voice was rough. Pained. Pushed out through his clutching throat, threaded with his own frustration. “We can’t. You know we can’t.”
She picked at a thread on the velvet patchwork spread, eyes cast down, lashes wisps of silk against her cheeks. “You’re right. I know…” She looked up. Those honey-brown eyes captured him, held him—a prisoner of his own burning need for her. “But couldn’t we just…” She paused to swallow, convulsively—and then didn’t seem to be able to go on.
“Couldn’t we, what?” he demanded way too gruffly.
She swallowed again and licked those soft lips with a nervous pink tongue—an unintentionally provocative action that inflicted yet another blow to his barely held self-control.
“Well,” she suggested, all wide eyes and innocence, “you could put on those black sweats you sleep in. I’ll put my pajamas back on, too. You can…come to bed with me.”
“Come to bed with you.” There was nothing—nothing—he’d rather do. And it was exactly what he was not going do. “Katie—”
She cut him off before he could tell her no. “Oh, listen. Please…”
“We can’t—”
“No, see. Just listen. We won’t do anything more. I promise…to be good.”
They shared a look—hot and hungry, crackling with need.
And then, out of nowhere, she laughed, a happy, startled, captivating trill of sound.
That laugh was infectious. He laughed, too—and then he stopped himself and glared at her. “What the hell are we laughing at?”
“Well, Justin, it’s only…me, sitting here naked. Promising not to try anymore to seduce you. Who would have guessed that would happen?”
He only looked at her, making no attempt to smile. He was thinking that she’d been seducing him since the first moment he saw her, when Caleb introduced them and he got his first look into those wide, soft brown eyes.
There was just something about her. She got to him in ways he’d never been gotten to before.
“Please,” she said, so sweetly.
“Hell,” he replied.
“Please,” she said, once more.
And once again, there was no stopping the wrong words from escaping his mouth.
“Put on those damn pajamas,” he growled. “I’ll be right back.”
Chapter Nine
“Spooning,” Katie whispered.
They lay on their sides, her slim back tucked into him, her legs cradled on his, his arm across her waist. He nuzzled her hair, cuddled her closer, in spite of the fact that holding her tighter only aroused him more.
“Yes,” she said. “Spooning.”
“What in hell are you talking about?”
She chuckled. The sweet sound vibrated through him. “What we’re doing, tucked in this bed together, fully clothed, with you curved all around me. We’re spooning.”
He grunted, smoothed a wild coil of fragrant hair away from his mouth, and muttered, “We’re driving me crazy, that’s what we’re doing.”
“Hmm,” she said, and wiggled her bottom against him.
He took a slow breath. “That was completely uncalled for.”
“Sorry.”
“Liar.”
“But seriously, courting couples used to do this, in the old days…lie down together, with their clothes on, tucked up nice and cozy, like spoons in a drawer. Thus, spooning.”
“Spooning.” He laid his hand over hers, stroking the back of it, until she opened her fingers and he slid his between. She tucked their joined fists against her soft, flannel-covered breasts. He growled in her ear. “Frankly, I’d rather be shtupping.”
She giggled. “I don’t believe you said that.”
“The truth hurts. Let me tell you, it really, really hurts.”
She elbowed him lightly. “I’ll distract you.”
“Don’t worry, you already are.”
“I mean, from your, er, pain.”
“Oh. That. Good luck.”
“Back to spooning…Soldiers have done it, far back in history, spooning in the trenches to ward off the cold on a freezing night before a big battle. They’d keep warm using each other’s body heat.”
“Speaking of which, it’s too damn hot in here.” He pulled his hand from hers and readjusted the covers, pushing them down on his side.
“Umm.” She wiggled in against him again. “Better?”
It was agony, but at the same time…“Yeah.”
“Give me your hand back, please.” He obliged. She tucked it under her soft chin. “Yes,” she said on a gentle sigh. “This is nice…”
Nice wasn’t exactly the word for it.
Spooning.
Never in a million and a half years would he have pictured himself, lying here, spooning Katie Fenton.
But