He expected her to pull away. Instead, her fingers brushed down the length of his right shoulder, lightly tracing the outline of his permanent souvenir.
Smiling, he leaned back so he could look at her. “I would have thought you’d have some ink of your own, actually.” She’d certainly been wild enough.
“Nope. Against the rules.”
Trailing kisses down the center of her body, he loved the way she arched into his mouth, sensual and greedy for more. Her breath caught in the back of her throat, a little hiccup of air.
“I never figured you for the straight and narrow. In fact, I could have sworn you delighted in breaking rules.”
Her eyes snapped to his, her body stilling beneath him. Her skin was still flushed with the heat of his touch and yet she turned away from him the only way she could, twisting her head so he couldn’t look into her eyes. She was spread out beneath him, sensual and beautiful, but no longer in the moment with him. He didn’t like that, didn’t like knowing that something he’d said had dulled the glow of her desire. He hadn’t expected vulnerability from her. From the sophisticated and regal woman he’d watched all evening. From the sensual and demanding woman he’d had in his bed half the night. From the hellion the headlines had screamed about.
His protective urges reared up and told him to fix this. Now. Tucking his finger beneath her chin, he turned her back to face him. “Does it matter? Because it doesn’t to me.”
She knew exactly what he was saying. Her eyes narrowed as she studied him, looking into his eyes, searching his face.
“No.” The single word was low and throaty. “I suppose it doesn’t. Karyn told you.”
It wasn’t a question but he answered anyway, nodding. “She asked me to watch over you tonight.”
She shook her head, a rueful smile tugging the corners of her lips. “Of course she did.”
She drew in a deep breath. Blake’s eyes fixated on the rise and fall of her breasts beneath him. He wanted to lean down and pull that teasing nipple into his mouth but wasn’t sure of his reception.
Anne finally let the air go on a sigh that seemed to relax her. Her eyes traveled slowly up the length of his body, her kiss-swollen lips pulling into a mischievous smile as she reached for him. It was his turn to sigh when she wrapped the warmth of her palm around his aching erection.
“So, about that tattoo. I could have been lying.” She arched up, rubbing her silky thighs against him. “Maybe you should check. Just to be sure.”
Loving that idea, and the chance for some payback, he grasped her waist and flipped her onto her stomach. Kneeling between her open thighs, he spread them wide, enjoying the telltale glint of the arousal that coated her sex. But he didn’t start there. Instead, he touched the base of her neck, beginning an excruciating exploration for any hidden marks. She gasped as he sucked at her nape and then blew a cooling stream of breath across the wet patch of her skin.
He rolled her head this way and that, tantalizing her with his fingers and mouth. Down the length of each arm, across her shoulders. Lavishing each tiny vertebra of her spine with individual attention. Her body squirmed beneath him, inflaming his desire, which was already riding the slippery edge of control.
Her skin was soft and fragrant. A delicious mixture of knowledge and need pulsed beneath the thin layer against his lips as he kissed the dip of her waist and the flare of her hips. He could almost feel the growing urgency heating her body beneath him.
Finally, he allowed them both the exquisite pleasure of touching her sex. She groaned low in her throat and pushed hard against his hand when he slid a finger inside her hot and slippery core.
Uninhibited, she greedily took the pleasure he gave her, forcing him back and fighting for more. He couldn’t control her or himself. He couldn’t wait to possess her, to feel her body take him in and hold him tight.
Turning her back over to face him, he grabbed a condom and rolled it down his cock. He was inside her within seconds, the exquisite feel of her heat surrounding him. She reared up with him, digging her fingernails into his back, trying to bring them closer together. She bit the edge of his bottom lip, sucking it into her mouth before soothing the ache with her tongue.
Meeting him thrust for thrust, she ground her hips against him, wrapping her legs around his body and holding him tight. They stayed that way, both straining for the unbelievable edge that they wanted to launch themselves over, pumping, pulling, chasing each other closer.
With a guttural groan of satisfaction, Anne dropped her head against the scattered pillows, her blond hair ballooning into a soft, disheveled cloud around her beautiful face. The orgasm ripped through her body—he could feel it, see it, practically taste the sweetness of it on his tongue. He enjoyed watching her shudder with the sensations, enjoyed knowing he was the source of her pleasure.
When she’d finally stilled beneath him, he let his own pleasure break free, shaking with the force of his restraint. He let the aftershocks of her orgasm haul him with her, the muscles of her inner walls massaging his sex in the most delicious way he’d ever known.
He looked down at the satisfied smile on her bliss-filled face and knew he was in trouble.
He didn’t want to roll away, didn’t want to lose the connection he’d found when they were locked together. He’d never had such an intense reaction to a woman in his life. Granted he was a little rusty. For the past several years he’d been preoccupied with building his business and hadn’t had the time or inclination to play the dating game. One-night stands had been the name of his game.
But this was different. The woman beneath him had been the first thing to make his blood quicken since he’d stopped jumping out of perfectly functioning airplanes. She stirred, her eyes fluttering open. His entire body felt the impact as her brilliant green gaze caught his.
Oh yeah, he was in trouble.
2
AWARENESS CAME SLOWLY, crawling up Anne’s spine along with a pounding headache and a sickening gurgle at the bottom of her stomach. The headache was all alcohol, although she hadn’t really drunk that much.
The churning stomach, not so much.
She didn’t even have to open her eyes, she could smell it. The maddening scent of professional-grade cleaner that could never quite be covered by the sickening floral spray they used to try and hide it. She’d once suggested to her mother that the hotel find another way to eliminate the smell. The woman had dismissed her suggestions. Surprise, surprise.
She hadn’t noticed it last night, although she hadn’t noticed much of anything besides the way Blake made her body burn.
Well, apparently it was time to pay the piper’s price.
Her legs scraped against sheets that weren’t her own yet were all too damn familiar. She opened her eyes. Keeping them shut wouldn’t change things no matter how much she wanted it to. She took a halting tour of the space, trying to move only her eyeballs in deference to her protesting head.
Different, and yet still the same. The bedspread and artwork changed, but the impersonal still permeated every inch of the cookie-cutter hotel room.
Horrific memories slithered out from beneath the rock she’d shoved them under, making her stomach roil even faster. Maybe, if she could stay out of the bathroom, she could keep the worst of the images at bay.
The vision of her brother, dangling lifeless from the bathroom ceiling of their hotel suite, slammed into her brain anyway. Her muscles went rigid. Her lungs protested their sudden lack of oxygen as she forgot to breathe, forgot her surroundings, forgot everything but the