“You called me a succubus!”
“I did n—” Then he remembered. “I said clinging like a succubus.” Not that the semantics appreciably changed the meaning and he’d clearly made a mistake letting his temper control his tongue, even briefly, but a man could try.
“I wasn’t clinging at all,” she snarled.
“No. You weren’t.”
She didn’t look in the least mollified by his agreement.
“I apologized already,” he reminded her.
She glared up at him, her body tense beneath his. “That was before I knew what succubus meant. A two-word apology and instructions to just forget about it don’t cut it now.”
She twisted unexpectedly under him, and he had to maneuver his hips between her legs to keep her flat. In her current frame of mind, there was no saying what she might do, and she was capable of doing a lot. But the new position was torture to his already excited body.
His pants and her shorts were no barrier to the heat of her pressing against the hardness of him. Making love to her would be like taking a trip to the sun.
She bucked, sending his temperature spiking. “Get off me, you cretin.”
He had to keep this light. If he didn’t, he was going to lose control, and that was an unacceptable alternative. “See, that’s the second time you’ve called me that, and you don’t see me having a temper tantrum because you’ve questioned my intelligence.”
“Cretin also means vulgar, and calling me a demon intent on seducing you in your sleep falls in that category, or didn’t you realize that?” she asked far too sweetly, her gaze still as sharp as his throwing knife.
“It’s still a hurtful thing to call a person.”
She laughed, the sound far from humorous, her expression one of angry mockery. “An exploding grenade under your pillow couldn’t hurt you.”
Maybe not, but a hundred and twenty pounds of female flesh under him was doing major damage to his nerve centers. His sex ached, and it was only going to get worse if he stayed where he was. A glutton for punishment, he didn’t move.
“The point is, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
She sighed, her body going limp all of a sudden, her expression turning sad. “I’m sure you didn’t. You can’t help the way you feel about me.”
“That’s true, but I’m trying. Doesn’t that count for something?”
She shrugged as much as she could with her wrists still restrained. “You can let me up now. I won’t take your head off.”
He didn’t want to. He wanted to make love right there on the hardwood floor, but what he wanted and what he got with Josie were rarely even in the same hemisphere.
Sucking in air, he rolled off her, then stood up and felt the pain of unsatisfied desire arc through him with debilitating force. Turning away from her, he bent at the waist, breathing heavily.
She touched his shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“I’ll be fine. Just give me a sec.” He hated her seeing his physical vulnerability to her, but right now even his formidable mental control was no match for his body’s urges.
He’d never been like this before. No matter how much he wanted sex, he’d never been unable to curb the desire and hide his reactions when the situation called for it.
“Did I hurt you?” She sounded bewildered.
How was he supposed to answer that? He hurt because of her, but she hadn’t done anything harmful to him. “No.”
“Then what’s the matter?”
“Nothing you need to worry about.” He breathed in deeply, willing his body to calm, forcing his mind not to dwell on the memory of what it felt like to have her under him.
Finally able to stand straight without feeling like he’d rip the seam on his fly, he turned back to face her.
Her eyes scanned him and stopped at the hard-on that had not completely gone away. “Does that happen every time you fight with a woman?”
Offended, he glared at her. “Of course not. I’d be a damn poor soldier if it did.”
“But…”
“I told you. You set me off. Not all women. Just you.”
“Set you off?”
Did she have to sound so clueless about sex? That in itself was another turn-on, and the way she was looking at him wasn’t helping.
“My dick is only going to grow if you keep watching it like that.” And then he was either going to go back to being bent over double, or he was going to bend over her.
“I’m not…I can’t…You’re wearing pants!”
He rolled his eyes. “And you don’t know the log in my jeans isn’t wadded-up cotton, right?”
She looked askance at him. “It’s not, is it?”
“For crying out loud.” He’d had enough. If he didn’t get out of there, he was going to do something they would both regret.
Josie watched Daniel slam out the front door, her heart somewhere around her toes. What had just happened?
One minute, she’d been ready to kill him with her bare hands, and the next, he was telling her she’d turned him on. And then he’d gone. She eyed the closed door with a conflagration of emotions she couldn’t begin to decipher, but chief among them was a certainty she wasn’t ready for Daniel Black Eagle to walk out of her life.
Impulsively, she rushed after him. Swinging the door open, she saw him standing beside his big black SUV. He was leaning against it with one hand, his back to her.
“Are you leaving?”
“Yes.” He didn’t bother to face her.
“For good?” It’s what she’d said she wanted, so why did she feel so rejected?
He spun around then, his stance dangerous. “I said I’d help you find the people who tried to kill your dad, and I will. I can control my sex drive enough to work with you. I’m not a needy adolescent, damn it.”
“I didn’t say you were.” This conversation was getting bizarre, but then everything had been a little crazy since she went storming out of her bedroom to tell him what she thought of him for calling her a succubus.
“I’m going for a walk.”
“Oh. The park is peaceful. There are ducks…in the pond on the other side.”
“I’ll be sure and look for them.”
“Okay.”
He sighed and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “Do you want to go with me?”
More than anything, but considering how he felt about her, she shouldn’t inflict her company on him. “That’s okay. I’ve got some stuff to do around here.”
“Is it anything that can’t wait?”
“No.”
“Then come with me.”
“Are you sure…”
He put his hand out. “Come on, Josette. I think we could both use the exercise to clear our heads, and I want to talk to you about what I read in your dad’s journals.”
“I…um…” She waved her hand down her body, indicating the pajamas she still wore. “I’ve got to get some clothes on.”
He