big hand. He groaned, knowing that he was reaching the limit of his restraint. Grasping her nipple between his fingers and thumb, her passionate shriek was an electric shock to his prick. Murmuring in her ear he whispered, “Yes, darlin’? You like that? Oh, God, baby. What I could do with these. How I could make you feel! Jesus, Lexie, you are beautiful.” Before he could stop himself, he’d wedged his strong thigh between her legs, kicking her feet apart with one of his. With an agonized thrust, he lifted her fragile body up on his thigh, shoving his burgeoning cock against her crotch. Her passionate wail was his response.
Lexie was stunned. From the moment he pressed her against the wall, she was helpless against the sensations rioting through her. His beard rasping against her sensitive skin, his erotic words in her ear, opened floodgates of passion she’d spent a lifetime denying. His lips traced a track of flaming heat across her throat down to her breasts. When he grasped her nipple and rolled it in his fingers, she nearly doubled over with desire. But it was his strong thigh opening her, lifting her, pressing his hard erection up against her soft folds that did her in. She was shocked at the sounds coming from her, the moans, whimpers, and pleas. When he ground his hard body against her, intoxicating pleasure inflamed her tender flesh. She rose up and cried out wanting, needing more.
To her shock, with a hard groan, he put her down, pulled away. He still held her, but at a distance, as if he couldn’t, wouldn’t touch her. She was bewildered. What had she done? Why was he pushing her away? NO! She… she wanted more. She wanted him to hold her tight. And not stop.
She whispered, fighting back a sob. “What’s…what’s wrong? Did I…did I do something wrong?”
Jake thought his heart might break. Jesus, this was worse than he’d thought it could be. He was shocked at his rampant desire. Christ, he was minutes away from stripping off her clothes and taking her on the fucking floor. Only her response, so passionate, so needy, stopped him. He reluctantly pulled back, lowered her hands to her sides.
He murmured an agonized plea, “Oh, God, Lexie, I can’t…Baby, I can’t do this.” She was shaking, trembling like a reed in the wind. He longed to hold her, never let her go. He bracketed her face between his hands, trying to ignore the confusion in her eyes.
“No, darlin’. You didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, you are so ‘right’ that it’s killing me to stop. But, honey, I can’t do this. Take you like this.”
His voice was husky with emotion. “The first time that I make love to you, Lexie, you are going to be stone cold sober. You’re going to be delirious, crazy with desire. You’re going to remember every goddamned thing that I do to you for the rest of your life. Do you understand, darlin’? Do you understand how much I want you?”
When she shook her head and didn’t answer, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her into the living room. Sinking down in the armchair in front of the fireplace, he held her on his lap. He felt her heart racing. It was only right, given that his threatened to hammer a hole in his chest and burst through.
He held her until she stopped panting, gasping for air. When her breathing settled to a more normal rate and he thought his legs were steady enough to hold him, he stood up and put her down in the big armchair. It dwarfed her slender body. She was shaking, trembling. He grabbed an afghan from the back of the sofa and wrapped it around her. No doubt the alcohol she’d drunk combined with his virtual attack was taking its toll. She looked fragile, vulnerable. He grimaced at the enormity of the mistake that he’d almost made.
Looking to the fireplace, he grasped for a distraction.
“How about a fire, darlin’? You look like you are freezing. But first I am going to put on some coffee and then I’ll make a quick fire. Okay, sugar?”
When he came back from starting the coffee, she was staring straight ahead and wouldn’t meet his gaze. His heart thumped. Damn, what he would give to pick her up and hold her in his arms. He resisted the impulse. He knew all it would take was one whiff of her intoxicating fragrance to undo all his good intentions.
He reached for the poker, scattering the ashes on the grate.
“I see you’ve already made a fire. Good for you. I like a fire at night, even in the middle of the desert.”
He frowned. Hoisting a charred scrap of lacy fabric on the end of the poker, he turned to her.
“What the hell is this?”
Her face paled, then she met his eyes and shrugged.
“It’s…it’s my underwear, Jake. I…I…burned it. All of it, after…after he…that man…”
“What? What the hell are you talking about?” He stared at her for a long moment then shuddered at the implication of her words.
She stammered. “He…he touched them, Jake, I couldn’t bear to wear them, put them next to my skin.” She hesitated, then continued. “He…he laid them out in piles, in color coded piles. All the bras together, panties sorted from the thongs. Very neat, methodical, and frightening.”
He stared at her for a long moment. As the reality crashed over him, Jake clenched his teeth, biting back the words he wanted to shout, fighting to stay silent. She was too pale, too vulnerable. As carefully as he could, he spoke. Even he heard the silky danger in his voice.
“Lexie, why didn’t you tell me about this?”
She shrugged and looked away. After a moment of silence, she looked up at him and lifted her chin in the defiant gesture he’d come to know well.
“Because… because I knew you would be angry. Angry at me.” Her chin lifted higher. “And because you couldn’t do anything about it.”
He cleared his throat in an effort to remain calm. He moved toward her.
“Did it occur to you that we could have sent your underwear to the lab for analysis? For his fucking DNA? Or perhaps scanned the database for perpetrators who get off on crimes like this? Or, Lexie, do any number of things that investigators do when the victim is truthful with them?”
When she didn’t answer, just looked away, he struggled to contain his fury. As upset as he was with her, he knew the object of his rage was the man who did this, who had violated her. And, he thought with a gut clenching tremor, the man who knew who she was.
He walked over and stood in front of her. He forced himself to be calm. Being angry with her wouldn’t solve anything. Christ, she looked like a wounded deer. Taking a deep breath, he said, “Okay, darlin’, let’s talk about this later. Right now I don’t think I can have a civil conversation with you. And, damn, Lexie, you’ve had a hell of a day.”
When she nodded and looked down, he said, “How about something to eat? Did
you eat anything today after we left my office?”
She shook her head no.
“Dammit, Lexie, you’ve got to eat. Christ, no wonder that booze hit you the way it did.” Trying to erase any judgment from his voice, he added, “I know that you don’t drink like that.”
She glanced up and said with a defiant shrug. “I don’t. I needed to get my courage up.”
He stared at her for a minute waiting to see if she would add to that cryptic note. When she didn’t, he said over his shoulder, as he headed to the kitchen, “Let’s see what I can find for us to eat.”
She was dozing in the chair when he returned with a tray full of food. He pulled the coffee table over in front of her and put the overflowing tray on the table. Without speaking, he cut a huge sandwich in two and placed half on a plate for her. He added a variety of fruit and a small cup of soup. He sunk down on the sofa and heaped the rest of the food on his plate.
When he nodded to her, motioning her to start, she murmured, “Umm. I’m not hungry, Jake.”
His voice was stern, crisp. “Well, be hungry.”
He dug into the sandwich, realizing that he also hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
After several minutes, she looked at his nearly empty plate in wonder. “How do you eat so much, Jake?”
He shrugged scowling at her barely touched plate. “How do you eat so little?”
When she didn’t respond, he raked his eyes over her body. “Yeah, I’m hungry.” Not hiding either the lust or the anger roiling him, he grumbled, “I have to admit, this isn’t what I hoped to feast on tonight.”
Lexie blushed. She hesitated then said softly, “It’s probably just as well, Jake, that you…that we stopped.”
Her cheeks flamed brighter. She gnawed on her bottom lip, a habit that never failed to get a physical reaction out of him. But, he thought with a silent guffaw, there wasn’t much that she did that didn’t make him wonder how the hell his zipper would hold out.
“Jake, you should know. I can’t, I don’t know how…I don’t think I can…”
He put his sandwich down and moved next to her. He reached over and put his finger against her lips.
