Standing in the Shadows

this. But let me give you a tip for the future. Don't tell someone to have a nice day after giving them news like that. Trust me, it's the wrong thing to say.'

She slammed the phone down and whirled on him, naked and dripping and stupendously beautiful in her towering rage.

'That stupid cow,' she snarled. 'Have a nice day! As if!'

He backed away. 'Uh, Erin?'

She advanced on him. 'What could they possibly have complained about? I reorganized their database! I worked out all the bugs in their financial program! I rewrote every single document those idiots ever dictated and turned it into real English! I even got coffee for those bastards, and all for thirteen lousy dollars an hour!'

'I'm sure you did,' he said meekly.

'It's not in my nature to make people complain about me! Except for when I work too hard and make everybody else look bad, but I didn't do that this time, I was really, really careful not to, I swear!'

She had him backed up against the wall. He was fascinated by the wild energy blazing out of her. 'Of course you were,' he soothed.

'I never give anybody any trouble! Ever! It's like a sickness!'

'Only to me,' Connor said. 'You give me no end of trouble.'

She put her hands on her hips. 'You, Connor McCloud, are a special case.'

'I'll say,' he muttered. 'Just lucky, huh?'

She cocked her head to the side. Water trickled seductively over her tits. 'You do bring out elements of my personality that I didn't know I had,' she admitted. 'But I never showed those sides of my personality at Winger, Drexler & Lowe, and I certainly—'

'You damn well better not be showing them to anybody else.' The words surprised him as much as they did her. 'Nobody but me. Got it?'

She blinked. 'Connor. I, ah, wasn't talking about sex.'

'Well, I am,' he said. 'I just thought I'd take this opportunity to make that point crystal clear. Since we haven't discussed it yet.'

Erin glanced down, seeming to realize that she was naked and sopping wet. 'Uh, what exactly do you mean by that?' she asked warily.

He crossed his arms over his chest. 'What do you think I mean?' Her mouth tightened. 'Don't play games with me, Connor.'

'I'm not playing games. It's a valid question. I want to know how you interpret that remark.'

Her eyes slid away from his. 'Why does it always have to be me who goes out on the limb? It's not fair to —'

'Just answer me, goddammit.'

She studied his face for a moment. 'OK. Here goes,' she said carefully. 'I think maybe, ah, that this might be your bossy, oafish way of asking me if I'm interested in being exclusively involved with you.'

He felt his face go red.

'Did I get it right?' she demanded. 'Do I win the prize?'

'That's the gist of it. I would have phrased it differently.'

'Oh?' Her eyebrows climbed. 'And how would you phrase it?'

He thought about it. 'Never mind,' he muttered. 'Let's stick with the way you said it. It sounds better.'

'No, Connor. Your turn. Tell me exactly what you were thinking.'

What an idiot. He'd boxed himself into a trap. 'We already are exclusively involved, Erin. We have been since you decided to go to bed with me. It's a done deal. I know it, and you know it.'

Her eyes went very big and thoughtful. 'Hmm. So the key point here is that you're not asking me. You're telling me. Right?'

He shrugged. 'Guess so,' he mumbled.

'I see,' she murmured.

Her cool tone maddened him. 'I sure hope so,' he snapped.

She wrung her dripping hair out over the sink. 'If I have a problem with you, Connor, that's it,' she said. 'You don't ask me. You just tell me. But you know what? The world doesn't work like that. And more to the point, I don't work like that. I will not take orders from you.'

'Goddamn it, Erin—'

'If you would just stop trying so hard to control me, then maybe you'd discover that all that effort really isn't necessary.'

She shook her wet mane back over her shoulders. His proud, gorgeous, wet, naked, intergalactic princess. She turned to face him.

'You do not own me,' she said quietly.

He didn't remember deciding to move. He just found himself all over her, his hands moving over her damp, shivering skin. Pinning her against the wall. He cupped her face in his hands, opened his mouth, and the dangerous truth just fell right out of him, no holding it back.

'That's true. I don't own you. But I want you so bad. I've had a hard-on for you ever since you were jailbait. I want to know everything you do, every thought you mink. I want to have sex with you in every way possible. I'm obsessed with you, Erin Riggs, and I cannot stand the thought of you with another man. It makes me feel—'

… crazy

He swallowed the word back, his chest squeezing painfully. 'I just want you all for myself.' He closed his eyes. 'Please.'

Erin shivered, and dropped a soothing kiss on his bare shoulder. 'Try to calm down, Connor,' she murmured. 'You're so intense.'

'Oh, God, you have no idea.' He pressed his face against her wet hair and tried to keep his mouth shut. Anything he said could be used to incriminate him. He had never felt so desperate and out of control. At least not as an adult.

The silence was driving him nuts. 'How's that for going out on a limb?' His voice came out harsh and taunting in spite of his best efforts. 'Did I make myself vulnerable enough to suit you?'

Her mouth tightened. She lifted her chin. 'Don't mock me.'

Enough talk. He would be smarter to use his tongue for something more constructive than digging holes for himself to fall into. She was so fragrant and soft and naked. He pushed her against the wall and sank to his knees. She tried to push his face away, but the element of surprise worked in his favor.

He slid his hand up the creamy skin between her quivering thighs, and forced them apart. She was saying something to him, but once he had slid his tongue into that thatch of silky wet fur, once he'd sought out the enticing secret slit of her vulva, he was long beyond the reach of language. He savored the liquid rush of her pleasure against his mouth, dizzy with relief. At least he had this card to play, and he would make the most of it. He thrust his tongue deep into that hidden pool of delicious liquid bliss and suckled his way slowly, lovingly up her delicate folds, lapping and licking until he held her swollen clit between his teeth. He could wallow with his face between her beautiful thighs forever. In a state of perfect grace.

He shifted his hand and slid two of his fingers inside her, seeking the other hot spot he had found inside her clinging sheath. He pressed it while he fluttered his tongue across her clit, feeling, sensing, listening with his whole self, casting out that wide, soft net in his head that encompassed her every reaction, her every breath and shiver and moan, until he sensed how and where to give her what she needed. Just that extra, insistent push of sensual pressure, and ah. Yes.

Jesus, yes.

He held her up while it tore though her, a throbbing earthquake. He drank it all in, with his mouth and his tongue and his hands, loving every pulsing second of it. Her knees buckled. He gentry controlled her descent as she slid down against the paneling until her bottom hit the floor, his fingers still thrust deep. Eyes closed, face rosy pink, legs splayed wide, his hand still shoved deep inside her cunt.

She shivered, her eyes fluttering open. She looked down at his hand, up into his eyes. He covered her mouth with coaxing kisses. 'You still haven't given me an answer,' he said. 'About being exclusive.'

Her pink tongue flicked across her lips. She whimpered and squirmed as his fingers thrust inside her. 'Not fair,' she whispered.