He got slowly, deliberately to his feet, crossed the short distance between them, and reached down to clasp her wrists. He hauled her gently upward and then caught her face between his hands. Everything about him was intense and focused. Invisible energy—the energy of desire—swirled in the atmosphere around them.
'I'm damn sure that if you ever do introduce me to your family, they're going to have more than just a few questions,' he said. 'But they aren't here right now. You're the one who's here. All I care about is what you think of me.'
She reached up and put her arms around his neck. Maybe it was the aftereffects of the danger they had shared during the past few hours, or maybe it was because she had been fascinated by him from the moment they had met. Maybe it was simply her intuition. Whatever the reason, she did not even try to suppress the truth.
'Okay, Fontana, I'll tell you exactly what I think.' Her voice sounded low and sultry, even to her own ears. 'I think that you are everything I've been raised to expect in a good man. Honorable, centered, strong, and decent. And I think that I want you more than I have ever wanted any other man in my life.'
He captured her mouth with his own, heat, hunger and need fusing in a kiss that stole her very breath. He crushed her to him, and she held on for dear life, for the sheer, glorious thrill of a scaring intimacy unlike anything she had ever experienced.
Psychic energy flashed. She was aware of it with all of her senses, normal and paranormal. She knew that he was responding to it, too.
Slowly, reverently, he unfastened the black shirt she wore. It fell to her feet. His hands glided over her, learning the shape of her. He was very careful of her bruised arm. When he stroked her breasts, the rough, masculine skin of his palms excited her nipples.
She freed her mouth to kiss his throat, inhaling his scent. He uttered a deep, hoarse groan. When she unbuttoned his shirt, her fingers trembled. It took forever to get the garment open, but finally she was able to spread her hands across his chest. Everything about him was hot and hard.
He removed her glasses and set them on top of one of the emergency kits. Then he sank to his knees in front of her and undid the fastening of her jeans. Shivers of anticipation flickered through her. She gripped his sleek, powerful shoulders to steady herself, hardly daring to believe that this was really happening.
He tugged the denim down to her ankles. She stepped out of the jeans. Now she was clad only in the delicate panties she had worn to bed, but she did not feel awkward. Instead, she felt like a goddess. He was making her feel this way.
When he kissed the sensitive skin of her belly, liquid heat pooled deep inside her. She knew she was already wet. She sucked in her breath when she felt his fingers slide between her thighs. A moment later she was trembling so hard she thought she might collapse.
He rose and kicked open the bedroll that she had been sitting on a few minutes earlier. He sat down, cross- legged, and opened his trousers, freeing himself.
'Come here,' he said. 'I need you so much.'
He drew her down until she was straddling him, her knees cushioned on the fabric of the bedroll on either side of his thighs. He teased her with his hands, teased her and coaxed her and urged her until nothing else mattered but the exquisite tension building inside her.
This was what it was supposed to feel like, she thought, dazzled with the discovery. She had never realized how intoxicating sex could be.
'Yes,' she whispered, suddenly desperate. Her nails dug into his shoulders. 'Yes. Now.
'There's no rush.' He watched her with half-shut eyes. 'We've got all night.'
'I don't,' she said fiercely. 'I've never been this close.'
She reached down, took him into her hand, and tried to fit herself to him.
He sucked in a sharp breath. 'I get the message. But we need to do this slowly. You're so small and tight.'
He eased himself into her, stretching her, filling her impossibly full.
'It's not that I'm so small,' she whispered. 'It's that you're so big.'
He laughed a little, and then he groaned as she clenched around him. He made another sound: a man in the grip of torment or rapture. She could not tell. She was too busy concentrating on her own reaction to the deep invasion.
The hot, tight sensation was almost unbearable. She began to move, tentatively at first and then with increasing speed and confidence.
'I said slow,' he reminded her, smiling a little.
He flexed his fingers on her derriere, squeezing gently, controlling her headlong rush.
She bent her head and sank her teeth into his earlobe.
'Well, if you feel that strongly about it,' he said.
He moved his fingers into her cleft. She did not think she could tighten herself any more snugly around him, but she was wrong. Her body reacted to the intimate caress by ratcheting up the coiled tension within her, drawing all her inner muscles ever more taut.
'Yes,' he breathed. He let her feel his own teeth now, on her throat.
The sensual storm broke over her in an irresistible wave of unfurling energy. Helpless, she abandoned herself to the release.
He followed her over the edge, pulsing heavily into her, his breathing harsh in her ear. He gave a husky, exultant roar of satisfaction.
When it was over, he fell back, pulling her down across his chest.
'CLOSE ENOUGH?' FONTANA ASKED A LONG TIME LATER.
'Hmm?' She snuggled deeper into the bedroll they shared.
He levered himself up on one elbow. 'You said something about never having been that close. Just wanted to be sure you made it.'
She blushed and opened her eyes to find him looking down at her. There was a subtle difference about him, she thought. She tried to come up with the right descriptor. Pleased? Relaxed? Satisfied? Happy? There was a bit of all of those things in his hard face, but something else as well. She wondered if he felt what she was feeling, a sense of connection between them. It was more than just the great sex, she thought. There was a shimmering, psychic element to it. Her intuition told her that it could be the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to her. Or the most painful.
'Yes,' she said. 'Definitely close enough. Right on top of it, actually.'
He kissed her bare shoulder. 'Because I'll be happy to keep trying until I get it right.'
She giggled. 'It couldn't have been any more right; trust me.'
He kissed her, a long, indulgent kiss, savoring her.
After a moment he raised his head slightly.
'Feel something?' he asked.
Her heart leaped. He sensed the psychic link the sex had established between them. Joy sparkled through her.
'Yes,' she whispered.
'Me, too.' He looked toward the foot of the bedroll. 'Thought so. Elvis is back.'
So much for pillow talk with a Guild boss.
Elvis rumbled a cheery greeting. She was relieved to see that there was no evidence of the iridescent lizard or anything else that he might have dined on. She reached out to pet him.
From out of nowhere Jake's name flickered through her mind again, accompanied by a sense of urgency.
She looked at Fontana.
'That reminds me,' she said, 'while you were sleeping off the afterburn, I remembered something Jake Tanner told me when he gave Elvis the dressing room. I doubt if it means anything in light of Jake's drug issues, but it might be worth checking out when we get back to my apartment.'
