Kincaid’s Dangerous Game

where he would see them when he returned.

When he returns…

She tried not to think about how it would be. How he would look.

His body…

I wish he’d make this easier for me. He’s leaving it up to me to call the shots. I understand why, but I almost wish he’d take the lead. Funny…who would’ve thought he’d turn out to be so damned nice?

I don’t need him to be nice. I need him to kiss me again. I need him to hold me. I need him to not let me think…

She lifted the corner of the bedclothes and crawled between the sheets, shifting herself all the way to the other side of the bed to leave room for him. The sheet rasped across her goose-bumpy skin like sandpaper. She was shivering, and no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t make herself stop.

Holt left the bathroom and crossed the hall, his shaving kit in his hands and images of Billie in his mind. Not voluptuous, fantasy images-he didn’t have enough intimate knowledge of her body nor enough prurient imagination to provide material for those-but flashback images of her face in all its different moods, constantly changing, like a kaleidoscope. He didn’t try to stop them. It was better than thinking.

He hadn’t any expectations of what he’d see when he walked back into her bedroom, but even so, the scene that met his eyes jolted him in ways he couldn’t explain. He wished there had been a camera in his mind, some way of freezing that moment in his memory. Not a scene that could be considered sexy or erotic, not in the usual sense: Her face-just her face, her body a surprisingly small disturbance beneath the covers-nestled in a pile of pillows, its features indistinct, its outline blurred in the soft lamplight though the colors were pure and vivid, like a watercolor painting on silk. But for a moment he felt a weakening in his knees and that odd dropping sensation in his chest, and the need to remind himself all over again what he was doing here.

She needs you, Kincaid-that’s all this is. Be good to her…handle with care…and when the time comes, let her go.

She raised herself on one elbow and watched him walk toward her, wearing all his clothes and carrying what appeared to be a small toiletries kit in his hands. She searched his face for a hint of a smile. Instead, his eyes seemed to burn her, and she wondered how blue eyes could do that.

“I left the light on for you,” she said in a rasping voice. “You can turn it off, if you want to.”

He placed the kit on the table beside the lamp and looked down at her. “Would you like it off?” he asked as he began to unbutton his sleeve cuffs.

She shrugged, and he reached for the lamp. “No-wait,” she said breathlessly, “leave it on.”

Why was this so hard? Why did it feel so awkward?

Because you never asked a man to share your bed before. Always before, sex was something that just sort of happened, or it was his idea and you went along with it. It was fun and games. Or two warm bodies obeying a biological urge. Whatever.

So…why does this feel like something more?

Because you’re using him, maybe? Because you have a conscience after all?

But if she did, it was playing hide-and-seek with her, ducking out of sight again as she watched his fingers work their way down the front of his shirt, then pull the two halves apart and at the same time free of the waistband of his pants. It shouldn’t have been a big thing to her, this first glimpse of his body, so the little hitch in her breathing caught her by surprise. She searched his face for some sign that he’d noticed, but his intent expression, the slight, compassionate frown, didn’t waver. She caught her lower lip between her teeth and watched him fold his shirt in half and lay it on the floor beside the night table, then take his gun out of its holster, check it briefly, then lay it carefully on top of the shirt.

His body pleased her; with not much fat to hide the pull and tug of tendons and ligaments, she could see the way muscle moved beneath pale skin in sculpted patterns. She liked that he wasn’t tan-which she thought showed a lack of vanity-and that the hair on his chest was beginning to gray a little, to match the silver at his temples.

“Are you always so neat and tidy?” she asked in a voice that felt unreliable, and was surprised when he smiled.

“No,” he said, as he unzipped his pants, “but I do try to be a well-behaved houseguest.”

She let go a small gust of nervous laughter. “Houseguest. Is that what you are?”

He didn’t answer, but reached instead to turn out the lamp.

The bed jolted as he sat on the edge of it, and wobbled with his movements as he divested himself of the rest of his clothes, shoes and socks. She felt the cold caress of wind when he lifted the covers and slipped easily between them. She waited for him to reach for her, to come to her, and she thought resentfully, Do I have to ask him to hold me? She couldn’t seem to stop shivering.

“Billie,” his voice came out of the new darkness, “are you cold?”

“No,” she said, furious. Just hold me, dammit.

He gave a little growling sigh and put out his arm and she scooted over into its curve. He drew her close to him and she nestled against his body, but didn’t relax. He could feel her shivering, and her body’s shape felt warm and silky but unyielding, like a sun-warmed sculpture in polished marble.

He’d never thought of himself as a sensitive person, but uppermost in his consciousness was the thought: I want to do this right. For her.

He didn’t want to think about what that meant.

Though it was dark already, he closed his eyes. And though he’d never seen her body, he began to see it now with his hands…his fingers.

She was small-he’d known that. But beneath skin as soft and fragile as something newly born her muscles were firm, her bones strong. Woman-strong. His mind’s eye followed his hand along the graceful, sweeping curve of her spine, down into the valley, then up the gentle rise…and the roundness of her bottom seemed custom-made to fit his hand. Moving slowly on, even the jut of her pelvic bone seemed soft to him beneath the velvet drape of her skin, and her belly, covered in that same velvet, quivered when he stroked it like the hide of a restless tiger. He rested his hand in the hollow below her rib cage and let his fingers play for a moment along the undulations of muscle and bone while she sucked in her stomach and her breathing hung suspended. Then, slowly, he raised his hand along her ribs to cover one small, round breast.

Small, yes…but it filled his hand to perfection. He heard her breath sigh between her lips, and realized only then that she’d turned her face into the hollow of his neck. The warmth of her sigh poured over his skin like liquid sunlight. Her legs were shifting, too, one knee drawing up to rest on his thigh.

“You’re not shivering anymore,” he whispered, stirring the feathers of her hair. She didn’t reply. He counted the thumps of her heartbeat against his arm, then added, “It’s okay if you just want to go to sleep. You’ve had a long day. You don’t need to feel-”

“Hush up, Harry,” she said. “Just kiss me.”

After that it was easy. What was it about kissing this man, she wondered, that blew every conscious thought out of her head? When he kissed her a warm darkness seemed to settle over her, the darkness of a sultry summer night, and the air felt like melted butter on her skin. She heard only the hum of her own life forces, and maybe his, too, and the song they made filled her head and her whole being, as compelling, as hypnotic as the throbbing rhythm of drums. His mouth…his kiss…became her world, and she never wanted it to end.

But it did-it had to. And she gasped a breath, tangled her fingers in his hair and growled from the depths of her need, “Don’t…stop.”

“I won’t,” he whispered. His hands cradled her head; his thumbs stroked her cheekbones…her temples. His body became a blessed weight, an all-encompassing embrace. He whispered it again, into her mouth. “I won’t… stop…”

Holt came awake with two realizations clear in his mind. One, he’d slept well and without dreams, at least none he recalled. And two, Billie was very close by. For a few moments then, he kept his eyes closed and let his other senses flood him with evidence of her presence: Her breathing, an uneven cadence to it that told him she was awake; a fresh, sweet scent reminiscent of flower gardens with a hint of toothpaste that suggested she’d been up and perhaps showered; a humid warmth that was simply woman, and uniquely her.

He opened his eyes and discovered she was sitting cross-legged on the bed next to him, hands clasped, elbows resting on her knees, watching him. Her eyes were dark and unreadable in the thin early morning light. His first