He laid her down on one side of the double bed, and she woke up long enough to reach for him, her hands sliding along the front of his dress shirt as she tried to unfasten the buttons with clumsy, fumbling fingers.
Her blue eyes were glassy, her lips oh-so-tempting as she murmured in a seductively drowsy voice, 'Come 'ere… I want you.'
A pained smile touched his lips. 'I know you do, sweetheart. You've already made that very clear. Numerous times.' Knowing one of the effects of Rohypnol was a lack of inhibition, he grasped her slender wrists and gently pulled her hands away from his shirt. 'But first things first. Let's get you out of this dress.'
'Yeah,' she sighed as she looked up at him with a soft, come-hither look in her eyes. 'Let's get naked.'
Her head fell back against the pillow, and in the next instant she was asleep again, which would make his next task of stripping off her dress so much easier. Because of the one-shoulder design of her gown, the zipper was located beneath her arm and he pulled the tab all the way down to her hip. Slipping the material off her shoulder, he dragged the dress down her lithe body and off, leaving her scantily clad in a strapless bra, skimpy black lace panties, and a pair of black, sexy designer heels.
Those were the first to go. Then, keeping his gaze on her face, he unhooked her bra and added it to the gown he'd draped over the chair next to the bed. Thankfully, she remained unconscious, even when he pulled one of his T-shirts over her head, pushed her arms through the sleeves, then yanked the soft cotton material down to her thighs. Once she was sufficiently covered, he put her beneath the blankets, then took off his holster and stripped off his own formal attire.
Wearing just a pair of boxer briefs, he turned off the lights, slid into bed beside her, and pulled her close to his side with his fingers pressing gently against the pulse in her neck so he could monitor the beat of her heart.
He'd made the decision to bring her to the guest bedroom because it was less personal and intimate than crawling into her feminine bed, but as she snuggled up to him and her soft body curled so sweet and trusting against his, he realized that it didn't matter where the two of them slept tonight. His awareness of her was so acute, so undeniable, that they could have been in an igloo in the North Pole and his body still would have been as hot as a furnace.
Before that swift kick of lust could settle in his groin and keep him hard for the entire night, he rerouted his thoughts to something less arousing. Like the phone call Ben needed to make to Christine's father in the morning to let him know what had happened.
That definitely dissolved any last, lingering bit of desire. He didn't relish informing Nathan that someone had tried to drug his daughter at the gala, especially under his watch. He'd been hired specifically to protect Christine, yet someone had still been able to get to her in a way that he'd never anticipated. The results could have been far more tragic if he hadn't been around, but that notion did little to soothe his conscience.
Instead, it brought up haunting memories of his fiancee, Kim, and the brutal, unexpected way she, and most of her unit, had been murdered by a roadside bomb in Iraq-and how he'd been unable to keep her safe during a mission that had gone so horribly wrong.
Now, he lived with the guilt, the remorse, the vivid images of how he'd held her lifeless body in his arms and wished that it had been he who had died, instead of her.
A familiar lump formed in his throat and he squeezed his eyes shut to block the painful recollections. He'd failed to keep Kim safe, but he wasn't going to make that same mistake with Christine.
CHRISTINE cuddled closer to the hard, warm body next to hers. Still caught somewhere between sleep and sublime awareness, she grasped at the nebulous images and feelings floating through her mind, embracing the decadent sensations that could only be a wonderfully sensual dream. She breathed in the scent of earthy male, and her flattened palm skimmed over ridges of hot skin sprinkled with a trail of course hair that led to an elastic barrier.
Undeterred, and wanting to see where this delicious fantasy led, she boldly slipped her hand beneath the waistband. Finding what she sought, she smiled and released a little hum of approval as she wrapped her fingers around an impressive erection. She squeezed the hard shaft, then stroked the hot, silky length of flesh in a tight fist-from the thick base all the way up to a broad, swollen head, which seeped with a slick moisture.
A deep groan rumbled beneath her ear, which was pressed against a warm, solid chest, the sound so vivid and real she felt her stomach curl with an answering need. Her breasts swelled, her nipples tightened, and between her thighs she throbbed for release. She turned more fully toward the temptation beckoning to her, aching for a deeper contact, to feel all that pulsing flesh filling her full.
Instead, strong fingers pulled her hand away from the erection she still held in her grasp, and she moaned in protest. This was not how her fantasy was supposed to end.
'Christine, sweetheart, wake up.'
The deep, masculine voice and a gentle shake penetrated the fog that seemed to surround her. Forcing her eyes open, she blinked a few times, trying to clear not only her vision, but also the haze clouding her mind. It was as if she was dealing with a hangover, and after that one time in college when she'd woken up ill from a night of drinking too much alcohol at a sorority party, she'd never overindulged again.
Feeling confused and disoriented, she lifted her head and glanced down at the man lying half-naked beside her. Daylight streamed through the slats in the wooden blinds covering the windows, providing more than enough illumination to see Ben staring at her with dark eyes that were hot with the same desire burning through her. The stubble on his jaw told her that it was most likely morning, yet she had no idea where they were or what had happened.
'Ben,' she said, her voice raspy and just as bewildered as she felt.
A lazy smile curved his lips. 'Morning,' he murmured. He brushed away stray strands of hair that had fallen against her cheek as his gaze searched her face with concern. 'How are you doing?'
With a frown, she glanced around, recognizing the guest bedroom where Ben had been sleeping for the past week. She was wearing one of his T-shirts, and her hair was falling in a disheveled mess from where it had been pinned atop her head. She couldn't remember how she'd gotten here in his bed, and if they'd enjoyed any in- between-the-sheets kind of activity she had no recollection of that, either.
She supposed there was only one way to find out. 'Did we sleep together?'
'Sleep was all we did in this bed,' he said as he continued to watch her. 'Well, actually, you slept and I kept a close eye on you all night long.'
She sat up and pressed a hand to her cool forehead. 'I don't understand,' she whispered, trying to recall something,
He turned onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow. 'What, exactly, do you remember about last night?' he asked.
Last night… She struggled to grasp some kind of flashback to give her a clue, but all she could come up with was odd, disjointed images that didn't make a whole lot of sense and only made her more frustrated. She caught sight of her black beaded gown draped over the chair beside the bed, and that, thankfully, helped to jog her memory.
'We went to the charity event together,' she said, meeting Ben's gaze once again as events starting meshing into a cohesive thought. 'I remember the cocktail party, and our dinner, and meeting your friends. I even remember getting up on stage to make my presentation for the silent auction and being nervous about speaking in front of everyone…' And shortly thereafter that's when everything had gone fuzzy and vague and then completely nonexistent in her mind.
Those were the missing pieces of the puzzle she needed to fill in. 'What happened? Did I pass out?'
Ben shook his head. 'Not at first, no.' Then he went on to explain everything that had happened, along with his suspicions that she'd been drugged at some point-either at the dinner table, or her water at the podium.
She listened as he told her about Craig's part in last night's escapade and how he'd been quick to take her outside for some fresh air. While Ben's loathing toward Craig was a tangible thing, Ben had no proof that Craig was responsible for what had happened.
'Wow,' she said once Ben finished telling her everything, right up to the point where he'd taken off her dress and tucked her into bed-and spent the entire night watching over her, making sure she didn't have any kind of adverse reaction to whatever she'd been slipped.
'I can't believe all that happened,' she said with an incredulous shake of her head, then winced when a dull pain jabbed at her temples.
