It appalled Luther that he was turned on while she stood paralyzed by terror. Maybe it was seeing her quiescent for a change instead of defiant, maybe it was that for once she didn’t scald him with her acerbic disdain.
Whatever logic he applied, he shook with wanting her. Lust roughened his voice as he spoke. “Let’s get you out of these wet clothes and warmed up.”
For most women, what he was about to do would be unethical in the extreme, even illegal. But for Gaby, it was the only way he knew to help her.
Her shirt stuck to her skin as he wrestled it up and over her head. It hit the tiled foyer with a sodden plop. Luther looked at her, at her small breasts and her nipples drawn tight by cold, and knew he was a goner.
Using one of the towels, he squeezed excess water from her hair and then dried her torso. And because he couldn’t help himself, he kissed her again, on her soft, pale lips, her nose, her chin.
“I’ll have you warm soon, I promise.”
The waistband of her loose, worn jeans curled outward from her thin frame, exposing her narrow hip bones and a tantalizing navel within a concave belly. Around her waist, Luther saw the thin leather belt that held her lethal blade in a sheath concealed at the small of her back. The stark reminder of who Gaby was, and what she did, didn’t faze him. He knew her, and he accepted her.
Cautious, because Gaby could be unpredictable at the most unexpected times, Luther unfastened and removed the sheathed knife from her person. Her lips firmed and her brows pinched, proof that even while in a stupor, she didn’t like losing her knife.
Keeping his gaze on her, he placed the weapon on the hall table for safekeeping. “It’s okay. No one is here but us. The knife’s not going anywhere, I promise.”
The suffocating fear had such a stranglehold on Gaby that she offered no further challenge or protest. Now, at this particular moment, she looked small and feminine and vulnerable when normally those terms could never be applied to her.
The chilly room gave her a shiver, and Luther’s gaze again went to her exposed breasts. For only a few seconds, he covered each breast, cuddled her, gave her his warmth. Then he forced himself to keep his brain on task.
Yes, he planned to pay plenty of attention to those pert breasts, but not yet. First he wanted her more comfortable, and that meant removing the rest of her clothes—and his.
Going to one knee, he slipped off her sandals, thinking to himself that with the cooling weather, she’d need some different, warmer outfits.
When she’d moved in, she insisted on having her own room—not to be apart from him, but for privacy of other matters.
What those matters might be, Luther didn’t yet know. Gaby would tell him in her own good time.
To accomplish his plans of getting closer to her, he’d gladly given her the spare room. Refusing his help, she’d carried in a few small boxes and a larger trunk that held God only knew what. She’d stowed it all in the room. Maybe she had some warmer clothes in there.
After she came around, he’d ask her.
Her soaked-through jeans, even a size too large, proved tricky to get down her hips. But once Luther had them to her knees he discovered her lack of panties.
Damn. He’d forgotten her rush in dressing, and her general lack of modesty. Gaby gave no more notice to her body than she did her attire. She lacked any real grasp of her sexual appeal.
He was only a man, and he wanted her, had wanted her for a long time. Seeing her naked again, her fair skin teased with goose bumps, tested his control.
On his knees in front of her, Luther reached around her body to palm one firm cheek. He wanted to kiss her belly—and more—but Gaby made a small sound that jerked him back to reality.
Standing in a rush, he grabbed a towel and dried off the rest of her body, lingering on that sweet ass, and over her belly, between her thighs. By the time he wrapped the towel around her, he had enough heat to warm them both.
Naked except for the towel and choker, Gaby stood there before him and did nothing.
“Hang on, honey. Let me get rid of my clothes, too, and then we’ll get . . . comfortable.”
Saying it caused his dick to flex, to stiffen, but he couldn’t help that either. He’d made up his mind and it was the only way he knew to break the spell.
He stripped his clothes with swift urgency, putting his badge, gun and holster, cell phone, radio, and wallet on the table by her knife. Seeing the items side by side gave the differences in their lives a harsh reality.
He had everyday items used by most of society to stay in touch with others, to label him as a cop, and to defend. For Gaby, there was nothing to identify her, nothing to communicate with; she had a honed blade meant to kill, period.
Luther refused to ponder the contrasts.
Leaving the soppy pile of clothes in his entryway, he took Gaby’s arm and drew her to the couch with him. He drew her down onto his lap and covered them both with a soft throw.
Gaby was a tall woman, willowy in build, sleek with muscle. In comparison, he topped her by three inches in height and at least a hundred pounds. As he settled them both, her head fit under his chin, her hand rested over his heart. Holding her felt as right as anything he’d ever done in his life.
Luther stroked up and down her back, sometimes going over her hip, sometimes her waist. He kissed her shoulder, the side of her neck around the choker he’d bought her, the choker she never removed. Soon he forgot his own motives. He was a man on the make, pure and simple.
Little by little, Gaby relaxed. She even tipped her head to give him better access to her collarbone.
With a soft groan, Luther leaned her back and put his mouth over her breast, drawing on her nipple.
Her fingers knotted in his hair, thrilling him with the sign of life, of response—and of willingness.
The pulled drapes left the room dark, shadowed only by the flickering light of the television. Luther could still hear the raging wind and rain battering against the window, and he heard Gaby’s breathing as it deepened.
He lifted back up to take her mouth in a voracious kiss that consumed them both.
She gave a heavy shudder, then suddenly clutched at him, encouraging him without words.
“Gaby . . . ” He slid his hand along the inside of her thigh.
After a fractured moan, she scowled at him. “You’re doing something to me.”
“Yeah.” He nuzzled her face and smiled. Finally the fear had left her tone. She sounded accusatory, and angry. She sounded like the Gaby he adored. “I’m seducing you.”
Color flushed her cheeks and turned her mouth rosy. Blue eyes bright, tone once again commanding, she said, “Are you going to have sex with me?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
She opened her mouth to protest that, and Luther pressed one hand between her thighs and found her warmer, softer.
She went mute, and, slowly, her eyes sank shut.
“Just relax now, okay?”
Thunder clattered, and she stiffened. “Luther . . . ”
He was so horny he hurt. “I’m right here.” He stroked over her, opened her, and pressed one finger deep inside her.
The storm lingered overhead, jarring the house with flash and rumble; the television went off with a snap, leaving them in utter darkness and a silence broken only by the fury of Mother Nature.
Gaby barely noticed. After a small flinch, her hips lifted and she squirmed against his hand. “The things you do to me . . . ”
“I know.” He kissed his way from her throat to her mouth. “Kiss me.”
She did, without reservation. Though he’d kissed her many times now, he’d be her first, so she was far from experienced. But she showed as much gusto for sexual matters as she did for hunting wicked beings.
Her fevered enthusiasm soon had them both panting.
He’d gotten her off like this once before, in an open parking lot where her savage screams had echoed across the concrete. Now he had her alone.
Now he could finish this as he wanted.
