“You must know you don’t.” She’d been a virgin, for crying out loud. He had to realize she wanted him in a way she’d never wanted another man.
“All I know is you’re glad to have him around, but you tried to get me to go away.”
“It’s different with him; it always has been.” She’d never felt like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room when Hotwire walked into it.
Daniel, on the other hand, had the impact of a fully armed tank engaged in battle on every one of her senses.
“Apparently.”
“Daniel, until yesterday, I thought you didn’t like me,” she said with exasperation. “Hotwire’s been my friend since the first mission we had together.”
“I didn’t dislike you dam—darn it. I wanted you, and I thought you didn’t want me. My disposition suffered because of it, but I liked you—more than I wanted to.”
“I know that now.” Well, she’d known he wanted her, but she hadn’t realized he really liked her. It was a nice thing to know about a man she planned to take into her body as soon as this strange discussion was over. “But before, I thought you couldn’t stand the sight of me. You’ve got to see the difference between that and how it was with Hotwire. He didn’t…I mean, doesn’t threaten me.”
Daniel swelled with outrage. “I’ve never threatened you.”
“Not overtly, but the feelings I have for you threaten my peace of mind and my equilibrium. Thinking you didn’t like me made it almost unbearable to be around you. You should understand that. You basically felt the same way about me because you thought I didn’t want you. Our mutual discomfort just showed itself in different ways.”
As she said the words, she realized how true they were, and a lot of the insecurity she felt about Daniel and his reactions to her dissipated.
However, he didn’t reply, or get into the bed, or do anything to relieve the tension arcing between them.
She tossed around in her mind for something else to say, something that would decrease his insecurity like hers had just been. “Will it help if I promise to hug you every time I see you after an absence, too?”
“I’m your lover. Hotwire is only your friend. I want more than a hug.”
“I’ll kiss you, too, okay?”
“It’s going to be distracting, but okay.”
Were men always this illogical about relationships? “If you don’t want to be distracted, all you have to do is say so,” she replied, aggravated.
“I didn’t say that.” Then he short-circuited her ability to respond by peeling off his shirt and unbuttoning his pants. “I like being distracted by you.”
“I’m glad.” She was also glad they were done with a conversation she found nonsensical at best and totally incomprehensible at worst.
He unzipped his pants, revealing a bulge that showed their talking hadn’t inhibited his sex drive at all. His almost black eyes spoke messages her inner woman could not misinterpret or ignore. “I’m sorry we couldn’t stay at the hotel longer.”
Her thighs clenched, and she let her gaze slide from him to her once unadorned bedroom. “I don’t know. The ambiance in here is pretty nice.”
He’d brought the flowers from the hotel back with them. At some point that day, he’d taken the time to put all of them but a bouquet he left on the dining room table in her bedroom. The roses had transformed her bare sleeping quarters into a secret garden. “Thank you for bringing the flowers.”
He shrugged. “It seemed a shame to waste them.”
“Yes.” But she would have been too self-conscious to ask to keep them. Sentimentality had little place in the life of a soldier, and old habits were hard to break.
Daniel pushed his pants down his hips, along with his jockey shorts, and her thought process scrambled again. Smooth, dark skin over well-honed muscles made her breath catch in her throat, but even his magnificent physique was overshadowed by the sheer presence and male beauty of the hard flesh jutting out from his body.
“You’re gorgeous.”
“That’s my line.”
Her eyes reluctantly traveled up his body to his face at the humor in his voice. Despite the smile lingering at the edges of his lips, his look seared her.
She opened her mouth to speak, and nothing came out. She swallowed and tried again. “It’s not a line.”
“No. It’s not.” He stood, proud and unembarrassed by his nakedness. “Invite me into your bed, Josette.”
“I thought I did that earlier,” she said, her voice hoarse with the effect his nakedness was having on her.
He didn’t reply, but stood there waiting in silence.
Apparently he wanted something more than tacit agreement, or a statement of intent. “Is an invitation so important?”
“Yes. This is your bed. Accepting my presence is not the same as welcoming it.”
She wanted to know why the distinction was so important to him, but was not prepared to have another drawn-out discussion. She would ask him later.
Flipping back the covers, she revealed the almost there, sheer pink panties and short stretchy tank top she’d put on for bed. She didn’t own sexy nightwear, other than the gown he had given her, but had started buying more feminine underwear some time ago…right about the time she met Daniel.
His dark brown gaze showed no disappointment in her lack of a proper negligee.
“Come to my bed, Daniel. I want you.”
His nostrils flared, his jaw locking into granitelike firmness, and he came over her in a silent rush that left her tumbled back against the pillows.
“Do you want to feed your obsession some more?” she asked breathlessly.
He shook his head as though her words bothered him. “I want to make love with a very sexy woman, with my woman.”
She cupped his face and drew his head down until their lips were almost touching. “Make love with me, Daniel. Make me feel like a sexy woman, like your woman.”
He made her feel like living fire. Taking what little clothes she wore off of her with a lot more urgency than he had shed his, his mouth devoured what his hands had uncovered, sending flames licking through her feminine core. As she arched under his lips and exploring hands, desire to consume him with the same blazing inferno inside her pierced her being.
She wanted him to feel everything she was experiencing, everything! The fundamental desire to be with a man created to be the other half of her. The agonizing emotion she had never expected to experience. The clawing need for completion that came from the sharing of spirit as well as flesh.
She needed him to feel it all.
Flipping out from under him, she pushed him onto his back, and he let her, his eyes black with need she would never again mistake for anger. She straddled him, shuddering when her labia kissed his erection. It was so profoundly intimate, she wanted to engrave the sensation on her mind for all of eternity.
His big body went rigid, and she smiled, loving this evidence of her effect on him. Licking her lips in needy anticipation, she gave in to the uncontrollable desire to lift her pelvis slightly, only to come back down and kiss his hard sex again with her highly lubricated flesh.
“Don’t do that,” he said harshly.
“What? This…” And she moved her pelvis once more.
He groaned and arched up to meet her hungry femininity. “Don’t lick your lips.”
Didn’t he know that after saying that, she had no choice but to do it again?
“Why not?” she asked before slowly running her tongue along first her upper and then lower lip.
He watched her as if his gaze were welded to her mouth. “It makes me crazy.”
She rocked so her swelling flesh caressed the entire length of his velvety hardness. “I like making you crazy.” Then she bent forward and kissed him all over his smooth, rock-hard chest, nipping him below one nipple with her teeth.
