Mop suddenly clawed at her side. Duster stayed snoring, but Mop tended to worry that her mistress needed rescuing at odd times.
“Lie down, baby,” Fox said, in the same tone she used for the dog. Mop obeyed as if she immediately recognized it was okay, it was Fox, not a danger…although he was a danger, Phoebe knew. She’d opened her eyes at the pup’s interruption. Now she could see Fox’s expression. He stopped moving for that instant, stopped touching her, just took a long, long moment to just look at her.
The last she remembered, they’d both been sitting up, facing each other. Now they both seemed to be lying on the scratchy rug, face-to-face, both of them bare from the waist up. Her yoga pants were tied at the waist, but the ties had loosened and the waistband had dipped below her navel—not revealing anything but the swell of her hip—but he saw that promise of nakedness. He looked. He savored.
He desired.
And so did she. She passionately wanted to be the one who healed Fox. Who made him feel. Who Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
made himwant to feel again.
She pulled his hand to her breast, encouraged the palm to shape her, to own her. At the same time she pushed at the snap of his jeans, then chased down the zipper. She’d have lowered the zipper a ton slower if she’d known ahead that the wicked man wasn’t wearing underwear. His jack popped out of the box so fast it risked being clawed with the zipper teeth—but she quickly protected him by wrapping her palm around his long, smooth shift. The flesh was warm and sleek and pulsed violently inside the circle of her palm.
He hissed in a breath. “Don’t.”
“Hmm…is that one of those no’s that really mean yes?” she murmured.
“Don’t tease.”
“You know what, Fox? If there was ever a man who needed some teasing, I think it’s you.” As if to prove her point, his shaft released a single drop of warm, soft moisture. “Oh, yeah, you like this fine,” she whispered, and then suddenly froze.
In seconds she went from tropic heat to icy Popsicle. The trigger was hearing her own throaty chuckle, seeing his responsive lunge to pay her back with the same kind of explosive caresses. Only…she didn’t want to be a seducer. Didn’t want him thinking of her as an inhibited easy lover.
The conflict shot anxiety in her pulse with the speed of a bullet. She wanted him. She totally wanted to make love with him, to invoke wonderful and healing emotions with him, to share those feelings together.
Only, she didn’t want to…give in, surrender. She could. But she was afraid of feeling ashamed, the way Alan had made her feel ashamed. She knew Fox wasn’t Alan. Knew it wasn’t the same situation at all, but…
“What’s wrong?” Fox whispered between kisses, tracing the shell of her ear.
She couldn’t think when he was touching her. Not like that. Notreally think. “Fox. You want to make love?”
“You bet the bank I do. With you. Now. If you’re willing.”
“I am willing. In theory.”
“I’m happy with theory,” he assured her, as he forged another trail of kisses down her throat.
“But I just don’t want you to expect…”
Finally he lifted his head. “Is this that deal from last time? That you don’t like sex?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t like sex. I’m just not a very sexual person, so if you build up a whole bunch of expectations—especially since we barely know each other—”
“Phoebe. You know me better than anyone ever has—whether I want that to be true or not. I may not know you half as well. But how you’ve gotten through my defenses—my brick walls—tells me this is right. That something is totally right between us. Maybe crazy. But still right.” He hesitated. “I can’t promise you any kind of future.”
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
“I’m not asking for one.”
“It’s not you. It’s nothing I have against commitment. It’s…my life right now.”
“I’m not asking for a future,” she repeated.
He frowned suddenly, swiftly, as if he were determined to pursue a serious conversation on this. Only, it just wasn’t going to happen. Nothing less than a tornado was likely to dim the bright, fierce light in his eyes—the need—not at this moment. “So. You’re just not a sexual person,” he said in a soft patient tone, as if he were talking a climber down from a perilously tall cliff.
“I’mnot. ” At least, she was determined not to be. For him.
“Okay. I’ll tell you what. Anything I do that doesn’t ring your chimes, sing out. Will that work?” When she didn’t immediately answer—it didn’t seem as if he were really expecting an answer—he dove straight for the gold. From those kisses he’d branded on her throat, he worked down, between her cushioned breasts, down into the dip of her navel, then up for the plateau of her white, smooth tummy.
His hands chased down her yoga pants as his tongue and lips continued the same inexorably wicked path. She had no time to tighten up, prepare, brace herself to freeze. She just couldn’t make it happen.
The breath ached out of her lungs on a lonesome, hungry sigh. Her hands reached for him, needing to touch, to care, to share. To unite.
She tugged the rest of his jeans off as he stole her sanity and inflamed need inside her hotter than a devil fire. She desperately wanted Fox to think she was a good woman. A responsible woman whom he could respect, whom he could count on. He didn’t have to love her, but his regard, his respect, mattered more to her than she could even explain.…But this passion between them mattered, too.
She didn’t remember ever feeling a burning this hot before. Frustration clawed at her pulse, made her heartbeat go begging.
