Prey

Angie snorted. It wasn’t the most elegant sound but it expressed exactly how she felt. Goaded, she said, “Yeah, right. For a man, maybe.”

His head snapped back a little. He lowered the cup, his eyebrows peaking in surprise as he studied her. “You don’t like sex?”

“I didn’t say that. It’s okay.”

Shit! Why had she said that? She knew better. She might as well have waved a red flag in front of a bull, and as soon as the words were out of her mouth she wished like hell she could have taken them back. Men seemed to take it as a personal affront if a woman didn’t think sex was the greatest thing since sliced bread, then of course they wanted to show her how wrong she was, that-

He set the coffee down with a thunk that made the contents slosh dangerously close to the rim. “If it’s just ‘okay,’ then obviously you haven’t been with anyone who knew his ass from a hole in the ground.”

And… bingo! It took a great effort, but Angie didn’t roll her eyes. Not completely, anyway. She did cast them upward, as if asking for divine aid. Her common sense began shouting at her to just let it drop, to change the subject or even fake choking to death, but sex had been a source of dissatisfaction for her from the beginning, and she was tired of faking anything, even choking.

“Look,” she said impatiently, “it feels okay, but I don’t see what the great song and dance is about it. A man gets his rocks off doing it. A woman gets her rocks off by hand-or mouth, if the guy’s feeling generous. I prefer to cut out the middleman, so to speak. No fuss, no muss. It’s a lot less effort, and the payoff is guaranteed.”

He looked like a thundercloud, all dark intent rolling toward her as he leaned down so close their noses were almost bumping, just as he’d done during their argument in the parking lot. “I repeat: You haven’t been with anyone who knows what he’s doing.”

She suspected a lot of people would have found him intimidating-she once had, but not now. Too much water, literally, had gone under that bridge. She just lowered her own brows and met him glare for glare. Her common sense escalated from shouting to all but howling Abort! Abort! and still she couldn’t stop her mouth. “I suppose you think you have the magic dick that can make everything wonderful, right?”

“You bet your sweet ass,” he said flatly. “It isn’t rocket science. What you know about making coffee, I know about fucking.”

She fell over laughing. Literally. Howls of laughter burst from her throat and he grabbed her coffee cup, rescuing it as she toppled onto her side, clutching her middle. “You… you mean you get the total volume and d-divide-” It was so ridiculous she couldn’t continue.

Very deliberately he set both cups of coffee on the floor, then rolled over on top of her. She stopped laughing, the sound abruptly cut off when his heavy weight, all that heat and hardness, bore down on her. If she’d been immune to him, his action would have made her angry, but she wasn’t; she never had been. Neither was she afraid of him, at least not physically. She had no intention of trusting him with her emotions, but her body, her physical safety? Oh, yeah, without hesitation.

“Not quite that way,” he said in his rough, hoarse voice, the tone going so low she could almost feel the vibration against her skin. His gaze roamed over her face, settled on her mouth. “Let’s make a deal.”

“This isn’t a game show. I don’t play around with sex.” She felt really strange having a conversation with him while he was on top of her, but though she rested her hands on his sides she didn’t put any pressure on him, didn’t try to push him off. Considering everything she’d just said about sex, feeling him lying heavy and warm on top of her was a guilty pleasure, one she had no intention of letting him know she felt. What made her pleasure even more guilty was the fact that he had an erection. She wanted to spread her legs, let him nestle it against her, but wouldn’t that be using him the way she didn’t want him to use her? Or was it just part of sex, the taking and giving of pleasure? At the moment she was too distracted to decide.

“Good, because I’m not playing, either.” He settled more heavily onto her, moving his legs in a subtle, or maybe not so subtle, adjustment that widened her thighs just a little, letting his erection push further between her legs, nudging hard against her clitoris. “My deal is this: If I can make you come while we’re fucking, no hands or mouths allowed-though I gotta say, to me the important part is coming, not how you get there-then we have our fling for as long as you’re here. Who knows? In this economy, that could be months. I don’t know if my bank would okay a loan for the amount you’re asking.”

She drew her head back as far as she was able, which wasn’t very far considering she was lying on her back, and stared at him in disbelief. “You’re using the economy and a bank loan to try to talk me into having sex with you?” She was actually talking, carrying on a conversation, and she had no idea how because almost all of her attention was focused on the pressure he was putting between her legs. Her heart was literally pounding away; he had to feel it against him, because her rib cage was rattling from the force of the beats.

“You’ve ignored or rejected everything else.”

“Dare, we’ve had one kiss! One! What gives you the idea that I’m anywhere near taking a risk like that, even if I were the risk-taking type, which I’m not?”

“That one kiss,” he replied, and kissed her again, but this time the kiss was light and soft, cajoling instead of demanding, tender instead of intense. Angie tried to hold herself distant from it, to not respond-for about two whole seconds. Then the utter sweetness of the kiss, the temptation of it, completely swamped her willpower.

She felt the same way she did when she really, really wanted chocolate ice cream but told herself no, then opened the freezer door and there it was, right in front of her, and she grabbed the carton out and in three seconds flat was eating the ice cream as if it were a gazelle and she a starving lioness. Like that. She wanted him like that. The fierceness of the way she felt took her by surprise, because she’d never really lusted after anyone before. She’d had teenage crushes, and she’d thought, would have sworn, that she’d loved Todd, but she’d never before felt this ache to touch and be touched.

Then he was releasing her and sitting up, and she stared at him in bewilderment, trying to get her pounding heart under control, trying not to reach her arms out for him. She literally ached between her legs, and deep inside, an ache that made all her inner muscles clench, made her nipples feel pinched.

“I’m not going to push,” he said. “Not too hard, anyway. You can trust me in that, at least.”

“Of course I trust you,” she immediately replied, then felt troubled by her own answer, not only because it was the truth, but because he had so closely mirrored what she’d been thinking just a moment before.

“In some ways, yeah, but that isn’t what this is about, is it?”

He was far too astute for her comfort, but then she’d opened herself up to him more than she ever had to anyone else. She’d told him the most embarrassing stuff about herself, and anyone with half a brain could read between the lines to find all the things and places where she had the most doubt, where she was the least confident. “Do you want to know what I think this is about? I think it’s about you being horny, and nothing more complicated than that. You’re horny, and I’m conveniently here-for now. Regardless of anything else, I’m leaving in the not-too-distant future. We don’t have a future, and I’m not interested in temporary.”

“You don’t have to leave,” he snapped back.

“To make a living, yeah, I do.”

“Ah, hell. I wasn’t going to throw this at you so soon, but-”

Suspicion made the bottom drop out of her stomach, and she sat bolt upright, her gaze narrowed. “Throw what at me?”

Clearly annoyed at her tone, he said, “Nothing horrible. Shit, you’d think I’d just suggested robbing a bank. It’s something for you to think about, is all.”

Still wary, she said, “Okay, let’s hear it.”

“Let’s get something to eat, first, and have another cup of coffee.”

He was stalling. The realization worried her, because Dare was about as blunt as a person could be and not get locked up. But it wasn’t as if they weren’t going to be there all day, with plenty of time to talk. While she wasn’t really hungry, another cup of coffee would be welcome.

His stockpile of food from the locker included instant oatmeal, breakfast cereal bars, trail mix, jerky, and the instant soup and stew mixes, as well as a few individually wrapped muffins. She chose cinnamon-flavored oatmeal, then brooded over the bowl while she ate, wondering what he had up his sleeve. He’d said she didn’t have to leave, but she had to make a living, and it wasn’t as if their little community in the back of beyond was seething with job opportunities.

“Before we talk, I want to get some clothes on,” she said when she was finished with her oatmeal. She cradled