“No way. You didn’t just—”
“Grope you?” You could call it that.
“Smirk.” She pushed away and sat upright, dragging the sheet with her to shield her body. That sheet was a waste of time; he knew what was under it now. “You smirked at me.”
“I did?” He couldn’t school his thoughts around her anymore. Was she angry? He was desperate not to have ruined this.
“You have no idea what a sucker I am for a smirk.”
But she must’ve had plenty of ideas what would happen if she pushed him down flat and sat across his hips. He gave her that lecherous half smile again and she groaned.
“You used to do that when you didn’t think I was looking.” She licked her lips. “I was always looking.”
He laughed. He’d played it so straight with her and she was the cheat. “What does a smirk get me?”
“The smirk is like a hot button, an emergency exit. It gets you one very sexually twitchy me. Guaranteed prime rib, ready to heat and devour.”
He reached for her but she scrambled away with the sheet. “No, no, no. I can’t possibly be that easy.”
“I won’t hold it against you.”
“That’s exactly what you’ll do, against,” she shivered, “inside. See where a simple smirk can have me.”
“I’m not getting its power. You’re halfway across the bed.”
“You’re not the only one who practices self-denial.”
They both moved. He sat and Foley backed further away, getting to her feet. She pushed hair out of her eyes. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean…”
She thought she’d pushed too far. “I’m not angry. I just don’t want you so far away.” He was denying himself nothing today. Anything she wanted she’d get from him.
She sighed. She was tousled and smelled of sex and warm bed and she thought she’d blown it. “We do have to talk.”
He patted the bed. “So come back here and we’ll talk and then I’ll smirk some more and test your guarantee out.”
He got another sigh, but this one was framed by a gentle smile. “Give me five minutes.” She let the sheet go and didn’t bother with the robe. He groaned aloud as he watched her head for the bathroom; that same easy, athletic sexiness she had clothed was magnified a thousand times naked.
He lay back and slung his arm over his eyes, all the better to hold onto that image, that seductive part pout, part grin she threw him over her bare shoulder.
She took more than five minutes and he heard the shower run, but she came back with memory lapse. She came back a jungle cat, nothing sleepy, all predator. She stalked him. She staked him out. She smelled of soap and toothpaste and her skin was clammy, damp, like juice on a peach. And she was full of instructions but none of them too hard to follow, none of them questions. All that made him purr, low in his throat, as she took him in hand, as she drove any notion of an expression that wasn’t sheer awe out of his repertoire.
She pulled at his hair, not gentle. “I know what you look like with a proper haircut.” She stroked a hand across his chest, nails raking. “I know what you look like in clothes that fit, in a suit that was made for you. Fucking hell, you’re incredible. I don’t need any of that, the clothes, the cars, the yachts. But I need this.”
He finally got her mouth, got her undivided attention and she worked on short-circuiting him all over again, but nothing could be better than going there with her. He hauled her up his body and they fit together again; no barriers, no fear, only muscle-wracking goodness, nerve endings shocked to blinding point and the ultimate spin-out, locked together mouth on mouth, breathe to breathe.
She gave him approximately the length of time it takes to swipe a screen on a hand held device to recover and she talked.
“How real are the death threats?” She sprawled across his chest, a hand playing in his hair. That had to have been something that worried her. He should’ve dealt with that earlier.
“Not serious. You don’t need to worry.”
“How can I not worry? Getting a death threat is not a normal thing. Though Roger got one once, under the windscreen of his car. A resident unhappy with a decision to change traffic flow near his house.”
“What happened?”
“The resident blamed his teenage son for authoring it. We’ll never know the truth, but Roger never felt genuinely threatened, but he did change where he parked his car.” She gave his chest a flick. “Quit deflecting.”
“Not serious. They were investigated.”