Escape Out of Darkness (Maggie Bennett 1)

“Isn’t the bed a little small?”

“We’ll manage.”

So why was she standing there, frozen like a panicky virgin? Hadn’t she just stood staring at herself in the mirror, telling herself that the next time Mack made a halfhearted pass, she was going to take him up on it. So what was she doing cowering against the door and trying to find her way out?

“Uh, Pulaski …” she began nervously.

“I never thought I’d see you turn into a coward, Maggie.”

“I’m not a coward. I’m just not sure if this is a good idea.”

“It’s an excellent idea. What’re you frightened of, Maggie? That you’ll scare me off like you scared all the others? Or that you won’t?”

That moved her away from the door. “Go to hell, Pulaski. I don’t need your two-bit psychoanalysis tonight.”

“I know you don’t. You need love.”

That shut her up for a moment. When she’d gathered her wits back about her she laughed. “Isn’t that a euphemism? Aren’t you talking about sex?”

“No,” he said flatly, his voice low and sexy in the still night air. “I’m talking about love, and you know it as well as I do. Come here, Maggie.”

She could stand there, shivering in her wet jumpsuit, and keep arguing. She could order him from her room, and he’d go with that damnable, easygoing smile of his. Or she could reach up and begin to undo her top button.

The wet material made the button tricky to unfasten, and her hands were trembling. She managed the first one, her eyes looking into his shaded ones with a fearless gaze, then her fingers moved awkwardly to the next one. And then he was off the bed in one fluid movement, and unaccountably she remembered Snake’s serpentine grace. He was standing in front of her, his hands brushing hers out of the way, and he was warm and strong and so very close.

“I can take care of it, Maggie May,” he whispered, his fingers making quick work of the buttons that traveled down her chest, past her waist. When he pushed the jumpsuit off her shoulders and down to her waist, she just stood there naked, waiting.

“Oh, Maggie,” he said, his voice a caress, a raw breath of emotion, and his eyes glazed as he watched her. “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie,” he whispered, pulling her into his arms, her chilled flesh scorched by the heat of him. And suddenly she was shivering, trembling all over with heat and cold and light and darkness, with a wanting that she’d thought was gone forever from her life, and she slid her hands up his smooth chest to clutch at his shoulders, swaying against him with a quiet little moan of delight.

“This is a mistake,” she whispered, her mouth pressing lightly, curiously against the warm, smooth skin of his shoulder.

“This is the smartest thing we’ve done so far,” Mack murmured back. “You told me last night how sexually healthy you are. Why don’t you show me?”

His hands slid down her back to her hips, pulling her up against him, and the wet jumpsuit slid to the floor around her feet. It was an odd erotic sensation to feel her naked hips pressed against the heavy denim of his jeans, to feel his strong, rough hands on her smooth skin, molding her to him. Suddenly she felt gloriously, wickedly, wonderfully alive, and she raised her face to his, laughter and delight and wanting filling her aquamarine eyes. Her hands boldly slid down the taut length of him to press against the heat that surged against the zipper of his jeans.

And Mack’s hands left her hips to cup her face, holding it up to his as he stared down at her with wonder and longing and something distant and indefinable. “God, Maggie,” he whispered. “Why didn’t we do this days ago? Why didn’t we stop long enough in the cabin in Moab and get this settled?”

“Pulaski,” Maggie said. “Stop talking so damned much.” And she reached up and pressed her mouth against his.

She’d never known kissing to be such an overwhelming erotic adventure. If there was an Olympic event in kissing, Mack would have walked away with the gold medal. He did things with his tongue and teeth and lips that Maggie would never have even thought of, till she was gasping and burning in his arms, and her hands were tearing at his jeans.

The narrow bed sagged beneath their combined weight, the dip in the center throwing them together. Mack had dumped his jeans on the floor beside her wet jumpsuit, and Maggie spared a moment to consider how uncomfortable they were going to be when they got dressed in the morning. And that was the last rational thought she had for hours.

The small pool of light from the bedside lamp threw shadows around Mack’s face, making him appear dark and mysterious as he bent over her. But Maggie was beyond childish fears at that point. She arched her back

as his mouth traveled down her smooth skin, tasting, teasing, arousing, and soothing. Her nipples were painfully tight with longing, and when his mouth caught one and then the other, she moaned with desperation as her fingers twined in his long hair and pulled him down against her.

His hands stroked down the smooth skin of her stomach, across her hips, his rough calluses another sensation of delight. She arched her hips against his hand in mute supplication, and he laughed, low in his throat.

“For someone who put up such a fight,” he said, “you sure are in a hurry.” And his hand slid between her legs.

She reached out and touched him, stroking the hot, surging length of him, her fingers gentle, knowing, inspired. She could feel his reaction, the sudden trembling that vibrated through his body, the tension in his muscles that matched her own and told her they had waited long enough.

With the silent understanding that usually comes only with long-term lovers, he knew that she was ready. He was above her, shadowed against the darkened room, kneeling between her legs. He hesitated for a moment, and with a sudden, matching clarity she knew what he was thinking. He was wondering whether she still needed to be in control.

And without a word she reached out her arms to him, pulling him toward her, against her, into her, taking him on his terms in a sudden rush of love and gratitude and sensuality that threatened to split her apart.

If she expected the filling of that aching, empty part of her to assuage her longing, she was wrong. It drove her past wanting into a kind of madness of desire that he matched, surging against her, his body shaking as he tried to control the steady, powerful thrusts into her.