Where There's Smoke
Lara wanted him with the purest, most undiluted sexual desire she’d ever experienced. Yet she closed her eyes, shaking her head in denial. “I don’t want to be one of Key Tackett’s women.”
“Yes, you do. Tonight you do.”
He carried her to the bed and laid her down against the pillows. He must have known her mind better than she knew it herself, because she reached for him eagerly when he followed her down. His lips tasted salty with sweat and were slightly gritty, but she couldn’t get enough of them.
He pushed aside her blouse and the cups of her brassiere and moved his hand across her breasts, lightly grinding her nipples beneath his palm until they were stiff and so sensitive that his merest touch caused her back to arch above the bed.
She did nothing to stop him from unfastening her pants and pushing them down, along with her panties, until they were gathered around her ankles. He undid his trousers, but it was Lara’s hands that shoved them over his buttocks.
He entered her.
She received him.
He was incredibly firm. She was wet and snug. His head sprang up, and he looked down into her flushed face. She could feel the color in her cheeks, hear her own quick, soughing breath. His eyes locked with hers as he pushed deeper. She clamped her lower lip between her teeth to keep from crying out.
When he was fully seated inside her, he grimaced with pleasure. Then, with a moan, he pressed his forehead against hers. “Oh, Christ. A fantasy fuck.”
He began to move; she raised her hips to meet his smooth thrusts. Each one took her breath, but she couldn’t deny herself the overwhelming sensations they evoked.
He waited for her. When she climaxed, he sank all ten fingers into her hair and held her head between his hands, kissing her mouth as thoroughly and intimately as their coupling. Her orgasm was long and strong and more than he could endure. Allowing himself to come, he buried his face in her neck and drew
a patch of her skin against his teeth.
It was a long time before either of them moved.
They did move, eventually, from the bed and from her room into his. Their dirty clothes and muddy boots had made a mess of her bed. Defying the curiosity of their guards as they crossed the hall, Key led her into his room, a mirror image of hers except that the tiles in his bathroom were turquoise and the shower curtain was decorated with smiling seahorses.
They removed their clothing and stepped beneath a shower from which they coaxed only rusty, tepid water. Scanty bars of soap were wrapped in green cellophane. They used up three of them to wash the grime off each other.
The water cooled but they stayed beneath the spray, exploring. She examined the gash on his temple and told him that she could put a butterfly clamp on it.
He said, “Don’t bother. I’ll live.”
She examined his bruised ribs and told him that several were probably cracked.
He admitted that they hurt but wouldn’t consent to her binding them. “The night we met, you mummified me. Damn bandage nearly drove me crazy. I took it off the next day.”
She called him hardheaded as she combed her fingers through his chest hair. She cupped his weighty sex in her palms and sipped water from the delta-shaped hollow at the base of his larynx.
He covered the scar on her shoulder with tender kisses and called it beautiful when she demurred and tried to hide it. “Besides, it’s hardly a scratch compared to mine.”
With her finger, she followed the raised, red surgical scar that ran up his left leg from knee to groin. “What happened?”
He told her about the car wreck that had ruined his leg and all hopes for a career in the NFL. “Were you terribly disappointed? Is that what you wanted?”
“It’s what Jody wanted. We’d never been pals. But after the accident…” He shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about Jody.”
He touched her everywhere, giving and taking pleasure in equal portions. He was indulgent and sensual, more so than she would ever have believed. She thought that surely she was dreaming, although she had never dreamed this erotically about her husband. And never about Clark.
They finally left the bathroom and were foraging through their duffel bags for clean clothes when someone knocked on the door. “What do you want?” Key asked brusquely.
“Tengo la comida para ustedes.”
Cautiously he eased open the door. A soldier held a room service tray perched on his shoulder. “Gracias.” Key took the tray of food from him and, without giving him time to argue, slammed the door in his face and slid the chain back into the track.
He set the tray on the table. “I hope it’s better than the fare at Sánchez’s camp.”
“It could be poisoned.” Lara approached the table, pulling her hairbrush through her wet hair.