Smiling sadly, she gave her head a small shake. “You and Clark… you’re two different people, Key. Equally attractive, both charismatic, each of you a natural leader, but so very different. I loved your brother, and I believe he loved me.” She reduced her voice to a whisper. “But it was never like tonight.” She rolled away from him and returned her cheek to her hands. He had thought she was finished, but she repeated, “Never.”
He’d lain there for a while, steeped in jealousy, wanting desperately to believe her. Soon, however, desire superseded envy. Or maybe it wasn’t so much desire as jealous possessiveness.
Moving suddenly, he placed his arm around her and roughly pulled her closer until her bottom was firmly pressed against his belly. He entered her with one hard thrust. He took a love bite from the back of her neck and held it between his teeth, feeling the need to dominate and control.
There was no need for it. She was receptive and giving and so erotically charged that he had only to press his open palm against her mound and the inner walls of her body contracted around his cock like a magic fist, massaging him, milking him of semen and of doubts.
It took a while for their breathing to return to normal. Their bodies glistened with a fine sheen of sweat. When he finally withdrew from her, she turned to face him and nuzzled his chest with her open mouth.
She said, “Shameless.”
“I’ve never claimed to be otherwise.”
“Not you. Me.”
He’d fallen asleep with her in his arms, secure in the knowledge that their lovemaking had gone beyond mutual satisfaction. It had been in another league.
But now it was day, and his doubts were encroaching like the tropical humidity that accompanied the rising sun. He thought back to all that she’d said, to all her sensual responses, to her bold caresses. Surely it couldn’t have been any better for her with his brother.
Had she ever ridden Clark until she collapsed, exhausted, on his chest?
Key’s fists clenched at his sides.
Had she blissfully tortured Clark to climax with her sliding, kneading hand?
He cursed obscenely.
Had she permitted Clark to kiss her between her thighs, to separate and taste…
A bloodcurdling scream brought him bolt upright.
By the time the second one shattered the morning stillness, he had put on his pants and was at the door, all but pulling it from
its hinges in his haste to get it open.
“Buenos días,” Lara said to the guards as she left Key’s room. Undaunted by their leers, she crossed the hall and entered her room, carefully locking the door behind her.
Their boots had tracked mud onto the carpet, and, as Key had pointed out, they’d ravaged the bed. He’d joked, telling her that regardless of what she might have heard about Texans, that was the first time he’d ever made love with his boots on.
Made love? Had he used those exact words, or was her memory being kind?
She shrugged off the disturbing thought, having had enough self-analysis for one twenty-four-hour period. The conclusions she’d reached last night had been positive. The rest of her life had begun when she fell into Key’s embrace. The experience had been cathartic. Why try attaching a name to it? Her mood and her body spoke for themselves. She felt wonderful. For once, why not let it go at that?
Taking her duffel with her, she went into the bathroom. When she saw her reflection in the mirror over the basin, she laughed with self-deprecation. She had on no makeup, and, though her hair was clean, it had been washed with bar soap and looked it.
He hadn’t seemed to notice. Or care.
A blush spread up from her chest to her neck and face. Unbuttoning the first few buttons of her blouse, she glanced down at her breasts and, as expected, saw that they were whisker-burned. Before they slept together again, she’d insist that he shave.
If they slept together again.
To her chagrin, she found herself hoping desperately that they would. Soon.
Smiling with anticipation, she pulled back the shower curtain and reached for the water taps.
Her scream reverberated off the flamingo-pink tiles.
Lying in the bathtub, beaten and bleeding but very much alive, was Randall Porter.