Touching Cale was intoxicating. Exhilarating. It made me feel exactly like I had in the rain, in Devich’s downed plane—like Ineededhim. As if joining my body with his would make everything okay.
But that was ridiculous. What itwoulddo was make us both happy, even if just for a few precious minutes.
“This is just about sex,” I panted into his ear, unsure which of us I was trying to convince. “Nothing more.”
“Fucking right.” His hands gripped my hips and lifted. Then he drove me down onto him, in one long, smooth stroke.
I cried out in wordless pleasure, writhing against him. He was so hot, so incredibly hot and hard, and I wanted nothing more than to hold him in place. And maybe grind into him. But Cale had other ideas.
He lifted me again and brought me back down. Then he did it again. And again. Each time my body slammed into his, sparks of pleasure shot through me. Exquisite jolts of carnal bliss, chasing each other up my spine and down my limbs. Humming in my very center. Building with an intense pressure.
I moaned and opened my eyes to find him watching me, his perfect lips pressed together in concentration. He lifted me again, and I squeezed my thighs around his hips to guide my descent. My legs clenched around his waist. My good arm went around his neck. I leaned forward, into him, licking my way up his neck to his ear, then down his jaw to his chin. He tasted so good. So incredibly warm, and salty, and fresh. My tongue flicked out, the tip nestling in his chin dimple. It fit perfectly. Somehow, I’d known it would.
I kissed him again, and as he pumped into me, pleasure built in a thick, hot wave, threatening to wash over me completely.
His eyes closed, and he thrust harder, slamming me into the wall over and over again. My back hit the tiles. His chest brushed my nipples. I groaned and hugged him closer, my bad arm trapped between us. He stiffened, and his pace became frenzied. My pleasure mounted, and I rocked faster against him.
Ecstasy broke over me, rolled through me in surge after surge. I screamed, then bit my lip to keep from waking the other hotel guests. Murphy pumped frantically, pinning me to the wall with his body, almost abandoning rhythm altogether in the quest for satisfaction.
At last, we were still, my legs wrapped around him, his forehead resting against mine. He breathed slowly, but I felt the frantic pace of his heart beating against my chest.
“Lex…”
“Nope. Not yet.” I shook my head slowly, and his forehead rolled against mine. “Can’t talk yet.”
He chuckled, throbbing one last time deep inside me. I gasped as aftershocks rolled through me, and I felt myself clench around him. He lifted me almost reluctantly and set me on the floor of the tub, still leaning against the tile at my side. Water rained over us both from the faucet overhead, but it was only lukewarm now. We’d drained the cheap motel’s hot water heater.
My cheek rested against his chest, and his breath brushed my damp forehead. “So, you like pasta?”
I glanced up at him, ignoring the droplets that sprayed my face. “Are you asking me out? Now?”
“Yeah.” He brushed wet, dark blond hair back from his face, grinning down at me. “What do you say?”
Frowning, I stepped to the back of the tub, wringing my hair out with my left hand, my right arm still held tight to my side. “We already discussed this.”In a manner of speaking. “That was just about sex.”
“Yes.” He nodded, that cocky grin lighting not just his face, but the entire dingy bathroom. “That was about sex. Damn good sex. Butthisis about me asking you to spend some time with me once we’ve secured the safety of the known world. Quality time—doing something other than groping in the shower or beating the shit out of strangers. Dinner, maybe? Or that concert?”
I should have said no. I should have told him the truth—that with him around, visions of frolicking naked in the rain drove work-related thoughts right out of my head. I needed to be in complete control of my faculties just tosurvivemy day job, to say nothing of actually earning the money to keep myself in Twinkies and ammunition. I couldn’t afford to have Cale hanging around, throwing off my game.
But I didn’t say any of that. The memory of him inside me was too fresh for that much honesty. And anyway, there’d be plenty of time for the truth later, after we’d found the djinn and made Devich’s heirs very, very rich.
“If I say yes, will there be more of this?” I waved my hand back and forth between us to encompass the shower and what we’d just done.
Cale reached out for me. I let him pull me closer, and he smiled, planting a kiss on my nose. “All you can handle, of one variation or another.”
AllIcould handle? Evidently surviving a bullet wound hadn’t told him much about my stamina.
Water boy was in for one hell of a surprise…
TWENTY
Finally clean and dry from the dirtiest shower I’d ever taken, I lay on my good side on top of an ass-ugly green and yellow comforter on the bed I’d claimed for myself. Cale sat across the room at the cheap motel desk, working under the only lit lamp in the room. He’d turned the rest of them off so they wouldn’t keep me awake. Or maybe so I wouldn’t yell at him. Probably both.
I’d made him promise to wake me in two hours, because I couldn’t afford to sleep any longer than that, but neither could I afford to go without rest. Not if I wanted the hole in my arm to heal. The last thing I heard before I fell asleep was his soft, rhythmic breathing and the scratch of his pencil against paper as he took notes, or made calculations, or whatever he was doing in that same spiral notebook.
* * *
I woketo an unbearable itching in my right triceps—a sure sign that it was healing—and the sudden realization that the room around me was completely silent. And dark, but for the red glow of the alarm clock numbers, which told me I’d only slept for an hour and a half.
