Behind Closed Doors

Chapter 13

Boyfriend. He was Raine Cameron's official boyfriend. He rolled the word around in his mouth, trying it out Sure, it was just a cover, but what a kick-ass cover it was. What better cover for a bodyguard than the role of jealous, possessive new boyfriend? No one would think twice about him hanging all over her. They'd take one look at Raine's gorgeous tits, her soft pink lips, her glowing eyes, and assume that he was madly in love with her. Who could blame him?

He felt giddy and wired as he padded barefoot through her house. He pulled the small bag of equipment out of the top shelf of the coat closet where he had stashed it, stopped and listened carefully for sounds of movement from upstairs. Nothing.

He opened up his kit, sorting through Colbit beacons of various sizes and ranges. One slid unobtrusively into an unused pocket of her wallet. Another screwed into her pen. He ripped open the seam of the lining of her purse with his penknife and slipped one into the hole. He took out the sewing kit in his case, sewed the hole deftly shut and stitched another one into the hem of her raincoat.

That was enough for now, along with the cell phone. He could get more creative and ambitious later on, when he had the time and the privacy. He winced as he caught sight of himself in the mirror in the foyer. He sure didn't look like an official boyfriend. Wild hair, beard shadow, bare chest. Smelling of sweat and sex. One of his ex-lovers had once told him that he would be really handsome if he could manage to be a little less scary looking. When he demanded to know what the hell she meant by that, she'd hedged and stammered, regretting the thoughtless statement. Finally she said she thought it was his eyes.

The relationship hadn't lasted much longer. In fact, now that he thought about it, that might have been the very last night He stared at his eyes in the mirror. They looked pretty much like they always did, if a little more bloodshot and shadowed man usual. Raise hadn't complained about them yet, thank God.

He padded into the kitchen and proceeded to build four massive sandwiches with the same methodical attention to detail that had made him such an excellent thief, spy and techno nerd.

Hot damn. Official boyfriend. He had never voluntarily sought the title from anyone in his life. He'd always been brutally honest with his lovers about his preference in keeping things light. He liked sex just fine, but he could rarely be bothered with the rest of it Jesse had teased him about that Teased him hard, like he thought it was a real problem, though they usually ended up laughing about it. Jesse had thought that Seth's difficulty with trust and bonding with women was because of his relationship with his mother, blah blah, snore, zzzzz. Jesse had been heavy into psychobabble for a while. College had that effect on some guys who had more brains than were good for them. Usually Seth had managed to tune him out.

He braced himself for the burning stab that came along with thinking about Jesse. It didn't happen. Or rather, the feeling was there, but different. More like a hand pressing down hard on his heart. A hot, hard ache. Almost... bearable.

He'd enjoyed a whole lot of women, some of them very thoroughly, but as soon as they invited him to Mom and Dads silver anniversary bash, or whatever, he was outta there. Which was doing them a favor, really, since it always went to hell anyway. Inevitably the day arrived when he opened his mouth, let whatever he was thinking come out of it, and kaboom. Screaming, tears, and scenes that ended with go to hell, you rude, insensitive bastard. Doors slamming, tires squealing, and him standing there with his dick in his hand, back to square one. Big bummer.

The hell of it was that he never quite knew what exactly had set them off. It was a mystery.

God, what an idiot. He was a wild animal, dreaming about being domesticated. He stood in front of the refrigerator door, mustard dripping off the knife and onto the floor. Stupefied by the realization that he would say anything, do anything to keep this woman close to him. He was even willing to meet her parents. He stared at the splotch of mustard on the floor tile, transfixed. He would even put on a big show for them. Lie about his background, clean up his language. He would suck their goddamn toes, if that was what it took.

He was losing it. This wasn't about a cover, and he didn't even need Jesse to tell him so. He was terrified of wrecking this thing. It was so tenuous, so fragile. And it was all that was holding him together.

He shook that alarming thought out of his head, and gathered up plastic spoons and napkins. He stopped. Montserrat had liked candles. Chances were there were still a few of them floating around. He'd seen her loading up her witchy candelabras all the time.

He found five crimson candles in a kitchen drawer, along with a box of matches. He shoved it all under his arm, loaded himself up and carried it all up to the bedroom. Raine had fallen asleep, one hand cradling her flushed cheek. Her plump, childlike cherry-red mouth was slightly open, lashes sweeping the bluish shadows under her eyes. She was so beautiful, and she looked so exhausted. The protective tenderness that rushed through him made the plate of sandwiches shake.

He laid it on the bedside table, sank to his knees and lit a candle. He dripped hot wax onto the plate and set the candles in it. He liked them. Like a little wine-red grove of trees. They smelled faintly of honey, just like she did. He stroked her hair with his fingertips, hating to wake her. “Hey” he said softly. “Sustenance.”

“What?” Her eyes fluttered open. She looked dazed.

“It's your new boyfriend,” he informed her. “Bearing dinner.”

She propped herself up on her elbows, saw the candles. Her smile of delight was so bright, it hurt. She was so easy to please. He had to look away for a second, blinking away a stinging dampness in his eyes.

She gasped when she saw the plate of towering sandwiches. “Good God. Who's going to eat all that?”

He grunted, amused at her innocence. “Don't worry about it. I'll polish off whatever you don't want.”

Not since Jesse had been too little to forage for himself had he prepared food for someone else. Breakfast stuff and sandwiches were pretty much the extent of his culinary repertoire, but Raine seemed to enjoy it They feasted, sitting cross-legged on her bed. She got around an entire sandwich, and watched, fascinated, as he devoured the other three. Then he got the bright idea of feeding little pieces of brownie to her by hand, but that backfired on him because it was a flaming turn-on to place crumbs of fudgy cake in her soft mouth, to feel her hot tongue greedily licking off the crumbs and glaze, to watch the pleasure blooming on her face.

“Sugar orgasm,” she moaned. “Give me another piece, quick.”

“Cheesecake or fudge?”

“I want to finish with the fudge, so make sure that's the last piece you give me.” She opened her mouth, accepting another mouthful. “Who would have thought that such a strange day would end so well?”

He tucked another gooey crumb between her lips, and his whole body tightened as she licked the chocolate off. “Are you referring to the sex, or to the brownies?” he asked.

Raine stretched and smiled in a way that made his cock swell up again, poking dangerously close to the opening of his unbuttoned jeans. “Why? Are you feeling insecure and competitive?”

He was foolishly delighted with himself for making her smile. “I would never ask you to choose one over the other,” he assured her. “I'll keep you well stocked with both.”

She trailed her fingertips over his torso. Her eyes dropped, widened. He looked down, realizing that he had exceeded the waistband limit. His flushed, swollen cock was poking its head out hopefully.

“Don't worry,” he said thickly. “I know you're tired. I won't bother you again. I just want to hold you while you sleep.”

She swirled her fingertip tenderly around the head of his cock, her eyes fascinated. “Bothering me? Is that what you call it?”

He stared down at her circling finger, fighting for self-control.

“Bother me again, Seth,” she whispered. “Just bother me sweetly and softly. Like you promised. OK?”

He was off that bed in an instant, scooping paper, cutlery, condiments, all to the carpet. Stripping his jeans off and sheathing himself in a condom, in flat-out record time.

She lifted the duvet, inviting him into the dark, fragrant warmth of her secret female self. It made him drunk, crazy-wild with lust and longing. Sweet and soft, he repeated to himself, thinking of his promise, the candles, the chocolate. Sweet, soft and romantic. That was what she wanted from him, and that was what she'd get The duvet floated on his back as he mounted her, as light and puffy as a cloud.

She was so silky-soft and warm and strong, cradling him. Her slender arms wrapped around his neck and her legs twined around his. Sweet and soft, he repeated to himself. Official boyfriend-type sex. Not power games, or moon-crazed animal, or Conan the flicking Conqueror, or any of the other assorted craziness that his perverse sexual imagination could churn up at a moment's notice. He wanted to hold her, as close as he could. He wanted to make her feel incredibly good.

He wanted to make her feel safe.

It was the hardest thing he had ever done, keeping it slow and soft. Her perfume went to his head like a drug, and the candlelight turned her hair to swirls of bronze highlighted with glinting flashes of gold. She was so gorgeous, he could have come just staring at her face. He had to close his eyes, grit his teeth to hang onto his self-control.

She was wet and soft from the last time, and damn lucky for him; he was so desperate, he could never have survived a bout of foreplay. She let out a low, shaky moan as he prodded and pushed himself inside her. Their eyes locked, speechless. He was humbled. Awestruck at the mystery of it. It had never occurred to him before how intimate that moment really was. How enormous the act of trust on her part.

He had never thought of sex in terms of trust. Only of pleasure, his duty to give it, his due in return. A simple and straightforward exchange. He had followed his instincts in pursuit of pleasure all his life, but now they were leading him down paths that he had never trod. Sex with Raine was like nothing he had ever known.

He started rocking inside her, and suddenly they were kissing as if the world were about to end and her arms were wrapped around his neck. His strokes got deeper, and soon she was taking all of him, slick and deep, her hips jerking up to meet his.

He pulled away from that mind-melting kiss, laughing.

“Cool it,” he protested. “You said sweet and soft, but if you go crazy on me, what the hell am I supposed to do?”

“Oh, shut up.” She pulled his head back down to hers.

Her hips heaved and bucked beneath him, and he used his weight to hold her hi place, letting her churn and struggle and strain against him. Creating something firm and strong for her to break herself against, like a wave crashing on a rock, an explosion of foaming ecstasy, and he was the rock. He held her back, not letting her rush, or panic. Coaxing her towards where she needed to go, not driving her. Letting her pleasure unfold, over and over, blooming sweeter and hotter every time. He made her come, over and over, sweet and slow and careful. The hot, clutching pulses of her orgasm milked him ever closer to his own, but not too close. Not yet. Not until she felt safe enough to let go completely, to launch herself and fly. Not until he had fashioned a net to catch her, as big and soft and beautiful as the whole sky.

Raine lay beneath him, limp and exhausted with pleasure before he finally let himself go. Pleasure rushed and pounded through him, so hard and furious that he lay there, clutching her and trembling for a small eternity before he even remembered who he was.

The last thought he had, after he got rid of the condom, was of how incredible it would be to make love to her without latex. Usually it didn't even cross his mind. He hadn't had unprotected sex since he was too young and dumb to know better, two-thirds of a lifetime ago. How amazing it would be to bathe his naked cock in her scalding heat, to explode inside her. To fill her with himself, his seed.

Seth refused to let himself examine that thought, electing instead to slide into real, deep sleep. For the first time in what felt like forever.

At first, it was the classic contradiction; the horror of surprise side by side with a terrible sense of inevitability. Her father, pointing. Herself, leaning to look. Blood oozing out of the marble, like the credits in old B-grade horror movies. She looked up, and it was not her father, it was Victor, smiling. He grabbed her braids and yanked on them hard, making tears spring into her eyes. “Toughen up, Katya. The world is not kind to crybabies” His voice boomed in her head, loud and metallic.

She was at the Stone Island dock, dressed in the green frog bathing suit. Her hair was braided tight for swimming, and her mother was wearing a yellow sundress, laughing. The big dark man with the mustache plucked her green frog glasses off her nose, and was holding them too high for her to reach. Taunting her, dangling and yanking. Dangling and yanking. The sunglasses were prescription, and without them everything was blurry. The mustached man was laughing like it was all so funny, but it wasn't at all. Tears of frustration gathered in her blurred eyes, no matter how she tried to blink them back, and Victor was sure to scold her again if he saw them.

Her father's sailboat was floating away from the dock. He was waving good-bye, and even with her blurred eyes she could see the bleak sadness in his eyes. It crushed her to see him so defeated. He gestured at the three laughing adults, getting smaller and smaller.

“Remember.” He was too far for her to have heard him, but the word reverberated in her head as if he had spoken it directly in her ear.

This was it, she knew it. She would never see him again. He was getting smaller, only his shadowy eyes could be seen, like the eyeholes of an aged skull. Panic exploded, and she was screaming after him, begging him to turn back, come back, she would save him, she would think of something, she would do anything if only he would please, please come back and not leave her all alone—

“Raine! Jesus, wake up! It's only a dream, baby. Wake up!”

She struggled wildly against the strong arms that were holding her. Then it all slipped into focus. Seth. Sex, chocolate, candle flames guttering in a pool of blood-red wax. The island. Another dream.

She collapsed against his warm chest and dissolved into tears, but they didn't last as long as usual. His fierce embrace radiated heat through her body, relaxing her. The tears subsided, and she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m sorry I woke you,” she said.

“Don't be an idiot,” he said. 'That was a hell of a nightmare.”

She nodded, resting her hot forehead against his chest.

“You want to tell me about it?” he prompted.

“No, thank you.”

He hugged her tighter. “It might help. So I've heard”

She shook her head He kissed the side of her face that wasn't pressed against him. “Suit yourself,” he said. “If at some point you change your mind, I'll still be interested.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

He pulled her back to him, fitting her into the crook of his shoulder. “Are you going to be able to sleep?”

“No,” she admitted. “Not for a while. Maybe not at all.”

“So this is a chronic thing.”

His matter-of-fact voice made the whole thing seem less dreadful. He flipped on the bedside lamp and studied her damp face, his eyes somber. “Can I help? Is there anybody whose ass I can kick for you?”

She snuggled deeper into his warmth, kissing the thick bulge of his bicep, and shook her head. “You can't save me from this problem, Seth,” she said quietly. “But I love you for wanting to.”

He stiffened beneath her, and she realized, with a twinge of alarm, that she had used the scary L-word. She'd heard that it made men panic, when used prematurely.

Stop clinging to an illusion of control, she reminded herself wryly. He wasn't running or screaming. That was promising.

“So,” he said, his voice elaborately casual. “What happens now?” She kissed his chest. “Now you sleep, and I stare at the ceiling.”

“No. I mean, with us.”

She propped herself up on her elbow and smiled at him, threading her fingers through the hair on his chest “You can start by promising to never leap out of the dark and scare me, ever again.”

“Give me a key,” he suggested. “When you come in, just say 'Honey, I'm home,' and if I'm there, I'll say 'How was your day, dear?'“

She was taken aback by the bold request. “It seems almost redundant to give you a key, Seth,” she hedged.

“Your neighbors might get nervous if they see me picking your locks all the time. Besides, official boyfriends get issued keys.”

“They do?”

He frowned. “Hell, yeah.” He looked annoyed at her hesitation.

Raine stared down at the pattern of hair on his muscular chest, contemplating the idea. It flew in the face of all the rules, but those rules didn't correspond to the crazy reality she inhabited. She was destined for chaos. She took a deep breath, and followed her heart, not her head. 'Til give you the keys that Victor gave me,” she offered.

He jerked up onto his elbow. “What?”

“He was waiting for me when I came home last night” she said.

He gestured impatiently. “What did he want?”

“He wanted me to spy on you” she said. “He's curious about you.”

“So? What did you tell him?”

“I told him no,” she said simply. “I told him to leave. What else could I do?”

“You could quit,” he said curtly. “You could tell him to fuck off. You could get the hell out of town, that's what you could do!”

She looked down and shook her head.

He cursed, and flopped down onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. “You're driving me nuts, Raine. Bad nuts, not good nuts.”

She studied his scowling face, puzzled. “Doesn't it bother you that Victor wants to spy on you?” she inquired.

He slanted her an impatient look. “Not particularly. I'd do the same if I were him. I knew the guy was a sleaze. It comes as no shock to me. Want me to dream up some stuff for you to tell him, just to keep him off your case?”

“No, thank you. I don't want to play his game at all.”

His face hardened. “Then what are you doing here?”

She shook her head again. “Seth—”

“I have to know. You don't want to play Lazar's dirty little games, and yet, you can't leave. You say you have your reasons. So what are they?”

His voice slashed across her nerves, already jagged from the nightmare, and her fragile calm began to crumble. She thought of her father’s sad, hollow eyes as he drifted away. Tears came, in a hot, uncontrollable rush, and she covered her face with her hands.

Seth made an impatient sound. “I'm not going to be put off by sniveling, Raine. What the hell is it with you and Lazar? Out with it.”

The words came out of their own volition. “He killed my father.”

He didn't react, or exclaim, or look shocked. He just studied her, his eyes thoughtful, for a long moment He reached out and brushed the tears off her cheeks with his knuckle. “You want to run that by me one more time, babe?” he asked gently.

She pressed her hand against her mouth as she tried to sort out what she dared to tell him. One wrong word and the whole thing would burst out of her, uncensored. “It was years ago,” she whispered “I was eleven. My father... worked for him. I don't know the details. I was too small. It was passed off as a boating accident. We ran away, never came back. My mother refuses to talk about it.” “So what makes you think that Victor—”

“This damned nightmare!” Her hands fell, and she let him see her tear-blotched face, her humiliating desperation. “I've been having it ever since my father died. He shows me his gravestone and the letters start to gush blood I look up, and there's Victor, laughing at me.”

“No proof? Nobody else accused him at the time?”

“No,” she whispered. “We just ran. My mother and I.”

He gently smoothed away her tears with his knuckles. “Sweetheart,” he said carefully. “Could this just be about grief?”

She flinched away from him. “Do you think I haven't asked myself that question for seventeen years? At this point, I no longer care. I have to do this, or I'll end up in a mental ward. It's that simple.”

He scowled. “Do what? What exactly do you have to do?”

She threw up her hands. “Find out what my father knew that got him killed. Look for clues, motives. I never said I was Wonder Woman.”

“I thought your parents lived in London.”

She shot him a startled glance, and he shrugged impatiently. “I hacked into your personnel file,” he explained.

“Oh,” she murmured. “Hugh Cameron is my stepfather. After my father was killed, we wandered all over Europe for five years. Then my mother finally calmed down enough to settle in London with Hugh.”

“What's your father's name?”

This was the one detail she wasn't ready to tell him, or anyone. Some instinct blocked the words at their source. She tried to hide the tremor that went through her. “His name was ... Peter Marat.”

It was true, as far as it went. Peter Marat Lazar.

“You studied literature and psych at Cornell, right?” he asked.

“You really studied that file, huh?”

“Of course I studied it. My point is, what does a secretary who studied lit in college think she's doing investigating a seventeen-year-old murder? Do you have the slightest idea how to go about it?”

She looked away from him. “I've done some reading,” she said.

“Reading. Huh.”

Exhaustion rolled over her, in a crushing wave. “I'm not doing this for fun, Seth,” she said. “I'm compelled. Maybe I'm mentally unsound after all those traumatic nightmares. I wouldn't be surprised, but it wouldn't change a thing. I've still got to do what I've got to do.”

“What have you got to do?” he demanded. “What's the plan?”

She hesitated. “I'm sort of making it up as I go,” she admitted “It's a good thing that Victor has taken an interest in me—”

“Like hell it is,” he snarled.

“For my purposes, it's excellent,” she corrected. “I was lucky to get called to go to Stone Island yesterday. I'm looking for memories, for clues and signs. I'm present, I'm paying attention. I'm doing my best. The dream won't let me do anything else.”

“So what you're saying is that you've got no plan at all”

She let out a doleful sigh. “That's about the size of it”

His hand slammed onto the pillow, hard enough to send feathers wafting into the air. “That is the craziest, stupidest, most totally fucked thing that I've ever heard in my life.”

He was glaring at her, angry enough to spit nails, and she felt wonderful. Telling him had raised a crushing weight off of her. She was as light as air, about to float up off the bed “Oh, yes,” she agreed cheerfully. “It's really stupid Believe me, I know.”

“Lazar is a killer shark,” he said roughly. “How can anybody be so stupid and naive and still be walking around alive?”

She smothered a giggle, then tried to look thoughtful and serious. “That's a question I’ve asked myself more than once,” she said. 'The only answer I can come up with is pure, blind luck.”

“Luck doesn't last, babe,” he growled. “You need back-up.”

The brief rush of euphoria began to fade. “I'll think of something.”

“No, you won't. You'll be on the first plane out of SeaTac tomorrow morning. No way am I letting you—”

“Seth.” She cut him off, putting her hand against his hard chest. “You're forgetting something important. It's not up to you.”

Their eyes locked. She grappled with him, on a plane of awareness she had only discovered since they had become lovers, and realized something surprising about herself. Seth was extremely strong, but she could bear the weight of his disapproval, even his anger.

Seth's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “No butterfly, huh?”

She shook her head. “Not anymore.”

“Forget about the bastard, Raine. Cut bait and run. Find someplace where you can live a normal life.”

She blinked for a moment, and let out a startled laugh. 'What's a normal life, Seth?” she demanded.

He looked blank. “Um, a house in the suburbs?” he offered. 'Two point four kids, PTA meetings, summers on the lake? Mini-malls, multiplexes, bake sales, Little League?

Credit card debt?”

Her lips curved in a rueful smile. She shook her head mutely.

He shrugged, defeated. “Whatever. I give up “ he muttered, pulling her close. “I wouldn't know normal if it bit me on the ass.”

“We're two of a kind,” she told him.

He buried his nose in her hair. “I like the sound of that.”

“I'm glad something pleases you, at least.” Her voice was muffled, with her nose squashed against his collarbone.

He pushed her down onto the bed and rolled on top of her. “Nothing I can say will make you get on that plane tomorrow?”

“I've already tried running away,” she said simply. “For seventeen years I've tried it. I promise you. It doesn't work.”

“OK, men. This is how it's going to be tomorrow.” His voice was hard and businesslike. “I'm taking you to work tomorrow, and I'm picking you up. You're not leaving the office without telling me. Call me, e-mail me, beep me, whatever. Do not set foot out of that place without letting me know, not even for a cup of coffee.”

“But I—“

“Lazar wanted you to spy on me, right? Go for it. Seduce me, sleep with me, spy on me. Study every inch of my body, count every hair on my head. You're just trying to make your boss happy, right? The perfect excuse. That's what I call a win-win scenario.”

She was dismayed. “Seth, I think you're overreacting.”

“My clueless girlfriend tells me she's trying to single-handedly take down a powerful, ruthless guy for murder. Then she tells me she has no proof, and no investigative experience. Then she tells me I'm overreacting: Tough shit, babe. This is the price you pay for confiding in me. Do as I say, or I will make your life so difficult, you'll end up giving in anyway, but you'll be exhausted and pissed off, too.”

A foolish smile spread helplessly across her face. She didn't mind one bit how protective and paranoid he was. She would work out the thorny details of coping with him as she went along. It was worth it, for that warm, soft feeling in her chest. “OK,” she said, rubbing her cheek against his scratchy jaw. “I'll keep you informed, if you want”

“I want,” he growled, sliding back under the duvet He arranged her so she was draped over him, her hand resting on his heart.

“Seth?” she murmured.

“Hmm?”

“I know you think Fm a lunatic, but I feel so much better now that I've told you all this.” “Oh yeah? Well, bully for you. I feel like shit.” She hid a smile against his chest and snuggled closer. Her thigh brushed against his penis. Hot and hard. She reached down and stroked him from the base to the tip. He was hugely erect. Again.

He groaned. “Don't get me started. Hands off. Sleep time.”

She took her hand away reluctantly. “Is this, urn, normal?”

“You know how I feel about normal, sweetheart.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Ah. You're referring to my perpetual boner, I take it.” He kissed the top of her head. “Well, I've never had any problems getting it up, but I have never had so much trouble keeping it down until I met you.”

“Oh. I'm, ah, flattered.”

“Don't mind him.” His lazy voice had a hint of laughter in it. “Ignore the savage beast, and eventually hell calm down.”

“You can sleep like that?”

His chest vibrated with silent laughter under her ear. “Let me worry about that,” he said, “Get some rest, for God's sake.”

To her surprise, she realized that she actually could. She was warm and relaxed, curled up on top of him, resting on his strength. For the first time, she wasn't all alone in the dark with her monsters.

What a crazy day. So much had happened, all at once. She had a boyfriend. She was giving him a key to her house. She had confided her darkest, most painful secrets to him. He warmed her, charged her with wild energy and euphoria, maybe even courage and luck.

They were hurtling forward at three hundred miles an hour with no brakes, and she didn't even want to slow down.

She'd never had a dream so delicious, so awash with sensation. Warmth and wetness, luscious heat and light and shifting colors. Touches, melting and swirling. Divine pleasure, as if a god were making love to her. Then the seamless slide into consciousness, the faint morning light that seeped into the room pressing on her eyes. She tried not to wake up, to make the beautiful dream linger and last, but the pleasure didn't fade. It got stronger. She opened her eyes cautiously.

The comforter was folded up from the bottom and flung up over her chest—and Seth was lying between her legs.

Licking her.

She jerked, startled, and he gripped her hips in his hands, murmuring something reassuring. She flung aside the comforter, and he lifted his head just long enough to give her a smug, satisfied grin. “Good morning,” he said, putting his mouth to her again.

She writhed at the delicious intimacy. “Seth, you're obsessed,” she whispered.

He laughed, and her sex vibrated with the resonance of his voice, the sweet, tickling heat of his breath. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I love giving you head The taste of you drives me out of my mind.” He lifted his head and stared into her eyes. “That a problem for you?”

“Dear God, no,” she gasped. His tongue slid up and down her labia, circling her clitoris. He drew it into his mouth, sucking on it with exquisite care. “I just think that you— oh—”

“That I'm what?” he demanded.

“That you're the p-perfect boyfriend,” she stammered.

She couldn't speak, or think. She let him work his erotic magic, lapping and toying with her with sensual tenderness, his tongue flicking and dancing across her sweetest, hottest spot until he pushed her relentlessly over the crest Spasms of bright, hot rapture shuddered through her.

He rested his head against her thigh for a long moment before he sat up. He wiped his face and gazed at her with an odd combination of lust and wonder. “Good morning ,” he said again as he got up.

Raine sat up and stared at his body. His wiry muscles were so long and lean and elegantly proportioned. To say nothing of the thick, engorged penis that bobbed enticingly in front of him. “Good morning,” she replied, suddenly shy. Wild woman inside her was jumping up and down, pointing to his fierce erection, and saying, Mine. That's mine, and I want it. Give it to me. Now” She struggled to express the impulse in socially acceptable terms, but her brain wasn't functioning very well. She gestured towards his groin. “Seth. Do you want to, um—”

“Of course. But you're new to this, and we went at it like a couple of minks last night. I don't want to overdo it. I'm not a total maniac.”

“I am,” she said baldly.

His eyes lit up with hungry anticipation, “It won't be sweet or soft. That's not where I'm at right now.”

The words hung between them, a blunt warning, and a challenge.

“That's all right,” she said. “That's not where I'm at, either.”

Wild woman capered and howled with delight as he grabbed a condom from the shrinking stash on the bed stand, ripped it open and smoothed it over himself. He grabbed her ankles, dragging her until her bottom was at the edge of the bed, then pushed her onto her back. He spread her thighs up, folding her wide open like a full-blown flower.

His hands gripped her knees, opening her. His eyes bored into hers. “I don't want you to go back to that asshole's office today.”

He was seeking to assert dominance over her with his fierce masculine energy, but his vain efforts just aroused her more. “I'm sorry you feel that way,” she said. She gripped his arms, pulling him down to her. “Come on, Seth. Don't be coy.”

“Open up for me,” he said softly. “All the way. Ankles for earrings.” He pushed her thighs still wider and spread the lips of her sex open delicately with his fingertips. “Perfect. Show me that sweet sexy thing, all buttered up just for me.”

“I'm ready,” she urged him, arching her back.

“I know you are, sweetheart. I've got your sex juice all over my face.” He slid his hand beneath her bottom and gently nudged the blunt tip of him inside her. “God, look at you.”

“Do it,” she snapped. “Don't be a tease.”

She cried out at his first deep thrust, but not in pain. He stopped, alarmed. “You OK?”

She yanked him closer. “I'm fine, I'm great. I love it. Please, Seth.”

“You got it,” he muttered. “Nothing fancy today, sweetheart.”

He gave her exactly what she wanted, a deep, surging rhythm that caressed every part of her swollen, aching sex, to her very depths. He arched over her, the thick, heavy muscles of his shoulders taut and corded, his face rigid with concentration. Sobbing breaths gasped out of her with each plunge, and she clutched his arms and urged him on. Neither wanted anything other than that rhythm, just more of it. Hotter and faster, deep and furious and relentless, until they both exploded.

He collapsed and draped himself over her, trembling. “My God,” he said. “It's always like this with you. It scares me.”

She reached down and ran her fingers lazily through his sweat-dampened hair. “What scares you?”

He pulled out of her and folded down to his knees, hooking his arms under her legs. He clasped her hips in his arms and rested his head on her belly. “You're scaring me,” he mumbled.

“Seth,” she murmured, wiggling. “I'm all wet.”

“Yeah, and I want to rub it all over myself. Your perfume makes me crazy with lust” He inhaled, a deep, hungry whiff. She giggled at his foolishness. “I told you, I don't wear perfume.”

“I'm not talking about perfume from a bottle. I'm talking about your perfume. All the scented things you use, soap and lotion and stuff, they add to the mix, but they're only overtones. The basic perfume is like—” he stopped, burying his nose in her navel and breathing deeply, “—like a cross between honey and violets. Violets after a rainstorm. But warmer, hotter. Softer. Mix the smell of sex into it, and I'm a dead man.”

She struggled up onto her elbows and gazed at him, touched. “Why, Seth. You're a poet,” she said softly.

He looked alarmed. “No way. I'm just stating the plain facts. They just happen to sound poetic by accident.”

“Oh. I see,” she murmured. “God forbid that I should think you had a lyrical, poetic side “

He scowled at her as he pulled off the condom, wrapped it up and disposed of it. “Yeah,” he muttered suspiciously.

“God forbid.”

Raine sat up, gathering her courage. “Seth, next time—”

“What? What did I do wrong this time?”

She was startled by the sharp edge in his voice. “Nothing at all,” she said hastily. “You did everything incredibly right. I just wondered if the next time you'd let me try ... um, you know.”

He shook his head. “I don't dare guess. Spit it out, sweetheart”

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Oral sex” she whispered. “You're always doing it to me, and I'd like to try doing it to you. But I've never tried it. So I probably wouldn't be any good.”

When she finally opened her eyes, he was gazing at her with a look of almost comical dismay on his face. “God, Raine. You don't have to ask. Do whatever you want with me. Do that, and I'll be your slave. Anytime, anywhere, and I'm not kidding. Right now, if you want.”

She blushed, and shook her head. “I'm already late. Next time.”

“I won't let you forget.” He lunged on top of her, pinning her onto the bed. “There's just one more thing I have to know before we face the day. How do you like your eggs?”

She stared at him blankly. “Eggs? I don't have any eggs, Seth.”

“Sure you do. I got breakfast stuff last night, along with the deli stuff. Eggs and bacon and orange juice and toast and coffee. With real cream. You need to get some more meat on your bones.”

He looked so pleased with himself, she had to laugh. “You were feeling pretty confident last night, huh?” she asked, caressing his face.

“Don't hold it against me.” He rubbed his cheek against her hand like a cat, then grabbed it and kissed her palm. A warm, glowing feeling heated up her chest. It had been so long since she'd had any reason to feel happy in the morning.

She glanced at the clock, and winced. “Actually, it's really late. I'd better just pop into the shower and run. I have to—”

“They can goddamn well wait until you get some breakfast into you.” His voice cut harshly over hers. “You've been opening your veins for that place for weeks. Enough already.”

She was unnerved by his uncanny grasp of all the details of her life. “How do you figure that?” she asked hesitantly.

“All I have to do is look at you.”

She winced. “That bad, huh?”

“Cut it out,” he said. “You're drop-dead gorgeous and you damn well know it. But you need to eat more. And I'm the one who's driving you to work, anyhow. I'm not doing it until you eat.”

Her eyes wandered from his scowling gaze, down over his naked, gorgeous golden body. “Do you want to shower with me?” His frown vanished, and his gaze heated up. “Oh, yeah. Only more than I want to breathe. But you know exactly what would happen. And I want you to eat breakfast”

Sensual images rushed through her mind of soapy hands slipping and sliding over flushed skin, clouds of steam rising as he pinned her against the slippery tile. Hot water pouring,

pounding.

He backed away from her, shaking his head, “You are dangerous, babe. Go quick and take your shower, or I'll fuck you again right now.”

She scurried into the bathroom and turned on the shower. She stood beneath the stream of water, amazed and grateful to feel no residue of terror or grief from a nightmare clutching at her. She was rested and relaxed, her muscles loose, filled with energy. Joyful.

She was actually hungry. She'd never felt hungry in the morning in her life. Lately, she'd begun to forget what hunger felt like altogether. But right now, bacon, eggs, toast and orange juice sounded like heaven. She danced beneath the water, humming as she worked shampoo into her hair. A dark shadow loomed on the other side of the glass door. Seth slid the door open, his eyes raking her soapy body.

“I tried to be good,” he said. “I tried to be self-controlled. I tried to be civilized and restrained. I tried to resist temptation.”

Raine rinsed foam out of her eyes and blinked at him.

“Oh? And?”

He stepped into the shower and reached for her. “I failed.”