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  Then he clamped his mouth around her straining flesh and sucked. Hard.

  Her world exploded. Back bowing, she dug her nails into the solid anchor of his hard shoulders and held on for dear life as pleasure pierced her like a thunderbolt. “Oh, oh, oh!”

  Taggart couldn’t believe it. He felt Genevieve coming apart, heard the shocked surprise in her voice as the climax took her, and his own body quivered like an overstrung bowstring with the need for release.

  She was just so damn responsive. All her little moans and whimpers and shakes and shivers were making him wild—and that was before the stunning discovery that he could make her come just by feasting on her pert, pretty breasts.

  He knew he wasn’t going to be able to wait much longer to be inside her. But he also knew that if he didn’t rein himself in, didn’t take some time to get a firmer grip on the need pounding through him, he could hurt her, and he was damned if he’d take that chance.

  He blew out a breath as her body finally quieted and she slumped back onto the mattress like a rag doll. Releasing the velvet plumpness of her nipple, he ignored the greedy urge to knee her thighs apart and plunge himself deep into her slippery tightness.

  Fighting for control, he shifted onto his side, thrust the chain out of his way, propped himself on one elbow above her and prepared to drive himself crazy just a little longer, telling himself he couldn’t go wrong with kissing her.

  He started to lower his head, only to check his movement as her eyes opened.

  “Oh.” She stared up at him, her gaze luminous. “That was…” She exhaled shakily. “That was wonderful, John.”

  The last time he’d been called by his first name he’d been thirteen; he’d stubbornly seen to it that it was buried along with his mother. Oddly enough, however, now that he was past the first shock, it sounded right coming from Genevieve’s lips.

  Yet he couldn’t bring himself to say so. Couldn’t imagine admitting that for reasons he didn’t understand she’d been able to blow past the defenses he’d spent two decades perfecting.

  It seemed better just to concentrate on the physical. Safer. Smarter. “We’re not done.” His voice sounded rough, even to him.

  “No.” She ran her hand up his arm, rubbed her palm against his biceps.

  “So tell me what you want. What else turns you on.”

  Her hand stilled. She wet her lips. “You.”

  “Me what?”

  “You. You turn me on. I never…I didn’t expect—” As light as a whisper, she trailed the tip of her index finger down his cheek. “More than anything—” Her hand shook almost imperceptibly as she sketched the shape of his upper lip “—I want you inside me.”

  Five words. Five mind-blowing little words and his hands—hands that could defuse a bomb without a quiver, hold a rifle rock-steady and take out a target hundreds of yards away while he was taking enemy fire—shook.

  His vaunted control vanished like smoke on the wind.

  He took her mouth, and she opened for him, meeting him eagerly as his free hand swept down her silky, delicately curved body into the narrow triangle of curls between her legs.

  She was as soft there as she was everywhere else. Cupping that warm, feminine mound, he thrust his tongue into the honeyed sweetness of her mouth at the same time that he parted her satiny folds. Settling the broad tip of his finger on the wet nub at the seat of her desire, he stroked.

  She made a keening sound and he echoed it with a low guttural one of his own. Yet somehow he managed to keep his touch light as he stroked again and she bucked, straining against him.

  The blood was racing through his veins like a river at flood tide. Sliding his arm beneath her, careful to keep the handcuff away from her satiny skin, he snugged her torso against his own, relishing the feeling of her tightly budded nipples pressed against him. The position gave him greater freedom to move and he put it to good use, rubbing her now with a tight little circular motion. When she moaned, then moaned again, he slid his middle finger deep into her clutching, quivering heat.

  She tore her mouth free of his. “Oh! No. No! I can’t. I—oh!” She gulped a desperate draught of air as her head fell back and her body exploded, her tight inner muscles clamping around him.

  All that slick, snug heat milking his finger demolished his restraint.

  Breathing as though he’d just run ten miles uphill flat-out, he centered her beneath him and settled his hips between her thighs. Then he rocked up on one arm, guided himself into place against her and pushed.

  Genevieve couldn’t contain a slight cry at the squeezing fullness of that first broad inch. She was small; he absolutely wasn’t. Still she felt far more pleasure than discomfort, far more excitement than apprehension at his possession.

  She hadn’t lied. She wanted him. She just hadn’t known, hadn’t ever envisioned, that sex could be like this. That she could want, no, need, to have a man—to have John—buried deep inside her and find that she wanted even more.

  She felt him hesitate and wrapped her legs around him, locking him in place. “Don’t stop. Don’t. Stop.” Though it took all of her strength with his weight resting against her, she rocked her pelvis, propelling him forward.

  That slight movement shoved him over the edge.

  With a rumble of sound that seemed to be torn from somewhere deep inside him, he gave up the fight and drove deep until he was socketed to the hilt inside her tight, quivering depths.

  Genevieve forgot to breathe as he withdrew, then pushed into her again, and her body stretched to accommodate his rigid length. Despite the enormous pressure, the promise of pleasure shimmered on the horizon in a golden haze that danced just beyond reach as he settled into a steadily escalating rhythm.

  She arched against him, cradling him with her arms and legs, and felt the tension ridging his big body. She felt the sweat sheening his shoulders and the flex and bunch of muscle in his broad back as he abruptly shifted forward, balancing his weight on the arm sporting the handcuff. He slipped his other forearm under her hips, lifting her up and deepening the angle of penetration even more.

  She cried his name as his pubic bone bumped against her, stunned to find she had a frantic craving to be touched just there, like that, with exactly that grinding pressure. Gripping his hair with shaking hands, she kissed him, long, hard, wanting everything he was, everything he had to give.

  They strained together, hips pumping, hearts pounding, bodies slick. Her heels drummed the back of his thighs as he rocked her higher and higher, hammering into her. She heard a distant, muffled sound and vaguely realized it was him. That he was saying her name, over and over.

  The orgasm slammed into her, an eruption of pleasure that started small, deep where they were joined, and radiated outward, robbing her of breath, blanking her mind, sending out wave after wave of melting sensation, making her body quake.

  She felt John thrust harder, faster, felt him above her, around her, buried deep inside her, and then he was driving toward his own satisfaction, his hips pistoning like a pile driver. She heard him cry out, felt him shudder and jerk and instinctively she bore down, stunned as she was slammed with another rush of pleasure.

  He collapsed against her, crushing her into the bed. Clinging to him, she sobbed for breath, trusting him as she’d never trusted anyone else in her life to be her anchor and keep her safe.

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  Six

  “I ’m sorry.” Scrubbing at the tears streaking her face, Genevieve swallowed audibly as she slowly opened her eyes. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  Lips compressed, Taggart stared down at her, careful to keep his expression blank. Outside, the weather had deteriorated. Wind buffeted the cabin, making the timbers sigh and creak, while sleet clicked against the window panes like a legion of skeletal fingertips.

  It had nothing on the turbulence swirling inside him.

  The waterworks had started just minutes after their mutual, mind-blowing climax. Oh, Genevieve had
done her best to hide it, not making a sound except for an occasional shuddery breath.

  But twined together the way they were like two strands of the same rope, there’d been no way to miss the way her shoulders shook. No way to overlook the warm slide of her tears on his skin as she clung to him, her face buried in the crook of his neck.

  It cut. Unexpectedly deep. Clearly, he’d hurt her. Which shouldn’t be such a big surprise given that she was half his weight and stood no taller than his shoulder. Yet that hadn’t stopped him there at the end from totally losing control.

  No, not losing it, damn it. That somehow implied his actions had been unintentional. There’d been nothing the least accidental about the way he’d kicked his control to the curb and stomped it to paste because he’d been in a fever to bury himself deep inside of her.

  And Genevieve—who’d nearly stopped his heart with the inexplicable gift of herself—had paid the price. She’d been so small and tender and tight and he’d been too big, too impatient, too rough.

  Oh, yeah, he thought grimly. His fault. Proof once again that he wasn’t a man to trust.

  Although, when he stopped to consider, part of him was of the opinion that, given the reason they were there together in the first place, she damn well should have figured that out for herself.

  Yeah, well—if she didn’t get it before, she does now.

  Yet guilt still pricked at him. Frustrated—with himself, with the entire situation—he peeled her hands from his neck, shifted the damn chain out of his way and eased onto his back, putting some much needed distance between them. “I’m the one who should apologize,” he said stiffly. “I never should’ve touched you.”

  “What?” Her response was punctuated by a watery little hiccup.

  “I hurt you.” He stared sightlessly into the dark. “I’m sorry.”

  “No. No.” He froze, caught completely off guard as she swiped one more time at her eyes, then twisted onto her side, propped herself on her elbow and scooted right back up against him. “You didn’t hurt me. Absolutely not.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “No, really—”

  “Uh-huh. You always cry after sex,” he said caustically, doing his best to ignore his body’s brazen response to the warm curves plastered against him. “There’s just something about coming that makes you feel all weepy and sentimental—”

  “I never had an orgasm before.”

  The quiet statement shocked him into silence. Forgetting himself, he turned his head to stare at her and felt something deep inside him flinch as he saw the tears still clinging to the sweep of her eyelashes.

  He was damned if he knew what to say.

  Another blast of wind shook the cabin. In the time it took before it darted away, twin apples of color had stained her cheeks. Averting her eyes, she gave a weary little sigh, then surprised him all over again by settling trustingly against him, resting her cheek on his shoulder. “I thought…I couldn’t. That there was something wrong with me. And then tonight, with you, everything changed. I guess it just got to me.”

  Totally at a loss, he cradled his arm around her, not knowing what else to do.

  “I’m sorry,” she went on. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”

  She didn’t mean to worry him. God. How was he supposed to respond to that?

  Well, that was easy. Don’t say anything, dumbass. Do the woman a favor and blow her off. Tell her you were glad to be of service, but now that the fun and games are over it’s time to get back to reality.

  And the reality was, he wasn’t her friend and God knew he’d rather have burning splinters shoved under his fingernails than be her confidant. So the best, the only thing to do, was tell her to get the hell away from him while he was still in such a benevolent mood.

  “Trust me, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you, sweetheart. Except that the guys in your past were incompetent morons.” Sweetheart? Holy mother of mercy. Where had that come from? And why should the idea of somebody else touching her all of a sudden make his jaw tight?

  “Maybe,” she said uncertainly.

  “No maybe about it.”

  “Unless—”

  “What?”

  “Maybe it’s just…you.” She was silent a moment, as if considering her own words. Then she raised her head and pressed her lips to the underside of his jaw. “Thanks,” she said softly.

  Alarm rumbled through him. It seemed no matter what he did or said, he just kept making things worse. If he didn’t shut up now, she might actually get some twisted idea that he was worth caring about or something.

  And if she knew the first thing about him, she’d realize that nothing could be further from the truth. “Forget it,” he said brusquely. “Just…try to get some sleep, okay?”

  She pushed up on her elbow and stared down at him. “But—”

  “Look, this isn’t open for discussion. You’re sleeping right here, with me, tonight. The sound of your teeth chattering earlier annoyed the crap out of me, and I’m not about to give you another chance to poke me with that damn broom. So just shut up, close your eyes and let’s call it a night.” Tightening his arm around her, strictly to underscore his words, he pulled her back down to his side, ignoring the aches and pains in his bruised muscles that were once again making themselves known. “There’s not much time left before daylight gets here anyway.”

  Wisely, she kept her mouth shut and resettled her head on his shoulder. They lapsed into a silence which, if not exactly companionable, was still a hell of an improvement over the sound of him babbling things he was sure to regret in the morning.

  Taking a firm grip on the excess of emotion roiling around inside him, he did his best to relax. He doubted he’d sleep, but he could at least try to rest.

  “John?”

  “What?”

  “Do you think we could pull the covers up? I’m starting to get a little chilled.”

  She wasn’t just starting, he realized, as he felt her shiver and realized her skin had grown cool to the touch. Feeling grim all over again, he shifted her away from him, rolled onto his side, then pulled her back into the cradle of his body and yanked the covers up to her chin.

  “Better?” he said gruffly.

  She spooned her round little butt into his lap and rested her silky back against his chest. “Yes.”

  That made one of them happy, he thought, inhaling the faintly flowery scent of her hair. Swallowing a sigh, he snugged an arm around her waist to anchor her in place and propped his cheek on his tethered arm.

  “John?”

  “What?”

  “Just…thanks.”

  Oh, yeah, no doubt about it. When his time came, he was going straight to hell. “Get some sleep, Genevieve.”

  God knew, he wasn’t going to.

  Wrapped in the delicious heat of Taggart’s arms, Genevieve drifted in a dream world between waning sleep and dawning consciousness.

  Then the source of all that scrumptious warmth shifted, bumping the part of himself that was exclusively male against her thigh and she was catapulted into full awareness.

  Her stomach jumped. No way had she dreamt that up.

  Cautiously, she opened her eyes, greeted by a flood of gray-white morning light. To her bemusement, she realized the satiny cushion under her cheek really was the bulge of muscle padding the underside of Taggart’s arm. And that the muscle-ridged expanse of bronze rising and falling inches from her face was his chest and not that of a Michelangelo statue come to life.

  Warily shifting her gaze downward, she saw that their legs were indeed tangled together.

  Unable to help herself, she studied him there, taking a good long look at the masculine anatomy framed by a cloud of jet-black hair. Its shape was exotically different from her own. Even in sleep it looked substantial, and, as she now had good reason to know, Taggart certainly knew just what to do with—

  Heat slapped her cheeks. She squeezed her eyes shut, but there was no retreat as the ribald thought tripp
ed a floodgate in her mind, spilling memories into it of the previous night.

  She saw herself clinging to Taggart like a vine to a trellis. She recalled her explosive response to the greedy pull of his mouth on her nipples. She remembered explicitly what it felt like to have those big, hard hands on her and those long, clever fingers inside her. And even if she lived to be ninety, she’d never forget the incredible sense of being irrevocably claimed that had come as he’d pushed himself into her, making them one.

  A tangle of need, desire and longing reignited inside her, making her heart thump in the back of her throat. It was hard to believe that a mere twenty-four hours ago she hadn’t known such feelings existed, much less made the acquaintance of the man who’d inspired them. It was equally difficult to accept how quickly she’d come to crave both Taggart and the pleasures he’d taught her.

  Yet most illogical by far was her realization that, for the first time since she’d walked into her home and found Seth with a gun in his hand, standing over his best friend’s lifeless body, she actually felt safe.

  That wasn’t merely foolish; it was dangerous. She might have been forever changed by last night’s events, but her situation remained the same. She didn’t think for a minute that Taggart was going to wake up this morning, announce he was quitting his job and demand she run away with him to Tahiti.

  No, whatever destination she settled on in the next few hours, she’d be making the trip alone.

  Still, one way or another, she was leaving. Just as soon as she could put together some food for him and collect her things.

  She staunchly ignored the unexpected squeeze of her heart, assuring herself its only cause was the thought of all the stunning sexual fulfillment she’d never experience now.

  It had nothing to do with the idea of cutting herself off from the man who’d provided it. After all, there was always a chance she’d eventually find someone else with whom she would share such electric, stomach-hollowing chemistry.