Barbara Dunlop - Millions To Spare

Her breaths came in pants.

He pulled at the waistband of her skirt, dragging it over her hips, past her buttocks, down her thighs, until it pooled on the floor.

Then he drew back to gaze at her.

She was drop-dead gorgeous. He’d never seen a more beautiful, more desirable woman. He put his palm flat against her chest. She watched as he eased his way down, over her breast, her flat belly, her hip bone, her downy curls.

She tipped her head up, and met his eyes.

They stared at each other, frozen in time.

Then his free hand went to the button on his slacks.

She didn’t blink as he flipped it open. He drew down the zipper. Their last chance to stop, and they both knew it.

Neither of them took it.

He kicked out of his pants, and drew her down on the bed, stretching full length beside her, legs entangling, hands caressing.

He slowed his kisses, touching her face, smoothing her hair, whispering in her ear, using French to tell her she was beautiful and desirable, and he’d never been with a woman who moved him more.

His hands wandered, while hers did the same, discovering secrets and hollows, speeding up their breathing, then slowing it down again.

In French, he told her everything he was doing, everything he was feeling, everything he wanted.

She kissed him deeply, her hands on a journey that forced him to grit his teeth, sweat popping out on his brow.

He needed her. Now. Right now.

His fingertips skimmed their way up her long, smooth legs, and her thighs twitched apart, inviting him. He swiftly extracted a condom from his wallet, positioning his body, feeling the hot, enticing entrance to hers.

He kissed her one more time, entwined their fingers, murmured words of passion and want and desire.

“J’aussi,” she whispered breathlessly, flexing her hips.

Before his brain registered her French response, he was inside her, and his world contracted to a single primal urge. He thrust and withdrew, over and over.

A freight train roared and throbbed to life inside his brain, growing faster and louder and harder, in sync with his body. But he held the urgency at bay.

He kissed her deeper. He clasped her to him, feeling the twitches of her body, hearing the gasps of her breath, tasting the pure nectar of her swollen mouth.

She whispered his name.

Then she said it again.

He wanted her to stop, but he wanted her to go. His name on her lips was pulsing incredible sensations through his bloodstream.

Her hands tightened in his. Her hips twitched and her thighs tightened. He could sense her shimmering.

He smiled and whispered her name, urging her over the edge. Then he felt her slide, and he gave in himself, and pure, pristine pleasure cascaded like a waterfall around them.

When it finally stopped, the world filtered through.

The fan whooshed above them, puffing tepid air.

The colorful room came into focus.

Julia’s breathing sounded long and deep, her bare breasts rising and falling against his slick chest.

He shifted to remove his weight from her.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked, smoothing stray wisps of hair from her cheek, impulsively kissing the space afterward.

“You suppose it was the adrenaline?” she ventured, gazing straight up at the rotating fan.

He didn’t know how to answer that.

He didn’t think they could blame the adrenaline.

“Because,” she continued, still obviously searching for an explanation, “we don’t really like each other all that much.”

“We seem to connect on some level,” he pointed out.

“I suppose.”

Okay, maybe it was ego, but he had to know if he’d been alone in that.

He raised his head on his elbow, gazing down at her. “I mean, have you ever…”

She looked at him. “Had sex?”

He shook his head. “Had sex like that.”

“You mean in French?”

He cringed. “I didn’t realize you spoke French.”

She grinned at his discomfort. “No kidding.”

He couldn’t even remember all he’d said.

“You’re not going to tell me you just had the most incredibly mind-blowing experience of your life, are you?”

“Are you the kind of guy who needs to hear that?”

Her words were tough, but her expression was guarded. He realized that even if they had both felt it, he needed to let the subject drop. Sex alone was complication enough. Sex that might mean something in these circumstances couldn’t even be contemplated.

“It must have been the adrenaline,” he agreed.

Then they stared at each other for a moment of pure, unadulterated understanding. Adrenaline had had nothing to do with it.

Brittany stared in shock at the dozens, no, hundreds, of children and families shrieking, eating or simply running their way around the Wild Wadi Water Park.

“I don’t understand,” she said to Alex, clutching his arm for support as two ten-year-old boys whipped past her, dripping wet.

“We’re hiding in the crowd.”

“Why this crowd?”

“I thought you were a preschool teacher?”

“It’s a private preschool. I have eight students, and they wear uniforms.”

Alex grinned. “You don’t take them to the park or the zoo?”

“There’s a garden in the courtyard of the school.”

“Let me guess, where they all play dignified little games in their dignified little uniforms.”

Brittany compressed her lips. There was no point in engaging in that particular argument. If Alex thought children could only have fun by racing around like hooligans, that was his problem.

“Do you actually believe the police are following us?” she asked.

“I’m hoping they’re following Harrison’s money trail.” He extracted a credit card from his pocket and waved it in front of her face.

A family came by, two parents, three young children and a baby in arms, screaming its head off.

“Is there any particular reason we can’t spend his money somewhere else?”

Alex tugged her in the direction of a shop. “We’re here already. Let’s pick up some suits and try to have a good time.”

“I can assure you, that is not going to happen.”

“Not if you don’t yank that big ol’ stick out of your butt.”

Brittany refrained from stating the obvious.

“It’s a metaphor,” Alex offered helpfully.

“I know it’s a metaphor. And a rather crude one at that.”

“Don’t get all prissy on me.”

“I am not-” She stopped herself. Arguing with Alex was an exercise in futility. She’d already learned that, and she didn’t know why she let herself get drawn in time after time.

“Bathing suits,” said Alex, pointing to the display window. “I’ll buy you anything you want.”

“You mean Harrison will buy me anything I want.”

Alex shrugged as he held open the door. “I’m not a very literal guy. So shoot me.”

Brittany twitched a grin as she passed him.

“Made-you-laugh time.”

“I wasn’t laughing at your joke. I was wishing I could take shooting you literally.”

He followed her into the brightly lit store. “You were not.”

“You don’t know what I’m thinking,” she said.

He nabbed a bathing suit from the first rack they came to, turning to hold up a bright-green bikini with a halter tie and flirty, little, white bows at the hips. “Want me to tell you what you’re thinking?”

She stared at his mocking expression, then she took in the little bikini. It was about her size. Did she dare? It would serve him bloody well right.

He opened his mouth, but she scooped it from his hands. “Perfect. I’ll take it.”

She was rewarded with a drop of his jaw.

But he recovered quickly. “You’re bluffing.”

She spotted a matching cover-up and headed for the dressing room. Knew what she was thinking? Ha.

Well, in fact, he’d probably made a pretty decent guess at what she was thinking, which was “not with a gun to my head.” But sometimes a girl had to do the unexpected.

She stripped out of the simple, linen dress she’d purchased at the hotel this morning, removed her underwear, and slipped into the bright-green number. The hours spent at the spa’s tanning salon had turned her skin a light butternut. And the green and white went well with her blond hair, if she did say so herself.

A little shiver went through her when she thought about Alex’s reaction. It was satisfaction, she told herself, not sexual awareness. She shrugged into the sheer cover-up and decided her low-heeled white sandals would work.

Gathering up her clothes and her purse, she exited the dressing room. Alex wasn’t around, so she browsed through a rack of tote bags until she found one that coordinated with the outfit, then she packed her clothes into it.

“I’d have bet money against you wearing it,” came Alex’s deep voice.

Dressed in a pair of tan trunks and a short-sleeved, khaki cotton shirt, he walked around her.

She refused to flinch, even when he paused at the open cover-up, taking in her smooth, bare stomach. The suit bottom rode low, but not indecently so. And the top showed off her cleavage-after all, it was a bikini. And she knew when she took off the cover-up, he was going to see more of her hips than she normally flashed, but there was absolutely no way she was backing down now.

“Nice,” he said.

“You better be talking about the bathing suit.”

“Why?”

“I’m practically engaged.”

“He hasn’t asked you yet, sweetheart.”

Brittany wanted to disagree, but she realized Alex was technically right, and arguing the point would be wholly undignified.

He relieved her of the tote bag and headed for the cash register. “You bite your tongue a lot, don’t you?”

“Only around you.”