Janelle Denison - Private Pleasures

While she kept her gaze averted, he stepped from the tub and quickly dried off with her towel. Tugging his jeans over his damp skin proved to be a challenge. Once he'd zipped his fly and was decently dressed, he handed her the towel.

"I don't suppose you need help drying off?" he asked.

Her fingers brushed his as she reached for the towel. Desire flared in her gaze, the only sign that his touch and nearness had any affect on her. "I think I can manage on my own, thanks."

He grinned. "Doesn't hurt to ask."

Giving her some privacy, he turned toward the deck railing and listened to her step from the spa. The image of her body glistening with water and moonlight taunted him, and it took an incredible amount of control to keep from turning back around and looking his fill…and taking his fill. Grinding his jaw against the rush of heat pooling low in his belly, he wrapped his fingers around the railing and eased out a tight breath.

"Do you have a shirt I can sleep in?" she asked.

He took that as his cue that he could turn around, and did so. The twisting in his gut increased. She looked like a night nymph…a vision of purity and innocence that grabbed him hard. Her damp hair was loose around her face, and her flushed skin was beaded with drops of water that trickled from her neck to the cleavage swelling above the top of the towel. He wanted to lap the trail with his tongue, taste her skin, her breasts, her belly…

"Grey?"

Jerking his gaze back to her face, he searched his memory for what she'd asked. Oh, yeah, something to sleep in.

"I bought you a nightgown at that boutique I stopped at." Turning off the spa's jets, he pulled the cover over the top.

She fingered the hem of the towel. "Did you buy it for my comfort or your pleasure?"

He laughed deeply. "Come see for yourself, Ms. Skeptic. I was on my best behavior."

She followed him inside the house and waited while he rummaged through the bags the boutique had given him. Into the fourth package, he finally found what he'd been searching for.

He held up the simple peach chemise for her inspection. "Not a bit of silk or lace, and the hem hits below the knee. Does it meet with your approval?"

Pleasure lit her gaze and she smiled. "You surprise me sometimes, Grey. It's perfect." Taking the gown from him, she sashayed toward the bathroom.

Grey watched her swaying hips the entire way, wondering what she'd say if he told her he'd also bought her a red silk-and-lace number that left little to one's imagination. A smile twitched his mouth. He was saving that scrap of nothing for later, when she finally came to her senses and realized they belonged together.

Digging through the duffel he'd packed for himself, he withdrew a pair of sweatpants and changed while waiting for Mariah. She emerged from the bathroom, her face freshly scrubbed and the scent of mint toothpaste clinging to her.

She placed her bundle of clothing on a nearby chair and tried to hide a yawn behind the back of her hand. "Where am I sleeping?"

"I know where I'd like you to sleep." In his arms, snuggled against him like a warm, content kitten; her breath sighing on his chest; the fragrant, feminine scent of her surrounding him. And in the middle of the night her hands would roam, stroking over his belly, down his thigh until she found him hard and ready for her. God, he missed the intimacy and closeness of sleeping together, of reaching for Mariah, pulling her beneath him and them coming together in moans of mutual pleasure.

"We wouldn't sleep," she said huskily, reading his mind.

Considering the arousal he hadn't been able to tame since slipping into the spa with her, she was right. "Would that be so bad?"

She ran her hand over the back of the tweed sofa separating them. "We made a deal, Grey, and we haven't even fulfilled the first condition, let alone dealt with the second one."

"We'll talk," he promised in a low, frustrated growl. Stepping around the sofa, he grabbed her hand and led her down the hall to the master bedroom. "We've got two more days to talk about anything and everything."

She dug her heels in at the bedroom door, bringing them both to a sudden halt. "Good night, Grey."

He didn't like being dismissed, not when he knew he was going to spend a sleepless night tossing and turning on the couch while she slept snug and sound in a soft bed. Alone.

Giving in to the urge to do what he'd been dying to do the entire evening, he slid a hand into the hair at the side of her face and guided her two feet back until her spine pressed against the wall. Her lips parted on a gasp and her eyes widened. He lowered his head to steal a kiss. At the last second she turned her face and his lips grazed her jaw. Damn, he should've known she'd do that!

"Grey, no," she said, a wispy catch to her voice.

He chuckled and pulled back, stroking his thumb over her cheek. "Your willpower amazes me."

She looked up at him with stormy blue eyes. "Yeah, me, too. You're hard to resist, Nichols."

His fingers massaged her scalp and tangled through her hair. He missed her long hair, but he was getting used to this shorter sophisticated cut and the way the strands filtered through his fingers like skeins of silk. "Then why are you resisting what we both know you want?"

"Because I've never been one for gratuitous sex." Taking his hand away from her face, she attempted to step around him.

He trapped her with his hands on either side of her head. "Is that what you think it would be? Gratuitous sex? A wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am kind of romp?" He was annoyed that she'd even suggest such a thing.

That stubborn chin of hers lifted. "In some ways, yes. You've always had a healthy sexual drive and I'm sure you're not used to abstinence. That is, if you have been," she added.

His irritation level climbed a notch. "Of course I have been!"

She looked startled by his snappish tone. "I didn't mean that insultingly."

"Well, it sure as hell came across that way," he said gruffly, scowling down at her.

She let out a long sigh and turned her head away, as if it pained her to be this close to him, to look at him. "You're free to date other women, Grey, just like I dated Richard. And what you do with those women is your own business."

Furious with her impersonal tone, he grasped her hand, pulled it between them and pressed her palm against the erection straining the front of his sweats. Her gaze flew to his and a strangled sound hitched in her throat. The shock value was worth the pure torment of having her hand cup him so perfectly.

He leaned close, brushing his lips across her cheek, her throat, just beneath her ear. "Thanks for your permission, sweetheart. Unfortunately there's only one woman who turns me on." He rocked into her palm, squeezed her fingers along his ridged length and grew impossibly harder, thicker. He closed his eyes and groaned at the sensation of both pain and pleasure. "Only you, Mariah," he rasped. "My reaction to any other woman pales in comparison to how you make me feel."

Her breathing grew shallow, and when he eased up the pressure of her hand, she didn't let him go. Instead, her fingers stroked him rhythmically. "And what do I make you feel, Grey?"

His head fell back and he tried to think with his brain, not that other part of his anatomy ready to explode. What did she make him feel? She made him feel…warm, cherished and needed. No one had ever made him feel those things, not his parents or any other woman he'd ever dated. And he had no idea how to express his emotions without sounding like a sap.

So, instead, he focused on the physical sensations rippling through his body. "I think the answer is obvious."

Disappointment clouded her features, and she pulled her hand away. "Yeah, I guess it is," she said regretfully. "Good night, Grey." She slipped into the bedroom and closed the door. The lock clicked softly, solidly.

He stared in bewilderment at the oak door, unable to believe she actually felt as though she needed to secure herself from him.

Resting his head against the wall, he squeezed his eyes shut, swearing at his own stupidity. "Nothing like taking the subtle approach, Nichols," he muttered in self-disgust.

"IT'S ABSOLUTELY HUGE!"

Leaning close to Mariah's side, Grey whispered low in her ear, "Do you want it?"

She gasped, her eyes widening in shock. "It's much too big."

He grinned lazily and stroked a finger over the curve of her shoulder and down her arm. She shivered in response. "You've never had a problem handling 'big' before," he murmured.

His innuendo earned him a not-so-subtle jab in the ribs, but the smile in Mariah's eyes soothed his wounded ego. "We aren't talking about your swelled head or that other big part of your anatomy."

He perfected little-boy innocence. "We're not?"

She tapped a finger against the display window outside a jewelry store in the Arrowhead village, indicating the five-carat diamond ring glittering against black velvet. They'd been strolling along the shop fronts after a light breakfast at a gourmet coffee shop when the extravagant piece of jewelry had caught her eye. "That is huge in a way you could never match."

"My family jewels are more impressive than a mere diamond," he said with feigned indignation.

She tilted her head back and laughed-the light, throaty sound warmer than the bright sun overhead. Somewhere between last night's not-so-pleasant parting and this morning, the tension between them had eased. At least the emotional tension, he thought with a grimace, knowing the physical frustration wouldn't abate until he got Mariah back where he wanted her. In his bed. And in his life.