Renegade

He lifted his head scant inches so that he could look into her beautiful pale green eyes. She was frightened. But she wasn’t fighting to get away. If anything, those eyes were glittery with desire.

“I won’t hurt you,” he promised quietly.

“I’m not afraid of you,” she said breathlessly.

“Are you sure?” he taunted at her mouth. He bit at it in quick, ardent little kisses that had an explosive effect on both of them. He caught her hips suddenly, riveted them to the powerful thrust of his body. She gasped, shivering at the sudden rush of hot pleasure that seethed in her veins at the intimate contact.

“Yes, you know what that is, don’t you, baby?” he ground out against her mouth. His hands tightened and his mouth hardened on her lips. “Do you want to feel it inside you?” he whispered at her ear.

“Cash!” She struggled helplessly, really frightened when she couldn’t get away.

He realized it, finally, and loosened his grip. “Sorry,” he bit off.

She didn’t move. Her eyes searched his. “Me, too. I forget…men…lose control,” she whispered.

“I don’t,” he replied curtly. “Not ever. Not until just now.”

She stared at him with wide, fascinated eyes. The stark confession should have frightened her. It had the opposite effect. He didn’t realize that it made him seem more vulnerable to her. It exorcised her fear in one long sigh.

“It’s all right,” she whispered, and managed a soft smile. “I’m not frightened anymore.”

His fingers teased around her softly rounded chin. They moved to her mouth and toyed with her soft lips. He explored her, his fingers like an artist’s brush, touching and tracing…tormenting.

Her body rippled as his arm drew it closer. But her lips lifted and her eyes closed, in blatant invitation.

“You taste like cotton candy, Tippy,” he breathed as his mouth settled gently over her parted lips. “I could eat you alive…”

She felt the hardness of his lips brushing at hers, teasing and lifting, searching. She followed them blindly, hanging against him like a dove, living from second to second in his loose embrace. He wasn’t threatening. He wasn’t frightening. She loved the touch of his body against hers, the clean, crisp scent of his after shave. She loved the way he held her, with tenderness but also with strength and confidence.

Odd little tremors began to work through her legs, up her spine. She moved closer to Cash, uncertain. Her hands behind his neck began to link. Her body lifted, involuntarily, into closer contact. She would have died to have him.

He felt those responses and lifted his mouth from hers to search her confused eyes. “You want me. I know it, but I won’t take advantage. You’re safe,” he breathed. “It’s all right to let go. I won’t hurt you. I won’t force you. All right?”

She was still uncertain, but she nodded faintly and closed her eyes, waiting.

Her trust in him made his knees weak. He knew instinctively how hard this was for her, to give up control of her body to a man, after what she’d suffered in her youth. He clamped down hard on his own rising desire. He wanted to be tender with her. He wanted her to feel such pleasure that she’d never be able to look at another man as long as she lived…!

His mouth brushed hers softly, and then insistently. He let her responses guide him, drawing back slightly when she stiffened, pressing his advantage when she pushed closer to him. Seconds rushed by in a heated pulse of pleasure that grew and grew.

She moaned softly when his mouth grew hungry on her lips, and her body lifted up against his with real need. He felt the desire funnel up in her, felt her own hunger kindle from contact with his.

Yes, he thought feverishly, she wanted him. Even if she didn’t know it yet. He reached around her and lifted her completely off the floor in his embrace, and his mouth became passionate on her soft lips.

She shivered at the need in him that she could feel like a living pulse. His mouth was fierce in its possession of her lips, his body began to tauten. She heard him groan huskily into her mouth as his arms tightened roughly at her back.

She should have been frightened. He might never lose control with another woman, but he was quickly losing it with her. She was flattered at the need she sensed in him. She recalled dazedly what he’d told her once, about it having been a long time between women. He was hungry and she was apparently willing. What if he didn’t want to stop? What if he couldn’t stop?

He felt her enthusiasm wane and he drew away from her at once, letting her slip back to her feet. He lifted his head, watching her, his face wiped clean of expression. Only his glittery dark eyes were alive in it.

She swallowed hard. “Just checking,” she managed weakly.

“To see if I really could stop?” he mused with a smile. She nodded, embarrassed.

He traced her swollen mouth. “You’re not what I expected.”

“Neither are you.” She hid her face against him for a moment, remembering the blatant question he’d asked her earlier. Even in memory, it aroused her. She thought of feeling him deep inside her body. She shivered with exquisite pleasure. But just as she started to say some thing equally blatant to him, he drew back.

He bent and kissed the tip of her nose. “We’d better go. We’re going to throw everything off schedule.”

She looked up at him, hesitating. She felt hot all over, strained, hungry. Her eyes were full of unsatisfied need. “If I asked you…”

“Yes?” he prompted.

She swallowed and forced herself to speak. “If I asked you to make love to me…”

He pressed his thumb against her swollen mouth. His eyes flared. “I want to! You can’t imagine how much. But I don’t start things I can’t finish.”

“But I could finish this,” she said with painful emphasis.

“I could, with you!”

His body actually shuddered. He put her away from him. He didn’t dare accept that invitation. He should be shot for what he’d already done and said tonight.

“Well, you’re not going to. Not tonight. I offered you dinner and the ballet,” he said brusquely, moving to the door. “Only that!” He glanced at her. “Are you coming?”

She felt ashamed that she’d made such a rash offer, and to Cash Grier of all people. She was furious at him for making her feel that way. He’d started it, after all. Throwing his perfect body at her like that and then slapping her down when she got aroused! Were all men like that?

“Dinner and the ballet,” she agreed curtly, wrapping her coat around her tightly and buttoning it up to her chin. “And don’t worry, I won’t try to seduce you in the front seat of the car!”

He glared down at her. “Thanks. I was really worried.”

She swept by him in a fury.

They ate without knowing what, and Tippy felt guilty, because it was delicious. They went from the elegant restaurant to the ballet, where she sat beside Cash and never saw what was happening on stage except for noting the beautiful colors and how they reflected on the dancers. She was angry. She was elated. She was eaten up with physical desire that she’d never felt before in her life. She was blinded by her hunger for him. She wanted to jump on him and tear his clothes off where he was sitting. Outraged and mortified by her own helpless urges, she ignored him throughout the performance.

As if he understood completely what she was feeling, he didn’t say a word or even touch her until the bal let was over and they were filing out of the theater. He took her arm to help her across the street to the parking garage, but she was like steel to the touch.

He unlocked the door and she got inside, reaching idly for her seat belt. He glanced at her as he started the engine and pulled out of the parking space. He felt remorseful about refusing what she’d offered him. But he was honest. He had nothing to give. Nothing at all. It would have been unfair to take advantage of something she couldn’t help. He was flattered that she could feel such attraction for him, but he didn’t trust it. He didn’t trust her. He was still stunned that he’d spilled his darkest secrets to a woman who was, after all, little more than a stranger. Except that she didn’t feel like a stranger. She felt…familiar. Too familiar.

He whipped the car out into traffic with muted violence.

She noticed. She turned her evening bag over in her lap and looked out the window at the crowded streets with their floods of neon lights and glimmering messages on billboards.

“Don’t get conceited, Grier,” she said sharply. “I’m sure there are at least five or six other men on the planet who could make me feel like ravishing them on the sidewalk.”

He made a rough sound in his throat.

She didn’t look to see if it was laughter or something else. “Besides, I can always take a cold shower and go in for team sports…”

The car jerked under his hands as he tried to cope with what he was feeling. “Will you give it a rest?” he asked after a minute. “We both know you’d start screaming the minute I laid hands on you with intent.”

She started. “Is that what you think?”

“I’ve been in law enforcement and the military most of my life,” he said, slowing in traffic for a turn. “I know more about rape victims than you do.”

She didn’t say anything else, but she was watching him, waiting.

He glanced at her as he made the turn. “You may have the best intentions in the world, but it’s not going to be that easy for you to be with a man—even a man you think you want. One of the roughest rape cases I ever testified in was a similar circumstance. A young girl who’d been raped tried to make it with her new boy friend. But she couldn’t go through with it and he couldn’t stop.”

“What happened?”

“She started screaming about the time her parents came home. They had the boy arrested. She tried to recall the charges, but it was too late. He did get probation—it was a first offense—but he never spoke to her again. She really loved him. She just couldn’t have sex with him.”

She folded her arms together over her coat and shivered.

“You get the picture?” he asked tersely.

She nodded. Her eyes went back to the passing storefronts.

His lips flattened together. “I couldn’t live with it if I lost control and forced you, okay?” he admitted finally.

Her caught breath was audible. “But I offered,” she said huskily.

He glared at her. “What would that mean if I left you with more scars than you’ve already got?”

Her anger evaporated and she studied him quietly. “I’ve never felt like this with anyone since it happened,” she confessed. “I was very attracted to Cullen, but he found women repulsive. Even so, it wasn’t like this. I’m on fire,” she said with a nervous little laugh. “I ache all over. It’s almost like pain. All I can think of is how it would feel to be with you in a bed all night.”

His hands tightened on the steering wheel until they turned white, while he tried to convince himself that this was a disaster waiting to happen.

“But if you’re not interested, you’re not interested. I guess you’re worried about that marriage thing. I don’t have any plans to propose to you, no matter how good you are in bed, if that would change your mind,” she promised.

He laughed in spite of himself. “You don’t understand.”

“You’re impotent?” she murmured dryly.

He glared at her. “I am not impotent.”

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