Chapter 8 #3
He started to ask for a McGalaxy Burger and a large order of laser rings, but he didn’t see either on the menu. Once again he put his fate in her hands. “Two of whatever you’re having.” Because he couldn’t resist, he toyed with the hair at the back of her neck.
Annoyed, she shook his fingers off. She spoke into the intercom, listened for the total, then joined the line of cars waiting to be served. “We’ll make better time if we eat while we drive.”
They inched forward. “Are we in a hurry?”
“I don’t like to waste time.”
Neither did he, and he wasn’t sure how much more they had together. “Sunny?”
No response.
“I love you.”
Her foot slipped off the clutch. Her other slammed the brake pedal when the Land Rover stalled. The car was still rocking as she turned to gape at him. “What?”
“I said I love you.” It didn’t hurt as much as he’d thought it would. In fact, it felt good: Very good. “I figured we might as well have it out in the open.”
“Oh.” As responses went, it wasn’t her best. But she was staring straight ahead into the rear window of the car in front.
There was a stuffed cat suction-cupped to the glass.
It was grinning at her. The car behind her gave an impatient beep of the horn and had her fumbling with the ignition key.
Rattled, she pulled up to the service window.
“Is that all you can say?” Annoyance colored his tone as she turned to blink at him. “Just ‘Oh’?”
“I . . . I’m not sure what . . .”
“That’ll be $12.75,” the boy shouted through the window as he held out white paper bags.
“What?”
He rolled his eyes. “It’s $12.75. Come on, lady.”
“Sorry.” She took the bags, dumped them in Jacob’s lap. Even as he swore at her, she dug out a twenty and passed it to the boy. Without waiting for her change, she pulled into the first available parking space and stopped the car.
“I think you singed my—”
“Sorry,” she snapped, cutting him off. Because she felt like a fool, she rounded on him.
“It’s your own fault, Mr. Romance, dropping something like that on me while I’m stuck in a line of cars at a fast-food drive-in.
What did you expect me to do, throw myself in your arms while they were adding on the pickles? ”
“I never know what the hell to expect from you.” He reached into the bag, brought out a foil-wrapped burger and tossed it to her.
“From me?” She unwrapped the burger and took a huge bite. It did nothing to ease the fluttering of her stomach. “From me? You’re the one who started this, Hornblower. One minute you’re snapping my head off, the next you’re telling me you love me, and then you’re throwing me a cheeseburger.”
“Just shut up and eat.” He shoved a paper cup into her hand.
He’d bite off his tongue before he’d say it to her again. He didn’t know what had come over him. Gasoline fumes, undoubtedly. No man in his right mind could fall in love with such an obstinate woman. And—no help from her—he was still in his right mind.
“A few minutes ago you were begging me to talk to you,” she pointed out, sucking on her straw.
“I never beg.”
She turned then, eyes smoky. “You would if I wanted you to.”
He could have strangled her then, for saying what he realized was no more than the truth. “I thought we were going to drive while we ate.”
“I changed my mind,” she said tightly. The way her insides were shaking, she wasn’t sure she could navigate ten feet. She’d be damned if she’d let him know it. Since it wasn’t possible to kick him, due to their position, she simply turned and stared through the windshield.
She continued eating mechanically and cursed him for spoiling her appetite.
Imagine, telling her that he loved her while they were waiting for hamburgers. What style, what finesse. She tapped her fingers on the wheel and bit back a sigh. How incredibly sweet.
Cautious, she cast a sidelong look at him.
His profile was set, his eyes were steely.
She had seen him angrier, she supposed, but it was a close call.
Something about the way he fumed in frustrated silence made her feel incredibly sentimental.
Twenty years from now she would look back and smile over the way he had said those magic words the very first time.
She scrambled onto her knees and threw her arms around him. He gasped as cold liquid splashed on his knees. “Damn it, Sunny, you’ve spilled it all over me.”
He squirmed, then stilled when her mouth found his. He tasted her laughter on the tip of her tongue. Hampered by the gearshift, he struggled to drag her closer.
“Did you mean it?” she demanded, shoving what was left of their lunch aside.
No way was he going to let her off that easily. “Mean what?”
“What you said.”
He settled her awkwardly in his lap, making sure her bottom came in direct contact with his wet knees, “Which time?”
Her breath came out in a huff, but she curled her arms around his neck. “You said you loved me. Did you mean it?”
“I might have.” He worked his hands up under her coat but had to be content with the flannel of her shirt. “Or I might have been trying to start a conversation.”
She bit his lip. “Last chance, Hornblower. Did you mean it?”
“Yes.” God help them both. “Want to fight about it again?”
“No.” She rested her cheek against his. “No, I don’t want to fight. Not right now.” He felt her sigh move through her body. “It scared me.”
“That makes two of us.”
After pressing a kiss to his throat, she drew back. “It gets even scarier. I love you, too.”
He’d known it, and yet— And yet, hearing her say it, seeing her eyes as she spoke, watching her lips form the words, nothing could have prepared him for the force of feeling that poured into him. A waterfall of emotion. Tumbling through it, he pulled her mouth to his.
He couldn’t bring her close enough. It didn’t seem odd that they were huddled inside a car in a parking lot beside a busy street in broad daylight. Much odder was the fact that he was here at all, that he had found her, despite the centuries.
When he lived, she couldn’t go. When she lived, he couldn’t stay. And yet, in this small space of time, they were together.
Time was passing.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do about this,” he murmured. There had to be a way, some equation, some theory. But what computer could analyze data that was so purely emotional?
“One day at a time, remember?” She drew back, smiling. “We’ve got plenty of time.” She hugged him close, and she didn’t see the trouble come into his eyes. “Speaking of which, we’ve got almost two hours before Portland.”
“Too long.”
She chuckled, then squirmed back into her seat. “I was thinking the same thing.”
She zoomed out of the lot, keeping her eyes peeled. With a grin of satisfaction, she pulled into the first motel she spotted. “I think we can use a break.” After snatching up her bag, she strolled into the office to register.
This time she used a plastic card—something much less foreign to him. With little trouble and less conversation, she secured a key from the clerk.
“How long have we got?” Jacob asked as he swung an arm over her shoulder.
She shot him a look. “It may be a motel,” she said, steering them toward a door marked ‘9’, “but I don’t think this particular chain rents rooms by the hour. So . . .” She turned the key in the lock. “We’ve got the rest of the day—and all night—if we want.”
“We want.” He caught her the moment she stepped inside. Then, wheeling her around, he used their joined bodies to slam the door closed. Because his hands were already occupied, Sunny reached behind her to secure the chain.
“J.T., wait.”
“Why?”
“I’d really prefer it if we drew the drapes first.”
He ran the palm of one hand over the wall, searching for a button while he tugged at her coat with the other.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for the switch.”
She chuckled into his throat. “At thirty-five a night you have to close the curtains by hand.” She wiggled away to deal with it. “I’d love to see the kind of motels you’re used to.”
The light became dim and soft, with a thin, bright slit in the center, where the drapes met. She was standing just there, with the light like a spear behind her. And she enchanted him.
“There’s this place on an island off Maine.
” He shrugged out of the borrowed coat, then sat down to pry off his boots.
“The rooms are built on a promontory so that they hang over the sea. Waves crash up beneath, beside, in front. The windows are . . .” How to explain it?
“They’re made out of a special material so that you can see out as far as the horizon but no one can see in—so that beyond one entire wall there’s nothing but rock and ocean.
The tubs are huge and sunken, and the water steams with perfume. ”
He rose slowly, picturing it. Picturing her there, with him.
“You can have music, just by wishing for it. If you want moonlight, or the sound of rain, you’ve only to touch a switch.
The beds are big and soft, so that when a man reaches for his woman she all but floats to him over it.
While you’re there, time stops for as long as you believe it. ”
Aroused, she let out a shaky breath. “You’re making this up.”
He shook his head. “I’d take you there, if I could.”
“I have a good imagination,” she said as he pushed the coat from her shoulders. She shuddered when he ran his hands down her. “We’ll pretend we’re there. But I don’t think there’s moonlight.”
Smiling, he eased her down and pulled off her boots one by one. “What then?”
“Thunder.” Her breath shivered out when he trailed his fingers up her calf. “And lightning. That’s what I feel when you touch me.”
There was a storm in him. He saw the power of it reflected in her eyes.
She rose so that her body skimmed up his, inch by tormenting inch.
Before he could take her lips, she was pressing them, already hot, to his throat.
The pulse that hammered there excited her, the taste inflamed her.
Wanting more freedom, she pushed his sweater up and up, then let it fall to the floor in a heap.
With a lingering sound of pleasure, she traced her lips over his chest, absorbing the texture, the intimate flavor, of his skin. It was soft, dreamily soft, over the hard ridges of muscles. His scent, earthy and male, delighted her.
There was thunder. She could feel it when she let her mouth loiter over his heart. It beat for her. There was lightning. She saw the flash of power when she looked into his eyes.
He was surprised he could still stand. What she was doing was making him dizzy and desperate. Those long, lovely fingers already knew his body well. But every time they explored they found new secrets.
And her mouth . . . He gripped her shoulders as she took her lips on a lazy journey down his chest, over the quivering muscles of his stomach. Her tongue left a moist trail. Her throaty laugh echoed in his head.
He felt her fingers on the snap of his jeans, and the denim as it slid from waist to hipbone. Pleasure arrowed into him, its point jagged.
Time didn’t stand still. It reeled backward until he was as primitive as the men who had forged weapons from stone. With an oath, he dragged her up into his arms, his mouth branding hers, all fire and force.
Then she was under him on the bed, her body as taut as wire.
Her breath heaved, seemed to tear out of her lungs, as his hands raced over her.
Possessed. She could hear him speak, but the roaring in her head masked the words.
Driven, he ripped her shirt down the front, sending buttons flying.
Wild to touch her, he hooked his fingers in the collar of the thin cotton beneath it and tore it aside.
She called out his name, stunned, elated, terrified by the violence she had brought out in him. Then she could only gasp, fighting for air, for sanity, as the first climax rocketed through her. But there was no weakness this time.
Energized, she reared up, enfolding him so that they were half sprawled, half kneeling, on the bed. Torso to torso, hip to hip. With her head thrown back, she let him take his mouth over her, pleasuring, receiving pleasure.
Like a madman, he tore, pulled, dragged at her jeans, until her body was as naked as his. Her hands slid off his slick skin as she tried to draw him to her. It was then that she realized that he was shuddering, his body vibrating with a need even she hadn’t guessed at.
She started to speak his name, but he was inside her, filling her, firing her. His muscles were taut as he braced her against him, letting her frenzy drive them both.
Faster, deeper, as she soared over wave after wave.
Passion became abandonment as her body bowed back, tempting his eager mouth to feast on her.
Sensation layered over sensation until they were all one torrid maze of light and color and sound.
As he pulled her back, his body thrust inside hers, she no longer knew where she began and he stopped. She forgot to care.