Run To You (10 page)

Stella squirted shampoo in her hand and lathered her hair. Two months. He’d been dead two months, and she hadn’t shed a tear. She stepped beneath the warm water and let it run down her head and face. She’d been at work when one of her father’s lawyers had called with the news. Her mother had given out her phone number and she’d been more upset about that than about the death of her father. She’d told the lawyer she didn’t care. And she didn’t.

So why did she suddenly feel so alone and hollow? It was beyond ridiculous. Her father had never wanted her in his life. Had never even told Sadie about her. If Clive had lived to be a hundred and ten, he still wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with Stella. So why did she suddenly feel like a piece of her was gone? Missing? Gone forever. A piece she’d never had to begin with.

Stella finished her shower and dried her hair with a towel. She stepped into a pair of white panties and wrapped a thick white hotel robe around herself. The robe felt like a nice warm embrace, and she brushed her palm across the bathroom mirror. Through the steam and smear her hand left behind, she stared at her face. She looked more like her mother than her father, but her eyes were his eyes. Blue like the Texas sky he’d lived beneath all his life.

A hairbrush lay on the counter and she grabbed it on her way out the door. Cool air flowed from open vents and brushed her bare legs as she moved from the room and down the stairs. She ran the bristles through her hair and opened the French doors to the balcony. The sultry Louisiana night wrapped her in red and gold shadows as the last few moments of the setting sun lit heavy clouds from above. Below, Bourbon Street was fired up with glowing tubes of neon and storefronts selling anything and everything from porcelain masks and Hurricanes to lap dances.

Stella sat in a wrought-iron chair as she brushed the tangles from her hair. Three floors down, tourists crowded the old city, and their laughter and chatter mixed with the streams of jazz and zydeco and the smells of food and ancient plumbing. Two balconies over, a couple shared a bottle of wine beneath the red and gold streaks in the dusky sky, the clink of their glasses and lowered voices barely audible. Stella curled her feet up beneath her and pulled her robe tight as a hotel door opened and shut. She didn’t know whether it was the door to her room or not until she felt a warm tingle up her spine as a darker shadow spilled from the doorway and over her.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“A little.” She looked over her shoulder at Beau. At his big outline lit from behind like he was a saint. All he needed was a bright red sacred heart. “Are you?”

“Kasper fed me, but I can always eat.” She couldn’t see his face, but she could feel his gaze. A gaze too hot, too earthy for a saint. “Give me ten minutes to shower. I know a little place a few blocks from here that serves great alligator sausage and dirty rice.”

“Sounds good,” Stella said, even though there was no way she was going to eat alligator. He turned to go, taking his hot, earthy gaze with him.

Stella stood and ran her fingers through her damp hair. She moved to the railing and looked down at the crowded street. She couldn’t go upstairs and get dressed until Beau was finished. She supposed she could listen for the shower then run upstairs, grab some clothes, and dress downstairs. But she’d prefer just to wait until she could put on a little makeup, too. She looked at the crowded street. At friends, families, and lovers. The hollow loneliness she’d felt earlier pressed in on her heart. Why now? In one way or another, she’d always been alone. If not exactly alone, different. Her father had paid her to stay away from his family, and she’d never really fit into her mother’s family. Which was probably more her fault. She’d never bothered to really learn the language and embrace the Hispanic culture. She’d been raised in it, but never really bothered to learn why a girl couldn’t wear red fingernail polish. She’d just thought it was stupid. She’d had a traditional quinceañera, complete with big white dress and mariachi band, when what she’d really wanted was a sweet sixteen with a red sequined mini and Britney Spears. When she’d wanted gifts of makeup and jewelry instead of a Bible and rosary.

“Sorry about the one bedroom.”

She turned and pressed her behind into the rail. He stood in the doorway wearing jeans and a dress shirt, unbuttoned and open as if it was too hot to close it. Light from inside washed over his left shoulder and down the contours of his hard chest. She bet his skin was warm and still sticky from the shower. She knew thinking like that was dangerous. Getting involved with Beau would be a mistake. One she would regret. “That was quick.”

Within the shadows he shrugged, then stepped out onto the balcony. “It doesn’t take long to knock the stink off.”

Her nose wrinkled. “That killed the romance.”

Above the noise of Bourbon Street, she heard his deep chuckle as he moved toward the rail. “You feeling all romantic, Boots?”

She folded her arms beneath her breasts and looked at him across her shoulder. More like lust than romance. “It’s a romantic city.”

He shoved one hip into the railing next to her, so close the open edge of his crisp shirt brushed the sleeve of her robe. “Some parts.” He turned to look out at the city. “Others are very
un
romantic.”

She turned toward him and gazed up into his face bathed in an eerie neon glow. “Like you.”

His head snapped back toward her. “Like me?”

“Yeah. When you save damsels in distress, that’s kind of romantic. But when you say stuff like knocking off your stink or pissing like a horse . . .” Again her nose wrinkled. “Not so much.” His mouth was just a few inches above hers and she wondered if he would kiss her. Again. If he’d do that thing where she felt consumed, then push her away. Again. She didn’t want to be pushed away. Easily set aside. Again. Getting involved with Beau might be a mistake, but she didn’t care right now. Right now he was filling the hollow places with his warmth. He consumed the lonely ache in her stomach and filled it up with tingling need and curiosity. There would always be time for regret. Later.

“I usually don’t save damsels in distress.” Beau looked at the neon light vibrating in Stella’s dark hair, and his gaze slid to the mouth and chin pointed up at him. She wore a hotel robe, and he wondered what she wore beneath. “And I’ve never been a romantic kind of guy.” Especially now that he was on the celibacy wagon. A fact of which he had to remind himself as he looked at her mouth pointed up toward him.

“Never?”

The tip of her tongue touched the corner of her mouth and he felt it between his legs. “Maybe for an hour here and there.”

“Here?”

He shook his head as the ache in his groin prodded him to throw her over his shoulder and take her to bed. “No.”

She raised her hand and placed it over his heart. Warm skin to soft palm that stole his breath and grabbed his balls in a hot grasp. “Your heart is beating fast.”

“The air is thick.” Which was true but not the reason his blood pounded in his veins. If anything, his heart rate should be lower at this altitude.

She untied her belt, and her voice dared him to look. “Liar.”

And he did. God help him, there weren’t enough MIL conversions or MOS calculations he could do in his head to keep his gaze from sliding past her throat. The material parted just enough to tease him with shadows of her plump little breast, hiding the good stuff from view. The stuff he wanted to touch and taste and feel against him. “Stella, I’m trying to do the right thing with you.”

“I’m not a child.” She touched his belly, and his muscles turned hard beneath her soft little hands. “I’m a grown woman, and I know the right thing for me.”

The woman standing in front of him practically naked was definitely not a child, and he couldn’t recall wanting a woman more than he wanted Stella. He raised his hands to the front of her robe. He grabbed the lapels and meant to shut them tight, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t make himself push her away this time. He would. In a minute, but first . . . He wrapped his fists in terry cloth and pulled her to the balls of her feet. Her hard nipples grazed his bare chest on the way up, and he had to lock his knees to keep from falling. Warm skin pressed into his warm skin, and her soft breasts rode his chest as he lowered his mouth to hers. Soft. She was so soft and tasted so good. Her tongue touched his and he fed her long kisses filled with hunger and longing. He wanted her. He wanted this. Standing on a balcony above Bourbon Street, he felt his hungered longing turn to burning need. The sounds of the French Quarter faded to nothing, and every nerve and cell in his body focused on her. Her wet mouth and tongue. Her warm breasts against his skin and her nipples stabbing his chest. Her hot skin sticking to his and her crotch pressed into his painful hard-on.

“Estella,” he groaned, and leaned his head back. Back from the soft temptation of her lips. “You said you were hungry.”

“I am.” She placed her hands on the sides of his head and brought his gaze to hers. “I want to do what you talked about last night.” He opened his mouth but she placed a finger over his lips. “I want to eat you up, Beau. I want to start here.” She placed her hot mouth on the side of his neck. “And lick my way south.”

“Jesus.”

“Then you lick your way south.” She slid her hands beneath his open shirt, down his sides, and curled her fingers in his waistband. “Down my stomach and belly button to the inside of my thighs. I want that, Beau. I’ve been thinking about it. Thinking about you.”

He’d been thinking about it also. No matter how hard he tried not to think of her spread out naked in front of him, offering up his favorite snacks.

“You said it’s your most important job.”

He was drowning in desire and lust, and his voice came out in a dry whisper. “I also said I am on the bench.”

“You can have oral sex and stay on the bench.”

He knew better. She might not be a child, but she was kidding herself that oral sex wasn’t sex.

“I’ve never had to talk a guy into getting naked,” she whispered just before she took his earlobe between her teeth and bit. “I can’t believe I am trying to talk you into it.”

He couldn’t believe it, either, and with the touch of her warm tongue, he couldn’t recall why he’d ever put himself on the bench in the first place. It had something to do with saving sex until it meant something. Well, it sure as hell felt like it meant something at the moment. It meant that if he didn’t have Stella he was going to explode. He took her hand in his. “Let’s go.”

“Where? I don’t want to go out.” She grabbed at her robe with her free hand as he pulled her into the room.

“You no longer have a choice.”

“What are we going to do?”

“You’re getting naked.” He didn’t bother to shut the doors behind them. “And I’m going to eat your little hot pocket.”

Chapter Ten

S
kin to skin, Stella pressed further into Beau. In a whirlwind of flying pants and underwear, he’d whipped their clothes off until they knelt naked in the middle of one cleared bed.

“Stella. Stella,” he whispered as his mouth slid down the side of her neck to the hollow of her throat. He was so hot to the touch, like a fever burned just beneath his skin. A fever that traveled across her skin, too. He’d wrapped one arm around her waist like a steel band, keeping her crotch pressed against the long, hard length of his burning erection. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“Do you want to stop?” she asked, even though she was fairly certain of his answer.

His grasp tightened around her waist. “Too late.”

Her head fell back and her hair brushed her bare behind. She was anxious for more and excited for what was next and completely tuned in to what he did to her. One of his big hands cupped her right breast as his thumb brushed her nipple. “Beau,” she moaned, and squirmed against his penis pressed into her belly. She might be a technical virgin, but her body knew what she wanted; him between her legs. The more she squirmed, the more she wanted him. Then his wet mouth latched on to her breast and his free hand slipped between her thighs. He rolled her aching nipple beneath his tongue, and his teasing touch stroked, then slid away, leaving a wet trail to her hip and belly. He tortured her with his fingers and mouth until she grasped the sides of his head and moaned for more.

He lifted his face to hers. His gray eyes smoldered and consumed and his voice came out rough when he ordered, “Lie down, Stella.” She didn’t need to be told twice and he knelt between her knees. His gaze slid from her face, paused at her breasts, then continued down her stomach to her crotch. His hands skimmed down the outside of her legs to her knees. He raised them until her feet rested next to her behind. “You’re beautiful, Boots.”

She tried to close her legs from his scrutiny, but his palms on the insides of her thighs stopped her. His hands moved down slowly, until his thumbs parted her and touched her slick pleasure button. She sucked in a breath and he smiled. “You like that?”

She licked her dry lips and nodded.

“Have you ever been eaten up by a man who truly enjoys his work?”

She nodded, then shook her head. God, she didn’t know. What did that even mean? He cupped her behind in his big hands and showed her exactly what it meant. He parted her slick flesh and kissed her there. Her back arched off the bed and he slid them both to the edge and knelt on the floor with her legs over his shoulders.

“Oh my God,” she moaned as he worked her over with his hot mouth. Pleasure built inside her and sizzled as it worked its way to the surface of her skin. “Do that! Yes. There. Don’t stop!”

He laughed and bit the inside of her thigh. From between her legs, he lifted his gaze. “I know what I’m doing, Stella.”

Yes. Yes, he did, and he got back to doing it. He sucked her into his mouth and licked and stabbed her with his tongue, over and over until her eyes rolled back in her head. “Holy frijole y guacamole!” A searing orgasm burned through her veins, flashing across her skin from her head to the tips of her curled toes. Her back arched and she couldn’t breathe. “Oh my God!” His hot mouth sucked the pleasure from her body in pulsating waves. It consumed her mind, body, and soul. She moaned something. Something that in a state of delirious euphoria might have sounded like “Beau . . . yes . . . gahh . . . I love you!” Then her brain shut down and all she could do was feel. Delicious hot pleasure that left her gasping and her heart pounding as she finally came to. She felt a soft kiss on the inside of her knee and opened her eyes.

“You okay?”

She rose to her elbows and looked down her body at him; his face was turned into her leg but his sleepy gray eyes stared back at her.
Okay?
She was probably going to be okay, but never the same. “Did I just say ‘I love you’?”

“It happens.”

She sat up with as much dignity as possible and slid her legs from his shoulders. “It’s never happened to me.”

“I got skills.”

Her hair fell over her face and she pulled it to one side of her neck. “Mad skills.” She slid off the bed and leaned forward to kiss his shoulder. She knelt in front of him and ran her hands over his hard arms and chest. She was eager to see if she could get him to moan and groan and lose control of his brain.

“Sit on the bed, Beau. I do my best work if my hands are free to touch you where I want.”

He stood, and she buried her face in his flat stomach. She reached around and grabbed both cheeks of his hard behind. A thin line of dark blond hair circled his flat stomach and tailed lower. He was all hard muscles and tight, tan skin. He was beautiful. Like a guy in a military calendar. Mr. September. All bronze and hot and sculpted.

Her open mouth slid down his lower belly, and she slipped her palms down the backs of his legs, then up again. Touching here. Brushing there. Light touches that were meant to drive him crazy. She pulled back to look up at him. At his sleepy eyes and precise breath. He was all controlled lust and she wrapped her hand around thick erection and slowly moved her palm up and down the hot shaft. She wondered if he ever lost control. Went crazy. She ran her tongue up his engorged penis and licked the sticky bead of moisture from the cleft. His eyes got a little darker. A little more stormy, and she asked, “Ready?”

He locked his fingers behind his head and spread his feet shoulder-width apart. “Do your worst.”

She smiled and ran her tongue up and down the length of him. She had a few mad skills of her own. Some she’d learned, others she read about in
Cosmo
and
Redbook
and was curious to try. She used the underside of her tongue on the sweet spot just below the head. He sucked in a breath and she sucked him into her mouth. She looked up at him watching her. She used her hands and tongue and mouth to drag a tortured groan from deep in his throat. The more she worked him over, the more she liked it. The more she liked it, the more she wanted more. His hands fell to the side of her head and he tangled his fingers in her hair. He said something about how good it felt, but he didn’t lose control. Not even when she used her tongue tornado on him. He groaned and told her not to stop, but he didn’t lose it. Not like her. Not even when she cupped his testicles in her hand and sucked an orgasm from him that sounded like it came from deep down in his soul. His muscles turned hard and he swore like a Marine, but he didn’t lose control. Not even when she stayed with him to the end. When his muscles relaxed and he let out his breath. Not even when she stood and slid up his body, his still erect penis between them.

“You okay?” she asked as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

“You’re good at that, Boots.”

She smiled. “I got mad skills, too.”

He kissed her forehead. “Ready for some room service?”

Her brow wrinkled and she pressed herself against his erection. “You want food?”

“Not for me. You’re going to be up all night and need your strength.”

She laughed. “What if I’m tired?” She totally wasn’t.

“If you wanted sleep, you shouldn’t have woken the beast.”

T
he beast
.

Stella bit the inside of her cheek and turned her face to look out the passenger window of the SUV. She gazed at the tall skinny pines of central Louisiana as memories of the previous night’s experience with
the beast
flashed in her head.

After the first encounter, Beau had ordered gumbo and jambalaya and pecan pie from a restaurant in the Quarter. It had arrived with a white Sancerre, and they’d gorged on rich Cajun food and French wine. Then they’d gorged on each other, finally falling asleep in the wee hours of the morning.

Memories of his warm hands and hot mouth and slick tongue licking wine from her breasts and belly made her smile, but the memory of things he’d learned in a Hong Kong massage parlor set her cheeks on fire. Things that gave new meaning to “happy ending.”

She felt his gaze on her from across the SUV and turned to look at him. He was once again clean-cut Captain American. The late morning sun lit up his hair and white T-shirt like he was a superhero. Not the talented badass who knew things. Things she’d never even read about. Things that made her say “I love you” when she clearly didn’t.

“What?” he asked.

“What?”

“Your face is getting red.”

“It’s hot outside,” she said, which was an obvious lie since they were in a vehicle with the air-conditioning blasting. She took a sip of her second latte of the day and brought up the embarrassing moment before he did. “Sorry about the ‘I love you’ last night.”

He shrugged, and an arrogant smile twisted the corners of his lips. “Like I said, it happens.”

“Well, it’s never happened to me before. Has it ever happened to you?” she asked, although she figured she knew the answer.

“What? Screaming ‘I love you’ at the height of orgasm?” He shook his head. “Nah. I told you I’m not romantic.”

Yep, that’s what she’d figured. “I don’t think I screamed.” He was too restrained, even at the height of ecstasy.

“You screamed.”

She hid her smile behind her cup. “Maybe I raised my voice a little. I couldn’t help it once I beheld
the beast
.”

He laughed. A sexy, masculine chuckle that worked its way out. “You must be growing on me. That was actually funny.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Boots.”

Now a question she’d been wondering about since Biloxi. “Are you really ‘on the bench’?”

He turned his gaze to the road. “Obviously not now.”

“Because of last night?”

“Yeah. I know you’re going to say that what we did last night wasn’t sex. You can believe that if you want. I’m not judging you, but I know better.”

They hadn’t had sex. They’d fooled around. There was a difference but she wasn’t going to split hairs and argue with him. Not when her body still tingled with afterglow. “Why are you, or were you, on the bench? You’re obviously not a virgin so that bird has flown the coop. You’re an attractive, healthy man and—” She gasped. “Is there something wrong with you?”

“No, but if you are concerned about that,” he said as a frown settled across his brow, “don’t you think you should have asked before now?”

Yes! But he was Beau. Captain America, and she felt so safe and protected around him.

“Don’t you think you should have asked last night?” He glanced at her, then back at the road. “For the record, I’m clean as a monk.”

“Me too.”

“I know.”

“How?” He was so annoying. “Are you a super secret spy
and
undercover gynecologist?”

“My face was closer to your muffin than your gynecologist.” Again he glanced at her. “I would have noticed.”

“You checked me out?”

“Of course. A guy can’t be too careful what he puts in his mouth.”

He was right. He wasn’t romantic and it was time to turn this verbal train around. “Did a woman break your heart? Is that why you’re on the bench?”

“No.”

That was it? Just a no? What would make a man swear off women? A good-looking man like Sergeant Beau Junger. “Are you having a mid-life crisis?”

“No.” He frowned and reached for a bottle of water in the cup holder. He steered the SUV with one forearm as he unscrewed the cap. “I have a few more years before I hit
mid-life
.”

She thought of her old boyfriend who’d stolen her Banana Republic coat. “Are you having a bisexual crisis?”

He choked a little on his water. “What?” He looked at her and wiped a few drops from his chin. “No. I’m not having any sort of crisis, Jesus.” He turned his attention to the road and shoved the bottle back into the holder. This time he added, “Can’t a man sit on the bench for a while without having a crisis? Can’t I just want sex to mean something with a woman I care about
first
, for a fucking change?”

“Oh.” She felt a stab in her chest, and she sharply turned her face away. “Oh wow.”

“Shit. That came out wrong.”

She didn’t think so, and she didn’t know which hurt worse. That he didn’t care about her or that what they’d done last night meant nothing. Not that it did mean anything. Or must. Or . . . or should. But somehow it felt like it did. At least for her. “Sorry I forced you to fool around.”

“You’re not big enough to force me into doing anything.” In a surprising move, he reached across the SUV and took her hand in his. The heat from his palm tingled the inside of her wrist and elbow. “I didn’t do anything last night I haven’t been thinking about doing since I first saw you in those little leather shorts last week.”

She glanced across her shoulder at him and tried not to let his simple touch affect her and make her think of where he’d touched her last night. “I thought you didn’t like me when we first met.”

“I thought you were annoying. I didn’t know you well enough to dislike you.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “I liked your tight ass in those shorts, though. Tried not to stare at it when we were leaving Ricky’s parking lot.”

“You stared at my behind while I was freaked out about Ricky?”

“Sure.”

“Even though I annoyed you?”

“Of course. One doesn’t have anything to do with the other.”

Yes it did. That was just stupid. She couldn’t imagine looking at a man she found super annoying and seeing anything attractive about any part of . . . Wait. Yes she could. She was looking at him now.

“You’re beautiful, Stella Leon, and I broke my own rules with you.”

“Rules? There’s more than one?”

He let go of her hand and held up one finger. “Don’t have sex until you’re married or at least headed in that direction.” He held up another finger. “Never get involved with a buddy’s sister, wife, or girlfriend.” And one last. “Don’t mix business and pleasure. I broke all three with you.”

“I’m not a buddy’s sister, wife, or girlfriend,” she pointed out.

“When Vince marries Sadie, you’ll be his sister.”

Technically, she supposed. “So, should I be sorry I ‘woke the beast’?”