He heaved a heavy sigh of frustration. "Dammit, Jen, what's to think about? We're compatible. We work well together. More importantly, we have fun together. And you wouldn't dare tell me we're not great together in bed." A tiny shudder rippled through him. "I swear to you that never before in my life have I experienced anything even close to what I've just shared with you."
Jen opened her mouth to respond, to say it was more about sex than any deep, meaningful affection but he wasn't finished.
"And damned if I'm not getting hard again."
This time Jen bypassed demure and went straight for wanton. "So please shut up and do the same thing to me again."
Marsh did...again and again throughout the rest of the night and into the early morning hours.
* * *
Jen opened her eyes to bright sunlight pouring through the wall of windows onto her face. Groaning a protest, she immediately shut them again.
"Hit the white button on the nightstand." Marsh's breath fluttered the hair at her temple.
Squinting, Jen reached out, her hand groping for the button. Her fingers barely brushed it. With a soft swish filmy curtains slid from the ends of the windows to join together in the center, defusing the brightness of the midday sunlight.
"Oh, lovely," Jen murmured, daring to open her eyes again. She turned her head to find Marsh's silver eyes watching her. She smiled. "Good morning."
"Morning." He smiled back at her. "God, you're beautiful."
"I'm sure." Jen laughed as an image of what she must look like in the light of day after the night they had spent practically devouring each other. She dreaded looking at what all that activity had done to her gypsy-girl makeup.
"Oh, you are, Jen. You look all tousled and heavy-lidded, like a woman well loved."
Well screwed, Jen thought, a bitter taste at the back of her throat. He didn't mean loved. Not the way she wanted him to mean it. In that instant, she wanted to go. She had to go. She felt queasy. Tossing back the covers, she slipped from the bed and dashed into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. She could barely hear Marsh calling to her.
"Hey, Jen, what the hell?"
After cleaning the makeup from her face the best she could, Jen stood in the shower, her tears mingling with the drumming water splashing over her head. He doesn't believe in love. He doesn't believe in love. The phrase repeated inside her head, keeping time with the spill of shower water. She cried harder than she imagined possible, trying to be silent so Marsh wouldn't hear. She felt as if her heart were breaking in two.
Later, standing dripping on the shower mat, Jen didn't remember bathing or shampooing her hair, yet her body was wet, her hair soaked. Picking up one of the bath sheets folded and piled on the slatted bench, she slowly dried her body, trying not to think about all the amazing things Marsh had done to her the night before.
Her hair was still dripping water down her back. There were two round stiff-bristled men's hair brushes set to one side of the vanity top. Picking up the nearest to her, she worked at brushing the tangles from her mass of thick hair, perhaps harder than she needed to. When she finished, the hair lay smooth against her shoulders and the brush was matted with her blond hair. She looked closer and saw that her hair was tangled in the brush with his.
She left it there.
Jen was about to wrap her shivering body in the wet towel she had discarded when she turned and noticed a dark brown terry robe hanging from a hook on the door. Dropping the towel into a large open basket, she shrugged into the robe. It was the softest, warmest robe she had ever touched. Clutching the robe close, she drew a deep, courage-gathering breath and, opening the door, strode back into the lion's den.
The particular lion waiting there for her looked relaxed stretched out in all his naked glory on the bed, his long, lean body bathed in sunlight. But the relaxed look was deceiving. The glitter in his narrowed silver eyes gave him away.
"Jennifer, what's going on?" His voice was low, but edged with concern.
"Nothing." Unable to bear looking at the sheer masculine beauty of him, Jen turned away, grimacing at the sight of her discarded clothing littering the floor, the costume seeming so silly and forced in the morning light.
"Nothing, huh?" The concern in his voice hardened. "Then what the hell are you doing?"
Scooping up her panties and the now crumpled skirt she had worn, Jen slowly turned to look at him. Although she hadn't heard him move, Marsh was now sitting on the side of the bed, the sheet pulled up to his waist.
Jen swallowed to moisten her parched throat. "I'm picking up my clothes to get dressed."
"Why?" His tone was flat, his expression passive.
"Why?" She shook her head as if in disbelief he had asked the question. "It's after noon. It's time I get home." A pure bald-faced lie if Jen had ever told one, especially given the fact that the only place she now considered home was next to Marsh. She fought as hard as she could not to cry.
"Are you concerned about getting home, or do you have a case of morning-after remorse?"
"No remorse," she said as calmly as she could, thinking that she would never regret a moment of the time she had spent with Marsh. Not a moment. Straightening her spine she met his silvery gaze with a hard stare of her own.
"No?" He arched a brow. "Then why have you dumped me into the deep freeze?"
"You keep at me," she said, scrambling for a way to protect herself against him, a way to keep herself from telling him the truth. "I told you I need more time." She paused, seeing something new in Marsh's eyes for a moment, something she couldn't quite identify yet. She relented a little-she couldn't help herself. "I haven't dumped you into the deep freeze."
He arched a brow at her. "Feels damn chilly to me."
"I'm sorry." That was the truth, she suddenly realized. She was sorry. Why blame him for the fact that she foolishly fell in love with him? It wasn't his fault her heart was choosing him even though her head was saying no. "I just don't like being pressured."
"Okay, I'll back off...for a while." His piercing gaze softened as a small smile crept across his mouth.
Oh, heavens, his mouth. Jen could feel his talented mouth, could taste him. He looked good enough to eat. The thought abruptly brought her to her senses, reminding her that she needed to get out, to get away from Marsh before she fell back into bed with him, and then found herself crying in the bathroom again, her heart breaking into pieces.
"Thank you." Bending again, she scooped the now crushed blouse from the floor. "But I still want to go home." As she retrieved the black wig, she wrinkled her nose with distaste at the thought of putting the costume back on in order to go home. What had she been thinking last night?
She hadn't been thinking at all, clearly.
"You don't have to wear those clothes to go, even though you did look sexy as hell in your costume. Turned me on something awful," he said, rising to stroll to the bathroom. "We'll find you something to wear."
In an effort to conceal a shiver of response to his admitted sensual reaction to her gypsy attire, Jen held the robe's two sides together, snuggling into the soft terry warmth. "Thanks."
"I'm going to grab a shower, then I'll drive you home." The bathroom door closed quietly behind him.
Recalling the night they had spent together in his king-size bed, her wanton surrender to him, Jen sank, weak-kneed, into a deeply cushioned chair. Biting her lip, her bravado show of spirit deflated, she glanced around for her small string bag. It lay on the floor, next to the chair she had sunk into.
A sigh whispered through her slightly parted lips.
She loved him, more with each passing day. The time she'd spent without him had seemed interminable from the time she'd left the house until he had slipped his arm around her at the party. She longed to be with him every day, sleep beside him every night...
Jen heard the shower running full force. Her imagination instantly produced an image of Marsh, the water falling over his perfectly formed, magnificent body. Heat rushed to the most sensitive part of her body.
Closing her eyes, she leaned back against the chair. His sexy, masculine scent clung to his robe, increasing the heat now radiating throughout her body.
She wanted to be with him, ached for him so badly she had to resist a compulsion to shrug out of the robe and join him in the shower, join with him under the pounding spray.