Brave Enough(33)

Looking up at Tag, at his swirling eyes and his breathtaking face, I lose the ability to think clearly. All I can do when he settles his hips between my legs is gasp, my questions and concerns evaporating from my mind like water from a pool on a hot day. The only thing I can think to say is, “I hope helping me is worth the risk, then.”

“From the first time I saw you, I’ve thought of little else. And, God help me, from the instant I got to taste these lips,” he says, dipping his mouth to mine in a kiss that makes my head spin and my body melt. “From the instant I got to touch this skin . . .” He glides his hand from the swells of my breasts all the way down my side to my thigh, which he tugs on until I wrap my legs around his waist. “From the damn second that I got to feel this body . . .” he whispers, easing his rigid cock into my welcoming heat on a deep groan, “I knew, I knew I was a goner. You’re worth the risk. I’d be willing to bet my life on it.”

“But why?” I ask breathlessly, barely able to hold on to rational thought with him buried inside me this way. “Why me?”

I have to ask. Of all the women—all the young, beautiful, plentiful women—why me?

“If I could figure that out, you wouldn’t be under my skin, now would you?”

I half laugh, half moan when he withdraws and then pushes back in a bit harder.

“But if I had to guess,” he says, tracing a path up my throat to my ear with the tip of his tongue.

“Yes?”

“I’d say you’re a witch. Because you’ve bewitched me. I just can’t seem to get enough.”

You’ve bewitched me. I love the sound of that.

As he whispers the last into my ear, he flexes his hips and steals my breath. After that, all conversation ceases to matter.





SIXTEEN


Tag

Weatherly is fast asleep on our clothes. Well, most of them. The majority of her creamy skin is covered in my silk shirt, but everything else is beneath her. I manage to extricate my slacks from under her right leg without waking her. As I pull them on, I stare down at her—at the beautiful face turned toward the rising sun, at the slim arm tucked under her head, at the spill of dark, thick hair spread out behind her. Damn, she’s gorgeous.

Is that what’s getting to me?

I quickly discard the theory. I’ve slept with gorgeous women before, so it can’t be just that. So then what the hell is it?

The answer: I don’t know. I don’t know what it is or how it is; I only know that it is.

Just standing here watching her is giving me a major hard-on. And she’s sleeping, for God’s sake. I wasn’t kidding when I told her that I can’t get enough of her. I really can’t.

I debate waking her up the fun way, but decide instead to creep to the house and get some breakfast to bring back to her. And then we’ll have another round of “fun,” before the rest of Chiara wakes up and our love nest isn’t so private anymore.

I carry my shoes out into the grass before I put them on to traverse the dew-covered field. At the house, I sneak in the back door, fairly certain that if William and Michael are up, they’ll be having breakfast in the dining room. Men like them don’t eat in kitchens. And I’m right. It’s deserted except for the same fiftyish woman who was here yesterday afternoon.

“Good morning,” I say as I make my way around to the pantry. I set about collecting a thermos, some Styrofoam cups and a small picnic basket, which rests beside the one I took on the four-wheeler and never used. I fill a clean dish towel with warm croissants and fill a plastic container with thick slices of warm ham and bacon. Lastly, I put a few cubes of cheese in a cup and pack it all into the basket.

When I glance up, the chef is eyeing me with something that looks like amusement.

“Breakfast in bed,” I explain.

“A bed outside?”

“The best kind,” I answer, grinning at her. She merely cocks a brow and resumes stirring a pot of . . . something. I bet those sharp blue eyes don’t miss a thing.

I set the basket on the counter and take the back stairs up to the room we share to use the bathroom and clean up a little before heading back. I’m standing, bare-chested, in front of the bathroom mirror brushing my teeth when I hear the door open. I smile, my hunger forgotten when I think about spreading Weatherly out on the bed and eating her instead. But when I rinse my mouth and step out into the bedroom, all I see is Cher. Naked except for her fiery red hair, which is obscuring part of her very ample breasts.

I stop, obviously surprised, and stare.

Before I can ask any questions, Cher makes her way over to me. Her hair shifts as she walks, giving me peek-a-boo glimpses of hard, pink nipples.