Staring up at the beamed ceiling overhead, Tula lost herself in the flash of heat swamping her. His hands moved over her body with finesse and determination. He left trails of fire in his wake. She felt as though she were burning up from the inside and all she could think of was the need for even more flames.
His mouth moved over her skin, her throat, her jaw and up again to her mouth where he kissed her until she couldn't breathe, couldn't think. Only sensation was left to her.
Then passion crashed down on them both in the same searing instant. Hands moved quickly, freeing buttons, undoing snaps and zippers and in seconds, they were naked, entwined tightly together on the living room floor.
Rain beat a counterpoint to the gasps and moans sounding out in the dimly lit room. From outside came the muffled heartbeat of the world. Cars whizzing past, wheels on wet streets sounding like steaks sizzling on a grill. Wind rattled the windowpanes and sighed beneath the eaves. From the nearby monitor came the quiet, steady breathing of the child upstairs in his bed.
And none of those sounds were enough to intrude on this moment. Around them, the world continued. But in that room, time stood still. There was only the two of them, Tula thought. Just she and Simon and for this one amazing instant she was going to forget about everything else. Stop trying to read the future, or hide from the past, long enough to enjoy the present.
Instead, she would lose herself in a pair of chocolate-brown eyes that saw too much and revealed too little.
"You're thinking," he accused, one corner of his mouth lifting into a half smile.
"Sorry," she said, smoothing her fingertips across his jaw. "Don't know how that happened."
"Let's just see what I can do about shutting down that busy brain of yours."
"Think you're up to the challenge?" she teased.
"Baby," he assured her, "I'm very up for it."
A surprised laugh shot from her throat and Tula sighed with happiness. Having a lover who could make her laugh at the most astonishing times, was really a gift. And maybe, she thought, there were even more layers to Simon Bradley than she had assumed. Maybe-
Then he began his quest to shut off her thoughts and he was more than successful. Tula groaned when his mouth came down on her breast. He licked and nibbled and she twisted beneath him, trying to take more of what he offered. Needing to feel all she could of him. Needing-just needing.
He suckled her and she gasped, arching into him, holding his head to her breast, as his mouth pulled at her breast. Her fingers speared through his thick, soft hair. She loved the feel of his mouth on her and thought frantically that she could happily spend the rest of her life like this.
He smiled against her skin. She felt the curve of his mouth against her breast and she knew he was aware of the effect he had on her. But she wasn't interested in hiding it from him anyway. Why shouldn't he know that he could splinter her body and shatter her soul with a kiss? A touch?
The wood floor beneath her bare back was cool, but the heat he built within her was more than a match for it. He lay between her thighs and she felt the tip of him prodding at her center. She wanted that invasion of body into body. Wanted to feel the slick slide of his heat into hers.
She lifted her hips in silent welcome, but he didn't respond to her invitation. Instead, he rolled over, taking her with him until she was splayed atop him, staring down into those eyes that fascinated her so.
"The floor's not real comfortable," he told her, reaching up to cup her brea**sts in the palms of his hands. "Thought we'd just change position for awhile."
"Change is good," she said, straddling him, keeping her gaze fixed on his. Her hands moved over his sculpted chest. At her touch, he hissed in a breath.
Simon looked up at her and felt his mind blur. He'd been planning this seduction for days and now that it was here, his plans meant nothing. The only thing that mattered was her. The feel of her. The taste of her. The soft sighs that drifted from her throat at his touch.
Shadowy light played on her choppy blond hair and winked off the silver hoops in her ears. Her big blue eyes were glazed with the same passion claiming him. He kneaded her brea**sts with a firm, gentle touch and tweaked her hardened nipp**les between his thumbs and forefingers. He loved watching the play of emotion on her face as she hid nothing from him.
Her eager response to lovemaking only fed the fires inside him, pushing at him to take more, to give more. Her hips were rocking instinctively and his own body was hard and tight.
He set his hands at her hips and lifted her high enough off him that he could position himself to slide inside her. She closed her eyes, tipped her head back and, taking control of the situation, slowly, inch by inch, took him inside. She settled herself over him with a deliberately slow slide that was both tantalizing and exasperating. He tried to hurry her, to push himself into her harder, deeper, but the tiny, curvy woman was in control now, whether he liked it or not.
"You're just going to have to lay there and take it," she said, a sly, purely female smile on her lips.
His eyes crossed as she finally settled on top of him, with his body sheathed completely inside hers. She was tight and damp and so damn hot he couldn't think of anything but the sensations crashing down on him.
She moved, just a slight wiggle of her hips, but that small action shot through him with the force of a nine-point earthquake. He felt the world tremble. Or at least his corner of it. And he wanted more. Didn't matter why he'd seduced her, he assured himself. All that mattered now was what they created together. The impossible heat. The incredible friction of two bodies moving as one toward a climax that would be, he knew, richer and more all-encompassing than anything else he'd ever known.
He didn't care who Tula was. Didn't want to re member that he was, in effect, setting her up to be used as a weapon against her own father. What he wanted to concentrate on now was how well they meshed. How their bodies joined so easily it was as if they were two pieces in the same puzzle.
She moved on him again, her hips rocking, taking him in and releasing him in a slow rhythm that built steadily into a pace that stole his breath and the last of his thoughts.
She arched her back, pushing her brea**sts higher. Her hands were on his chest, bracing herself as she rode him with a frenzied, honest passion that shook him to the core. Hands at her hips, he stared up into her eyes as she moved, and he was caught by the light glittering in those blue depths.
He felt swept up by both passion and emotion and just for that one, staggering moment, Simon forgot about everything else but Tula. She cried out his name as her release claimed her and a single heartbeat later, his body joined hers.
Blindly, Simon reached for her, pulling her down to his chest where he could cradle her close. Where, for a few brief seconds, he could forget that he had maneuvered her into this and instead pretend that what they had just shared was real.
Eleven
It had changed nothing.
And everything.
Two days later, Tula was still trying to understand the shift in her and Simon's relationship. If she could even call it that. Connected by a child, they were two people currently sharing a bed. Did that actually constitute a "relationship"?
Simon was kind and funny and warm and so attentive in bed, she'd hardly had any sleep at all the last two nights. Which, of course, she wasn't exactly complaining about. But was there anything else in his heart for her? Was it just desire? Was it expediency, since she was right there in his house and would be until she decided to hand over custody of Nathan?
She'd given herself to the man she loved with no assurances at all that he would care for her in return. Yes, she loved him. And it was too late now to change that.
How could she have let this happen? Hadn't she made a vow to herself not to take that last slippery step into love? But how could she possibly have avoided it? she asked herself. Simon was so much more than she had originally thought him to be. She had seen glimpses of his caring nature that he fought to bury so deeply. She had watched him with his son and been touched by the gentleness he showed Nathan. She had laughed with Simon, fought with him and made love with him in every possible way.