Читать книгу Your Mouth Drives Me Crazy - HelenKay Dimon - Страница 13

A few hours later Kane decided that being in bed with Annie could be described only one way: pure torture. Lying on top of the covers in sweat shorts and a tee with her tucked underneath the bedding provided a small barrier. A thin cotton shield between his body and hers. Too thin.

He could feel the heat radiating off her through the sheet. Could smell her scent, a mixture of his shampoo and her skin, on the pillow. When she turned on her side and snuggled her firm bottom against his thigh, he broke out in a cold sweat.

“I’m hot,” she grumbled.

That made two of them. “You’re wearing four layers of clothing. You could trek through the Arctic and not worry about frostbite.”

She sat up and punched her pillow. Probably pretending the defenseless thing was his face.

“I’m wearing what I had on before bed,” she said between shots.

“Plus my robe.”

“The air was cool.” She slapped the pillow a few more times.

“It’s eighty degrees.” He didn’t own an air conditioner, preferring to throw open the windows and let the trade winds drag in the breeze off the ocean.

“A cool eighty,” she said.

She’d said she lived in Seattle, but now she found Hawaii cold. Interesting. Made him wonder if the Seattle story suffered from the same problem as the amnesia one—being false. “So you needed the robe and my sweatshirt?”

She stilled in mid pillow fluff. “How did you know about the sweatshirt?”

“I saw you digging through my drawers.” Leaving her alone still wasn’t an option. Not until he knew her story. Having her last name would be a start. Until then, he’d piss with one eye on her and one on the toilet.

This time she punched his shoulder. “You were in the bathroom.”

“Hey!”

“Were you watching me?”

The woman packed a punch. “Don’t hit me. Ever.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

Absolutely nothing. “Throw your pretty little ass in jail. That’s assault.”

Even in the dark room, he could see her mouth fall open. The woman had to know how enticing her butt could be. Her shock must have been a result of the threat.

“Just answer me.” She balanced her head on her elbow and hovered over his left shoulder.

Her soft hair brushed against his cheek and tickled his nose. He could see her sexy auburn curls in the pale light from the window. A deep, dark sultry red.

“It’s my damn house.” Unexpected desire whipped through him, making his voice gruff.

Maybe he should try a real vacation. Fly to Arizona. Take in a football game. Find that nice woman who could tell the truth for more than three seconds at a time and sleep with her. Meaning not sleep at all.

“You invaded my privacy,” she insisted.

Was she kidding? “You mean like you did when you went into my drawer without asking?”

She flopped back on the bed. “Anyone ever tell you how annoying you are?”

“Never.”

Plenty of folks used stronger language than that. Being in law enforcement guaranteed a wide variety of enemies. He counted a few of Kauai’s finest families on that list. Busting up their baby boys’ drug-selling operation had been his most recent task. A task that had earned him the families’ wrath and an internal investigation.

“They should try sleeping with you. You’re a bed hog.”

“Never had any complaints before.” Not on that score.

Of course, since Leilani, he hadn’t kept any woman around long enough to move to the disgruntled stage. The women in his life tended to die young, so he didn’t see the point in getting attached. Breast cancer, car accidents, the reason for the death didn’t matter. Death was death.

His mother. His sister. His wife. He took the hint and backed off. He was done burying the women in his life.

She flipped her pillow over once, twice, and smacked it with her fist a few more times.

He waited until she settled back into the pillows. “You done squirming?”

Lying on her back with her hands folded across her chest, she did a great impression of a corpse. “Unless it bugs you, then I’ll keep moving around.”

“While you’re flopping all over the place, you may want to take one or two of those layers off.” If he got a vote, he’d choose removal of all the layers.

“Keep your nose out of my clothes…” She choked a little. “Well, you know what I mean.”

“Where did you say I should put my nose?”

“Shut up.”

“I’ve seen you naked. The mystery’s gone.” He tried to sound uninterested, as if her body were nothing special.

“Don’t remind me.” She tugged the covers up to her chin.

“We’re grownups.”

“One of us is. The jury’s still out on the other.”

He could not drop the conversation for some reason. “We should be able to talk about this like adults.”

“We’re not talking about it at all.”

He was. “Why not?”

“I’m not going to answer that.”

He turned on his side and watched her chest rise and fall in a steady rhythm. His gaze traveled up to her face. The small upturned nose. The deep-set eyes. Flawless complexion.

“There’s no reason to get shy all of a sudden,” he said. In my line of work, I’ve seen—”

“Forget what you’ve seen.”

Like that was ever going to happen. “Fine.”

“About my body, I mean.”

“Already forgotten. Couldn’t even tell you were a woman. Seen hundreds better than you. Happy?”

The mattress dipped in front of him as she rolled over and fell right into him with an “ompf.” Her breasts crushed against his chest for a second before she reached across him and clicked on the light next to his head.

To keep from being blinded, he threw an arm over his eyes. “What the hell are you doing?”

The woman had some trouble taking a hint. Instead of going to sleep, she poked and shoved against his shoulder. “Wake up.”

“What the hell makes you think I can sleep through your acrobatic routine?”

He dropped his arm next to his ear to get a better look at her. All wrapped up in his robe and glaring, she kneeled next to his hip.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked.

“You are.”

“I thought we weren’t talking anymore tonight.”

“We’re not talking about the nudity. On every other topic, we talk when I say we talk.”

“When did you start paying the mortgage?” He closed his eyes. Not looking at her fine-boned beautiful face might ease the tension building in his groin.

“The guest is always right.”

He opened one eye. “You’re a guest now?”

“You invited me to stay over.”

He had. The move had surprised him more than her. He’d had sex since Leilani. Sleepovers, no. “Who could argue with that logic?”

She poked him again. Put all her strength behind it that time.

“Stop that.” He lifted up his arm and looked at the scratch. “You broke skin.”

“You deserved it.”

“For what? I’m trying to sleep.” He got a good look at her face. There on her cheeks and forehead. “You’re sweating.”

“I’m trying to get our relationship on an equal footing. We started off wrong, what with me being naked and you…not.”

“That part was fine with me.” More than fine. Amazing. Call him an insensitive bastard, but healthy men looked at that kind of thing.

“I don’t like the imbalance of power between us,” she said.

“And to adjust this alleged footing issue, you’ve decided to wear all of my clothes at one time. Yeah, that makes sense, Annie.”

“It does.”

“The tropical heat has rotted your brain. Maybe you’re allergic to the smell of plumeria.”

Her eyes grew dreamy for a second. “I love that smell. As soon as I got off the plane, the scent hit me. That unique mix of greenery, rain, ocean water and flowers. Then on the way to the hotel I saw this amazing bougainvillea with mountains in the distance and white puffy clouds filling the sky. The shot would have been perfect for this calendar…” The faraway look vanished. “Never mind.”

“What calendar?”

She ignored the question, just as she had most of his questions. “My logic makes perfect sense. You know it.”

He didn’t. Women spoke a language all their own as far as he was concerned. “Let’s try this.”

He sat up and reached for the belt to the robe. She pulled back just as he grabbed the end. The move untied the knot without any effort from him. “I didn’t save you on the beach to have you die of asphyxiation in my bed.”

“Guess that wouldn’t look good in the paper. I can almost see the headline: Police Chief Smothers Female Companion With Clothing. Very catchy.”

She was too busy chuckling at her lame joke to complain about him sliding the robe off her shoulders. Or the sweatshirt over her head. In about a minute he had her striped down to his washed-out Arizona State University T-shirt, which on her looked oversized but sexy. The same one with a picture of Sparky the Sun Devil, the school’s mascot, right in the center of her chest. Devil. How appropriate.

His skin itched with the need to touch her. Not the robe. Not the clothes. Her. All that creamy skin. Those full red lips. Her hard little nipples.

“Kane?” Her tongue swept across her lips, wetting them.

All he wanted to do was pass his own along that seam, dip inside and taste her. He shook his head to wipe out all of those erotic thoughts.

“Go to sleep.” He didn’t recognize his own voice.

“I think we should—”

“Go to sleep.” Maybe if he said it over and over, he’d actually believe it.

But she wasn’t moving. She sat straight up, as if frozen in place right there in the middle of his mattress.

The situation called for fast thinking, quick action and absolutely no touching. Letting his fingers wander over her skin, slide under that tee, comb through that silky hair. All tempting, but his pants would catch on fire. Worse, he’d lose it like a teenage boy touching his first breast.

“Here. Let me help.” Against his better judgment, he balanced his hands on her slim shoulders and eased her back into the pillows.

Then whatever remained of that better judgment expired.

He followed her down until his palms rested against the mattress on either side of her head. With his chest pressed diagonal against hers and his knees still on the bed beside her, he leaned in until his lips hovered just above hers.

“You comfortable?” he asked.

“No.”

At last an honest answer. He could see from the heat banked behind her eyes and sharp kick in her breathing that his closeness affected her. The fact she didn’t hide her reaction or pretend disinterest filled him with pure male satisfaction. Made him wonder how fast he could bring her to orgasm.

Her mouth fell open the slightest bit, luring him in. He pressed a palm against her chest, right on the upper crest of her breasts, and rubbed her skin with a gentle massage. “You still feel warm.”

“Probably because I’m covered by a hundred and eighty pounds of warm male.”

He brushed his lips across her cheek. “Very warm male.”

Her fingers caressed his shoulder. “One could even say hot.”

“What now, Annie?”

Her sweet smile turned mischievous. Like, he-should-cover-his-balls-and-duck-for-cover mischievous.

“We go to sleep,” she said in a sing-songy voice.

The sensual spell evaporated. The mood changed that fast. If he were the pessimistic type, he’d think she planned this seduction scene to teach him a lesson.

“Now, Kane. Sleep.” The caress against his chest turned into a full-fledged shove.

The push caught him off guard. He fell back and only by kicking out his legs did he manage to stop the tumble before he landed on the floor and on his ass.

“What are you—”

“Sleeping.” She turned over, facing away from him, and curled deeper under the covers with a deceptively sweet sigh.

“But—”

“Good night, Kane.” Her voice sounded downright chipper.

That made one of them.