“Don’t do that unless you want what will come next,” he whispered huskily against her temple.
“Does it matter what I want? If I agree to stay, all that will matter is what you want, I would think.” She frowned. The deal was on the table. Now they were down to haggling.
David stared down at her. “Is that a yes?”
“No.”
“It didn’t sound like a ‘go to hell’ to me.”
“I need to think about it.”
“Fine. You think. I’ll enjoy myself.” He lowered his mouth to taste hers again and her thighs drifted open for him without the slightest hesitation. This man was too good to be true. She bit her lip as she watched him strip off the used condom and reach for another. God, even that looked sexy.
As he found her hot, wet center and slid into her body with a soft growl of delight, she knew that her answer would be yes. She’d already planned on taking a few months off to rest. As for the six-month offer, she would give anything to have more time with this man. But she hardly believed it would last any longer than three. He would lose interest. He would let her off the hook. But did she want to be let off the hook?
He was sprawled across the bed, his heavy arm and one massive leg draped across her body, preventing her from slipping out of the bed to go to the bathroom. She shoved at his leg until he roused slightly and said gruffly, “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To the bathroom, unless you prefer a wet bed.” She made a wry face.
“Go ahead.” He rolled onto his other side and, despite her need to exit the bed, she felt suddenly bereft at the loss of his body wrapped around hers.
She slid from the bed and padded into the smaller bedroom, where Snowball yawned and uncoiled from a furry white ball on top of the bed and welcomed her. “Hello, love. I promise I’ll play with you and pet you in the morning, sweetie.” She used the bathroom and scratched his ears, before washing her hands and brushing her teeth.
She stood and gazed at her slim body in the makeup lights and winced at the sight of the huge, nasty bruises that had blossomed on her skin.
It hurt to move. It brought back long-buried memories of the pain she had suffered after the accident.
What on earth did he see in her? Her body was hardly what she would have called sexy. She was trim and had good muscle tone but that was about it. And yet when he looked at her and touched her, his eyes were filled with a dark fire that took her breath away. She splashed cold water on her flushed face. There was no accounting for what some people thought was attractive.
Her eyes moved over the faded white scars that marred the smooth skin of her abdomen and right hip. She reached for a towel and pulled it around her naked body, tucking the ends over to hold the towel securely about her. She frowned into the mirror. The scars were so faint now, she could barely see them. Plastic surgery had worked wonders with the ones across her face. But there was still a fairly visible one on her jawline and another one across her left shoulder. She had thought that no man would find her attractive with those scars.
Her fears had kept her a virgin all these years. And the man who had moved so amazingly through her dreams since she was fourteen didn’t seem to notice the lack of perfection at all. Maybe he just wasn’t very perceptive.
Yes, she wanted to stay with him, even if he tossed her out in a few months and never looked at her again. But she had the feeling that if she acted too damn needy, she would quickly lose her appeal. How could she agree to his demands without making it seem that she was desperate to be around him? Even if she was?
She brushed her hair absently, head down. It was only when she felt his mouth on her shoulder that she jerked back to reality and stared at him in the mirror.
“Would it be an invasion of your privacy to ask how you got this?” he murmured softly, as his hands and arms slipped about her and drew her back against his body. His lips traced the thin white scar.
She swallowed. “There are a lot more of them. You just didn’t notice them before. Do they bother you?” she asked, afraid of what his answer would be.
“You don’t seem to be bothered by mine.” His smile was slow and sexy. He turned his head to show her the scars that marred the side of his neck and shoulder. “And there are a lot more of them.”
Sam bit her lower lip. “Men tend to look rougher and sexier with visible scars. I haven’t ever heard some guy say, ‘Wow, that scar on your jaw makes you look real sexy, honey’.” Her cheeks turned pink.
David traced the line of her throat slowly with his mouth and watched her face in the mirror. She closed her eyes and gasped softly.
“I got mine from being hit with several chairs, a couple of tables, a prop ladder-and this one was from a seven-inch blade that some asshole tried to carve me up with.” He took her slim hand and lifted it to the side of his jaw, where a fine white scar trailed roughly three inches along the beard-roughened skin. Her eyes opened as she frowned at it for a moment, before turning to kiss it gently. “We sort of match.” His eyes met hers in the mirror.
”Gonna tell me how you got yours?”
Sam turned slowly in his arms and trailed her fingertips over the scars on his face and neck as she drew a long breath. “Nothing quite as impressive as yours. I was in a car accident about twelve years back.” Her eyes did not meet his.
Strong fingers lifted her chin and he breathed quietly, “I’m sorry. You don’t have to talk about it if you prefer not to.”
She shrugged. “I don’t mind. Sometimes it seems to bottle up inside me and I end up crying. Talking about it helps a little, I think.”
He pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. “What happened to you?”
She just let him hold her close for a long moment before speaking. “I was caught in my seat belt when the passenger side of the car was crushed under a semi. I was the passenger.”
He swallowed hard. “I’m surprised you’re still alive.”
“So were my doctors. They had me under the knife over a dozen times in two years. I would barely heal from one surgery and they were doing another. I sort of resemble a patchwork quilt on an x-ray,” she smiled and sighed against his shoulder. “I wasn’t supposed to be able to walk. They didn’t expect me to recover. But I don’t like to back away from challenges.”
“Was I a challenge?” His question caught her off guard.
She lifted her cheek from his body and gazed at him thoughtfully. “No. You were incredibly easy.”
He grinned at her and dragged her back into his embrace to kiss her quite satisfyingly. “I was pretty shocked at how easy I was myself. What the hell is it about you that turns me to mush?”
Sam swallowed and enjoyed the way his hands moved over her body. “I guess I could ask you the same thing. Usually I keep my head screwed on straight but when you touch me, I go berserk.” She ran her palms over his naked chest, her breath catching at the sheer beauty of him.
“Then your answer is yes?”
“What are you going to do with me, David? Keep me tied to the bed for the next few months?” Her eyes were incredibly green and vulnerable.
He swallowed hard. “I hadn’t thought about that, until you just mentioned it. Sounds sexy as hell. But I think I would prefer having to seduce you every time. It’s one hell of a lot more fun.”
She ran her palms down the sides of his knotted shoulder muscles. “You seem to think I’m sort of special now, David, but a few months will change your mind. By then, you’ll realize that I’m just a very plain, extremely ordinary female with no figure and no personality and you’ll regret having forced this situation. Can’t we simply settle for an obscene sum of money and go our separate ways? You’ll be far happier in the long run. And you won’t have to deal with a nasty-tempered, violent, shrewish woman who tests your patience at every turn and makes you wish you could simply strangle her instead of putting up with her.”