Page 22 of Scorched (Killer #2)

“It was enough.” Since then, she’d haunted his dreams. This beauty had no idea how her sad eyes had penetrated his reserve where women were concerned.

Her bravery in the face of the media circus, the accusations, the police hounding her for answers.

She’d kept a stiff upper lip, protecting her boys like a mama bear, always composed under the glare of the cameras.

She was the kind of woman he’d only dreamed about, the kind a man married and lived with happily ever after.

The kind he’d shied away from, certain he had nothing to offer.

But the timing had been way off. Seemed like Paul’s timing continued to be off. Yet he couldn’t ignore the way she felt, her body pressed against his, her breath warm against his lips.

“I want to...” Her voice trailed off, her eyelids drifting to half-mast. “But I shouldn’t.”

“No, we shouldn’t.” He stared into eyes so blue they rivaled the summer sky, his heart pounding against his ribs, the erratic beats having nothing to do with his earlier run. He couldn’t control himself. He pulled her against him and kissed her.

At first stiff, Elise pressed her hands to his chest. Then she melted into his arms, her soft moan warming the inside of his mouth, touching him in places he didn’t think accessible .

His tongue slipped across the seam of her lips. When they parted, he dove in past the slick smoothness of minty fresh teeth to the warm, soft wetness of her tongue.

Her hands crept up his chest to wrap around his neck, dragging him to her.

He complied, his fingers gripping her hips, pulling her closer.

The hard ridge of his erection pressed through the thin material of his shorts, nudging against her belly.

Holding her hard against him, one hand crept up beneath her T-shirt, his thumb connecting with the soft swell of her naked breast.

Elise leaned into his touch, her lungs filling, pushing her breasts against his palm.

His thumb found the beaded nipple, and flicked over the tip until Elise gasped into his mouth.

The featherlight touch of her hands slipped down his back. She grasped the hem of his T-shirt and tugged it upward.

Paul released his hold on her breast and lifted his arms.

Elise tugged the shirt higher.

Impatient to get his hands back on her beautiful body, Paul grabbed the shirt and yanked it over his head, tossing it to the floor.

Elise’s eyes widened, her mouth opening on a soft gasp.

For a moment, Paul thought she’d change her mind. He held back, unwilling to push her into anything she might regret. The choice was clearly hers. If she wanted to call a halt at this point...

He sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. So be it.

Her tongue swept across his lips as she reached out, her fingers weaving into the hairs on his chest. “I want this,” she whispered almost too softly to hear.

Paul heard and his body rejoiced. Still, he had to take it slowly, carefully. It took every ounce of his own self-control to keep from ripping clothes off her and making passionate, noisy love to her there on the living room floor.

Her gaze roamed over his chest, her fingers tracing a path to his hard brown nipples. A quick glance over her shoulder must have reassured her that the boys still slept. The door to their bedroom remained firmly closed. “This is so wrong.”

He captured her hand beneath his, pressing it against the pounding of his heart. “Then don’t.” It cost him to make the offer.

“But I want to.” She tugged her hand from his and reached for the hem of her shirt, dragging it up her torso.

Every inch the shirt moved exposed pale, silky skin and the curve of her waist. Then a breast appeared and the other. When she raised her arms above her head, Paul could hold back no longer.

With her hands high, the shirt still tangled around her forearms, Paul reached out and cupped both breasts in his palms, a groan rising in his throat. “You’re beautiful, Elise.”

She tugged the shirt from her arms and let it drop to the floor. “I’m scared.”

He kissed the tip of her nose, massaging the rounded flesh weighing lightly in his hands. “Of the killer?” He kissed her, his mouth slanting over hers, his tongue flicking across her lips. “Or me?”

“The killer, yes.” Her head dropped back, her hair cascading around her, reaching past her bottom. “But most of all, afraid of myself.”

“I won’t hurt you,” Paul promised. Despite the passion of the moment, threatening to carry him away, he knew how important it was to reassure Elise. “I will never force you to do anything you don’t want to.”

“That’s just it. I want this so much, I can’t think.” Her hands ran across his chest in a frenzy, then dipped lower, following the narrowing line of hair to the waistband of his shorts.

Oh, sweet heaven. Paul captured her hand before she went lower. “Don’t go there unless you’re certain. I can only take so much.”

“Paul, I’m not as fragile as you might think.

” Her shoulders pushed back, forcing her bare breast deeper into his hand.

She looked up into his eyes, her own darker than the usual sunny-sky blue, smoldering a smoky gray.

“I want this.” Her hand skimmed over the hard ridge, making his shorts jut out in a tent.

“You obviously want it, so shut up and let me before one of the boys decides to wake up.”

Paul grinned and grabbed her around the waist, swinging her around the room, before gently setting her on her feet. “You’re an amazing woman.”

Elise was feeling pretty amazing, and scared, and filled with an overpowering desire to make love to this man. Now. Before she came to her senses and chickened out. Once he set her back on her feet, she gulped in a fortifying breath and reached for the button on her jeans.

“Let me.” His fingers closed over hers and together they flicked it loose, sliding the zipper down to expose the pink lace of her panties.

Elise thanked the laundry gods for the loads of laundry she had yet to wade through. If not for getting behind, she wouldn’t have been forced to wear the lacy panties her sister had given her last Christmas instead of the sensible briefs she usually wore.

The jeans came off and she stood in nothing but those stupid pink panties, the cool air raising gooseflesh on her skin.

Paul hooked his thumbs in the elastic waistband of his shorts.

Elise reached out, her fingers colliding with his, sending an electric current all the way up her arms.

He halted the downward progress of his shorts, the elastic catching on that part of him straining for release. “Change your mind? ”

Elise shook her head and shoved his hands out of the way. “No. Let me.”

She tugged on the front of the shorts, pushing them far enough down his hips that he sprang free.

Her breath caught in her throat. The man was hard, erect and magnificent. Elise hadn’t been with any other man but her late husband. But in comparison between the two of them, Paul’s muscular body, trim waist and everything else was so much more manly, and larger than life than Stan had ever been.

She curved her hands around his buttocks, sliding the shorts and his briefs over the curve of his muscles and down the backs of his legs. Dropping to her knees, she skimmed over the crisp hairs of his thighs and downward to his taut, well-defined calves.

Paul cupped the back of her head, his fingers digging into her hair. “I never knew shorts could be so sexy.”

“Me, either.” She smiled up at him from her position at his feet. Her fingers circled his ankles, pushing the shorts down as he stepped free.

As she rose slowly to her feet, she cupped him in her palm, loving the smooth feel of velvety skin over steely hardness. The juncture between her thighs ached to have him inside her, filling her, making her whole.

“Wait.” He leaned over and pulled his wallet from the back pocket of his shorts, slipping a foil packet from its interior.

Elise smiled. “I’m glad you remembered.” She had been well on her way to forgetting everything in the moment.

That scared her. Was she doing the right thing?

Would she be giving Paul the wrong message?

Would he expect more from her than she was able to give?

More than the sex she so craved? The feel of his body against her, making her remember she was alive and a woman with needs he could satisfy, if only temporarily.

Paul tipped her chin upward and pressed a kiss to her temple. “You’re thinking too much.” He held her face between his palms, his thumbs stroking her chin, her lips. “Just say no and I’ll walk away, no questions asked. I won’t be angry.”

She stared into his eyes and knew he spoke the truth and knew deep down she was tired of being alone.

Tired of being scared and way past due for sex.

She inhaled and let the breath out slowly and raised her leg, sliding it along the outside of Paul’s calf.

Her hands slid over the muscular bulges of his shoulders and upward to wrap around his neck.

She laced her fingers behind his head and pulled his mouth down to hers.

“Although I appreciate the out you’re offering, I think you’re talking too much. Shut up and kiss me.”

She wrapped her calf around his, rubbing the damp space between her legs over the rough hairs on his thigh. Fire ignited, flaming throughout her body.

Paul’s hands slid down her naked backside.

He cupped her bottom and lifted her, draping her legs around his waist, his member pressing against her opening.

Then he strode across the room, ripped a throw blanket off the back of the couch, tossed it to the carpeted floor and lowered her onto her back.

Elise’s feet dropped to the floor.

Paul tore open the packet, removed the condom and rolled it over his engorged staff. He settled between her legs and slid into her, filling her as she’d wanted since he’d entered her home tonight.

He moved in and out of her, gently easing his way deeper and deeper, the speed of his penetration increased until they rocked back and forth in unison.

Tension knotted deep inside her, a sweet, good kind of tension she had never experienced, even with her husband. The knot of pressure built to a ragged edge and then exploded throughout her system, sending shards of pulsing sensations rocketing through her body.

Elise’s fingers dug into Paul’s shoulders as she rode the wave of feeling until she collapsed against the blanket, gasping for breath. She’d never felt quite this replete. Ever.

As she lay curled in Paul’s arms, fear crept back in. Fear for her boys’ lives, fear for her own and most of all, perhaps the most frightening of all, fear that she was falling in love. How could she let that happen?

A panic attack big enough to launch a rocket hit her full force. Her chest tightened, her muscles bunched, and she sucked in a deep breath, ready to bolt.

Paul sighed, pulled her close and kissed her on the tip of her nose. “You’re going to run, aren’t you?” He stared down into her eyes.

She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t answer his question.

He nodded in answer to his own question and a slow, sad smile crossed his face. “Just know this—I’ll let you go now, but I don’t give up easily.” Paul rolled to his feet and grabbed his shorts, shoving his legs into them.

Elise grabbed her jeans and shirt and ran for the bathroom.

She couldn’t go back into the living room and face Paul.

Not when she didn’t know what she wanted from him, from herself, from anything.

She couldn’t sleep in her bedroom under the writing on the wall aimed to scare her.

It had done its job and scared the fool out of her.

Elise washed her face and combed her fingers through her hair, then stepped back out into the living room, dreading facing Paul, completely at a loss for an explanation for her actions.

Paul lay on the couch, his back to her, wrapped in the throw blanket. He didn’t budge or acknowledge her presence. And was that him snoring? Elise suspected he was faking to put her at ease.

A smile curled the corners of her mouth. Grabbing a blanket from the hall closet, Elise slipped into the lounge chair and lay back. Her body still hummed from making love with Paul and danged if she didn’t want to do it again. But she couldn’t. Not now.

Not when she suspected she was falling in love with him.