Jennifer Greene - Can’t Say No

She shook her head again, alarmed.

“Now, Bree.” He might have been scolding a recalcitrant child. He lifted one of her limp arms and locked it around his neck, then the other. With one smooth motion, he pushed aside the cotton blanket and lay down on his side, cocooning Bree in his arms.

There was a great deal wrong with lying length to length against a man you didn’t like. And worse than that, he felt exactly as Bree had been afraid he was going to feel-warm and big and infinitely safe. Bombs didn’t move Hart-how on earth could anything harm her with him in the way? Like the stroke of a velvet feather, his palms slid down her shoulders to the small of her back, moved back up to gently push her cheek to the hollow of his shoulder, then back down again.

He stroked…and he stroked. Arms loosely around his neck, face buried against embarrassment in the warm flesh of his shoulder, Bree closed her eyes and just…let it be. Her robe was tangled between them; vaguely she was relieved that he at least wore briefs. A little voice in her head kept trying to convince her there was something wrong here…but nothing felt wrong. If the sexual vibrations were powerful, her need to be held was infinitely more powerful. Snuggled close to Hart, she felt irrationally certain that she could take care of herself tomorrow if he would just handle the night.

“Bree.”

Her eyes fluttered open.

Hart cleared his throat. “I don’t know if this is doing something good for your insomnia, honey, but it’s sure wreaking havoc with mine.”

Instantly, she tried to back away from him. Just as instantly, his arms tightened around her. “I didn’t say I didn’t like it,” he growled. “Stay where you are.”

She stayed, very still. For a minute or so. There seemed to be a perverse demon in her head, though, because after a minute passed she shifted her cheek, just a little. Enough so that her smooth, warm lips suddenly lay against the hollow of Hart’s throat, and rested there.

Hart growled again. This time the sound rumbled from deep within his chest cavity. “Don’t tell me the woman’s decided to come out of hiding?”

So amused, as he leaned over her, brushing his lips in her hair, rubbing his cheek on her smooth, soft skin. Bree felt, as usual, half inclined to kill him. Maybe she was having a tiny problem with cowardice about her choices right now; maybe there were some decisions she just couldn’t face yet. But to accuse her of hiding -that just wasn’t fair.

And if he thought she was attracted to him, he was crazy. She was curious, that was all. Surely any woman who’d been quiet, morally upstanding and sensible all her life had a secret wish to be ravished, just a little, by an unprincipled, good-looking rogue who knew too much about women?

And Hart did have a gift for making the nightmares go away. Dammit. His mouth dragged a slow chain of kisses down her throat, down toward the V of her robe. A foglike cotton clouded her brain; her flesh seemed to be raising goose bumps all over; her heart was becoming utterly confused, pumping in double time.

There was too much of him. Everywhere. He moved with the lethal slowness of a mountain cougar, his lips prowling her vulnerable spots…behind her ear, down again to her throat, whispering dangerously around the quilted robe that just covered her breasts. Through a tumble of fabric, she was well aware that his leg had sneaked between hers, that his palm was making lackadaisical curls down her spine to her bottom, that he was rubbing her deliberately against him.

And she was rubbing back.

“That’s it, honey. Tell me what you like,” he whispered. “God, you’re responsive. I knew the minute I met you…”

Only Hart would mistake simple curiosity for intense sexual responsiveness. Totally against her will, her fingers climbed his bare shoulders, traced the knotted cords in his neck, skimmed into the thick, rumpled mat of blond hair. Her eyes closed, the lids far too heavy to stay open. His mouth found hers in the darkness and molded itself to her lips, parting them.

Her neck arched back and her limbs turned liquid. It was a very foolish sensation, like feeling caught in the rain naked, like feeling drenched in liquid softness. Hart’s tongue swirled inside her mouth, playing games with her tongue. Between them, her robe twisted open, helped no small amount by his hands. She tensed.

“You have beautiful breasts, Bree…ssh. Let me see.”

He raised himself up just a little, very gently pushing aside her robe. She seemed to be trembling, for no reason whatsoever. It was the moonlight coming in. The soft silver bared her flesh, illuminated the shadow between her breasts, made the orbs look white and swollen. His finger traced the shape of one, around, beneath, making a circle, and then a smaller circle, and then just softly touching the peaked tip. A whispered murmur escaped her throat.

His eyes lifted to hers, all blue-black liquid. “Do you know what I want to do, honey?”

She shook her head.

“I want to kiss them, Bree. I’d like to bury my face between your breasts. I’d like to wash those little red tips with my tongue until you cry out. I want to feel the weight of them in my hands. I’d like to feel them crushed against me…” He bent down, to press a butterfly kiss…on her throat.

Below, the heartbeat between her breasts was going like a time bomb, as if to say, What about me? You just promised…

Hart slowly lifted his head again. “But you’re going to have to tell me what you want, Bree. Do it, honey. Tell me. Tell me, Bree…”

Instinctively, she parted her lips…but there was no sound. No sound at all. He just looked at her, waiting, and the moonlight washed over her bare breasts like a shower of heat.

“You have to tell me,” he whispered again. “You want me to make love to you, Bree?”

Yes. It was crazy and it was wrong…and she’d never wanted anything more. Her body was sending out a frantic yes; he could hardly have missed the message.

Abruptly, he draped the robe over her again. “When I was younger,” he murmured, “I used to enjoy the role of seducer. The hunt and chase and all that nonsense. It is fun, honey, but not nearly as good as when two people come together with honesty, both knowing what they want and willing to admit it.” He pressed one last kiss on her forehead before rolling over on his side. “I think you know what you want, Bree. But you’re going to have to tell me when you’re ready.”

Bree stared at his broad back, a little stunned to be so abruptly deserted. So he’d suddenly turned virtuous? And the lecture he should have taped.

Less than five minutes later, he was asleep.

Less than five hours later, Bree woke up alone. She knew there was no one next to her even before she opened her eyes; the warmth and the smell of him were gone, the weight of his arm around her waist…Bemused at the sudden flood of memories, her eyes blinked open, to lazy ribbons of sun pouring through the cabin window.

Groggily, she stood up, shaking her head to clear the cobwebs. That didn’t really work, nor did splashing cold water on her face. Folding up Hart’s sleeping bag and blanket, she felt another sleepy rush of images invade her mind. Hart had pulled back, yes, and he’d done it in his usual insensitive way, trying to goad her into talking…as if she had a choice. She wasn’t forgiving him that, but there were other pictures floating in her head. As she dropped his sleeping bag on the front porch, she remembered the woman who’d deliberately awakened the sleeping bear, who’d willingly lain next to him. She remembered an abandoned response that had come from nowhere…a response that started with Hart, with some crazy thing he did to her when he touched her. Free. She’d felt free. To touch, to entice, to just…let go. To be a very different kind of woman than she’d always thought she was.