Blue Dahlia Page 0,100

then another.

"You're wet, you're sweaty, I'm getting grass stains on my - "

The rest of the words were muffled against his mouth, and she would have sworn the water on both of them went to steam.

"I can't - we can't - " But the reasons why were going dim. "In the backyard."

"Wanna bet?"

He couldn't help wanting her, so why was he fighting it? He wanted the solid, sensible core of her, and the sweet edges. He wanted the woman obsessed with forms who would wrestle on the floor with her children. He wanted the woman who watered his pots even while she skinned him with words.

And the one who vibrated beneath him on the grass when he touched her.

He touched her, his hands possessive as they molded her breasts, as they roamed down her to cup her hips. He tasted her, his lips hungry on her throat, her shoulder, her breast.

She melted under him, and even as she went fluid seemed to come alive with heat, with movement.

It was insane. It was rash and it was foolish, but she couldn't stop herself. They rolled over the grass, like two frenzied puppies. He smelled of sweat, of labor and damp. And, God, of man. Pungent and gorgeous and sexy.

She clamped her hands in that mass of waving hair, already showing streaks from the sun, and dragged his mouth back to hers.

She nipped his lip, his tongue.

"Your belt." She had to fight to draw air. "It's digging - "

"Sorry."

He levered up to unbuckle it, then just stopped to look at her.

Her hair had come out of its band; her eyes were sultry, her skin flushed. And he felt those roots take hold.

"Stella."

He didn't know what he might have said, the words were jumbled in his brain and tangled with so much feeling he couldn't translate them.

But she smiled, slow and sultry as her eyes. "Why don't I help you with that?"

She flipped open the button of his jeans, yanked down the zipper. Her hand closed over him, a velvet vise. His body was hard as steel, and his mind and heart powerless.

She arched up to him, her lips skimmed over his bare chest, teeth scoring a hot little line that was a whisper away from pain.

Then she was over him, destroying him. Surrounding him.

She heard birdsong and breeze, smelled grass and damp flesh. And heliotrope that wafted on the air from the pot she'd watered. She felt his muscles, taut ropes, the broad plane of his shoulders, the surprisingly soft waves of his hair.

And she saw, as she looked down, that he was lost in her.

Throwing her head back, she rode, until she was lost as well.

* * *

She lay sprawled over him, damp and naked and muzzy-headed. Part of her brain registered that his arms were clamped around her as if they were two survivors of a shipwreck.

She turned her head to rest it on his chest. Maybe they'd wrecked each other. She'd just made wild love with a man in broad daylight, outside in the yard.

"This is insane," she murmured, but couldn't quite convince herself to move. "What if someone had come by?"

"People come by without an invitation have to take potluck."

There was a lazy drawl to his voice in direct opposition to his grip on her. She lifted her head to study. His eyes were closed. "So this is potluck?"

The corners of his mouth turned up a little. "Seems to me this pot was plenty lucky."

"I feel sixteen. Hell, I never did anything like this when I was sixteen. I need my sanity. I need my clothes."

"Hold on." He nudged her aside, then rose.

Obviously, she thought, it doesn't bother him to walk around outside naked as a deer. "I came here to talk to you, Logan. Seriously."

"You came here to kick my ass," he corrected. "Seriously. You were doing a pretty good job of it."

"I hadn't finished." She turned slightly, reached out for her hairband. "But I will, as soon as I'm dressed and - "

She screamed, the way a woman screams when she's being murdered with a kitchen knife.

Then she gurgled, as the water he'd drenched her with from the hose ran into her astonished mouth.

"Figured we could both use some cooling off."

It simply wasn't in her, even under the circumstances, to run bare-assed over the grass. Instead, she curled herself up, knees to breast, arms around knees, and cursed him with vehemence and creativity.

He laughed until he thought his ribs would crack. "Where'd a nice girl