Desiring the Reilly Brothers. Maureen Child

As he watched, she lifted both arms and stretched lazily, as if she didn’t have a care in the world. As if she wasn’t nearly buck naked in his bed.

      As if she wasn’t driving him crazy with a wild desire that had a stranglehold on him.

      “It’s a nice apartment,” she said, letting her gaze slide around the small room.

      Now she’s making small talk? he thought furiously. He was a man on a knife’s edge and she wanted to talk about home furnishings? Bullshit. She was playing this out, deliberately torturing him. She knew what she was doing and knew what it was doing to him. No way was she actually admiring his place. He knew exactly what she was seeing. The studio apartment was small, efficient and anything but homey. But it had always suited him fine.

      Until now.

      Now, he didn’t think the place would be big enough if it were a castle.

      He’d still be able to smell her perfume.

      Okay, key to his survival here, was to get Tina the hell out of his place as fast as possible. Preferably, without touching her or smelling her hair or…hell. Anything.

      “C’mon,” he said, grabbing up his keys and shifting his gaze away from her. There’d be no help for him at all if he kept looking at her. “I’ll take you downstairs and let you in.”

      “What’s your hurry?”

      He looked.

      She turned slowly onto her side.

      Brian stifled a groan, but it almost killed him.

      Head propped up in one hand, Tina kept her gaze locked on him as with her free hand, she inched the hem of the towel up a little higher on her thigh.

      His heart pounded in his chest. He forgot how to breathe. His eyes glazed over.

      And then the towel parted. One half of the pale blue terry cloth fell away, displaying a tantalizing slice of Tina’s naked, curvy body to perfection.

      Brian groaned. “You’re killing me.”

      “So not what I had in mind,” Tina said softly, making no move at all to cover herself.

      He scraped one hand across his face, frantically trying to get a grip. And losing. “Your towel fell.”

      “I know.”

      “I know you know.” Damn it. Why was she doing this? Was this a game? Payback maybe, for him getting the divorce? But if that’s all it was, why wait five years to claim it?

      And if it was more, what did that mean?

      And if he asked himself any more questions, that didn’t have answers, he really would slip over the edge into insanity.

      “This is nuts,” he blurted.

      “Maybe.”

      His gaze locked with hers, studiously avoiding noticing her bare, beautiful skin. “You’ll be sorry.”

      Tina smiled and shook her head. “Not if you’re as good as I remember.”

      Like a punch to his gut, her words hit him hard and left him shaky. He was only human, right? Mere mortal? And faced with Tina Coretti, Brian was willing to guess there wasn’t a man alive who could have walked out that door.

      Still, he had one last hope. “I, uh…don’t have any condoms here.” Actually, he’d gotten rid of his stash purposely, since he figured with the bet on, keeping a supply handy would only submarine his chances of winning.

      She smiled again. “Doesn’t matter.”

      “Uh, yeah,” he said tightly. “It does.”

      “Brian,” she said, her voice dropping to a husky note that damn near killed him, “as long as you don’t have some socially icky disease, you don’t have to worry.”

      Don’t have to worry. So she was on the pill. Okay, there went the last wall standing between him and glory.

      It didn’t matter anymore why she was here or what she wanted. Maybe it never had. Maybe since the day she arrived in Baywater, they’d been heading right here. To this place. Maybe it was something they both needed.

      She trailed her fingertips up, over her hip, pushing the other half of the towel aside.

      His mouth went dry.

      His heart hammered in his chest.

      “So?” she asked, her voice a whisper in the moonlight as she repeated her earlier question. “Are you as good as I remember?”

      Even a Marine knew when to surrender.

      Brian grinned and pulled off his shirt. “Babe. I’m way better.”

      She held one hand out to him. “Prove it.”

      He tore off his clothes, and in seconds, he was there, beside her on the bed. He peeled the towel off her body, then cupped one of her breasts.

      “Brian…” she whispered, arching into him, pushing herself into his touch, “I want you so badly.”

      “I want you too, baby,” he murmured, dipping his head to taste her nipple. A lick, a nip of his teeth and his words muffled against her flesh. “I’ve always wanted you.”

      She put her hands at the sides of his face and tipped his head up until she could look into his eyes. Brian read the hunger in those dark chocolate eyes of hers and something more. Something he didn’t want to think about. Or acknowledge.

      She pulled him close and kissed him, nibbling at his bottom lip for a long moment before saying, “Then take me, Brian. Take me and let me take you.”

      He was lost.

      Groaning, he covered her mouth with his and swept his tongue into her warmth. Grabbing her tightly, he held her close, and took everything she had to give. His tongue mated with hers and his breath filled her as she filled him. He felt the heat of her, pressed along his body and thought wildly that he’d been so cold for five years. So damn cold and he’d never realized that it was because he didn’t have her.

      She was the heat.

      The light.

      Tina Coretti was the missing piece in his life and even if it was for this one night, it was good to have her back. To feel the connection blistering between them. To realize that here, at least, there was nothing else in the world that mattered. Here there was only the two of them and the magic they created together.

      She moved against him, and slid her hands up and down his back, scoring his flesh with long swipes of her short, neat nails. And he wanted more. He wanted her to somehow mark him permanently, so that he would always carry a reminder of this night. This moment.

      His brain raced, blood pumped and an ache he hadn’t known in five long years built within. Sweeping one hand down the length of her body, he defined every curve, every line of her. He touched, caressed, explored. He tasted, as he shifted over her, trailing his lips and tongue along the line already drawn by his hands. She moved in his grasp, wriggling and sighing softly into the night.

      And no music had ever sounded sweeter.

      He ached for her.

      Sliding down her length, he kissed every inch of her as he moved along her body. She lifted her hips, arching into him, digging her head deeper into the pillow beneath her. Her fingertips scraped across his shoulders as she reached for him, but he evaded her touch, determined now to explore all of her. To rediscover every hidden delight. To touch her as he had before—and as he’d dreamed of doing since.

      “Brian,” she whispered throatily, “I need you inside me.”

      “Not yet, babe,” he answered, then nibbled at her abdomen, making her hiss in a breath. “Not yet.”

      Tina didn’t think she could stand much more. Oh, she’d thought