Instant Temptation

He slid a finger into her, brushing his thumb over her center, and she cried out again, arching up as he teased her nipple with his tongue, then his teeth, gliding his thumb in the rhythm her hips demanded. He knew by the way she was panting and writhing that she was close, and by the way she was stroking him that he wasn’t too far behind, and then suddenly she burst with a soft cry and a name on her lips.

His.

He let her down slowly, skimming his hand back up her warm, sated body, his still hard and throbbing.

That’s when she said his name again, in a shocked whisper. “TJ?”

Well, who the hell else? After all, this was his dream. But the panic in her voice impeded into his dream and he opened his eyes.

It was still dark, but his body told him dawn wasn’t too far off. He focused in on the wet nipple right in front of his eyes. His thumb was rasping back and forth over the other one, both br**sts being offered up to him by the bra he’d shoved down.

He lifted his head and met Harley’s startled, sleepy, and glazed-over eyes.

Oh, shit.

“We were dreaming,” she said thickly, and then seemed to realize she had her hands down his pants. She yanked them out so fast he winced, and she covered her face.

Getting out of the sleeping bag without touching her, with his body still cocked and loaded, was an exercise in torture. Grabbing her shirt from the log near their heads, where it’d dried in front of the long-dead fire, he handed it to her.

While she pulled it on, he walked to the edge of the clearing.

He was still standing there mentally flogging himself when she cleared her throat.

Grimacing, he faced the music and turned to her, searching her expression for any signs of distress, fury, or more of that gut-wrenching humiliation and shame he’d seen yesterday.

Nothing. She was showing nothing. “Harley, I’m-”

“Sorry,” she said softly at the same time as he did.

He stared at her. “Yeah.”

“That was entirely my fault,” she said.

He was educated. He helped run a successful business. People paid him shocking amounts of money to be good in any of a variety of dangerous, life-threatening situations. Yet when he opened his mouth, the only thing that came out was a brilliant, “huh?”

“I started it.” She let her gaze drop over his bare chest before she caught herself and closed her eyes, pressing the heels of her hands against them. “God. I’m such a slut when it comes to you. You have no idea how much that pisses me off.”

When she whirled away and headed toward her backpack, he stared at her back and felt a reluctant grin tug at his mouth. “You started it?”

He wasn’t surprised when she didn’t answer.

Even so, somehow knowing she felt that way made him feel a helluva lot better, even if it was possible he was going to die of blood loss from the hard-on he was still sporting. “You started it?” he repeated dumbly.

“I said so, didn’t I?” She was ripping through the mess that was her pack. “It’s almost dawn. I need my camera.”

He moved closer, risking life and limb. “You’re a slut when it comes to me?”

Her head whipped around so fast for a moment he thought she’d turned into the little girl in The Exorcist. “Don’t you dare laugh.” She paused and drew a breath. “Okay. I realize that there’s possibly an etiquette here.” She eyeballed his crotch and grimaced in guilt. “After all, you gave me an, um…”

He arched a brow. “Orgasm?”

“Yes.” She blushed. “That. And I didn’t…” She gestured with her finger in the general direction of his button fly.

“Do me in return?” he finished for her.

She closed her eyes. “I…owe you.”

“Are you offering?”

Her mouth fell open, and he let out a low laugh. Her eyes narrowed and she shoved a toothbrush into her mouth, vanishing into the woods.

He shook his head, grabbed his own toothbrush, and made his way into the woods in the opposite direction.

By the time he got back, Harley was peeling an orange. She looked up at him, for a single beat, her gaze both soft and unguarded, and he felt an odd catch deep inside.

Then she blinked and the moment was gone. She handed him half of the orange.

“Thanks.” He had no idea what she was thinking. “You okay?”

“Don’t worry, TJ. I know what that was. Or rather, what it wasn’t.”

“Okay, good. Maybe you can explain it to me.”

She shoved a piece of orange in her mouth. “We’re going to be okay. All we have to do is get back to where we were.”

“You mean home?”

“No.” She gave him a duh look. “I mean metaphorically. We need to get back to basics. Back to ignoring each other. And/or bickering.”

“I see,” he said, when he really didn’t see at all.

“I mean something real between us would never work,” she said. “Knowing that makes it easier. Right?”

“Right.” Christ, she was making him dizzy. Or maybe that was because most of his blood was still drained out of his brain and in his-

“It’s not like you’re even around to be a boyfriend,” she said, still talking, still under the apparent illusion that he was following her logic. “You’re gone all the time. You like women in your bed but not your life. Et cetera, et cetera.” She sucked on a piece of orange and blew a few of his brain cells.