Primal Instincts

Now Ian wore that world-weary air. The stress lines around his mouth were deeper now than the laugh lines around his eyes. She’d seen his type in the airport. They huddled around their gates, ready to hit the next political hot spot.

She headed anyplace but there.

A puff of steam enticed her into the bathroom. Tugging off her loincloth, Ava stepped beneath the spray.

The warm water glided around her body, smearing the paint further. The yellows and blues fused together, turning green and pooling at her feet before sliding down the drain. Long, hot showers. Steam and heat and the scent of honeysuckle. Now this was something she had missed.

Ava reached for the soap and bubbled up a rich lather. Although the paint was easy to smear, it wasn’t the easiest to remove from her skin.

Of course Ian had offered to help. She smiled again, thinking how his brown eyes had turned darker when he’d made the invitation. Ava had seen the desire in his direct gaze. He hadn’t tried to mask it. She liked that about him.

A direct man voiced exactly what he wanted. Sought to fulfill his woman’s desires. She would have hated to take suggestions on her book from a man who couldn’t handle the naturalness of sex. Afraid of his own desires.

And of hers.

There’d been sex in his eyes. Sex on his mind. Despite the warmth of the water, her nipples hardened as she remembered that brown-eyed gaze of his sliding down her body.

When had sex come into play? She wondered as she reached for a bright yellow sponge. When did sex not come into play between a man and a woman? Despite Ian’s obvious assumption that she was a bit on the naive side, she’d studied gender differences enough to know that one thing shared by both men and women was a charged curiosity whenever they were in each other’s presence. A curiosity about nakedness. Would he groan? Would she scream?

It all happened within the first five seconds of meeting someone new, the mind and body put that person into three categories. Yes, no and maybe.

And right now her body was thinking yes. What would sex with Ian be like? Sex had been in Ian’s eyes, which placed Ava in his hell-yes category.

If they were going to collaborate, attraction between them probably wasn’t the best situation. Far off the mark from professionalism. But then, who was she to shy away from sexual attraction?

Come to think of it, sexual tension and desire between the two of them might be a good thing. Heat might translate onto the pages, into their very writing. Craving the carnal would implicitly lace their words with an intense hunger for sex.

A shiver raced down her spine. Now this was something that would sell. She should go for it. Why not suffer for her art?

Anxious to get to work, she sudsed her arms and legs, the water and bubbles turning her already sensitive skin into taut nerves waiting to be touched. Caressed. Her skin tingled.

She reached for the soft washcloth, and twisted out the excess water. Ava stroked the cloth against her breasts, wiping away the more stubborn yellow paint. As she rubbed the cloth against her nipple, the skin along her neck and her breasts turned bumpy and sensitive. Tingles from her nipples shot downward.

She washed her other breast, then slowly trailed the cloth down along her ribcage, around her navel. The material felt rougher now against the heightened sensitivity of her flesh. She imagined Ian’s work-roughened hands on her. Imagined him caressing her the same way as the washcloth.

A bit of the cloth tickled the skin of her inner thigh and she sucked in a breath. Steam surrounded her, a light caress against her body. The humid air inside the shower filled her lungs and she leaned against the tile wall for support.

The water ran between her legs, and she followed the trail with the washcloth. She clamped her eyes shut when the cloth grazed her clitoris. Delicious sensations quivered along every nerve. She stroked herself and moaned.

Some ancients believed a couple learned to please their mate only after watching them pleasure themselves. She imagined Ian outside her shower door, watching her touch herself. Becoming aroused.

Then she imagined him joining her in the shower, imagined herself watching him take his cock in his hand. Seeing it grow harder and bigger as he stroked himself, showing her how he liked to be touched. How he wanted her to touch him.

She pressed against her clit, her body growing tense. She gasped and her muscles tightened.

No.

If she brought her own release now, some of the tension and heat that zinged between them wouldn’t be as strong. She wanted her pleasure to be on the edge, near the top. Not satiated.

An old woman she’d met in Australia once had told her the greatest aphrodisiac for a man was a woman’s arousal.

Maybe now she would put that woman’s theory to the test. Might make an interesting chapter for the book. Goose bumps rose on her skin as the spray massaged every muscle. She’d definitely suffer for that chapter.

With her body still humming, she quickly finished her shower.

IT DIDN’T TAKE IAN long to check in to the Bricktown Hotel; a chain hotel that catered to businesspeople, where the staff was usually friendly and efficient. Since his laptop battery was dead, he plugged the computer in first thing. This hotel promised to be the “most wired hotel in Oklahoma City.” Most hotel claims were wrong, but he needed this one to be right.

He was used to traveling light. He’d packed for a week, but figured that would be more than enough time to get this book on track.

If Ava Simms didn’t kill him. Some women shouldn’t be allowed out of the house. She definitely needed a warning label. Loss of blood to the brain.

Crossing to the sink, he turned on the taps. He splashed water onto his face, washing away the travel grime. Ava would be in the shower now. Naked and wet. No matter how good-looking a woman was, she always looked just a little bit better wet.

He imagined Ava wet and nude under the spray of the shower.

With a groan, he wiped his face with a towel. Glancing at his watch he saw he still had about fifteen minutes to kill. His cell phone rang, and he pulled it from his waist to check at the caller ID. His sister. Good. He was in a mood to harass her over this assignment.

“Did you meet the doc?” she asked.

“Two days. I’m giving this two days, then I’m out of hell.”

“I have every faith in you.”

OVER THE YEARS, HER brother had been shoved into filthy, rat-infested prisons, slopped around in some of the world’s most disease-ridden swamps and suffered weather hardships and clean-water deprivation of the likes she could only imagine. All to get the story.

And yet this assignment was the one he compared to hell. She almost laughed.

Miriam fingered the glass paperweight on her desk. She should feel guilty about sending her brother someplace she knew he’d hate. She should, but she was in full self-preservation mode.

Her brother’s vehemence had been surprising. She’d dwell on it if another pink message slip hadn’t appeared under the paperweight. Miriam wadded the paper up into a tight ball and aimed it toward her trash can. She missed by a good six inches.

Her aim was going the same way as her judgment. She was making a poor business decision and that wasn’t like her. Things would have been smoother if she’d gone to Oklahoma with Ian. That was her element. What she did. Some people could cook. Some could write. She could multitask.

Miriam was a whiz at juggling millions of details, all while keeping overblown egos and hurt feelings to a minimum. Nothing was ever personal and people left her office with a smile even if they came away with less than their asking price.

A few days with the doc and her brother and this book would be complete and ready to go into production and she’d be making more money for the company. So why not?

Jeremy.

If she went back to Oklahoma, she would surely contact him.

On the one hand, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Who couldn’t handle six or seven times a night?

Her nipples hardened and her skin tingled under her clothes. What was she mulling over a moment ago? The book she’d risked her reputation and quite a bit of money on. That book.

This was why six or seven times a night would be bad. She’d get nothing done. Her skin grew hot. She felt uncomfortable. No. Not uncomfortable…irritated. She’d think of it as irritated and chafed. In fact, that’s exactly what she should be doing. Word association when thoughts of Jeremy popped into her mind. All of them bad.

Those gorgeous blue eyes of his. Same color as the first car that ever side-swiped her.