Instant Gratification Read online

  As if he could read her thoughts, his smiled faded. His eyes flamed.

  She flamed too, from the inside out, and when he leaned in close she had to bite back a moan.

  “You feel…amazing,” he whispered huskily, and without her permission, her hands glided up his sleek, strong back, over those amazingly reassuringly wide shoulders, to sink into his wet hair. “Same goes,” she whispered back.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good.” Then he slowly lowered his mouth and finally, oh God, finally kissed her.

  She met him halfway, loving the feel of his warm hands on her body in the cool water, gliding everywhere, her waist, her back, her breasts, as if he couldn’t get enough of her.

  She couldn’t get enough either, responding the same way, running her hands all over him, opening her mouth for his tongue, letting her legs do as they’d wanted and wrap around him so that he could nestle his erection against her core. And rock.

  God. God, it felt so good she could actually feel her insides quiver. Her toes curled, and—

  He tore his mouth from her. She gasped in denial, and eyes closed, body humming, she tried to bring him back to her, even as she heard him swear roughly against her cheek.

  Then came TJ’s voice. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  TJ stood on the shore next to his Yamaha dirt bike, hands on his hips, looking pissed off.

  Well, hell, Stone thought. The guy had always had some pretty shitaceous timing, but this topped the cake. Stone tightened his arms around a squirming Emma and lowered the both of them further down into the water so that it lapped against their chins. Not that he wanted to cover the gorgeous, wet, mouthwatering body of the very hot woman in his arms, but she was for his viewing pleasure only.

  He intended to view. Then touch.

  Then taste.

  And he thought, given how she’d watched him strip, how her eyes had eaten him up in the water, how she’d been pressed up against him, panting for breath when he’d touched her, that maybe she’d had similar plans for him. Thanks TJ.

  Emma dropped her head to his shoulder. “I’m going to kill you,” she muttered beneath her breath.

  Gorgeous, wet, hot, and furious, and he sighed. How he’d not even heard TJ’s approach or the bike’s motor, he had no idea. “What are you doing here?” he asked his brother.

  “Your radio called me with your distress call.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, and when you’re alive? Answer your goddamn radio!”

  Still holding Emma, a little sidetracked by the way her breasts were pressed against his chest, nipples hard, Stone shook his head. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “The radio? The thing we use to communicate? If you’re not dead or dying, you answer it after you send a distress call.”

  “I didn’t hear it.”

  “I can see that, but you’ve been sending out a distress call to me for the past twenty minutes. I raced my ass up here to save yours.”

  Emma, apparently having enough of this, jerked free of Stone and straightened. When she realized they stood in only waist deep waters and that she was in nothing but her bra and panties, she squeaked, slipping back down against him, sending blasphemous, black looks his way.

  Yeah, he probably deserved that. But he hadn’t expected to be interrupted, and by his own brother, no less. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he told TJ, playing a silent tug-of-war with Emma beneath the water. He had no idea where she thought she was going, but the only place to go to was straight toward his brother, who he intended to get rid of so Emma could try to kick his ass in private. “I’m nowhere near the radio, as you can see.”

  “It was going off like mad.” TJ pulled his radio from his pocket. “It’s still going off.”

  Huh? In the silence that followed Stone could hear it, the beep-beep-beeping of the receiver.

  TJ turned to their discarded clothes. Specifically Emma’s. He nudged aside her shirt, and then her shoes, both of which had been dropped…

  On top of the radio.

  Specifically the talk button.

  The radio stopped beeping.

  Emma looked up at Stone, horrified. “I did that?”

  “Mystery solved,” TJ said. “I can’t believe you were fucking around on duty. You wrote the book on protocol for us, remember? You made Cam and I swear not to—”

  “Excuse me,” Emma said stiffly. Both men looked at her. “For the record, he wasn’t ‘fucking around’. Not literally anyway,” she muttered, and stormed out of the water, a glorious, furious goddess in her underwear.

  TJ shot Stone a holy-shit look.

  In return, Stone shot him a get-the-hell-out-of-here look, which he knew damn well TJ received and understood, and yet the dumbass just stood there.

  With a sigh, Stone followed Emma out of the water. “So you drove all the way up here to chew my ass out?”

  “I drove all the way up here because I thought you’d fallen off a cliff. I thought you needed my help.”

  “I don’t fall off cliffs.”

  TJ gave him a droll look.

  “Okay, one time!” Jesus. “And that wasn’t even my fault. Look, we’re both fine, as you can see for yourself.” Stone lifted his hands to prove it. “Now go away.” He wanted to pull Emma back up against him—

  She stared at him in disbelief, her fiery temperament matching her fiery hair shining in the sun. “It’s our fault he’s here!”

  “Yes, but now he’s leaving.”

  TJ, not leaving, smiled, and when she stomped her way toward her clothes with her head held high, he picked up Stone’s shirt, and held it out to her.

  “Thank you,” she said loftily, snatching the shirt and pulling it on over the body Stone had been dreaming about for weeks. She wrapped her arms around herself and sent Stone another glacial stare.

  With a sigh, Stone glanced at TJ. “Thanks, man.”

  Emma picked up her pants, realized both men were looking at her, and snapped, “Turn your backs!”

  TJ obligingly closed his eyes.

  She looked at Stone, who looked right back. “Close ’em.”

  With a sigh, he did, then peeked. She was gathering up all the clothes including his, shoving them into the backpack, and then she got on her bike.

  With his stuff.

  “Uh,” he said, lifting a hand toward her. “Maybe we could—”

  She put on her helmet and rode off.

  TJ looked at Stone in his wet underwear and grinned. “Going to be a fun ride back.” He patted Stone’s shoulder, and whistling now, took off as well.

  Chapter 14

  The next day, Emma was over what had happened.

  Okay, not quite. She kept reliving the night before. Basically, she’d stripped down to her underwear with Stone.

  She’d wrestled in said underwear with Stone.

  She’d laughed. Hard.

  She’d lusted. Harder.

  If TJ hadn’t shown up, they’d have had sex right there in the water. She knew it. And worse, she knew that Stone knew it as well.

  He’d dropped her off with a promise that next time he’d tie up TJ before they set out for their fun, but she’d told him she’d decided fun should be off the menu, that she should really concentrate on what she was here to do.

  The end.

  He hadn’t argued with her but neither had he agreed, and she had the uncomfortable feeling they weren’t done discussing the issue.

  She’d gotten out of his truck—still in his shirt—and left him in nothing but his underwear, an image that was going to keep her warm all night.

  After a full day in the clinic, Emma stood upstairs in the living room, looking at her mother’s picture over the fireplace, and voiced the question that had been bothering her all day. “So is it really true that I’ve never really had to try at anything?”

  “You talking to yourself again?” Spence asked from the kitchen, where he was making dinner.