Crave the Moon Page 10

  Their chests bumped, their hips, too. She murmured his name as they both lost their balance; then one of her obscenely high heels came down on his foot. Next thing Matt knew they fell onto the bed.

  He landed on top. They bounced once. All the air in her lungs flew out, blowing back his hair. Her dress had bunched up; his palm now cupped her thigh. Her skin was so damn soft he couldn’t help but stroke.

  Her lips parted; her eyes darkened to smoke, and then he was kissing her, tasting her, wanting her as he had kissed and tasted and wanted her not so long before. But this time no one would interrupt and tell her his secrets. She knew his secrets—all of them—and still she had come to him here.

  His hair made a curtain, shrouding them from the world. She reached up, her fingers tangling in the strands, hard; it kind of hurt.

  He tugged on her lip with his teeth, and her grip relaxed, turning from torture to temptation. She pulled him closer, opened her mouth wider on a sigh, and he caught the flavor of … lipstick?

  How strange. He wasn’t a fan. Then again, he’d eat a tube if it meant he could kiss her some more.

  Her tongue met his, sliding along the underside, then tickling the edge. Her hands had moved from his hair to his neck, her fingers cupping the back of his head, urging him on.

  He discovered his fingers were cupping her ass, shifting her so that they fit together just …

  There, that felt better. Except they were wearing far too many clothes, or at least she was. He spared a moment to be glad his shirt had scratched and he’d yanked it off, because now her palms were on his chest, stroking him as he’d just stroked her.

  It had been so long since anyone had touched him. Or at least anyone he’d wanted as badly as he wanted Gina.

  His hand had just lifted to the tricky fastening at the front of her dress when someone cleared their throat. Matt ignored the sound. It couldn’t be real. He and Gina were in his room. On his bed.

  Alone.

  Someone coughed—loudly—and they didn’t stop. Whoever was out in the hall sounded like they’d just swallowed a whale down the wrong pipe and they were going to die if the Heimlich wasn’t performed immediately.

  Matt’s concentration was shot. He lifted his head, then blinked at the slightly fuzzy assortment of hotel personnel and guests assembled just outside his open doorway. How could he have forgotten that he’d told Gina to come in? Neither one of them had shut the door. They’d been a little preoccupied.

  With the fingertips of one hand brushing the swell of a breast and the palm of the other cupped around a butt cheek, not to mention his erection cradled between her legs, her thumbs poised over his almost painfully perky nipples, and his lips no doubt as swollen and wet as hers, Matt understood why none of the passersby had been able to pass by.

  Who’d want to miss this show?

  “Get off me.” Gina’s voice sounded as if it were coming from between a set of tightly clenched teeth.

  He glanced down. Huh. It was.

  No doubt she was embarrassed. She was the one with her dress rucked up to her hips and her breasts almost bursting from what he could see now was a very un-Gina-like bodice. What was going on?

  Matt needed to be a gentleman. If he could only remember how.

  With all the dignity he could muster Matt got up, crossed the floor, and slammed the door. Then he leaned his forehead against it while he tried to tame an erection the size of Tokyo—one that continued to thunder with a pulse that reminded him uncomfortably of Godzilla’s footsteps.

  The bed creaked. Clothes rustled as Gina put herself back together. Matt waited for her to cross the room, maybe put her hand on his shoulder, even give him another kiss, and murmur, Thanks.

  Perhaps he didn’t need to tame that erection after all.

  He turned, and his shirt hit him in the face.

  “Put that on.” She waved at his chest, her gaze landing everywhere but on him.

  Matt shrugged into the shirt, but he left the buttons alone. He was too busy staring.

  The dress was all wrong; the shoes were ridiculous. Her hair was nice; he liked it down, and the way the light played across the strands made him think of the sun slanting through autumn leaves. But whatever she’d put on her lips, which he’d done his best to lick off, had stuck there, along with the brown gunk on her eyelids and some orangey stuff on her cheeks.

  She didn’t look like Gina at all. However, when she spoke she sounded exactly like the Gina who’d kicked him off her ranch.

  “What the hell was that?” she demanded.

  “You forgot to close the door.”

  She waved her hand again, and he was distracted by the copper sparkle on each and every nail. He hated it.

  “I meant, why did you kiss me?”

  “I thought…” He had to pause and force himself to stop staring at her nails, her lips, those stupid, stupid shoes. “You wanted me to.”

  She snorted, sounding more like Spike than Spike. “Why would I want that?”

  “You ran into the room, threw yourself into my arms, said, ‘Matt,’ and—” He frowned. Then things kind of blended together.

  “I did run into the room—the faster to kill you, my dear.” Matt’s frown deepened. “Then I tripped, said, ‘Ass!’ and grabbed onto you to keep from falling.” Her gaze went to the bed, stuck on the tangled bedclothes, then jerked back to his. “It didn’t work.”

  “You’re sure you said ‘ass,’ not ‘Matt’?”

  “Since you introduced yourself as Teo,” she practically spit the name across the room like a rotten watermelon seed, “I’d hardly call you Matt.”

  He went back over what had happened, which did not help the erection from Tokyo. Even though she didn’t look anything like Gina, she smelled like her and she talked like her and when he’d touched her and kissed her she’d been her—the woman he’d probably never stop wanting to touch.

  And why was that? He’d had his hands on plenty of women. They’d been nice, but he’d never been desperate for one brief brush of their lips the way he was desperate, even now, for one more brief brush of Gina’s.

  “Wait a second,” he said. “You stroked my hair.”

  “Yanked on it. I was trying to get you off me.”

  Now that Matt thought about it, she had pulled kind of hard. At first. Then she’d shoved her fingers in, right before she’d wrapped them around his neck and given him the tongue.

  Matt shook his head.

  Gina’s gaze narrowed. “Why are you shaking your head?”

  “You kissed me back.”

  “In your dreams, Mecate.”

  She had been in his dreams, and from the sudden blush across her cheeks, the color so much more appealing than the false one she’d brushed there, he’d been in hers.

  “I know a tongue when I feel one,” he said. And her hands had been all over his chest, not pushing him away, either, but stroking his ribs, his collarbone, his shoulders, and more.

  He shifted those shoulders, feeling again those hands. Her gaze lowered to his stomach and stuck there. Then her blush deepened, and he couldn’t help but smile.

  Bad idea. Because her gaze jerked back to his and she flipped.

  “I know someone’s hand on my rear when I feel one, too. You play a lot of grab ass with your students?”

  “No!” His smile folded into a grimace. “That’s disgusting.”

  “I bet three-quarters of the coeds are far from disgusting. More like the As than like me.”

  “There’s no comparison.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re so much more beautiful than they could ever be.” Her quick glance, the expression on her face, made him realize she didn’t believe him. Damn Jase McCord and his manipulative bullshit. How many men had told her she was beautiful, then never talked to her again?

  “Is that what this is about?” Matt waved his hand at the dress, the shoes, the makeup. “A competition with the As?”

  She made a sound of derision, but she
wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I had to talk to a man about some business. The As thought I needed help.”

  “The As are the ones who need help. They should leave you alone.”

  “I wish they would. Unfortunately, they’ve still got several more days on their ranch package. Unless…” Gina lifted her gaze to his, and her lip trembled.

  Matt took a step forward, hand outstretched: What was there on this earth that could cause Gina O’Neil’s lip to tremble? Whatever it was, he would make it go away.

  “Unless you’re going to close the place down right away.”

  “I’m going to…” Matt let his hand fall back to his side. “What?”

  “You bought the ranch.” She glanced out the window, and her shoulders slumped, making the dress pooch across the bodice. He could see the smooth, supple curve of one breast, and right now he didn’t even care.

  “I did,” he agreed. “But—”

  “Must be nice to be rich. To be able to buy anything you see that you might want.”

  He knew there was a trap in there somewhere, but he couldn’t quite figure out what it was. “It is.”

  Her gaze flicked back to his. “You spoiled, elitist, rich-boy snob.” She lifted her chin. “You can’t buy me.”

  CHAPTER 10

  What had happened to her honey-versus-vinegar plan? It had lasted about as long as her patience.

  Gina didn’t have the money to buy back the ranch. Hell, she didn’t have the money to buy lunch. So she might as well scream, throw things, maybe even pop Teo in the nose. It might make her feel better as she packed up and left the only home she’d ever known.

  “What I don’t understand is why?” Gina took a step closer. Smart man that he was, Teo kept his gaze on her face, even as he took a step in reverse. “Did getting thrown off infuriate you so much you just had to throw us off back?”

  Confusion flickered in his still-gorgeous eyes, more green than brown now that they were free of the lenses. “Throw you off?”

  She took several more steps, quick like a bunny despite the obnoxiously high heels, and poked him in the chest, concentrating on shirt and not actual chest. She was having a hard-enough time forgetting what it felt like, smooth and firm and hot— Gina swallowed. She didn’t need to feel it again.

  “What the hell are you going to do with a ranch anyway?” she asked. “I mean after you dig it up and make it crap? Do you have so much money that you can just shrug and walk away?”

  “Yes,” he answered. Then, when she narrowed her eyes, he hurriedly said, “No!”

  “Which is it? ‘Yes’?” She purposely took another step forward, grinding the spike of her heel onto his toe. “Or ‘no’?”

  He hissed in pain, but he didn’t push her away, and a trickle of admiration pierced her fury. “I … uh…” He winced, and she removed her foot. No need to make him bleed. Yet.

  “I am that rich.” He lifted his hands. “I can’t help it! My family. I was the last one. I got it all.”

  “How much is all?”

  “Millions.”

  “Three? Four?”

  “Hundred.”

  “Three or four hundred million?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t hate me because I’m rich.”

  “No problem,” Gina muttered. She had plenty of other things to hate him for.

  Like the way his unbuttoned shirt kept fluttering every time he moved, giving her tantalizing glimpses of pecs and abs. What kind of professor had a body like that?

  “I’m not going to dig up your ranch.”

  “I know,” she said, and he let out a relieved sigh. “You’re going to dig up your ranch.”

  “No. I mean yes. But—”

  “Sheesh, for a teacher, you sure have a hard time expressing yourself.”

  He tilted his head, and his hair slid across his cheek, making her remember how she’d threaded her fingers through it and held on. Damn! What was wrong with her? Nothing a good dose of bitchy couldn’t cure.

  “I suppose you’re better in print. Your letters were certainly…” She let her lips curve. “Amusing.”

  His eyes went blank as he thought back on what he’d written. “They weren’t meant to be amusing.”

  “Which is what made them so damn funny.”

  She was being mean, but she couldn’t help herself. He’d bought her ranch!

  “‘It would behoove you to allow me to dig on your property,’” she quoted. “Who talks like that?”

  “I try not to talk like that.” He glanced at the floor. “When I was a kid, it used to get me beat up. Until I hit my growth spurt anyway.”

  Gina stilled. The idea of him as a kid—skinny, bespectacled, picked on—caused a sudden rush of protectiveness. If she’d been there, no one would have dared.

  Then she heard her thoughts. She wanted to beat him up now. Why on earth did she care if he’d been beat up then?

  “But it comes out in my writing,” he continued. “And when I’m nervous.”

  Gina searched for something to bring back her anger. She didn’t have to search very far.

  “You said you were homeschooled. Or was that as much of a lie as your name?”

  “I was. My mom took me on digs with her, and they weren’t very often near a school.” He shrugged, making his shirt shift again. Was he doing that on purpose? “They weren’t very often near a road.”

  “How’d you get beat up if you didn’t go to school?”

  His gaze met hers again. “There are more places than a playground to find a bully.”

  True enough.

  “Don’t look so mad,” he said, and Gina realized she was scowling, clenching her fists, thinking about retroactive violence again. “Getting picked on got me off the couch. Or the cot in my case. I started working out. I learned how to defend myself. Without that experience I might have turned into a perennially hassled, geeky, four-eyed, overweight professor.”

  As if.

  “You said your mother took you on digs. She is … like you?”

  “Yes and no.”

  Gina would hate to be a student in his class. You’d never know the correct answer on a test, the way he waffled around. Of course, the view might make up for it.

  Her gaze strayed to his stomach again, and her palms burned. She had never been this attracted to a man in her life. Why in hell did it have to be him?

  “My mother was brilliant,” he continued.

  “Like you.”

  He actually blushed. It should have made him appear feminine; instead it only made her chest ache. He was such an appealing combination of confidence and self-doubt.

  “She was eons more brilliant than me,” he said. “And she was beautiful.”

  Like you, her mind whispered, but thankfully her mouth did not.

  “She was funny and articulate and brave.”

  Hmm, Gina thought. One word just kept coming up over and over in this recitation of Mama Mecate’s attributes.

  “Was,” Gina murmured, and he glanced up, eyes suddenly wary. “What happened?”

  He remained silent for so long, she didn’t think he was going to answer, and that was probably for the best. Hearing about his mother, that he had a mother, made him too human, too real, too easy to like. Seeing the shadows in his eyes that reminded her far too much of her own was going to make it really hard to keep hating him.

  And she needed to hate him. Hating Teo Mecate was the only way she was going to be able to survive Teo Mecate.

  “My mother had some odd beliefs about the Aztecs.”

  “What kind of beliefs?”

  He hesitated, making her think that he was hiding something. But why would he hide anything about his mother’s academic theories? Maybe he just didn’t want to talk about her. Gina, of all people, could understand that.

  “She believed the Aztecs marched into the Southwest and attempted to conquer one of the tribes there.”

  “From what I remember of the Aztecs,” Gina said, “they tried to conquer tribes ev
erywhere.”

  “True. Their main occupation was war. Everything in their lives supported that. Food was raised to feed the soldiers. Priests prayed to the gods to smile favorably on the soldiers. Boys were raised to be soldiers. Girls were raised to give birth to soldiers.”

  “Why?” At his confused expression she elaborated: “Because they were easily bored? Or because they were a society of psychopaths who really liked killing?”

  “Ah.” He nodded. “The Aztecs believed that the only way to make the sun rise was to appease it with a sacrifice.”

  “A soldier’s death appeased the sun?”

  “No. Dying in war assured them of Tonatiuichan. The sun heaven reserved for those who died in battle. A true sacrifice had to be done by the priests in a certain way. They usually cut open the chest and tore out the heart with their bare hands.”

  “Not a common priestly activity.”

  “It was for them.”

  “Let me guess,” Gina said. “Instead of sacrificing Aztecs, which would have eventually made them damn short on Aztecs, they went out and nabbed some captives.”

  “Hence their constant state of war.”

  “Which led them to venture farther and farther afield to round up more captives.”

  Teo cast her a quick glance. “Correct.”

  Gina’s chest got a little tight and warm, like someone she admired had just patted her on the head. Because that happened a lot.

  Maybe she would have done all right in college. Not that she cared. Not that she needed college. She was doing fine without it.

  Then she remembered that she’d just lost her ranch. To him. And all her warm-and-fuzzy feelings fled.

  “Who cares if the Aztecs invaded the Southwest or not?” Gina asked. “They’re all dead and buried.”

  “Not all. There are nearly a million descendants. I’m one of them.”

  “Is that why your mom was so interested? Why you are?”

  “Maybe.” He lifted a shoulder, and his shirt slid off. She got a tantalizing glimpse of bare honey skin before he yanked the garment up again. This time he absently buttoned the top few buttons to hold it in place. Gina tried to contain her disappointment.