Rarities Unlimited 03 - Die in Plain Sight

It just wasn’t the same with a big girl as with a little one. Lacey’s feet were sexy. Very sexy. They had high arches and were attached to delicate ankles leading to long legs that vanished beneath folds of ragged, faded flannel into shadows that were perfumed with something as exotic and feminine as the candle burning by the bed.
    Think nieces, Ian told himself.
    Gently he lifted one high-arched foot to warm the cool flesh between his hands as he did for his nieces.
    Lacey stopped painting and forgot to breathe. The feel of his big, warm hands wrapped around her foot made her heart turn over and her blood heat up.
    It’s just my foot, damn it.
    Yeah, and the Queen Elizabeth is just a ship.
    When he eased her foot into the familiar slipper, she let out a long breath that she hadn’t even known she was holding. Then she found herself letting him warm her other foot and decided oxygen was overrated. She’d just close her eyes and breathe him in—gentleness and impatience, laughter and gun harness, smile like an angel and hands like the devil himself.
    “Better?” he asked, still holding her other foot.
    Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She swallowed and said, “Yes.”
    The husk in her voice went straight to his groin. He told himself that he wasn’t going to give in to Susa’s obvious matchmaking.
    Yeah. Sure. And he was going to fly to the moon without benefit of rockets.
    He slid Lacey’s foot into the waiting slipper, then trailed his fingertips up the smooth swell of her calf to the back of her knee, lingered, and then traced the lines of her leg between his thumb and his forefinger all the way down to her heel hidden in wool. And back up.
    Lacey felt like she was falling into warm cream. She knew Ian wanted her, knew he was pissed off about it, yet he was so gentle with her that she wanted to give him…everything.
    When the backs of his fingers slid up the inside of her thighs, the brush slipped from her lax fingers and fell across one of the plates with a clatter she didn’t hear and he ignored. She grabbed the heavy easel for support.
    “Skin as soft and warm as your smile,” he said. He eased upward until he felt a different texture of silk, lingered, and then caressed down her legs again, up again, down. “Strong, long, beautiful. I want to feel your legs around me.”
    Her knees trembled.
    He felt it and smiled despite the claws of sexual need that were sinking into him, twisting. “Do you want that?”
    She opened her mouth but all that came out was a low sound when his fingertip traced the crotch of her panties, then retreated.
    The inner surface of the old flannel felt like silk to him. He decided she must be wearing a slip underneath the shirt, or a nightgown. He couldn’t wait to find out which. His hands eased back up her legs. “Do you want that, Lacey?”
    “Y-yes,” she managed.
    “Risky thing to say to me right now.”
    “Yes.”
    His laugh was like he was, tender and dangerous at the same time. “That’s one of the things I liked right away,” he said. “There’s nothing coy or cold about you.”
    “A lot of my dates”—her voice broke as she felt her underwear being tugged down her legs—“would disagree with you.”
    The smooth movement of his fingertips hitched as he understoodwhat she was saying. Then the sight of silky underwear slithering down her legs made his mind go blank. Wine-colored. Sexy as her scent. Warm with the heat of her flesh.
    Like feet, he’d never found underwear a particular turn-on. But as his fingers sank into soft, flimsy, girly cloth, he was thinking he’d been missing something good in life. The sight of the burgundy lace against the foolish slippers was so sexy he didn’t know whether to laugh or drag her down to the floor. He compromised by giving her a long, openmouthed kiss just below her knee.
    “Lord, you’re sweet,” he said huskily.
    As her knees turned to water, she wondered if even her sturdy easel could support her weight. When his hands circled her right ankle and began a slow, inevitable journey toward her center, she was afraid she was going to find out.
    “Wait,” she said.
    His hands froze.
    She kicked out of her slippers and underwear. “Okay.”
    “Does that mean I can undress you?”
    “You already have.”
    He nipped at the back of her knee while his hands caressed up her thigh. “I’ve hardly begun, darling. When I took off your coat at the restaurant and saw the neckline on your dress, I