by Lynne Logan
When he swept her up in his arms, she twined her arms eagerly around his neck. He started to walk toward the hallway but stopped. An odd expression flickered in his eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
“Your bedroom. Where is it?” he demanded in a voice harsh with need, the thick muscles of his arms flexing as his grip tightened around her.
She nipped his earlobe and whispered, “Go down the hall on the left, and it’s the furthest room on the right.”
At her touch, he shivered and pulled back, a smile dancing across his sensual mouth. A wicked gleam flashed in the depths of his eyes, while a lock of hair fell across his brow, giving him a decidedly devilish air. In another time, he might have been a medieval knight come to claim her.
He wanted wicked, did he? She’d be far more wicked than Ryan could dare to imagine. When she was through with him, he wouldn’t just be trembling with need, he’d be mindless with lust.
A shiver danced down her spine. She hugged him closer as he strode down the hall and into her room. Because the sun had since set, he snapped on the light switch by the door. A bedside lamp flickered on, illuminating the room in soft yellow. The bed, swathed in white lace and frills, contrasted sharply with the rugged man holding her.
“I hope to God you still have some condoms,” he muttered, his eyes dark with desire.
She glided an index finger along his lower lip. “I have several for the night. I put them in the drawer by the bed.”
Gently Ryan draped her across the cool cotton, and snapped up a package from her drawer. After he placed the condom by the pillow, he eased down on top of her. She loved how his body, all hard angles and unyielding muscle, eased against her softer curves. She opened her legs to cradle his hips, and squeezed and shaped his ass with her hands. She sank deeper into the bed as a sigh of pleasure rattled through his large frame.
He kissed and licked his way down her neck, collar bone, and paused to suckle both her nipples, sending her heartbeat hammering and her brain blank of thought but her need for release. Her fingers curled over his biceps to dig into his flesh, and her breath quickened and turned shallow. To her delight, he eased lower, sweeping his tongue over the curve of her stomach, along the hollow on the inside of her hip and lower still.
Paige pressed at his shoulders, urging him down her body. She wanted his hot, knowing mouth on her pussy, his expert hands caressing the folds of her sex.
She arched her hips and shifted her thighs wider as he nestled between her legs to lap at her clit. The smell of sex, of passion, wrapped around her. He caressed her inner thighs, and the muscles beneath his palms bunched with tension as he gently scraped his teeth over the hard nub. At his expert touch, heat coiled in her belly and arrowed lower. She squeezed her eyes shut as her heart pounded a wild and erratic tempo inside her chest.
A tear slipped free. Sheer joy meshed with her pleasure. She could never have asked for a better man in her bed. She didn’t have to ask. Completely attuned to her body, her secret desires, he knew where and how to touch her.
He swirled his tongue around and around her clit then suckled and sipped her flesh into his mouth. One finger, then two, slipped inside her. She was drowning in pleasure. Passion, need engulfed her.
All these years she’d shied away from risk, focused all her energy on raising her sister. She’d missed so much…
“Ryan … I want you, not your fingers inside me,” she cried out, her voice harsh, shaky and barely comprehensive as she threaded her hands into his hair and shifted restlessly against him.
“Not yet, honey. But soon. Real soon. I want you to come for me first.” He flicked his tongue against her clit, faster, harder while he circled his fingers inside her and squeezed her ass with his free hand.
She melted into the mattress, the pillow, the air around her. An orgasm crashed into her body, taking her breath, taking her mind, taking her entire body and smashing her into a thousand shards of pulse-numbing sensations.
She arched against his mouth, her inner muscles shuddering and milking his fingers. She dove into ecstasy, chased the feeling until it slowly eased, leaving her shaken and gasping for breath.
Ryan crawled up her body and rested most of his weight on his elbows on either side of her. Then he dipped down to claim her with a kiss, the taste of her cream still on his tongue. Shivering, she sucked his tongue boldly into her mouth. Slow, deep kisses turned hot and hungry.
Squeezing and molding his ass with her hands, she rubbed her soaked thatch against his erection. She wanted Ryan out of control, wanted him begging, wanted him to experience the same shattering orgasm she’d just had.
She twisted from under him, pushed him down onto the mattress, and straddled his hips. Leaning forward, she shackled his wrists by his head with her hands.
“I like this.” He smiled, hot anticipation flaring in his eyes. “I like this a lot.”
“Like? That’s such a lukewarm word.” She released both of his hands, grabbed the condom package from the bed and ripped open the plastic with her teeth. With both legs clamped against his hips, she sheathed his erection and positioned her pussy over his tip. Arching one brow, she paused. “Don’t you think?”
His smile dissolved, and the rugged lines of his face hardened. “Yes.”
“I thought you’d see it my way.”
The sexual power she had over Ryan both thrilled and terrified her. Never had she’d felt so in control and out of control in her life.
One smooth stroke and she took him all in. The sweet glide of his cock filled her. He was big, thick, and perfect. Up and down she moved above him, pumping, using large, sweeping circles when she drove down his shaft. Grabbing her thighs, he bucked and ground his hips against her pussy as he rammed her down onto his cock.
Her breasts, her nipples hard, pink nubs, bounced above him, begging for his touch. When he cupped them and rolled the tips between his fingers, she groaned, closed her eyes and arched into his hands. The air rushed from her lungs in hard, quick pants. Her hair, damp with sweat, clung to her neck, cheeks and brow.
He slipped his hands across her thighs to delve between her legs and the folds of her wet sex. Desire, painful in its intensity, gripped her pussy. She needed relief. She needed it now. She grabbed his wrist with a fumbling hand and pressed his fingers harder against her flesh.
“Ryan … my God…”
“You like that?” Ryan rubbed her stiff, little clit, making her twitch above him. His jaw tightened. He was so damn close to exploding. “Bend down. I want to suck you when you come.”
Eagerly, she dropped both hands onto the mattress on either side of his head and lowered her breast until he latched onto the nipple. With his tongue, he laved and flicked the hard tip, then suckled her with deep, long pulls. The pressure of his fingers increased on her clit, and he quickened the tempo.
She stiffened, cupping his head, digging her fingers against his scalp as she shuddered above him. The scent of her sex washed over him, exciting him, pushing him to give up control. She was so damn responsive. Perfect. He couldn’t remember a woman who made him feel so damn powerful. With Paige, he could forget being alone, forget the grief of losing his wife.
Chest tightening with emotion, he eased his hand from her pussy and massaged her ass. He arched his hips, pushing his cock deeper into her warmth, his breath sawing loudly in the room.
A wicked light flared in her eyes as she pushed herself into a sitting position, reached around and caressed his balls with her finger tips. His hands fastened on her hips.
“Does that feel good?” A smile lightened her husky voice.
“God, yeah.” He knew she was retaliating by pushing him to breaking as her fingers eased beyond his balls to the sensitive triangle before his anus, and dammit … he loved it.
“But I know you’ll like something even more.”
Her thighs tightened against his hips, and she eased up his cock until only his tip rested inside her. Then she lowered onto his shaft, inch by e
xcruciating inch. All the while her muscles pulsed and squeezed him. Pure, icy hot pleasure raced through his arteries. With hard, sure jerks, she took him deep into her pussy. Up and down, faster and faster. Again and again.
Ryan closed his eyes and let the fire scorch its way through his blood. “That’s it, honey. Ride me. Your pussy is perfect. All hot and ready. So tight—” He grunted, his voice catching against the back of his throat. His balls tightened. He spasmed. Her hot, wet cunt grabbed his erection. His cock twitched and jerked as he came. Blood rushed through his veins and pounded against his temples.
Paige cried out above him, her eyelids tightly closed, her jaw rigid and her back arched in a taut bow as she came again.
She drooped, the muscles of her thighs easing from his hips. Tension faded from her face as he caught her at the waist and turned them around until they lay on the bed facing each other. A smile played across her lips and lightened her once stormy eyes. “You sure know how to make a woman happy.”
“Any time, sweetheart.” Ryan grinned and brushed a damp curl from her brow as he reluctantly eased from the warmth between her thighs.
Then reality closed in around him, and he struggled to retain his smile. He’d really screwed things up. Why the hell hadn’t he been able to keep away? What was it about this woman that stopped him from acting with purpose, with some shred of common sense and decency?
Her dark brown hair framed a face, not necessarily extraordinary, but when she smiled, and her light blue eyes brightened with happiness or darkened with passion, an inner glow radiated from her pale complexion and she became absolutely beautiful.
“I better get rid of this.” He nodded toward his crotch.
“Hurry back.” She stretched. Even the back of her hand against her mouth didn’t smother the sound of her yawn. “Before I fall asleep.” She wiggled her brows. “Unless you want to wake me up in a completely sinful way.”
Heat curled inside his groin, but he forced himself off the bed. “Hold that thought.”
Once in the shower, Ryan rested a brow against the cold tile and let the water sluice over his rapidly cooling skin. Dammit. How the hell was he going to get out of this mess? He couldn’t just disappear. Not without an explanation to Paige. Not when he hadn’t completed his assignment.
Fuck.
He still had a job to do. He grabbed the soap and scrubbed his arms, legs, chest and cock, but all the scrubbing didn’t take away the feeling of being dirty. Still not knowing what the hell he was going to say to her, he dried off and walked back to her bedroom.
The bathroom light caressed the gentle slope of her cheek, brow and sleeping form. He stepped closer and for a silent moment stared at the vulnerable slope of her neck and the dimpled skin below the small of her back. How the hell had he gotten here? Naked? With a woman he had no business sleeping with?
Dammit. He’d lost himself in her arms, in the gentle touch of her hands and the seductive curve of her smile.
She continued to sleep.
A reprieve. For the moment.
On silent feet, he slipped from the room and crept down the hall. In the living room, he grabbed his pants and underwear and shoved his feet into the leg holes of both. After he found his shirt tossed on the arm of the sofa and yanked it on, he stealthily slipped into the room adjacent to where Paige slept. The shadow of a desk sat in one corner.
Pausing, he listened for any noise from Paige’s room then closed the door. Once he snapped on a Tiffany lamp on top of the desk, he noted a couple of bookshelf’s against one wall and a waist-high, oak filing cabinet on another wall.
First the computer and then the files. He should find something in one of them.
Ryan sank down in the chair and booted up the computer. Systematically, he searched the files, looking for incriminating emails, programs or files.
After several minutes, Ryan wondered if he was searching for the preverbal needle when a folder, Video Shop, caught his attention, and with it, dread hit him in the chest. He hoped to hell she didn’t have anything to do with piracy, but hope and reality were far different.
He opened the folder and examined several business files inside. Income, cash flow statements. Another on bank accounts. Thank God, all seemed innocent enough, but he’d need more time to go over the flow of money from account to account and to cross-reference his findings with what he had on file. Then he’d be able to discover whether or not she had a separate set of books. He scanned two more files and found nothing suspicious. Everything looked like a normal video store operation. No foreign scam anywhere.
Even so, he pulled out the thumb drive in his jeans front pocket and attached it to her computer. Symmetrically he copied all Video Shop files onto his drive. One quick scan wouldn’t tell him anything. But experience had told him that sometimes the most innocent looking people could be the most devious. Many suspects overlooked details that revealed just enough to get them arrested. Overconfidence, stupidity or a simple oversight tended to trip them up. It was Ryan’s job to find those discrepancies. The numbers would give him answers.
“What are you doing?” Harsh bright light flooded the office.
Shit. Sex with Paige had dulled his hearing. A slip like that could have gotten him killed somewhere else.
At the outrage in Paige’s voice, he casually bent down by the CPU on the floor and pretended to rub his ankle. Instead, he pulled the thumb drive from the system and palmed the small device. He swiveled in the chair until he faced Paige standing by the entrance, her hand still on the light switch to the room.
“Excuse me?”
Eyes narrowed with suspicion, she dropped her hand and edged further into the room. “I said, ‘What are you doing?’”
“I didn’t want to wake you just yet, so I thought I’d check my email.” He shrugged a shoulder, rose casually from his chair and walked toward her. He stopped mere inches from her. Ignoring the suspicion in her eyes, he cupped the side of her neck and used a thumb to caress the tender skin below her ear. Sex. He couldn’t think of a better way to distract her.
“Then why aren’t you online?”
He replaced his thumb with his mouth, kissing her quickening pulse, then scrapping his teeth gently across the lobe of her ear. When she shivered in his arms, Ryan thought he almost had her. A little more persuasion on his part and she’d be completely thrown off the scent. “I haven’t had the chance. I just booted up your computer.”
He eased back and smiled down at her, knowing his expression gave nothing away. Too many years of shielding his thoughts from the slugs of society. Strange how, at this moment, he felt on the same level as those slugs.
Paige must have sensed the lie in his words though, because she shrugged from his arms and tightened the belt of her silk robe around her waist. “Who are you?”
He lifted a brow, keeping an easy smile on his lips. “What type of question is that? Ryan White.”
“But you’re not the man I hired from the escort agency.”
He needed to deflect her questions and quickly. Since sex wasn’t working, he had to get her on the defensive. “You know that.”
A tell-tale flicker in her eyes. He’d guessed right. Good. “You knew when I showed up at your door tonight I wasn’t from the agency, yet you let me into your bed. A complete stranger. Why?”
She lifted her chin as if defiant, but the action didn’t mask the shame that flickered across her face. “That’s my business.”
“Would any guy with a dick do?”
“Of course not!” She cringed, color sweeping up her neck and into her face.
He wanted to take the crude words back, but at the same time, he had a job to do, no matter how distasteful. “Then why me?”
Frustration flashed in her face. “Because…”
“Because what? I was convenient?” The idea of being nothing more than a handy stud service bothered him, and knowing it bothered him, irritated him that much more. Worse, was knowing she’d put herself in danger. “You
could have allowed some sick pervert into your house. Don’t you read the news? Watch the television? I could rape you now, and you wouldn’t be able to fight me off.”
Her hands whitened at the knuckles as she clutched at her belt, while a pink flush drifted up her neck and into her face. “I want you to leave. Now.”
The sudden alarm in her eyes unsettled him. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
She backed further away from him and edged along the side of the wall. “Get out.”
Tension tightened his jaw. “You’ve got to believe me. I’d never hurt you.”
The Tiffany lamp revealed the fear and hurt in her eyes. “You already have.”
Guilt rammed a fist into his chest, but he couldn’t think of one word to take away her pain without jeopardizing his job.
“I saw you going through my computer files. Don’t even try to deny it. If you don’t leave, and now, I’ll call the police.”
Ryan wanted to laugh, but he couldn’t when he was drowning in self-loathing. For several long, pulse beats, he stood in the middle of the room, unable to open his mouth. What could he say? He couldn’t tell her who he was. Not until he learned if she was as innocent as her angelic face.
He swallowed his frustration and futility and strode across the room to the hallway. The soft brush of feet against tile followed him down the hall. In the living room, he rammed his feet into his shoes. “This isn’t over.”
She wrenched open the front door, her face tight with restrained emotion. “Oh, you’re wrong. This is most definitely over.”
Chapter Three
Saturday morning, Paige cursed the August heat and the lack of a gardener. Sweat dripped into her eyes as she mowed the front yard. Two days after her humiliating encounter with Ryan and she still didn’t feel any better.
Blinking against the prick of tears, she yanked at the electrical cord tangled on a branch of one of several lantana bushes along the front window. She muttered under her breath and turned the lawnmower off. It took a moment for her ears to adjust to the sudden silence as she tugged harder on the cord. Somehow she managed to tangle it even further.
