by Elisabeth Naughton, Cynthia Eden, Katie Reus, Alexandra Ivy, Laura Wright, Joan Swan
Rio paused on Cassie’s patio. He could see her through the sliding glass doors, curled up in the middle of her huge bed, asleep. She looked so small, so defeated.
Tomás couldn’t be further off base. He was pissed because he had gotten some. An amazing, unforgettable sample of Cassie’s pure passion. An unadulterated view of her intelligence, compassion, and humor. And now, nothing but owning the whole package would be enough.
For the first time in a decade, he saw beyond the next mission.
“I just talked to Ahmed,” he said. “Kollman needs to know that Flores has been contacting him behind my back. And someone had Santiago and his secretary killed today. I’m sure Saul sent someone to do it.”
“It wasn’t Pedro. Fucker hasn’t left my sight. Christ, this is so out of control.”
“The good news is that Ahmed told me there’s a storm out at sea which looks like it’s going to push the tangos in as early as tomorrow. If we can get the tangos going first—”
“We’re only short one girl, and we’ll probably have her by tomorrow.”
“Stall. One is enough to hold off delivering. I’ll convince Saul to move the women after the tangos.”
“All right, yeah, good idea,” Tomás said. “There’s noise about Suarez getting tense. Talk about him heading back to Baja earlier than expected. I’ve had way too much interest in our business and way too many questions on this trip.”
“Sounds like it’s finally time to shut this baby down. You’ll be here for the party tonight, right?”
“Wouldn’t miss that jiggle-and-sparkle for this lousy gig, partner.”
Rio disconnected and slid his phone into its holder. He pulled the lock pick from the pocket of his jeans but found the sliding door to Cassie’s room unlocked. He slipped in, leaving the door ajar so the soothing sound of the ocean trickled in, and sat in the lounge chair beside her bed.
There, he let go of the tension, let his body sink into the soft leather. A box of tissues sat on the bed near her, and she had a wad of it clutched in the hand tucked close under her chin.
God, she looked sweet, curled so tight, bare feet crossed, painted toe nails bright against her skin. With her knees pulled to her chest, the pretty little skirt barely covered her ass and those long bronzed legs contrasted against the shimmering bedspread.
His dick was already rising to life. His chest continued to constrict. He wanted her like nothing he’d ever wanted before. Wanted to touch her, have her, love her. But he also wanted her to want him back the same way—without reservation—and he knew, given the circumstances, that wasn’t possible. Considering all the lies he’d told her, he didn’t know if it would ever be possible. But, by God, he was going to do everything within his power to make it happen.
He was memorizing the hypnotic sight of her dark hair spread out across the pillow behind her when she stirred. Her toes curled first, followed by the slow flex of her legs into a tighter ball that shortened her skirt even more and sent lava flowing to his groin. She stretched out both her arms, then relaxed her whole body into the bed again.
Her lashes drifted open. When she saw him, they flew wide, and she startled.
“Just me, princess.” Rio sat forward, wishing he could reach for her, pull her into his arms, but knew there were too many conflicts between them. “Just me.”
Recognition chased the fear from her eyes. She let her body slump back to the bed and buried her face in her pillow on a groan. “Jesus Christ.”
He stood, reached down to run a hand over her back but pulled it away before he’d touched her. Then reached out again, laying his palm on her shoulder. When she didn’t shrink from his touch, he said, “I didn’t want to wake you.”
And, God, he couldn’t help himself, couldn’t keep his hand from sliding over her shoulder blade, down her spine. Her body was warm and strong. He ached to have her wrapped around him as she’d been last night. Craved it.
“What are you doing in here?” She turned her head, shook the hair from her face, and looked up at him. Her voice was soft, her eyes luminous and hopeful. And the want he saw there was surely his wicked imagination. “Is something wrong?”
He forced a dull laugh. “That’s a strange question considering our day…”
She pushed herself upright, her legs still tucked under her. “Why are you here?”
“I just…” He let out a breath, ran his hand over the top of her head and down the silky expanse of her hair. The feel of it relieved some pain. “Wanted to be close to you.”
On the next pass of his hand over her hair, she caught his wrist and pulled his hand first to her cheek, where she leaned into it, then turned her head and brought it to her mouth, and laid her lips on his open palm.
Rio’s heart raced. His ribs felt like they were about to cave under the pressure of pure joy.
I love you. The words were right there. Filling his heart. Swirling in his head. Dancing on his tongue. Believe in me.
Chapter Twenty
Rio watched a shiver slide over Cassie’s frame.
“I’m cold,” she whispered.
“I’ll close the—” He started to turn as he spoke, but she pulled on his arm.
“I’m cold on the inside.” She sat up straighter, added her other hand to his arm, and pulled him toward her. “Come lie with me.”
His heart, his body rejoiced with a resounding yes, but his mind resisted, though he couldn’t say he put much effort into pulling from her grip. “I was walking on the beach.” His balance tipped, and he dropped one knee on the bed. “My jeans are wet, my feet are sandy—”
“I keep seeing them,” she said, her gaze lowered to his chest, her hands insistent. “I’ve seen so much worse in the emergency room, but that…” Her gaze lifted to his. “I feel…numb.”
He knew what she meant. She meant a part of her felt dead, the way a part of him felt every time he witnessed a murder or found a victim. And he knew what she wanted. She wanted to feel alive again. She wanted him to make her feel alive. And, God, how he longed to.
He’d been here before, but when he’d looked for validation of life in the past with others, it had always been physical. This was also emotional, and his need to bond with her on that level scared him in a way no gun pointed at his head ever could.
She rolled to her knees and used his arm as leverage to slide forward. Those expressive gold eyes met his with purpose and determination.
One more day, he told himself. Twenty-four more hours. Maybe a little longer. He could wait. He had to wait. Making love to her again, now, with all the lies between them… Damn, there was so much at risk.
“We…” he started, “should probably talk.”
A flash of disappointment slipped through her eyes before she lowered them. First to his mouth. Then to his throat. She lifted her hand to the open collar of his shirt and covered the vulnerable area with her palm, her long fingers extended gently along his neck. Warmth melted into his skin.
“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” she whispered, caressing up and down the length of his throat with the backs of her fingers. Then leaned in and followed the motion with her mouth.
Rio brought his hands up to cup her head. Oh, man, her mouth turned his skin to liquid fire. His heart thumped hard, a little too fast. His cock took a sudden rush of blood and swelled painfully.
He tried not to give in to the pressure of her kisses and tilt his head, but that didn’t help his brain work any better. “You’re the one—”
Her tongue slipped up the side of his neck, to the base of his ear, and Rio shivered. Then she took his lobe gently between her teeth, and Rio’s fingers fisted in her hair.
“Goddamn,” he breathed. “You make me crazy.”
But he’d spoken too soon. Her fingers found the hem of his shirt, then his skin beneath as she pushed the fabric up his abdomen.
“Promise me something,” she whispered in his ear.
He laughed, slid his palm over the perfectly feather-so
ft skin at the nape of her neck and his fingers into the baby-fine hair at her hairline. “You know I’d promise you just about anything right now.”
“When whatever you’re doing with Saul is over, you’ll get out.”
He pulled back. This he could promise without reservation. While his emotional involvement with Alejandra and Santos had crossed the professional line for an undercover, it hadn’t gotten them killed. Even a sexual attraction to Cassie would have been normal, though not condoned. It was his love for Cassie that told Rio his undercover days were over. And in many ways, that was a deep relief.
“Yes.” He kissed her gently. “I can promise you that.”
“And promise me,” she said, “that if you need help, you’ll ask me.”
A slow smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “That”—he drew out the word, gripped her waist, and pulled her against him, belly to belly—“might be a little harder.”
Her chin dipped. “Rio.”
“Okay.” He grinned. “For you, yes, I will ask if I need help.”
One hand slipped out from under his shirt, her fingers moving to the top button to flick it open while the fingers of the other hand brushed over his nipple, tightening the skin across his chest with mini shocks of pleasure.
“I know you’re a good man. You try to deny it here.” She pressed her fingers against his lips. “But you show it here.” She parted his shirt and pressed her palm against his heart, and he swore he could feel it hammer against his ribs. “But I’ve gotten good at reading people from my work. Which is how I know you’re lying to me about…several things.”
God, he didn’t want to go back into the cop thing again. “Not about wanting to keep you safe.”
Her fingers released another shirt button. And another. “No, I don’t doubt that.”
“Then why don’t you let me take you back to San Diego? I’ll manage the clinic for you. I promise to do it exactly the way you want it.”
Her other hand slid out from underneath his shirt, and she clasped his face between her palms. “I’ll go if you go with me.”
His heart pounded hard. He threaded his fingers at the base of her spine to keep them from wandering lower. “I will. I’ll go back with you, get you all settled, then—”
“Stay.”
His breath caught.
“Stay in San Diego with me.” Her fingers slid into his hair, nails scraping his scalp and making him feel as heady as if he had a bottle of wine in his bloodstream. “We’ll find you work doing whatever you want. I don’t care what.”
He couldn’t speak. Her expression filled with so much sincerity, so much love. But he didn’t dare hope. “Cassie—”
“If…if you…you know”—she looked away—“want to come back here, you can just wait until I get Saul out of the house. I’m going to need a caretaker for the estate and…” She shrugged one shoulder, lifted her gaze back to his with a vulnerability that drilled into his heart and took hold. “I’d love to know you’re here, taking care of it.”
Emotion geysered up from deep inside him. So deep he hadn’t seen it lurking. The sensations and feelings ambushed him all at once, a blitz attack that overwhelmed and shattered every barrier.
He released her waist and cupped her face with so much joy consuming him it hurt. “God, I love you.” The words tumbled out, and once the damn was broken, the flood just kept coming. “I can’t stand pretending I don’t. I loved you long before I met you. Fell in love with you the first time I held you in the cemetery. Then again when you turned on Saul in the hallway the night you got here.”
“I… Rio…” Her eyes were wide, soft, confused. Tears glistened there.
He tightened his grasp on her face, rubbed his thumbs over her cheeks. Desperation—for her love, for her safety—quickened his breathing, deepened his need to bond with her again. On a new level. A deeper level. A permanent level.
“I hate knowing you’re one step away from falling into the wrong hands. Of being swept out of my reach. If the gangs got a hold of you, Cassie…” He drove his fingers into her hair and closed them around the soft strands. He pressed his forehead to hers. “Nothing can happen to you. Do you understand me? I couldn’t survive anything happening to you.”
Her hands closed over his. Tears spilled over her lower lashes and streaked down her smooth skin as she nodded. Then she tilted her head and kissed him. Openmouthed and feverish. He understood. Kissed her back with the same urgency, the same desperation. The same need for connection, for life-affirming sensation.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressed her body against his, and slanted her head, taking his mouth with a hunger that made him insane with need. He moaned into her mouth, wrapped one arm around her slim back, and held her against him, twisted the other into her hair and pulled her mouth against his.
He was lost in the taste and texture of her when her fingers scraped low on his belly and his belt flicked open, followed by the button of his jeans. Excitement rushed his blood.
“Christ,” he whispered against her mouth. “Cass, slow down. I’m…shit…I’m…”
She drew back, unzipped his jeans, slipped her hands beneath the waistband of his underwear, and held him.
Rio’s body arched on a loud, throaty growl. The sensation was so exquisite it was nearly painful.
“Cassie…” He drew out her name in impatience, in warning, in appeal.
She released him, slid her hands around to his ass, and pulled his hips up against hers. With his cock free and nothing but the filmy layers of her skirt and panties between them, the softness of her mound nestled against him pumped warmth into the already fiery flesh.
Before he had his mind back, Cassie was kissing him again. Her mouth hot and wet, her tongue sexy and seductive.
“I want you,” she whispered into his mouth. “Fast. For real this time.”
Rio’s body screamed yes, bringing his mind back online. He skimmed his hands up her thighs and beneath her skirt, just the way he’d been fantasizing about doing all damned day. Her ass, round and firm, filled his hands. He cupped her and swallowed the moan that bubbled from her throat as his fingers found the edge of her panties.
He let them fall to her knees, reached behind her, trailed his fingers up her inner thigh until his fingertips met the smooth, hot, wet lips between her legs and Cassie moaned. Rio covered her mouth with his and slid his tongue in to meet hers as he pushed two fingers deep into her heat.
The rise of her voice shot a supercharged jolt of lust through Rio’s blood. With one knee already on the bed, Rio gripped Cassie’s ass and lifted her. She kicked her panties off while Rio eased his other knee into position and pulled her into his lap. She reached for his erection, gripped him before he could stop her and pressed the head of his cock into her—tight, wet, warm, soft. Heaven. And Rio was gone. So fucking gone.
Need washed over him. Instinct—primal, driving, overpowering—urged his hips forward. Only his fear of hurting her kept his thrust under control. Barely. But Cassie wasn’t nearly as concerned. She was already riding him, one hand fisted in the shirt at his shoulder, the other at his side. She took only his head at first. Then more. And more. Until each movement stroked his entire length with her wetness, her heat.
Her hips were purposeful, rhythmic…perfect.
“God damn, Cass,” he ground out, watching her move, watching the same need, the same dizzying passion that kept him on pleasure’s razor edge rip through her. “You feel so good. So damn good.”
He pulled her blouse off over her head, didn’t bother trying to unhook her bra, just fingered the lace away from one nipple and sucked it into his mouth. Her hips moved faster, moans grew throatier. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and the pinch of her nails nearly did it. Nearly pushed him over the edge. Too soon.
Rio kissed his way up to her ear and whispered, “I want to feel you come around me.”
That did it. She whimpered, thrust her hips into his, and exploded in a continuing ri
pple of orgasms.
He tried to wait it out. He did. Tried with everything he had. Because he wanted to make her do that again. Wished he had the strength, the restraint to make her do it all day long. But he needed to come. To explode inside her. Deep inside her. And stay there for a long, long time.
Before he did just that—without protection—Rio pulled a condom from his back pocket, tore it open, and rolled it on in record time. When he reached between them and stroked her, she gasped and jumped, gripping his wrist.
“Sorry, baby.” Rio repositioned his hand to keep it away from the most sensitive areas and touched her again. “Didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“No. You didn’t.” She covered his hand with hers and pressed them together to her mound, then rocked her hips into the pressure. “It feels good. How could I want it again? After that?”
Rio picked up the stroking rhythm for a moment. But only a moment, because the sheer pleasure on her face was just too much. “Because you are incredibly, beautifully sexual.”
When Rio rubbed his hand over his own length to moisten it, she made a noise of protest, replaced his hand with hers, and guided him inside her. She excited him on levels he hadn’t even known existed.
“Wrap your legs around me, Cass.” Still kneeling, he eased one of her legs around his hip, Cassie moved the other until she was straddling him, and he slid fully into her on a moan. He couldn’t be buried any deeper. They couldn’t be any closer.
He pulled her bra off over her head, and tossed it to join her blouse on the floor. With one hand at the base of her spine, one cradling her neck and head, he pulled her against him so her full breasts were pressed to his chest, and started to move. She held him close, used his body to help her lift and rock and move. She praised him, begged him. And finally wrapped her arms around his shoulders, lay back, and dragged him with her.
Rio caught himself with one arm, holding his body above hers. His control was slipping, and he feared if she freaked now, he might not be able to stop. “Cassie…” He tried to pull on her arm. “Roll to the side with me.”
