It was his turn to lick his lips. “And what do you know about cooking a turkey, Viv?”
Pride lifted her chin, her color gloriously high with that potent combo of anger and lust that they both excelled at. “I know you can order delicious, apricot-glazed turkey breast from Whole Foods that’s so good, no one cares who cooked it.” He saw her struggle to stop herself, saw the moment she lost her inner war and veered off the high road. “You’d probably love it. You always were a breast man.”
Wes’s grin was all male satisfaction. Sparring with her had always been the best aphrodisiac on the planet. “Still am. Which is how I know that, while that might be true for women in general, your nipples have always been incredibly accurate at predicting your heat level.”
She crossed her arms over her chest to conceal the evidence. “It’s not so tough to read your thermometer either.” She dropped her gaze to his crotch, but the ploy backfired. Because he wasn’t embarrassed. And there was nowhere to hide when all you were wearing was a pair of white boxer briefs. He didn’t miss the way her eyes flared at the result of their exchange of innuendos.
“I wouldn’t think so,” he conceded, and Vivienne swallowed as he drew closer still, so fucking hard for her. “Being around you always gets my temperature up.”
“That’s close enough,” she warned, flattening her palm against his chest, and the burn of skin on skin almost sent him to his knees.
His heart thudded hard on the other side of his ribcage. “Not by half.”
“Why?” She breathed the question and it rippled along his skin, raising goose bumps. Her fingers flexed against his skin. “Even after everything we’ve been through, why is it like this?”
Her elbow relaxed a fraction of an inch and he leaned into the concession.
“Because I still know your body. I know what you like. What you need.”
Her laugh held a note of desperation. “God, you’re so full of yourself.”
“That’s not bragging. It’s fact. I spent two years learning you. Studying you. Logging every catch of your breath, every clench of your muscles. I know what makes you shiver. I know what makes you wet.” He lowered his voice. “I know you’re wet for me right now.”
Her exhalation was a familiar breathy sigh that slid down his spine and wrapped around his balls. She’d made that sound before, in bed with him. Wes clenched his fists against the urge to touch her, to take too much too fast. Desire beat thick and heavy in his veins.
“And that’s after a six-year hiatus from you. Imagine how it could have been if I wasn’t so rusty.”
Viv shook her head against his words, against the persuasive heat pulsing between them, but her arm lost all rigidity, and her fingers slid down his sternum in an inadvertent caress that set his skin ablaze.
“This isn’t real.”
“Fuck real.”
His blunt rejoinder widened her eyes.
“You know what’s real? Two billion-dollar tech firms are out for my blood.” Anger got tangled up in the lust. “I’m out on bail, and one spectacle of a trial is all that stands between me and prison for the rest of my life. In the meantime, I have no money, no clothes, and no job. Not to mention, my reputation is in shreds.”
He was desperate for her, even if it couldn’t last.
“Maybe I’m not looking for real. And I know you didn’t come out here for a drink.”
* * *
Fuck real.
Vivienne let the sentiment quiet the inner turmoil that was raging in her gut.
She’d let herself be blackmailed and, as a result, an innocent man had gone to prison.
She’d quit her dream job in a desperate attempt to clear his name.
The odds of any of it working out were miniscule at best, and nonexistent at worst.
But right now, he wanted her. And she wanted him.
Tonight, that could be enough.
After everything, they deserved the illusion. Just for a moment, they could forget the rest. Pretend they were who they used to be.
And she might get there, if she disregarded the beard, dismissed the hardened glint in his blue eyes. If she ignored the million things that had gone wrong between them and the years that had intervened since.
She spread her fingers over his heart, his skin hot beneath her palm, his heartbeat strong and steady. His body shuddered when she stepped closer, lifted her chin.
“Viv.” He breathed the words against her lips a split second before his fingers slid into her hair, and the edge of pain as he tugged her head back made her gasp even as he claimed her mouth in a scorching kiss that sent pleasure surging through her. She clutched his shoulders, desperate to get closer.
His other hand fisted her T-shirt in the small of her back, lifting the hem and baring her thighs. Wes opened his mouth over hers again, kissing her, consuming her, as he walked her backward until the curve of her ass bumped up against the edge of the tabletop.
The chill of the marble was a shock against the heat of her skin, and her pelvis jerked in surprise. Wes growled as their hips collided, and the sound, combined with the brief, electric contact with his erection, had her all keyed up.
God, she’d forgotten how much she loved sex.
She gave him her prettiest pout, looking up from beneath her lashes. “It’s cold.”
His tiger smile revved her estrogen, and her belly clenched with a pulse of heat.
“Let’s get you warmed up then.”
He slid the T-shirt up her torso, and Vivienne bit back a moan. He hadn’t been wrong about her breasts. They were tight with need, her nipples hard and sensitive from the drag of the cotton as she lifted her arms so he could pull it over her head.
Her fingers toyed with the elastic waistband of his underwear as she pressed herself against him, flattening her breasts against his chest, burying her face in his shoulder so she could breathe in his skin. The scent of him was so familiar it made her ache, but she ignored the moment of weakness, bit his shoulder as she slid her hands inside his boxer briefs and palmed his ass.
Wes’s reaction was instantaneous, and there was a flurry of motion as he slipped her underwear down her thighs before stripping off his own. Then he was kissing her, lifting her onto the table, stepping between her legs.
It took a second for her to realize that she was sitting on his T-shirt, that he’d covered the cool marble surface before lifting her onto the table, and that funny little ache reared up again, trying to make this more than it was.
But Wes saved her from herself, sliding clever fingers through the slick heat of her, making her buck against his hand. She was drenched for him, and the rasp of his breath let her know that he’d noticed. That he was pleased. That he was on the edge.
And just like that, the slow glide of his fingers wasn’t enough anymore.
“No more teasing,” she ordered, reaching for his cock, taking him in her hand. Vivienne traced her thumb along the prominent vein that ran the length of his shaft and he went completely still. He was all leashed power in that moment. She owned him, owned his pleasure, and it was intoxicating.
She swiped her thumb over him, spreading precum across the sensitive head. Wes’s thighs shook as she guided him right where she wanted him, and then, mercifully, he was pushing inside her.
Vivienne’s eyes drifted shut, blocking out reality, and she let everything go back to the way it was. When being with him had been full of possibilities. Her world narrowed to the heat of him, and she clung to his body, biting back a moan as he rocked his hips, plunging into her, driving her higher.
She breathed his name, trying to get closer, even now, when they were as close as two people could be. Physically, anyway. And that’s all this was about. The sturdy table shuddered beneath them as Wes picked up his pace, until each of his thrusts was harder and faster than the one before.
Vivien
ne gave herself over to the wild sensations building inside her as he pushed her back on the marble, half on top of her, so far inside her. The promise of climax was within her grasp, but when she reached between them to take it, he caught her wrist and pinned it above her head and her eyes flew open at the show of dominance.
“Not this time.”
His pupils flared, ringed with blue the color of stormy seas, and he thrust into her again, and again, hard and deep and perfect. It was too much sensation, too much everything, and Viv squeezed her eyes shut even as her body clenched in response to his precise invasion. And then she was drowning in the sharp, roiling pleasure that rushed through her with so much force that she was helpless to do anything but cling to him as they crashed together a final time. Light fractured across the backs of her eyelids and she held him close as she cried out, their bodies shuddering with shared release.
She was still panting as he straightened his arms, lifting his chest from hers.
“Shit.”
She frowned up at him at the assessment, but his gaze was focused over her left shoulder, and she shoved up onto an elbow to look behind her.
A pool of murky water dripped off the edge of the table, and on the floor, the vase lay splintered in a million glittering shards, dangerous and beautiful and dotted with dying tiger lilies.
Something shivered down her spine as she and Wes remained perfectly still, catching their breath as they stared at the resulting chaos of their mutual orgasms.
Goddamn symbolism.
CHAPTER SEVEN
WES SQUEEZED HIS eyes shut against the intrusion of the morning sun and pulled a hand down his face, though it didn’t feel like his. He still wasn’t used to the beard. But he was keeping it—a tangible reminder of his time at Terminal Island. Something to aim his focus where it belonged. On figuring out who’d framed him.
Not that the beard had helped much last night, when the only thing he’d been able to think about was how sexy and responsive Vivienne was, and how damn good it felt to be so deep inside her again. The primal satisfaction he got from making her come had been enough to set off his own climax.
Of course, after they’d cleaned up the botanical carnage, Vivienne had disappeared so quickly and completely that he might have thought it had all been a dream...if he’d actually been able to fall asleep. The couch from hell had done everything in its power to make sure that didn’t happen.
He cracked open an eye at the faintest whisper of sound to find Vivienne trying to sneak past him.
Not that he’d been listening for her.
“Pretty sure it’s not a walk of shame if your name’s on the mortgage.”
Bare feet aside, she looked far more untouchable in her charcoal power suit with a pair of high heels in her hand than she had last night in his T-shirt.
She sent him a distracted smile. The kind you gave a stranger.
“You’re up early.” Viv stopped at the end of the couch, resting a hand on it for balance as she tugged one shoe on, then the other, now that the click of her heels wouldn’t wake him.
He pushed himself into a sitting position. “I could say the same.”
“I have some research to do on your case. It will probably take all day.”
He could read her stubborn determination to make sure that it did in the set of her shoulders. Wes tugged the blanket, baring his left calf so that his ankle monitor was visible. “I’ll just stay here.”
She ignored the jibe. “Help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge. I’ll order some Thai for dinner.”
His favorite.
“If that’s okay with you.”
It was a purposeful hedge, an attempt to distance herself from him. The pretense rankled.
“Sure, sounds good,” he assured her, playing his role in this pantomime of pleasantries she seemed determined to enact. Not that he gave a shit. He had enough problems to worry about without his cock in the mix. She wanted to pretend they were polite strangers? He could do that.
In fact, that was better for his plan. If they were nothing but compulsory roommates, then he had no reason to feel guilty about his intention to loot her home office for whatever device he could jury-rig into internet access as soon as she left.
He listened to her go through her morning kitchen routine, which judging by the delicious smell wafting from the kitchen, still consisted solely of coffee. Like old times, he thought, and instantly regretted it when his mind used that moment of nostalgia to segue into a series of unwelcome flashes of morning seductions past. Steamy showers where they got dirty before they got clean, quickies where they raced the snooze button timer to climax, the dozens of debauched ways he’d tempted her into being late for class and the dozen more variations she’d used in retaliation to make him late for work.
And today she couldn’t get away from him fast enough.
He did his best not to look annoyed by that platonic turn of events as Vivienne appeared just long enough to bid him an awkward goodbye.
He was on his feet the second the door closed behind her.
Her home office was as colorless as the rest of the place, and just as precisely organized. Everything in its place was a religion to Vivienne.
Wes’s eyes went straight to the wooden rolltop desk that had been converted into a twenty-first century workstation, and the empty laptop dock that sat atop it.
Viv had left with nothing but a small purse and a travel mug’s worth of caffeine this morning. Which meant that her computer was somewhere. He just needed to find it.
He went through the room with a meticulous hand—who said you couldn’t learn anything from a father who spent most of his time in jail?—careful not to disrupt Vivienne’s things in his search for the key to the online kingdom.
There was nothing, he realized, after he’d been through every filing cabinet and carefully stacked box in the joint. He’d even lowered himself to tugging open the desk drawer, in hopes she’d left an older model cell or abandoned battery that he could use to boot up his currently useless phone. Unfortunately, the only thing it contained was an impressive collection of Post-its, a box of paper clips, a stapler, a couple of pilfered pens and a USB drive emblazoned with the Whitfield Industries logo.
Wes shut the drawer with more force than he’d intended.
Shit.
The room was clean. And that could mean only one thing, he realized, stepping out of the office. His gaze snagged on the door at the end of the hallway.
The woman he’d known was a sentimental creature of habit, and he hoped, somewhere beneath her slick haircut and structured dresses, some of that woman still existed. Because that woman would have something hidden away that could help him.
Wes’s conscience reared up before he’d even put his hand on the knob.
If there was any other way, he promised himself. And then he opened the door and walked into Vivienne’s bedroom.
Her king-size bed dominated the room, and it took a good amount of effort not to let visions of her in it dominate his thoughts, as well.
Statistically, people were most likely to keep items that were of value to them in relatively obvious places. Under the mattress, for instance, or—he swung his gaze toward her antique dresser—in the sock drawer. But Vivienne wasn’t a statistic. At least not to him.
He turned his head again.
She’d always hidden his presents in the back of her closet. Even after she knew he’d cracked the location.
When he stepped inside, his hands balled into fists. Jesus. She had all her pretty underwear on display like a lingerie shop, and Wes swallowed against the surge of lust that swamped him. He remembered her, wrapped around him in the elevator, their bodies rocking in unison, the feel of her beneath him on the kitchen table as she took him to paradise, the way that only Vivienne could—with a naughty smile and total abandon. There’d always been somet
hing electric between them.
Wes shook off the memory.
With renewed determination, he forced himself to take in the scene before him. Everything was perfectly in place, color coordinated to within an inch of its life, folded, stacked and hung with precision...except...
His eyes lit on one of her purses, a pale pink one that was slightly askew. He reached past it, shoved a black shoebox to the side and hit pay dirt. Vivienne’s laptop.
The faster he figured out who’d gotten him into this mess, the sooner he could get himself out of it, and out of Vivienne’s orbit.
Wes pulled her bedroom door shut behind him and headed back to the living room, pausing to assess his options.
Tiger lily–less marble sex table? No.
The devil’s sofa? Hell no.
He settled for pulling an ottoman up to the coffee table and booted up Viv’s computer. Bypassing the fingerprint lock was easy. Setting up a bit of a smoke screen in case any eager-to-please FBI agents were monitoring her internet usage took a little longer. But in truth, the mindless task made him feel like himself again. He’d missed the work. The work cleared his head.
Even so, when he’d set up a secure connection for himself so he could make contact with the world’s foremost expert on his case, he hesitated for a moment before connecting the video call.
There was a lot riding on this, not the least of which was his freedom itself. He couldn’t think of anyone who hated his guts more than the hacker on the other end of the secret number that she didn’t know he knew. Except maybe Vivienne.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have the luxury of being discerning right now. Because if he’d had that luxury, he certainly wouldn’t be calling the woman who’d put him in jail out of blind loyalty to Max Whitfield, a man determined that Wes spend the rest of his days rotting behind bars.
With a deep breath, Wes connected the call. It only rang twice before she answered.
“Max, what are you...” The woman’s voice trailed off as she recognized him and she rolled her eyes. “Oh, you have got to be kidding. How the hell did you get this number? Max is gonna be so pissed when he—”
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