by Lucy Monroe
He yanked the fluffy down comforter back, revealing bright yellow sheets. Even under the influence of the harsh arousal making his body rigid with need, he found himself smiling at his surroundings. This woman was special.
He swept her up into his arms and laid her out like a banquet on the queen-size bed.
She cocked one shapely leg at an angle and let the other lay flat against the mattress while stretching her arms above her head. Her eyes followed his every move while she caught her bottom lip in her teeth. Could she be any more sensuous?
Except he would bet any amount of money that she wasn’t trying.
She was so damn seductive, her voluptuous figure inviting him to share decadences she’d probably never even heard about. Her entire body was flushed with satiated arousal, but the ruby-reddened tips of her breasts poked proudly forward, revealing her readiness for more.
Tempting him to taste.
Oh, yeah. He was so going to do that, but that wasn’t all he intended to get oral with on her body.
If her nipples hadn’t given her continuing desire away, the warm musk coming from between her legs would have. He inhaled a deep breath, taking in the sweet, almond scent of her postclimax aroma. He did love almonds. The fragrance of her sustained need was there, too, the smell of her musk confirming that her body was still secreting fluid along her vaginal walls.
His cock throbbed with the need to feel the slick tunnel close around him. That need warred with the one to taste that same wet heat. She was more than a banquet, she was a royal feast of multiple courses intended to last days. He couldn’t decide which one to start with.
Irresistibly drawn, he crawled onto the bed. He lifted her straightened leg, pushing it and her bent one apart so that she was wholly open to him.
“Exquisite.”
Her breath caught, but she said nothing in response. She widened her legs, just a little, though, as if inviting him to look his fill.
Day-um. What little blood was still in his brain rushed south.
In awe, he knelt there, inches from paradise, and breathed deeply of her feminine fragrance.
She reached for him, but he shook his head.
“Come here,” she pleaded softly.
“Taste first.”
Her eyes widened, but her hands tunneled into his hair, grabbing his head as he leaned forward to kiss her nether lips. Damn. They were soft. Plump. Moist. And delicious.
He had never tasted a woman so ideal for his palate. The bit of salty undertone only added to the piquancy of her flavor.
He knew from his file on her that she was clean, but he owed her the same assurance.
He lifted his head, met her dazed eyes. “I’m safe.”
She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
“You hear me, sweetheart?”
She gasped and nodded. “Me, too. Clean.”
“I know.”
“Then do it again.”
He gave her a look he knew smoldered with the desire boiling through him. “I intend to.”
And he did. Kissing and licking, tasting the very essence of her. So sweet. So good.
He pressed his tongue inside, nearly coming from how tightly the moisture-coated flesh gripped him. She was going to strangle his cock. Hell, yeah.
He drilled her with his tongue, lashing her sensitive flesh until she was mewling and thrusting her hips in tortured jerks.
That was his cue. It was time to tease her clitoris.
Pushing her thighs even farther apart, he nuzzled upward until his tongue tip barely touched the swollen nub. Her clitoris was small, almost hidden behind the hood of flesh that protected it, but damn she was sensitive. The merest swipe of his tongue made her shout and press upward hard against his restraining hands.
He flicked, nibbled, licked, and laved the bud of her pleasure, determined to drive her to the brink before claiming her body with his.
She was crying out, begging him for more when he finally couldn’t take the need any longer himself. If he hadn’t come once already, he would not have lasted this long.
He reared back, tearing from her grip on his hair. Condoms. She didn’t have any. He’d looked. He only had a couple in his shaving kit, but that would have to do for tonight.
He dove for the duffel he’d left just inside the door to her bedroom earlier. He tore into it and then the shaving kit with no regard for what got tossed where. His fingers closed around a familiar foil packet and he had it torn open practically before he got it out of the bag. He rolled the condom over his engorged dick, stifling an unmanly whimper of need even that amount of stimulation caused.
He got back on the bed and settled between her legs again, this time with his cock head pressed against the entrance to her body.
“You ready for me?” He knew the answer, her body gave it away in myriad ways, but he wanted the words from her lips.
“More than.” Her expression was fierce with arousal.
He slid home, his girth pressing open her swollen and incredibly tight flesh. She was so slick, nothing stopped his forward motion, but he was careful not to go too fast. He wanted her to feel all pleasure, no pain.
She took his entire length, the expression on her sweet face one of bliss.
“You are amazing.” He had to say it.
He’d never had a sex partner who fit him so perfectly.
She just shook her head, her mouth making noises, but none of them distinguishable as words.
He wouldn’t tolerate the attempt at a denial, though. He pulled out even more slowly than he’d pressed in. “Amazing. Beautiful. Sexy as hell.”
“I…” Nothing else made it past her lips.
“Yes. You.”
He pushed inside again, this time picking up his pace just a little.
She gasped as he filled her, leveraging her hips off the bed and toward his invading flesh. “More!”
Another time, he would draw it out, but right now he needed as badly as she did. He finished his downward thrust and then pulled back, pushing forward again immediately. Within seconds, they were mating in earnest, their bodies slapping together, the heat generated between them furnace hot. He reached down between them, just barely touching the top of her clitoral hood with his thumb.
Her entire body jolted like she’d had an electric shock, and a keening cry sounded from her throat as the beautiful woman beneath him came for the second time. The cry was his name.
That knowledge penetrated as her inner muscles contracted around him with viselike intensity. Burying his face in her neck and breathing in her scent, he came, too.
He pulsed into the condom over and over again until he grew so sensitive he couldn’t move inside her without feeling a mixture of pleasure and pain. He withdrew slowly and carefully before flopping onto his back, breathing like a horse after the Kentucky Derby.
She rolled over so she was lying half over him, her hand coming to rest on his chest. He managed to tangle their legs and twine their fingers together.
They lay like that for long minutes, neither speaking.
He couldn’t.
She seemed content in the silence, so he didn’t worry about it.
He was slipping into a light doze when she said, “We’ll need to shower.”
She was right. They were both covered in sweat and he had a used condom to deal with. “Don’t want to move.”
“Me, either.”
“But…”
“We’ll sleep better without sweat crusting on our bodies.”
He agreed. In theory, anyway. It was still a few minutes before either of them moved and then it was as if by mutual agreement, they rolled in opposite directions and got off the bed.
“Shower together?” he asked. He didn’t offer to take the guest bathroom, but figured the question was all the nod he had to give to civilized breeding.
“I’ve got a shower big enough for two.”
“Shame not to put all that space to good use.”
“I agree.”
There were no awkward moments in the shower. They moved around one another, bathing each other and themselves as if they’d done it many times before. He touched her in places he hadn’t yet, but was careful not to start something again.
She looked tired.
The ease with which they fit together freaked him out, but he hid his reaction.
They were cuddled together in the center of the bed, spooning even, when she asked, “Who or what is Musa?”
Shit. “Why do you ask?”
“You mentioned him on the phone, when you were talking to the other man from TGP.” She nuzzled against the arm under her head.
“How do you know it was a man?”
“The tonal quality of his voice.” She yawned. “I couldn’t hear his words from the cell phone, but I could hear that his voice was too deep to be feminine.”
“You really do hear everything that goes on around you, don’t you?”
She went completely still. “I don’t mean to.”
He hugged her closer. “I believe you. Your brain is just too advanced for you not to.”
“Do you think I’m a freak?”
“No, sweetheart. I told you earlier.” He kissed the silky hair on top of her head. “I think you’re amazing.”
“That was sex talk.”
It should have been. It wasn’t. “I don’t lie.”
“Unless it’s for the job.”
“Right. Not for sex or anything else.”
“I like knowing that.”
“I like you.” Well, hell. Why had he said that? It wasn’t that it wasn’t true, but women were bound to read stuff into comments like that that wasn’t there. Stuff like a precursor to the other L-word.
“I like you, too, Mykola. Maybe that’s one of the reasons the sex was so good.”
“You didn’t like your previous partners?”
“A couple of them. Don’t ask why we had sex. I don’t know. I was looking for a connection. I tried to like them. A couple I realized later didn’t really like me. They found me annoying. Scratch that, eventually, they all found me annoying or intimidating. Either way, no relationship ever lasted.”
A red flashing alarm went off in his brain. “This, us…this isn’t a relationship.” It was sex. Incredible sex, but not hearts and flowers.
“I know.”
“You do?”
“My brain isn’t just good for storing overheard bits of information and working out scientific theory, you know.” She sighed, but he had no idea what that sound meant. “You’re a really sensual guy. Sex is important to you and you won’t go long without it. You find me attractive and enjoy my company. I feel the same about you. So, we had sex. Will probably have it again. There’s nothing more to it.”
They were all sentiments he was familiar with, but hearing her say them made him feel…itchy. He didn’t like it, but he wasn’t about to screw up by saying so. “That doesn’t bother you?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Nope.” Unlike other women he’d known, Lana apparently felt no need to explain herself. “Tell me about Musa.”
The change of topic was no more comfortable for Myk.
“I thought you were tired.”
“I won’t sleep until I know.”
He just hoped she could sleep after. “He’s a zealot.”
“Political or religious?”
“Both.” For Musa it was one and the same thing.
“A terrorist?”
“We don’t know if he has terrorist ties.”
“But he has ties to the Vega Cartel.”
“How did you figure that?”
“His name wouldn’t have come up in your conversation otherwise. Everything else was centered around your case.”
“You really are scary smart.”
“So I’ve been told.”
He scooted a few inches away and rolled her on her back so he could see her face in the semidarkness. “I was just kidding about the scary part.”
“Don’t worry about it.” She really did look tired, her eyes heavy-lidded with fatigue.
“I don’t think you are a freak.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” She gave him a sleepy smile. “Now, what kind of ties does Musa have to the cartel?”
“Family.”
“What kind of family?”
“Musa is married to one of Vega’s wife’s sisters.”
“Serious tie, then.”
“Yes.”
“Anything beyond the family connection?”
“Alan is tracking the money trail, to see if any of Vega’s leads to Musa.”
“Can he find it if it does?”
“Yeah. He’s scary smart, too. His researching skills are unlike anything I’ve ever encountered.”
“Good thing he’s on our side, then.”
“Very.”
She nodded and then turned on her side again, away from him. She plumped her pillow and then settled.
Assuming she meant to go to sleep now, he curled around her, nestling his semihard dick against the full curve of her ass. He didn’t go fully flaccid around her, but despite her insistence on the late-night discussion, she was too tired for him to act on his dick’s interest.
“Musa is a Turkish name.”
Damn. “Yes, it is.”
“I might know some people that could help Alan with his search.”
“Really.”
“The women who helped me escape the country after I got out of the prison lab.”
“Why didn’t you go directly to our embassy?”
“I wasn’t feeling very trusting.”
She’d been through an ordeal, but still something about her explanation raised a yellow flag for him. “Why?”
“The women who helped me told me that the rebels who took me had an inside man at the American embassy.”
“Did you tell the State Department after you got home?”
“I didn’t tell the State Department I’d been kidnapped. No one came looking for me. Not my family, not my country. But my government would have expected me to tolerate incarceration for my own good if I told them what happened to me.”
“And you’d had enough of prisons.”
“At least of other people’s making. I hadn’t figured out I was headed toward a personal prison yet.” She sighed. “Besides, the women who helped me didn’t tell me the name of the spy.”
“How did they know about him?”
“They knew a lot of stuff I’m sure their own government and others wish they’d share.”
“You think these women might help Alan?”
“If I ask them to. If I explain that I’m at risk again. They’ll care.”
The way she said the last two words made Myk’s heart contract. “They aren’t the only ones who care about keeping you safe.”
Lana didn’t answer and a minute or so later, her breathing told him she had gone to sleep.
Myk lay awake for a long time thinking about the conversation he and Lana had had in the dark.
Lana was reading the paper when Mykola came out of the bedroom, looking tousled and yummily tempting.
He stopped short when he saw her. “How long have you been up?”
“Since about three-thirty.” She shrugged. She didn’t need a lot of sleep. She just didn’t have a lot of reserves when she actually got tired. Bedtime came and Lana was in bed. Full stop. Period. “I’d had that nap earlier and couldn’t sleep any longer.”
He frowned. “I didn’t hear you moving around.”
“I was quiet.”
“You’re showered. And dressed,” he said accusingly.
“I used the shower in the guest room and I had clothes in the laundry nook I hadn’t put away yet, so I didn’t have to come back into the bedroom and wake you with my moving around.”
He looked flummoxed.
She had a feeling she needed to get that expression off his face fast, or he was going to come up with an excuse to
put someone else on her protection detail. “Your subconscious told you I wasn’t a threat, so you slept through the noises I made. If I had been anyone else, you would have woken.”
“I thought you said you weren’t into psychology.”
“It makes sense though, doesn’t it?”
“I didn’t hear you sneak up on me yesterday either.”
“Further proof.”
He looked grim. “I’m upgrading the security on your apartment today.”
“Um…good idea?”
He frowned some more and grumbled something under his breath on the way to the coffeepot.
“Is this a bad time to tell you I called my friends in Turkey?”
He stopped pouring coffee for a split second, but then finished filling his mug. “What did they say?”
“Not a lot, but what they did know does not shine a favorable light on Musa.”
“What exactly did they say?” He came around the half wall of cabinets that divided the kitchen from her small dining room.
Now came the hard part. “I can only tell you if you give me your word you’ll keep the source of this information anonymous.”
“I don’t know the source, other than some women in Turkey.”
“If you mention you got the information from Turkish women, it wouldn’t take much to extrapolate who they are. There are few women with access to this kind of information. Wives of the men in power…”
“And the women who entertain those men in power.” It looked like a lightbulb had just gone on in Mykola’s brain. “Belly dancers.”
“Yes.”
“I have to mention the source of the information in my report.”
“Then mention me.”
“Whitmore is going to want to know who you got the intel from.”
“We can’t always have what we want.”
“He’s my boss.”
“Whom you stand up to when it suits you.” She’d heard that phone call yesterday and Mykola had proven that he did not intimidate easily.
In fact, he was pretty good at intimidating others.
“I don’t like leaving important information out of my reports.”
“I’m sure it’s not the first time you’ve done it.”
He grimaced. “No. It wouldn’t be.”
