Dirty Dare: The Rescue (Sexy Suspense) (Part 1, spin-off to the Dirty and Dare Me series)

by Julie Leto

  Not enough to matter. The moment his lips touched her skin, she slid her hands across the slick tile edge, gripped the submerged tile ledge and held on for the ride.

  She expected him to be rough and raw, spurned by his previous weakness to prove his strength and prowess. She was wrong. Despite the fire-hot lust in his eyes, he kissed a path from her knee to her inner thigh with remarkable restraint and care. He took his time swirling his tongue into dizzying circles, exploring every crevice and curve, licking away the sweet water sluicing down her skin.

  Heat suffused her from the inside out and back again. If not for her partial submersion in the pool, she might have melted under his intense exploration. When he smoothed his hands over her sex, parting her outer lips and unveiling her clitoris as if it were a pearl of great price, her last thought of resistance burned away.

  The exposure was shocking and delicious. She couldn’t remember ever allowing a man to see her so intimately. Oral sex in the bedroom was a pleasure she indulged whenever the opportunity presented, but out in the open with no witnesses except the turquoise sky and whatever spyware Dante Burke was using to keep an eye on them?

  The decadence of the act stole her breath even before his mouth reached its target.

  And again he surprised her. He wasn’t sloppy. He wasn’t rough or a slave to an unsated hunger. With infinite gentleness, he curled his tongue into a finely honed instrument of ecstasy, at one moment pointed and precise, at another soft and full and lush.

  Her head fell back, jutting just over the dizzying drop down to the sea.

  The extreme height meant nothing. The danger and lightheadedness came from nowhere except Sean’s intricate ministrations. He left no part of her sex untasted or untouched. By the time he focused on her clit, he’d thrust two fingers deep within her, curling just enough to massage her sweet spot. Seconds away from orgasmic overload, she cried out when he suddenly and unexpectedly pulled away.

  “Sean?”

  In reply, he winked, lifted her bottom in his powerful hands and then dragged her slowly into the water, kissing his way upward as she fell, taking her nipple into his mouth before they submerged.

  A couple of seconds passed before she realized how close they were to drowning.

  In the water.

  In each other.

  But the instant her lungs started to burn, he tugged her down deeper, kicked off from the bottom and propelled them to the surface. He gave her just enough time to gasp in air before he finally delivered on the kiss she’d asked for when they’d first stripped down in the pool.

  Waiting was worth it. His mouth was hot, his tongue skilled and plundering. He tasted of chlorine and toothpaste, with an earthy sweetness she imagined had come from her. The water caressed her as he swam them back toward the stairs. Her bottom scraped the middle step as he settled her into place, wrapped her legs around his waist and worked the head of his erection through any and all resistance.

  “I like fucking in the water,” he said with a groan. “Makes a woman so tight.”

  She closed her eyes, biting her lip. Balanced with the pleasure was a fair amount of pain. Brynn hadn’t taken a lover in a long time, and the pool didn’t make matters easier. But she didn’t mind working for what she wanted. She’d done it all her life. And while this seduction may have started as a means to fulfill her mission, the minute Sean stopped kissing her and locked his pale blue gaze with hers, she didn’t care about anything—or anyone but herself.

  And Sean. She cared about Sean. She’d seen him near death. She’d seen him battle for recovery, pushing his body and soul to beyond anything she’d ever witnessed. He intrigued her. He challenged her. He made her want things that she hadn’t allowed herself to want in way too long.

  Starting with him.

  Seven

  Sean closed his eyes, determined not to lose his head. When Brynn pulled her knees up and balanced her feet on the bottom step so her pelvis tilted into an angle perfect for hard, deep penetration, he nearly lost his resolve. When she clutched his ass, digging her fingernails into his flesh, words of surrender danced on the tip of his tongue.

  But he swallowed them. Yes, he was going to fuck her into delirium, but first, he was going to get the information he needed.

  “Tell me,” he commanded, his thrusts slow and measured, pressing just a millimeter deeper each time until her eyes closed and her consciousness centered in the snug channel he’d breached, invaded and conquered, “why…Dante…sent…you.”

  On the last word, he withdrew.

  He’d done a lot of difficult things in his thirty-plus years, but pulling out of Brynn Blake before he’d finished what he’d started?

  Excruciating.

  He cradled the head of his cock against her pulsing flesh, his focus narrowing on the tight heat that was only an inch or two away. One forward thrust and he’d be inside her again, but he forced himself to remain still.

  “What?” she asked, her eyes unfocused even as she searched his face for explanation.

  “Why you? Why did he send you?”

  He kept the phrases short, hoping she’d just answer so they could get back to the good stuff.

  “I don’t know,” she replied.

  Inside his head, he cursed. But to her, he just said, “Liar.”

  Clearly, she needed more convincing—more incentive to come clean with the truth. Luckily for him, the kind of torture he preferred to exact on beautiful women like Brynn Blake could be executed with nothing more than his tongue and teeth.

  As soon as he’d regained his cognitive function, he’d realized she wasn’t a professional extractor. Yes, she was a seasoned security specialist, as evidenced by the difficulty he’d had cracking the password on her computer and smartphone, but she wasn’t a spy. She did not lie easily. In fact, the way she’d found to avoid telling him the whole truth was to simply to avoid talking to him at all.

  So they’d been together for over four weeks, but she was nearly as much of a mystery to him as he was to her.

  Nearly, but not quite. His early assessment comparing her to Jayda had been an error of enormous magnitude. She was nothing like the assassin who’d loved him and left him without a backward glance. Brynn might embrace her outer ice princess, but deep down, she was hot-blooded and real. He’d read her emails. He’d scrolled through the list of books she’d downloaded to her tablet and perused the movies she’d watched on her phone.

  Even if she hadn’t saved his life, he’d still want to make love to her.

  The one thing she had in common with Jayda was the inevitability that one day, she would leave. Or he’d leave her. But he doubted Brynn would drug his morning coffee and disappear without a trace.

  He’d never wanted to think about Jayda again. From the day Dante had shown up to deliver the news that she’d died, he’d never let himself think about her, least of all when he was making love to another woman. But since they’d both been dragged back into Jayda’s desolate universe, he was going to treat Brynn right. He was going to repay her cool gentleness with hot loving. He was going to bring this elegant, wily and passionate woman to the heights of orgasm, but only after he’d coerced every last ounce of information out of her that he could.

  He’d just make sure she enjoyed his method of interrogation.

  “Tell me the truth,” he ordered, grinding his cock against her, reminding her of what she could have if she’d only come clean. “Why did Dante send you?”

  She moaned and the sound nearly knocked his determination right over the cliff.

  “I don’t know, I swear.”

  Unable to deal with the clarity in her eyes—clarity that told him she was speaking the truth—he dropped his head and swirled his tongue around her areola, tracing the darkened skin and eschewing the nipple in yet another reminder of what she could have if she’d only come clean.

  “Please, Sean. I swear. Dante never told me. And I never asked.”

  He looked up, only slightly skeptical. His o
ld boss wasn’t particularly forthcoming when it didn’t suit him. But Brynn didn’t strike him as the kind of woman who walked blindly into anything.

  “Didn’t you want to know?”

  “Of course, but that didn’t mean he was going to tell me.”

  She snaked her hand around his torso and then finger-walked up from his abdomen to his chest. His hesitation had given her time to regroup, and now a glimmer of playfulness danced in her green eyes. He arched away from her, only slightly repentant when she whimpered at the loss.

  He grinned and then moved his body back into position, tempting her with a hard, wide half inch of heaven—and nothing more.

  “Don’t lie,” he warned. “Hundreds of people owe Dante favors. You have to have some idea of why he’d call you. Tell me and I’ll finish this the right way. With me sliding into you, drawing out those sweet little sounds you make when you’re about to come. What sounds do you make, Brynn? Do you whimper? Coo? Scream?”

  He ran his hand possessively over her hip, his attraction so feral he had to muster his whole self to keep it under control.

  “Titan fills in when there’s a need,” she said, ignoring his second question in favor of the first.

  He rewarded her admission with another half inch.

  “Dante has dozens of private security firms like yours in his contact list. He picked you. Why? And don’t tell me it’s because you owe him. Everyone owes him, including me. That’s how he stays at the top of the dog pile.”

  Beneath her hungry hands, Sean’s muscles bunched and tightened. He held his breath, using the full force of his will to deny them both until she’d laid all her cards on the table.

  But Brynn Blake wasn’t going to be bested so easily. She shifted her hips so that her hot, wet flesh sucked his bulging head in deeper.

  “Why are you doing this to me? To yourself?”

  “I need information, cher. If you want to keep up with me, you’re going to have to understand that I’ll do whatever necessary to get what I want.”

  She ran her fingers down the side of his face, smearing the beads of water and sweat gathered in the weathered lines at his temple. Her grin told him they were equally matched in that area—and that thrilled him more than it should have.

  “Finish what you started, Sean, then I’ll answer your questions. Don’t waste your time with games.”

  He chuckled. “This isn’t a game. It’s not easy not to give in to my animal need and bury myself so deep I could lose my whole self inside your hot, slick body, but now that I’ve got you where I want you, I can’t let an opportunity to get to the truth pass me by.”

  Brynn blew out a frustrated breath. “I could just tell you to get the hell off me.”

  He laughed again, punishing her insolence by taking away that last hard half inch.

  “You could and I would, but then, neither one of us wins.”

  She tilted her chin to her chest, weighing her options—or so he thought. A split second later, he had a hard knee in his abdomen and two hands shoving his shoulders until he fell back into the water. His diaphragm seized, stealing his breath long enough for her to yank him back, roll him over and thrust him against the tile steps so that he was splayed and at her mercy, just as she had been at his a moment before.

  She’d knocked the arrogance right out of him, particularly when she straddled his hips and slid her body back onto his—completely—where it belonged.

  “Mmm…this is much better.” She positioned her hands firmly on each of his shoulders and pressed her whole upper body into keeping him still while her lower body milked long slides of intense pleasure. He spit water out of his mouth and shook his hair out of his eyes, half of his brain gobsmacked over her boldness while the other half shifted its attention fully to the feel of her body on his.

  “Now, what is it you wanted to know?” she asked.

  He groaned and clutched her hip with one hand and her curvy ass with the other, shifting her slightly to the right to achieve maximum penetration. When she did, her triumphant cry and his acquiescent moan combined.

  “You win,” he confessed.

  She leaned forward and kissed him deeply before snagging his bottom lip with her teeth.

  “We both win,” she conceded.

  With the truce struck, Sean surrendered. He matched her rhythm thrust for thrust, taking his time, enjoying the feel of her breasts in his palms and the tickle of her nipples over his thumbs. Her hair fell in dark, red streaks around her torso. Her body undulated with a powerful precision that told him Brynn knew what she liked and knew how to get it. When her lips parted and a chorus of sweet sounds echoed over the top of the water, he opened his mouth to goad her further, but she placed two fingers across his lips and ordered him to hush.

  “Tell me why Dante picked you,” he insisted, surprised he could still form a coherent thought.

  She tucked in her knees. His brain cells popped like fireworks on the Fourth. He wanted answers. He wanted to explode. He wanted to stay here, forever, with her, until his skin disintegrated in the water.

  He slipped his hand between their bodies and pressed hard on her clit—with just enough pressure to take her to the apex, but tight enough to keep her from falling over.

  “Tell me,” he demanded.

  “He picked me,” she confessed, her breath ragged and harsh, “because…I…owe…you.”

  Unable to hold her still for another second, he loosened his fingers. Her orgasm struck in force.

  He could not stop from rocking upward, harder and faster, until he joined her at the edge of infinity. “Why do…you…owe me?”

  Her fingernails dug into his flesh. She cried out his name, and the animalistic sound knocked his final question out of his mind.

  He’d lost this battle. Lost it big. Lost it hard.

  And for the first time in his ultra-competitive life, Sean didn’t give a damn.

  Eight

  “Why do you owe me?”

  Sean supposed he could have waited until their bodies had stopped thrumming from long-needed and wholly satisfying sexual releases before he pushed his agenda again, but he wasn’t that guy. Never had been. And had the roles been reversed, he was fairly certain she would do the same.

  She’d seduced him to delay his departure. She’d succeeded. Someday, he’d thank her. But for now, he needed answers. To that end, he’d made sure she wasn’t in any mood to deny his request.

  “Do you really want to talk about this now?” she crooned, but without any real resistance.

  After they’d had their fun in the pool, Brynn had slid off of him and, on unsteady legs, had sauntered to the double-wide chaise lounge on the deck and collapsed. Bare-assed and beautiful, she laid motionless while the sun evaporated the water from her flesh. He watched every drop disappear, and then marked his own recovery with a couple more laps in the pool. Once certain that he had no more energy left, he’d practically crawled onto the cushion beside her.

  He should have passed out. He’d wanted to, forcing him to accept that his recovery wasn’t quite as miraculous as he’d initially thought. But if he couldn’t get away from this gilded cage or his seductress jailer, the least he could get was answers.

  “I need to know,” he replied.

  She turned onto her side and braced her cheek on her hand. “You might not like me very much once I tell you.”

  “How do you know I like you now?”

  She lifted her eyebrows, and despite his intention to tease her, he decided against it. The woman had just blown his mind.

  He liked her.

  A lot.

  “I promise not to hold anything against you,” he said. “Except my body, of course.”

  Unable to resist, he splayed his hands over her delicious derriere and tugged her closer.

  She licked her lips, and for an instant, he wanted her to use that sweet little pink tongue of hers for anything other than talking. Unfortunately, information needed to be exchanged, sooner rather than later
. Up until now, Dante hadn’t sent in additional security—at least, none they could see—probably because Brynn Blake had done a capable job of spiriting him away and keeping him in check. The spymaster had likely counted on Sean remaining too weak to cause damage to whatever operation he’d inadvertently become a part of.

  But if Dante had someone watching his and Brynn’s poolside escapades—and Sean had no reason to believe he didn’t—then the time of lax security was about to end.

  “Why do you owe me?” he asked again.

  She tossed her head back in frustration. “Can’t we just leave it as it is?”

  “Have we met before?”

  “No,” she answered.

  “Have we worked on a case at the same time, maybe on opposing sides?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Did you pick me up in a bar once and forget to call me after you promised you would, because cher, chances are real good the number I gave you was bogus.”

  He expected her to laugh, but instead, she rolled away from him, grabbed the jacket she’d discarded earlier and slipped into it. The hem barely came to her thighs, and though pulling the lapels together only created a triangle of fabric that framed her pussy so that he started to salivate, her entire aspect changed back from brazen lover to elegant businesswoman.

  “Tell me about your family,” she said.

  “My…what? You’re not my secret sister or anything, are you?”

  Brynn quelled his attempt at a joke with an effective glare.

  “My family. Okay. There’s not much to tell. My mother was a bartender at a dive in the Quarter. My father was a rich bastard from some New England state who knocked up my mom during Mardi Gras. When he found out she was pregnant, he sent a half-dozen lawyers down to the bayou with the one and only child support check we ever saw, which was more than enough for her to buy a house and put me in Catholic school. Seems the old man already had a wife and kid and didn’t need some Cajun whore and her bastard kid fucking up his life. That’s about all I know.”

  “His name was Devlin?”

  Sean grumbled, holding tight to the string of curses he reserved for his mother’s decision to saddle him with that name.