“The hat…I can’t say the hat is the best disguise ever.”
She frowned. “It’s a great disguise.”
“No,” he said simply. “It’s not.”
“Is the linguist suddenly an expert on disguises?”
“It’s obviously a disguise. You need to change the look of your face, not hide it. Hiding invites speculation.”
“Trust me, it’s under control,” she said. “It’s a 1940s look. A torch singer thing.”
“Laney—”
“You’re just very perceptive. You’re the only one on the planet who got the dragon thing. And hey, it’s worked for two years, hasn’t it?”
And bottom line, the Shinsurin brothers would’ve said something if they thought the disguise was bad. Who better to know disguises than shady characters like the Shinsurin brothers? Not that she said that to Maxwell.
Something changed in him then—he seemed almost to disengage. He took her paper cone from her fingers and tossed it in the trash bin with a charming smile. “Come on, then. Dragon’s this way.”
The mission. Back to the mission.
On they went, out of the night market on the restaurant side. Maxwell was still very aware of their surroundings; she might not have noticed if she wasn’t the same way. She might not have noticed their circuitous route, either, if she didn’t take those, too. Maybe not wanting to meet up with Rolly’s thugs. That wouldn’t turn out well.
He stopped at the opening to an alley that dead-ended at a cement wall covered in graffiti. “Can you see it?”
“No,” she said.
He pointed at a convex mirror mounted high on the side of a building. And there it was, the dragon, reflected in the mirror. Which would mean it was behind the wall at the end. Visible from the street.
“Cheater,” she said.
“Can you not see it?” he asked. “Is it not the best?”
He was right on both counts, and he knew it. This one was far more amazing than any of the others. You could see that even from the mirror.
He extended his hand, palm up. Cool, remote, charming Maxwell. “Pay up.”
“I want to see it,” she said. “Up close.”
He hesitated. Was he so eager to get her back? “Okay.” He led her in and pulled up a cement block.
She eyed the wall. “Yeah, that might work for somebody who’s six feet tall.” Like him.
“Get up there and grab the top. I’ll lift you.”
She hesitated only a moment. Then she looped her purse over her neck and shoulder and stepped up. She felt his solid body draw close, felt strong hands grab her waist. He lifted her easily and she scrambled up to the top.
And there it was, a plaster dragon the size of a small car, fierce and wild and colorful. He hoisted himself up and sat next to her.
“I love how he’s guarding the collapsed building parts behind him. Loyally guarding the ruined slabs,” she said.
Maxwell looked at her strangely. “Yes,” he said simply.
She snapped a photo. There was a misshapen block of concrete next to the dragon’s crumbly shoulder. Like a tilted table for the dragon. Scrub trees peeked out from behind discarded doors leaning on the far wall. Somebody had gone to town with spray paint, but they’d left the dragon. “Can we go in?”
“There are spiders in the rocks,” he said. “You don’t have the best leg covering.”
So he’d gone in himself once before. Maxwell. So damn mysterious. “I’ll stick to the clear parts.” She swung a leg over and hopped down.
He dropped down right behind her, alighting with muscular grace in his crisp tropical suit. No, not an egghead at all.
“What do you think he was for?” she asked.
“I think a restaurant was here,” he said. “I suppose they hauled off the big stuff.”
Reverently, she approached the dragon, so wide and thick, with a body that seemed to curve in and out of the earth, as though the earth was nothing but water. His wide mouth was open in a silent battle cry.
“So amazing. And just hidden here. Nobody knows.”
“I’m sure the neighborhood people know,” he said, somewhat remotely, like he was holding himself off from her.
You could see there had been colorful scales all over the dragon’s back, but now it was bits of color broken up by dirty gray patches where the plaster showed through.
She turned and caught him looking at her stockings. “How’d you find him?”
“Observant.” He strolled up to the beast, like he wanted to get away from her. Maybe avoid the question. Even the way he’d said the word—observant—it was designed to end the conversation.
But words and images were her domain. The secret little flourishes at the margins of life. Why did he explore like that? “Looking over walls, it’s more than observant.”
“Why should looking over a wall be unusual?” he asked. “Is it because of the information age? We’re only supposed to accept the presented surface now?”
She smiled. It was a tasty tidbit he’d thrown out. But she wasn’t biting. “Accept only the presented surface?” she asked. “Like you want me to do with you?”
He turned to her with that strange light back in his eyes. The linguist was used to running circles around people with language. He wasn’t used to being busted.
“Presented surface,” she said. “That’s a whole lot of non-answer. I’d expect a smee such as yourself to do so much better.”
“Did you just call me smee?”
“Why won’t you tell me? What aren’t you saying?”
He came to her. “Did you just call me smee?”
“I certainly did,” she whispered, enjoying the heat of him up close.
“Words like that spread, you know.”
She gave him a level look. “Report me to the CDC.”
He smiled, seeming to forget himself.
Her heart banged in her chest. “So secretive,” she said. “With the walls and the dragons.”
“And you owe me a thousand bhat.”
“I’m not paying until you tell me,” she said.
“Tell you what?”
“Why you didn’t stop with simply spotting the dragon. You came over the wall.”
“What makes you think there’s something to tell?”
She cocked her head. This guy was like a fortress, and if there was one thing she didn’t like, it was fortresses around people. Did he let anybody in? “Isn’t there?”
She saw the moment he decided to tell. Or decided the truth wasn’t important enough to conceal. “It’s nothing, really,” he said. “Poking around in a new city is habitual. Because when I was young my family moved all over the world—25 countries in 18 years.” He turned and picked a rock up off the ground. When he flipped it over she saw it was a divot from the dragon’s back. He went over and fit it back into place. “I started this habit of seeking out three secret wonders, I suppose you’d call them, in every new city. Three hidden things to make my own. It made me feel less alone.”
She felt a rush of triumph. “And you still do it. To feel less alone.”
He seemed to weigh his words. “It’s only force of habit now,” he said.
Like hell, she thought. He was still a stranger. Still seeking connection. “More than force of habit got you over this wall.”
His blue-gray gaze felt heavy in her body. “Is that so?”
“I think you got some slabs of stone of your own you’re guarding,” she said.
He came to her and touched her cheek. It was just a fingertip, but it felt electric. “Clever Miss Callback.” He’d seemed remote before, but now he was very much with her, breath warm on her nose. He slid the finger on down her cheek.
Wild heat bloomed through her. “What made you climb over?”
“I’m not telling,” he said.
“I want to know.”
He held her with that heavy gaze, turning his attention slowly to her lips, which caused her belly to do a flip-flop. He would ki
ss her, and he meant her to know it, but it still came as a surprise, the way he slid his hands along her cheeks, coming to a stop at the back of her head. He pulled her to him, crushing his mouth over hers. The rough, confident strength of his kiss made her feel warm and glowy, like heated honey.
“I want to know where your other places are,” she said into the kiss. But more, she wanted to know him. Hell, she just wanted him.
“I have something better.” He yanked off her hat, seeming to forget his program of leaving this place.
“Something better to show me?” she asked, voice husky. Her voice was actually husky. She put her hand on his chest, feeling the uneven rise and fall of his breath. Cool Maxwell being not so cool. She liked this Maxwell. Maybe she’d get that hair disheveled, too, now.
“Yes, but not like that.”
“You have something to show me, but not like that?” she teased, like her heart wasn’t jackhammering. “You would—”
He kissed her again before she could finish the question, roughly, all whiskers and heat and invading tongue. Like a gate opened. Strong hands gripped her waist, fitting her crassly and perfectly against him. The kiss felt wild. Disordered. She reached up and untucked his hair, mashing her fingers through it as he walked her back to the chunk of stone. The dragon’s table.
She hit it with her ass, but he kept going, pressing into the V of her legs, puzzle pieces of fucking. It’s all she could think of now. She wanted him with a mad, mad fever.
“Yes,” she said, pulling him closer.
He kissed down her neck and she melted a little bit more. Warm hands slid up the backs of her thighs, up over her panties, taking the dress up and lodging it at her waist. He lifted her onto the rough stone surface and set her there. She would get imprints on her thighs, and she was very okay with it.
“What are you going to show me, then?”
He rested his hands on either side of her thighs. “A favorite place on you.”
She swallowed. “Oh, yeah?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Her heart banged inside her chest. “That’s what you’re going to show me? Your favorite place on me?” She narrowed her eyes. “Is this going to be the cheesiest thing ever?”
“No,” he breathed.
“Cheesy never seems cheesy to the cheeser,” she said.
“Is that an ancient saying that you’ve learned during your stay in Thailand?” He rested his hands heavily on her thighs and slid them down to her knees. His gentle touch contrasted with the rough stone beneath her.
“Maybe,” she whispered.
He knelt down and kissed her knee, then he looked up with that pale blue gaze. “I’m going to show you now. Unless you stop me.”
Unless you stop me. She shoved her hands into his hair. “I won’t stop you.”
He kissed her thigh.
Yes. She tightened her fists in his hair.
He looked up, gaze dark.
“Oh, sorry.” She loosened her grip.
“No, go ahead, keep hold of my hair. You might want something to hang on to.”
Wild energy shot through her. Again he kissed the tender inside of her thigh. She imagined his tongue, warm and wicked between her legs. It was a little obvious for her pussy to be his favorite place on her. But when he kissed her again, rough lips on sensitive skin, she decided it was okay for him to be obvious. More than okay. Go there, she thought. Be obvious. Be totally, stupidly obvious.
Instead, he moved in the other direction, lower on her thigh, heading toward her knee.
She loosened her grip. Noooo!
He flicked his gaze up to hers as he slid a hand down to her sheer sock, touching it. Then he slid his hand back up to the tender inside of her thigh. “You’re so pale here.” Again he slid his hand down over the nylon part. “And then this nylon. It’s absolutely ruthless.”
“The nylon socks? Are ruthless?”
He gave her a devilish smile. “Ruthless.” He stroked his heavy hand from bare thigh to nylon. She loved the way the sensation changed when he did that. Bare skin to nylon. Nylon to bare skin. Heat built between her legs. She clenched the muscles between her thighs to stop the feeling overload.
It didn’t stop the feeling overload.
“The elastic,” he said, tracing a finger over the brown band just below her right knee. “These tight elastic bands. Hot and a little bit evil.”
She could barely breathe. “The elastic? That’s your favorite place?”
“Not exactly.” He hooked a finger over the elastic band and pulled it out. Angry pink lines furrowed her skin where the elastic had grabbed tight to her calf for hours. She got the crazy sense that he was exposing a tender secret.
Then he blew. The sudden puff of air was cool bliss on the tortured little band of skin. “Oh, my God,” she panted, clutching his hair way too hard. He’d found and invaded the tenderest part of her.
Then he kissed it, lips like silk.
It was such a forbidden place to kiss. And unexpected, too—that made it way dirtier.
“Do it again,” she begged, startled to hear her own voice say that.
He smiled up at her, just a little bit evil.
He wouldn’t do it again.
She held his hair tighter, every nerve ending taut.
He pulled the elastic out further. What was he going to do now?
She trembled when he leaned in again and dragged his lip along the band of indents. Or maybe that was his tongue. He was like a dirty and unstoppable force of nature.
“This, then,” he said. “Would be one of my favorite places on you.”
Maxwell. He’d turned her on and taken over her senses, and he hadn’t even gotten above the knee.
“I can take the socks off,” she rasped.
“God no.” He let the elastic snap back over her skin.
She jolted up from the shock of it. “Ow,” she said.
“Ow?”
What was he doing to her? “Ow,” she said, breathing fast. Maybe she wasn’t getting enough air. The moon seemed too bright. She didn’t care, because it was good. “Do it again.”
With a sly look, he hooked his fingers under the elastic of both her nylon socks now.
Then he shoved her legs apart.
Her blood raced as he kissed up, up, up her thigh, keeping her legs apart, fingers in contact with the dirty, secret tattoo of tortured skin he was so into. Every molecule in her was begging him to hurry now, to kiss her throbbing, heated core.
She sucked in a breath when he paused at the edge of her panties. “Show me another place,” she begged.
He pushed her legs apart even further now and pressed his lips to her sex, an exciting pressure through the thin fabric panel. “Oh,” she said.
“Is this okay?” he said into her core.
The vibration of his voice nearly sent her over. “Yes. Especially if you talk again.”
“Like this?” he rumbled.
“Yes,” she hissed.
His low, sexy laugh sent a wave of pleasure up through her. She felt something hard—teeth, grazing her lightly. Then he straightened up, gaze dark, and kissed her belly, her neck.
She grabbed his head. He put her hands back. “Sit on your hands.”
“On my hands?”
“Do it,” he whispered. He gave her a stern look. He was used to women worshipping him, doing his bidding, she realized. Well, she was all in, dammit.
He drew near, kissing her, clever hands unzipping the back of her dress.
She liked sitting on her hands. It made her heart race extra fast. It made her feel things more. He made her feel things.
He nuzzled her neck as he slid her cap sleeves down over her arms, revealing her bra. The humid heat kissed her skin as he helped himself to her, sliding his hands over her, fingers trailing a whisper of sensation through the lacy fabric.
She wanted him to find more secret places, and to invade each and every one of them. He could have anything.
He drew his hand down
her belly, a warm, confident slide that made her inner thighs clench with desire.
“You’re so soft,” he whispered.
He dragged his hot palm back up, then down again, as though he had to consume every inch of her with his hungry hand. She arched under his touch, shivering in the heat. He seemed on the edge of control, like untamed energy was coming out his fingertips. It was a kind of honesty.
He kissed the swell of flesh her bra didn’t quite cover. “This is a good place, too,” he said, voice ragged.
“A favorite secret place?”
“It’s in the running.” He’d pressed his clever fingers under the fabric of her bra now, finding her nipples both at once, toying with them wickedly. She sucked in a breath as he covered one nipple with his mouth, drawing hard between flicks of his tongue. Wild energy pulsed clear through her core.
He slid her dress down further, hands a smooth, unpredictable presence on her belly, then slipped his hand down under the elastic of her panties.
She exhaled as she felt his fingers slide gently over her silken folds. He grunted with a mixture of pleasure and triumph as he delved into her wetness. Her face heated, but she forgot her embarrassment when he pressed a finger clear into her slick channel. “Yes,” she breathed. Because, oh, it was heaven.
He pressed in two fingers then, drawing them slowly in and out, letting his thumb play over her sensitized nub, tauntingly, teasingly.
It was hard to stay sitting on her hands. She moved wantonly under his touch, butt cheeks clenching and releasing.
He grabbed her thigh, stilling her. “Wider,” he whispered, and then he pushed her thigh a bit to the side, getting her just how he wanted. Electric sensation shot through her when he took one of her pebble-hard nipples between his lips.
“I have you,” he whispered into her nipple, which was highly erotic. “You’re going to come for me.”
“Uh, well,” she whispered. “I don’t think I will. I never do.”
He let go of her nipple. “Never?” He looked at her now, caressing her molten cleft. It was hard to stay looking at his eyes as he touched her, as he had his way with her. She imagined that he could see her feeling what he was doing, which seemed like it should be private. But she also liked the feeling of being open to him and a little bit at his mercy. “Never?” he asked again.
Off the Edge (The Associates) Page 6
