She vibrated with quiet, nervous laughter. “I don’t need props.”
“Never meant to suggest you did,” he said smoothly. “But it could solve our lighting problem. Can you deal with candlelight?”
She gave him a tiny nod. Sam tore off the cellophane and tossed it on a pile of folded jeans and shirts. He wished the place wasn’t such a mess. Piles of boxes. Stacks of folded clothing. It was fucking immature, not to just go out and buy himself bedroom furniture, but back when he was working, he was too busy and couldn’t be bothered, and now that he wasn’t working, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to give a shit.
It was a shock to the system. Giving a shit, so suddenly.
He placed the fat pink candle beside the bed and lit it. The pink cylinder glowed as the flame took hold. Shadows wavered and danced on the wall. “Work for you?” he asked.
“It’s good,” she whispered.
He studied her, still cowering by the door, shivering. “You look tense,” he said. “How about mood music? I’ve got speakers in here.”
“No, it would feel forced,” she murmured. “I’d feel silly.”
“Okay, we’ll be all grim and focused, and do it in charged silence.” He leaned, sniffing at the fragrant candle. “Mmm. Smells nice.”
“Honeysuckle and vanilla,” Sveti said. “And essence of rose.”
“You can smell that all the way over by the door? You look like you’re ready to bolt.”
“I’m not going to bolt,” she said. “And I wouldn’t get far in these heels if I did. They’re four inches. I’m so damned short.”
“Yeah, five foot three. I love it. You’re perfect. Like a little jewel.”
“Oh, please.” She turned her head, hiding behind the swinging curtain of hair. “I’m hardly perfect. You’re the first to remind me.” She reached thoughtlessly, pulling her dress up over her breasts.
“No,” he said sharply. “Leave it, Sveti.”
She dropped it, startled. She held herself so straight, tits out proudly, but her lips quivered with the strain of looking nonchalant. Too bad. She got no quarter. She’d asked for it, and she was getting it. Like she’d never gotten it before, or would again. It was a holy vow.
“I wouldn’t let you run away in any kind of shoes,” he said. “It’s too late for that. In case you were considering it.”
Her chin lifted. “I’m not considering it.”
He sidled around her, placing himself between her and the door. Closing it, before herding her into the room, closer to the bed. Slowly.
“About those four-inch heels,” he said. “Show me.”
It had seemed like a nonthreatening way to start the process of disrobing her. Then she lifted the frilled hem over her ankles.
Whoa. He started to sweat, and he wasn’t even a foot guy. He’d never paid much attention to feet, other than the occasional under-the-table sex game. But those shoes, Jesus. They were a message arrowing straight to his core. He understood it like the silent, wordless language of kisses. The arched delicacy of her feet propped onto teetering heels, the aggressive, pointy toes, the fierce ruby shine, the sexy slave-girl tangle of complicated ankle straps, the brash rhinestone buckle. The shoes told him how she longed to be taller, sharper, tougher. Powerful and sexy. How she wanted to be wanted. It made his chest twist and his cock ache. “Wow,” he said. “Ruby slippers. Very cruel.”
She licked her dry lips. “I’m not cruel.”
“No? Take them off, then.”
She laughed, silently. “I’ll get a sore neck, looking up at you.”
“Should have picked a short guy for your boy toy.”
She winced. So did he. Fuck. The words had just fallen out.
He seized her upper arms, tugged her closer. “I don’t mean to be an asshole, but I have to remind myself of what this thing is, and what it isn’t. That way I won’t get into a bad place about it. Get me?”
Her throat bobbed. She nodded and then let out a barely audible squeak as he sank to his knees, like a supplicant. He hiked her skirt up, pressing handfuls of it against her clenched, shaking fists.
“Lift it,” he prompted. “Show me more.”
She got on with it, dragging the skirt up, a slow, intensely erotic reveal, all the sexier for how clumsy she was. Her exposed ankles made his cock twitch in his pants. Likewise the shapely calves, the narrow, slender knees. She faltered, halfway up her graceful silk-and lace-clad thighs. Her arms were full of swags of soft crimson fabric.
“Chickening out?” he asked.
She tossed her hair back. Jerked the skirt up. A frilled band of black lace, trimmed with crimson rosettes, contrasted starkly with the pale perfection of her upper thighs.
He pushed her hands higher, to look at the panties. Black lace, stretched over the trimmed-up swatch of muff. His heart thundered.
“Beautiful,” he muttered. “Did you wear this stuff for me?”
She murmured incoherently and nodded. And he believed her. She’d gone to the wedding with Ass-bite, but the lingerie was for him. The shoes, the dress, the shimmering body glitter, the scented lotion. That perfect little fastidiously groomed muff. “I love it.” He pressed his face against her mound and inhaled her intoxicating woman scent.
Each heaving lungful made him gasp for more.
She moaned, twisting his hair as he scattered lingering, pleading kisses over that festive swirl of ringlets at the top of her cleft. He wanted to insinuate his tongue into that vortex. Taste the sweet girl juice.
Rein it in, dickhead. He had to set the bar so high, it’d ruin the sex she’d have with other guys forever. Spiteful of him, yeah, but too bad. It was his only revenge for how badly this was going to fuck him up. The slower he went, the sweeter the torment. Hours of kissing, playing with her tits. Then when she was naked and spread out, he’d tongue-lash that beautiful muff until she’d forgotten who she was.
Then he’d mount up and go for a long, slow, juicy ride. On her final climax, he’d have her pussy clamped around his cock. Feeling every flutter, every squeeze, every pulse. His reward.
And his punishment.
His hands cupped her ass, struggling for control. He could do this. He could be a sex toy. Just service her, blow her mind, fuck her brains out, and walk away, sanity intact. He could.
“A thong,” he muttered. “My God. Your ass is so perfect.”
“I had to wear one,” she confessed. “Panty lines.”
“Of course. Can’t have that.” He hooked his fingers in the elastic and stopped as tension gripped her. He looked up into her face.
“I like the stockings,” he said. “But the rest of it comes off.”
Her breathing was ragged, her soft mouth slightly open. Eyes dazed. She still had not unbuckled her shoes. Her knees quivered.
Sam pried her fingers loose from her grip on the scarlet fabric. Her skirt tumbled over his shoulder, whisper soft, warm, scented. He seized her hand, pressed it against his shoulder, to steady her. Her fingers were chilly. Her nails dug into his skin. He loved their sharp bite.
He pressed his face against her mound. Slowly, gently, breathing her in, nuzzling her. Hanging on to his self-control by a fucking thread.
When he felt her lean in, he started unbuckling her shoes.
He stood up when she stepped out of them, towering over her. The top of her head fit under his chin. She let her head fall back into his cupped hand with a shuddering sigh. He reached for her zipper.
She put her hand on his. “No, you take something off first.”
He whipped his shirt off and tossed it behind him.
She stared at his torso and laughed. “Oh, please!”
He was taken aback. True, he got strong reactions from the ladies when he undressed, but ridicule was generally not one of them.
“What?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
She gestured at his body. “Is that for real? Do you work out all day and eat nothing but protein powder and egg whites?”
“
I’ve had a lot of time on my hands lately.” He felt ridiculously defensive. “I’m bored out of my fucking mind on medical leave. But I’m not a gym rat. It just happened.”
She rolled her eyes. “Nobody gets that ripped by accident.”
Fuck it. He stood there stoically, letting her look her fill at the freak show. He was just a sex toy, after all. Sex toys were supposed to be vain and shallow, and eat protein and muscle-enhancing mineral supplements, and buy lots of tight microfiber gigolo clothing.
If it comforted her to think he was that guy, who cared?
She poked at his abs with a fascinated finger, tracing a vein that snaked across his belly. “You have no fat on you at all,” she said. “Just stone-hard muscle. It’s unreal.”
He rolled his eyes and sighed. “So shoot me.”
Her eyes darted to his scars. “Somebody’s already done that.”
Her fingers slid up to the scar on his chest. A bullet had perforated his lung in the showdown in New Jersey, right after she’d met him, when Bruno had been fighting for his and Lily’s lives. She touched the newer scar, which was still an angry red, low on his abdomen. He’d been gut shot in the line of duty ten months ago. The injury that had stalled his career. The brush of her fingers had its predictable effect on his cock.
“This one happened last year,” he told her.
“Oh, I know.”
“You heard about that?”
She frowned. “Of course I heard about it! We all heard about it! Everyone was worried about you.”
Of course. Collective, friendly, fraternal concern, from everyone. Nothing specific. Nothing personal.
“I dreamed about you, in there,” he blurted. “When I was in Intensive Care. I used to wake up feeling like you’d been there.”
She looked away, reddening. He was embarrassed at himself.
Her fingers trailed over the scar, and he grabbed her fingertips, pulled them down. Tucked them inside the waistband of his pants.
Out of nowhere, Sveti started snorting with nervous giggles.
“I’m so glad that my grotesquely overdeveloped body is such a source of amusement to you,” he said. “I live to entertain.” He shoved his sweatpants off his hips.
That stopped her laughter dead. She stared, transfixed. Her gaze skittered away from his cock, which rose proudly from its bush of pubes, extended toward her. “Public service announcement,” he said. “Laughing uncontrollably at a guy’s tool is considered to be bad form.”
Another explosion of helpless laughter rocked her. “Petrie, you bastard,” she said, voice muffled. “Stop it.”
“Call me Sam. It’s inappropriate to call a naked man by his surname. And you’re behind.”
She dragged her gaze back up to his face. “Behind in what?”
“In the striptease. I have nothing left to give. Lose the dress, if you want it to survive this encounter.”
Her chin went up. “Do not threaten this dress,” she said. “I paid more than I could afford for this dress, and I need it for the gala party in Italy, after the conference. If you hurt my dress, you reimburse me.”
“The dress is safe if you hurry.”
She had a hell of a time with the zipper, but the corset bodice finally fell open, like a shell, and she dragged the skirt down over her hips.
She stepped out of it, naked in her glory. Holding herself so straight. The queen of everything.
Oh, shit. His eyes were fogging. He covered his ass, just barely, by picking up her dress, inhaling her scent. Tears soaked into the fabric. Maybe it would stain, like sea spray did. He draped it over the chair as soon as he dared. Reverently, as if it were a ceremonial vestment.
Let her wear his tear stains at her swank party in fucking Italy. That seemed appropriate. Though he’d die before he would admit it.
CHAPTER 4
Sveti threw her shoulders back and held herself as tall as she could. Which wasn’t very.
Relax, relax, relax, was the directive blaring frantically in her mind, but how? He’d said it himself, she was a ten-ton weight, and he’d get sick to death of it soon enough. Any man with a functioning brain would. Probably before the night was out.
But before he realized the trouble he was getting himself into, she would goddamn well get. Some. Of. That. If it worked at all, of course, when they did the deed. It was already miraculous that she functioned as well as she did, with her baggage. But functional, as she defined it, did not include sexual function. Her bar was set somewhat lower.
To her, functional meant that she got through her days, she slept a few ragged hours at night, between nightmares and erotic Sam dreams. She worked, she had friends, she had her beloved adopted family. She was committed to her crusade, but she did not attract undue attention—that is, no breakdowns, freak-outs, or stints in the psych ward. Death threats from snakehead scum did not count.
She’d struggled with depression for a while, after Mama’s suicide, but she wasn’t an addict, like Sasha, nor did she dream of suicide herself. Suicide would mean that the scum-suckers had won, and she would never concede that victory to them. Never.
She had goals, dreams, ambitions. She learned fast, she worked hard. She had a lot to contribute. She did okay. She really did.
But fun? Hah. Fun was too much to ask.
She had high hopes for pleasure, though, after that tryst at the wedding. The charged encounter in Bruno’s home office was almost two years ago, but she remembered every detail. Only Sam had ever given her a clue what sexual pleasure could be. It would have been kinder if she’d never known at all, but now she did, so whatever. No going back.
She wanted more. At least a taste, which was all she could ever have, with the demons that stalked her. Considering the price she knew she was going to pay for this, it had better rock her world.
“I’m sorry I’m so . . .” Her voice trailed off. So what? So stiff, so tense, so shrinking? So clueless?
“Don’t be.” He pulled her hands to his lips and kissed them. His lips felt so hot, so soft. “You’re perfect. My personal ultimate wet dream.” He pressed her hands against his chest, over his heart. Her fingertips brushed the thickened skin of his scar. She could feel the quick, heavy throb of his heart, the crisp rasp of chest hair. A sheen of sweat. His nipples were taut against her palms. She wanted to nuzzle them, lick them. His hot, salty male scent filled her nose.
She cleared her throat, groping for words. Her English flitted away like a hummingbird in times of stress. “What . . . ah . . . do we do now?”
What a stupid question. They had sex. Duh. What else would they do, in this context? Play a game of fucking chess?
But he didn’t laugh at her. He kissed her hands again. “We touch.” His voice was a low, caressing stroke of deep harmonics across her shivering nerves. “I touch you. You touch me. We kiss, for as long as you want. We take our time. Let things happen like they want to happen. We let it unfold. You don’t have to be nervous.”
“I’m not,” she lied.
“Come here.” He sat on the bed and drew her onto his lap, arranging his cock so it pressed stiffly upright against her hip. So hard, and hot, burning against her. His legs felt strong, ropy and corded.
He cupped her breast. “This works great. I can lean over . . . and do this.” He pressed his mouth to her breast, and the hot, hungry swirl of his tongue brought on a huge wave of emotion, sensation. He was drawing pleasure and sweetness from some magic well she never knew she had inside her, and it ran so deep. Below the bedrock.
She clutched his shoulders. Buried her nose in his thick, tousled hair, twisted her fingers into it, inhaling the scent of his scalp. Her fingers shook with strain as he licked and loved her breasts, bringing the tips of her tight nipples to throbbing points of bright awareness.
The sensation was sweet to the point of pain. A keening ache of longing. She was smothering him, clutching at his head, but the sound that rumbled through his chest felt like a growl of pleasure.
“So sof
t,” he muttered, fluttering his tongue across her nipple, then drawing it in deep once again. She arched and squirmed in his lap.
“Am I smothering you?” she asked.
“Fuck, no. Cling to me. Grab any part. Squeeze it until I explode.”
She hid her face against his hair. “You sounded like you couldn’t get any air.”
“Who gives a shit about air? I’m so turned on by your perfect tits, I can’t breathe anyhow.”
She smiled against his hair. They were very normal breasts, but if he wanted to exalt them, she wasn’t going to complain. They certainly felt exalted, under his magic treatment.
“You’re the one with the perfect body.” She ran her fingertips over the taut muscles covering his back. “These lats. They’re absurd.”
He looked aggrieved. “I thought girls liked lots of cut muscle. I might have known you’d be the exception, and take me for a steroid-popping dickhead. Of all things for a guy to feel self-conscious about.”
She gave him a stern look. “I am not one of your hordes of girls,” she said. “And I’ll always give you a hard time. I can’t help myself.”
“You know, Sveti, it’s amazing how having your naked tits at mouth level really takes the sting off that remark.”
She shook with silent giggles as he pressed his face to her chest.
It felt so good. Shivering torment, his slow, sensual kisses, trailing tenderly over and under and around her breasts. The energy that charged her body was building into something frightening, unknown in scope. She squeezed her legs around the hot, unstable glow.
He pulled her hand down and wrapped her fingers around his cock. “Pet me,” he said hoarsely. “Get acquainted.”
She did so, exploring him timidly. He was so thick. Taut and hot. His pulse thrummed against her palm. The skin of his cock was so tender, a velvet sheath over that rigid core, flushed and reddened.
“Relax,” he said gently.
His voice jolted her back to awareness of herself. “Hmmm?”
In For the Kill Page 6
