Amy didn’t need to be invited twice. She straddled Ty and he caught her waist in his hands. She watched him inhale sharply as she took him inside, and teased him a bit by withdrawing before she drew him deeper. He whispered her name and his grip tightened upon her, but he waited for her move. She saw his jaw clench. She saw his nostrils pinch. She felt his muscles go taut. But he let her set the pace, even though his eyes glittered when he looked up at her.
“Planning to kill me?” he whispered.
“Slowly,” Amy said, catching her own breath as she lowered herself to take him completely inside her for the first time. She leaned her forehead on his chest and he pushed his hand through her hair, drawing her close for a sweet hot kiss.
“I want nine lives,” he murmured against her cheek. “And I want to be finished off this way every single time.”
Amy laughed, then moved again, rocking her hips a bit. She liked how Ty caught his breath and how he gripped her tightly. She knew he wanted her, but she was in command.
They found a rhythm together easily, so easily that they might have made love a dozen times before. There was something right about their connection, and Amy welcomed that sense of coming home. The heat rose between them and Ty’s fingers dug more deeply into her waist with every stroke. He pulled her forward, so that she was rubbing against the strength of him and Amy shivered with delight. She caught his face in her hands and kissed him deeply as she rode him, his hands locked on her hips and increasing their pace. She closed her eyes and simply felt the power of his body and the pleasure of being with him, hearing her heart thunder and her breath race.
“Amy!” He locked one arm around her waist and rolled her partway beneath him, kissing her deeply. She could feel his heartbeat against her own and his heat filling her and knew there was nowhere else she wanted to be. He drove deep, then moved his hand between them. One strategic flick of his finger and Amy came again, crying out in her pleasure and digging her nails into his shoulders as Ty came and came and came.
Cuore mio. The words flitted into Amy’s thoughts with the resonance of truth. My heart. An endearment of the most powerful kind.
Could it be true?
Of course not. This was just a fake date with benefits. Amy knew that, but wondered all the same.
Chapter Twelve
“You never took off your shirt,” Amy complained in the aftermath, when they’d cleaned up and Ty carried her to her own bed. She gave the hem of his T-shirt a tug when he laid down beside her. “Don’t tell me you’re shy.”
“No, of course not,” he said, but his hand closed over hers.
To stop her.
Amy leaned over him and grabbed her spare glasses, put them on and smiled at him. “You have a secret, then,” she teased. “It must be a great big tattoo.”
“No!”
“I want to see it.” Amy pulled her hand free again and reached for the hem. Ty stopped her again.
“No, you don’t need to see,” he protested and she would have bet that he was embarrassed. That made her only more determined.
She clucked like a chicken, poked him hard with one finger and when he exhaled, she slid her hand beneath his shirt. He froze, watching her.
“You have stubble!”
Ty’s gaze slid away from hers and he gave it up. “Yes.”
Amy pushed up his T-shirt and ran her fingers over the line of short dark hair. Ty shivered.
“It itches,” he said through his teeth.
“You shaved it. Why?”
He gave her a simmering look. “My buddy Kyle says that women prefer smooth skin. I believed him.”
“Again, you believed him? This is the guy who suggested the Giselle ploy, right?”
Ty winced. “Right.” He slanted a glance at her. “I need someone to give me better advice.”
Amy braced her elbow on his chest and dropped her chin to her fist. She was fighting a smile because he had maybe a quarter inch of growth. This had happened recently. “Any particular woman whose preferences you were worried about?”
“You know it was you,” he growled.
She tapped a finger on him. “When did you do this?”
She was thinking he might say before the bridal shower, but he frowned and looked away again. “Before our dinner.”
“You thought on a first date, on a first fake date,” Amy started, but Ty interrupted her.
“No! I had no expectations.” He surveyed her warmly and lifted one hand to her hair.
“What then?”
“Preparation in a spirit of optimism.”
Amy laughed.
“Seriously, you surprise me, especially in matters sexual. I never know what to expect.”
“In matters sexual,” Amy echoed.
Ty looked a bit exasperated. “I wanted to be ready for anything.”
Amy slid her hand under his shirt again, pushing her fingers through the stubble. “But not today?”
“You surprised me,” Ty admitted. “Again.” He leaned back, not looking very troubled about that situation. “I should get used to it.”
“Even though you were trying to drive me crazy?”
“I had no idea whether it would work.”
“So, it’s not a bad thing for me to command a performance?”
He lifted a brow. “What did I tell you?”
“About matters sexual? Hmm, only that there was nothing sexier than a woman wanting you?”
“Exactly.” Ty rolled her to her back, then removed her glasses and put them back on the nightstand. “And now I’m thinking that it’s time I surprised you.”
“I don’t know that I can be that easily surprised.”
“No?” He laced his fingers through hers and drew her hands over her head, holding her wrists captive there. Was he holding her down? Amy thrilled at the possibility. His other hand was on her waist, his fingers splayed wide, and he held her firmly against him. Ty touched his lips to hers, before whispering in her ear. “What if I show you that I’m not quite as nice as you seem to think?”
Amy shivered a little in his grip, liking that she couldn’t pull her wrists free. She swallowed as Ty trailed kisses to her nipple, then gasped when he dragged his teeth across it. He kissed it then, teasing it to a point, holding her exactly where he wanted her.
Stretched taut.
Captive to his caress.
“I think that would be fine,” Amy managed to say before Ty hooked one foot around her ankle and eased her legs apart. Her heart leaped but she loved it.
“I have to go to Japan,” he whispered against her skin. “I don’t want to.”
“I don’t want you to,” Amy managed to whisper.
“So, let me give you something to think about this week.” Ty leaned over her so that her leg was trapped beneath him, and eased his fingers between her thighs. He caressed her, still kissing her nipple, and though it wasn’t as naughty as what Amy wanted, she appreciated his determination to please her. He touched her boldly, kissing her sweetly all the while, and Amy surrendered to the pleasure Ty was determined to give.
* * *
Ty was restless. He knew he should have told Amy the truth.
He should have laid it all out for her and come clean.
But he hadn’t.
It had been so good that he hadn’t wanted to compromise anything.
He stood in his apartment, looking south to Brooklyn, nursing another double shot of that Scotch, and thinking of Amy.
Admitting the truth would have been the right thing to do.
Begging for mercy might not have been all bad.
But he hadn’t wanted to take any chance of destroying what had been so wonderful.
Something so fragile and magical had to be protected.
The truth, Ty was sure, would trash everything. He’d deceived Amy. There was no getting around that. She wouldn’t be glad to learn the truth. No one would. He had to hope that she’d forgive him, but he knew it would take time.
Time he di
dn’t have when his flight for Japan left in seven hours.
He drained the Scotch, called himself a chicken-shit, and resolved to find the right moment as soon as he got back.
The burner phone rang as he was putting down the glass and he spun to face it, incredulous.
What the hell? She’d just made love to him. He’d just made love to her. He’d just tried his best. He knew he’d pleased her. He’d left her sleepy and satisfied.
And she was calling Matteo?
Ty threw back the rest of the Scotch and strode across the room to answer the phone.
* * *
Amy sat in her darkened bedroom and wondered.
Making love with Ty had been awesome.
It had been safe.
She had felt cherished and treasured and completely connected with him. Vanilla hadn’t been boring at all.
But she felt conflicted. As good as making love had been, and as much as she admired Ty, Amy wasn’t entirely sure she could surrender the adrenaline rush of being with Matteo.
The thrill of risk.
At the same time, she knew she couldn’t ask Ty to play erotic games with her. He wouldn’t approve. He would probably think less of her. Was it possible that she could love him but that her truth would destroy any love he felt?
Was their relationship doomed before it really got started?
Should she tell Ty about Matteo?
Amy disliked the idea. She knew Ty would take it badly.
What was she going to do?
She should get Matteo out of her system, have him and be done with it. Explore naughty and move on, hopefully with Ty. She might not like the reality as much as the fantasy. It might just be a forbidden temptation, one that didn’t deliver in real life. She knew she had to know, so the sooner she found out, the better.
Amy’s hands shook when she picked up her phone and called Matteo’s number. She felt like she was betraying Ty, but she wasn’t really.
Was she?
Matteo answered after two rings and sounded so pissed off that her heart skipped.
“I want another private session,” she admitted in a rush. “But here, at my house, for real.”
There was a long silence that seemed cold to Amy.
“Impossible,” he snarled.
“It’s not impossible. I’ll give you the address…”
“It is impossible because I am leaving. I have a job to do.”
His voice sounded so hard that Amy feared the worst. “What kind of job?”
“The kind of job I do to earn a living. You don’t think that playing with little girls at F5 gives me the kind of money I need, do you?” His tone was so mocking that Amy was shocked. He’d never talked to her like this before.
“What else do you do?”
He took a deep breath, as if deciding whether to humor her or not. “I am not of your world, Angel. A man must make choices in my world. I have friends, who demand loyalty from me. I do not betray them.”
“What kind of friends?”
“The kind of friends it is foolish to offend.”
Amy thought about his tattoos and his earlier comments. “Why were you in prison?”
“I am what is called a mule, Angel. I make deliveries.”
“Of drugs,” Amy breathed, then she realized he’d used the present tense. “You’re not doing it again?”
“I am what I am, Angel. I do what I do. I will not be caught.”
His confidence was undeserved, in Amy’s opinion, and she wanted to save him from his own impulses.
“You were caught before.”
There was another cold silence and she feared she’d said too much.
She really didn’t know much about him.
Still, Amy tried again. “If you need a place to stay, I can help…”
“I will not be caught, Angel,” Matteo said harshly, interrupting her. “Because I ensured the man who betrayed me last time could not betray me again. He speaks no more.”
“He’s dead?”
“We shared a woman once, so I trusted him. But he betrayed me. When I was freed, I wrung the life out of him with my bare hands,” he said. “And I was not caught.”
He’d killed someone?
“You have to stop, Matteo,” Amy spoke sternly. “You have to refuse to make another delivery…
“No,” he snarled, sounding completely different from the man who had pleasured her and touched her so gently. Had the connection she’d felt with him been a complete lie? “I leave tomorrow. I will be gone many days.”
“Matteo, you have to give yourself a chance…”
“Goodbye, Angel,” he growled, then ended the call.
Amy stared at the phone. She redialed his number, but was informed that the customer was unavailable.
He’d turned it off.
* * *
I want another private session. But here, at my house, for real.
Ty paced his apartment, more agitated than he’d been in years. Amy wanted to have sex with Matteo. He would never have believed it, but she’d said it aloud, to him.
If you need a place to stay, I can help…
What was in Amy’s mind? She would invite a guy with a criminal record to stay at her house? He’d been sure she was more sensible than that. And what happened next? What they talked about in the phone calls would happen in real life?
He couldn’t talk to her again, not as Matteo.
He couldn’t fix this before he left for Japan.
He couldn’t tell her the truth, not without being sure that she wouldn’t put herself in a dangerous situation with some other guy like Matteo.
Ty folded his arms across his chest and glared out the windows of his apartment, wanting to see all the way to Brooklyn. Amy’s research had him all tangled up inside, never mind the effect of Amy herself. Making love to her hadn’t been nearly enough. He hadn’t even left on his trip and he couldn’t wait to get home again, to see her again.
As much as he wanted to crush that burner phone, Matteo had to survive until Ty got home and told Amy the truth.
She was going to despise him and he didn’t blame her, but this couldn’t go on.
He had to hope that begging for mercy would work.
It was a bad moment to realize that this strategy had been Kyle’s advice.
* * *
Amy Googled Matteo’s tattoos and found the four dots on Wiki. They were a gang mark from California, for the Norteños, who trafficked drugs. Amy chewed her fingernail as she thought.
It appeared that there was a lot she didn’t know about Matteo.
She couldn’t dismiss the memory of his touch, though, or the power of those two hot scenes.
It was almost like he was two different people.
Fitzwilliam sauntered into the room and leaped onto her bed, fussing with the covers before he laid down. Clearly, hosting a party—enough though he’d hidden in her dad’s library for all of it—had worn him out.
Amy thought of her dad, reaching out to the kids in his class who were heading into trouble. She thought of him believing in them and sometimes making a difference, as he had with Jesse. She didn’t believe that Matteo was truly bad. He might have been in bad circumstances, but he’d been gentle with her.
More gentle than Lothair had been with Argenta.
Surely his actions revealed the truth of his nature?
But then there was the harsh way he’d talked to her tonight.
“Would it help if I believed in Matteo?” she asked the cat. Fitzwilliam cleaned his paw, not in the least bit interested in the emotional torment of anyone other than himself.
“In a book, it would make all the difference,” she mused. “Lothair needs someone to trust him, in order to be healed, and in my book, Argenta’s trust will heal Lothair.”
Fitzwilliam yawned mightily.
Would Amy have any chance to show her trust of Matteo?
Could she stop him from making a bad choice?
She didn’t know. She
tried again, but he still had his phone turned off. There was nothing she could do for Matteo immediately.
But Amy could write about trust healing a hero’s wounds.
On impulse, I tipped her head forward and unlaced the hood, tugging it from her head. Her hair was left disheveled, glimmering like moonlight, and her cheeks were flushed.
Against my every expectation, she smiled at me, untroubled by the sight of my ravaged face—much less to discover it in such close proximity. “Thank you, my lord.”
I lifted the hood. “You don’t like it?”
She averted her gaze, her lips curved in a mischievous smile, then she eyed me anew. “It makes me feel wanton, my lord.” Her eyes were dancing.
Wanton. There was a word to make me hard again. Temptress.
“How so?” I had to ask, though the words did not fall easily from my lips.
She frowned a little, considering the question. “I feel more in the absence of my sight. It seems my skin is more sensitive when I cannot see what touches it.” Her gaze collided with mine once more, unflinching. “Is it so with you, my lord?”
I avoided the question, by reaching down to tug that rope again. Her eyes widened as the knot eased past her clitoris, which I had to guess was hard and throbbing. “Does this make less impression now than before?”
She gasped, her lips parting in the way I found more inviting. “I cannot be sure, my lord.”
I raised a hand to one pert nipple, caressed it, then pinched it. “And this?”
She moaned a little, her hips moving against the pillar of the bed. “I think not, my lord.”
I kissed that nipple then, savoring her agitation. “And this?”
“No less than before, my lord.”
I lavished attention upon that nipple then, suckling it and drawing it to a point, then grazed it with my teeth. She gave a delicious shiver, one that claimed her from head to toe. “Then maybe you are a wanton,” I whispered against her flesh.
Her gaze locked with mine. “Only for you, my lord.”
I straightened and spun away from her.
Did she flatter me with a lie?
Or did she truly have some affection for me?
I knew what I wanted to believe, but forced myself to accept what had to be truth. She was a beauty. Her heart would be snared by beauty. She was, however, my captive, and it was only clever of her to court my favor.
Simply Irresistible Page 24
