“At least Montgomery didn’t insist you wear a chauffeur’s cap. That would be even more weird, if I were a rich New Yorker picking fruit with my driver.”
“Yeah, well, if we can go to lunch together, I sure as fuck don’t see why we can’t pick fruit together.”
She pops a couple of raspberries into her mouth. “These are delicious. Way better than store bought. Try.” She presses a raspberry to my lips.
And that’s when everything changes.
Her fingertip grazes my bottom lip, brushes the edge of my tongue. My cock stirs instantly at the promise in her eyes. The awareness sparking to life between us. She strokes my bottom lip, and I nip her finger with my teeth. With a sigh, she links her arms around my neck and it’s on—we’re kissing like we’re starved of each other under a bright sun in the middle of nowhere.
Along a row of raspberries, where someone could see.
A little distance off is shelter. A glade of peach trees. I break away from her intoxicating mouth and trail my lips down her neck. “Let’s go somewhere more private.” Linking my fingers through hers, I take her there.
“What are we doing?” The murmured words don’t need an answer, but I give one anyway.
“What I’ve wanted to do since the Hamptons.” We pass the first couple of trees then I find the perfect one. We’re hidden from view, far enough from the shack that I can see anyone approach long before they notice us.
I brush Kristie’s hair away from her face, and kiss her jaw. Lean in, cup the nape of her neck and bring her lips to mine. The air is scented with peaches. Dappled light filters through the leafy canopy above, and her skin is soft and warm against me.
She’s backed against the trunk of a peach tree and I want to see and feel every inch of her. “You have too many clothes on.”
She smiles.
“I hate this shirt. It’s fussy. Way too old for you.” I untie the bow at her neck. Work the buttons down the front of the shirt, and push the shirt off her shoulders. It slides down her golden skin to the ground. She’s wearing a bra the same color as her skin. It’s simple, unadorned, functional rather than sexy, but my cock hardens at the sight.
I’m standing there staring, imagining all the things I’m going to do to her, right here, right now. But she’s not for waiting.
Her fingers are at her waist, and a second later, she’s shimmying out of her black pants to reveal a tiny hot-pink pair of panties that might be a thong. I slide my hands behind her. Bare. My pulse races.
“Are you getting naked too?” She grins.
I shake my head. Spot a peach a little distance from her head, and pluck it.
Its downy softness brushes against my palm. The flesh is ripe and succulent. I bring the peach between our faces and we both breathe in its scent.
“It’s soft, like you.” I brush the peach over her lips. The flush on her cheeks matches the rosy hue of the fruit. “I want to taste it.”
She pouts a little, but that’s because she doesn’t know my intentions. She thinks I’m more interested in food than in her.
“Turn around. I want to take your bra off.”
She does as requested, and I unfasten the clasps and slide it off her. Her ass looks fucking magnificent in the thong, and I can’t resist stroking my hand over her, slipping between the juncture of her thighs where she’s wet and ready for me. Brushing my knuckles over her clit.
With a gasp, she leans forward, flattens her palms against the tree, opens her legs wider and shoves her ass out to me.
I rip the peach into two halves. Discard the pit onto the ground. Reach around her with a peach half in each palm, and rub the scented flesh over her. Peach juice drips from her erect nipples.
“Fuck,” she breathes.
I pick another peach, prepare it, and sink to my knees on the orchard floor behind her. “Yes.”
I pull down her thong with my teeth, and slide the two peach halves over the globes of her ass, coating her with juice. Then rub the warm, yielding fruit over her cunt, her clit, watching her thighs quiver and clench.
I hold her hips, tilt her to my mouth, discard the peach, and lick.
Her scent, her taste: aroused woman mixed with peach juice, is so delicious, I devour her. She’s pressing against my face, groaning, making incoherent sounds that tell me she’s close to the edge, close to coming. I swirl around her swollen nub with my fingertip. Slap her ass.
Then grip her thighs as she convulses, crying out her release to the empty air.
When it’s over, I stand and turn her around in my arms. She buries her face against my chest. Her breathing is ragged when she looks up at me with a trace of embarrassment on her flushed face.
“You’re fully dressed.” Her gaze lowers to the region of my adam’s apple. “You haven’t even taken off your tie. And I’m...” She waves a hand down her naked body.
“Totally fucking beautiful.” I don’t have time to take off my clothing, not while she’s there ready and waiting to be fucked. I unzip my fly and shove down my pants and underwear.
Her eyes widen at the sight of my cock, and she licks her lips and pushes away from the tree. “My turn.” She’s halfway to the ground when I grasp her elbows and pull her upright.
“No. I don’t want my cock in your mouth.” I slide my hand down the front of her thigh, then open her to my fingers. “I want to be inside you.”
I retrieve a condom from my wallet, sheathe myself and position my cock between her legs.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Kristie
I can’t believe I’m doing this. I can’t believe this is me.
Naked outside in broad daylight with Marco’s hands holding me up. My legs wrapped around him as he slides his cock into me in one smooth stroke; filling me completely. I’m wet from coming with his mouth on me. There’s no pain as he moves firmly in and out, just bone-melting, delicious friction.
I thought I liked sex before this. Now it’s patently obvious that I never even knew sex. Not like this. His biceps swell and bulge as he shifts me higher. This can’t be easy on him—we should try another position—
“Lay me down.”
He pulls out and stares into my eyes. “You sore?” His thumb massages my bottom lip, concern for me evident in his gaze. He’ll stop if I ask him. Even though his erection is hard and heavy against me.
“No.” I press my lips to his. “I just want to try a different position.” I sink onto the closely cropped grass under the peach trees. Laying myself out before him like a meal to be devoured.
With a wicked smile, Marco’s heated gaze scans every inch of my body. He strips off his clothes and joins me on the ground. The warm skin of his shoulders is warm and supple under my fingertips. With every breath, I inhale the warm, sandlewood scent of him. “I haven’t licked you clean all over.” His tongue swirls around my nipple, then he flicks the tip with his tongue, and sucks it into his mouth.
My hands move convulsively into his hair. It’s springy beneath my fingers. I spear my hands through it and drag his head up to mine. “That’s fucking amazing.” I can barely speak, my breathing is so erratic. “But I need you inside me. I need you now.”
His eyes darken to black, and he kisses me quickly and thoroughly. He grasps himself, strokes his erection a couple of times then positions his cock at my entrance, and, gripping the backs of my thighs, slams into me hard and fast.
We fit together perfectly, like we were made for each other. Our breathing syncs, rising and falling in matching frantic rhythm. When his thumb finds my clit and presses against it, the pleasure is so intense my vision blurs around the edges. I call his name, tell him more, and harder, and all those cliché things they show in the movies that I’ve always believed couldn’t possibly have any basis in fact.
Because the way he’s fucking me, the way I’m fused to this man body and soul, is something I’ve never experienced before. And “Yes, yes, fuck yes!” seems a perfectly reasonable thing to cry when he’s taking me lightyear
s higher than I’ve ever been. More than reasonable: it’s essential. Unavoidable. Indescribable.
He holds the sides of my face as his body pistons faster. Kisses me gently and refuses to let me break eye contact. I see the very moment he loses control, it’s a microsecond after I do.
When our breathing slows, he eases out of me, and lies on the grass by my side.
For minutes that feel like hours, he rests his hand on my stomach. Sensation’s aftershocks sweep through me like soft waves kissing the shoreline. I’ve never felt so at peace. So complete and utterly replete.
What time is it? How long have we lain like this? I don’t know the answer, and an awareness of my naked state seeps through me.
“The woman at the kiosk must be wondering what’s happened to us.” I sit up and stare down at the roof of the shack below us. We’ve only picked raspberries.”
I get up and start to find my clothes, to put them on.
Marco’s gaze doesn’t move from me as he dresses.
“We can remedy that quickly enough.” He picks up a basket and walks from tree to tree, filing it with peaches so ripe their downy skin is blushed deep pink.
He steps close and licks my lips. “Mmm, peaches.” His eyes are warmly amused, and I wish we could just drive back to Casa Nostra and spend the rest of the day curled around each other in bed. “Why don’t you go straight to the car and fix that bow at your neck, and I’ll pay for the produce.”
He smiles. “I fucking love peaches.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Kristie
Casa Nostra is deserted on our return. Marco parks the car around the side the house out of view, and sneaks a quick kiss.
“I’ll see you later.” He strokes my cheek before we part. He heads straight for the kitchen, carrying the fruit, and I go upstairs to shower and change. The clothes I toss in the laundry hamper smell of peaches and Marco, and even once I’m clean, I imagine the scent of peaches in the air.
I should check in with my father. See if his investigations into the financial affairs of the family might have pulled up another lead—I can’t keep doing this forever. Can’t be the target or protector indefinitely. But instead, I lie on Montgomery’s huge four-poster bed and stare up into the canopy, as memories of those moments with Marco flash through my mind.
My mouth feels tender from the imprint of his lips. My muscles melt into the heavy coverlet, my body relaxed and languid from our sex in the sunshine. Even thinking about being naked with his hands on me makes me wet again.
I like the way I feel when I’m with him. Protected. Appreciated. In sync with someone. I’m used to working alone. Working for my father, I haven’t been trusted with any real responsibility before now, but in my previous job, all of my assignments were solo. This is different. Marco has my back, and that’s something I could easily get used to.
I close my eyes. Imagine him lying here next to me.
Something that can never be. Because this is my husband’s bed. The bed everyone thinks I share with Montgomery. Any relationship with Marco can’t possibly go anywhere. Maybe that’s the appeal for both of us?
I have a job to do. A role to play. The last thing I should be doing is sleeping with someone while undercover. If my father suspects for even one moment that my head is not in the game, he’ll be horribly disappointed. And I don’t know how to disappoint him. I’ve never let that happen.
Marco is lying to his boss. Betraying his client. So off track, he’s in desperate need of a map to find his way back onto the straight and narrow. What’s a little sex compared to the rules he’s already broken?
I haven’t been with anyone for ages. Not since... No. I sit up and smooth out the wrinkle in the coverlet where I lay. I’m not going there. Not giving headspace to the total and utter disaster of a relationship which shoved me into a dark place I struggled for months to escape.
Marco does his job because he hates cheaters. Right now, if all you knew was what you saw, I’m a cheater. And it’s not the first time.
There’s a ringing. I didn’t even notice there was a phone in here. After a few seconds’ investigation, I find it on a tiny round table tucked away behind a screen in the corner. “Hello?”
“Kristie—it’s Montgomery.”
I don’t know why he feels it necessary to identify himself—his voice, even while whispering, is unmistakable.
“Is everything alright?” My senses are on full alert. My shoulders tense, and I have to deliberately relax them. “Do you need help?”
“No. No.” He’s dismissive. “Everything here is secure. Remember I said something didn’t make sense? I’ve worked out what it is. There was no sign of forced entry. Which means that the person who was in our bedroom had access to the house. They bugged our room—which makes no sense, because there could be no one except you in there. Unless they knew they could get into our room, talk to you, and have that conversation recorded.” He paused as if to give me time to put the pieces together.
As if I needed any time.
“So I thought: ‘Who would benefit from that?’”
Someone employed to gather proof of my willingness to cheat on my husband.
My stomach aches. A heavy feeling settles in my chest. I’m cold and clammy, the way I feel before I throw up.
“I’ll see you this evening.”
I could throw myself on the bed and bawl. A small part of me wants to do exactly that. I don’t have to even work out the timeline: it fits. Marco didn’t know my marriage was a sham when the bug was planted. He had told his employer that I was weakening, falling for him.
He explained his actions to me by saying if he didn’t stay in situ, the company would just send someone else. Was he lying? Was the plan all along to crawl under my defenses, to get me to drop my guard enough to surrender to the attraction between us?
So he could record it?
Yet more puzzle pieces fall into place.
No alibi. He was supposedly in his apartment, but there’s no one to corroborate that.
Every element of that evening’s events damn him further. His insistence on being brought to the bedroom when he heard of the intruder. He acted like someone who cared—like a protective lover—flooding me with all his attention when we were alone. He was Potent. Possessive. Protective. Sexy as hell.
He fucking kissed me. And I melted like ice cream blasted with a blow torch. He didn’t know we’d found the bug. He didn’t know I was no threat to his client, because my marriage wasn’t real. He seemed so tormented about cheating with a married woman on her honeymoon, so genuine and conflicted, that I blew up my own cover to reassure him and confess he wasn’t an evil cheater, that I was sin-free fuckable.
I was so blinded by desire, I didn’t even consider he might be lying. All my training rendered useless by one look at his passion-laced gaze.
He sucker-punched me.
Right now, there’s no benefit to catching me on tape or on camera cheating with him—he knows I’m a professional doing a job, just as he is. And shit, I don’t want to believe everything between us was a lie. That he’s capable of cold-heartedly making me want him. There’s a sour taste in my mouth at the thought he’s such a good liar I fell like a ripe peach into his waiting hands.
I tie my hair into a braid, and slip my feet into the black runners I wear for Krav Maga.
When under attack, don’t defend. Attack.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Kristie
I don’t want to believe it.
Don’t want to believe that I’ve been screwing the man responsible for planting a listening device in my bedroom. I’ve begun to trust him. To look at the surface and believe somehow that it’s just as it appears to be. Just as I looked at my parents’ marriage and believed there was nothing going on there but pure, unadulterated love.
But Montgomery’s words jolted me from my surety, filled me with doubt.
Now Marco’s been added to the list of potential intruders, I can’t st
op considering him as one. He made a call while I listened. One he said was to was to his employer, but for all I know there could have been no one on the other end of the line. He could have prearranged the whole thing with his boss to throw me off the scent.
What reason would anyone have to record me in my bedroom?
Montgomery was right, no one except me was supposed to be there.
Stephen brought him to my room. On Marco’s insistence. He might have expected me to be shaken. To be vulnerable. Our relationship could have advanced to the next level, alone in that bedroom, and his job would have been done. No one had anything to gain except Marco. Marco had means. Marco had opportunity. And Marco had a motive.
I go over the timeline in my mind.
Remember just what he knew when that bug was placed in my jacket.
He didn’t know my marriage was fake. Didn’t know I wasn’t in line to inherit from his client’s father and that my being a gold digger was nothing but a gambit to snare a potential murderer.
I’ve been taken in by a handsome face and a clever tongue before. Have I been too quick to trust again? There’s an unfamiliar ache in my heart. A bone-deep sadness that threatens to tear me asunder. The world feels different, all its certainties shaken and eroded.
Now the bug has been found, there’s no way of determining whether Marco is responsible for placing it there. And if he is the intruder, I need not consider my life under threat. He’s trying to kiss me, not kill me.
My body is buzzing with banked, frustration-fuelled energy. If I were at home, I’d schedule a session with my Krav Maga instructor, and vent my aggression and give my body a thorough workout at the same time.
The confines of Casa Nostra mean that’s out of the question. But I sure don’t need to be sitting around here wondering. Not when I have work to do.
I ring Stephen and fix a meet in the security room, then leave the bedroom.
Late afternoon sunlight streams in from the picture windows as I make my way through Casa Nostra to the room designated as the security hub. The house is silent, but somewhere within, Isabel is preparing dinner and various family members are doing whatever it is that they do.
The Gold Digger Gambit: A Honeytrap Inc. Romance Page 12
