His lips curved. “So lovely to meet you at last.”
She instinctively took a step back, nearer William. “Same goes, under the circumstances.”
He shrugged. “My arrest is merely a temporary inconvenience. I’ll be out soon, and then we can be together.”
She nearly shivered at the confirmation that he’d sent the notes. A shimmer of fear twisted through her and, alongside that, confusion. “Why me?”
Instead of answering, he turned to William. “Don’t even begin to think this is over, Caine.”
William grinned, an expression that held no humor. “Big talk.” He snaked out an arm and hauled Ike to his side. “Even if you get Grosskill to spring you, she’ll still be mine and not yours.”
Ike knew it was all for show, that William was trying to get the bastard to admit Grosskill’s involvement, that he was trying to make Firenzetti mad enough to make a mistake. But her body didn’t seem to care about the distinction. Her blood buzzed at his touch and the half embrace, and her core grew heavy and warm, surging with the pound of her blood.
“So you think,” Firenzetti said enigmatically and turned away, gesturing for the driver to raise the window. “I’m done talking until my lawyer gets here.”
“One last question,” Ike said. “What was Smith’s part in all this?”
“Money,” Firenzetti said despite his claim that he wasn’t talking anymore. “He was nothing more than an investor and was disposed of when the time was right.”
With that, he leaned back and shut his eyes, looking far too casual for a man whose entire support structure had come crashing down around him.
“Smug bastard,” William muttered, but Ike detected a thread of worry behind the words. Or maybe she was projecting her own worry, her own suspicion that Firenzetti seemed far too relaxed, that he knew something they didn’t.
But then William turned and looked down at her, and the vague disquiet morphed into something else entirely, something far hotter and more dangerous, akin to the desire that blazed in his eyes as he tugged her past the other cops toward their rented car. “Get in. Max will take care of the cops.”
Under any other circumstances, Ike might have protested, might have demanded an explanation or fought to make the choice for herself. But what choice was left to make? Their future, at least for the next few hours, seemed immutable. The certainty had been forged in the heat that had grown as she’d watched him fight for her, reaching into something he feared rather than lose her.
More importantly, he hadn’t been fighting for Eleanor. He’d been fighting for her, for Ike. For the woman she wanted to be. So she nodded and climbed into the car, letting him shut her door in a gesture of masculine possessiveness that somehow seemed just right.
There was no discussion as they sped back to the hotel. No words were necessary until they reached their floor, at the point where one door led to his room, one to hers. There, he paused and turned to her, the darkness in his eyes deepening even further by desire. “Stay with me.”
“Yes,” she said and put her hand in his.
Chapter Ten
He opened the door and she followed him through, and before he could get the panel shut and locked, she launched herself at him, locking her legs around his waist and hiking herself up so they were face-to-face as his hands came up to catch her thighs, then slide around to cup her buttocks in a fiery caress.
But instead of diving into a kiss as her blood and body demanded, Ike paused, poised just above him. She cupped his face between her palms, feeling the faint rasp of stubble and the pound of the pulse at his throat.
She touched her lips to his gently, chastely, and felt him tremble. Then she whispered, “Thank you.”
The two words came from deep within her, from a place she hadn’t even known existed until she’d seen him — a man of almost painful principle and honor — choose her over himself.
He caught her wrists and held her still when she would have wrapped her arms around his neck and sunk into a kiss. Eyes dark and searching, he said, “You don’t need to repay me. Not like this.”
Under any other circumstance, with any other man, she would’ve been insulted. But she knew him too well for that, knew him well enough to see through to the vulnerability beneath. So she touched her lips to his, lingering while the heat built. Then she pulled away and said, “This isn’t about payment, it’s about what I want. What I’ve wanted for a while now and was too stubborn to admit.” Or maybe too scared of the consequences, she acknowledged inwardly. But those consequences seemed far away as she leaned down and kissed him again. This time she let her lips soften, let her tongue touch his.
And all restraint was lost.
William growled deep in his throat and opened to her kiss, demanding more, giving more as he spun them and pressed her lightly against the wall, using it as leverage to free his hands.
The sensations rocketing through Ike were too intense to bear, too important to escape. She angled her throat, opening herself to his touch, to his kiss, as she pulled at his soft T-shirt, seeking the tight flesh beneath.
“Ike,” he said, and she gloried at the sound of her name on his lips, the promise that he knew exactly who he was kissing this time.
The fight had cleared her head and gotten her juices flowing, but that was nothing compared to the heat that screamed through her as William locked his lips on her throat, kissing his way down with a scrape of teeth and stubble while he slid his hands up her torso, then paused, teasing her. Tantalizing her.
She growled protest at the torment, then retaliated by pressing herself against the hard bulge in his jeans. He groaned and ground against her, bringing his lips back to hers in a drugging, all-encompassing kiss.
She slid her hands beneath his T-shirt so her fingers could play over his sculpted abs and the faint roughening of hair. Then she kissed him and pressed her body against his as he spun again and staggered toward the wide bed, where they collapsed in a tangle of arms and legs and half-undone clothing.
“Door locked?” she asked when his lips next left hers, only to arch against him and groan when he mumbled in the affirmative, nudged aside her biker jacket and fastened his mouth on one of her breasts, wetting the fabric with his tongue and suckling through the faintly abrasive material.
She fisted her hands in his hair, toed off her boots and hung on for the ride.
Sensations layered one atop the other as he laved her with greedy nips and long, sensuous strokes of his tongue. Ike moaned and let her head fall back. Then he was on his feet again, pulling her up with him so he could push the jacket off her shoulders and lift her shirt over her head, baring her in the fully lit room.
He stood for a moment, staring at her until she was tempted to blush, tempted to cover her breasts, which could be described as perky at best, boyish at worst. But covering up was for wimps, so instead she braced her hands on her hips and stared him down. “Well?”
“Now you’re fishing.” He stepped into her, and she shivered when the material of his jeans and untucked T-shirt rubbed against her bare skin. He lifted his hands until they framed her breasts, his fingers gently tracing her ribs and then working inward until she arched against him and gasped, letting her eyelids drift shut as she absorbed the pleasure. He touched his lips to hers and murmured, “Perfect. They’re perfect. You’re perfect.”
That was so wrong it would’ve been funny under any other circumstance, but she was beyond laughter, beyond speech as she leaned into his touch, opening herself to him, letting him in.
Wanting to pleasure him as he was pleasuring her, she ran her hands beneath his shirt again, over the broad, bunching muscles of his back and shoulders and up to linger at the puckered bullet scars. She had the mad fleeting impulse to kiss them away. Instead she curved her fingers and raked her nails down his back, scratching lightly and loving it when he arched his spine, pressing against her touch.
She drew away from his kiss, and he anticipated her, stepping back to pull
his shirt off. When he reached for her, she danced away. “Tit for tat, buster. You got to look. Now it’s my turn.”
He held his ground, the fire in his eyes kindling hotter when she circled around him, trailing a fingertip over his skin. “Nice.”
It was better than nice, but she figured that sounded far more coherent than holy wow, which had been her first thought. The man was built. Based on the ripped leanness she’d felt when they’d kissed and she’d run her hands over his body, she’d expected to be impressed.
She hadn’t expected perfection, but that was what stood in front of her. His wide shoulders and broad chest tied into his narrow waist in a vee of muscle and fine hair, everything angling downward, drawing her attention to the faint dip where muscles met and fused at his waistband, above the place where his arousal strained against the fly of his jeans, promising better yet to come.
A faint scar ran along his side just below his ribs, and when she moved around behind him, she saw the three bullet marks clustered high on his right shoulder, two very near each other and one lower down and likely to have caused more damage when it hit.
He wasn’t perfect the way a male model or a statue could be perfect, but he was perfect for her.
Without thinking, she stood up on her tiptoes, slid her arms around his waist and touched her lips to the scars. He shuddered and reached up to press his hands on top of hers where they rested just above his zipper. She expected him to guide her downward, to where his hard flesh waited for her touch. Instead he laced his fingers through hers and squeezed.
They stood there for a long moment, standing spooned together, locked in an embrace that suddenly felt far too intimate. Far too important.
A confusing mix of emotions slapped through Ike, nearly staggering her with their intensity. There was unexpected pleasure at the moment of connection, the sensation of being in tune with another human being. But beneath that lurked an expanding kernel of fear, a little voice that had started whispering days ago and was now approaching a shout.
Pull back, it said. Pull back now before you’re in too deep and you get hurt. Think rationally. He’s a good guy, a good man. When’s the last time you made it work with any guy, never mind a good one?
The answer, she knew, was never. Not one of her relationships had lasted more than a few months before her partner inevitably admitted she was too different, too out of step. Once or twice early on she’d offered to make some changes, begged them to give her another chance, but they hadn’t been interested in trying. She was too much work, they’d said. She didn’t need them enough.
So they’d walked, just as William would eventually — maybe right after the case concluded, maybe a few weeks or a month later, but he’d walk. She knew that as surely as she knew she couldn’t stop now, couldn’t deny the heat that raged between them, the heat that had brought them together despite their differences.
She couldn’t stop them from becoming lovers tonight, she knew. But she could — and would — stop it from becoming important. She could make it be about sex rather than the illusion of love.
So she slid her hands lower, carrying his along for the ride as she worked the button of his jeans and lowered the zipper, allowing his proud erection to spring free, encased only in soft cotton boxers.
Still clasping his fingers between hers, she eased his jeans and boxers down over his hips, leaving them snagged on his powerful thighs, simultaneously baring him to her touch and shackling him at her mercy.
The idea of big, bad-assed William Caine at anyone’s mercy was laughable, but as she pressed herself against his back and stroked his long length with their joined hands, she felt him shudder, heard the low groan that vibrated in his chest and felt powerful.
She stroked again, curving their joined fingers around his thick rod and starting at the base, where the skin was rougher, then sliding up and out, feeling the veins and ridges and the place where his skin went soft as silk. He groaned again, a harsh, rattling sound that broke to a hiss of breath when she rubbed her thumb across the bulbous tip, collecting and spreading a drop of moisture that called to the hot, wet juices flowing within her.
He said something then — her name, maybe, or a prayer — and thrust against their joined hands, rhythmically, shuddering as his flesh grew harder and jerked with the rhythm of his heartbeat.
Ike felt that same rhythm inside her, pulsing as her hips moved to match his from behind, as he gave himself over to her, letting her lead, letting her control the rhythm while his breath rattled in his lungs and came faster, harder, matching the rhythm of their joined hands.
He pressed on her fingers, showing her how he liked it, suggesting rather than commanding. The knowledge that they were both touching him at once was brutally erotic, and Ike felt pressure building in her lungs, in her core, as the primal rhythm increased. They strained together, and then his breathing stilled, his body stilled, his whole being went rigid and he gripped their joined fingers at the base of his shaft, where the deep, pulsing explosion began.
He came on a shuddering, heaving gasp that trailed to a groan of pleasure vibrating through his entire body. His muscles locked, holding him motionless except for the flesh beneath their fingers, which pulsed rhythmically, in tune with the almost painful tugs deep within Ike.
Part of her ached for him to be inside her right now, but as the pulses slowed and his body relaxed a fraction against hers, another part — the saner part — was glad it had happened this way, that they’d had raw, down and dirty hand-job sex rather than something that ran the risk of feeling like more than it was.
As if he’d read her mind, William sucked in a breath and expelled it on a shuddering chuckle. “I’ll admit, I hadn’t pictured things unfolding quite like that.” His back pressed into her front as he let out a long, cleansing exhalation. Then he glanced back over his shoulder. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you. But I’d like to put things back on track.”
A chill spun through Ike, a dash of reality in an unreal situation. She straightened, unlinking her fingers from his. When he turned towards her, she said, “Of course. I should —”
He framed her face between his hands and kissed her. His palms were warm, his lips hot and demanding, melting the ice in an instant and bringing her blood to a boil.
When he ended the kiss and looked down at her, his expression clouded for a moment, then cleared with comprehension, though a hint of sadness remained behind. “You thought I was talking about the case.” He kissed her again, taking her under with nothing more than his lips and his tongue and his gentle touch. “I wish you trusted me more than that.”
Shame washed through her, along with the knee-jerk slap of irritation that she used as self-preservation. “I —”
He silenced her with a searching kiss that turned her insides to liquid heat. When she sagged against him, he said, “Do you really want to fight right now? I don’t. I’d rather we try something new together.”
“As long as it involves both of us getting naked,” Ike said, clinging to the hope that she could keep this about sex and not something more complicated, something neither of them was ready for.
He grinned against her mouth. “Now we’re on the same page.”
He stepped out of his shoes, jeans and boxers, unbuttoned her pants and slid a testing, toying hand inside. He paused when he found her bare beneath.
Ike smiled as her blood drummed hard in her ears and heat pooled beneath his fingertips. “Surprise. Another of my idiosyncrasies.”
“Panties make you claustrophobic?”
It was more that going commando had been yet another way to feel different and dangerous. Acting out sexually had been a way to play for her parents’ attention after Donny’s death. She’d thought they’d have to pry themselves out of their grief to deal with her if she made enough noise, if she acted tough enough, slept around enough, got in enough trouble.
In the end, all she’d gotten was a slutty reputation and twice-a-week counseling from a schoo
l employee with a bad comb-over.
“Let’s just say that Eleanor wears panties,” she murmured against his mouth. “Cotton ones with bunnies and hearts on them.”
Okay, that was a bit of an exaggeration, but she needed to be sure he knew the difference, that he knew he was having sex with her, Ike, not Eleanor or some sort of hybrid between the two women.
“Nothing wrong with bunnies and hearts,” he said. Then he slid her pants down in a smooth move he’d probably practiced since early teen hood. “But I’m liking the commando thing. Makes it easier to do this.”
Before she could anticipate, he dropped to his knees in front of her and looped one of her legs over his bullet-scarred shoulder, bracing her, baring her.
A hot, hard surge of lust gripped Ike when she understood his intent and she threaded her fingers through his hair, part caress, part holding on for dear life as he kissed a path up her inner thigh and her insides went to water.
Her weight-bearing leg buckled and she nearly collapsed, saving herself by grabbing onto his shoulders, then moaning when he looped an arm around her hips, anchoring her, drawing her closer as he traced his tongue inward, parting her folds with an exquisite tenderness that made her want to weep with the sensation, scream with it. Instead she dug her fingers into his hard, muscular shoulders and parted her legs wider, inviting him to do more, to do whatever he wanted.
She could count on one hand the men she’d allowed to go down on her in the most intimate of kisses, and always before she’d hung onto some thread of herself, some essence of control. Except this time, with this man. As William bent to her, loving her with his tongue and mouth, bringing her spiraling closer and closer to the edge, she realized she was in danger of having nothing held in reserve, nothing left to protect herself with.
Prescription: Makeover (Harlequin Intrigue) Page 12
