by Anthology
She hadn’t expected that, but tried not to show it. Probably wasn’t true anyway. Just something to sway her feminine emotions. “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you? Is that your excuse for using women like disposable rags?” She nodded toward the hamper.
“If you’d paid attention, and I think you did,” his pink lips spread wide at that, “you’d recall mutual using going on. Women and men have been using each other for piles of centuries. It won’t stop anytime soon.”
“What does your wife think about that?”
“Ex-wife,” he corrected, smoothing his dark blond brow.
Of all things, her pulse skittered at the stroke of his finger across the coarse hair. He rubbed a thumb over his lower lip, taunting her. “I wanted a title. She wanted security.”
“Security?” Harper swallowed.
“In the bank account and bedroom.” He stepped forward, brushing the lace of her dress with his high-end suit’s buttons. His breath tickled her cheek as he leaned down. “Her extravagant lifestyle and first marriage left her in need. Do you know anything about need, Harper?”
“Detective Lang,” she snapped. Or at least, she tried. His manly scent and proximity screwed with her senses. She breathed deeply, fighting to ignore the brush of her nipples against his chest. “Why did you give me the diamond?”
“Have it tested. It’s not the piece from her family’s collection, which she sold five years ago, but one I purchased to replace them on our three-year anniversary. It’s a quarter carat larger.”
Harper collected every speck of self-control she possessed, planted two hands on his chest, and shoved. The big man only moved an inch, but it was enough that she squeezed between him and the wall and hurried toward the door.
“Aren’t you going to cuff me?”
She didn’t have anything to hold him, but still she stopped with one hand on the door.
“No, you’re not,” he said, drawing nearer. “You don’t want anyone to know I made you come without a single touch.” Looming over her shoulder, the heat of his large body shot a wave of gooseflesh across hers. “I’ve never seen such an honest reaction in my life, and that’s a treasure too exquisite to share.”
* * *
Damn! He was good. No wonder women tossed themselves at him, along with anything else he wanted. Harper stomped her rage on each of the seventy-two stairs it took to reach her apartment door. She’d done many difficult things on the force, but none had come close to walking away from Magnus Declan. Pheromones wafted off the man’s skin in potent waves as detrimental as forest fires. But the unexpected sincerity, combined with his uninhibited manner, proved the most dangerous aspect, aside from his pure physicality.
A single lamp welcomed Harper home. She locked the door and dropped her clutch, thigh holster, and tiny Colt onto the end table. Flipping off the torturous heels, she trudged past the cozy seating area and kitchenette. Fluffy white cotton pillowed her reverse-swan-dive onto the bed. A shower was in order. The absence of his sexy musk would make the night easier, but she wasn’t ready to let go just yet. Feet dangling over the edge, she tossed an arm over her eyes, and weathered the discord between her body and mind.
A tap sounded at the window.
On any other night, Harper would have lurched for her gun. Tonight, only one person was crazy enough to risk life and limb on her rusty fire escape. The only question was why?
She eased her arm from her face, and her head toward the window. Declan’s frame clogged her twinkling city view. He’d removed his tie and coat. Sinewy forearms shown tan beneath rolled cuffs. In two fingers, he held a six-pack mix of Birra Moretti and Asahi Kuronama. Instead of a smile or smolder, his handsome face was set in neutral.
Her heart skittered. So she flung herself off the bed and stalked to the window. The rickety thing opened smoothly on an easy pull, because she was the only one crazy enough to dangle her feet through the railing and watch the city each night before bed.
Harper braced her hand on the frame, barring his entrance. “I’m not worth wining and dining or beering and fucking. As you can see.” She flipped a hand toward the coffee table that doubled as a dining table. “There’s no big payout.”
When they hit the ledge, the beer bottles clinked together. Declan’s hands wrapped her waist, and he plucked her off her feet.
She clutched his biceps for balance, then ducked as he hoisted her through the window.
“Payouts come in many forms, Harper.” His hard chest pinned her to the brick. One hand skated to her ass for support while the other heated a path to her neck. Her legs dangled in thin air. “From what I’ve seen, this is my most justifiable risk-reward to date.”
The words rumbled beneath his stout muscles, vibrating against her breast. A hint of champagne wafted off his breath as his lips drew near.
“How about you?”
Her conscience screamed, “No!” But her nipples beaded, and her clit pulsed against the tip of his erection. Harper bit her lips to keep from screaming, “Yes!” Her hands fisted in the starch of his shirt, and her body strained in defiance of her control.
“Why me?” Harper’s head shook. “No, I know why. You’re just trying to screw my case.”
“You don’t have a case. No one does. What I do is legend and morally reprehensible, but not illegal in most states or provinces.” The middle of his brow pinched, and his tone dropped. “I’m trying to screw you, not your case.”
He pressed her so hard with his body it forced the air from her lungs. “Yes,” she whispered with the last of her breath.
His hands seized the split of her dress and yanked. The delicate material shrieked. Sultry night air blew across her bare cheeks. He levered back, but his expression elicited a gasp. Animalistic lust tensed his features. With practiced hands he hiked her onto his hips and guided her legs around his torso.
Harper moaned at the shock of full contact with his rigid girth.
“Kiss me, Harper. Show me you want this as much as I do. I’m desperate for you.”
The silk of his hair tickled her fingers as she wound them full. She leaned to his mouth, inch by excruciating inch, knowing as soon as she made contact, there would be no turning back. He held himself taut, breathing as deeply as she. Their lips touched, mouths open in anticipation. Harper dragged her hands to his face, hiding the sweetness of their kiss from the world, and maybe herself.
Magnus’s arms coiled around her back, holding her as firmly as the wall had. His hands splayed hot on her shoulders. She nestled her mouth, moving it this way and that, against his, relishing the feel. Firm and supple at the same time. Tender and harsh. Her tongue slipped inside, tasting.
One hand abandoned her while the other coasted to her bottom. She heard the swoosh of leather, the rasp of a zipper. A foil wrapper came next. Yet, his gaze remained absorbed on her. He sat on the narrow ledge, supporting them with his powerful legs. Without a word, he dragged her panties to the side, and positioned the thick head of his cock at the cleft of her slick channel.
When he eased her deliberately onto his shaft, Harper broke the kiss. She moaned as he filled her to the boundary of pleasure and pain.
His hands left her bottom and dove into her hair, framing her face. He nibbled her lower lip and breathed her deep. “God, Harper, touch me.”
The pleading in his voice had her holding his face tighter and pulling him closer, though there was no part of her not touching him. Their mouths mated until her lips stung, and her body craved everything he had to offer. Slowly she leaned back, holding his gaze as her hands dropped to his buttons. Each loosened fastener revealed more slabs of muscle under snug skin that she explored with her fingers.
She tugged the shirt off his shoulders and clamped onto the bulging cords. One steady rock of her hips built onto another. Magnus held her face close, stripping her bare with his gaze—to her very soul—while she loved him with her body. There were no tricks of a seasoned pro seducing a woman. She’d seen them, knew he had them. But on t
he balcony in sight of a tiny chunk of Manhattan, only the two of them existed.
Harper arched. The position rubbed her breasts and clit against his hard body. Orgasm shook her from the inside out. She came with short pants and quiet mews. When the climax rose too high, her lids clamped shut and her body bowed.
Magnus attacked her neck with fierce kisses and scrapes of his teeth. He squeezed the globes of her ass in his hands, guiding her up and down his engorged penis. On the fourth stroke, his nails skewered her skin.
Harper’s gaze found his as he pulsed his release deep inside. His jaw strained and every muscle in his body coiled, but he didn’t look away. Those vibrant blue eyes bore into her dark ones, just as they had in the bathroom.
He snugged a hand over hers, atop his strumming heart, and filled his lungs. Neither of them moved or said a word. Only held the moment as furiously as they could. When their breaths evened, he leaned forward and nibbled her collarbone while he shredded the rest of the most expensive garment she owned.
A giggle slipped from her lips as he tossed the spent material though the window. The laughter died the moment he lifted her heavy breasts to his mouth, basting each in eager praise.
His agile fingers dipped lower, slipping and swirling around her sensitive folds. “Kiss me and come for me, but don’t let me go.”
Hips rolling, she rode his still-rigid girth and trained hand. He stoked her little nub in the pinch of his thumb and forefinger. His other hand toyed with her distended nipple, while his lips roamed her chest.
A heat wave more fearsome than any a city-dweller had ever seen engulfed her. Flames danced behind her lids. Harper held tight to the dangerous spark, hugging him with every bit of strength her shaky body possessed. The strong, predatory swindler buried his face in her tresses, clasping her just as intensely.
* * *
Magnus blinked in the morning sun and wondered how he’d slept through the city racket with the window open. When he stretched into the hot body next to him, he remembered in a wicked flash. Harper’s long, onyx hair fanned over the pillow, nestling her angular and breathtaking features. Gone was the heavy make-up. He relished her fresh-faced serenity. Her tongue was sharp but honest. Endearing.
He knew familial love, but the love for a woman had been about as real as the Cubs winning the World Series in the next century. He didn’t know if things would work between him and Harper past breakfast. But he knew even the potential of time with her, of affection, and something more was worth a try.
Rolling close, he draped one arm over her torso and snuck another under the pillow to tangle in her hands.
Her lashes fluttered open. The brackets of her thin lips etched in a smile that punched him in the gut. If he’d thought making love with her was something, waking with her was just as sweet.
“At the gallery,” she whispered. “You didn’t let her touch you.”
“None have, except you. And you did it before your fingers grazed my skin.”
The unmistakable click-click of hand-cuffs scratched his brain a moment before the chill of metal cinched around his pillow-covered wrist. Magnus tamped the spike of adrenaline at the thought of being caged. If Harper held the key, he might well enjoy the punishment. That was a big if. Would she relinquish him to the handful of people champing for his sun-dried pelt?
“So you’re planning on keeping me?” Magnus smiled to camouflage his real concern. He wasn’t a bad man. He wasn’t a good one either. There were plenty of counts that would keep him behind bars long enough that he’d lose Harper. And her honor would let them. Hell, her morals might demand it. Damn ironic that the trait he most liked about her—besides her sweet ass and disarming smile—would be the one that sealed his fate.
“Oh, yes.” Her brows waggled. The rounds of her cheeks and arching mouth knocked him back onto the pillow. A wrinkle worked its way between her brows. “I just can’t decide for what: business or pleasure.”
“Why not both?” he offered the Hail-Mary-long-shot of his lifetime, and that was saying something.
Her mouth opened, and then closed. She bore into his gaze with her own, searching for what, he didn’t know, but hoped his walls dropped enough that she caught a glimpse of it. “I’m listening,” she whispered.
Magnus cradled her cheek in his hand, beyond thankful to whatever god listened to his plea and determined to become a man worthy of the beauty in his embrace.
“Check out my story, Detective Lang. Whatever grievous charges stick, force me to work off my sentence here, with you.”
Those dark eyes shifted back and forth. Weighing her career and morals against her lust and—just maybe—a piece of her heart. A breath whooshed past him laden with mint and a hint of sex.
“I don’t know.”
Magnus’s lungs stung.
Pink lips formed a pout and Harper shrugged. “I do like the way you look in handcuffs.”
His heart started beating again, and he pulled her mouth to his. More than willing for his advance, she rushed him. The tips of her fingers splayed across his cheeks and roamed his neck. A giggle spilled out onto his tongue and seeped into his soul. Hell, he’d try any look for her. Cuffs. Suits. Jeans. Even prison stripes. But he wouldn’t let her know it. Not yet.
Opals
Axa Lee
When he thought of her, he tasted opals. One opal. The raw, uncut stone he’d stolen, carried in his mouth as he shimmied down the drainpipe and sprinted across the acres of dew-soaked lawns of the manse, to pay her blood price. But that had been a long time ago, when they were not who they were now. He thought of her often, climbed so high in the City Above. But from where he sat, even on a throne, such a height meant only a farther distance to fall.
The dark-haired girl in his bed, the one with the Goth eyes, rose and stumbled to her clothes. All the grift-girls wanted a turn with the Grif himself.
“My liege,” she slurred as she left.
He had impressions of dark pubic hair, slim, supple muscles, jutting pink bitable nipples, and a tight pussy. She’d stagger down the steep, half-rotted tavern stairs and rejoin the party below, of thieves and pickpockets, connivers, dodgers, and their ladies. She’d drink and fuck and shriek her laughter, strident and loud, his spunk and that of others running down her leg.
She didn’t interest him.
He rose, crossing the moon-lit room to the chair where his coat lay. Without disturbing the fabric, more from habit of practice than from necessity, he pulled the letter out of a pocket, though he already knew what it said. Come to me, written in cipher—the same code they’d used as children—the handwriting elegantly soaring and diving along the single page. The princess’s own letterhead with flowers pressed into the paper as a watermark to prove its authenticity.
Come to me, the note said, and nothing else. But it didn’t need to; she’d said where she wanted him, given him all the clues he needed to get there. He just didn’t know what those clues were yet.
He looked out the tavern window to the City Above. The moon hung high above the city, shining large and luminous, hanging precariously over the castle spires of the City Above, as though it might be unhinged and crash to earth.
Opals.
She sent these missives sometimes, on various mediums, all in cipher, all meant as cryptic challenges, daring him to steal something, always the same thing—her. She wanted to be taken, desired, stolen. And he obliged. After all, she was his oldest friend. As the king’s property, death was the result for any man who’d touch her, if he dared.
And he would dare, very much; he would dare.
And that’s when he saw it.
“Oh, you brilliant little bitch,” he said.
* * *
The palace guards slumped at their posts, asleep to a man in the darkness. The watch fires blazed away, unmonitored. The western wall was the highest and darkest of the various points of entry into the castle. Exactly why he had chosen it—as it was not only generally regarded as impossible to climb, but, as a
result, the least guarded. After all, who wasted manpower on an impossible wall?
The City Above sat on a plateau, with the backside of the palace wall rising straight up from the sheer sides of the rock. The princess’s tower, the second tallest tower, lay just beyond, an impossible span between the top of the wall and the wall of the tower for anyone who wasn’t the king of thieves. He let himself relax into the climb, his soft-soled shoes pliable from years of use, his fingers nimble, finding cracks in the rock that no average man could have found let alone grip. But grip he did, spidering up the wall with a thief’s grace. Most thieves would have utilized the dark of the moon, but even she had seen the folly in this. Too much darkness might hide one from the guards, but it would also hide hand and footholds from a thief. No—a partial moon, a waning moon with its paler light, provided sufficient moonlight, making him less apt to misjudge and fall to his death, and taking advantage of the laxness of lazy guards, too resigned in their position to expect a thief daring enough to attempt the climb.
He liked being where he was least expected.
After more than a little effort, he reached the window he sought and hauled himself bodily into the princess’s rooms.
She was waiting there, staring into the fireplace, her mouth forming a soft ‘O’ of surprise. Then she smiled.
That cocksure grin that went straight to his groin. The same way it had ever since he’d first seen her as a woman when they were kids and not just another one of his mates running barefoot from the guards through the streets of the City Below.
“You came,” she said, then cocked her head to the side with a roguish smile. “I was beginning to think it was too much of a challenge.”
He threw down his fingerless gloves on the table like a challenge, and began stripping himself from the layers of clothing, meant to fold over themselves easily, so as to match the surroundings in any situation, tossing them all aside without a glance. “Woman, I just climbed thousands of feet up an impossible rock face, past guards armed to the teeth and ready to shove a sword through my gullet. I scaled the castle walls and into the top of the tallest bloody tower in the City Above.” He spread his arms wide. “A little appreciation?”
