by Amy Andrews
She dropped another light kiss on the other side of his mouth, her breath hitching when he turned into it as she was pulling away, parting his mouth slightly looking for more.
Ivy took that as a sign.
She kissed him full on the mouth now, opening shamelessly, sweeping her tongue in, moaning and rubbing herself just as shamelessly against the bulge in his jeans, the one that had started it all. She whimpered as it both eased and inflamed the fire burning out of control between her legs.
“God, that’s sooo good,” she whispered against his mouth, grinding into him harder, angling herself for best effect.
“Jesus Christ,” he whispered back. “I can’t think when you do that.”
Good. She didn’t want him to think. She leaned in, chased his retreating mouth, and claimed it, moaning against his lips, pleading for entry. He resisted for one beat, two, then he groaned and every tight line and tense muscle in his body dissolved as he kissed her back.
His head lifted off the lounge to meet each urgent demand of her mouth and finally, finally his hands joined the party.
Goosebumps broke out on her legs as they glided up her bare thighs and continued on to her butt, each palm claiming a cheek, pulling her hips in closer to the long hard thrust of him.
Ivy moaned as his hands squeezed, kneading the flesh as he bucked against her downward movements. Then his hands moved up, slipping under her shirt, smoothing up her back, pebbling her skin and leaving a trail of havoc in their wake. They settled against her shoulder blades, anchoring her hard against him as their hips and mouths made promises about what was to come.
Dean shifted, twisting his hips, easing her down onto the couch, the weight of his torso pining her there, their frantic heartbeats pounding as one. Her legs locked automatically around his waist as his mouth found her neck.
She gasped as he ravaged it with his tongue and teeth, torturing every exposed inch of skin until she was panting for more. He moved lower, running a damp trail from the hollow of her throat to the V of her T-shirt with his hot tongue.
Ivy’s nipples tightened further, tingling for attention. She was dying. And she’d never felt more alive. She desperately wanted to feel the heat of his mouth on their hardened tips and she arched her back, silently, shamelessly begging for it.
He sucked one of them through the material of her T-shirt and she cried out, twisting her hand hard in his hair.
Then her phone rang.
Chapter Ten
It took several seconds for Ivy to even assimilate in her brain that it was her phone. All she knew was that one second Dean was there, sucking on her nipple, making a wet ring on her T-shirt and the next he was gone. Completely gone. Standing up, his back to her, one hand shoved on his hip, the other raking through his hair.
She blinked up at him as her phone jangled away in a completely separate stratosphere to the one they were currently in. What the hell had just happened? He couldn’t leave her like this, every cell on fire, every nerve-ending screaming for release.
She was going to burn up, ignite, disintegrate.
There was only one way to put out the fire and Dean couldn’t even look at her.
She watched through hazy vision as he leaned over, picked her phone up off the coffee table, and held it out to her.
“It’s your father.” His mouth was a grim slash.
The Colonel. Of course it was. The man had always had a sixth sense for when things were getting interesting with a guy, why should a year apart and being an adult make things any different?
Fabulous timing, Daddy dearest.
Her higher functions finally coming back online, Ivy swung her legs around, taking the phone off Dean as she righted herself. She might as well take the damn thing. Dean didn’t look like he was going to talk anytime soon and she needed some time to think.
Her hand shook as she slid the bar across to answer the call. “Hi, Dad,” she said, her voice as husky as it usually was after a shift at the Cross Bar.
She barely listened as her father hit her with his usual barrage of questions, her eyes following Dean instead as he headed toward the bathroom and disappeared inside, the door closing with a soft click.
…
Seth counted to ten as he leaned over the vanity, the muscles in his forearms almost bursting through the skin, he was gripping the edge so damn hard.
Saved by the Colonel.
Again.
It should have been instant soft-on material, but it wasn’t. Not with his brain still stuck back at the part where he was sucking Ivy’s breast, leaving a wet patch on her shirt. He shook his head at his reflection in utter disgust. His hair was dishevelled from where Ivy had ruffled it and his mouth was puffy from where she’d ravished it.
“Fuck,” he whispered. “What were you thinking?”
It was the crying. It had to be. No woman had ever shed tears for him. Hell, he’d never even told another woman his story. And her reaction had…undone him.
He hadn’t been prepared for the deep well of empathy that bubbled out of her. Her emotional antennas were obviously fine-tuned and she was perfectly okay with expressing her feelings.
He’d been in a lot of situations where emotions were the enemy and he hadn’t had a lot of empathy in his life. He’d have never in a million years believed that would make him vulnerable.
Until now.
Vulnerable in a different kind of way to a different kind of enemy—the Colonel’s daughter.
She’d slipped under his skin. And that was dangerous.
I always wanted a brother.
Hell. He did not want to be her goddamn brother. He wanted to go out there now and nail her to the couch with the erection-that-wouldn’t-die. But doing that, while pretending to be just some guy caught up in the same situation when he was actually on her father’s payroll was wrong on so many levels.
There was no way out of this that he looked good except if he didn’t succumb to his base urges. Or hers.
So, she’d shed some tears for him. He needed to do his job and leave his dick in his pants.
“Got that,” he told his reflection.
His reflection did not look happy.
Seth was in the middle of a very hot dream involving sucking on Ivy’s bare nipple when the bedside phone rang sometime after four. He started, lurching fully upright on a burst of adrenaline, snapping on the lamp, the light chasing away the tantalizing remnants of the dream.
His erection, on the other hand, wasn’t going anywhere.
Ivy sat up, too, squinting, her hair in complete disarray. “Who could that be?” she asked, and even though her voice was sleepy there was a distinct edge to it.
“I don’t know,” Seth said as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and snatched up the jangling phone. “Hello?”
“Dean? This is detective Bridges. I’m sorry to be calling so late.”
Seth recognised the older man’s voice, but he wasn’t highly respected and much sought-after in the security industry by trusting people on face value. “Password?”
“Sentry.”
“Has something broken in the case?”
Ivy also swung her legs around. She was frowning, her teeth worrying her bottom lip. Seth nodded to assure her that the phone call was legitimate.
“Kade Harrison is dead. You said you wanted to know the minute it was resolved.”
“Yes. Thank you.” Seth’s neck muscles unfurled for the first time in days. He’d never doubted for a moment he could keep Ivy safe, it was the other variables out of his control that had worried him.
He smiled at Ivy and shot her the thumbs-up as she mouthed “What?” at him. Seth held up his hand, wanting to know all the info before he passed it on. “What happened?”
“A tip-off from the public lead us to where he’d been lying low. We surrounded the house an hour ago and tried to get him to surrender, but he decided he wanted to shoot it out. Came out with two guns blazing like he was John bloody Wayne. He was declared de
ad on the scene.”
Seth felt nothing over Kade’s death. He’d shot a man dead in cold blood then put a hit out on Ivy. One less scumbag in the world tonight. But for them, it was over. The threat against Ivy was null and void. She was going home and his contract was at an end.
His job was done.
Why did that feel so goddamn awful?
“So…we’re free to go?” He didn’t have to go to bed fully clothed anymore. He could sleep naked like he usually did.
“Yes. We’re about to pull the surveillance off the hotel. It’s too late for you guys to move now. Go back to sleep. We’ll swing by for debrief at seven. Congratulations, you have your lives back. Everything can return to normal.”
“Great. Thank you.”
Seth tried to sound enthusiastic, but the truth was his life was never going to be normal again. He had an awful feeling that from here on it would be divided into two parts. Before Ivy. And after Ivy.
“What do you fancy for breakfast? We’ll stop at the bakery on the way over.”
Seth glanced at Ivy. She was watching him intently, clearly trying to make out what was going on from the one-sided conversation. Her mouth was soft and pink and parted.
“Croissants.”
Seth hung up. “Kade’s dead. The police shot him an hour ago.”
Her eyes widened and her lips parted. “Really?”
He nodded. “Really.”
She stood. Then she sat again. “So…it’s over?”
He smiled even though it meant she’d be walking out of his life. “It is. You’re a free woman.”
“But…what about the hit? Won’t that still be in place?”
Seth shook his head. “Dead men don’t pay up and hit men don’t work for free. Word travels fast.”
“Hallelujah,” she said with a laugh.
“Amen.”
She pushed her hair back from her shoulders. “I can’t believe it.” Her smile grew bigger and bigger, turning her mouth from sexy to sublime.
“You can believe it.”
And they sat there grinning at each other for what seemed like ages, the awkwardness that had descended earlier after what had happened on the couch lost in the moment.
“Do they want us to go now?”
“No.” Seth shook his head. “They’re coming by for a debrief in the morning. And they’re bringing croissants.”
She angled her head slightly to one side, a soft smile tilting her mouth. “That was very sweet of you, Dean. Thank you.”
Seth cringed inwardly at the compliment. He wasn’t sweet. There’d been nothing sweet about him pushing her back against the couch and sucking on her nipple. “I’ll just check and see if the surveillance has gone yet.”
He stalked to the window, his frustrations needling him all the way. Dawn was breaking as he pulled the curtain aside and scanned the carpark. The surveillance van that he’d checked on before he’d crawled into bed was nowhere in sight.
In a few more hours he was never going to see her again. This period in his life would be over, but nothing was ever going to be the same.
The Colonel’s daughter wasn’t going to be easy to forget.
But he had to. There was no way she could ever know the truth about him. His work for her father would remain as private and confidential as it did with all of Seth’s clients.
“Dean?”
A lone car whizzed by on the major road that fronted the hotel as Seth’s shoulders tensed. He let the fabric fall from his hand before he turned to find her a few paces away, a frown drawing her brows together.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
He nodded. “All good. They’ve gone now.”
She joined him at the window, pushing in beside him, her scent crowding him. Cardamom. Seth took a small step in the other direction, removing himself from temptation as he leaned his shoulder into the window frame.
“So I could walk out this door right now and ride the lifts. If they had any?”
He tried not to think about the things he could do to her in a lift. Up against the wall. Going down. “Yes. You could.”
“I could walk out onto the street and hitch a lift home?”
“Yep. Although I wouldn’t recommend that as particularly safe and, to give you fair warning, I’d haul your ass back in here pretty damn quick if you even tried.”
The thought zinged straight to his cock as she leaned her forehead against the glass. The early morning sky blushed a soft pink over nearby tree tops. “What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get out of here?” she asked.
Take out the contacts. “Probably sleep for an entire day. What about you?”
“A bath,” she said without hesitation.
Of course it was. Because Seth wasn’t tortured enough by images of a naked Ivy.
She glanced at him. “What won’t you miss?”
“Crap coffee.”
“Oh come on, not dodging clumsy attempts to get in your pants from desperate virgins?”
He smiled. “No.” He’d always miss that.
He’d done the right thing, but those brief, hot moments wouldn’t be easy to forget.
“Really?” She quirked an eyebrow.
“Really. I think that was very flattering, very…” He cast around for an adjective, grabbing the one she’d thrown at him earlier. “Sweet.”
“Oh no,” she groaned. Her forehead thunked lightly against the glass again. “That does not make me feel better.”
He chuckled. “It doesn’t?”
“No. I feel like the wallflower being patronized by the cool guy.”
“You’re not a wallflower.”
“Says the cool guy,” she said derisively.
Seth looked down at her. He couldn’t let her go from here thinking that. No matter how much he should just leave it alone, he couldn’t walk away and not at least tell her how desirable she was.
“Look…Ivy.” She peered up at him with her wide green eyes. “I shouldn’t have let things get out of hand yesterday and I’m grateful to your father for ringing when he did. But that’s not because I don’t find you attractive. If this were a different situation then I would have gladly taken you up on your offer. I think you’re…gorgeous.”
God knew he wanted to push her up against the window right now and prove it to her.
She blinked, her mouth parting as she stared at him like she couldn’t quite believe what he’d said or was expecting him to retract it.
He probably should.
But he wouldn’t.
He was, however, getting the hell away from that delectable mouth. “I’m going back to bed,” he said, pushing off the door jamb. “So should you. Neither of us have had much sleep since this thing began and now Kade is dead, we can.”
…
Ivy stared after Dean’s retreating back. Sleep? Was he mad? He’d just confessed to finding her attractive and that if their circumstances had been different he would have taken her up on her offer.
If he thought she was going to be able to sleep now, he was bat shit crazy. So…if there hadn’t been a hit man out there trying to make them dead, if she’d just gone up to him at the Cross Bar and said how about it she could have already lost her virginity to him?
Hell, she could have been a damn expert by now.
Her heart thundered in her chest as she contemplated her options. They had a few hours till the cops came back and their circumstances had definitely changed.
He may want to sleep but she didn’t. She was wide awake.
Ivy’s hands trembled as she turned back to the window and she pressed them against the cool pane of glass. Dare she push Dean now? Again?
She’d never met a man like him. So calm and self-assured. So confident. Never met a man who could make her lose her breath just looking at him. Never wanted to be with a man in such a carnal way from the very first sight. Without ever having touched him. Hell, barely even spoken to him.
And it was now or never.
Ivy leaned her forehead on the glass, gathering herself, taking deep breaths. You can do this, Ivy Danforth.
Failure is not an option.
That was her father’s motto and as much as he drove her crazy from time to time with his pathological worrying, right now she was grateful for the tenacity behind those words.
She doubted he’d appreciate her applying them to this situation, but that was just too damn bad.
She strode toward Dean’s bed and stopped at the foot. He was propped up against the headboard, still fully clothed in those killer jeans, the remote in his hands. He looked at her warily when she shoved her hand on her hip.
“So what you’re saying,” she said, her pulse galloping in her chest and washing loudly through her ears, “is that you’re attracted to me?”
For a moment he looked like he was going to deny it again but he just nodded and said, “Yes.”
“So we could…do it now.”
He sat forward, a frown knitting his brows together. “It?”
“Yes. You know…sex.” Ivy’s cheeks flooded with heat. “We have a few hours to kill and”—she shrugged—“we both want the same thing.”
His throat bobbed as he stared at her. “Ivy.”
She ignored that familiar note of warning in his voice. “You said if the situation was different. And now it is.”
“No, it’s not.” The shake of his head was emphatic. “I’m not going to be that guy, Ivy.”
“What guy?”
“The guy who takes advantage of the situation to get myself laid.”
“I’m really fine with you taking advantage.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Well, I’m not.”
“Oh I see,” she said as realization cut her to the quick. “You were just flattering me before, telling me what I wanted to hear, trying to let me down gently.”
“No, Ivy. No. I wasn’t. That was all true. But listen to me.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Your first time shouldn’t be because you’re holed up in some hotel room under police protection with a guy you barely know.” He ran his hands up and down his knees. “We’re practically strangers, Ivy. There should be a prior relationship. There should be…dates. Romance.”
