True. Mick’s temperature gauge ran hot, so he wore shirts that showed off his tats and cut arms. The most he gave into the weather was a leather vest when he rode his motorcycle. On a very rare occasion, she’d seen him wear a leather jacket, but that was as uncommon as a smooth road.
By the time they backed into Peg’s drive, Dez’s fingers were thawed and Nate’s sniffles had slowed, but she knew his had nothing to do with the temperature. They needed to wrap this case so they could get him the help he deserved. She was a piss-poor substitute for a mom, and at some point the permanence of his loss was going to hit him.
She followed the routine from the night before, having Nate take a shower and change into pajamas. They’d need to do laundry or go shopping if they stayed much longer, but Blake had no news on his end. His friend Logan worked in the Bureau and was trying to chase down the leak, because Blake was too busy getting his ass chewed to make any progress. Earlier in the day, Blake claimed he was three seconds from quitting the task force, but Dez figured that had more to do with his girlfriend in the hospital than work.
Nate refused a story or a half hour of television. Exhaustion hung on him like a dark cloud, so she turned out the light and hoped the morning would be easier for him, that there would be fewer surprises. Less drama. Not that anything had gone that well for them up to now.
Patrick Sullivan was one smart crook. He’d arranged a meeting with Blake on the morning of the ambush. Blake and Mick thought they were moving to the inside of Sully’s operation, but Sully had already made them for cops. Although Mick wasn’t technically a cop, he worked on most of their operations in some capacity, sanctioned or otherwise. While they were at the meet, one of Sully’s goons attacked Vicki, Blake’s girlfriend. Vicki and her bodyguard were shot and still recovering from surgery. At the same time one of Sully’s men attacked Vicki, another set of goons ambushed Dez and the WITSEC agents. It was a serious disaster. Sully wasn’t making it easy on them, and he was confident enough to believe he would walk.
While Dez pondered the case, she made a quick lap around the house, turning off lights, lowering the thermostat, and checking the door locks, a pattern she’d watched Peg follow every night she’d lived there. Using fridge magnets, she hung up the placemat coloring page. It fit in Peg’s house, surrounded by Peg’s art. It wouldn’t fit as well in Dez’s isolated loft, and knowing it put a hitch in her heart. The fan from the furnace kicked off, leaving the house in silence, which she filled with dark thoughts. The wind whistled through old windows, promising a cold night. Too cold for snow, she thought, climbing the stairs.
The news from Blake today wasn’t much better. According to Blake, the second WITSEC agent was missing, but there was blood all over his car. He could be dead or he could be the mole. Post-ambush investigations showed no link between the agents and Sully, and there was nothing in their financials to indicate they were on the take. The fire investigation came up with three bodies. A search was ongoing for Dez. Her financials were clean, but Sully could doctor them if he really wanted to leave her hanging in the wind, which might be the reason her mug shot was being broadcast.
No one had linked Dez to Mick, at least officially. She’d dropped off the radar with nothing tying her to Aunt Peg. If she was safe, Nate was safe, and right now, that was their priority. The clues in this particular case were nonexistent. Since Sully made them for cops, he’d covered his ass and had the best alibi on the planet. He’d been sitting in a café with more than a dozen surveillance agents watching. They had been trying to track the movement of his drugs while also trying to track the money laundering operation. Both investigations were stalled. To top it off, Sully wanted Nate. Dez wouldn’t let it happen.
The air in the bedroom was already starting to cool as the draft from the old window blew like a ghost through the house. She pulled the drapes closed to keep winter trapped outside. How were they supposed to bust Sully if they didn’t know anything about his operation? His lawyers had called the police surveillance harassment, so the task force had to back off. Essentially, Sully could do whatever he wanted without anyone knowing any better. There was a reason he’d never been convicted.
Mick walked into the room while Dez transferred the decorative pillows to the chair under the window. Fresh from the shower and smelling fine, he wore nothing but a pair of faded jeans low on his hips. His bare chest showed off a wide expanse of bare skin, tattoos, and scars. The man was a warrior, and no one would confuse him with anything less. His dark blond hair hung wet on shoulders so muscular, they made her mouth water. The sinewy strength traveled in tempting hills and valleys around his shoulders and down defined biceps. One brawny arm was covered in a Celtic tattoo sleeve; an intricate blend of knots and swirls, the face of a warrior and a sword. The indigo ink was mesmerizing. She could spend hours examining it, finding hidden symbols, and dissecting the meanings. Dez smoothed her sweater to keep her hands from reaching out to touch.
A single tattoo marked his other arm slightly above an angry wound. The tat was Mick’s first, a set of wings with a date. Tommy’s death day. If Derek’s attack had damaged the tat, Mick would have kicked Derek’s ass. There would have been no stopping him. As it was, the dart didn’t go deep, but the arc of Derek’s arm had slashed open raw flesh, jagged, and inflamed. The missile had missed Mick’s wings by less than an inch. “Did you clean the wound?”
“No, I thought I’d let it get infected,” he said with a straight face.
“Shut up.” She grinned. The sarcasm put her back on an even keel. “Want a bandage?”
“If you have one to spare,” he said with a typical Mick shrug.
“Doctor Diane gave me plenty. Want a pain pill?”
He just stared at her like she was an idiot while she slathered on antibiotic ointment and placed a clean bandage over the open wound. Mick never took pain pills, not even Tylenol, at least as long as she’d known him. He’d never been shot, so maybe that would change things, but he’d been stitched up plenty of times, and he’d never taken more than a local during the procedure. Sometimes he refused even that. Dez always figured he’d watched Blake’s brother Craig fall down the rabbit hole of addiction, and the anti-drug seed had been planted early. She respected the sentiment but figured there was a happy middle ground. If she never had to get stitched again without being numb, she’d be a happy girl. The tequila really hadn’t helped.
“No meds, huh. Tequila? It’s Doctor Diane approved.” Dez shoved her hair off her shoulder, but the new shorter length wisped back in place.
Mick’s grim face turned up in a smile. “Does your aunt actually have tequila?”
“Maybe? She’s running around with a boy all night—something I wasn’t allowed to do—so who knows what other dark secrets she hides. I can go look.”
“Dez?” Mick said, his voice gravelly.
“Yeah?” The bandage she put over his wound covered half the angel. She rubbed the edges of the bandage to create a tight seal, biting her lip in concentration. Longer than necessary, she tended to his injury. Any excuse to touch.
“That’s the fifth time you’ve sealed the bandage. If you want to rub your hands over me, there are other body parts that need your attention.”
She started, lifting her hands away. She hadn’t meant to pet him, but his tight, toned skin demanded her touch.
“Don’t stop.” He grabbed her wrists and pulled her to his front where he laid her palms against his warm, bare chest.
A hungry moan sounded from deep in her throat. The man had a killer body, and this was the closest she’d ever been, with her palms flat against his solid pecs. She and Mick had worked together for so long, she’d stopped noticing. It was a defense mechanism to never notice the whole package, never look straight on. She’d catch a glimpse out of the corner of her eye and think, Wow, Mick has it going on—good for him. But she’d never allowed herself to process the way he was built; the way she responded.
Sure, maybe she caught a glimpse from acro
ss the gym or coming out of the shower wearing a pair of jeans and nothing else—she wasn’t blind—but never close enough to want. To touch. God, she wanted him. A hitch in her pulse was like an opening volley, and her body raced ahead as if she’d given the green light on a dangerous mission. Was she giving it the green light? They’d been tight friends, good partners.
Lust flooded her system like a drug, and she could easily see getting strung out on Mick. Addicted. Her fingers itched to explore, but they had set boundaries for a reason. “Are we really going to do this?” Her tone was breathy and unsure. A kiss they could ignore, pretend it never happened, but sex changed the dynamic.
Mick released her wrists to settle his large hands at her waist. “Put your hands on me, Destiny. I’ve dreamed about it long enough.”
Nerves fluttered through her chest like hummingbird wings. Had he really dreamed of this? Of them? Knowing he wanted her—had fantasized about her—grabbed her by the throat. She tilted her head to look him in the eye. His eyes were varying shades of amber, like a polished piece of tiger’s eye. Hard, like the stone, but with hidden pockets of dark and light. How had she never noticed before? How had he never drawn her in with the mesmerizing depth? The pupils were enlarged with desire, and his lids dropped low. He licked his lips, and her body clenched in response.
Fuck it. Sometimes on a mission you had to improvise.
Determined, she made the first tentative swipe across velvet skin. Muscle bunched and twitched beneath her fingertips. The Celtic sleeve wrapped around his shoulder and swooped down to circle one side of his massive chest. The dark ink lifted the skin slightly like braille. Dez paused, rubbed her thumb over the dips and ridges. It was exactly like reading braille. Mick’s emotions were literally on his sleeve, penetrating his skin like an ancient text. The man didn’t talk much, but his body art spoke for him. He had untapped depths which drew her as much as the muscles and the ink.
His body was every girl’s wet dream, but his heart was raw emotion. The tattoo was intricate, symbolic, showing anyone who dared to look close enough the soul of this interesting, complex man. She trailed her hands down his sides; let her thumbs smooth across his abs. They jumped beneath her caress, feeding a compulsion she couldn’t deny. Her hands weren’t enough. She wanted to climb inside his skin; wanted him under her skin, inside her in every way she could take him.
Drawn, she leaned close and pressed her lips to the tattoo that knotted over his heart. The heavy beat of his pulse thumped under his skin, against her lips, jumping to a faster tune as she tasted and explored. His hands skated under her sweater to brush bare skin. The touch was light, a contrast to such a hard, rough man. The caress moved up her sides, down her spine, to repeat, each sweep grazing closer to her breasts, building want like a hunger inside her. Her tongue grew more demanding against his flesh, until she nipped the skin, and his muscles jerked in response.
It was heady stuff for such a strong man to quiver at her touch. Intoxicated by the power, she grew bolder; clamped her lips around his nipple and pulled. He sucked in a breath and pulled her close so his erection flexed against her stomach. In a swift move, he yanked the sweater over her head, had her bra off before she’d registered the cool air against her back.
Skin to skin. She gloried in the sensation. Her nipples pressed to his hard body, her bare midriff against abs so hard they made her groan his name. A plea. A demand.
He answered in slow, torturous moves. Circling, memorizing her body, brushing the bottom of her breasts before sweeping to her back and around again, each time higher up her breast, but shy of where she craved, until she was panting with desperation. Her skin was alive with a craving only he could fill. The next sweep, she arched her back to tease her nipple against his fingertips. He took the bait as his large hands cupped and kneaded her breasts, brushed across her nipples.
Desire ignited and spread like wildfire along her skin until she was ablaze with need. This was a different Mick than she’d known before. Slow and soft, emotion and action in a lethal combination. He melted her resistance before she’d known to protect herself, because this Mick was a serious hazard to her heart.
She scraped her fingernails up his pecs before burying them in the hair at the nape of his neck. She didn’t ask, she took, pressing her lips to his, the move sliding her body across his, bringing her up to her toes, and still she had to yank him lower. She wanted to climb him like a mountain, laying claim to the territory she explored, but then he slid his hands into the back of her jeans, cupping her bottom. Dez swallowed, the only movement her body allowed.
The big hands gripping her ass was too much. Not enough. He leaned back, drawing her lower lip between his. The pull zapped straight to her core. “I need you naked,” she said.
“You’ll get me there.” A wicked dark glint flickered in his amber eyes. He backed her into the bed like a dance, before giving a gentle push and sending her falling to the soft mattress.
He stripped her down, fast—he moved fast for a big guy. The man had moves. The mattress buckled as he braced a thigh on either side of hers, nearly sitting on her lap, the denim rubbing her bare skin. “You have the sweetest body, Destiny.”
The way he said her full name—reverent, like a prayer—wiped away the barriers she’d built. Yeah, he had moves much more dangerous, more insidious than removing her clothes. He whispered Destiny against her skin like he knew the name was the key to her soul. It was. She’d chosen the name in a desperate attempt to define herself after giving birth to a child she couldn’t keep. After burying parents she hadn’t wanted.
When she’d joined the police force, she’d realized the name revealed too much—it was too soft for a cop—so she’d shortened it. Dez was strong with a badass flare, the image she presented to the world, but Mick had burrowed beneath the barrier, drawing her heart to the fore. She couldn’t escape his tender hand. Where did the gentleness hide in a man they called a mountain? He seemed so one dimensional. Big guy, out for revenge. Committed to the cause, but separate. And in that separateness, he was seeking something more, something that lived inside her skin. She swallowed fear even as his touch sparked excitement in her veins. The body she would sacrifice. Gladly, willingly, but the heart?
“Destiny,” he whispered.
More, her heart answered. Mick’s intrusion on her soul had awakened a part of her long dormant, and she didn’t have the power to lock it away again. Not when his hands moved on her; when his lips teased. Mick kept the weight of his body balanced on the knees bracketing her, with just enough pressure to make her wet with anticipation. His big hands explored, lightly at first before settling in, rubbing and kneading. Inciting. His erection pressed her core as he shifted his hips back and forth, foreshadowing. The scratch of his jeans was exquisite torture. Too much. Not enough.
“More,” she moaned.
He chuckled before sliding down her body, his massive shoulders spreading her legs as he moved low to settle above her core, so close his breath heated the skin. He lifted her knees before sliding his hands down the back of her thighs to the skin between her buttocks and her thighs. His thumbs traced the sensitive skin on each side. “The first time I saw you, you were wearing this tight-ass skirt. I wanted my hands right here. Been thinking about it, Dez.”
The rumble of his voice vibrated against her clit. He leaned to bite the soft skin at the crease of her thigh and left butt cheek. She nearly came off the bed. “That’s it, that’s the move I wanted to see, wanted to feel.” He nibbled his way up her inner thigh until she was mindless. The first flick of his tongue nearly sent her into orbit. He chuckled against her sensitive flesh.
“We’re going to have fun, you and me.” Then he went about proving it. Licking and tasting and driving her beyond human limits. The slide of one big finger tested her opening before sliding in, slow, torturous, deep, but not deep enough.
“Please.” God, she didn’t have words for what she wanted, for what he drove her to, didn’t know what she wanted
until he slid the second finger between her wet folds. Mick had big fingers, and they pressed buttons she didn’t know she had. Need and want; a desperate spiral of animal lust had her arching and rocking into his touch until she exploded.
The orgasm fractured the world like C-4 in a confined space. It rocked the mattress, sent sparks shooting out of the top of her head. He sucked and licked, taking everything she had until Dez fell into the soft mattress, depleted, sated. He nipped her inner thigh before shucking his jeans and tossing them to the floor.
Oh my. Dez licked her lips. She’s just found the mother lode. Here was a part of Mick she’d never seen. His thighs were like tree trunks and just as hard, muscle and tendon wrapping around like roots. Nothing about him was soft, including his shaft. She moaned, part desire, part fear. Mick was about to ruin her for other men.
Chapter Ten
Mick climbed Destiny’s body, her scent still wrapped around him. The way she’d responded to his touch, as if she’d wanted him as much, for as long, as he had. “Why did we wait so long?” he wondered as he nibbled her neck.
“We’re obviously not as smart as we think we are.”
He chuckled and nipped his way to her jawline. That’s what he liked about Dez. No pretense. No hiding. His cock jerked with the need to bury himself inside her wet heat. Yeah, they’d get there. He set the condom he’d pulled from his jeans pocket onto the bed beside them. They’d get there, just not yet. He wanted to ramp her back up, get her hot and wet and needy as fuck before he gave in to the temptation of her sweet pussy.
He was a big guy, and she was reed thin. He didn’t want to hurt her. He nibbled her earlobe, felt her body soften in response, and then she reached between them and wrapped her long cool fingers around his erection. “Fuck.” Mick thrust into her touch, the move instinctive. He bit back the roar that climbed his throat.
She worked him so he forgot what he was doing. In a swift move, he rolled to his back, taking her with so she straddled his thighs. Not missing a beat, she continued the seduction, adding a hand to cup his balls. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from spilling like a teenager. Grabbing her behind the neck, he pulled her low to take her mouth, her lips, her tongue. They tangled, maneuvering for control, giving and taking while a sharp spike of electricity shot up his spine. He couldn’t keep his hands gentle as they took her body, kneading and groping until she panted and moaned. She jerked upright to ride him.
Unstoppable (The Untouchable Series) Page 9
