Complicate

by Pam Godwin

  “The veranda out back is ideal.” She stretched on her toes to speak in his ear. “Last I checked, no one was out there.”

  All the smokers congregated on the huge veranda in front with a full bar.

  “I’ll go.” It was easier for her to do it since she could employ her feminine wiles—give the man a look, flash a little cleavage, lead him into a dark corner, and slide a steel blade between his ribs.

  “No, you did the last two. I want this one.” He squeezed her hip, his breath against her neck. “I’ll have a smoke on the veranda and wait for him. Stay here in the crowd. Keep an eye out. Don’t fucking wander off.”

  They were both armed. She wore a stiletto strapped to her garters on her inner thigh. He had multiple blades concealed beneath his suit, as well as two pistols.

  The guns were for emergency. The last thing they needed was a showdown with the polizia.

  “Do it quietly.” She narrowed her eyes then danced off into the fray.

  The gunman wouldn’t engage her in a crowd. Vincent didn’t pay his employees enough for them to risk getting arrested. The last two had been run-of-the-mill street thugs, looking for quick money. They’d waited until she was alone, where there were no witnesses, before they attacked.

  Sidling up to a group of laughing women, she danced with them while watching the man out of the corner of her eye. His gaze discreetly tracked Mike through the nightclub. He took a sip from his cocktail, watching over the rim of the glass long after Mike vanished beyond the doors of the veranda.

  Mike was alone in a poorly lit area. An easy target. Why wasn’t the man going after him?

  Maybe she and Mike hadn’t been marked after all. They’d changed disguises since Paris and London. Was she just being paranoid?

  No, it was too coincidental. Of all the nightclubs in all the cities, why would this guy come to this one, if not for her and Mike?

  People bounced and whirled around her, blocking and unblocking her view. Her heart rate quickened as she repositioned, trying to keep an eye on the threat while remaining inconspicuous.

  In her periphery, he finished his drink and set it on the table. Then he stood.

  She held her breath, her hips twitching, barely dancing.

  He didn’t turn toward the veranda. Without looking in her direction, he prowled directly toward her.

  Goddammit!

  What was he going to do? Drag her off the dance floor? Shoot her in front of all these people?

  Mike wasn’t here. She was alone among strangers. Maybe that was the only incentive this guy needed?

  The din of clinking bottles, pouring liquor, shouting, chatter, laughter, drunken revelry—it all melded together and swirled around her as she held her position. Running would be the absolute worst thing to do. She needed the cover and protection of the crowd.

  He wove around the dancers, never making eye contact with her. But he was undeniably headed for her. Twenty feet away. Fifteen.

  She moved deeper into the crowd of writhing, sweaty bodies, shoulder to shoulder, bouncing in sync. Hands and hips, heat and breaths, men and women—strangers rubbed up against her and slid away, only to be replaced by another and another.

  A friendly pair of arms came around her from behind, hugging her waist. A solid chest pressed against her back, bringing with it the scent of leather from the jacket he wore. Or maybe it was his skin? He was all around her, the flex of lean masculine muscle grinding intimately, brazenly, with her body.

  Ten feet away, her pursuer paused, looking everywhere but at her. Then he veered off to the left, fading into the throng.

  She relaxed against the stranger’s tall frame behind her, letting him guide her into a sensual dance. If she stayed with this guy long enough, maybe her pursuer would go after Mike.

  Christ, the guy knew how to move his body. The rock of his pelvis controlled the pace of hers, and his hands wandered with bold, confident strokes down her hips, molding around the fronts of her thighs, and slipping aggressive fingers beneath the short hem of her dress.

  Whoa! Down boy.

  Rough breaths pushed past her lips, and her insides melted into lava. So erotic, his touch. So dominating. Possessive.

  Dangerous.

  She gripped his forearms, pushing them away, but they were too strong. Unmoving.

  Familiar.

  With a gasp, she tried to turn toward him.

  He stopped her in the cage of his arms, tugging her in close and dragging his hard, whiskered jaw along her neck. “You’re a terrible dancer.”

  That voice, the gravelly rumble, the dark, silken cadence.

  Cole Hartman.

  Her entire body went rigid, and her lungs went up in smoke.

  “Don’t go stiff on me. Relax your hips.” His palms ran down the outsides of her thighs, charging her blood with seductive energy. “Your stalker is watching.”

  Evidently, she had more than one stalker, and this one wanted far more than a quick paycheck.

  His mission was personal.

  As months of paranoia hardened into reality, Lydia’s heartbeat exploded, ramming against her chest.

  She’d wronged Cole unforgivably. Of course, he would come after her. She should’ve trusted her instinct.

  He wanted revenge, but not here. He wouldn’t kill her in public. Too messy. Too many witnesses.

  Until she figured out his plan, all she could do was play along.

  Wiping the shock and fear off her face, she leaned back against his chest and angled her mouth toward his bent head. “How did you find me?”

  “I never lost you.” He twisted her around, dragging her pussy right up against his muscled thigh.

  Stunned by his words, his proximity, and his unrecognizable appearance, she could only stare. “You never had me.”

  “Oh, I’ve had you.” With his leg between hers and his hands on her waist, he drove their hips together, flexing and thrusting in the delicious rolling movements of sex. “I’ve had every hole in this body.”

  She didn’t need the reminder. Most nights, she sneaked away from Mike and pleasured herself in the bathroom to the memory. Cole had been an unforgettable experience, no matter how tainted the circumstances. She’d forced herself on him, and he’d fucked her right back. Tit for tat.

  He kept her moving with the grind of his body, maintaining the ruse of a flirtatious stranger. God help her, he looked like one.

  A tattered Misfits t-shirt peeked out from beneath a black motorcycle jacket. Black boots. Dark jeans. Clean, spiked hair. No beard. Just a shadow of stubble. And dimples.

  Treacherous dimples. Deep, sexy, ensnaring little dips of deception. They made him look boyish, harmless, and so goddamn gorgeous her hands shook with the effort not to touch his sculpted face.

  “What have you done to yourself?” She gave into the compulsion and set her fingers on his scratchy cheek, trying to reconcile her memory of him with the image before her.

  He leaned forward, bending her and putting a sexy roll into movement before yanking her back up. “You prefer the beard?”

  “Can’t decide.”

  The beard shouted male dominance, maturity, and sexual virility. The five o’clock shadow attempted to affect the same rugged masculinity with deliberate untidiness while not actually being unkempt.

  He probably smelled different. Cleaner. Less musky. A disheartening thought. She desperately missed his manly scent. But without all the hair, his dimples dramatically popped.

  She needed to stop staring at them.

  The song changed, and she forced her gaze around the nightclub, searching for the other stalker.

  “He’s on his way out.” Cole pulled her in close and pivoted, putting the front entrance in her line of sight.

  Sure enough, the man with the crooked nose headed to the door and slipped outside.

  Had Cole been watching Vincent’s man watch her? Had he not planned on revealing himself to her? He seemed only to pop in because Vincent’s goon was approaching.

>   How long would Mike wait before he gave up and came back inside? Another ten minutes? Long enough for Cole to get what he came for?

  “Are you going to kill me?” She dragged her gaze to his, burning in the heat of his twisting, writhing, gloriously ripped body.

  “Can’t decide.”

  “I keep thinking I should’ve let the stonecutter take your dick.”

  “I haven’t stopped thinking about you, either. Your perfect rack. Your sloppy cunt.” He palmed her backside, grinding her body against his thigh. “Your tight little asshole clenching around me. Fucking heaven.”

  With each word and rocking gyration of his hips, he slid closer, hotter, his hands traveling everywhere, feeling her up and down. If there was a lie in that smoldering look, she didn’t sense it. The man was a baffling contradiction.

  “You said you weren’t interested.” She pushed at his chest. “You fucked my ass to manipulate me.”

  “Is that what I did?” He pulled her back in. “Or what I said?”

  “You said it. Sure felt like you did it.”

  Was he fucking with her? Then? Or now?

  He touched the blonde tips of her wig, his knuckles brushing against her jaw. “I prefer the red.”

  Interesting. The wig matched the color of Danni’s hair.

  “It was fake.” She smacked his hand away.

  “Was any of it real?”

  Her pulse thrummed. “You tell me.”

  Their gazes locked, and electricity crackled across her skin, resurrecting her fear, for with it rose the flames of reckless longing. Their hips undulated together, and her insides buzzed, sparking with blistering desire.

  She never knew sexual tension like this existed. It seethed beneath his touch, growled through his heavy breaths, and dripped down her legs because dammit, she wasn’t wearing panties.

  Their grinding became so obscenely sexual she knew they were making a scene. But she couldn’t shove him away, and he showed no signs of stopping.

  Fused at the hips, they connected in rhythm and motion, pushing and pulling, slowing down and speeding up, dancing as one. Not fighting. Not trying to kill each other. They molded together and clung, sinking into the addictive burn. The hunger. The danger.

  She shivered, her breaths growing faster with the heavy rush of his. Nothing was sexier or more sinful than grooving up against this man. She wanted to live in his arms and do this for the rest of her life.

  But doubt and duty trickled in.

  Why was he dancing with her? Touching her? Staring at her like he was into her? Was it another trick?

  How many women had he fucked in the past six months? After seven years of celibacy, surely he hadn’t gone back to abstaining. He was too sexually charged, too goddamn filthy-minded to go without.

  And his dancing? Yeah, he had moves. All the moves. He was by far the best dancer in the discotheque. Maybe in all of Italy. She didn’t have to stretch her mind to guess who’d taught him.

  So what was he doing with her? With his good looks, sexy confidence, and dirty dancing, he wouldn’t be hard up for pussy. He could get it anywhere, anytime.

  Even now, every woman in the nightclub was eye-fucking him. The ladies corralled around, shaking their hips, waiting for him to toss away his current distraction and notice them.

  If he noticed them, he didn’t show it. His dark brown eyes never strayed from her. The longer he held her in his gaze, the more adventurous her hands became. Chiseled pecs, solid shoulders, corded neck, pillowy lips—she touched him everywhere, rubbing, caressing, stroking, and burning up.

  She was soaked between her legs, made worse by the blatant need hardening his body. He didn’t ram his erection against her, but he couldn’t hide it. She was intimately familiar with its shape in every stage of hardness. She knew his girth as he stretched every orifice of her body with dominating force.

  She knew it and missed it terribly. She missed him.

  The scent of him warmed her senses with outdoorsy undertones of leather and earth and masculine pheromones. Yeah, even without the beard, he still smelled deliciously lickable and distinctively him.

  He rocked against her, changing up the tempo, bringing her hips in for a slow grind. Then he gripped her nape, bringing her mouth in for a heated exchange of breaths, teasing her with a brush of lips, taunting her with the promise of more.

  Every action was sensual and calculated, wildly hungry and terrifyingly confident. Damn, but he knew what he was doing.

  He scared the shit out of her.

  So when his mouth fully captured hers, she tensed and tried to pull away. He grabbed her head, trapped her waist, and deepened the kiss, chasing her tongue and decimating her resistance.

  Controlled by desire, they attacked each other in a frenzy, dancing and moaning to their own music, spinning in their private orbit of touching, kissing, biting, licking, and grabbing. Whatever this was, it was impulsive, carnal, dangerous, and real. They weren’t capable of stopping. It was too potent, too infectious, taking over and twisting them up.

  He kissed her until she melted. Until they were panting together and pulling at each other’s clothes. She needed more of his touch, his hands on her skin. Her body had never felt more alive, her breasts heavy, and her breaths shallow and fast.

  She was so caught up in it she hadn’t realized they’d drifted away from the crowd. With her eyes screwed shut and all five senses wrapped up in Cole, she didn’t know he’d danced her into a nearby passageway until her back hit the wall.

  Her eyes flew open, and the air evacuated her lungs as he pinned her body with the weight of his. There was no one in view, this part of the club currently unused. It was just her and him and the fingers trailing up the outsides of her thighs.

  This was it. He’d separated her from the crowd, pulled her away from witnesses. He was going to fuck her or kill her. Probably both.

  She deserved it. She’d let him seduce her again and was officially too stupid to live.

  “What do you want from me?” She lifted her chin.

  “The truth.”

  Don’t trust him. It’s another manipulation.

  She was prepared to fight, but she wouldn’t kill him. She couldn’t, and that put her at a severe disadvantage. She blanked her expression.

  “Who’s Mike?” he asked. “Who is he to you?”

  “My partner.”

  “You’re fucking him.” A shadow passed over his beautiful face.

  “Why do you care?”

  “Do you love him? Every night, every city, you share a bed with him.”

  “You creepy pervert.” A chill ran down her spine. “You’re watching me?”

  “Who are you watching? I told you where to find the hard drive. He’s in Romania, not in a nightclub in Rome. Why are you here?”

  “You told me where. I’m working on how.”

  “Explain.”

  “Are you going to help me?”

  Please, help me.

  “No.” His eyes hardened. “Who’s trying to kill you?”

  “You?”

  “Who else? These men who are hunting you…they’re connected to the team in Texas. But I can’t trace their employer. Who is it? Who hired you to seduce me?” At her silence, he asked, “What’s on that hard drive?”

  “Help me retrieve it, and I’ll tell you.”

  “Tell me how you’re connected to it, and I’ll think about it.”

  “What?” Her breath hitched. “You will? You’ll help me?”

  “No. Fuck.” His jaw flexed, and he swiped a hand down his face. “I can’t, Lydia. I spent a year embedded in the Romanian mafia, searching for the traitor who sold that hard drive. Darius Skutnik knows me. He knows my face, my disguises, my loyalties. My cover’s blown. Bridges burned. And besides, I don’t get involved in political or government affairs. Not anymore.”

  “Then why are you here? Why are you following me?”

  His expression clouded.

  “Is this about revenge?
Do you want an apology?” She cupped his strong jaw, holding his gaze. “I won’t give it. I’m not sorry. I’m not sorry for meeting you or fucking you or learning how strong and resilient you are. You scare the bejesus out of me and fascinate me and turn me on like no other. If I were a normal girl with average problems, I would chase you and date you and do all the normal-girl things with you. Because this? You and me? It’s real.” She lowered her hand. “You wanted the truth. That’s my truth.”

  She pressed her tongue against the back of her teeth, immediately regretting her verbal ejaculation. She’d said too much, overexposed herself, and couldn’t take it back.

  How many times would she stumble and fall over this man?

  Maybe this was the last time. Maybe he would try to kill her now, and she would finally learn to keep her guard up around him.

  “I’m not interested in normal girls.” His finger traced circles on her thigh, invoking goosebumps.

  In the span of an eternal moment, her life flashed before her eyes. She lived, and she died, but she didn’t regret. He’d woken her from a long, cold dead sleep, and she wouldn’t change that for anything.

  Slowly, his hand dipped between her legs, going straight to the stiletto like he knew it was strapped there. Of course, he knew. She’d rubbed it up and down his leg while they were dancing.

  He made no attempt to take it as his fingers crept upward, seeking something softer, warmer, more welcoming.

  A tremor crashed through her, and she rose on her toes, trying to slow the climb of his hand. “What do you want from me?”

  “This.” He kissed her, deeply, possessively, and sank a finger between her legs. “This greedy pussy’s been leaking all over my jeans.”

  She whimpered, her hands clenching on his shoulders, pulling.

  “I want your surrender.” His chest pressed against hers, his teeth scraping her gaping mouth as if he were trying to crawl inside her. “Give it to me.”

  She was already careening toward it before he added another finger, and another, dipping inside and plunging to the knuckles. His tongue knifed through her mouth, assaulting, owning, and twining her fear and need together.

  As if he had all the time in the world, he played with her ache, teasing her soaked flesh, and mounting her lust until she clung to him, moaning and panting against his hot lips.