Under Wraps

by Joanne Rock

  “Hi,” she said needlessly, wanting only to break the silence.

  Jake dropped his key and yanked off his jacket, letting both fall to the floor while he stalked closer. Green eyes fixing her in his sights, he tore off the neckwear he hated and wrenched open the top fastening of his crisp white shirt.

  Her heartbeat tripped before it picked up speed. She sensed her fight-or-flight moment at hand. She would need to get out of his path right now if she didn’t want this.

  Him.

  Licking her lips since her mouth had gone dry, she kept her feet rooted to the spot.

  She wanted whatever he had in mind.

  7

  HEAT ROARED THROUGH HIM like a furnace, the atmosphere in the room growing taut with need.

  “This place is making me crazy.” Jake stopped himself a hairbreadth from Marnie to give her fair warning of his mood.

  His intent to have her naked in the next ten seconds.

  “Me, too,” she admitted. Breathless.

  “When I first saw them in here—”

  “Nothing happened,” she said quickly.

  “I know.” Of course he knew. “But this place messes with your head until all you think about—all the time—”

  He gave her an extra second to let it sink in, his hands flexing at his sides from the effort to hold back. He needn’t have bothered though, because she launched herself at him.

  Thank You, God.

  Relief and desire damn near took out his knees, but he held strong for her, his arms full of soft, warm woman. The clean scent of her skin and hair teased his senses. Gathering her close, he held her tight, her soft curves encased in too much stiff lace beneath her thick white robe. He lifted her higher, sliding his arms under her thighs so she had no choice but to wrap her legs around his waist.

  Oh, yeah. She followed him willingly. Eagerly. Soft, urgent sounds hummed in the back of her throat as he maneuvered her right where he wanted her, the hot core of her positioned over his erection, their bodies separated by too many clothes. That connection soothed the hunger in him enough to slow things down just a little, to appreciate her the way she deserved to be. The moment was so damn charged, and he didn’t want to miss out on a second of pleasure because they were so damn hungry for this.

  She pressed urgent kisses along his jaw and down his neck as he held her. He took deep breaths, willing his heart rate to slow down, his body to put her needs first. Then, slowly, he lifted his hands to explore the soft skin between the tops of her stockings and the bottom of the corset. She was soft. More silky than the fabric of her expensive underthings.

  He forced his eyes open, to see her and savor her. Her gray eyes were at half-mast, lashes fluttering as he touched her. Behind her, the silver tea cart glinted in the firelight, steam wafting up from the brewing pot.

  “You had clothes on when I left you last time,” he observed, tracing a pattern along the back of her bare thigh. “You can’t blame me for wondering when I come back to find you mostly undressed and entertaining guests.”

  “My dress was highly uncomfortable.” She worked the fastenings on his shirt, as nimble dispensing of his clothes as she was with her own. “So you can imagine how fast I ditched it after you left the room.”

  His shirt slid to the floor. Her cool hands raked down his chest, his muscles twitching in the wake of her touch. He’d wanted this for so long.

  “And I didn’t even get it on tape.” He could only imagine how much he would have enjoyed that show. “Was there any dancing involved, like when you closed up your shop on Friday night?”

  “You enjoy your job a little too well.” She gave his shoulder a gentle bite in retaliation, her teeth scraping lightly along his skin. “All that time, I thought you were concerned with protecting my privacy.”

  He flicked open one garter behind her thigh and then the other. She shivered. He couldn’t wait to see what else would elicit that response.

  “Guess I’m more concerned with protecting it from anyone else besides me.” Lowering her to the floor in front of the fireplace, he nudged the black robe off her shoulders and his breath caught at the sight she made.

  Firelight warmed her skin to spun gold next to the ivory-white corset. The rigid stays in the garment made her look like a naughty fifties pinup queen with no waist to speak of and breasts at eye-popping proportions. The curve of her hips was exaggerated in the back by a knot of gathered lace that helped the bustled gown sit high when she was dressed. At her legs, her stockings sagged a little in back where he’d unfastened them, but the fronts remained hooked. The white straps framed the juncture of her thighs, right where he wanted to be.

  “Intimidated?” she asked, cocking a hip to the side, a hand at her waist.

  “By you?” He grinned at the thought. “It seems to me like I have you completely at my mercy right now.”

  And he really, really liked the thought of that. They weren’t leaving this room for a long time.

  “Not by me. By this contraption I’m wearing.” She gestured to the corset. “I’ll bet you have no clue how to spring me loose.”

  “I think I’ll manage.” He reached for the remaining garter straps and plucked them free, eliciting another shiver from her. “Besides, if I touch you just right—” he stroked a knuckle up the inside of her thigh for emphasis “—you might melt right out of it.”

  The soft sound she made in the back of her throat pleased him to no end. Her hands found his waist. Fingers spanning his sides, she glided a light touch up his chest, her hips swaying closer as if she danced to a song only she could hear.

  “Promises, promises,” she whispered over his chest as she bent to kiss him there.

  She was as sexy and sensual in real life as she’d appeared in hours of secret surveillance. And right now, she seemed as keyed-up and ready for this as him.

  “Never let it be said I don’t deliver.” Stripping off his shirt, he tossed it on the ground behind her. Then, scooping her off her feet, he laid her on the rug in front of the hearth, carefully spreading the shirt out beneath her.

  He stayed on his feet long enough to remove his pants and retrieve a condom. Marnie watched his every move, lifting one leg to slide off her stocking with all the finesse of a showgirl. When she had it free, she wound the silk around her wrists and extended her bound hands to him.

  “Want to take me into custody?”

  He carefully raised her arms over her head and held them there while he stretched over her.

  “Not yet, but there’s no telling what might happen if I find a strange man in our room again.” He slid a hand down her back where a row of endless hooks kept her delectable body captive. One by one, he began easing them free.

  “He only poured my tea,” she assured him, wrapping her bare leg around his and massaging the back of his calf with the ball of her foot.

  “I don’t care about the tea.” He loosened the corset enough to expose the plump swell of her breasts and he flicked his tongue over one taut nipple. Then, leaving the remaining hooks for the moment, he palmed the warmth between her thighs. “As long as you leave the cream and honey for me.”

  Her body quivered as soon as he touched her. Impatiently, he brushed aside her panties and sought the slick center of her. Circling the tight core with his finger, he mirrored the movement with his tongue along her nipple. Her breath grew short, her back arching under him as she sought more.

  Drawing hard, he took the tight peak deep in his mouth as he slid two fingers inside her. She bucked and cried out, her release coming fast. The spasms went on and on as he coaxed out every sweet response.

  Freeing her wrists from the slippery stocking bondage, she looped her arms about his neck and whispered a new demand.

  “Come inside me.”

  Marnie willed Jake to comply with her request, her whole body crying out for his. She’d never peaked so fast or so easily, but then she’d been on fire for this man for days. The steamy atmosphere of the Marquis had only made it worse.


  He stared down into her eyes, his strong features cast in stark shadows from the fire. The red light illuminated his sculpted muscles in deep bronze, every sinew visible as he positioned himself between her legs.

  Tracing the outline of his hard flesh with her hands, she absorbed his heat and his strength as he rolled on a condom. The aftershocks from her release intensified as he entered her, sending her hips into motion as she rode them out. Jake stilled, splaying one hand on her waist to hold her in place.

  When he moved again, it was to roll her on top of him. With both his hands now free, he unfastened the last of the hooks on her confining corset and slid it off. Then, taking her hips in his hands, he guided her where he wanted, pulling her close as he thrust deep inside.

  The slow, satisfying rhythm made her rain kisses all over his chest and his face, the bliss of being with him so overwhelming she didn’t know what to do with it all. Too soon, the steady, delicious dance built a new ache inside her; she could hardly stand the discipline of each measured thrust. Seizing his shoulders, she arched back to take her pleasure in her own hands and give her hips unrestricted access to every inch of him.

  He called her name as she spiraled over the edge of the abyss again, her heart galloping wildly as the moment had its way with her. Jake wrapped his arms around her, anchoring her tight to him, and amid the haze of her own release she could feel his pulse through her, too.

  Collapsing on him in a boneless heap, she couldn’t catch her breath for long moments afterward. When she finally became aware of herself again, she realized he’d shifted her to lie beside him on his shirt, his arm tucked beneath her ear like a warm, muscular pillow.

  He was more than a skilled lover. He was a thoughtful, considerate man. A watchful partner who would protect her no matter what. She saw all that clearly now as he came into focus for her.

  He watched her just as closely, his eyes missing nothing, and she wondered what he saw. A strong woman who took her fate in her own hands by traveling to the other end of the country with a stranger for the sake of justice?

  Or a woman who simply needed to lose herself, just like the name of her start-up company suggested?

  She wasn’t certain herself. And for a woman who’d always been so sure of herself, a woman who’d carefully marked out every path she would take so there would be no missed turns, that rattled her almost as much as having an unknown enemy lurking in the shadows.

  The thought reminded her of the discovery she’d made before her tea arrived. “Jake?”

  “You look worried.” He rubbed a finger over her forehead, making her realize she’d had her eyebrows scrunched together. “You aren’t allowed to have any regrets about what just happened.”

  She relaxed against him. With nothing but the fire to light the room as dusk fell, the moon outside illuminated a few snowflakes swirling against the French doors nearby. The aroma of the ginger tea she hadn’t touched mingled with the scent of burning wood.

  “I don’t. I’ve known that was bound to happen since you kissed me in the car on the way up here.” She’d also told herself she wouldn’t let it happen, but that had been before she’d experienced the full impact of the man and the Marquis. “I just hope it doesn’t make working together awkward.”

  “It can’t be more tense than it was to start with.” He threaded his fingers through her hair and stroked the strands away from her face. “If anything, maybe this will make the rest of the week more productive now that we’re not so preoccupied all the time.”

  This would make them not preoccupied? She was already thinking about when they’d be together again.

  For that matter, her planner personality wanted to know what would happen to them when they returned to Miami. Would they return to being strangers and write this trip off as an intense getaway where emotions had flared out of control, never to be repeated?

  Would her private investigator walk away from her as easily as the contractor had two months ago?

  She hated not knowing.

  Sensing the moment had come to protect herself from just such possibilities she retreated first, pulling a crocheted afghan off a footstool and wrapping it around her naked body.

  “Actually, now that we’re not preoccupied—” she used his term to show him she could be as easy with this as him “—I should tell you that I spotted an interesting name on the Marquis guest list for last year.”

  “Someone you know?” He tensed, instantly alert, and she half regretted bringing this up now.

  Part of her had been hoping for a more romantic end to their time together.

  “Not necessarily. But there was an Alex McMahon here last year and—”

  “Sounds a lot like Alec Mason.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  He rolled to his side, still naked and amazing looking in the firelight in front of the hearth. He didn’t need tight breeches or any other costume to make him completely mouthwatering.

  “I looked into him early on in the investigation.” He frowned. “I didn’t think he could have pulled this off at the time, based on his lack of access to the Premiere accounts, but that was before I knew the crime involved a lot of cyber decoys…”

  He trailed off as he jumped to his feet to retrieve a laptop. She watched the flex of muscles in his thighs as he walked and wished she could feel him against her all over again.

  “You investigated Alec?” She felt adrift suddenly, both because Jake had bolted so fast after telling her they wouldn’t be preoccupied now that they’d—essentially—gotten the sex impulses out of their system, and because she was at such a major disadvantage in a relationship where he knew far more about her than she knew about him.

  “He made a few investments for you,” Jake explained, not even sparing her a glance as he fired up the computer and connected it to his phone for internet access since the hotel didn’t have wireless. “That gave him a certain financial savvy. And I knew you ended things acrimoniously based on the fact that you nearly took my eye out in an attempt to throw darts at a picture of his face.”

  “But you cleared him.” Marnie tried not to let it sting that Jake had reverted to his supersleuthing. That was, of course, why they were here. “So you must have had some evidence to toss him aside as a suspect. When you cleared me, you needed video proof.”

  “You were a far more likely candidate for this. You’re smarter, for one thing.” Jake slid on a pair of boxers and a T-shirt before bringing the laptop back near the fireplace.

  Near her.

  Her heart beat faster, and for once, it wasn’t simply because of his proximity. New worries crawled up her spine as she began to grasp the implications of Alec’s possible guilt. She gripped the afghan tighter to her chest to ward off a sudden chill.

  “Alec is a Princeton graduate,” she reminded Jake. Not that she wanted to defend her ex-boyfriend, per se. But she wanted Jake to know she hadn’t chosen a total loser.

  “Actually, he lied about that.” Jake flipped his screen around for her to see, showing her a brief background sheet on Alec Mason. “He doesn’t have a criminal background, but it looks like he’s bluffed his way into most of his jobs with padded résumés.”

  Marnie scanned the highlights of Alec’s career as Jake spoke, trying to absorb the fact that her ex had betrayed her on even more levels. The ground shifted under her feet, and this time it didn’t have anything to do with Jake or Alec. Instead, she simply felt like the world’s biggest fool for trusting men in the first place.

  “I used to think it was a good quality to see the best in people.” How many times had she counseled friends to look on the bright side? How often had she told herself that life’s obstacles were merely road signs to take a new and more exciting path? “I had no idea it made me so—”

  She couldn’t decide on any one word that would describe how she felt right now. Alec’s face grinned at her almost as if he knew he could take her heart for a ride and get away with it.

 
“Hey.” Jake set the laptop aside as he reached for her. Putting an arm around her waist, he pulled her close. “It is a good quality to see the best in people. I tend to see the worst, and I can tell you that has bitten me in the ass more times than I can count.”

  Her eyes burned, but she refused to feel sorry for herself.

  “At least no one ever takes you for a sucker.” That was the word she’d been looking for. She’d been a total sucker where Alec had been concerned. “You’ve never been taken in by someone who wants to use you.”

  “No. But I’ve been roped in by ideas and institutions, believing in the police force or the military only to be disillusioned when there’s corruption.” He planted a kiss on her hair, a gentle comfort that twined around her heart in spite of the dark cloud that had settled on her mood. “If everybody chose to see the downside of those places, they wouldn’t be half as effective as they are.”

  “I just need to have more realistic expectations.” Starting right now. Instead of baring her soul along with her body, she should be retreating. Building boundaries and erecting defenses so she didn’t get sucked into thinking her time with Jake meant anything more than…sex.

  Standing, she knew it would be safer for her heart not to accept comforting kisses from this man who had a cynical side a mile wide.

  Jake stared up at her in the firelight. The room had turned fully dark otherwise.

  “I’ll just finish up here and then we can figure out a game plan for dinner.” He grabbed the laptop again, appearing to focus on the task at hand.

  Just like she needed to.

  “Good.” Wrapping the afghan more securely around herself, she headed for the shower to wash away the tantalizing scent of him that clung to her skin. “The sooner we can find out who’s trying to frame me the better.”

  Finding out who did it—and sending his or her ass to jail—would be her first chance to prove she wasn’t the sucker they’d taken her for.

  8

  ALEX WOULD BE FURIOUS if he showed up now.