Stripping Bare (Steele Ridge Book 7)

by Kelsey Browning

  The inset of Jonah’s screen wobbled as if he’d missed a step. “Wha…what?”

  “It seems like I should be able to kick off those stupid heels if I want to. Clothes should be optional.”

  “If I’d been fifteen when I came up with the idea for this game, there would’ve been female characters and they probably would’ve all been naked.” He studied the terrain for a few seconds and waded into the water, headed directly for her hiding spot. “Gotcha,” he mumbled.

  Damn him.

  There was no way she could get down from the tree without him spotting her now. At least not in the normal manner. But her small perch had benefits as long as she could be patient.

  It didn’t take long until Jonah was circling the area, checking behind bushes and edging his way around trees. He studied the branches, but Tessa had miraculously camouflaged herself in the leaves. He crept in the opposite direction while she waited. And calculated.

  She drew in a breath, let go of the tree, and jumped. With a real-life victory cry, Virtual Tessa shot at Jonah with her weird gun and crashed into his back, forcing him down onto his belly.

  His character gave an oomph as though he’d really felt the impact of her weight. Then he somehow dislodged her and flipped over, sending her gun flying and skittering away.

  Shoot. She’d been so close to getting the drop on him.

  “This is when it changes to hand-to-hand,” he told her. “Kicks, punches, hair-pulling. Anything goes.”

  Well, hand-to-hand sounded good, but she doubted if it included any sexy times. Since she no longer had a gun, she expected his character to cast aside the weapon in his hand.

  But before her character could scramble to her knees to engage with him, on-screen Jonah pulled back his sword. Then the massive blade arced around and time—on-screen and IRL—slowed to quarter speed.

  “What the fuck?” Jonah said in a rough voice.

  “What’s happen—” Before Tessa could finish her question, the sword sliced cleanly through her character’s neck. Her severed head thudded to the forest floor and rocked to a stop, face up. Eyes still open and filled with surprise.

  12

  Jonah yanked off his goggles with numb hands and they clattered to the floor. Yet he could still see Tessa’s headless avatar inside them.

  Killing had never been programmed into Steele Survivor. That was what had made the game so different, had created an appeal for both kids and parents.

  “Uh…was that part of the game?” Tessa asked tentatively.

  “No.” He hustled to her and slid the goggles from her eyes. “I would never hurt you.” Not even in a fucking game.

  “I know that.” When Tessa touched his throat, her fingers were warm against his skin. But nothing could soothe away the chill sinking into Jonah’s bones. “I don’t understand what happened just now.”

  Unable to help himself, he gripped her waist and sank into a gaming chair, drawing her down into his lap, more for his reassurance than hers. He pulled her close and she wrapped an arm around his neck, which surrounded him with her rich scent. He pressed his face into the curve of her shoulder and tried to breathe away the lung-freezing feeling of seeing her headless body on that screen. “Someone else made those mods to the game.”

  “I know that wasn’t really you.”

  Her soft skin tempted him, and he trailed his lips along her collarbone just to assure himself that she was here in his arms. That she was safe. That she was whole. He couldn’t live with himself if Tessa was ever physically harmed again. “In some very wrong ways.”

  Tessa’s breasts grazed his chest, making it obvious in her braless state that her nipples were tight underneath her robe. Without thinking it through, Jonah replaced his lips with his teeth, bit down lightly on her shoulder as if he could control her like an animal might his mate. Her breath hissed in, but her body became pliant against his. “Jonah…”

  He wanted her like this. Wanted her to give up the control she’d obviously worked so hard to develop, because he wanted her to come apart for him and only him.

  But he was scared shitless that the real him and his real needs would terrify her.

  He carefully skimmed his hands up her shoulders and neck to frame her face in his palms. Then he took her mouth. She tasted of exotic tea and didn’t hesitate to meet his kiss, immediately opening her mouth and searching for his tongue with hers. Sexy little sounds came from the back of her throat.

  The silk of her nightclothes brushed against his arms, electrifying his skin and sending lustful impulses through him. His body knew exactly what his next step should be with Tessa.

  If only his brain would shut the fuck up. He reached for his mental remote control and clicked the hell outta the off button.

  As if she sensed something had changed, Tessa moved into the kiss, taking it deeper and more desperate.

  Cool fabric pooled on his lap. Her robe. That meant she was wearing only a slip of a nightgown and whatever she had on under it. Jonah slid a finger under the thin strap, testing its silky strength. It would take nothing to rip it away.

  No. No ripping, tearing, or yanking.

  He brushed at the strap and followed its path to her upper arm, tracing little patterns against her skin as he sank further into her kiss. But Tessa groaned and disengaged her lips, her breath coming in sexy little puffs against his jaw. “Don’t…don’t play with me,” she said, her voice quivering, shooting through his system like a fast-acting drug.

  He caught her earlobe between his teeth and whispered, “This has never ever been a game.”

  “Then touch me.” She shimmied, sending her gown to her elbows. His hand tightened reflexively on her arm, but she grabbed it and repositioned it over her breast.

  Soft, round, warm.

  Perfect.

  He could spend a lifetime smoothing his fingertips over the swells of her breasts, slowly tracing circles inward, until he made it to her nipple.

  The thought of tweaking that peak, of scraping it with his teeth, sent a shudder through his body and hardened his dick. He wanted to press her breasts together, bury his mouth there, and consume her.

  His thoughts were interrupted by Tessa’s gasp, and he realized he’d taken her nipple between his fingers and was working it ruthlessly.

  Fuck. This was the reason he forced himself to resist her. He couldn’t be trusted to control himself around her. He wanted her so badly that it bordered on violence.

  He released her breast and grabbed her waist to urge her off his lap.

  “If you push me away this time,” Tessa said, her voice low with a combination of arousal and resolve, “I won’t come back. You say you’re not playing a game, but it feels that way to me. You can’t pull me close and then shove me away.”

  “Look at my hands.” He held up the one that had been mauling her breast.

  “What about it?”

  “It’s shaking.”

  “From adrenaline and norepinephrine, most likely.”

  “Don’t you get it, Tessa? I can’t be trusted around you. I lost control once. I won’t do it again.”

  “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?”

  He rubbed his palm over his head as if he could scrub away his desperate need for her. Hell, if that were possible, he would’ve exfoliated his brain years ago.

  “You’re scared of hurting me.” She yanked his hand away and slapped it against her breast. “Grab it.”

  His fingers twitched, but he resisted tightening his grip on her soft skin.

  Tessa should never have to endure pain to receive pleasure.

  With a huff, she jumped off his lap. Her gown fell to her hips, leaving her breasts bare. She grabbed his other hand and covered her breast. Her nipples were burning holes in his palms and his mind was melting from the heat. He could lean forward—just a few inches—and suck her into his mouth. Use his teeth on her until she was hot and wet and begging.

  “My God,” she said. “I’ve seen better moves
from men choosing tomatoes in the grocery store.”

  A wave of shame—red and ugly—rushed over Jonah, suffocating him. Who he was, the things he wanted… She deserved better.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have said that. I know better than anyone that everything about sex should be a choice.”

  “I care about you, but…”

  She leaned toward him, pressed a kiss to the side of his mouth. “I know you do, but you’re holding back. Why?”

  He’d just killed her on-screen. Didn’t she remember that? Jonah tried to close his mind against her video game character’s fate. “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to treat me like a normal woman. Last time I checked, I wasn’t made of glass. You can’t break me.”

  Oh, but he could, and when he did, it would break him.

  Maybe he could restrain himself.

  Slow and easy.

  She’d made it clear he wouldn’t get another chance. He slid a hand down to her hip, and urged her closer. Taking his time, he drew her breast into his mouth and flicked her nipple with his tongue.

  Slow.

  This time her groan was full of satisfaction, and she shoved her hands into his hair to press his face closer. He sucked gently, savoring the flavor and texture that was uniquely Tessa. When he released her, she tried to wriggle closer.

  Easy.

  He could do this. Was doing it.

  Jonah took her other nipple in his mouth and lightly fingered the recently abandoned one, keeping it hard and tight. With one hand, Tessa released her death grip on his hair and snaked it down between their bodies to slip it inside her panties.

  Shock and body-shaking lust drove through him. “What’re you doing?”

  “What does it look like?”

  “You…you do that often?”

  “Are you asking if I masturbate?” Her chuckle was somehow both amused and aggravated. “Of course I do.”

  The little blood that had still been flowing in the non-penis parts of Jonah’s body took the exit ramp to Dickville at ninety miles an hour. “I want to watch you.”

  “Now?”

  It was his turn to laugh. Anytime. Now, later, whenever. That would be the best way to learn what she liked, how far he could push her. To be with her, he needed to replace all the old images he’d been carrying around for a decade, and he had a feeling that watching Tessa make herself come would be better than a thousand hours on the therapy couch. “How about I help you out today?”

  He’d barely gotten the words out, and Tessa’s hands went into overdrive, shoving her panties down her hips and thighs. Standing naked before him, she was all amazing curves and delicious skin.

  He wanted to visit all the places on her body.

  Visit? To hell with that. He wanted to become a permanent resident in Tessa’s friggin’ garden of Eden. He would stay there day and night sampling all her forbidden fruit.

  When he slipped his hand between her legs, she adjusted to give him room. If he’d thought her breasts had burned him, the feel of her slick and needy against his palm was a completely different level of fire.

  He wanted inside her. Wanted to drive into her until they were skin to skin, heart to heart.

  Maybe being with Tessa would make him whole again, give him back the piece of himself he’d been unable to reassemble all these years.

  She tilted her hips, and his fingertips grazed along her clit. “Please,” she whispered, undoing him. “Now.”

  Anchoring his thumb against her clit, he eased two fingers into her body. Where the tremor started—with Tessa or him—he had no idea.

  It didn’t matter because this was so fucking right.

  With a delicate sweep of his thumb and a smooth glide of his fingers, he concentrated on Tessa’s pleasure. At first, her hips did a slow thrust, a languid movement.

  But it didn’t take long until she was jerking against him, all rhythm forgotten as she strained toward orgasm. “I…I need…”

  “What?”

  She tugged on his wrist, pulling his hand flush against her body and burying his fingers inside her with one sure stroke.

  God, yes. She was so hot, burning for him. He pumped his fingers into her and circled her clitoris with his thumb.

  A cry tore from her and she arched her back and rose to her toes to ride it out. Her pulses ended in a shudder that seemed to take all the bones from her body. With a sigh, she slumped down, sprawling into his lap.

  Jonah’s heart was thumping, an out-of-control rhythm against his chest. He wanted to do that again. Wanted to press her spread-eagled on the floor, get between her legs, and make her come until she didn’t know her own fucking name.

  Remember. Slow. And. Easy.

  In an attempt to practice his slow and easy, Jonah wrapped her in his arms and rested his chin on her shoulder.

  That was when he glanced at the floor and saw the red words scrolling inside his VR goggles. That sick fuck of a modder had left a message inside Steele Survivor.

  PLAY OR DIE.

  Tessa felt the immediate change in Jonah. One second, he was radiating male pride and the next, his entire body snapped to a rigid wall of muscle and bone.

  “Whatever you’re beating yourself up for,” she said, “stop it.”

  She’d been so hopeful that once he touched her again, he would forget about her past.

  “That motherfucker,” Jonah breathed near her ear as he released his hold on her.

  The loss of his touch made her want to cry. Just slide to the floor, curl up, and weep out all her frustrations over how she felt about this man. As euphoric as she’d been after Jonah had driven her up and over, tumbled her into the most delicious orgasm she could remember, now she felt hollow. Her body and mind were aching vacuums. And her heart?

  She was tired of trying to hold it together for Jonah, of wishing that he would take what she so desperately wanted to offer.

  Using his shoulder as leverage, she scooted off his lap. Now her nakedness made her feel vulnerable instead of powerful, so she scrambled to pick up her nightgown and slip it over her head. Her underwear had disappeared to somewhere unknown, and she smoothed her hands over her butt, trying to assure herself she was covered.

  Jonah scooped up his VR goggles, came to his feet, and absently shoved his hand down the front of his jeans, adjusting what appeared to still be a partial erection. At least he hadn’t been unaffected. He’d wanted her, whether or not he’d wanted to.

  “Look,” she said, “I’m just going to get Badger, gather our things, and get out of—”

  “You’re not going anywhere.” His steely tone invited no argument.

  “I can’t do this with you. I thought I could, but your hot-and-cold act is too much for me to handle.”

  That seemed to grab his attention, and he glanced down at her. “Dammit, Tessa. You’ll be lucky if I let you out of this house, and you’re sure as hell not going anywhere alone.”

  Who did he think he was? And how had her orgasm flipped a circuit in his brain? “You push me away and then you want to tell me what to do?”

  Unbelievable.

  “Put this on,” he demanded, shoving the goggles into her hand.

  “What?”

  “Look in the fucking goggles.” He held them up to her face.

  The visual had gone black except for three words. The same words that had been painted on her condo’s wall. Before she could process exactly what that meant, the letters faded like blood soaking into the ground. Then a new character—dressed in jeans, white T-shirt, and blue coat—strolled onto the screen, hands stuffed into his pockets. “Grab the other pair,” she told Jonah. “Hurry.”

  Above the neck, the on-screen guy slowly morphed from one character to the next. Short, choppy hair. Micki. Then a man with shaggy golden blond hair—one of Jonah’s brothers—who transformed into a head with Tessa’s own wild corkscrew curls. Her curls faded into Jonah’s messy brown hair and facial scruff.

 
If that weren’t eerie enough, the on-screen Jonah began to speak. “In every game, there are the strong and the weak. Winners and losers. Killers and victims. I know your secrets because I’m inside you. The only way to find me is to chase yourself. And in the end, there can only be one survivor.”

  The Jonah-esque character turned and walked away, into a faint background image. It was a street with shops lining each side, and there in the middle of it all was the sign for La Belle Style, Brynne’s boutique.

  The scene once again faded away, replaced with two words this time. GAME ON.

  “What…what is this?” Her voice shook and her arm fell to her side, the goggles resting heavily against her thigh. Her subconscious was clanging—danger, danger, danger.

  Whoever had tinkered with Jonah’s game was the same person who was blackmailing Carson and the others.

  Jonah lunged for the box that had come in the mail and rooted through it, tossing packing paper right and left. “Empty, dammit. And no return address.” He tossed it aside and reached for her. The kiss he pressed to the top of her head slowly reunited the fragments of her heart. He turned her in his arms and pulled her close. “Someone is fucking with us.”

  Tessa rested her cheek against Jonah’s chest, listening to the reassuring thump of his heart. “We should call someone.”

  Jonah gently pressed his thumbs under her jaw and tilted up her face. His hazel eyes seemed to burn with a fire—not a quick flame-and-out blaze, but one that smoldered and hid depths that could sear skin and soul. “You realize this is the same person who was in your condo, right?”

  “Yes, and it means the hacking and the game mods are somehow related.”

  “Whoever this is has an agenda that includes both of us.”

  “Then why aren’t we calling the police right now? You said we’d inform the authorities in Asheville if we discovered anything.”

  “Did you notice anything about that cut scene?” he asked her.

  “You mean the guy at the end? He was walking down Main Street in Steele Ridge.”

  “Where Asheville PD has no jurisdiction.”

  “But Maggie does. She needs to know about this.”