Hot Target

by Lisa Renee Jones

  “I want you inside me, Luke,” she whispered.

  “Soon,” he promised, and she realized suddenly she’d said the words out loud.

  “Not soon enough,” she said hoarsely.

  She could feel him smile against her neck. “I don’t want to miss one delicious spot.” His lips trailed kisses along her skin, causing wicked sensations, until he pressed her breasts together, suckling one nipple and then the other. The points became stiff peaks as he was nipping and biting and then gently licking them, teasing her until she was aching with the need to feel him fill her. Aching to the point that her womb was spasming. He trailed downward, kissing as he went. She trembled with anticipation as he kissed her stomach, when his tongue dipped into her belly button.

  Gently, he eased her shorts down her legs, and as aroused as they both were, he was miraculously, amazingly careful of her injuries. He tossed the shorts aside, his hand sliding up her uninjured calf and thigh, and before she knew his intention, Luke lifted her leg over his shoulder. Suddenly, his tongue lapped at her clit, then closed down on it. Katie gasped as he drew her deep into his mouth, his tongue sliding along her sensitive flesh, two of his fingers entering her, stroking her. Katie’s hands dug into the blanket, her hips rocking against his mouth, his fingers.

  “Luke,” she panted, her breath hitching, stealing her thoughts, or maybe that was his breath, intimately warming her. She tried again. “I…” want you inside me. But she couldn’t say it. She couldn’t say anything. She could only feel. She could only need. Her fingers stretched, reaching for his head, even as his fingers stretched inside her, taking her further into that place of no return. But, damn it, she wanted to push him away and make him undress, to feel his body above her, around her. At the same time, her body was making a desperate appeal for him to continue, humming in response to the sinful play of his mouth, tongue and fingers.

  In some distant place she heard her own moans, her own breathing. She tried to hold his head exactly where he was, all thought of stopping him gone, but she couldn’t quite touch him. Not with her leg up over his shoulder. She lifted her hips farther. She wanted her other leg up there, too, but it was stiff; it wouldn’t move.

  Her head twisted from side to side, her hand molding her breasts, pinching her nipples. The other resorted to the blanket again, curling her fingers in the cloth as tension coiled in her core. Tighter, tighter. Every muscle in her body tensed, and then it happened. The spasms exploded low in her belly, and then it was as if a gate opened and a flood of pleasure washed over her—her body clenched around his fingers, her breath exploded from her lungs in a gasp. And then another. Luke rocked his mouth and fingers with her, lapped at her with his tongue, fast and then slower, and slower, until he brought her down, eased her to completion.

  Katie collapsed with the final moment of release, every bit of energy she possessed gone. Every ounce of her sated, satisfied in a way that consumed her as much as the pleasure had. Luke carefully put her leg down, then kissed her stomach. Her fingers went to his hair as he stared up at her, his eyes tender rather than demanding.

  “Luke, that was… I am—”

  “Luke! Katie!” It was Ron’s voice, and all that sated, wonderful, amazing pleasure was gone.

  “Oh, no!” Kate whispered, trying to sit up.

  “How the hell did Ron get into my house?” Luke murmured. “Unless Maria showed up and let him in.” His hand settled on her shoulder. “Easy. Don’t hurt your leg.”

  “The door!” she whispered fiercely, holding herself up on her hands. “Luke, I’m naked here. Please. Shut the door.”

  “Easy, sweetheart,” he said. “Everything is going to be fine.” He slid off the bed and shut the door, locking it, as well.

  It was not fine, she thought, nor was it going to be fine. In a matter of hours, she’d gone from a professional who’d landed a job that would get her sister out of hot water, to being injured, drugged, seduced and now humiliated.

  Door secure, Luke scrubbed his heavily shadowed jaw and snagged his shirt, slipping it over his head. Katie scrambled for her clothes. Luke found her shorts on the floor and handed them to her.

  She struggled to find her shirt, frustrated when she couldn’t move well enough to find anything, which only served to remind her that her crazy libido had landed her in this hot water. She threw her hands in the air. “Where did you put my bra?”

  Luke arched a brow. “Where did I put your bra?” he challenged. “I seem to remember you were involved in disposing of it, as well.” He scooped up her bra and shirt and tossed them at her, frustration in the hard set of his jaw.

  Katie glared at him, catching her things, wishing like hell he wasn’t watching her as she attempted to get the bra over her arms. The act of putting on the damn undergarment made her feel somehow far more exposed than when he’d taken it off, and she couldn’t get it hooked.

  Suddenly, Luke was sitting beside her. “Let me help.”

  “No, I—” Her words lodged in her throat as he turned her and hooked her bra. It was such a small thing, but so large—an act of intimacy a couple would share. They weren’t a couple. He was a job. She should have remembered that.

  Luke offered her shirt to her, and she fumbled around and managed to get it on. Immediately, she started for the edge of the bed. She didn’t look at Luke. She couldn’t deal with him now. First, she had to deal with Ron.

  “You did nothing wrong,” Luke said softly. “We did nothing wrong. If Ron says otherwise, I’ll damn sure tell him so, too.”

  “No. Please don’t. You’ve done enough. Just let me handle it.”

  Luke was on his feet in an instant, facing her. “You’re obviously upset, so I’m not going to take that remark like the slap it felt like.” He stared at her, his gaze fixed, steady, assessing. He read through her tension. He knew what she was feeling. And his words proved it. “No regrets. That was the agreement.”

  “That was before Ron showed up while we were in bed together,” she spouted back tightly. “That wasn’t in the plan.” Not that she’d had a plan. That was clear.

  “We are not children caught by Dad,” he said. “We’re consenting adults.”

  He had nothing to lose here. But she had a reputation and a way to pay her sister’s debt off. “I’m here to work, Luke. Not become one of your groupies.”

  “Is that what you think this is?” he demanded. “Me turning you into some sort of groupie?”

  That was when Ron’s voice sounded from the hallway. “Katie! Luke!”

  Luke ground his teeth. “The man needs to learn to knock at the door,” he grumbled irritably as he stalked toward the door.

  7

  THE RUMBLING of male voices disappeared down the stairs, and Katie slipped on her sneakers, which she assumed Luke must have taken off. She struggled to stand, putting all her weight on her good leg. Dumb knee, not to mention her calf. It hurt worse from having a needle poked through it than it did from the cut. Katie dug her cell phone out of her purse and checked caller ID. Donna had called. Not once, but several times, which meant she had something important to share. But first she had to deal with the current situation.

  Katie headed to the hallway, hesitating as she shoved a hand through her messy hair and then over her rumpled clothes. She prayed she looked as if she’d spent hours in the E.R., with no telltale signs that hours in bed with Luke had followed.

  She clutched the winding wooden rail of the stairwell and sucked up the pain, ready to get this over with. When she finally managed to reach floor level, Katie followed the echo of voices and found Luke and Ron standing in the kitchen.

  Or what was left of it.

  “Good grief,” Katie said, pressing a hand to her forehead, appalled at the sight of broken glass, smashed pictures and food products dumped everywhere. “What happened?”

  Both men were staring at her; both seemed to be filled with condemnation. Luke, because she’d said she felt like a groupie. Ron, because he thought she was one, gi
ven the scene in front of them. The attention from both wasn’t easy to bear, considering her body still hummed from Luke’s touch. Her cheeks were probably flushed. Her lips swollen.

  Ron cast Katie a suspicious look, and spoke with a deliberateness in his tone that said she was right—she looked as if she’d just had a sexcapade with his client. “You tell me,” he said. “I arrived here to find the door cracked. I came in and found it like this.”

  Katie grimaced at the obvious implication that she had been doing something other than her job, the heat of arousal quickly becoming the heat of anger. She and Ron obviously needed to have a talk in private.

  She forced inner calm and focused on her job. “Was there any sign of forced entry at all?”

  “None,” Ron assured her. “But we checked the security panels. They’re turned off.”

  Luke quickly explained, “When I came downstairs to get ice earlier, I had this weird vibe, like I wasn’t alone, so I checked those panels and they were on.”

  Katie frowned, trying to make sense of this in her head. “We’ve only been back from the E.R. a few hours.” Realization washed over her at the same moment her eyes collided with Luke’s, a silent understanding between them that neither of them dared to reveal to Ron.

  The kitchen had been destroyed while they were in that bed together. Katie’s hand went to her throat. The bedroom door had been open. Whoever had been here might well have watched them together.

  A Spanish exclamation pierced the air as Maria appeared beside Katie, taking in the mess. She charged forward, Jessica right behind her. Jessica brushed past Katie, a distinct chill frosting up the air as she knocked into Katie’s arm.

  “I called Maria to clean up,” Ron supplied, glancing between Luke and Katie.

  Katie looked at Luke. “I take it that means we aren’t calling the police?” A challenge laced her voice. The police could fingerprint.

  “No police,” Luke said firmly. “The odds that they will find anything aren’t worth the odds something will slip out to the press. I don’t need that kind of crap right before my season starts.”

  Her eyes locked with his. “We’ll keep it out of the papers.”

  “No,” he said, his jaw tense. “No police.”

  “I have to agree,” Ron said, his tone as starched as his white shirt. “The last thing we need right now is management getting word of more trouble after I’ve promised them this is handled.” His lips thinned with disapproval, his gaze raking Katie. “Clearly it was not.”

  Katie drew her spine stiff, irritated at the obvious jab. Yes, she’d been in bed with Luke. No, that wasn’t professional, and it should not be repeated, but she was downright offended by Ron’s inference that her failure had led to the kitchen vandalism.

  Katie glanced toward the sink where Jessica was running water, her back to the group. Then she flashed a look at Ron and Luke and motioned them to the other room, aware she could not talk in front of Maria and Jessica without blowing her cover. The three of them gathered in the office as they had before.

  The instant the door was shut, Katie whirled on Ron. “I get that you don’t want to look bad to management,” she said grumpily, “but I’ve been here less than forty-eight hours, without so much as a proper file to study.”

  “You have a file,” Ron countered.

  “Twelve hours ago before I left for a gala you knew about for months and didn’t bother to tell me about,” she snapped. “When my team is here, and I have the proper data to do my job, then you can blame me for failures. Not until then.” She leaned against the door, her knee killing her, an irritation she didn’t have time for when she had so many others. “I’m not even sure what happened here today was related to the letters.”

  “What are you saying?” Ron demanded, his arms crossed in front of his body.

  “Jessica,” she said. “She’s jealous. She’s young. She has the codes to get inside the house.”

  “No way,” Luke said, leaning against the desk, his arms flexing beneath his shirt, drawing Katie’s unintentional inspection. She swallowed hard, blaming the pain medication for her lack of focus, as he added, “She’s a good kid. She wouldn’t do something like this.”

  “A kid,” Katie pointedly repeated. “Emotional, jealous and upset about my appearance here, Luke. It makes sense.”

  He made a frustrated sound. “The next thing you know, you’ll have her cutting and pasting letters.”

  Katie hesitated, unwilling to rule out anything. She couldn’t shake the idea that Jessica had come into the house, seen her and Luke together, and lashed out by destroying the kitchen. But believing that Jessica had been obsessing about Luke enough to have written those letters was treading through deeper waters.

  “I think we need to look at all options,” she said. “We certainly need to know if Jessica has been in any trouble. I’ll have my people look into it. I doubt that’s something Maria would announce to her employer, no matter how close you are to her, Luke.” As far as Katie was concerned, they couldn’t get those letters to the FBI lab soon enough. “I’m assuming you changed the locks and codes after the issues with your ex?” she asked.

  His expression darkened. “Months ago.”

  “I figured as much,” she said. “But we’ll have to change the locks and the codes again today. Once my guys get here, they’ll analyze the entire security system and make needed changes. But no one gets the new codes without my approval.”

  Luke pushed off the desk, ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “I’ll give Maria a month off with pay. I hope like hell that’s enough time to make this go away.”

  Katie’s cell phone rang, and she glanced at the number. Donna again. Her heart hammered in her chest. She’d called so many times, Katie was starting to feel nervous. What if something was wrong with her sister? “I need to take this, but, Luke, don’t give Maria time off. Not until we have time to think it through. If Jessica is the culprit, we don’t need to send her warning signs. We need to catch her in action.” Her phone kept ringing. “I really need to take this.” She flipped open her phone and answered as she made a hobbling escape. “Hello.”

  “The point in having a phone,” Donna said immediately, “is to answer it.”

  “What’s going on?” Katie asked urgently. She slipped into the den where she could grab some privacy, rather than climbing the stairs.

  “Noah and Josh are on their way to you this afternoon,” she said. “They finally wrapped things up here. They get into the airport at eleven-fifteen.”

  Having considered moving Luke away to a hotel that night, until she had the place secure—something she’d known he wouldn’t be pleased about—Katie absorbed that news with relief.

  A few minutes later, Katie ended the call, relieved that her sister was safe, and that Noah and Josh would arrive soon. She’d also asked Donna to run checks on both Jessica and Maria. Donna had the electronic file Ron had provided, as well, and was working though it with a fine-tooth comb.

  Ready for a shower and some inner perspective, Katie headed to the door only to be cut off by Ron, who now stood in the doorway.

  “I only have one question,” he said.

  Her chest tight, she answered cautiously. “All right.”

  “We’ve established that you and Luke playing at dating works in theory. It keeps the press off his back, and keeps the team from panicking about a potential threat. But I need to know right now—is this thing with you and Luke a problem?”

  Thing. She assumed that was his code word for sex. She inhaled sharply despite having expected this question. It wasn’t an unfair question, after all. He’d hired her to do a job, full stop. “There is no problem, Ron.” Because Katie wasn’t going to let there be a problem. She had the thing with Luke, whatever it was, within her grasp.

  He gave her a curt nod, surprising her by disappearing through the doorway without another word. Katie let out a breath of relief, thankful he’d let it go that easily.

  And with
Noah and Josh showing up shortly, she and Luke would have proper established boundaries. Now, she simply needed to come to a workable understanding with him. Then control would be restored, and she and her team would make this stalker problem go away for Luke.

  Unbidden, a very female part of her flared to life and cursed the fact that she and Luke had been interrupted before they’d completed their thing. Control would be so much easier if she didn’t have the memory of how good almost making love to Luke Winter had been.

  NEAR EIGHT in the evening, hours after the meeting with Ron, Katie sat alone at the informal dining table at the back of Luke’s kitchen, the house to herself. Ron had taken Luke to ball practice, and Katie had stayed behind to deal with the locksmith and the kitchen cleanup. She didn’t like Luke being out without her, but Ron was with him, and they had all agreed, she could only follow Luke around so much without breaking her cover.

  After what had felt like chaos for most of the day, finally, the house was empty. Katie sat with her much-improved leg—thanks to several painkillers—propped up on a chair, her notebook computer open in front of her. Soon enough, though, Luke would return, and it would be only the two of them—alone again—a host of sexual tension bursting with life, and she didn’t know what to do about it.

  Sadly, she saw Noah’s and Josh’s appearance later that night as a way to keep her chemistry with Luke from eroding her common sense. A buffer was good. The memories of what they’d done in that bedroom—the kisses, the touches, the pleasure—were diminishing her ability to think straight. And when Ron had surprised them, she’d felt guilty, she’d felt wrong.

  But now…now, she felt conflicted. She wanted Luke safe. She wanted Luke in bed. She wanted to do what was right. Could all of these things happen together? She wasn’t sure, and since she had no time to really evaluate things objectively, she had to focus on what had happened today, and on Luke’s protection.