The Renegade

by Jennifer Bernard

  Lyle got the feeling that Jake had been testing him. Had he passed or failed? The microwave beeped and he pulled out the applesauce.

  Jake finished his coffee and rose to his feet. He took his cup to the sink, where he rinsed it out and stacked it on the drying rack. “Izzy comes with a twin, never forget that. I’ll always be watching out for her, and her for me.”

  Lyle tested the applesauce and found it warm enough to feed to Tigger.

  Jake’s comment rang true—the twins would always have each other’s backs. Was there any chance that the way to Isabelle’s heart was through her twin brother?

  Before Jake could leave the kitchen, Lyle called after him. “I hear you’ve been leaving Rocky Peak and not telling anyone why. That you’re looking for something, or someone.”

  Jake swung around, a wary look on his usually easygoing face. “Yeah, what of it?”

  “I know some investigators, some great ones. Whatever you’re searching for—and don’t tell me, that’s not the point—if you’re coming up empty I can hook you up with some names. One of them in particular owes me a favor. She’s the best. ”

  Jake studied him for a long moment. “Help me, win my sister over? Is that your strategy?”

  Lyle laughed ruefully. Was he really that transparent? “Just let me know. The offer’s sincere.”

  “Thanks, man. I’ll think about it. With Izzy wrapped up here, I could use a sidekick.”

  “I know the perfect one.” Lyle decided not to mention that she was a kickass, gorgeous woman. Let Jake find that out on his own.

  After Jake left, Lyle sat Tigger in the high chair that Renata had dragged in from the restaurant. He filled a little spoon with applesauce as the baby kicked happily.

  “You sure do love your applesauce. Doesn’t take much to please you, does it? Family vibe. That’s a new one. Guess Jake forgot that I’m an arrogant, coldhearted Terminator rock wall.”

  With an excited babble, Tigger opened his mouth for a spoonful of applesauce.

  “Lyle Guero, renegade tycoon and provider of applesauce,” Lyle muttered dryly. “If only the board of directors could see me now.”

  Shortly after that, Serena and Gracie appeared in the kitchen with their sketchbooks. It turned out that they’d been planning an early morning sketching expedition to a little hunter’s cabin, but changed their plans as soon as they saw Tigger.

  “Baby sketches!”

  Gracie crowed as she lifted Tigger from the high chair. “Please, Lyle, let us keep Tigger for the next hour. We’ll take perfect care of him. I mean, we’ll be staring at him the entire time, so how could he possibly get into trouble?”

  “I don’t know. I promised Isabelle I wouldn’t leave him.”

  Lyle took Tigger from Gracie’s arms and placed him back in the bassinet. After tucking the blanket around him, he glanced at Gracie and caught the oddest look on her face. She was staring at the bassinet as if it had just turned into a toadstool.

  “We have your cell number,” Serena assured him. “And we’ll only be an hour or so. Go on, get some more sleep. You look tired.”

  “Exhausted,” added Gracie, as if her weird reaction had never occurred. Maybe he’d imagined it.

  “Practically gaunt,” said Serena.

  Gracie cocked her head at him. “No, he’s still pretty good-looking. For an older guy.”

  “Okay, that’s my cue,” said Lyle, scrubbing a hand across the back of his neck. “I’ll go check on Isabelle, let her know Tigger’s been kidnapped by a band of roving artists.”

  “Good. We got this.” The two of them settled around the table and opened their sketchbooks and pencil boxes.

  “Keep those pencils away from Tigger,” he warned, pausing in the doorway. “And make sure Rogue doesn’t jump onto the table and lick him.”

  “Yes, Dad. Now shoo,” said Serena, waving her eraser at him.

  “I wonder why he’s called Tigger,” Gracie was saying as he left. “Do you think it’s his real name or is it short for something?”

  “Short for what?”

  “I don’t know, like…Trigger?”

  Lyle laughed all the way back to Isabelle’s room.

  When he pushed open the door, he found her still deeply asleep, curled up in exactly the same position, as if he’d never left. The room felt slumberous, filled with dreams and shadows. Pearly light showed at the edges of the curtains, but it was pale winter light, nothing that would rouse anyone from sleep.

  Without thinking about it too much, he lay down next to her, exactly as he had been, spooned against her back. She stirred slightly, snuggling her ass closer into the cradle of his body. He put an arm around her and she sighed in her sleep.

  Contentment flowed through him like a drug. He wasn’t sure he’d ever felt this relaxed before in his life. The sleepy warmth of Isabelle’s body, the quiet peace of her bedroom, the light slowly transforming the darkness outside…it all added up to something so piercingly sweet he wanted to preserve it in amber.

  Really, only one thing could make it better. And a few minutes later, it happened. Isabelle came awake. He felt her slow rise into awareness, the subtle increase in the tension of her body, the shift in her breathing. She turned over to face him. A smile quivered at the corners of her lips as she met his eyes.

  “Tigger?” she whispered.

  “In the kitchen with Serena and Gracie. He’s playing artists’ model. I fed him applesauce. Changed his diaper. He’s fine. I thought you might want to sleep some more.”

  “Yes. Thanks.” In the dawn light, her eyes could have been emeralds hidden in a lush rainforest.

  “Do you want me to leave? I didn’t mean to wake you. I came to leave you a note about Tigger, and—”

  She stopped him with a finger to his lips, and shook her head. “No, don’t leave. I had the dream again.”

  “The one about your mother?”

  “Yes, except it was different. I was still flying, like a kite, and she was still making kite strings for me, but in this version, I had a destination. I never had a destination before. I mean, in the dream. It’s so funny, but that never occurred to me before. I was taking flight but I had no destination, and never realized it until the dream changed. Just now.”

  Her husky morning voice was beyond sexy to him. He could listen to her talk about her dream forever, he thought. “What was the destination?”

  She hesitated, scanning his face. “Rome,” she finally said. “It was Rome.”

  16

  At first, Isabelle couldn’t read the expression on Lyle’s face. He looked as if he was absorbing her words through his skin, into his body. His shoulders looked like mountains against the early morning light filtering through her curtains. Heat radiated from his body, making her blood hum.

  How much willpower could a girl summon first thing in the morning?

  “Do you remember where we left off in Rome?” she murmured, rising up on one elbow. With a light shove, she urged him down onto his back. He wore a zippered hoodie. Bending her head, she used her teeth to unzip it. The hard curves of his chest made the saliva dry up in her mouth.

  He was watching her so closely, so carefully.

  “I’m pretty sure you were lying down like this,” she whispered. “And I was somewhere right around here.”

  She swung one leg over him and shifted into the same straddling position that was burned into her nighttime fantasies leftover from Rome.

  “That does look familiar.” He reached up and ran one finger along the upper edge of her bra. “Different bra, though. The other one was white.”

  “That was my favorite travel bra.” She shivered at the prickles racing across her skin. “It’s important to look good in case you get into an accident, you know. Renata always told me that.”

  “She was so right. You accidentally ran into me. And you looked good. Still do.” He spread his hand across the skin above her breasts. The breadth of his handspan amazed her. It felt as if every inch of her chest w
as covered by his warm palm. It was a wonderfully hypnotic sensation. “You always do, to me.”

  “Well, see this one is actually my most embarrassing bra. It’s the comfy last resort I wear when I haven’t done laundry lately.” Was that the kind of thing you were supposed to confess to a billionaire? Even a de-billionaired one?

  “Doesn’t matter. You still look good to me. You always look good to me. Clothes are irrelevant.”

  She rolled her eyes slightly. “Men always say that. Then you show up in a skimpy dress and they lose their minds.”

  “Hey, I’m pro skimpy dress. I’m also pro comfy bra. I’m also very much pro getting rid of the comfy bra.”

  Laughter rose straight up from her heart to her lips, into a smile she couldn’t hide. “I hope you don’t mean permanently.”

  “Just for now.” He reached behind her and deftly found the fastener. Then he hit a roadblock, because the catch was broken.

  He chuckled as he struggled with the fastener. “Okay, make it permanent. Just how attached are you to this one?”

  “Very. It’s mine.”

  “Ditch this one. I’ll buy you a new one.”

  She put a hand on his chest while he continued to work on it. “Hey. Before we do this, I just want to say one thing. I’m my own person. I decide when it’s time to throw away my bras. Bossing me around in bed is one thing. Once we set foot outside bed, no one bosses me around. Not you, not anyone.”

  “It’s just a bra.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s a principle.”

  He held her gaze, then nodded slowly. “I hear you. I do. And honestly, it’s a great bra. If you love it, I love it. My only problem with it is that I can’t get it off. This bra is a fricking cockblocker. It has it in for me. I’d do better doing ten rounds in a boxing ring.”

  She burst out laughing at his absurdity. “I got it. Give me a second.” Instead of messing with the catch, she tugged it over her head and tossed it aside. “Voila.”

  “Well damn.” He cupped her breasts, which filled his hands perfectly. Her nipples were already hardening just from the way he looked at her. “Now I know.”

  “Now you know.” Her breath was coming fast and her head swam with anticipation.

  “Can we get back to another point you just made? That bit about bossing you around in bed. I liked that.”

  Her throat tightened, as if a vise had closed around it. “What I meant was—”

  “I know what you meant.” His quiet tone made liquid heat rise in her lower belly. He brushed his thumbs across her nipples. She leaned forward, arching her back, aching with desire. For long moments of excruciating pleasure, he stroked her breasts, cradling them in his palms, shaping them, arousing the erect peaks until she wanted to burst out of her skin.

  “Lean forward, sweetheart. I want to taste your beautiful nipples.”

  Swallowing hard, she braced herself over him, offering her breasts to his mouth. At first he used the sharp point of his tongue to lick the merest tips. Each stroke sent a shot of sensation straight to her sex.

  Then he drew one peak into the warm cavern of his mouth. She cried out softly as he suckled the hard nub. She closed her eyes, so the streaks of pleasure felt like meteors shooting through the sky. While he teased her breasts with his mouth, his hands were busy stroking her sides, her belly, her hips. He smoothed the length of her spine, as if she were a cat. He explored every curve, every inch, reaching all the way down to the globes of her ass and the smooth notch at her tailbone.

  She was shivering almost violently by the time his hand came between her legs. One hand rested on her ass, the other gently cupped her sex. Through her panties, she didn’t feel the full effect, but it was enough so her body jerked when he pressed the area above her clit.

  “I want to see you come,” he whispered hoarsely. “I want to hear you shout my name.”

  “No shouting,” she gasped. “Soundproofing is for shit in this wing.”

  He laughed, a strained sound very different from his usual chuckle. He must be just as carried away as she was, just as determined to keep a grip on his lust.

  “Someday I’m going to hear you scream in orgasmic bliss. That’s all I’m saying.”

  A thrill passed through her at that “someday.” The thought of all the delicious things this man could make her experience nearly overwhelmed her. Maybe she wouldn’t let herself scream right now, but there would definitely be moaning and panting and maybe some whimpering.

  There already was. “That feels so good, Lyle. Right there. Maybe a little…” She wriggled, trying to get the pressure a little lower, right on her clit.

  He grinned. “Are you trying to rush me?”

  “Well, I mean, I’m not sure how long we’re going to have before Ti—” She sucked in a breath as he pressed his thumb right where she wanted it. “Oh my God.” He proceeded to make a slow circle with the tip of his thumb, even deploying his thumbnail to tease her.

  “Thing is,” he murmured, “I don’t like being rushed. I like to savor every moment. Life is unpredictable.”

  “You’re unpredictable.” She gasped as he drew down the elastic of her panties. The rush of cooler air against her suddenly exposed privates gave her a shock.

  “Am I?”

  Oh yes … in the best possible way. A renegade even between the sheets. She bit her lip, waiting for his next move now that he could reach her trembling flesh.

  “What do you think I’m going to do now?” he murmured. He gripped her hips, strong hands holding her steady, suspended over him.

  “You’re going to make me come?” she answered in a trembling, hopeful voice.

  “Yes, but how? Am I going to finger you until you shatter? Am I going to put my mouth on you? Lick your sweet juicy pussy? Or maybe you’ll come on my cock. My rock. Hard. Cock.”

  Each word sent a new thrill through her. He took her hand and put it on his erection. It was iron hard and radiated heat through his thick fleece pants. She gripped it convulsively, feeling her mouth water. Her physical craving for this man, for every part of him, blew her mind.

  “I…I don’t know. All of the above. One after the other. Multiple choice orgasms.”

  With a bark of laughter, he threw his head back. “I’m here to please.” He slid his finger farther under the edge of her underwear and touched, just lightly, the soft nest of curls, and then the hood above her clit.

  She trembled, afraid to move and lose the contact; it felt so good. If he could only reach a little further…and then he did. Pleasure flooded her as his fingers found her, bare and slippery under the fabric.

  He made a sound deep in his throat that added another layer to her pleasure. It was such an appreciative sound, as if she was beautiful and sexy beyond measure.

  “Let’s take off your panties, Isabelle.” She’d been so lost in his touch that his rough words made her startle. “Lift up.”

  She rose onto her knees so he could tug her underwear down her thighs. Another whoosh of coolness across her sensitive flesh.

  “Now lie down on top of me.”

  She stretched her body over his in a long, luscious kiss of skin on skin. Her breasts pressed into his chest, his rough hair abrading her nipples. She arched against him like a cat, wanting more of that wild friction.

  He inched her panties farther down her thighs, then with a sudden swoop of movement, rolled her over so she was stretched out under him. He dragged her panties the rest of the way down her legs and there she was, completely naked for his avid gaze.

  “Now we’re talking,” he growled. He planted a hand on each of her inner thighs and pressed them apart. His hot scrutiny alone was enough to incinerate her. She clutched at the bedsheets on either side of her, looking down at his dark head hovering between her thighs. This was surreal, to see this strong, proud man hunched over her like a beast with its prey.

  Except she didn’t feel like prey. She felt like a goddess.

  He bent his head and touched his tongue to her
clit. It felt like a bolt of lightning crackling through the air. Her body jolted in response, out of control, but his hands kept her thighs anchored to the bed.

  “My God, Lyle.” Her moan came from the deepest part of herself, a blatant plea for release. “Please.”

  He spread the flat of his tongue over her. Every part of her sex flamed at his touch, a searing sharp pleasure. It wasn’t an orgasm, not yet, just an intense response, a gathering of sensation ready to detonate through her.

  She tried to tilt her hips upwards, to press against his tongue. More friction, that was what she wanted. More wet heat, more lush roughness, more tongue, more mouth, more Lyle.

  “Don’t you worry, baby. I got this. You’re going to come so hard you won’t remember what planet we’re on.” His hot breath wafted against her sex. When he spoke, he couldn’t lick her anymore, and when he suckled, he couldn’t speak. So he alternated, and the shift from moisture to air, heat to coolness, drove her out of her mind with need.

  “Please, Lyle, please…that feels too good, I can’t bear it.”

  He drew away from her again, and her pussy clenched. She needed him back, almost more than she wanted to breathe. “That’s not possible,” he said sternly. “There’s no ‘too good.’ Take that back.”

  “I take it back!” She swatted his upper arm, where the muscles stood out thick and hard under the hoodie he still wore. “Please, Lyle.”

  “I thought we had an understanding. You get to hang on to your bras. I get to boss you around in bed.”

  “Yes, I know, but—you’re being annoying!” Her cry echoed through the air, absurdly plaintive.

  He laughed. “Wouldn’t want to annoy you. Here, is this better?” He went back to work, clamping his hot mouth on her sex and circling his tongue around her clit. God, he was so good at this. The strength of his hands holding her thighs apart clashed with the sensitivity of his mouth.

  And the whole time, something explosive lurked behind his controlled movements. She knew he was keeping himself on a short leash, suppressing his own need so he could take care of her. And somehow, that made him even more sensationally appealing. With him, she felt none of the anxiety she often felt during sex, that it would be unsatisfactory, or that she had to hurry up and come before her bed partner lost patience.