by Lora Leigh
She shook her head. No one had talked to her. A part of her wished they had, then that evening wouldn't seem more like a too-vivid nightmare than reality. There were days she had wondered if it had even happened. If it hadn't been for the fact that Eddie Foreman was indeed dead, then she would almost be convinced she had imagined the entire thing.
"What about Nik Steele?" her friend asked. "Have you seen him again?"
"Coming and going." She scraped at the stubborn paint as Deirdre began working 58
on the other side. "I haven't spoken to him again."
"Not since your brothers cock-blocked you." Deirdre snickered. Mikayla knew what her friend was trying to do. Deirdre was trying to ease the hurt. This had happened so often now that there were times Mikayla wondered if it even hurt any longer.
"I don't want to talk about that, Deirdre." Perhaps she had made a mistake in telling her best friend about the deck fiasco with Nik Steele.
"Of course you don't." Deirdre grinned. "Then you might have to admit you miss him."
Of course she missed him. There was no doubt about that. But the sane part of her brain realized that the absence was for the best.
"Doesn't matter." She finally shrugged, keeping her eyes firmly on the job at hand. "Some things are better off unknown."
Nik Steele was better off being one of those unknowns. Like aliens, the mysteries of the universe.
As she watched the water smear across the red, mixing with the color, looking like blood running in rivulets to the sidewalk, the image of Eddie Foreman flashed in her mind.
She swallowed tightly, her heart thudding sluggishly at the remembered fear.
"Mikayla, you don't mean that," Deirdre said softly.
"I mean it," she whispered as she fought to shake off the nightmarish image of Eddie Foreman's dead body. "He's a bad boy, Deirdre. I'm the good girl. Doesn't that suck? Sounds like a recipe for trouble if you ask me."
"Sounds like a recipe for some incredible sex to me, but I'm prejudiced toward the idea."
The dark rasp of his voice sent a rush of sensation up Mikayla's spine. She swung around, her gaze hitting directly in the center of his chest before lifting, slowly, to those incredible light blue eyes.
What had ever made her believe his gaze was icy? It was hot. Filled with hunger, with sex, with trouble.
Deirdre was so dead. That wench had totally betrayed her.
Blood rushed to her face, heated her body. That was all well and good, but the flush afflicting the flesh between her thighs was terribly uncomfortable. It was lush, damp, so heated. The need for touch began to rock her system, to travel across her nerve endings and throb in areas of her body that she was certain shouldn't be throbbing.
"You weren't supposed to hear that," she muttered irately, turning back to the window, scrubbing at the paint, promising to make sure Deirdre paid for this one. Somewhere, sometime.
"We need to talk, Mikayla," Nik stated as he moved closer, the heat of his body surrounding her. "Could you leave the cleanup to your assistant?"
"No, actually, I can't." She was too close to proving just how thin that layer of her good-girl persona was. It was barely skin-deep, and the flames burning beneath it were melting it away as quickly as a fire softened butter.
He had an effect on her she knew no man should have on a woman. He made her weak. He made her need things she knew she shouldn't need.
She had plans. Her plans did not include having her heart broken, her future 59
forever marred, by the man she couldn't have.
"We could always discuss this on the sidewalk." He turned, leaning his back against an unpainted section of the window, crossing his arms over his chest. "I could tell you in detail exactly what I had planned last week when your brothers decided to become inquisitive and protective. For instance, I didn't have time that night to tell you how soft your pretty thighs are."
Mikayla froze. For one horrible second she could only imagine who was standing behind them. Her breath stopped. Her eyes widened; then she sneaked a peek around them, nearly giving a hard breath of relief when she saw no one. Her gaze jerked back to him.
"Come inside and talk to me, or we'll talk out here."
"You don't want to talk," she hissed.
"Talking is the last thing on my mind," he assured her, his fingers curling around her wrist, his eyes locking onto hers. "Isn't this where the bad boy kisses the good girl in public and begins sullying her pristine reputation?"
There was a twinkle of amusement in his gaze, but it was hesitant, as though in teasing her he was enjoying something he hadn't expected to enjoy.
"Sorry, someone else already took care of sullying that pristine reputation. At least, the honesty part of it." She sighed as she attempted to pull her wrist from his grip.
"Let me go, Nik. I don't have time for this. I have a window to clean."
"And I have a discussion I want to have with you. Come along, sweetheart." He pulled her into the shop as she stared at his back in amazement. The black T-shirt he wore stretched across the hard, well-defined muscles, catching her gaze. Otherwise, she assured herself, she would have never followed him, at least not without the fight she should have given him, into her office. As the door closed behind them and he began to turn, her lips parted to inform him of her opinion, in blistering detail, of his high-handed tactics. He was quicker than she. Between one breath and the next he was lifting her to him, his lips catching hers, his tongue slipping between her lips with rapacious demand, with hungry sexuality.
And she wasn't fighting him. She didn't have the strength to fight him. Instead, her fingers gripped his shoulders, her lips parted further, and her tongue stroked against his, tasted him, drew him into her like the sweetest nectar.
It was exquisite. The taste and the feel of him.
It was like drowning in dark heat and forbidden hunger, and for precious seconds Mikayla allowed herself the sheer luxury of having exactly what she wanted, exactly how she wanted it.
She wasn't going to fall in love with him, she promised herself. This was not going to mess up her plans for her future, because she simply wouldn't allow it to. It was just a moment out of time, she promised herself.
She could have this moment.
She could have his lips on hers, his arms wrapped around her, holding her against the rock-solid heat of his chest, feeling his heart beat against her breasts, the hard outline of his erection beneath his jeans, pressing into her lower stomach. God, she wanted him.
Straining closer, she fought for a deeper kiss, more touch. She wanted to feel him 60
against every inch of her body. She needed him at this moment like she needed the very air to breathe.
Just for a moment.
"Such a good girl," he murmured as his lips sipped from hers, his hands shaping, then cupping the rounded curves of her rear as he lifted her, pressed her against the wall, and let her feel him.
"Aren't you supposed to be fighting, Mikayla?"
The hard wedge of his cock pressed firmly between her thighs, hot, thick, a solid weight of arousal behind the leather pants he wore.
The thin silk of her stylish short skirt rode up her thighs, leaving only a narrow band of silk between the leather and her dampening flesh.
Her panties were no barrier. She felt too much; the sensations traveled too deep.
"I am fighting." She bit at his lips for not kissing her, for daring to pull away from her.
At the nip, he seemed to freeze, then a harsh growl of hunger tore from his lips and he was kissing her as though the sheer act of thrusting his tongue inside her mouth, stroking against hers, mimicking the act their bodies were suddenly desperate for, would somehow assuage a hunger Mikayla knew she was never going to be free of. His hand slid beneath the skirt, calloused fingertips touching bare flesh only a breath from the elastic band of her panties.
She wanted his fingers there. She wanted them sliding beneath the material. She wanted him touching her.
&nbs
She couldn't have him.
She couldn't have this.
She wanted it.
She wanted it with a force threatening to drive her insane as she suddenly found herself free of him, standing against the wall, staring back at him in shock. His hair was loose and flowing along his shoulders. Had she done that? Slipped the leather strap free of his hair?
She must have. It was tangled in her fingers, the warm leather gripped in her hand as she stared back at him, drawing in deep, ragged breaths.
He was no less affected. His eyes blazed with need.
No man had ever burned for her like this. Mikayla had never inspired great passion until now.
And God help her, if she didn't have more of it, then she just might do something she rarely did.
She was going to cry.
"How much do you want, good girl?" His fingers slipped just beneath the edge of her panties, feathering over the swollen, curl-laden flesh that dampened further at the feel of his touch.
"How much?" How much did she want? She wanted everything. All of it. She wanted to forget why she was supposed to protest, and take everything she could get.
"A little?" He breathed a kiss over her lips as his finger feathered against the curls 61
with the lightest caress. "Or a lot?" His finger slipped past the curls of her swollen sex and slid gently between them.
Her lips parted on a gasp of shock, of exquisite pleasure.
"So which do you want, good girl?"
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Chapter 6
Nik wanted it all.
Staring into Mikayla's exceptional violet gaze, he watched the slumberous sensuality take over as his finger rubbed against the snug entrance of her slick, heated pussy.
He wanted nothing more than to slip his finger inside her, to feel the tight grip of intimate flesh, the ripple of pleasure as it raced through the velvety flesh. Instead, he only caressed the clenched entrance. He only touched her gently, easily.
"You should wax here," he suggested, watching her eyes flare again, watching the mingled shock and hunger as it raced through her. "You would feel the lightest breath of a touch then. Your sweet, sensitive flesh would be bare for me, Mikayla. No matter the touch of my fingers, my lips, my cock. You'd feel it as though each nerve ending were naked to my touch."
The sweet, heated flow of her juices trickled against his fingertips, slickening them further as a little gasp of breath parted her lips.
"Please." The little plea was a rasp of sound from her throat.
"Please what, sweet baby?" He brushed his lips against hers.
"Please, don't do this to me."
He stared down at her, seeing the confusion, the pleasure, in her gaze, and he knew in that heartbeat that it had taken everything inside her to make that plea. He heard the words, just as he felt the response in her slender, fragile body. She was arching to him, reaching for him, her body shuddering as it fought for orgasm, even as she whispered the plea that he let her go.
He could give it to her. Just a little. With nothing more than his fingers he could bring her to climax, showing her what she was attempting to deny. That would be cheating, he thought. He wanted her begging for what he could give her, tortured with the need to know what waited on the other side. Not knowing, imagining, wondering what she had pulled away from could in ways be more powerful than knowing.
His finger slid from the clenched opening, slipped upward, circled her straining clit, then pulled away.
He wasn't finished with her, not by a long shot. As she stared up at him, that beautiful gaze sinking into his soul, he brought his fingers to his lips and let himself taste her.
The taste of her exploded against his tongue like liquid sunshine. Fresh, vibrant, a hint of sweetness and spice that he knew he could so easily become addicted to. Her eyes widened as she watched, her lips parting. Swollen cherry red lips. He could easily imagine them parted, those eyes staring up at him as he let himself fuck the sweet recess of her mouth.
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His balls tightened at the thought. She was so innocent, she would be hesitant. He would be her first taste of true passion, and he'd ensure she knew every ounce of pleasure possible.
"A little then?" He kept his voice quiet, the rasp of his nearly broken voice more of a growl.
Her lips trembled. It was sexy, and vulnerable. That vulnerability touched him in a place he hadn't known existed. In the heart he had sworn he didn't have.
"Why are you doing this?" She tugged at her skirt, straightening it, her hands trembling as she stared up at him in confusion.
That look did something to him. Something he couldn't explain. It pierced a part of his soul that had remained frozen hard, solid, for so many years.
"Why am I doing what?" Brushing her hair back from her face, he had to admit Mikayla Martin could make even a dead man dream.
"Why are you messing up my life, Nik Steele? I was fine before you arrived."
"You were bored," he assured her, his fingers brushing along her jawline. "I saw you at the bar, baby. I watched. If your eyes had become any more glazed you would have been comatose. Tell me, have you even heard from the bastard since that night? The one you were there with?"
She hadn't. Nik saw it in the nervous way her tongue peeked out to touch her upper lip.
"I heard he was dating the daughter of one of the firm's partners after that night." Her shoulders lifted in a tight shrug. "No big deal." Her date hadn't even called to see if she had arrived safely, Nik knew. Actually, the man had spent the night in the other woman's bed. And every night thereafter. He'd preferred the barracuda to the gentle woman he'd been with.
The good girl. The virgin.
God help him, Nik wanted to be the man to share that first climax with her. The one who watched her eyes widen, watched her body shudder, and heard her cries as she came around him.
"This isn't over," he told her as she shifted away from him, his gaze locked on her.
"You want to think it is, Mikayla, but you know as well as I do that it's not."
"Why?" Pushing her hair back, she watched him in dismay. "You can have any woman you want, Nik. Why me?"
"Why me?" he asked instead. "Why are you opening a door I didn't know existed inside me? Why, Mikayla, are you making a dead man dream?" He froze. He hadn't said that. Fuck.
He jerked the door open without another word and stalked through the shop and out the door.
This was finished. It was simply over.
And he knew better.
It wasn't over. It couldn't be over until he had the scent of her out of his head, the taste of her from his tongue. And he knew he couldn't stay away from her long enough for that to happen anytime soon.
Striding to the parking lot at the side of the shop, Nik swung onto the Harley and within seconds roared down the street. He wore the helmet, though he wished the wind were in his hair, the scent of a coming rainstorm filling his senses. But rather than wiping 64
the smell and the taste of Mikayla from his mind, it would only remind him of her. She was as wild and as free as the storm, beneath that good-girl exterior. In her eyes he saw more than the dressmaker, more than the virgin. He saw the woman fighting to hold on to safety when safety was the last thing she truly wanted. He should leave her alone, but he knew he wouldn't. He knew he couldn't. The part of him that had been dead was slowly coming to life for her. Staying away wasn't an option.
Reaching up to the side of the helmet, he activated the link to the base and the woman manning communications.
"Jordan is getting nervous, big boy," Tehya informed Nik as she answered the link. "He needs you back here."
"Not yet," he answered, his voice hardening at the thought. "I need you to get some intel for me."
"Jordan finds out that I'm fucking around working on your 'favor' then he's likely to punish me," she drawled.
Nik waited.
"Okay, maybe he'll actually get around to that spanking he keeps threatening me with." She laughed lightly. "What do you need?"
"Luke Nelson, Maddix Nelson's son," Nik answered her. "You didn't tell me he had dated Mikayla."
"Baby, your little Miss Martin dates a lot," Tehya informed him with a thread of amusement. "In the past year she's gone out with eight different men. Even the little controversy between her and Nelson hasn't slowed down her social life. Rarely the same one for more than a few dates, though. She's very popular. She attends many of the parties that her dresses are worn to. Before Eddie Foreman was killed she was a very popular guest in many homes. That's actually risen since she accused Maddix Nelson of murder. This war between them keeps everyone highly entertained, it seems. If you want to know more about the families you should ask Eleanor Longstrom." Eleanor Longstrom owned the antique store down from Mikayla's shop. An exCIA agent and contact for the unit, she could dig up information others only dreamed of acquiring.
"Check him out. While you're at it, see if you can dig up anything on Maddix that I don't already have. Something's wrong here, Tehya. Both of them can't be telling the truth."
Tehya was silent for long moments. "She's a pretty girl," she finally said softly.
"Are you falling, Ice Man?"
It was a nickname Tehya used with fondness, as she did now. But it reminded him how dangerous Mikayla was to his self-control.
"That has nothing to do with the truth," he told Tehya. "They're both sticking to their story and I need to get to the bottom of it. See what you can find out for me."
"Will do," she promised. "It's going to take a few days, though. The team is on mission and I'm providing backup intel."
"Understood." The mission came first. "Work on it when you can." The link disconnected as Nik turned the bike to the interstate, taking the exit to the house he had rented. He was going to have to finish this, quickly. Otherwise, the little fairy stealing his self-control was going to end up stealing his heart as well. 65
Mikayla pulled the Jeep into her driveway, glanced at the house next door, and saw the lights that blazed inside as well as the glow of the back porch lights. It was well after dark. She had deliberately stayed at the shop as long as possible, trying to restore the defenses she had never had to worry about falling at a man's touch. But no man had ever affected her as Nik Steele did.
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