Under His Skin (Ranger Security Book 1)

by Rhonda Russell

  “I found a bottle of red nail polish under her desk last night. It’s not anything I’ve ever seen her wear. Around here, anyway.” She blinked owlishly. “Clearly she wears it...other places.”

  “In her happy place,” Jeb told her. “That’s the name of the file.”

  “Wow. I would have never suspected her of something like this. It’s...” She shook her head. “I can’t even wrap my mind around it.”

  “And if you didn’t imagine she could be a dominatrix, then what does that say about whether or not she could be a thief?”

  She paused, shook her head. “I still don’t—”

  Suddenly a noise from the foyer reached them, a distinct sound of the door opening. Sophie gasped and they shared a look. Jeb gestured under the desk, where she quickly scrambled, then killed the power to the computer. He grabbed the USB, then crowded in under with her, dragging the desk chair into place just as the door swung open.

  If that was Marjorie, then they were screwed. And she’d probably beat them, Jeb thought, stifling the inappropriate need to chuckle.

  Feeling him shake, Sophie turned her head toward his and shot him a questioning look. He could just make out her perplexed expression and it made him want to laugh all the more. She glared at him significantly, then put her hand over his mouth.

  “Stop it,” she mouthed silently.

  He kissed her hand again, this time touching his tongue to its center.

  She stilled, went a little boneless and smothered a moan.

  But whoever had come into the office clearly wasn’t Marjorie. They didn’t turn on the light and didn’t come near the desk. Instead, humming lightly under their breath, the person opened the cabinet beneath the aquarium and the sound of lightly splashing water resonated like thunder in the quiet room.

  “Hello, my lovelies,” the person trilled. It took a second to place the voice—Ethel.

  Sophie noticed it too, her gaze finding his once more in the dark. A frown marred her brow, suggesting that it wasn’t Ethel’s job to clean Marjorie’s aquarium.

  It would be easier to focus on that little tidbit of information if her breasts weren’t pressed right up against his chest. Plump and ripe, the sensual weight of them sizzled through him, making another part of his anatomy take notice.

  It swelled accordingly.

  She noticed.

  Jeb shrugged helplessly. What could he say? He wanted her. He’d made that plain enough over the past few days. Him having a hard-on, particularly when she was nuzzled so closely up against him, shouldn’t come as any real surprise.

  She bit her bottom lip, smothered some sort of noise, then dropped her head against the curve of his shoulder. Her warm breath fanned over his neck, eliciting another burst of reaction and he felt his dick stir against her, seeking her like some sort of carnal divining rod.

  To his everlasting joy and torment, she scooted up and slid her nose along his throat, breathing him in, then pressed her lips against him, tasting his neck. And the hell of it? He couldn’t move, not without making a sound or knocking something over. He had to lay there and take it, and the she-devil knew it.

  Jeb bit back a curse as she slipped farther up along his body, but somehow managed to get an arm around her, then slip his hand up under her sweater, touching her sleek, warm skin.

  So soft... Softer than he’d dared to imagine.

  She answered him with another retaliation of her own, sliding her hand along his jaw, then turning his head and pressing her lips against his. Her kiss was slow and thorough, laced with an undercurrent of desperation and urgency. Her entire little body hummed with it, vibrated like a struck piano wire. She shifted, drawing herself more closely to him and ran her hand down over his chest, then lower still as she cupped him through his jeans.

  He would have come up from beneath the table if she hadn’t held him down, stilling him with a deeper kiss. Stroking him through his jeans, she sucked his tongue into her mouth, mimicking a more intimate act, and he felt an ooze of pleasure leak from his dick, a warning of what was to come.

  Literally.

  It seemed impossible that Ethel was in the room with them, messing around with that damned aquarium, but the periodic hum or splash of water would confirm it.

  It was mind-boggling. But strangely thrilling, he had to admit.

  Not content to merely touch him through his clothes anymore, he felt Sophie’s hand at the button on his jeans, felt it give. She couldn’t lower the zipper without it giving them away, but she’d used the silent breath he’d sucked in as an opportunity to slide her hot little fingers over the head of his penis, coating him with his own cream.

  Jeb set his teeth so hard he feared they would crack.

  She was trying to kill him, he decided. Trying to make him have a heart attack.

  Rather than let her torture him, Jeb decided a little torment of his own was in order. He carefully nudged her onto her back, then followed her down with a kiss. She tasted like French fries and sweet tea, like seduction, like heaven and he wanted to sink into her so desperately his hands shook from the effort of holding back. He wanted to slide his dick deep into the heart of her, nestle his own hips into the perfect cradle of her wider ones and slake his lust in her soft, welcoming body.

  He just wanted.

  He found the hem of her shirt, then edged it up, pushing his up over her warm, silky skin until he found the lacy edge of her bra. He expertly popped the clasp in the middle, silently thanking the brilliant designer who’d thought of that plan, then felt the cup give way and snag on her nipple.

  A brush of his fingers and it was out of the way and her plump, lush breast was in his hand, the beaded nipple thrusting against his palm. He ached to taste it, to feel it rasp across the roof of his mouth.

  From the dimmest recesses of his mind, he heard the office door close, felt the silence close in around them once more. They both stilled, then looked at each other. Waited. Heard the exterior door whoosh shut, the tumbler in the lock click into place.

  Then he was on her.

  Jeb shoved Marjorie’s desk chair out of the way, rolled into the space behind the desk, taking her with him.

  She shrugged out of her shirt, removing the bra in the process, then lifted her hips so that he could get her jeans off. Good Lord, she was beautiful. Full, lovely breasts, crested with rosy crowns, the sweet curve of her belly, a thatch of dark curls nestled between her thighs.

  He didn’t know where to start, which part he wanted to taste first. Rather than wait on him to figure it out, she leaned forward and drew the shirt over his head, then bent forward and pressed her hot mouth against his chest, licking a path along the upper ridge of his right pec. She hummed appreciatively, slipped her greedy hands over his belly and around his back.

  Jeb groaned, lowered his zipper and shucked his pants and boxers. She moaned when she saw him, a tiny little mewl of feminine affirmation, of desire, and something about that sound tripped an internal trigger.

  “I’m healthy,” he breathed, sliding a hand down the middle of her belly, dipping his fingers into the honey pot between her thighs, gratified when she inhaled sharply and arched up into him. He palmed her right breast, then bent and pulled her into his mouth. “You?” he whispered blowing over it, making her shiver.

  “Clean and protected,” she said, spreading her legs, a silent, desperate invitation.

  Jeb nudged her weeping folds, found her gaze and fastened his on it. “Look at me,” he said, his voice raw and broken. Every muscle in his body was clenched and ready, bracing him for the unknown. Because this coupling was different—she was different—and every iota of understanding and intuition he possessed told him that when he took her, when he made her his...that was it.

  He’d be lost. There’d be no him without her.

  Her melting brown eyes caught his and clung. Desire, hunger, fever and something else, something tender and gentle—affection, maybe?—glinted back from him, reflected in her gaze. A soft smile shaped
her lips and she sighed as she arched up and pushed herself against him.

  “I need you,” she said, her voice anguished, desperate. “Please.”

  I need you...

  Not just want, but need.

  And need he understood, because he needed her as well. He had to have her. It wasn’t optional. It never had been.

  With a guttural groan and a sigh of relief, Jeb pushed into her, slid home, burying himself to the hilt in her heat. Sensation rocked through him, the balls of his feet tingled, his stomach shook, every hair on his body stood on end and his chest squeezed so tightly he could scarcely draw a breath. The world dimmed to black and white, then zoomed back into colors so bright he wondered if he’d ever really seen them before.

  She tightened her feminine muscles around him and rocked up, drawing him farther into her body. Her breasts grazed his chest, her soft hands slipped over his back, greedily eating up his skin, and she bent forward and kissed him, her mouth soft and inviting.

  She was gorgeous, simply, heartbreakingly beautiful. And above all else, she was his.

  Chapter 12

  Oh, hallelujah, Sophie thought as Jeb, hovering above her like a Greek god, poised at her center, the silky head of his penis sliding against her weeping folds.

  At last.

  Though it had only been a few days, it felt like she’d been waiting forever for this moment, that her whole life had hinged on the next few seconds, the instant his body met hers.

  His tortured gaze bored into hers, pinning her thoroughly. Desire had dilated his pupils, making his eyes a glorious midnight blue and the way he was looking at her, the possessiveness she saw in his gaze as he stared down at her as though she were the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen...

  It was enough to make one a little emotional and she found herself blinking back tears, her throat light.

  She’d begged. She’d said please.

  And she wasn’t ashamed.

  With a low moan that sounded as if it had been wrenched from his soul, he pushed into her...and the rest of the world faded away. Sophie sucked in a breath, instantly tightening around him, holding on to him.

  He felt magnificent. Right. Huge. She arched her hips, meeting his torturously slow, rhythmic thrusts, savoring every thick inch of him as he invaded her body. He bent his big blond head and suckled her breast, pulling at her nipple with his lips, licking it with his tongue. And with every determined sensual assault against her breasts, he plunged into her, seemingly trying to sever the invisible chord that ran between the two.

  “You have damned near driven me crazy,” he said, thrusting into her over and over again. She could feel the rug at her back, his hot body at her front and her breasts bounced on her chest, absorbing the impact of his magnificent frame as it slid repeatedly into hers. “I’ve wanted you since the instant I saw you,” he confided, as though it were somehow her fault. “Then the want turned to need and I knew—I knew—that I wouldn’t be able to help myself. That nothing would keep from taking you, having you.”

  She wrapped her arms around him, bent forward and licked his male nipple, anchored her legs on his hips so that he could come closer, hold her tighter. “I’ve wanted you, too,” she said. “Needed you, too. I looked at you and...melted,” she said, laughing softly. “I wanted to lick you from head to toe, fantasized about sucking on your bottom lip.”

  He moved faster and faster, pistoning in and out of her, his tautened balls slapping against her tender flesh. “Do it now,” he said, lowering his head so that she could do just that. She pulled that sulky lip into her mouth, slid her tongue over the soft, plum-like skin and sighed with satisfaction as another wave of sensation bolted through her.

  Fire licked through her veins, burning her up from the inside out and she bucked frantically against him. She could feel the first quickening of release as it sparkled deep inside her and every thrust of his body acted like a bellows, fanned the flame, building it higher. She clung to him, arched into him, whimpered and thrashed as she came closer and closer to the inferno that waited for her. And then, without warning, the blaze swept through her, sucking the oxygen out of her lungs, tearing a long, keening cry from her throat as she convulsed around him.

  Jeb pounded into her, milking the release, drawing every bit of pleasure from her body. His lips peeled away from his teeth, his beautifully muscled chest heaved and then suddenly, she felt him tense, felt every muscle in his body atrophy as his seed flooded her womb. It pulsed inside of her, spasm after spasm, triggering belated delight deep in her core. He angled deep, held steady, his shoulders shaking as the orgasm broke over him.

  He bent and kissed her, his eyes soft, his smile sated and her heart gave an involuntary little squeeze.

  “Definitely the perfect woman,” he said. He carefully rolled off of her, grabbed a few tissues from the top of Marjorie’s desk and handed one to her. Decidedly moist, she appreciated it and did a quick clean-up job, then tossed it into the trash can conveniently located near her head.

  The thought made her chuckle.

  “What’s funny,” he asked, dropping down beside her. He propped up on his elbow and peered at her through the darkness.

  She gestured to where they were. “Just this,” she said. “It’s not far off from how 1 imagined we’d, you know,” she trailed off.

  She could see his eyes twinkling in the faint light, the dimple in his cheek. “Really? How did you imagine the first time?”

  “With my back against the wall, dress around my waist, your pants around your knees, at the dance last night. I kept thinking about it the whole time we were dancing. How I just wanted you to grab hold of me and take me until my eyes rolled back in my head.” She rolled her head toward him, smiled and lifted a brow. “Turns out I’m a proper slut.”

  He swallowed, his jaw a little slack. “You are not a slut,” he said. “You just find me irresistible, that’s all.”

  She laughed. “Oh, is that all?” she said drolly.

  “It is,” he said. “But don’t worry, because I’m suffering from the same affliction. While you were thinking about me pinning you up against the wall, I was thinking about dragging you under one of the tables. I’d say that makes us about even, wouldn’t you?”

  “It makes us crazy,” she said. She turned and peeked at him beneath lowered lashes. “But I kind of like it.”

  “Do you know why I really wanted that chocolate cobbler?” he asked, his hand coming up to play with her breast. He circled her nipple with his thumb, making goose-bumps pebble over her skin.

  Sophie released a faltering breath. “Why?”

  “Because I want to paint you in it and lick it off. I want to put it here,” he said, circling her breast. “And here.” He slid a line down to her belly button. “And here,” he added, sliding a finger down her cleft, over her still-sensitive clit. His gaze tangled with hers. “Any objection?”

  She shook her head, quivering in anticipation. “N-none at all.”

  ###

  Thankful that he’d put his phone on silent, Jeb checked the display and shook his head.

  Atta boy. My spidey senses are telling me this one is special. Really special. My congratulations, brother. I like her.

  He’d missed another message as well, this one from Charlie. A simple “Call me ASAP.” Evidently she’d found something, Jeb thought, wondering what sort of information would require an “as soon as possible” response. His gaze slid to Sophie, who was bent over putting her shoes back on.

  Good Lord, had anything else felt as wonderful as being inside her? Had anything ever made him feel more powerful? More alive? More...everything.

  She was utterly and completely remarkable. She was sweet and kind, full of fire and loyal, hardworking and... adorable.

  This one is special, his brother had said.

  Mild understatement.

  This one wasn’t just merely special—she was a game-changer. She was it. His undoing. He couldn’t imagine taking another step forwar
d, ever again, without her by his side. Was he in love with her? Honestly, he didn’t know. He’d never been in love before, so he had nothing to compare it to. He only knew that he needed to breathe the same air she did. He needed to be near her. He needed to hold her. To protect her. To ensure her happiness.

  She looked up and caught him staring and a slow smile slid over her kiss-swollen lips. “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” he lied. “I just like looking at you.”

  “You’ve got to quit saying stuff like that,” she said. “You’re going to ruin me for other men.”

  “Good.”

  She blinked, seemingly startled.

  “It’s only fair, don’t you think?” he asked. “You’ve ruined me for other women.”

  Another one of those refreshing blushes painted her cheeks. It was mind-blowing, genuinely remarkable that she didn’t recognize her own appeal. That she didn’t know how astonishingly fabulous she truly was. Humility was a little thin on the ground these days, but Sophie O’Brien had it in spades.

  Or was it doubt? he wondered, his belly tightening. Had her father done such a number on her that she was incapable of seeing her true value? Had her confidence been undermined to the point that she didn’t know that she was the most amazing creature he’d ever clapped eyes on?

  “Did you want to look at anything else here before we go?” she asked.

  Jeb shook his head. They’d already gone through the files she’d reviewed last night and made pictures with his cell phone of everyone’s pertinent details. To his surprise, she’d even started a file on him. She’d noted his name, his “adoptive” relationship to Foy, who had evidently explained things to her with that little white lie, that he was a former Ranger, but present employment was unknown. She’d notated his social style, his affable ability to start a conversation and his height, which she’d dubbed “substantial,” along with the added note, “Would look good in my happy place.”