But they just stared at each other.
“Try to share your breathing,” she said, but it was like the woman wasn’t even in the room, her voice barely a whisper in the distance. Kate kept her attention on Alec, memorizing every angle of his face, the slash of his sharp cheekbones, the crooked slant of his nose, the scar above his right eye. How had he gotten that? And how could she keep from touching it?
She couldn’t. As if mesmerized, she lifted her hand and brushed the split in his eyebrow. His only reaction was to add pressure to her breasts, making her nipples bud under his palms.
“Put your lips close, but don’t touch.”
Kate dipped down to close the tiny space between their mouths.
“Don’t kiss,” Valaina ordered in that raspy whisper. “Breathe. Tilly, breathe him in. Benjamin, breathe her out. And again.”
The tip of his tongue flicked against Kate’s lower lip, making everything in her twist and squeeze.
“In and out,” Valaina whispered.
They breathed, their lips sparking when they accidentally touched.
“And do not forget my questions.”
The questions. Kate could barely remember them. Why did he not feel worthy of her? Why did he make her feel helpless?
“Now prepare the answer in your head. Prepare. Know what you’re going to say.” Her voice seemed so distant, lost in the hum and pulse in Kate’s head, the thrum of hot blood rushing through her body, the buzz in her brain that screamed kiss!
“Tell her about your hands, Benjamin.” She was quieter still.
Kiss!
“Tell him why you feel weak, Tilly.” Her voice was almost impossible to hear.
Kiss.
“And I’ll be back in one hour.”
The swooshing sound of her disappearing behind the drapes was drowned out by the moan that escaped Alec’s throat as he finally, finally closed the space and smothered Kate with his kiss.
*
Alec opened his mouth and tasted her, curling his tongue against hers and angling his head to get what he wanted. More.
“She’s gone,” Kate whispered into the kiss.
His blood surged with need. Finally able to really use his hands, he caressed her soft, sloping breasts, thumbing the hard buds of her nipples, battling the urge to break the kiss so he could suckle and lick every inch of her skin.
“She’s gone.” The words pulled him out of his haze, making him aware of the strangled breath trapped in his chest, and that his dick was fully engorged and throbbing against the sex-dampened crotch of her bathing suit.
Finally, slowly, achingly, he broke the kiss and opened his eyes. But Kate’s were still closed as she tilted her head back, offering him direct access to her throat.
“She’s gone,” she whispered one more time.
In other words, Don’t stop. Had he read that right? “Kate.”
“Tilly,” she corrected, looking at him from under thick lashes. “We could be under observation. From Gabe. From her, making sure we’re doing our homework.”
“Then maybe we should go back to the villa and do it.”
Her eyes flashed.
“Homework, I mean.”
She sat straight, staring at him, sliding her hands around his neck, her fingers warm and strong and demanding. “Please.”
A slow smile pulled at his mouth.
“Why are you smiling?”
“Because I love it when you use simple, one-syllable words I understand.”
“Please,” she repeated, kissing the word into his mouth.
She didn’t have to say it a third time.
They kissed with pent-up fury. She was as desperate as he was to let their tongues battle it out and turn the mouth-on-mouth contact into mouth-on-throat and mouth-on-breastbone and, as he leaned her backward, mouth-on-nipple, which was hot and sweet and perfect.
It was an act, right? For the invisible audience or secret cameras or whatever? He clung to that excuse and her body, laying her back on the pillow. She kept her legs wrapped around him, pulling him against her, palming his back and arms and shoulders, and rocking her hips so his cock slammed right between her legs.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “That feels so good.”
She wanted him. She wanted him to touch her and rub her. She arched her back, adding pressure, letting his dick slide over her mound, making him almost howl with pleasure.
One tiny piece of bathing suit out of the way, and he could be all the way inside her.
He pushed up, shocked by the thought. “Is this what you want?” he asked.
“I don’t know what I want,” she admitted on a torn breath, spreading her hands over his back and dragging them up and down. “Except…” She bit her lip and looked up at him. “Can we pretend a little longer?”
“Yeah.”
The bright red sheer thing had fallen to the side, revealing her breasts wet from his mouth, her nipples like sweet raspberries. “We should pretend a little longer,” he whispered.
He dragged his hands over her stomach and between her breasts, touching her nipple—and freezing. Suddenly, the ugliness of his fingers against the beauty of her skin stopped all that nice rush of pleasure.
“What?” Kate asked.
She sat up enough to follow his gaze. Instantly, he tried to move his hand, but she snagged it and squeezed it, keeping his hand pressed to her velvety skin.
“No one is here to see your tattoo.”
He shook his head, feeling the shame, the familiar, hot, hated shame rise up through him.
“I have no right—”
“I’ve given you the right,” she said, pressing his hand harder. “Touch me.”
He didn’t jerk his hand away, but he didn’t fondle her, either.
“I like it,” she whispered, rocking her hips as if that could emphasize that she was telling the truth. “A lot.”
Very, very slowly, he stroked her breast. “My hands are—”
“Sexy,” she finished.
He bit back a smile, his heart doing stupid things at that. “No, my hands are…” Meant for killing and hurting, maiming and fighting. Not tenderness.
“Masculine.”
He laughed. “My hands are—”
“About to make me come.” She lifted her hips again, pressing hard against his painful erection. “If you will just…keep…touching me.”
He obeyed the order and lowered his head to add a kiss, wanting her tongue against his again, his cock enormous now, rolling against her wet suit, firing raw pleasure into his balls. The rhythm grew natural, their breathing impossible, and the kiss only stopped when she lost control and clutched his back and sank her teeth into his shoulder and fell apart with a long, sweet, exquisite-sounding orgasm.
He fought not to do the same, knowing on every level that that wasn’t what should happen. But it wasn’t easy. She rocked a few more times and trembled with an aftershock and pulled him even closer to her, burying her face in his shoulder and neck.
When she got her breath, she turned her head to look at him, saying nothing.
He wanted to kiss her lips, and cheek, and throat. And all of her. But he didn’t, deciding it was much better to make light of what just happened.
“I bet we get an A on our homework,” he said.
She frowned. “She didn’t tell us to make out. She told us to share secrets.”
“Don’t you think we shared enough for one day?”
A flicker of hurt danced over her expression, so fast he almost missed it. “Of course.” She pushed him back, snagging the corner of her flimsy cover-up and pulling it over her breasts, giving him a harsh look.
“What?” he asked, propping up to look at her. “Not enough control for you?”
She bristled at the question, arching upward enough to put her mouth against his ear. “Listen to me,” she hissed out on a breath only he could hear. “I’m flat on my back in a beach cabana, half-naked and fully satisfied. We were one thrust away from copu
lation, and I wasn’t saying no. It doesn’t get any more vulnerable than that.” She eased him off her, rolling away. “Get up, Beast. Party’s over.”
He didn’t argue. They were halfway down the beach before he realized she’d brought the see-through red sheet and was letting it fly in the breeze like a red-hot wake.
Chapter Seventeen
There was no way she’d sleep. Not even a chance. Robyn eyed the two beers in the back of her refrigerator, so tempted—just to make herself sleepy. Otherwise, she’d be up all night, pacing, worrying, anticipating the trip to Vlitnik’s tomorrow and the possibility of seeing Cole.
After Selena helped her figure out where that photo had been taken, and when, she’d called and left a message and, next thing she knew, she got a call from some lady who said Mr. Vlitnik would see her at nine tomorrow morning.
She was surprised he wanted to wait, but whatever. It gave her ten more hours to be prepared.
She poured a large glass of milk and picked up the baby-name book she’d found for a dollar at a garage sale, turning to the boys’ names.
Rubbing her belly, she thought about the little baby boy she already loved. Flipping to the C’s, she scanned the names. Not Cole, of course, but maybe Cade for a boy. Or Cameron—
The front door lock snapped, making her gasp. Did someone just unlock her door? The complex of cheap apartments in Flatbush, New York, wasn’t crime-ridden, but it wasn’t the safest place in the world, either.
The knob turned, and she stifled a scream, staring at the chain that would prevent anyone from fully opening the door. She hoped.
Silent, her heart hammering, she backed into the sofa, dividing her gaze between the door and the cell phone she’d left on the kitchen counter. Could she—
“Robyn? Robyn, are you home?”
“Cole!” She flew off the sofa and ran to the door, her hand shaking too hard to undo the chain. Of course he still had a key. She stuck her face through the tiny opening to make sure she wasn’t dreaming this time.
There he was, his golden eyes as warm as ever, a gray hoodie over his short blond hair, his nose…
“What happened to you?”
“Just open the door!”
She got the chain halfway across and then stopped, thinking about the only boy who mattered more than Cole—the one she was carrying inside. She glanced down at the oversized sweatshirt and leggings she wore. At a glance, he’d never notice. But if he looked closely—
“Robyn, come on. This is important!”
Should she tell him? Could she not?
She closed her eyes and said the closest thing she knew to a prayer. “God help me,” she whispered. “And little…Cade.” Then she slid the chain across and had to jump back when the door practically slammed her in the face.
“Cole!” She covered her mouth to keep from squealing with happiness. “Where have you—”
“Where is Petrov?” he demanded.
She took a step back. “What?”
“Alec Petrov, my old trainer. I know you know where he is.”
She stabbed her fingers into her hair, inching away, emotions swirling so hard she couldn’t think. “How do you know that?”
“Because you’re going to see Vlitnik tomorrow. And you can’t, Robyn. You can’t go there. He’ll never keep his end of the deal.”
She swallowed and fought for air, staring at the boy—no, he was a man now—she thought she loved. The guy she left Philadelphia to live with, until he disappeared.
The father of her baby.
“How do you know that?” she asked.
“I got friends who know him really good.”
Her brain finally started working again. “Where have you been? Why did you just disappear?”
“You know…” He shrugged.
“No, I don’t know. You just vanished, Cole. You never called or came here or—”
“Forget it, okay?” He was tense and nervous and looking around, like he was searching for something.
Searching for whatever she knew about Alec Petrov.
“Is that why I saw you at Vlitnik’s house?” she asked. “’Cause you have friends who know him?”
“Yeah, and you can’t tell him where Alec is, Robyn,” he said. “They’re going to kill him.”
She gasped. “Wha—why?”
“Don’t know.” He shrugged, as if killing someone were no big deal, and she hugged herself against unwanted chills.
“But he knows that I know where Alec is,” she said, suddenly wondering if that knowledge put her in danger. Real danger. Like, getting killed danger.
She wanted so badly to rub her belly, but a sixth sense she didn’t understand kept her from drawing his attention there.
“Just make something up to tell him,” Cole said. “But tell me the truth.” He flipped down his hood to reveal more cuts and bruises on his face than she’d ever seen on him.
Cole had been fighting MMA for a long time, as a hobby and a way to make extra cash, and he was good. He rarely got hit that hard. “What happened to your face?”
Another shrug. “Usual shit. Listen, you have to tell me where he is.”
She did? What if he told Vlitnik and got the reward? “Cole, I really need money.”
He snorted. “So do I.”
“I gotta have the money.”
He eyed her hard. “Believe me, he’s given you all you’re ever going to get. A grand for next to nothing?”
“How do you know about that?”
“I told you, I got friends. Fighters. Guys who work for him.”
A chill ran up Robyn’s spine. Was Cole telling her everything? Was it really just his fighter friends who worked for Vlitnik, or was he working for that monster, too? The thought made her stomach drop, but she couldn’t help but wonder why Cole, after being MIA for five months, suddenly showed up, seeming to care more about what she knew than how she was.
“But I have to find Alec,” he said. “So tell me where he is.”
“Why?”
He rubbed his fingers together in the universal gesture for cash. “Alec will pay me not to tell Vlitnik. It’s called blackmail, Robyn, and it’s not a sucky way to make money.”
She stared up at him, hating the sinking feeling in her chest. She’d loved him. She still did…didn’t she? She didn’t love this shifty, lying side of him, though. “Blackmailing someone is illegal.”
He looked like he was fighting a laugh. “It’s the only way I can…” He tipped his head and softened his expression. Then he reached up and slid his hand under her hair, curling his fingers around her neck. “Hey, Robyn’s Egg. C’mere.” He pulled her closer, but the move didn’t work, and neither did the old nickname.
Robyn’s egg was fertilized now. And not only did she suddenly not trust the man in front of her, the child in her belly was worth ten of him.
“I missed the shit out of you, baby.”
Right. She stayed stiff. “Why do you want to find Alec so bad?”
“Money, honey,” he said, inching closer. “Petrov owned his own MMA studio. He’s got cash and plenty of it. He’ll pay thousands to someone who’s inside the operation and can tell him Vlitnik’s every move.”
He certainly had enough money to stay at a ritzy resort in Florida.
She shook her head, inching away. “I’m not gonna do that, Cole. I’m”—pregnant—“hurt,” she admitted. “You broke my heart.”
He nodded, dropping his hand. “That’s cool. I get it. But we’re friends, right? After all that, we’re friends?”
That’s cool? We’re friends? Oh, hell no. “Sure.”
“Then you gotta tell me where he is.” When she didn’t answer, he said, “Listen, I’ll pay you, ’cause I know Alec and he will pay good money for this information. A shit-ton of money. Definitely more than that dick Vlitnik.”
She couldn’t speak because her brain was whirring with one question: What’s the best thing to do for my baby?
And some small voice whispere
d: Don’t say a word. So she didn’t, just shaking her head instead.
“Robyn, if you don’t fucking tell me…” He lowered his head, his eyes narrowing the way they did before he damn near took someone’s head off. What was she thinking? He could kill her right now.
She had to tell him something. But what? If she made something up, she’d have to have proof. And the only proof she had was a screenshot of an Instagram picture and some printouts from Web sites that Selena sent her about a resort in Florida where Alec Petrov might be.
“Robyn, come on,” he insisted.
“He’s back in Philadelphia.” The lie just slid right off her tongue like a pat of butter.
“How do you know?”
“I saw him. I talked to him. I went to see my brother a few days ago because, you know, he’s—”
He shook his head like the last thing on earth he wanted to hear about was her brother. “You saw him? At the studio where he trains?”
He sounded like he was baiting her. Hadn’t he just said Alec owned a studio? As in…he didn’t anymore? She couldn’t fall into his trap.
“Oh, no,” she said, her brain ticking through possibilities. “No, no. I saw him at the”—where the hell would she have been?—“doctor. I went to the doctor. My doctor in Philadelphia.”
She had no doctor in Philadelphia, and if Cole had been a caring, loving, attention-paying boyfriend, he’d know that. And he’d ask why she’d gone to see a doctor.
“What was he doing at the doctor?”
But he wasn’t a caring boyfriend. He was shit on a stick, and she was a freaking idiot for not realizing that sooner. “Getting his head stitched, I guess.” More lies. Easy lies. “He was all bandaged up.” Because he could be, as a fighter.
“Did you talk to him?”
“Yeah, yeah. He asked about you.” Oh, the shit she could fling to protect her baby. Motherhood was an amazing thing, considering five months ago she couldn’t have told a lie if her life depended on it. But now a life did depend on it.
Cade’s life. No, not Cade. She’d never name her child after this asshole, not even the first letter of his name.
“Robyn!” he insisted. “What did he say?”
“Just that he was, um, freelancing. Working out of a studio in South Philly, across town. A place called…” Holy crap. She snapped her fingers like she was trying to remember what Alec said. “Cade’s. Cade’s Gym. He said he’d be there for a while and told me to tell you to come in and see him if you go back to Philly.”
Barefoot With a Bodyguard (Barefoot Bay Undercover) (Volume 1) Page 15