Cut and Run (Phoenix Code 1 & 2)

by Lara Adrian

  He moved in close, his hazel eyes darkening with interest. “I don’t want to hide anything from you right now, Tori. Not tonight.”

  Because tomorrow will be the end.

  He didn’t say it, but he didn’t have to either.

  He would be putting her on a plane to Portland in the morning, and then he would go back to the life he’d been living these past three years. A life that didn’t have a place for her.

  Ethan stroked her cheek, tenderly, heartbreakingly.

  Then he reached down and took her hand in his. “Come with me. Tonight, all the rest of this shit doesn’t matter. It doesn’t exist. Tonight, it’s just you and me.”

  10

  Twenty minutes later, freshly showered and wrapped in a sumptuous white terrycloth robe, Tori stepped out of the bathroom of the five-star hotel’s penthouse suite to look for Ethan.

  She wasn’t sure how much cash and charm he’d had to use in his private meeting with the manager of the property in order to get them into the massive, two-thousand square foot sanctuary on the fourteenth floor. But then, Ethan was full of mysteries and surprises that she was only beginning to see in action.

  He had another surprise waiting for her outside the open double doors of the bedroom. She walked into the living area of the penthouse and found the formal dining table arranged with an elaborate room service dinner for two.

  Gleaming ivory china. Elegant silverware and glittering crystal glasses. A centerpiece of thick candles glowing warmly against the city lights and moonlit water of the bay far below the floor-to-ceiling window.

  Silver domes concealed half a dozen intriguing dishes, the aroma of spiced-rubbed, roasted meat and grilled vegetables making her mouth water instantly.

  Next to all of this decadence, a tall, ice-filled bucket held an opened bottle of pricey-looking French champagne that probably cost more than Tori’s monthly rent on her bungalow back home.

  She couldn’t help but be impressed by all of the finery and extravagance, but the real reason for the sudden spike in her heart rate was the sight of Ethan strolling over to meet her, wearing the mate to her white robe. His was untied and open. All he wore beneath it was a pair of black boxers.

  She smiled, appreciating every flex of smooth muscle as he walked toward her. “So, this is why you wanted me to shower by myself ahead of you. You’ve been busy. I have to admit, I wondered if I was going to come out here and find you gone…like the last time.”

  He gave a slow shake of his head. “I’m sorry for what I did to you, Tori. For everything. I never got the chance to tell you that. I never got the chance to tell you a lot of things.”

  He picked up a couple of slender crystal glasses from the table and poured some of the champagne into them.

  The bubbles sparkled like diamonds as he handed one of the flutes to her. She took a sip of the crisp champagne, practically tasting the expense in its effervescent dance over her tongue.

  “You didn’t have to do all of this, Ethan. This room and meal…I’ve never been anywhere so romantic or special.”

  His mouth pursed slightly, his brows lowering over his intense eyes. “I never got the chance to give you anything like this the first time around. I want you to have it now.”

  She soaked it all in, the opulence of the table setting, the beautiful suite that made her feel as though she were in a fairy tale. “It must be costing you a fortune.”

  He let out a quiet curse. “I don’t care about that. I can make more money. We’ll only have this night once.”

  His fingers came up to stroke her cheek, his thumb brushing gently over her bottom lip.

  Then he bent his head and kissed her, taking her mouth with a passion that was both tender and demanding.

  “I should’ve made you go with your friend,” he murmured against her parted lips. “You’d have been just as safe at her parents’ with her. I just…ah, fuck. I just wasn’t ready to let you go. I wanted more time.”

  “Me too,” she whispered. “There’s nowhere else I want to go. I want to be with you, Ethan. I’m not afraid of what you do, or who you are.”

  “I know, babe.” He dropped his gaze then and didn’t lift it. It took him a long moment before he spoke. “When you get on that flight to Maine tomorrow, you’ll never see me again. I don’t want to let you think…or hope. I don’t want any more half-truths or lies between us, Tori. No misunderstandings.”

  She knew, of course. As much as she wanted to imagine otherwise, or pretend the fantasy he’d created for them tonight up here above the city—above the real world—might not unravel in the light of day, Tori knew this was just Ethan’s way of finally telling her goodbye.

  But she didn’t want to hear it.

  Not if they were measuring their time left together in hours.

  She set her glass down on the table and reached out to him. His cheeks were warm and bristly against her fingertips, his jaw held rigid, unwavering.

  She slowly shook her head. “Let’s not talk about what happens tomorrow. It doesn’t exist right now, remember? Tonight, it’s just us. If you want to give me something, then please, Ethan…give me that.”

  He didn’t answer, but the molten look in his eyes spoke volumes. He put his champagne glass down next to hers. Then he caught her face in his palms and descended on her mouth in another blistering, breath-stealing kiss.

  He reached between them to unfasten her robe. Then his hands were on her bare skin, squeezing her breasts, rolling the tight buds of her nipples, rounding her back to palm her ass, dragging her toward him, into the hard ridge of his arousal.

  He moaned as he ground against her, his breath coming hard and fast. One hand sought the wet heat of her core, his fingers slipping between her folds, teasing the tight bundle of nerves nestled there.

  “Ah, Christ, Tori,” he uttered hoarsely. “I could come just from touching you like this.”

  So could she. Her body wept for him, sensation lighting up her every nerve ending. He stroked her more boldly, and his kiss became wilder, deeper, filled with raw desire.

  Tori felt that same rising desperation too. She was aching for him already, well beyond pretending that she had any control where this man was concerned.

  She ran her palms over his chest, delighting in the velvety strength of his pecs and abdomen, the muscles that twitched and quivered under her roving touch.

  Careful only as she neared his stitched wound, she broke away from his kiss to push the thick terry robe off his shoulders and down over his strong biceps and arms. When she reached for his boxers, Ethan was already there, helping her shove them down. His cock sprang free, jutting firm and thick and long.

  She gripped him, stroked him from root to tip, reveling in the heat and strength of him.

  He sucked in a sharp breath, letting it back out on a hiss as she pumped him in a slow, sure tempo. “Fuck, yes. Damn, that feels good.”

  “I know you taste good too,” she murmured, then sank down in front of him and took him into her mouth.

  His strangled cry was all the encouragement she needed. She suckled him with more intensity, until he dragged her off him on a roar.

  With one arm circled around her, and his other hand steering her backward, he guided her to the empty end of the long dining table. He kicked the chair out of his way, then spread her down onto the cool wood surface.

  He kissed her hard, a possessive claiming that made her writhe and whimper beneath him. “My turn to taste you now,” he said.

  Then his mouth began a slow, torturous path down her throat and onto each breast, before heading lower, to her stomach and hip bones.

  When he reached the trimmed patch of curls between her thighs, he glanced up wickedly. “Who needs dinner when I have something this sweet to devour?”

  Tori gasped at the first contact of his mouth on her sex. He kissed and suckled, nibbled and teased. Her spine arched with each delicious torment, and she could do nothing to hold back her pleasured scream when he tongued her fro
m cleft to clit.

  They’d always had intense passion together. Tonight it was a need that eclipsed everything they’d known before.

  “Please,” she murmured, uncertain what she asking for, other than more of him. Tonight, she wanted as much as he could give her. “Oh, God…Ethan.”

  He came up and took her mouth in a hot, ferocious kiss. “Are you on anything?”

  Dully, she blinked up at him. “What?”

  “The pill. Are you still taking it?”

  “Oh. No. Not for a while now.” She hadn’t needed it, hadn’t seen the point.

  “Shit,” he said, panting, as if it took all his self-control to be the logical, cautious one in that moment. He backed off her on another curse. “Stay right there.”

  She came up onto her elbows. “Where would I go?”

  He was already in the other room. “Don’t move.”

  He came back holding a wrapped condom. Grinning, he wagged the packet then tore it open with his teeth. “Had this in my bag from the bus station. Did I mention I was a Boy Scout too?”

  Tori arched a brow at him. “I don’t know whether to be impressed or pissed off. Have you needed to be prepared with that kind of supply very often?”

  His look was cryptic, unreadable. “Less often than you’d think. I’ve been carrying this around for a while now. Hope it holds up.”

  Tori sat up and reached for him. “Let me help you with it.”

  As he stood between her parted legs, she rolled the condom down his length. Their eyes met, and Ethan caught her face in his hands and kissed her sweetly, reverently.

  Then he slid her off the edge of the table and onto his shaft.

  “Ohh,” Tori sighed as she sheathed him to the hilt inside her.

  “Oh, God…I’ve missed this,” he uttered raggedly. “I’ve missed you, babe. So fucking much.”

  He rocked into her, supporting her body weight as he drove in and withdrew, finding a rhythm that left them both panting and clutching at each other in urgent need.

  Tori was on the verge of climax in moments, overwhelmed by the feel of him filling her, stretching her around his cock with each devastating thrust.

  He lifted one of her thighs, hooking her knee over his arm and driving harder, faster. Tori could only hang on to him, lost to the pounding force of his body and the tiny detonations deep inside her that were swelling toward release.

  “That’s it, babe. That’s my girl. Let it go.”

  She was so close now. The pleasure was building, just beginning to crest…

  As he coaxed her higher, she noticed his wound had begun to bleed a bit. “Oh, shit. Ethan, your stitches. Slow down, we have to be more careful.”

  “Fuck careful,” he growled, still pumping ruthlessly. No mercy whatsoever. “You won’t break me, so don’t you worry about that. I want to see you come now. I want to hear it, Tori.”

  She couldn’t have stopped it if she tried.

  Her climax exploded and she screamed Ethan’s name. Tremors shook her from the deepest core of her being, left her senses splintering into a rain of glittering shards.

  She dropped her forehead down on his chest as the spasms rolled over her, one delicious aftershock then another. Ethan was still moving inside her, giving her little time to come down before his merciless tempo renewed her need.

  “That was incredible,” she murmured. “I needed this so badly. I didn’t know how much until right now.”

  He grunted. “I probably don’t have any right to be jealous of anyone else who’s touched you, but feeling you wrapped around me so tight and hot and sweet—” He rocked deeper, a slow, silky thrust that made both of them groan with pleasure. “Feeling you in my arms again, Tori, I think I could kill any other man who’s known this.”

  Tori smiled against his warm skin, then lifted her head to meet his desire-swamped gaze.

  “There hasn’t been anyone else. Not one, Ethan. All this time, there’s only been you.”

  11

  Tori’s confession registered like a sucker punch to his gut.

  No one since me?

  It struck him stupid for a second as he tried to process. No easy thing, when his blood was racing so feverishly, most of it departed from his brain and migrated due south.

  He stilled within Tori’s satin heat and stared at her mutely.

  No one else in all this time.

  Had he hurt her that deeply, that she couldn’t let herself get close to anyone else since he’d been gone?

  But Tori’s dark blue eyes were tender on him, not accusing. They were so honest and loving, he could hardly breathe under their regard.

  She swallowed quietly, but her voice was steady, hiding nothing from him. “After you, there was never anyone who measured up.”

  “Three years?” he muttered thickly, then cursed in a rough whisper.

  He couldn’t keep himself from moving inside her again. Picking up a slower, less furious pace than before, he gave a mild shake of his head.

  “Jesus, Tori. It’s one thing for me to be living like a damned monk since I left. Not like I’ve had time or interest in anyone when I’m not in one place more than a couple of weeks at a time. But you…”

  She gaped at him. “You mean, you haven’t—”

  “No one,” he said.

  And while he might’ve wanted to fool himself into thinking he’d abstained only due to lack of time or opportunity, the truth was, he’d been holding out for something special too.

  Something he’d only found with her.

  He grinned at Tori as he thrust long and deep and smooth. “That condom’s shelf life was about up. Good thing I finally got the chance to show it a little action.”

  She laughed—really laughed—and it was a sound he hadn’t heard in far too long.

  Then she reached down and grabbed his ass in both her hands. She pulled him deeper, grinding into him as if to show him his patient strokes were no longer cutting it for her. He loved her hunger, and the fact that she wasn’t too shy to show it.

  A sly smile played at the edges of her pretty mouth. “How many more condoms do you have in your secret agent kit?”

  His cock leapt at the suggestion. “Not nearly enough.”

  He kissed her, then he drove to the hilt on one deep thrust, wringing a sharp gasp from her and a hot, shivery sigh that made his balls knot up tight with the need to spill.

  He fucked her hard and fast, both of them desperate for release now.

  When they came, it was together as one. Loud, unbridled.

  Explosive.

  Ethan shuddered as the pleasure broke over him and his cock spasmed hard inside her enveloping heat.

  She felt like heaven, like coming home. Only to a home he’d never had until this woman had entered his life.

  He should have known it would be like this with her.

  It always had been.

  Intense.

  Consuming.

  Something too goddamned close to perfect.

  And now he realized how big a mistake he’d just made, thinking he could spend just one more night with Tori and it would be enough.

  What a fucking fool he was.

  Because as their joined bodies rocked together, their arms wrapped around each other as they both spiraled down from an impossible height, all Ethan wanted was the chance to do it all over again.

  This one last night had only made him crave another one.

  And then another one after that.

  How am I going to find the will to walk away from her in the morning?

  How far will I have to go to put Tori out of my mind?

  Hell, he wasn’t even sure the ends of the earth would be far enough to keep him from her this time.

  12

  Ethan had five condoms in his stash, and over the next several hours, they had burned through them all.

  In between the multiple rounds of amazing sex and soul-shaking orgasms, they’d paused to nibble at their cold dinners and sip the warming champag
ne.

  Afterward, they’d taken a long, hot soak together in the all-glass shower, but not even exhaustion was enough to cool their hunger. They’d kissed and stroked and teased under the spray, then fell into bed together in a state of boneless bliss.

  The night hadn’t played out in the order Ethan might have intended, but Tori couldn’t have been happier.

  Nor more satisfied, as she slept beside him in the big king-size bed, her naked body curled up close to his, caught in the warm circle of his strong arms.

  She wasn’t sure what woke her first—the erratic sound of his breathing, or the coil of tension that began to rake his entire body. His low, sharp moan made her eyes snap open in the darkened room.

  He twitched fitfully, his eyelids and lips quirking in his sleep.

  A nightmare.

  And from the look and sound of its effect on a man as unshakable as Ethan, it had to be something awful.

  He breathed rapidly, as if he was running a marathon.

  And he was agitated, even terrified. A sheen of perspiration glistened on his furrowed forehead and in the shadowy scruff that darkened his cheeks and jaw.

  Tori didn’t know if she should wake him.

  But watching him suffer through whatever horror was playing behind his closed lids was too much for her to bear.

  Her voice was the softest whisper. “Ethan.”

  She hadn’t even touched him before he sprang on her, eyes flying open, his large body trapping her under his hard weight as if she was the enemy. “Fuck!”

  He muttered a swift apology, already rolling off her. He pivoted to the edge of the mattress, his long legs slung over the side.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, Tori. You can’t do that. I’m not…” He raked a hand through his bed-mussed hair. Swiveling his head to glance at her over his shoulder, he looked at her in pained regret. “I’m sorry, babe. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  “No. You startled me, is all.” When he cursed again, more vicious this time, she crawled over to wrap her arms around him from behind. “It’s okay. It was just a dream.”

  “It’s not a dream,” he murmured, a hard edge to his voice.