Heat surges through my body.
Desire is a strange animal. Elemental like hunger or thirst, but unlike hunger or thirst, it has the power to rob you of reason with the speed of two fingers snapping, so that you’ll do things so out of character you don’t recognize yourself, the creature you become in service of the primal, irresistible urge to mate.
The tone in her voice, the look in her eyes, the memory of her wet, naked body—all of it conspires to wipe my mind clean of all logic, and suddenly I’m just…gone.
I reach across the table, take her face in my hands, pull her toward me—knocking over glasses and rattling plates—and kiss her.
For a moment, there’s nothing. Resistance, her mouth firmly closed, her lips hard. But then a softening, a quick intake of breath through her nose, and she gives in.
Her lips part. She takes my tongue into her mouth. She makes a sound deep in her throat, a low, feminine noise of pleasure, and my cock instantly stiffens to steel.
She tastes sweet, so fucking sweet, warm and soft and yielding, like a ripe piece of fruit. A peach, melting in my mouth. Our tongues sweep against each other, delicious sliding and pressure, suction, gliding, easy and perfect, like they were meant for exactly this. Then it’s more urgent, a rising demand, a jolt of pleasure when she nips my lower lip, my hands tightening around her jaw, her hands fisted in my hair, urgently pulling me closer, deeper, my mind fried as my body throbs and pulses, every beat of my heart a roar in my ears, my blood pounding like drums, wanting wanting wanting—Sweet Jesus this woman is heaven—
She yanks away and slaps me.
Hard.
We stare at each other. She’s standing up, I’m sitting down, we’re both panting. Her face is bright red. My cock is so hard, it hurts.
The two girls at the bar are openly gaping at us. So is the waitress, who just arrived to clear our plates.
Tabby staggers back a step. She drags the back of her hand across her mouth. She rips her gaze from mine and looks at the girls at the bar.
“He’s all yours,” she says hoarsely. She spins around and strides away.
“Goddammit, Connor,” I mutter. I throw some money down on the table. Ignoring the titters of the girls, I follow Tabby.
When she walks in the front door of her house, I’m already there, leaning against the counter in the dark kitchen in the same spot I was standing before we left.
She flicks on the light and stares at me. I’ve seen her angry before, but this…
This is something else altogether.
Eyes glittering, she says with dangerous softness, “Don’t ever do that again.”
Not chancing what might come out of my mouth if I open it, I simply nod.
She slowly exhales. “And no more appearing out of nowhere. Respect my privacy or fuck off. Permanently.”
Again I calmly nod, but my heart leaps with hope. She’s laying down terms, which means she’s still in.
“I don’t travel by plane. Ever. Anywhere. So if the job is in another country—”
“It’s in LA. We can drive. If we leave tonight, we can be there in—”
“Three or four days, give or take,” she says flatly. “I know. I’ve made the trip before. Only not with someone I detested, so I imagine it’ll seem like much longer.”
If a man could be murdered by a look alone, I’d already be dead. I decide to take a gamble and go out on a limb. “It won’t happen again. I’m sorry.”
“Yes,” she replies. “You really are.”
Ouch.
“Give me the contract.”
Earlier I’d left the job contract, along with my standard, ironclad nondisclosure agreement, beneath the laptop on the counter. I retrieve the paperwork and hand it to Tabby. She flips through it, quickly scanning the pages, her mouth tight, her face pale. When she gets to the end, she finds a pen in a drawer, scratches her name on the signature line, and thrusts the contract back into my hands.
“I’ll tell Miranda to wire payment into your—”
“I already told you,” Tabby grinds out through clenched teeth, “I don’t need the money. In this case, I don’t want it.” Her eyes meet mine, and in them I see entire cities burning to the ground. “And no more questions about Søren.”
I keep my voice carefully measured to hide the unease I feel hearing her say that. “I need to know whatever you know about him. It’s critical information that could have a major impact on the success or failure of the job.”
“There’s a ninety-nine percent probability the job will fail, no matter what you know.”
Her lack of confidence is surprisingly painful. “You don’t even know what it is yet.”
Tabby stares at me, her chest rising and falling in irregular bursts. I feel the tension in her, the weight of it in her body, how much effort it takes to stand motionless when everything inside her is pure violence. I recognize it because it’s something I’ve felt myself countless times, on countless missions. Gun in hand, crouched low against a wall in the dark, counting my breaths as I lie in wait for an enemy.
Whatever happened between the two of them, she carries it with her like the lone survivor of a battle, standing in the middle of a field gory with bodies and blood.
She says, “The only thing you need to know about Søren Killgaard is that he’s more clever than the devil, and not nearly as nice. If you show any weakness, he’ll exploit it. Whatever you think his endgame is, you’ll be wrong. He’ll always be five moves ahead of you, no matter how well you plan, and there’s only one way you’ll ever catch him.”
“Which is?”
Tabby smiles. The cold pragmatism in it sends a chill down my spine.
“By using me as bait.”
Six
Connor
We leave for LA at midnight. And for the next nineteen hours, Tabby doesn’t speak to me.
I’m comfortable with silence, but her silence is so loud, it screams. She’s furious about that kiss, but it goes deeper than that. I took something from her when I didn’t give her a choice. Worse, I suspect, is the way she feels about her own reaction to having my mouth on hers.
She liked it, which makes her hate me even more.
Women.
“Are we driving straight through to LA?”
Startled, I glance over at her. She’s staring out the window of the car, refusing to meet my eyes, the question asked in a tone that suggests she doesn’t care one way or another.
Her choice of travel wear raised my brows when I returned to her place after making a quick trip home to pack my bags, and I let my gaze rake over it once again, if only to satisfy my growing need to look at her. Tight black leather everything, including gloves, motorcycle jacket zipped up to her chin, and combat boots. The only thing she’s missing is a helmet. Except for her face, not an inch of skin is showing.
I recognize this outfit for what it is. Armor.
It’s a good thing it’s only March and the weather is cool, because August in that getup would be murder.
“No. Wanted to get into Tulsa before we stopped for the night.”
We’ve had three short stops so far at gas stations along the interstate, just long enough to hit the head and refill the tank. If I were alone, I’d push straight through, but then again, if I were alone, I wouldn’t be driving.
I know from my research that her parents were killed in an airplane crash when she was eight and wonder how much of her avoidance of flying is based on that.
I also wonder how much of who she’s become is based on those deaths, and the death of the uncle she went to live with after the loss of her parents. By eighteen, she was all alone in the world.
Except for Søren Killgaard, whose relationship to her remains a mystery.
For now.
Suddenly she mutters, “I’m so fucking pissed off at you!”
I stare straight ahead at the twin beams of the headlights illuminating the highway and wait.
After a moment, she says, “I can’t think whe
n I’m mad. When I can’t think, I feel out of control. When I feel out of control, I panic. Are you seeing the pattern here?”
I keep my voice low and calm, nonthreatening. “It won’t happen again.”
“You said that before,” she says crossly, “but the problem is that I think I want it to.”
I nearly drive off the road. This kind of straightforward admission is the last thing I expected, and I’m totally unprepared for it. I quickly decide the only way to handle it is in kind.
“I’m not sure how to respond to that.”
She sighs, pulls the elastic out of her ponytail, and drags her hands through her hair. “Forget it. Tell me a story.”
Hello, fly ball out of left field.
“Sure.” I think for a moment, and then my brain presents me with a sly idea I have to admit I find totally genius, even if I did think of it myself. Well, probably especially since I thought of it myself.
“Once upon a time, there was a boy and a girl.”
She looks over at me sharply.
“Don’t get your panties in a twist, sweetheart. Am I telling this story or not?”
She leans her head against the headrest and closes her eyes. “Yes. Make it good.”
“I will if you’d shut up long enough to let me talk.”
I have to pretend I don’t see the stabby look she sends me. “As I was saying: boy, girl. The boy was strong and smart, selfless and courageous, a natural leader, and, of course, very handsome. And incredibly popular. Your real hero type.”
Tabby’s groan is pained. “For fuck’s sake, Connor.”
I push on, ignoring for the moment how much I like hearing her say my name. “The girl was strong and smart too, but in a way that most people couldn’t understand. And because most people didn’t understand her, it was hard for her to make friends. So because it was hard for her to make friends, she learned to rely on herself instead of anyone else.”
Beside me, there’s silence.
My voice grows quieter. “The girl lived alone in a castle high on a hill. She was a princess, you see. But her parents were dead, and she was an only child. An orphan. She had no one to play with and no one to talk to and no one to tell her how amazing she was.” I glance at her. “How beautiful.”
She’s sitting very still, staring straight ahead, her posture stiff and guarded. It’s all I can do not to reach out and stroke my fingers down her satin cheek.
“One day an evil wizard came to town. He’d heard of the beautiful princess, lonely and vulnerable in her castle—”
“Vulnerable!” Tabby scoffs.
“—and hatched a plan to steal her heart and then take over her kingdom by making all her subjects think she’d done something terrible. He began to woo the princess with jewels and gold and promises of forever—”
“Tread carefully, jarhead,” says Tabby, her eyes on the road and her jaw set.
“You already know I’m no good at that,” I reply softly.
She swallows and looks down at her hands clenched in her lap. “I don’t like this story.”
“Should I jump to the ending? Spoiler alert: the hero saves her.”
Tabby looks over at me, her eyes shining like gems in the dark. “A real hero would teach the princess how to save herself.”
Our eyes hold. A flutter works its way through my chest. I murmur, “Noted.”
She breaks eye contact first. We drive in silence for miles, until finally she says almost inaudibly, “He never promised me forever.”
Søren. His presence between us is palpable, a heavy weight in the air. A darkness.
“What did he promise you?”
Tabby looks out into the night, to the dark landscape passing by the windows in a blur, and says nothing.
We find a Best Western hotel in Tulsa and take adjoining rooms on the fourth floor. I’m impressed that Tabby has brought only one small suitcase for her clothes, but judging by the size of her normal wardrobe—skirts that make the word “mini” seem overgenerous and child-size tops—I can’t say I’m really surprised.
Her computer gear, on the other hand, could have its own zip code.
“Good thing I drove the truck,” I mutter, hauling a fifty-pound black case from the back of my Hummer.
“Truck?” says Tabby, standing next to me in the parking lot as we unload our bags. “Is that what you call this monstrosity?”
I drag another of her bags out, this one even heavier than the first, and drop it at her feet. “Spare me the tree-hugging psychobabble about gas consumption and emissions, will you, sweetheart? This vehicle is built for a specific purpose—”
“Overcompensation for feelings of penis size inadequacy?” She smiles.
“Safety,” I correct and smile back. “As if you haven’t already noticed, I’m not exactly lacking in the size department.”
Involuntarily, her gaze drops to my crotch. Then she catches herself, blinks up at me, and flushes. Her voice comes out of her mouth with the cutting power of a sword.
“As a class three truck, this vehicle is exempt from many DOT safety regulations and lacks standard safety features, including side air bags and stability control. In addition, its large blind spots make—”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Don’t make me murder you in the parking lot of a one-star hotel.”
“Yeah? You think you could get the drop on me?” Amused, I look her up and down. “You’re lookin’ at two-hundred-forty pounds of grade-A Marine Corps male, sweetheart. You’re what, a buck ten, tops?”
She says, “First of all, you’re shit at judging a woman’s weight. I haven’t been one hundred and ten pounds since junior high school. More to the point, I’m an expert in Krav Maga. Not that I’d need it to lay you out.”
I prop my hands on my hips and grin at her. “Really. You got something more effective to take me down than the lethal hand-to-hand combat system developed by the Israeli Defense Forces? I can hardly wait to hear it.”
Looking right into my eyes, she calmly answers, “Two things, actually.”
“C’mon. The suspense is killing me.”
Her smile could melt steel. “My tits. If I unzipped my jacket right now and showed you the girls, you’d definitely be distracted long enough for me to bury a knife in your chest.”
She slings her laptop bag over her shoulder, grabs the handle of her suitcase, and jerks her chin at the rest of her bags that I’ve already unloaded. “By the way, all that gear can stay in the car. I won’t need it until we set up a COM center at Miranda’s.”
Still reeling from the mention of her breasts and the image it conjured—the accurate image, because I’ve seen her in all her bare-assed glory coming out of her shower—I ask, “You’re not worried about leaving your precious computer equipment in the back of my truck in a public parking lot all night long?”
“Give me a break, jarhead. I know an armored car when I see one. Someone would have to use a fifty-caliber machine gun to get through the amount of ballistic composites you’ve got on this thing.”
Should’ve known she’d notice the mods on the Hummer. She notices everything. “Thought you said it wasn’t safe.”
“Oh, it’s safe when it’s parked. It’s only a death trap when you’re behind the wheel. Has anyone ever told you that you drive like a twelve-year-old with ADD who forgot to take his Ritalin?”
Then she sashays away, hips swinging. I throw my head back and laugh, because goddamn she can give as good as she gets.
I stop laughing when I realize how much I like it.
A little flirtation is one thing. But I know how fucked a man’s judgment can get when he’s distracted by a woman. I’ve seen it before. When the friendly jabs become serious attraction and your concentration is shot because all you can think of is getting her beneath you in bed, that’s when mistakes happen. And in my line of business, any mistake could be deadly.
I’ve already seen how easily this particular woman can snap my self-control
. The kiss in the restaurant was proof of that. I’ve never done anything remotely like that before, suffered an instantaneous, lust-fueled brain blackout, and I should be worried about it.
I should be, but I’m not.
Which is a problem.
Watching her walk through the sliding doors of the hotel, I resolve that there will be no more flirting. Until this job is over, I’ll be strictly professional. I can’t afford to be otherwise.
Now I just have to convince my dick to get with the program.
Seven
Tabby
At five a.m., I finally give up the battle with insomnia and rise from bed.
I go for a run, trying to wipe all thoughts of the past from my mind and focus on the task at hand. Finding Søren Killgaard. Or, more precisely, getting him to find me. It won’t be hard. But Connor isn’t going to like what I have in mind.
Not that I’m going to tell him what it is.
There’s only one thing in this world I value more than my privacy, and that’s my sanity. It took me years to regain my mental footing after what happened between Søren and me, years of therapy that forced me to take a hard look at myself and the way I’m wired, but it only took Connor Hughes a single evening to unravel all those years of work.
It only took him a single kiss and I was undone.
In front of everyone in that restaurant, in front of those two ridiculous, simpering girls staring at him from the bar, undone.
And I don’t even like him.
I don’t understand it. It makes no sense. There’s no logic to what happened to my body when he put his mouth on mine, the sheer electric jolt of pleasure I felt, right down to my toes. It was only a moment of utter madness, but I was shaken to my foundations, and still am.
“Stupid,” I mutter. I pump my arms and legs faster, driving myself hard until I’m drenched in sweat.
By the time I return to the hotel, the sun is rising, the birds are chirping, and I’m slightly less inclined to take off someone’s head. I go around the back, skirting the main lobby because the rear stairs are a more direct route to my room, and pass the pool. Someone else is up early, swimming laps with powerful, efficient strokes that make hardly a ripple in the surface.
Wicked Sexy (Wicked Games Series Book 2) Page 5