Daisy swallowed the bite in her mouth and looked up at him. God, he looked devastating in his tux. She wished they could get the heck out of here. “Sure.” She passed him her empty plate, then took a sip of water and rose to her feet, looking around for a place to set her goblet. “Do you have to get back to work?”
“Umm.”
Whatever that meant. Since he was clearly distracted, however, she let it go. She didn’t even object when he took her hand and headed toward the front of the room, despite the way it hindered her gun hand. If a need arose for her to use it, which seemed pretty unlikely in this posh crowd, she could break his grip easily enough.
As they made their way through the room, several people stopped them to talk about Nick’s work. He introduced Daisy to women in lavish jewels and opulent gowns and to men in hand-tailored tuxedos. He was charming and polite as he handed out business cards and exchanged idle chitchat. But he always kept them moving forward, and practically before Daisy knew what was what, they were in the corridor outside the penthouse.
She immediately became more alert, for if Hubby’s goons had managed to follow them this evening, she and Nick were more likely to be ambushed out here in the hall than inside the suite where a hundred of San Francisco’s most influential citizens were partying down.
“Are you finished for the night?” She practically had to jog down the hallway to keep up with his long-legged stride. She tried to discreetly disengage her hand, but he refused to let go. An instant later, they stopped in front of the elevator and he punched the down button. “Where are we going?”
The elevator pinged its arrival and the arrow above the doors lit. A second later the doors swished open. They stepped into the car and Nick reached out a long finger to jab the lobby button.
“Cat got your tongue, Coltrane?” Daisy was beginning to feel a tad riled at his continued silence and jerked her wrist free as the doors swooshed closed. She suddenly found herself penned in a tuxedo-clad cage as he loomed over her.
“What?” she demanded, back stiffening as she stared up at him.
“This,” he growled and, bending his head, rocked his mouth over hers.
Lust detonated low in her stomach, and she kissed him back with an explosive passion that matched his own. Curling her fingers around the lapels of his tux, she rose up on her toes to get as near to him as she could. Nick’s hands slid off the wall and onto her back, warm fingers massaging her bare skin before flattening to pull her into his body. And all the while, his lips moved hungrily over hers.
Then his mouth was gone as he lifted his head to stare into her eyes, and his breath was warm and uneven against her moist lips. “Did I tell you how beautiful you look in your party dress? All I’ve wanted to do, ever since I first saw you in it, is get you out of it. Isn’t that crazy? I’ve seen you naked and all but naked, but it’s having you covered up that’s got me climbing the walls.” He bent his head to press his lips to her jaw, her cheekbone, her temple. Then his breath traveled down the whorls of her ear as he breathed, “What are you doing to me, Daisy?”
What was she doing? That was rich. But she didn’t get the opportunity to address the irony of it, because he kissed her again, and just like every other time he’d ever laid lips on her, her mind went blank. Unlike most of the other times, though, she went with the flow and didn’t fight it.
Nick’s thumb was easing a narrow strap off her shoulder when the elevator glided to a stop and the door opened. Daisy failed to notice until someone cleared his throat and Nick raised his head. She blinked up at him with a lazy appreciation for the blueness of his eyes, then he pushed back and turned, wrapping an arm around her. Her face flamed at the sight of a small group of people discreetly gawking as she and Nick stepped out of the car. She thrust her chin out and strode with head high across the lobby.
Good God—the goon patrol could have mowed them down where they stood, for all the attention she’d been paying. Ignoring Nick’s conversation with the woman at the front desk, she diligently checked out the lobby.
“Come on,” Nick said huskily a moment later, and they walked back to the bank of elevators. The doors of an empty car opened just as they approached and Nick pressed the button for the fourth floor. The moment the door closed he turned to her, but Daisy held up a forestalling hand.
“Don’t even think about making a move on me again.”
He grinned at her. “That wasn’t one of my brighter ideas, obviously. But it’s not as if you were the one tenting the front of your trousers all the way across the lobby.”
“Nick Coltrane!”
“Yeah, that’s who was sportin’ the big one, all right. Now, you, on the other hand, skated. Everyone took one look at you and thought, She’s hot. Me, they looked at me and thought, And she’s leading that guy around by his co—”
“Nick!”
“Coattails. I was gonna say coattails.”
“My God, I don’t believe this conversation. People don’t look at men’s you-knows in public. And they certainly don’t have conversations like that.”
“You-knows.” He gave her a tender smile and reached out to trace her eyebrow with the tip of his finger. “How does someone who hangs out with drag queens ever reach the exalted age of twenty-eight with all that innocence intact?”
She pushed his hand away. “I am not innocent!”
“It’s not an insult, cupcake.” The elevator stopped and Nick stood back with an elegant gesture for her to precede him out of the car. “After you.”
“Where are we going?”
“Down here.” He took her elbow and steered her down the corridor. A moment later, he stopped in front of a door and inserted a key card.
“What is this?” It was a stupid question, but she didn’t understand what they were doing here.
“A room. I didn’t think you’d appreciate me following my first impulse, which was to drag you into one of the penthouse’s bedrooms and ball your brains out while a hundred people celebrated the Dillons’ anniversary in the next room. And I don’t think I can wait until we get home.” He pushed open the door, then turned and swept her up in his arms. She embarrassed herself by emitting a schoolgirl squeal.
“You don’t strike me as a quickie-in-the-supply-closet kinda gal,” Nick continued, as he stepped over the threshold and kicked the door closed behind them. “So I rented us a room.”
15
DAISY gazed around the sumptuous green and white room. “I thought you were broke. This place looks like it’d set you back a bundle.”
“That’s why they invented American Express, sweet thing—so guys like me don’t have to worry about it until next month.”
“Do you do that, too?” She gave him a brilliant smile. “That’s funny, I always envisioned you peeling hundreds from a solid gold money clip.” She much preferred the image of him racking up debt on a credit card, because it made him seem more of a regular Joe. She kicked off her shoes as he carried her across the room. “Thank God for plastic, though, huh? Not that I have a real grown-up limit or anything—they lowered mine to practically nothing when I left the force. Well, not the minute I left the force, I guess, but the minute they discovered that not only was I no longer a civil servant, but self-employed to boot.”
“Daisy.”
“Yeah?”
He landed on the bed with her in his lap. “Shut up and kiss me.”
She laughed deep in her throat, because he made her feel so sexy and that was exhilarating. Her right arm was already hooked around the back of his neck, and she framed his lean cheek in her free hand and pressed her mouth to his. The way his lips immediately opened beneath hers caused a vibration to hum along her nerve endings, and she allowed her tongue free reign to explore his mouth.
“Uhhh.” Without breaking the kiss, Nick tipped over onto his back, then rolled so that he was propped half over her. His kiss drove her head back into the thick floral bedspread, and his fingers curled around one of the slender straps that held up he
r gown, slipping it down her shoulder. The flimsy bodice sagged and Nick peeled it away from her breast. He raised his head to look down at what he’d exposed. “Ah, man.”
He bent his head and pressed a soft kiss on her nipple, and it immediately went from quiescent to diamond-hard distension. Nick opened his mouth and captured it lightly between his teeth, giving a gentle tug, and lightning streaked through Daisy’s body.
Then he was gone, rolling away and climbing to his feet. “Wanna get naked with me, Blondie?” He pulled off his tux jacket and tossed it on one of the nearby club chairs. He reached for the studs on his shirt.
“Wait.” Daisy sat up. “Let me help. Jeez, you’re always in such a hurry.”
A strangled laugh got caught in Nick’s throat. “That’s pretty good, coming from you. The last time we did this, you all but held a gun to my head to make me hurry up.”
She pursed her lips and blew out a soft pff of repudiation. Daintily gathering the hem of her dress high, she knee-walked over to the edge of the bed. His mouth watered at the sight of her exposed breast and the long, firm length of her thighs as they played peek-a-boo through the front slit of her gown. “You got panties on under that, Daise?”
“Of course I’ve got panties on!” Her chocolate-brown eyes were scandalized. “My God, what kind of women do you hang out with, anyway? They sound a lot more adventuresome than I am.”
He had a feeling that wouldn’t take a great deal—not if adventuresome equated with vast carnal knowledge—but he was smart enough not to say so. Watching her unfasten the studs on his shirt, he smiled. She thought she was such a tough guy, and admitting to limited experience in any field clearly wasn’t part of her self-image.
She suddenly yanked his shirt off his shoulders and down to the middle of his back in one smooth movement, and his collar rasped loudly in the quiet room as it was ripped out from beneath his bow tie. Leaving the shirt tangled around his elbows, she raised both hands to his chest and splayed her fingers through the silky fan of hair that covered it. She stretched up to bite his lower lip.
He reached for her, only to discover that his cuffs were still fastened. His abrupt movement turned them inside out, and they gripped his hands like Chinese finger puzzles that grew tighter the harder he pulled. He returned her kiss fiercely for a moment. Then, breathing roughly, he lifted his head. “You forgot to undo my cuff links.”
“Mm-hmm.” She leaned to kiss his sternum, then turned her cheek and rubbed it against his chest. Reaching behind him, she unfastened his cummerbund and dropped it to the floor.
“So, undo me.”
“I don’t think so. I’ve got you in my power now, and that makes you my sex slave.” She sat back on her heels and reached for his waistband.
“Trust you to go for the role reversal.” He wrestled with the cuffs for a few more moments, but the feel of her fingers rubbing against his stomach as she undid the button made him still. He watched as Daisy kissed his stomach, then tipped her head back to smile up at him.
“Yes,” she said. “Trust me.” She laughed low in her throat. “Or we could just skip straight to the part where I break out the restraints.” She grasped the zipper tab of his fly and eased it down.
“Yeah, right,” he scoffed, getting a flash of her calling his dick a “you-know.” “Is this the same woman who—ah, God, Daise—” Her hand had dipped into the open fly of his trousers and glommed onto his cock, and he forgot what he was going to say. He’d had a point to make…but he couldn’t for the life of him remember what it was.
“Why, Nicholas Sloan Coltrane,” Daisy breathed, “you’re the one not wearing any undies.”
He looked down at her as his pants slid down his legs. Then he scowled. “Men don’t wear undies,” he informed her hoarsely.
“I can see that.”
“No, Blondie. I mean, men wear shorts; they don’t wear anything so girlie as—” She moved her hand in a way that had him sucking for breath and he shut up. What the hell. When a guy’s pants were down around his ankles and his arms were trussed like a turkey getting ready to be stuffed, lecturing didn’t make him look any smarter. He started wrestling in earnest with his cuff links. Attempting to undo them behind his back from inside the damn cuffs was an exercise in frustration, but by God he would get them free. Little Miss Parker needed to be shown who was boss.
Daisy, looking for all the world as if she were preparing to clean a pair of glasses, bent her head and ha!’d warm air on his erection where it emerged from her fist. Then she polished it free of her misty breath by rubbing its increasingly sensitized head against the lush inner curve of her bare breast.
“Ah, Christ.” He simply stood there rigidly at attention and stared down at her, breathing raggedly.
Daisy returned his look and her brows drew together as if wondering if she’d gone too far. Then she gave him a little three-corner smile. “I owed you that for this afternoon.” She blinked up at him innocently. “It was a buff job you told me I had to give you, wasn’t it?”
Word games were beyond him at the moment. “Help me out of my shirt, Daise,” he demanded hoarsely. “C’mon. I’d just as soon not rip it, but that’s what I’m gonna do in about two seconds if you don’t—”
“I don’t think that’s a real good idea, Coltrane—”
“Nick,” he insisted, staring down at her. “Anyone who burnishes up the Bad Boy the way you just did oughtta be on a first-name basis with its owner.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what, Nick. It occurs to me that if I help disentangle you, you’re gonna make me pay for having a bit of innocent fun.”
“And you’re a smart woman to worry.” He planted his knee on the mattress and smiled when she promptly released him and scooted back. “But I don’t think you’ve considered the big picture here.”
“And what might that be?”
“For starters, the fact that I’m going to get out of this shirt one way or the other, even if I have to rip it to shreds. And it’s not like you can actually go anywhere, Daisy, so you might as well help me out of the damn thing sooner rather than later. If you make me wreck my shirt for no good reason, I’m likely to be feeling a little testy by the time I get free. And then where will you be?”
“Headed straight for the lobby door with your pants in my hot little fist.” She adjusted her dress to cover her breast and looked around for the shoes she’d kicked off.
“And leave me here undefended? You’re too professional. Besides…” He licked his lips and moved a little closer. “You’re gonna like the way I make you pay.”
She slid her straps off her shoulders and gave a little shimmy, and the dress slithered down to her hips. “You’d better see that I do, or I’ll make you pay in ways you don’t want to contemplate.” She unbuckled the velvet pouch belt and her gown slid down her thighs to pool on the mattress around her knees, leaving her in sheer black pantyhose and a minuscule pair of panties. “Turn around.”
“And lose this view? I don’t think so.”
“You want help getting out of your shirt, or not?”
“There’s more than one way to do that, doll face. Experiment. This is your chance to be more adventurous.” He moved closer yet and she moved to meet him. They knelt in the middle of the bed, and her bare breasts flattened against his diaphragm as she reached around him to ease his shirt back into place. A second later his cuff links were removed and Daisy yanked the shirt off and tossed it aside. He reached for his bow tie, but she stayed his hand.
“I like you wearing nothing but a bow—it’s like having my very own present.” She grinned. “You can lose the socks, though.”
He eyed her pantyhose. “You, too.”
He finished first and knelt over Daisy, who had sat back to remove her hosiery. He reached for the waistband of her pantyhose where she had pushed them down around her thighs, and she fell back on her elbows and watched as he took over easing them down her legs and off her feet. He flung them aside and stretched out on top of he
r to kiss her again. Within moments, they were straining together, breathing heavily.
He moved a little lower to kiss her neck, then lower still to string kisses across her collarbone, and down her chest to the gentle rise of her breast. But although he cupped its soft fullness in his hand for a moment, he kept working his way lower. Finally he reached his goal.
He made a place for himself between Daisy’s thighs, kneeling to pull the black wisp of satin from her hips. Then he sprawled on his stomach and propped himself up on his elbows to stroke his fingers over her inner thighs as he gazed upon the luxuriant little triangle of blond curls between them.
Suddenly her hand blocked his view, curving protectively over her mound.
“Ah, Daisy, don’t,” he whispered, reaching out to pry her fingers loose. “Don’t cover it up.” He looked up to see her staring back at him uncertainly. “It’s so incredibly gorgeous.” He turned his head to press his mouth first against her right thigh, then against her left. “So sweet and female and gorgeous.” He brushed his chin back and forth against her downy curls.
Taking his time, he spread kisses across her thighs, in the crease where her thighs joined her torso, and across the soft beginning swells of her bottom. He petted and patted and lightly brushed the feminine curls of her mound.
But it wasn’t until her hips instigated a soft rocking motion and her thighs spread of their own volition that he touched her with his tongue. His reward was hearing her heartfelt moan, feeling her thighs open and close around his ears, and her fingers clutch his hair to hold him close.
He drove her to within seconds of a screaming orgasm, then pulled back. Kneeling between her sprawled thighs, he donned protection.
Her dark eyes were lambent, her cheeks and chest flushed. “Hurry,” she whispered, looking up at him. “God, Nick, please!”
He fell over her, catching himself on one hand, and reached between them with his free hand to thumb down his erection. Then he pressed his hips forward, inhaling sharply at the slick heat that opened for him as he sank all the way into her, then closed tightly around him. “Oh, God, you feel good.”
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