It took every ounce of willpower not to touch her. His entire body was hard, some parts from resistance, some from desire.
“I don’t possess those traits,” he asserted.
Pleasure scorched through him when he felt her hand flatten against his chest.
“I should stay away from you, Ray Gordon,” she whispered. “But I can’t. Every inch of me aches to feel you−to feel you inside me.”
Fuck.
“Amanda−”
Slim fingers dusted over his lips, silencing him.
“Everyone calls me the Ice Queen.” Her fingers slipped to his neck, curling behind it. “Yet with you, I feel like I’m on fire.”
Control be damned. His hands clasped the curves of that temptingly tight skirt. Using that grip, he hauled her against him and growled out her name. Control was a bantam object cast aside once his lips landed on hers. Instead, it was replaced by demand.
His kisses were bold, but so was her response. She ground her hips into his until he thought he’d lose it standing right here in the living room. When had he ever wanted a woman this bad?
Sliding his fingers around her firm rear, he kneaded the curves, urging her tighter and tighter against him. His hand climbed to yank the silky shirt from the hem of her skirt.
“God, woman, I want you.” he rasped. “But I can’t do this.”
She gripped his shoulders, drawing her face back. “Why?” Wide eyes stared up at him. “We’re two professional adults who both want the same thing. Is it me?”
She withdrew slightly. Maybe not physically, but she took a mental step of retreat. Her beautiful eyes rounded. “Am I really that cold?”
Ray blinked.
One moment he had a scorching woman plied to him like ivy to a fence—a woman he had fantasized about and desired since he first met her. Now that same woman was retreating with horror and doubt in her eyes.
He moved before he could think.
In one deft motion he swept an arm under her legs as the other wrapped around her back, lifting her effortlessly. With Amanda tucked against his chest he stalked into her bedroom and stopped at the foot of her king-sized bed. Releasing her legs, he let them drop and entwine with his own, but held her tight enough that her toes barely touched the ground.
“Baby, the Ice Queen is just a front,” he whispered gruffly. “The real Amanda is too hot for me to handle, but I’m willing to die trying.”
Gradually, he allowed her feet to slide to the floor. In doing so, every aching inch of him was tantalized by the slow friction.
“I’m going to make love to you, Amanda Newton. I’m just giving you fair warning. If you tell me to back away−I will.”
Determined fingers curled into his cotton shirt, yanking him closer.
“You can’t back away from this, Mr. Gordon.” She kissed his neck as his head dropped back. “You have to face me head on.”
Nudging his thigh between her legs, he rumbled against her lips, “This time. But next time I might do it from behind.”
***
Amanda woke with a start.
Whoa. Did that just happen?
A heavy weight shifted against her. Warm breath tickled her ear.
It did.
Satin sheets stretched over half of her naked body. Male flesh splayed over the other half.
She tucked her head back against the pillow and breathed deeply. That intake was filled with pine and a musky scent to remind her of just how real the activities of the night had been.
Naked. She never slept naked. And yet it felt so decadent. It made her aware of every inch of her skin.
A wide palm settled over her stomach and began inching north. She felt his lips brush against her hair. An army of goosebumps charged across her flesh.
“Stop analyzing,” he mumbled into her ear.
That was exactly what she was doing, and she didn’t know how to refrain.
“I’m not sure what to do−”
Last night, when she had acted so boldly, she didn’t think ahead to what the morning would hold—a tactical misstep that had her scanning the room now in search of her clothes.
Warm lips slipped to her temple as coarse stubble scraped her cheek. Those lips continued to glide across her face until they halted at the corner of her mouth. A groan of need slipped from her throat.
“Ray−”
His lips were on hers and she whimpered with desire. Of their own will, her hands rose from the sheets to capture his face and hold it to her hungry mouth. Her desire for this man overruled all her guarded thoughts. She worked her leg free from the sheet to drape it across his thigh and inch their hips closer together.
“Damn, woman,” he rasped, reaching for her thigh and hiking it higher. “Amanda, you have no idea how sexy you are.”
Sexy? She’d been called a lot of things in her lifetime, but that certainly wasn’t one of them.
It was Ray. He made her feel sexy. He made her feel like she could shove the businesswoman aside and release this wanton creature.
It liberated her.
It turned her on.
“Please tell me you have one more condom in your wallet,” she muttered against his lips.
A pleasant male chuckle vibrated back. “Hey, I had a couple in there that the guys threw at me on our last recon. You used them last night, lady. I’m all out. How about you?”
Amanda’s head jerked back. “Me? Condoms?” Her eyes slid around the room. “Here?”
Ray chuckled again. “Yeah, I guess not.”
He stroked her thigh with his thumb and nudged against her heat.
“I’ll have to find some other way of pleasuring my insatiable CEO.”
Amanda’s eyes slipped back into her head as he did just that.
Eventually when her wits returned and they lay entwined and sated she asked sleepily, “Can you tell me about your time in the Mideast?”
Wrapped so close in his arms, she could feel the moment his heart stopped and then slowly resumed its plodding beat.
“There’s not much to tell.”
Not dissuaded by the gruff voice, she ran her pointer finger across his chest, pausing at the patch of hair.
“Of course there is. I understand if you don’t want to share. But you’ve pulled my darkest secrets out of me.”
A muscular arm curled around her protectively. “They should not be dark secrets, Amanda. There is no need for secrets. You have championed your past. You are a success story−a testimony to overcoming adversity.”
“And you’re not a success story? You survived wars. You’ve survived the type of battle that people don’t want to know about. And you returned alive and well, and you’re taking all your knowledge and using it to protect others. You are the success story, Ray.”
She could feel his head slide away on the pillow. “That sounds captivating and heroic,” he said. “But it was neither. I killed people, Amanda. There is nothing heroic in that. There were times when I was ordered to fire into buildings, not knowing if it was friend or foe that I was aiming at. To this day, I still don’t know, and you can’t imagine how that eats at me. The security firm. The contracting. That was all a means of identifying the bad guys and being able to look them straight in the eye.”
Amanda slipped her arm out from the sheets to touch his chiseled chin, and nudged it to face her. In the dim light she could only see the shine of his eyes, but she focused on them.
“Which makes you no different than me. We both seek control in our lives to compensate for helplessness. I like to pretend that one day I will find peace. I hope it comes for you too,” she added sadly.
A calloused palm cupped her cheek. The thumb swept back and forth in a casual caress that lured her eyelids closed.
“I’m finding peace right here,” he declared huskily. “Peace scares me, Amanda.”
Pain clamped around her heart. She felt tears pool behind her closed eyelids−tears for this man. All too well she knew his qualms with peace. Peace made you
passive. Peace lured you into a false sense of security. And yet, she felt its provoking tug in his arms.
Let go, it cried.
Ever precarious−peace was shattered by the rumble of her cell phone vibrating on the nightstand. Immediately she tensed. Protective arms locked around her and soft lips dipped in her hair.
“Easy,” he soothed.
Squirming in his tight grasp, she reached for the device and read the screen.
“It’s a business contact,” she whispered with relief.
Rolling back over, she felt remarkably comfortable being in Ray’s arms. Somewhere in the dark hours of the early morning she had lost the awkward phase. Now she felt confident enough to lean forward and scrape her nose against his chin before sliding her lips to his welcoming kiss.
“I have to get ready for work,” she declared feebly.
“Indeed,” he mimicked her accent.
A laugh bubbled up in her throat. “Do I really sound that stuffy?”
“Yes,” he smiled. “And I find it sexy as hell.”
“Mmmm.” She kissed him again, but began to inch from his hold.
As she swung her legs off the bed, she sobered. “He’s not going to go away, is he?”
The clock’s glowing digital numbers cast blue distortions across the polished nightstand.
“I’ll find him,” he vowed behind her. “I’m not letting him near you, Amanda.”
The husky declaration formed a safety shield around her. She believed this man. She believed in this man.
“I will give him the diamond,” she stated quietly.
The bed dipped and a bronzed thigh appeared next to hers.
“There is no proof whatsoever that it belongs to him. That is your inheritance. Your parents gave that to you.”
“They did,” she nodded. “It’s why I held onto the other stone so religiously. If I had been older, I could have talked my uncle into keeping both of them. I would have rather lived a pauper and still had both those stones in my possession.”
She turned her face sideways to look into his shadowed eyes. “It’s all I have left of them.”
Coarse lips skimmed her forehead.
“We’ll find him,” he vowed.
Maybe that was what she was afraid of. Once they found him, Ray would be gone.
“I need to stop at the Marquis. Of all things, I left an ammunition clip there, and I’d rather have that on hand than pick up a new one.”
“Okay, I’m just going to take a quick shower and then I can have George−”
“Uh-uh.” He waggled his finger. That same hand dropped down to her thigh and began to stroke it. It was all she could do not to slip her eyes closed and fall against his shoulder.
“Do you see how close we are right now?” He broke into her thoughts. “That is how it’s going to remain until I know you are safe. You’re not going to slip away and confront Willem on your own again.”
Amanda’s eyebrows knotted.
“Look at you twitching with confrontation.” He squeezed her thigh and hefted off the bed, offering a wonderful view of his rear and the never-ending lines of his back. “Come on, Elena. It will be a quick stop and then I’ll get you to your castle.”
No one gave her orders.
But no one had made love to her like Ray had.
Distracted by those contradictions, she started when she felt his hands cup the sides of her head and tilt her chin up an inch.
“I’m not giving you orders, Miss Newton,” he stated quietly. “You’re the one making me do things I shouldn’t be doing.”
“I−I didn’t make you do anything.”
That grin was her downfall. One look at the hitch of his lip and she felt signs of vertigo.
“You’re right,” he whispered. “But I don’t want to stop.” He waited until she met his eyes. “I don’t want to stop, Amanda. I don’t want to stop making love to you. Tell me what the hell I’m supposed to do about that.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ray stepped out of the Fiat and eyed the quiet Kensington street. A block away a dump truck hefted a dumpster into the air as a jogger agilely skirted past it.
Tucked between the stately apartment buildings the narrow road still clutched its shadows, not ready to surrender to the sun that inched over the rooves.
Walking around the back of the car, Ray tried to keep his mind blank. He tried to avoid any images from last night. If he surrendered to them he would fail at his job.
As the passenger door opened and that long leg poked out, followed by two glorious blue eyes that stared up at him with barely concealed desire, he came to terms with the fact that he was determined to win Amanda over−to keep her in his life. It was a profound moment. One that bewildered him. But, at the same time it was remarkably liberating.
I want this woman.
“I have a meeting in a half hour,” she stated as she climbed agilely out of the vehicle.
Yes, even with her corps of demands and regiment, he wanted Amanda Newton.
“It’s 6:30,” he stated mildly as he strode up the sidewalk with his hand cupped protectively around her back.
“Not in Tokyo.”
Ray used his guest key to enter the main door. The foyer was quiet with only the sound of Amanda’s heels tapping against the wood floors. As they moved down the hall, she paused in front of Apartment A.
“I guess it’s too early to say hello to Sam,” she whispered.
Ray glanced at the door and recalled that the man seemed to be in his bathrobe every time he ran into him. Perhaps all hours were too early.
“Do you know the password?” he challenged quietly.
“Snowflake.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
At the sound of a nearby door opening, Ray automatically reached behind his back for the Glock. His hand dropped to his hip as he saw a woman exiting her apartment with her purse tucked tightly under her arm. She noticed Ray and Amanda and sucked in a surprised gasp. Recognizing the door they stood before she took a step forward.
“Excuse me,” she cocked her head. “I remember Sam mentioning that you were security for BLUE-LINK.”
For a man who made his tenants remember a password, the landlord wasn’t very discreet.
“Yes, you could say something like that.”
The petite blonde’s eyes slid to apartment A. She nibbled on her lip before she continued. “I’m Susan Bachman from apartment C.” She chuckled awkwardly as she glanced back at her door. “I guess you can see that.”
Ray nodded, wondering where this was going.
“I’m just a little concerned. Perhaps it’s nothing.”
Amanda stiffened at his side. “About what?” she asked.
Susan Bachman flicked her glance between both of them. “Well, I do my laundry on Tuesday nights, and−well−” Her cheeks turned scarlet. “Well, Sam always finds some excuse to be in the laundry room at the same time. And I’ve actually grown to look forward to those run-ins.”
Green eyes slid back and forth again. “He wasn’t there last night. It might sound silly, but you have to understand−he’s there like clockwork on Tuesdays.”
Amanda was already off towards the door marked A.
“I tried knocking,” Susan called out. “No one answers.”
Ray touched the woman’s shoulder. “Thank you for letting us know. I’m sure it’s nothing.” He took a step down the hall, but turned back to ask, “Have you seen anyone else around here in the past couple of days? Someone out of place?”
“No,” she almost snorted. “No one could get past Sam if they didn’t belong here.”
Amanda’s knuckles rapped against Sam’s door. Ray discreetly hauled his gun out, while offering Susan a quick nod and thank you before joining Amanda.
“Mule!” she cried out. “Mule, are you in there?”
Feeling Susan’s curious stare, Ray glanced back and waited until she retreated into her apartment.
“I just texted him last night
,” she said, already tapping on her phone in an attempt to reach him.
“I was going to ask you today to officially introduce me to your cousin.”
“I wish I could,” she snapped, and then immediately deflated. “I’m sorry. I−this just can’t be happening. He must have stepped out. The police have been keeping watch on the building.”
Ray pulled his wallet out and extracted a credit card with a pattern cut out of the middle.
“What is that?”
“A tool. I’ll call the police, but even a few seconds delay can mean a loss of information.” He slid the card into the doorframe and shimmied it in place. “Let’s get in and phone them from inside.”
Holding his arm out as a barrier to prevent her from barreling into the open doorway, Ray stepped inside with his weapon extended. There was no sign of a struggle in the single-room flat. A quick check confirmed that the bathroom and closets were empty. A muffled shriek from Amanda had him whirling about, ready to attack.
“Dammit, Bean,” she admonished, hoisting a ball of fur off her shoulder.
As she clutched the squirming feline to her chest Ray discovered another hole in Amanda’s armor. She seemed to like the cat.
“He was on top of the kitchen cabinets,” she explained, holding the cat to her face so that she could look it in the eye. “Where is Sam, Bean?”
A growl curled out of the cat’s mouth as its paws flared. It was clearly not the cuddling type.
Amanda set it down and it shot under the bed.
Troubled, she scanned the room, clutching her trembling hands together.
“Easy.” He reached for her. “This could all be very innocent.” Though he suspected otherwise.
“Really?” Amanda’s eyebrow arched in exaggeration. “Then why is his cane by the couch?”
Ray had already noticed that, but was trying to keep Amanda calm.
“He hasn’t answered any of your texts?”
“No.”
“I don’t hear a cell phone going off. He must have it on him. That’s good. The police can use it for tracking.”
Amanda sat on the arm of the worn couch. “Oh, Mule, I’m so sorry.”
Placing a quick call, he kept a consoling hand on her shoulder.
Dusk Page 14