Now he's got Harlow fronting that, making it legit. That's the advantage of having a woman behind you. Backing your every move without question, supporting you, loving you. Fuck that asshole, he has it all. Although let's not forget those two have a red-hot reason to stay connected. Killing does that. Killing for someone you love binds you to them forever.
I hadn't thought about Harlow once while I'd been with Dani. Perhaps I'd fed that need for now by snatching her housekeeper earlier this evening. But it was a knife in my gut that thanks to Harlow, that douche's confidence had exploded. He's got everything but the time was coming to douse that. First I got to burn off this need before it burns me.
“If you keep kissing me like that, I'm going to have to drag you to the washroom,” I murmured against her soft lips, our foreheads touching. “I can't hold out when your mouth pulls me into your body so eagerly.”
“And if you kiss me like that one more time, I'm going to be compelled to slip under this crisp white tablecloth and do unspeakable things with that mouth.”
My dick was blowing a head of steam with her sudden boldness.
“And I thought you were a good girl. Although I guess I should have known different, seeing as you hang out at Illicit.”
“So you did see me there.”
She pulled away from me, busting up the moment. Fuucck. I am really losing it. Why'd I have to bring that bag of hot coals out? We'd successfully skirted the issue of that night, running into each other in a sex club up until now. Each pretending we hadn't seen each other on the Club floor.
“How could I miss you? You'd stand out of the crowd at a beauty pageant,” I countered.
Her delectable mouth turned up in a shy smile again.
“But you walked away. I thought...”
“Illicit is highly anon, Angel. I wouldn't have intruded on whatever brought you there that night. And more important, I don't think I could have stomached watching some other man pleasuring you when all I could think about was having that pleasure only for myself.”
Her color rose across the tops of her perfect breasts that I wanted to gorge on, all the way up to her soft cheeks. She was divine. Like nothing I'd ever known. And I had to get her to a place I could do all the lascivious things to her body I hadn't been able to get out of my head and my groin for weeks.
“My roommate is probably gonna be home tonight,” she murmured, leaning back in to brush her lips to mine.
“And my sister has made a fashion disaster of my apartment. It looks like the once a year Barneys warehouse sale.”
I actually felt a pang at telling her a half lie. The suite was still a hot mess, but in truth I couldn’t risk her discovering the shibari room where I'd stashed Princess Fatou.
“There's always a room at the Ace,” I said. The cost was irrelevant. I'd have spent millions to feel her wrapped around every part of me again, clasping me close to her.
“Oh no, more people staring. We can go to mine. Bo won't mind. He's been dying to meet you.”
Chapter FOURTEEN
Cool. So she'd been gossiping about me with her friends after the first time. That would indicate a decent level of hooked. I wondered what she told Harlow about me. Whether the two of them talked after seeing me at Illicit. I took care of the check and wrapped my arm around her small waist, pulling her close on the chill of the dark street. I gotta know about Harlow, her boss.
“So you haven't told me, how's the new job?”
“It's great. It's so exciting being in on the expansion of the charitable foundation. We're getting a ton of donations.”
“Why didn't you say. I'd be glad to make a contribution to your cause.”
“Oh, no. I didn't mean, I wasn't trying to-.”
“Hey, take whatever you can when someone offers. It's what any good vigilante does.”
“I don't want to take advantage of your kindness.”
My kindness. Jesus fuck that's a first. No one had ever laid that one on me. I hoped she wasn't looking at me through those pretty pink glasses women like to put on when they think their prince has arrived. I ought to have set her straight but what was I gonna say “Hey babe, you're out with a serial killer dontcha know. A man tasked with taking out the leaders and shakers of the world”? Just keep it shut.
“Cruz, about that night. The first, the night we met.” Where was I going with this except making myself look like a bumbling puritan?
“Hmmm?” He was looking right into me, waiting. No backing up.
“I don't, um, I don't, you know.” Just get it over with, now you started. “I guess you hear this all the time but I really don't do that.”
“I don't do that either. Ever.”
“Oh.” I'd expected him to tell me it was fine and he didn't think the worse of me. Nothing about Cruz was as expected. He twined his fingers into mine as I felt every pulse of blood my heart pushed at my skin. We sat silent and looked at our hands joined into another being.
“And how is it working for a woman your own age?” Cruz eventually spoke.
“Harlow's amazing. She's been through a ton recently but she came through it all and found everything she wanted. It's an inspiration to me to keep going through the bad stuff because with enough faith, things do change.”
“Spoken like a corporate guru. You said there aren't offices yet? You work at her apartment.”
“Only the last two days because her housekeeper vanished in the night and Harlow was frantic to be there in case she came back and needed her.”
“Too bad. Where was she?” I noted the attachment Harlow has for the girl she knew as housekeeper.
“We haven’t found her yet. We managed to locate her on the security cam footage in the apartment but nothing after that leads to her disappearing.”
Strange that because I'd known exactly where to find her. Soon as I heard Dani telling Ophelia about the poor terrified housekeeper, it came rippling back to me. When she said the girl was crying the word 'Wolf' over and over it was like a trigger blew in my head. Of course. What a jerk off idiot I was not to pick it up 'til then.
Wolf was what they called me back there, as I worked my way though taking out the head honchos of that battered country. Don't ask me why they picked that name, it wasn't like I was eating anyone. I just did my job. First it was White Wolf, because the bright blonde hair kinda stood out in the dark. Then it was just Wolf.
I was tasked with eliminating the shakers and that one young girl was the only one that ever got away. Her father was the mark but I had to take out the whole family that night. The prick locked himself up in the house when he heard that every member of the ruling class was being taken down by the assassin known only as Wolf. He wouldn't leave and go to his office, not even in a bulletproof vehicle. He stayed sniveling at home with the women and a flank of bodyguards that didn't halt my advance one step.
So of course I knew where Harlow's so-called housekeeper would be hiding, even if they couldn't figure it out. Same as that night in her daddy's fortress mansion when she'd tried to hide from me in the basement laundry storage room. I was on my way for her when the cavalry arrived in the form of Cole and his idiot bulldog watcher. So I made my exit to lie low and come for her another day.
The fact that hiding in the basement back then had saved her, I was certain would give her some superstitious security in the present. I didn't bother jacking the private elevator and heading up to the penthouse. No need. I went straight down into the belly of the building and bam, there she was in the basement just as I predicted, crouched and shaking in a storage locker.
“It's weird because Harley's boyfriend, Cole, just installed a new, super cool security system after they had an intruder,” my little bird was singing in my ear again.
And it just kept coming. So now I knew they'd sussed me after the first B&E. And he really imagined that pathetic equipment could keep me out any more effectively than twenty goons with machine guns at Fatou's family mansion.
“It's almost like a mu
seum at their home now. Harlow told Cole that she wasn't the Hope Diamond and no way was he installing motion sensors in the floor. They had quite a passionate discussion about that and of course she won. He's so wild about her and keeping her safe.”
So they know I came for her. My little souvenir calling cards left on the pillows for Harlow did their job.
“Some women deserve to be kept safe.” I said and pulled her in close to me as we walked, but she gave a little frown.
“All women, not only some, should be safe,” she said.
Shit, I 'd forgotten about my little hot head's vigilante passion.
“You're right of course, no woman should be abused but I'm not eating dinner with all women so Forgive me, my little vigilante if I can't help making you special.”
She relaxed into my arm when she heard the word special and pressed the curve of her body into my ramrod solid one.
“What did the cops say about the housekeeper?”
“That's an odd one. They haven't informed the police. Something to do with Fatou's immigration. Not that she's an illegal or anything. Cole would never do anything unlawful.”
Like fuck he wouldn't. She just keeps spilling right into my web. So that a-hat brought the African Princess into the States illegally to keep her off-grid. But why? He's running his own personal witness protection. What a douche.
Suddenly Dani stopped in the street like she'd changed her mind or something and I was actually worried. Now I gave a shit about what a woman was thinking and feeling and that took a moment to process in my body. As in, what the fuck was happening to me this time? Then she ran her tongue lightly across her top lip as she reached up and curled her fingers around the taut sinew in my neck and gently tugged my mouth down to cover hers.
That sweet hunger she had to be mine inflamed me instantly. My cock flared alive and my blood was boiling to plunge inside her again. This time it would not be repressed. I pulled her close to me and wrapped my tongue around hers. Her body pressed into the length of my torso, her soft but firm breasts against my abs, her belly against my raging cock.
I couldn't stand it a second longer, I had to possess her again. No matter how many times my head said 'no', my body howled 'yes'. It was like a bomb waiting to detonate and I had to have her right then. I led her with hungry force, walking backwards blindly with our mouths and bodies glued together, hands darting here and there with the urgent need to caress every inch of the other.
We staggered like a single beast into the alley behind us and when she backed into an industrial door, I kicked it open. A commercial kitchen. A restaurant or hotel, who cared? Deserted aside from the swish of a dishwasher at the far end of the long space, mostly hidden by steel shelves staked with china.
I shoved her up onto the stainless steel countertop and ran my hands up the length of her smooth thighs. No pants to struggle with. She'd worn an adorable flared skirt complete with split. She was undoing the buttons of my shirt and my automatic impulse was to bat her probing hands away. To stop her exploring my body and bind her tight. But then her soft, insistent fingers stroked across my chest muscle and made me avid to be joined to her in the deepest possible way. I forgot about restraining her, as her other hand tugged the back of my head down to cover her mouth again. Inflamed with lust, I ripped her underwear across to one side and delved into her slickness until she moaned into my mouth.
While I laved my tongue across her pulsing nub, I shoved three fingers deep into her dripping sex, rotating them all the way to the hilt until she cried out. The clank of plates behind all the steel shelving stopped and a Spanish voice shouted something. I couldn't give a shit. Nothing would stop me now, I had to have her. We were both incensed with need and not even a crowd of elephants stampeding through the kitchen could have stopped us.
She freed my steel from my pants, so admiring of its size, so pleased with its hunger to own her. Her hands rotated the length and over the head making me jerk with ecstatic need. She was already pulling me to her and she was plenty wet enough to take my girth. I rammed all the way into her and fuck it was so sweet to be held by her hot tightness. I thrust harder and harder while trailing furious circles around her swollen hot nub.
I stood over her, holding her hips still, stretching her lips open with my thumbs while I slammed into her until our bones crashed. And still she pulled me closer, deeper. I held back until I felt her walls quiver, the shudders let loose around my dick, then I shot everything into her so we came together. Instantly I pulled her up off the metal rolling cart and into my arms where she clung to me, round breasts pressed into my chest, panting and heaving for an eternity. Her warm sweet breath teasing across the side of my neck was the most beautiful thing I'd known in an age.
“Did I hurt you?” I murmured, savoring the salty sweet smell of her warm neck.
“I wanted you to be hard with me. It was amazing,” she whispered against my ear lobe when her breathing eventually calmed.
“You are incredible. What are you doing to me? I've never known a woman who does the things you do.”
We stood in that abandoned kitchen, the dishwasher now chortling out some old tune, mariachi styl-ee, her arms and legs wrapped around me. Her soaking pussy still joined to me. I couldn't put her away from me and take her home because then I wouldn't be touching her, feeling her skin to skin and merged with me so I couldn't tell where I stopped and she began. I didn't want to ever let her go. It was beyond madness.
Then I did break away because, just because. When had I ever in my entire existence fucked a woman without any rope involved? Never. She wasn’t bound in any way for the first time in my life and I didn't know what to do with that.
“I don't think I can walk,” she said, her legs buckling with that baby deer thing she does that I love.
“Crazy shoes. Sexy but crazy.”
“It's not the shoes, it's my knees. They're still wobbling.”
Chapter FIFTEEN
Dani
We were close enough to my apartment to walk, with Cruz holding me up so my feet were barely touching the sidewalk. His strength was incredible, it was like he could hold my weight in just one arm. And I was curious as to how he'd opened the steel alley door to the restaurant with one kick. He was a Terminator of a man despite his angelic exterior.
I wasn't kidding when I said Bo wouldn't mind. He pretty much fell off the stool he was perched on at the kitchen island when we walked in. He'd just come home from a club with his latest fling, Arturo, who was making an omelet. They'd been seeing each other a few months and were still stoked about it. A rising sportswear designer he'd met during fashion week. Both guys, perfectly accustomed to working with supermodels all day long and unimpressed by just about everything, dropped their jaws to the marble when Cruz came into the apartment after me. He was actually shy which was a side of him I hadn’t seen, usually so confident and in control, he smiled sweetly and greeted both with a warm handshake.
“Well hashtag 'Hallo Dolly',” Arturo said when he finally had to let go of Cruz's palm. “If you ever need some extra money honey, you know where to come.”
“It's okay he isn't trying to pimp you,” Bo interceded as Cruz looked non-plussed. “He works at Calvin. I think he sees underwear potential.”
“Guys you just shook hands, perhaps you shouldn't be stripping him in your minds eyes just yet.” I said.
But Cruz was cracking up and holding up his palms to their fierce apologies.
“It's okay. It's what we guys have been doing to woman for decades. It's only right we get a taste of our own objectification.”
We all breathed a sigh of relief. My friends and my boyfriend were cool. Was it okay to call Cruz that? What other word should I use? Arturo rummaged around in the cupboards and discovered the dregs of the tequila bottle. It reminded me of the misery I’d used it to dispel and how now the swing had swung all the way back to the other extreme. I was in a bliss of happiness, with my best friend and my incredible hot lover chatting away lik
e buds. A new job with a superb boss. Life was picking up all the way.
And then he said he had to go.
He snapped like a machine with an on/off switch. But why? I wanted to cry out, but didn't. I wanted to hold him to me and never let him go, but didn't. I see that's he's tortured, maybe by me, maybe by the past, maybe by something I haven't yet discovered. I knew for sure that if I push, he'd take fright and vanish. I couldn't let that happen.
I thanked him politely for dinner and he almost wavered when I whispered into his ear that I hope sometime soon he'll curl his body around me while we sleep, like before. It wasn't my imagination that he almost changed his mind and dragged me to the bedroom. But then he kissed my cheek, Bo's cheek, Arturo's cheek and slipped away.
“Oh, are we playing hard to get at last?” Bo asked. “Pulled out your ancient copy of The Rules?”
“Are you blind, old man? Can't you read all over their faces that they just got done with a booty call?” Arturo chimed in.
“Wha-aat? Look at her pinking up, you're right. L.A.I.D. Get back here and tell us all about it.”
“All's I'm saying is Chinese gangsters and restaurant kitchens. 'Night guys.”
Chapter SIXTEEN
Cruz
Soon as I'm out on the street, heading for my wheels, I felt the usual breath of relief. Which was almost immediately replaced by a hollow cavern inside. It was that reminder of how we slept together. Did she feel it too? That sense of total trust and safety? I usually give it to women but I rarely get it back. I almost turned right around to head straight back to her place. My dick was already stirring, the memory of how she strokes it with both hands. Having her palms wrapped around my steel while she laps at the head was making me wild all over.
No I can't take this any further. I got in the car and checked my location. If Tiffany was on the way and was open, she'd be getting that diamond with her breakfast. Instead I hit the number for the owner of my favorite Mexican restaurant and tell him to send his chef with breakfast for three in the morning. We drained the tequila so this would be something she could enjoy with her friends even if I couldn't be there. I had other shit to attend to.
CRUZ: Billionaire Bonded Romance Suspense (Illicit Book 4) Page 7