Taste Me

by Tamara Hogan

  Scarlett laughed as she sang along, her hips swinging in a way they never did when she performed, thank god, or he’d never let her out of her dressing room. She brought her hands to her head, tossed her hair, and arched her back, dancing in her own little world.

  Lukas hadn’t realized Scarlett was that… flexible.

  As his traitorous lizard brain exploded with positions, with possibilities, Antonia whirled her long hair like a Whitesnake video vixen. “Hey, Thursday is Amateur Night at Sex World,” she called. “Whadda ya think?”

  The Incubus Second, slithering on a stripper pole? Lukas dropped the duffle bags to the floor. Over my dead body.

  Sasha’s leg froze in position. Scarlett stopped singing. Bailey’s butt stopped twitching from side to side as she typed on a laptop at his desk.

  “Hey, guys,” Antonia greeted them, skipping over to kiss them both on their cheeks. “Did you know that Sex World is right across the street?”

  Instead of answering, Lukas carefully set Scarlett’s electronics beside the duffle bags. A loud yowl from the kitchen distracted Antonia, and she trotted away to check on that big, black cat.

  “My soundboard.” Scarlett’s eyes glowed like she’d found buried treasure. She gave Sasha a hug. “Thank you!”

  “You’re welcome.” Sasha blithely accepted thanks that rightfully belonged to him, and gestured to the duffel bags. “I packed a few other things I thought you might need.”

  Scarlett shot a dirty look at Sasha, dropped to her knees, and quickly pawed through the duffels. “You didn’t.”

  Sasha snorted with laughter. “I most certainly did. Lukas said to pack things you needed.”

  “How about some bras?” Lukas muttered under his breath.

  “What were you thinking?” Scarlett hissed at Sasha.

  Scarlett’s cheeks were on fire. Lukas could taste her embarrassment, and a spike of helpless mandarin arousal, across the room. Why was Sasha looking at both of them with such an evil expression on her face? “What are you two talking about? What did you bring?” he asked Sasha.

  “None of your business.”

  “It’s entirely my business. Is it dangerous?”

  She considered. “In the right hands, yes. It could be dangerous.”

  A phone. Damn it. “Give it to me.”

  Scarlett’s jaw dropped.

  “Scarlett, either you show me what’s in that bag voluntarily, or I search it myself. Your choice.”

  Their gazes clashed. Finally, Scarlett stepped back. Sasha burst into merry laughter.

  Lukas knelt down, extracting items from the duffel bag as he searched. Several soft sweaters. A pair of butter-soft leather pants. Books. Silky bikini underwear, delicate lace thongs, and wispy bras that his rough fingertips longed to stroke.

  His hand bumped against a colorful, oblong box made of hard cardboard. Lukas lifted it out of the duffel, examined all sides. Stationery, writing paper? Note cards?

  Sasha was bent over double, holding her belly as she laughed.

  What was the big frigging deal? He carefully pulled off the top of the box. Looked in.

  And saw a bright yellow vibrator.

  Chapter 18

  Three days later, Lukas slogged up the stairs like an old man, pushing lank, sweaty hair out of his face. The workday was over, but the workout he’d just pushed himself through tipped his body from comfortably tired to uncomfortably sore. Between his Council work, transitioning Antonia into her new role as the Incubus Second, keeping Sebastiani Security running, and working with Gideon to find Annika’s killer, he wasn’t simply burning the candle at both ends—he’d aimed a flamethrower at the thing, and wax was melting all over the place. Guarding Scarlett on top of it?

  Scorched earth.

  If he hadn’t already hit the wall, the conversation he’d had with Claudette a couple of hours ago would have sealed the deal. A “relaxed” family dinner? When he and Scarlett were bickering one minute and drooling the next? Riiiight. Like he was looking forward to putting that on display for his nosy siblings.

  In retrospect, working off his frustration sparring two-on-one with Jack and Chico probably hadn’t been the smartest idea he’d ever had. He’d rolled his ankle, his scuffed knuckles stung, and Chico had clipped his kidney with his sneaky left foot. Nope, he’d been distracted, slow, his timing a critical split second off—and once Jack and Chico had recognized it, they’d gone medieval on his ass. He still tasted blood from Jack’s massive roundhouse kick.

  He had no one to blame for his current condition but himself. You’re the one who insisted Scarlett live with you until Annika’s killer was caught. It wasn’t Scarlett’s fault that he’d criminally underestimated the impact her proximity would have on him.

  He trudged to the fourth floor landing and shouldered open the fire door at the top of the stairs. The fact they hadn’t caught the guy yet stung a lot more than his cut tongue did.

  On the other hand, having Scarlett live with him was jacking his short-term productivity through the roof. To escape her luscious taste, and to give her a little bit of the privacy she so clearly craved, after dinner he spent long hours at his downstairs office desk, chipping away at his backlog long into the night, until exhaustion drove him to his too-short couch. But there was no escape in sleep, either, because despite the availability of a very large, very comfortable bed, Scarlett had gotten into the habit of crawling onto the couch with him in the middle of the night, ruining what little sleep he got.

  Was she sleepwalking? Conscious of her actions? Lukas didn’t know, and for a reason he hadn’t probed into too deeply, neither of them had talked about it. He’d come to both dread and treasure that moment in the middle of the night, when the bed sheets rustled behind the partial wall, and she padded across the wood floor in bare feet. Once she lay down, she seemed to settle and drop off to sleep quickly, spooning back against the warmth of his body with a sigh.

  She might have found the position relaxing, but it left him wide awake and rock hard, wanting nothing more than to slip into her hot, tight body from behind.

  How had he managed to simply wrap his arm around her for three nights running? His control was fraying fast, his frustration ratchetting into the stratosphere. He had to find this guy and get Scarlett out of his house before he did something he couldn’t take back.

  The guy was still out there, still up to something, because low-grade nausea plagued him like he had the flu. Still, no crime with their guy’s signature had hit the Hot Sheet. If he was doing anything serious enough to result in a body, they hadn’t found the corpse yet.

  Lukas tasted Scarlett before he approached his door—mandarin, mixing with the slightest bit of ozone. Electricity? Was she using that foolish, yellow, bunny-eared vibrator?

  He would not think about that inanimate rubber… thing touching her where he couldn’t.

  Ah, damn. Of course he thought about it, and the clingy, sweaty workout shorts he wore were too thin to provide even a whiff of camouflage. He’d never taken so many cold showers in his life, hadn’t jacked off this much since he was a teenager.

  It was hard enough to shove his feelings down when it was just the two of them—but now, thanks to Claudette, they had a damn family dinner to contend with. He had a couple of days to get himself under control, or else his family would be able to smell his salacious feelings for Scarlett like week-old garbage.

  He heard Scarlett’s voice as soon as he opened the door. It didn’t take him long to find her, humming in the late afternoon sun, an open notebook and that damn black cat on her lap, her eyes closed, a headset clapped to her head. Her voice twined around his spine, tunneled into his brain stem, tugged at his dick from across the room.

  She was sitting right in front of the goddamned window with the curtains open.

  He strode across the room to whip the curtains closed. Calamity launched from Scarlett’s lap with a hiss and a spit, and the notebook and headset went flying as she quickly stood to face him, arms de
fensively raised.

  She let her arms drop and glared at him. “You scared the crap out of me.”

  She’d been ready to fight. Good. “Good,” he repeated aloud. “You need to move away from that window. Now.”

  She gestured to the pink flashing lights across the street. “To avoid sniper fire from Sex World? Come on, don’t you think you’re overreacting just a smidge?”

  “How does your ear feel today?” he snapped. “The one with a damn bullet crease in it because you were shot at through a fucking window?”

  She stared at him. “Okay. Okay. Just calm down.”

  “I have to look at that damn gash in your ear every time I look at you. Every time I talk to you.” And every time he did, failure sliced like razor wire. “What’s the use of hiding you here if anyone with a camera—or a gun—can simply look up and take an easy shot?” He knew his anger was irrational, but, damn, if she couldn’t follow even simple instructions, he couldn’t protect her.

  “Okay, okay. Point taken. I was just trying to enjoy the sun,” she groused. “You don’t have to be so bitchy about it.”

  “Bitchy?” he repeated mildly.

  Scarlett whirled away from him and walked to her desk. “Jeez, someone woke up on the wrong side of the—”

  “You really wanna go there?”

  She didn’t answer, which was an answer in itself. Instead, she busily shuffled and sorted papers on her makeshift desk, cozied up next to his. After just a few days here, the table he’d muscled up from the storage room for Scarlett to use for a desk was a mix of neat and messy, covered with electronics, torn-off scraps of paper, CDs in jewel cases, what looked to be a stack of legal documents, various writing implements, and a mug of cold tea.

  Lukas picked her notebook up from the floor, staring at the scratches, scribbles, and sketches on the page. Damn good thing Scarlett was a singer, because if she was a painter, she’d surely starve.

  She muttered something about prisoners and dungeons. Lukas looked down at his sweat-dampened workout clothes. Yeah, he smelled like a dungeon, all right. Her voice whipped, stung, and damn it, flicked over him like a tongue. She was really pissed.

  And really aroused.

  It was probably better if he left her alone, because if he touched her, he’d explode.

  Suddenly she whirled toward him with her hands on her hips. “Do you get off on being my jailer, Lukas?”

  A picture of Scarlett writhing in chains popped into his mind, and under his thin shorts he could feel his groin pound in time with his pulse. “It would be nice to get off on something,” he muttered under his breath.

  “Your sex life, or lack thereof, is not my problem.” Her words were so stiff he heard them creak. “This is not a joke. This is my life.”

  “I’m not any happier with this situation than you are.” He paced to the window and stood with his back to her so she wouldn’t see his raging hard-on. Lowering his voice, he said, “Scarlett, we haven’t found this guy yet, but it’s just a matter of time.” He scowled, remembering her comment about dungeons. “You’re not a prisoner here.”

  “Are you kidding me? I can’t even follow you to that window and throttle you until your teeth rattle. What did you say when I first got here?” She pitched her voice to Lukas’s low rumble. “‘You don’t go beyond the door. Ever.’”

  Given the control she had over her vocal cords, he probably had sounded like that much of an asshole. For his part, he barely remembered walking her through his door. What he most remembered was being scared out of his mind. If the bullet had been one inch to the right… “Cut me a little slack here, okay?” he said, jamming a hand into the hair at his temple. “You were still dripping blood when I brought you here.”

  “Like you care.”

  Frustration surged through him. “Keep going,” he said in a too-mild voice.

  “What?” She put her hands on her hips again. “What’ll you do?”

  “Turn you over my knee, you little brat.”

  Her pupils dilated, and tart mandarin spurted in to his mouth. Her nipples were erect. “This is…” He swallowed heavily. “This is hardly a prison.”

  “Yeah, your place is gorgeous, and your bathroom is beyond decadent, but I’m going nuts here, Lukas. Other than the people who work here, I’ve had exactly two visitors—Sasha and Antonia.”

  Guilt poked him in the gut. Was he really such a selfish bastard? “You can have people over.” He quickly rattled off the names of people who posed no threat. “Your mother, my family. Your band. Garrett and Jesse.”

  “Thanks. That helps. But the fact remains, I can’t leave. Do you know how frustrating that is?” She sighed. “I know this guy’s on the loose. I get that.” Her voice edged higher. “But I don’t know how much longer I can—”

  “Can what?” He stepped closer.

  “Just forget it. Could you put on some clothes, please? And give me my notebook back.”

  He held it up over his head. “No.”

  “What are you, twelve? Give it to me.” She leaped up, trying to grab it.

  He choked back a groan as her breasts brushed against his torso. Tastes and smells clouded his thoughts, drove a stake into his common sense. No twelve-year-old, no matter how hormone-addled, could possibly imagine everything he wanted to do to her long, lean body.

  On her next leap, he gave up and simply caught her—caught her and held her against him with one arm, the childish game of Keep Away the furthest thing from his mind. Her lethal legs scrambled for purchase against his. Was she trying to move closer to him, or to get away? He didn’t know because he was too busy staring at her soft, pink lips. Moving his head closer to hers.

  She stilled, and with a whispered “damn,” wrapped her arms and legs around him, her body aligning against his, like a series of dead bolt locks slipping into place. Her chilly hands clamped against his upper back. Her cashmere-covered breasts nestled against his hard chest. Her hot, humid heat cradled his rock-hard dick.

  Her lips crushed against his.

  Lukas dove at her mouth. Her tongue slid against his, tangling and tumbling, and her gasp of delight nearly did him in. Could she taste herself on his tongue? The fabric of her yoga pants was as substantial as mist, and as he stroked his violently aroused flesh against her, he swore he could feel each soft petal of flesh underneath.

  Scarlett squirmed against him. “You don’t feel twelve,” she breathed before licking her way back into his mouth with a devastating flick of her tongue.

  Where was the music coming from? Scarlett wasn’t singing—her mouth was too busy mapping the inside of his—but she must have heard the music too, because her breasts brushed against his chest in rhythm to it. Swish, swish. Swish, swish. He exhaled harshly as the cashmere dragged against his nipples. He moved his arm under her ass so she could keep right on doing it.

  Lukas didn’t like to dance, but as Scarlett’s lithe body undulated against his in time with the music, he knew this was a rhythm he could keep.

  The music must be coming from her headset. He couldn’t hear individual notes, but whatever she’d been listening to made him think about plunging into salty ocean waves in the dark.

  Damn her. He took her mouth again, the one part of her body he could get inside right now. The notebook fell, unheeded, to their feet. When her hands grasped and clutched at his bare shoulders for balance, he abruptly remembered what he’d been doing before coming upstairs.

  Shit, he reeked. He reluctantly pulled his mouth away from hers. “I really need to take a shower.”

  She laughed lightly, biting his lower lip. “You don’t know smell until you live with three men on a tour bus for a year. No, you smell…” She buried her nose in the notch between his collarbones, where pheromones pooled and bloomed. Licked him. “Fabulous.”

  Saliva spurted under his tongue as her response flooded into him. With a moan, he rolled his hips against her, once, twice. Her response glittered back, coursing down his spinal cord and tightening h
is balls with a snarl of pleasure he couldn’t possibly survive.

  He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t have—

  “Lukas.” Staring into his eyes, she stroked herself on his cock.

  Okay, maybe he could.

  But she had to decide. Lukas couldn’t allow her to mindlessly hitch a ride on his pheromones. She had to be perfectly clear, with simple words, simply said. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

  Scarlett nearly laughed. “Want” was far too mild a word to describe the exquisite rush of blood, nerves, and hormones pulsing through her body. Lukas was bare to the waist and standing with his legs slightly spread, easily supporting her weight with a big, muscled body straight out of her most shameless warrior fantasies. His soft cotton compression shorts clung damply, lovingly, and did absolutely nothing to hide his bulging muscles or the long, erect ridge of flesh underneath. Pheromones pumped off him; she could almost see them steaming off his heated, aroused body. She couldn’t help but breathe them in. Didn’t want to stop, even as they clouded her common sense.

  Mine.

  Scarlett hardly recognized the voracious hunger battering her body. Why was he holding back? Why wasn’t he touching her? Remembering what Sasha had told her just before the bullet had crashed through Crackhouse’s window, she drew a fingertip along his clenched jaw. “Yes. This is what I want. This is what I need.”

  His entire body jerked at her words. She longed for his plundering, ransacking mouth to crash down on hers, to take her down, take her over, but instead, Lukas’s eyelids drifted closed, and he breathed deeply, in and out, in and out, like he was meditating, or worshiping the aurora.

  Damn the man. She tightened her arms around his linebacker shoulders, squirming to get his attention. He dragged her more tightly against his body, clamping his hand on her ass. His body radiated heat like a blacksmith’s forge, and when he opened his eyes again, his irises had softened to molten gold. Scarlett half thought that they’d drip on her as he bent his head and slowly—too slowly—brought his lips back to hers. She gasped at the first touch, gasped again as his rough suede tongue caught her breath. He tasted of coffee and desperation and a dark flavor entirely his own, and damn him, he knew exactly when to coax, and when to plunge and take. Her body moistened, softened. Jealousy nudged as she wondered exactly how many women had tasted that wicked, wicked tongue.