Afterglow

by Cherry Adair

  “I don’t give a fuck what it is. I want you!”

  “We’re horny because of Rapture.”

  His hot gaze stripped her bare, leaving her breathless and wanting. How long had they breathed the drug? How long had it taken her to realize the smell of roses was Rapture? Rand had been inside the building a lot longer than she had.

  Crazed and ragged, balanced on a razor’s edge of succumbing to the effects of the raging want of the drug, she dug her nails into her forearm and searched his eyes for any sign of the bloom. His eyes were feverishly bright, glittering. Clear. The pain in her arm from her nails was dull, but it brought her a moment’s clarity. “Everyone ripped off their clothes, grandmothers and housewives, bankers and office workers, falling to the floor and having sex with total strangers. In the middle of the bank. In broad daylight! Rand, listen to me! We have to get a grip. Straighten our clothes and go somewhere. Anywhere. Now!”

  Her breasts ached, and she pressed her arms against them to ease the pain. The pressure didn’t help. She wanted Rand’s large hands on her. Cupping. Kneading. She wanted his mouth on her. She needed to be naked and spread wide. She wanted his body pounding into hers until she didn’t know where she ended and he began.

  Fighting for control with every fiber of her being, she snapped her fingers in front of his eyes as he reached for her breast. “Stay with me, Rand. Sta—” She blinked and brought his face into focus. It took a moment for reality to seep back into the euphoria. “Oh, shit! Let me see your eyes.” Had she already checked? She didn’t remember. “Damn it, Rand, let me—” She managed to grab his face and turn him.

  She shouldn’t have touched him. His face was rough and hot, his lips smooth. The smell of his skin made her dizzy with lust. The tiny logical part of her brain drowning in heat and need and lust screamed a warning, but too late. As she looked deeply into his eyes, she forgot they’d ever been at odds, forgot that she had so many secrets from him she couldn’t keep track. She forgot everything as she drowned in hazel. Looking into Rand’s eyes was like floating in a clear, cool mountain stream.

  Burning from the inside, she wanted to let go of reason. Wanted to lose control. Wanted Rand to lose control. Here. Now. The heated blood racing thunderously through her arteries and veins demanded relief. She wanted to follow him over the brink into the heat and darkness of every carnal fantasy half imagined. She wanted to lick every scar on his body. She remembered where each was. There were new ones; she wanted to cry for his pain, then forgot that in the floating sensation of rising through liquid sunshine filled with effervescence.

  He grabbed the back of her head, his fingers gripping her scalp. She reveled in the pleasure/pain. She blissed in the smell of his skin, the heady fragrance of her own arousal as she reached for him.

  Dakota grabbed his arm, loving the flex and play of his sinewy muscles beneath the satin smoothness of his skin. She pressed her open mouth against his arm, wanted bare skin, and instead got fabric. She moaned her frustration and tried to reach his neck, where his damp skin gleamed in the sunlight and she could see the pulse of his blood pounding through his veins.

  He wrenched out of her reach. Said something that was drowned out by the surging blood roaring through her veins. Her body yearned, ached, pulsed, craved. She whimpered, shifting across the center console to get to him. There was something—there in her mind for the flutter of a butterfly’s wing—then gone.

  Every molecule in her body vibrated with energy and light as she slid her hand across the flex of his rock-hard, masculine thigh back to the wet spot between his legs.

  Her fingers closed around the pulsing, ridged length of him. “Mine.” She didn’t remember ever being this happy, this at peace, and yet so aroused that the brush of her own clothing against her breasts and between her legs made her breathing labored and as heavy as honey in her lungs.

  Hard fingers closed in a punishing grip around her wrist, pulling her hand away. “—damn it, Dakota! Rapt—”

  She writhed in his implacable hold, brought the other hand up to touch his hair, his cheek, his ear. So perfect. “Let’s make it fast, so nobody sees us—oh, Jesus, Rand! We aren’t responsible for our actions. We have to resist… .”

  His hair was impossibly silky soft, the rasp of his unshaven jaw rough and erotic against her palms as she gripped his cheeks in both hands. Her aching breast pressed against his biceps as she tried to climb into his lap. “Kiss me,” she whispered thickly.

  For one brief, tantalizing, agonizing second, his burning gaze dropped to her mouth. He ripped her hands from his face and started the car with a jerky twist of the key in the ignition. “Buckle up.” His voice was raw as he checked his mirror before pulling into traffic. Tires screeched and horns blared. Dakota laughed.

  IT WAS THE MOST uncomfortable, painful fucking ten minutes of Rand’s life. Driving was a challenge. The only way to keep her from climbing all over him was to manacle her wrists in one hand while he attempted to steer with the other. It was impossible to block the alluring fragrance of Dakota’s arousal as she fidgeted and shifted restlessly in the seat beside him. It was with overwhelming relief he was able to pull up outside a centrally located hotel without crashing, or jumping on Dakota while the damn car was in motion. He got out, tossed the keys to the bellman, rounded the car, and grabbed her hand.

  “Rand.” Just that, her voice thick with longing. He yanked her out of the car, making her stagger on her heels, flinging out a hand on his chest for balance. Her cheeks flushed a bright coral, her lips moistly parted; her pale green eyes looked glassy and feverish as she stopped dead in her tracks. Her tight grip brought his fast-forward motion to an abrupt halt as she grabbed his shirtfront and practically climbed his body.

  The blast of pleasure from her touch was so intense it bordered on pain and ratcheted his lust up another impossible notch. Every time he grabbed a sliver of rational thought—he knew what was causing this, knew and fought against it—the thought drifted out of his pleasure-saturated brain like pink smoke.

  Her mouth opened greedily under his, her arms wound around his neck, and she wrapped one leg high on his hip.

  Fuck finesse. Breathing was overrated. Rand kissed her back with everything in him. Her mouth was hot and sweet, her tongue agile as she responded with alacrity, pressing her soft breasts against his chest. Rand gave her all of his pent-up longing, pain, and loss wrapped in that everlasting exchange where nothing else mattered but the taste and feel of her. Jesus, he’d missed her. Missed this.

  Vaguely he heard, “¡Señor! ¡Señor! ¡Pare por favor!”

  The kiss was ravenous and carnal, juicy and supernova hot. Rand wasn’t stopping for anyone. Teeth. Tongue. Hands. Her. Him. He gripped Dakota’s jean-clad ass with both hands to bring her hard against the most painful cockstand he’d had in his life. The pressure didn’t help.

  He grabbed her thigh, pulled her leg over his hip, surged against the juncture of her thighs even as he was ripping at her clothes. He needed bare flesh, needed her wet and open and panting under him. He needed to be inside her now.

  He heard people—the Spanish version of the cartoon gibberish mwah-mwah-mwah— in the background. Urgent hand on his arm. Shook it off.

  Hard hands grabbed his upper arms, trying to pry him and Dakota apart. “¡Señor! ¡Señor! Por favor, ven en el interior donde pueden ser privados!”

  It took several minutes for Rand to compute that he and Dakota were practically screwing outside the hotel right on the street. A small, horrified crowd gathered to observe the spectacle. He shook off the man who was trying to separate them, put a hand up in a stop gesture, and tried to get a grip.

  Dakota gave him a wild look, reaching for him with both hands.

  “Inside,” he rasped, peeling her fingers off his damp crotch with difficulty and reluctance. Getting her to keep both feet on the ground was a challenge as well. He dug in his back pocket—another challenge—for his wallet, slid out a credit card, and shoved it at the man in a black
suit who separated them.

  The guy, as wide as he was tall, looked both horrified and fascinated by their PDA. Standing well back, he grabbed the card Rand offered. “A quick check-in, Señor—he glanced at the card—Maguire?”

  “As fast as you can do it,” Rand said in Spanish, wrapping a tight arm around Dakota’s shoulders as she surged around to press herself against him like plastic wrap.

  With Dakota corralled under his arm, and trying to bite his nipple as they walked, he crossed the lobby.

  He had to carry his jacket in front of him because, despite coming several times, he was still painfully aroused. Thank God he was wearing black pants; the telltale wet spot on the front wasn’t easily visible.

  He checked them in—two connecting rooms—and hustled Dakota into the elevator to the sixteenth floor.

  Maintaining a physical distance while she continually tried to twine herself around him like a vine was torture. They reached her room not a moment too soon. Everything, every-fucking-thing in him wanted to rip off her clothes and take her right there on the floor in the hallway. As he’d wanted to in the elevator before. In the car before that.

  In the fucking bank among the dead.

  In the Monte Carlo hotel suite before that.

  He untangled her arms from around his neck and shoved aside the leg she’d again wound around his thighs. She was like Velcro. Rand clamped his hands around her upper arms and held her still. “Take a cold shower. Stay in there until you’re back to normal.”

  “It would be easier on both of us if you’d just do me,” she murmured seductively, reaching for him with both greedy, grasping, urgent hands. Her skin glowed with sheen of perspiration, making it look impossibly smooth and soft. Her moist lips parted as she breathed his name. He could see the hard buds of her nipples poking through the thin cotton of her shirt.

  Pulling up reserves he didn’t know he had, Rand managed to corral all her moving body parts and unlock her door at the same time. A Herculean effort.

  But as she fell into her room, as the bright sunshine beckoned from the open drapes and wide, scenic windows, Rand found his body crossing the threshold without his permission.

  Found his hands reaching not for her arms again, but for her. All of her. Her eyes widened as he hauled her back against his body. Yanking her T-shirt out of her jeans, he slid his hand up her bare, damp midriff before kicking the door shut behind them.

  He had her on the floor before the automatic locking tumblers engaged.

  “Finally,” she gasped as he roughly ripped the strap of her purse off her arm, tossing it away with a thud. It was the drug. That’s all. Rapture.

  A piss-poor name for what Rand was feeling now.

  He couldn’t wait. Didn’t want to. Hell, he didn’t even know if what Dakota was moaning was encouragement or protest—but the fingers in his hair as his mouth replaced his hand at her taut, silken skin didn’t feel like protest to him. His lips traced the path his hands took, wet, open-mouthed kisses that did nothing for the raging hard-on wrenching the last of his self-control from him.

  Her hair spread like a tangled skein of fire around her head and shoulders on the plush carpet as her legs moved restlessly. Sunlight slashed a bright wedge over them as Rand bracketed her hips with his knees and crawled up her body. His fingers were clumsy with lust as he tried to pull the rest of her shirt over her straining breasts. He cursed savagely when the material caught at her armpits, trapped there as she grappled with the zipper on his pants.

  Curling his fingers around her rib cage, he bent his head to suck a hard nipple through her creamy lace bra into the wet cavern of his mouth. Her skin burned against his hand, the fever evident in her flushed skin and bright eyes as their fingers tangled, each with the same goal. Get naked.

  “Yes,” he growled as she trapped his hand between her legs. His dick was singing hosannas as he got closer to the prize.

  The pressure of his hand against her mound was enough to arch her back, her head thrown back in a climax that sent deep rose onto her cheeks and contorted her face; then she screamed his name as she convulsed hard.

  That easy.

  His dick pulsed with need, desperate to be inside wet, warm, welcoming heat.

  Any heat. Any wet.

  Welcoming optional.

  Rapture. A hell of a drug.

  “Give me,” Dakota gasped, pulling, twisting at his waistband. Every tug, every tightening of fabric against his dick sent him that much closer to another climax. Another euphoric explosion of sensation.

  Roughly, he wrenched open his pants, rocked back on his knees, and yanked his own zipper down. His erection sprang into his hand, so tight, so hot he had to throw back his head, teeth clenched as his fingers wrapped around it.

  So fucking good.

  “No,” she whispered. He sucked in a breath as another hand joined his—hers, softer. No less tight. No less dangerous. “Mine. God, all mine.”

  With no more warning than that, her lips closed around the head of his dick, and he couldn’t stop himself. Didn’t even know how to try. He twisted, pulled himself away, his climax rocking him to the bone as he cursed, hard and angry, savage and needy.

  It wasn’t enough. Damn it.

  Dakota pulled her T-shirt over her head. Red hair and cream lace, freckles and smooth skin and jeans she was doing her damnedest to wriggle out of. “I want—”

  He wrapped a hand around the back of her neck and yanked her toward him, banded an arm around her back, and didn’t care that she hadn’t managed to get her jeans past her thighs. That he hadn’t even managed to get his pants more than open enough.

  He lowered her to the floor, loomed over her, hemmed her in with his arms braced on either side of her shoulders. She tried to wriggle the damn jeans off; he didn’t bother to try.

  For a split second, her pale green eyes met his. Flared. Longing and need and visceral, sexual aggression. Fuck or be fucked.

  They’d fuck.

  And they’d be fucked.

  And he didn’t. Freaking. Care.

  His dick slid against her damp, hot curls. She lifted her hips, tilted them at an angle that ensured his erection caught in the folds of her wet flesh. One twist, one exquisite tilt of her hips, and he was inside her.

  So slick. So hot, so tight, made all the tighter because she couldn’t open her thighs wide. Too much, too fast.

  Her arms splayed, fingers grasping at the rug as she groaned in exultation and relief. Urgency.

  The end.

  God, he hoped the end. Rand pumped his hips hard, once, twice. Her breath hitched with each. Her eyes fluttered closed, her throat and chest stained pink with the onset of another climax.

  So beautiful.

  As her lips parted and her orgasm crescendoed on a scream, his own body—fueled by the drug despite all natural limitations—joined hers. Sweat plastered them together, made her skin slick and shiny, made his muscles tremble with exertion.

  His orgasm, her orgasm, rolled over and over, twined together and shattered the world around them into a single, unified note of pain, pleasure, relief.

  Maybe he’d passed out from pleasure; maybe the next minutes or hours passed in a drug-induced blur, but suddenly, the sun was at a far different angle.

  He pushed up onto his knees, still rock-hard, far from satisfied as a sliver of rationality seeped into his consciousness. Rand staggered to his feet. Dakota lay on the floor, spread-eagled; she still had one leg in her jeans, her T-shirt by her head, her bra still clasped and angled across her magnificent breasts.

  He shoved his other leg into his black dress pants, found his shirt on the floor, thrust his arms into the sleeves, and shoved the tails of his unbuttoned shirt into his pants.

  Dakota raised on both elbows, her hair streaming down her back and clinging to the sweat on her gleaming skin. Her picture should be in the goddamned dictionary under temptation. “Come back down here. I’m not done with you!”

  “Take that cold shower,” he to
ld her roughly, looking around for his shoes. “Do whatever you have to do in there. Keep the door locked. Move!” He hauled her to her feet. Dangerous, as she instantly clung to him, her arms hard around his waist, her lips and bare breasts on the open V of his shirt. He untangled her arms and backed toward the door. Wanting to stay, to keep doing what felt so insanely good …

  When she came toward him, he blocked her with his forearm. “No more. No more, damn it! We’re both going to regret this when the drug wears off.”

  “I won’t—”

  Rand wrenched open the door, slammed it closed behind him, and fell against the wall, breathing hard as he heard the automatic lock engage. Sweat rolled down his temples. He wondered if the erection would ever go down. He found his keycard and unlocked the door of his room. Closing and double-locking his door, he just stood there, eyes squeezed shut, heart hammering.

  Then had to open them as he imagined Dakota right next door, stripping off the rest of her clothes. His dick pulsed. His heart pounded. Sweat ran into his eyes. He slammed the back of his head into the unyielding plaster wall.

  The walls were thick enough he couldn’t hear movement in the connecting room, but he could imagine …

  He yanked open the door back into the hallway, and went in search of the gym.

  PHASE ONE COMPLETE, MONK thought, swirling the intense, deep gold liquid in his glass. As the subordinate stood preternaturally still, he brought the Baccarat crystal glass to his nose and inhaled: apple tart with a sprinkle of demerara sugar, Sultana oranges, hint of nutmeg, clove, and aniseed underpinned with musky oak. With a deep sigh of satisfaction, he tilted the glass to his mouth and sipped, savoring the intense layers of delicious desserts in his twenty-eight-year-old Glenmorangie Pride whiskey.