Lure of the Wicked

by Karina Cooper

  But what would he tell them? What could he say that wouldn’t destroy everything he and his mothers had worked so hard to build?

  What the hell was going on?

  He didn’t know. The same questions had gone around and around in his head while he’d prepared Naomi’s bed, waited for his mothers to help her. Waited for her to wake up.

  Just . . . waited.

  So he watched Naomi sleep instead of thinking about it. Watched her eyebrows work together into a slow knot of worry. Of anger, of something deeper. Pain.

  Who the hell was she?

  Shadows crept through the suite, lengthening into pitch black as the night wore on. Somewhere in the quiet, Phin lost the fight with himself. He slid into a fitful sleep shattered by images of blood and spattered brick. By corpses at his feet.

  Camera flashes in his eyes.

  When he jerked awake, nothing but the faint tick, tick, tock of his wristwatch broke the silence. He fumbled for his sleeve, squinting at the dim numbers. Three in the morning.

  His back cramped as he straightened from an awkward slouch. The chair creaked, and he rubbed at his face as he stood. Quietly he stripped off his shirt.

  He’d had nothing but time earlier, so he’d tidied her room while he waited. The state of her suite hadn’t surprised him, not really. He’d seen worse. She wasn’t kind to her clothes—as if bloodstained designer silk wasn’t bad enough—so he’d hung up the articles of clothing that she’d left strewn around her empty bags.

  He’d even organized her shoes.

  Tomorrow he could tease her about it. When she was awake and he wasn’t so. . .

  Suspicious. Angry. Terrified.

  His body aching, Phin longed for a shower. Instead he knew that he’d have to wait for daylight, and the answers he wasn’t sure would be forthcoming.

  Would she tell him?

  Doubtful.

  Smiling wryly, knowing it lacked all pretense at humor, Phin toed off his shoes and cracked open the armoire door. He hung up his shirt on a padded hangar, placed his shoes beside hers on the armoire floor, and quietly pushed the door closed again. He braced one hand on the wood for balance, rubbing at his tired, sleep-fogged head with the other.

  The bedcovers rustled.

  His stomach muscles clenched.

  Turning slowly, so much apprehension pouring through his mind, Phin saw her framed in shadow and the faintest thread of light. Her hair fell in tousled midnight streaks, the bandage at her shoulder stark white against the shadowed outline of her pale skin. Hazy, uncertain, her eyes gleamed from the frame of a face that he instinctively knew had seen so much more than a single bullet from the night.

  Why? Why did he want to soothe those shadows from her violet eyes?

  She pressed the heel of her hand into her temple. “Phin?” she murmured.

  Something shattered in his chest. Something coiled tight and tense low in his gut, but it was the breathless agony somewhere near his heart that broke any resolve he had. His breath eased out in a loud, shaking sigh.

  “Damn it, Naomi,” he said roughly, and crossed the room in short, angry strides.

  She was already reaching for him. The mattress dipped under his weight as he knelt, spilling her against his chest, into his arms. With a groan, he wrapped them around her so fragile body, around the sleek muscles he knew came from doing whatever it was she did that made her so familiar with bullets and snipers.

  And he didn’t care.

  “Kiss me,” she whispered, her mouth offered like a gift, a sweet taste of heaven. Her fingers mapped his naked back. Stroked his shoulders, his biceps. “I’m fine, it doesn’t hurt, Phin, just—”

  He obliged. Tilting her face up, he kissed her with the warning sound of alarms wailing in his head, and he didn’t care. Her mouth was soft and hungry, her lips warm, pliant.

  And she deserved so much more than what she thought she wanted.

  Phin gentled the kiss, eased away just enough so he could feather his lips over the curve of her bottom lip. Her cheeks. Her nose and the almost completely healed cut there. Her eyelids, her forehead.

  His hands stroked over her neck, down her sides. Wordless, he scooped her into his arms. Laid her out full-length upon the mattress and stripped the simple nightshirt over her head, taking his time to look at her. Just look.

  His eyes skimmed over her long, lean body, naked and so irresistible. Soft and hard, silken skin and tensile muscle. Her breasts were high and perfect, small pink nipples thrust proudly, beaded tight from wanting.

  Wanting him. Phin’s body clenched tightly, already achingly hard, but he didn’t move. Not yet. He couldn’t.

  She was okay.

  God, she was stunning.

  Her waist was trim, her hips were, Christ, perfect for him to hold on to, to sink his fingers into, and he knew that already. Her legs were long, joined by the neat thatch of dark hair shaped and trimmed by a day at his own spa.

  And the tattoo tucked just under her hipbone. A neat circle of dark ink, its detail blurred in the dark. He didn’t need to see the fine lines to recognize it. To know he courted danger. That he desperately craved the undivided attention of a witch hunter.

  Tomorrow. He’d ask questions tomorrow.

  She moved restlessly beneath his hot gaze, one knee easing up. Hips shifting. “Phin—”

  “Shh.” Soft as silk, he ran his palm down the center of her chest. Across her stomach. It fluttered, physical echo of her shaking breath, and he smiled crookedly as he touched one beaded nipple with his lips. His tongue. She gasped, jerked under his hand as he threaded his fingers into that soft strip of dark hair at the vee of her legs.

  He brushed against her hot, already damp cleft and made her whimper.

  But he wasn’t going to go too fast this time. Ignoring her urgings, her muttered curse, he split his attention between her sweet breasts and the fascinating bud of her clit. He pulled on her nipple with his lips, laved at the pink tip until she squirmed, all the while stroking her more delicate flesh with his fingers. Feeling her swell with her arousal. Grow hotter, wetter.

  She writhed. Gasped. Pleaded.

  Phin shifted on his knees, ran his mouth over the taut muscles of her belly. Over her abdomen, and the clench of muscle there, too. She was perfect. Fit.

  Tattooed.

  He ran his tongue over the faintly raised skin of the seal of St. Andrew. Tasted the sweat of her body, smelled the hot, sharp scent of her sex, and swallowed back a wild need to bury himself in her now, right now, and let it all go in the depths of her willing body.

  At least for a night, they could pretend that everything was exactly what it seemed.

  But that would be done too fast. Over. She deserved better. She needed better. Phin was determined to give it to her.

  Seizing her hips in both hands, he eased a knee between her legs. Breathed softly on the trembling flesh of her inner thigh as he whispered over her skin. Over her trimmed, damp curls. He let her know in no uncertain terms what he meant to do.

  What he’d been wanting to do since he’d first seen her, trouble in curve-hugging denim.

  How he meant to do it.

  Naomi arched. “No, Phin, I can’t— Oh, God.”

  He plunged his tongue between the soft folds of her sex, laved at the tight knot of nerves there. Gentle turned ardent as she bucked, his hands tight on her hips, holding her still when she tried to twist away. She couldn’t shift out from underneath the exquisite torture he knew she suffered.

  Knew she wanted desperately to avoid.

  Phin didn’t, couldn’t stop.

  Ignoring her pleading, whimpering cries, he dragged his tongue across the cleft of her body, plunged it deep inside to taste the very essence of her. Sweet and so intoxicating. He needed her to understand, to recognize that he would take his time with her tonight.

  That he could press every button in her traitorous, needy body and leave her shattered and shaking at his feet. And when she was done, when he was done, he�
��d still be there to cradle her in his arms.

  He would protect her, this time.

  More, he wanted Naomi to know that he loved this. Loved the smell of her, intoxicating and seductive as no perfume ever could be. That he wanted her, her, stripped of masks and pretenses.

  He wanted her to climax so hard, she forgot her own name in the aftermath.

  Knowing it for the reckless move it was, fighting every growling urge of his own tightly wound body, he used his fingers to separate the folds of her flesh, to reveal her to the night and his scorching approval. Slowly, so slowly, he inserted one finger into her wet heat, nearly groaned aloud as her muscles clamped down on it.

  His dick jerked, as demanding as she was. As unforgiving and needy.

  Gritting his teeth, he rotated his wrist, crooked his finger just so, and knew he’d found that perfect erogenous zone as her back nearly bent off the bed on a sharp, wild cry. Unable to help himself, he closed his lips over her clit, sucked that bead of flesh and nerves into his mouth and quirked his finger at the same time.

  She climaxed crying his name, her body shuddering, clenching hard and wet and violently around his finger and driving him to the absolute brink of sanity. In the dark, he knew she couldn’t see the pure, fierce satisfaction on his face. Knowing how hard she came, how hard she fought it. And that he could make her do it again.

  And would, over and over and over, before the night was out.

  It was the work of a moment to strip off his slacks, leaving them discarded on the floor. She was still shaking, her hands covering her face through gasps of shock, of decadent liberation, as he crawled back up her body. She shuddered as he licked a path from navel to breast.

  She stifled a groan as he closed his teeth over her left nipple, bit down gently, firmly, until her shoulders flattened against the bed and her back arched with the sweet ache.

  He took his time. Gently, firmly, Phin coaxed her sweet, lushly responsive body back to attention. To slow, spiraling heat. Naomi’s hands caught at his shoulders, her nails dug into his biceps, but he resisted her. Even as his cock throbbed in echo of his heartbeat, loud and heady, even as he ached from the wanting of her, he resisted her.

  He wanted her mindless and twisting when he took her this time. He wanted those walls down. Just tonight.

  “Easy,” he breathed against her sweat-damp skin. He licked the gentle swell of her breast, braced his hands on either side of her shoulders and gave the same attentions to the other.

  She twisted restlessly beneath him. “Phin,” she whispered. Her eyes were closed, her full, lush mouth shaping his name the way he intuitively knew she’d shape his cock if he let her.

  Which would end it all. He was wound so tight, even the muscles of his abdomen felt stretched, sensitive to every brush of her skin, every arc of heat, that wild electricity he felt whenever she so much as breathed in his vicinity.

  Now he had her.

  “You drive me insane,” he murmured against her breast. Feathering his lips over her nipple, back again to her navel, that tattoo; Christ, she tasted so good. Sweet and salt. “Ever since you ran me down, I’ve watched you move, wanted you in my bed.”

  Her laughter trembled, twisted on a gasp as he covered her sex with one broad hand. Pushed against her flesh. “I—” She sucked in a breath, tried again. “I drive you insane?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Deftly he slid his hands under her hips. “I’ve dreamed about the taste of you. I’ve woken up with your scent haunting me.”

  Her sound of surprise sank into the pillow as he flipped her over, pressed one hand flat against her lower back.

  “I’ve wanted to do this since I first saw you,” he whispered, his own voice less than steady.

  Naomi managed to get her elbows under her. Leveraged herself to look back over her shoulder. Her eyes smoky, dark with lust. With half the sharp awareness she usually had. “Phin,” she began, and dropped her face back to the pillow as he slid his fingers along the cleft of her bottom. He lowered his mouth to the curve of her hip, ran his fingers farther, over wet skin and along the folds of her sex.

  She was still so hot, still swollen from his loving, her orgasm, still tight and musky and—

  She jerked when he slid two fingers deep inside her, laughed shakily as he bit the tender flesh at the curve of her bottom. She groaned, long and loud, when he dragged his fingers out of the tight sheath of her slick flesh, thrust them back inside in desperate mimicry of what his body demanded.

  Her hips lifted, animal grace and reckless, frantic beckoning.

  He could feel every inch of her clenching muscles, feel the sweet, sticky heat of her around his fingers.

  It wasn’t enough.

  Her gasps, her moans; it wasn’t enough.

  She cried out as he pulled his fingers free of her body, arched into him as he crawled over her, nudged her legs apart with his own. The head of his cock probed at the wet entrance of her sex, teased her. Throwing her hair back, she wrenched herself to her elbows, slammed her back into his chest and rubbed. Like a cat.

  Like she needed to feel him around her.

  Inside her.

  Groaning, Phin lost the battle with himself. With her. Braced, ready, he slid home, slid deep with her hips cradled by his and her back slick with sweat against his chest. He had no will left to fight as she pushed herself up, forced him to sit back on his heels, to catch himself, his hands spanning her waist as she rode him.

  God, the pressure. The ache. The. . .

  The wholeness of it all. The rightness. Of her.

  Cords gathered in his neck as he held on to her waist with every ounce of strength he possessed, guided her hips to rock back against him. Over him. He thrust in long, liquid strokes, silently demanded she follow his lead as her back arched.

  He watched her skin gleam with sweat in the light. Watched the play of her muscles as her back moved, sinuous, graceful. And still she milked him, rode him like nothing he’d ever had, ever dreamed of having.

  Her moans tightened, her body clenched in rhythmic echo of his own heartbeat. Twining one hand in her hair, Phin held on for dear life, rode the wild, tautly coiled spring of release as it tightened in his chest. His gut.

  His heart.

  “Naomi,” he breathed.

  She threw back her head, reached behind her and seized his wrist in a grip that told him she was close. So close. Her hips slid back over his lap, her body enfolded his. Sweat made their skin slick, so smooth, and as she rose high on her knees, as he felt every sweet inch of her let him go, she used his wrist as leverage and arched her back hard. She slid back into the cradle of his hips, and the spring of his release unwound.

  Detonated.

  It shattered every part of him in an orgasm that had him thrusting up, thrusting hard, raking himself over that spot inside her and sending her wildly crying out her own release. Her body twanged, taut as a bowstring, shuddered as he wrapped his arms around her and held her close until the spots vanished from his eyes. Until he could feel more than raw, shuddering adrenaline and endorphins and . . .

  And trouble.

  Because he wasn’t done. Easing his fingers into her hair, Phin blew lightly across her sweat-dampened back. Smiled slowly when she gasped and shivered.

  He wasn’t going to be done for a long time.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sometime in the earliest hours of the morning, when the sky was still dark and the bedclothes were tangled beyond repair, they fell to exhaustion.

  The suite was cozy, the mattress soft and welcoming, and Naomi woke to find her body draped over Phin’s like silk, her legs tangled with his. Her cheek was warm, pillowed on the smooth planes of his muscled back.

  For a long, still moment, she forgot to breathe.

  Morning. And with it, a shattered illusion. She knew this game.

  Slowly, carefully, she eased away from the vivid temptation of all that naked skin. As the mattress dipped beneath her weight, he shifted, turned his face into the gap
between both pillows, and didn’t so much as let out a sound. Naomi breathed out a silent sigh of relief.

  Last night had been a lot of things. Fun. An exercise in endurance. Her body ached in places Naomi loved to feel on a morning after.

  But it was daytime now, and she had work to do.

  Work that included betraying Phin.

  Well, not so much betraying. She’d made no promises. No guarantees. The night had been one hell of an amazing dream. Like some kind of princess, she’d been dressed and bathed and painted, and he’d stripped it all away.

  Now dawn kissed the windows, and the dream was over. Bullets and blood.

  She didn’t have the luxury of wishing.

  She surveyed the suspiciously clean floor where her clothes had been. Her bags had been emptied and folded—folded, for fuck’s sake—and stacked neatly away. The polished door of the armoire stared at her.

  Jesus bastard Christ. Had Phin shoved her clothes over a corpse in the dead of night? And didn’t notice?

  He couldn’t have.

  Only she could be insane enough to screw a man while a body rotted in the same damn room.

  The thought didn’t feel as humorous as it should have.

  Although every muscle in her body screamed at her to get moving—and get the hell moving right this fucking instant—Naomi forced herself to ease from the mattress inch by nerve-bending inch. Biting her lip, she tiptoed to the closet and eased open the door. She didn’t realize that she held her breath until it whooshed out of her on a soundless curse. Phin’s shirt hung in the murky light, a masculine companion to the array of frothy, silky, expensive tops the Mission had stuck her with. A pair of his expensive shoes sat neatly beside her own. Her pants hung on specially designed hangers, as neat as if he’d pressed them himself.

  There was no body.

  Her mind whirling, she withdrew a pair of designer denim jeans and a red sweater, and grabbed the only heeled boots that wouldn’t dump her flat on her ass.

  Despite the mind-boggling absurdity of an ambulatory corpse, she was unable to help the faint tug of a crooked smile as she spun slowly. Or the way her eyes latched on to his sprawled, sleeping form.