by Tara Janzen
He didn't know how. Hell, if Creed was that far over the edge, it was going to take more than a well-intentioned friend, a direct order, or a bucket of cold water to stop him.
“Now what else do you have for me?” he asked. “You came out of the office with something on your mind.”
Her face cleared in an instant. “Yeah, right. Wow. You won't believe what I found when I started running some of this stuff through the computer.” She came over to the desk and leaned down next to him, sorting through the top layer of papers strewn everywhere.
She smelled good. Real good. She always did. It was one of the fascinating things about her, how from a distance she could look like such a piece of street trash, but up close, everything about her was squeaky clean, buffed, polished, shined, every bit of chain mail, every bit of leather, that silky fall of platinum hair—her sweet face.
Her mouth.
And she always smelled good.
Honor. Duty. Loyalty. He read the Chinese tattoo inked into the skin of her upper arm. She'd gotten it long before she'd come to SDF, back when she'd still been a wallbanger.
He understood honor among thieves. He and the rest of the SDF guys had epitomized the credo back in their chop-shop days. The same with loyalty. They'd each put their lives on the line for each other at some time in the last sixteen years.
But duty. That one threw him. What “duty” did a wallbanger have? Or duty to whom? He'd never boosted a car out of duty. He'd chopped a few when he would have rather sold them whole, in order to meet a quota or smooth over a rough deal, but he'd always called that “covering his ass,” not duty.
He would have to ask her about it sometime, if he ever allowed himself to be alone with her in a quiet place without a crisis raining down on their heads.
Nah, he decided. Bad idea.
“Here it is,” she said, a thread of excitement running through her voice. “This is so cool . . . well, not cool. It's kind of bad news, but it's bad news we've got, so in a way that makes it good news. Right?”
“Right.” He guessed.
She picked up a copy of Bruno Walmann's business card and the sheaf of papers underneath.
“I ran this company name and hooked into their office in New York. They sell computer parts, hardware, all legit as far as I can tell. But they've got a couple of subsidiaries and one of those is a dummy corporation out of the Dutch West Indies. Interestingly enough, it's got a few subsidiaries of its own, including a corporation headquartered in London with branch offices all across the United States, including Atlanta, Cleveland, Chicago, Seattle, Phoenix, Los Angeles—”
“And Denver.” Amazing. Not the information, but that she'd gotten it all in less than half an hour.
“Yeah. They've got a small warehouse on the north side.”
“How . . . how did you get this so quickly?” Frankly, he was stunned. Nobody worked that fast.
“Followed my nose,” she said, as if it was nothing. “Broke a couple of codes. Didn't dawdle.” A smile curved her lips, and it took everything he had not to just reach up and kiss her.
He should marry her. That's what he should do.
“This is incredible work, Skeeter.” He looked through the papers, following the trail she'd discovered. “Really incredible. I need to give you a raise.”
“No, you don't.”
“I don't?” He glanced up.
“No,” she said, her smile returning. “You already overpay me. Superman and I made sure of it.”
C HAPTER
24
W ARM BRIE, French bread, lobster bisque, fresh pears—Cody felt like she'd died and gone to heaven. The whole meal had been prepared and waiting in Creed's refrigerator, inside a white box tied with a gold ribbon with Chez Paul swirled across the top in gold ink. On the side of the box, 738 Steele Street had been scrawled in black Magic Marker, along with the day's date and the instruction for “Lunch Delivery.” Another box, this one paper-bag brown with Wolf Creek Café printed on top and 738 Steele Street and the day's date written on the side, along with the word “Dinner,” had contained beef tenderloin cooked medium rare, with mashed potatoes, baby carrots, summer squash, and chocolate cake.
“Open your mouth,” he said, not for the first time, and when she did, he fed her a particularly tender piece of the steak, then leaned over and kissed her cheek.
God, he was so sweet, and she was drifting in the most ridiculous postcoital haze. She felt drugged with it, couldn't get a grip on herself, and every time he kissed her, the haze thickened, like fog on her brain, some kind of sex fog the likes of which she hadn't known existed.
People could fall in love like this, she thought, because of sex like they'd had in his jungle pool. He was close enough for her to smell him, and he smelled warm and safe, unbelievably erotic, and like he belonged to her. She could still feel where he'd been inside of her, still almost taste him.
She was trying not to fool herself. She knew he was a stranger and what they'd had was crazy wild sex on a desperately crazy night, but she'd melted into him, disappeared inside of him, and for a few moments had been more with him than she'd ever been with anyone else in her life. Right or wrong, the feelings were there, and they were real, and God, she just wanted to bury her face in the curve of his neck and start the whole thing all over again. She hadn't known she could be so shameless—and she was, utterly unashamed. All she wanted was more. Every time she looked at him, heat washed into her cheeks.
He'd given her a T-shirt and a pair of his sweatpants, and they were sitting in his kitchen at the counter on a pair of tall stools, the overgrown jungle of his living area encroaching on all sides, except where the tall bank of windows opened out onto the city night. He was facing her, very close, his legs on the outsides of hers, with the boxes of food spread out on the counter next to them.
He'd put on a pair of low-slung jeans and a softly worn cowboy shirt, but hadn't bothered to snap the shirt closed. In between the open sides of the faded blue plaid material was an erotic landscape of golden skin with a light dusting of dark brown hair that thickened and swirled around his navel. A silver crucifix and a saint's medal hung from a leather thong tied around his neck.
“Catholic?” she asked, lifting the cross and smoothing her thumb over its ornate surface.
“Very,” he said. “Not a very good Catholic, just very Catholic.”
“And is confession good for the soul?” she asked, looking up to meet his gaze.
“Sometimes. Most times,” he said, a small grin coming into play as he leaned closer. “Tonight, you're good for the soul.”
Good for the soul, good for love, good for kissing—she couldn't resist. She met him halfway, her hand sliding down his chest, her mouth opening under his.
This is what she'd wanted again.
Sliding off the stool, he lifted her into his arms, their dinner forgotten. The iron staircase leading up to his bedroom was only a few feet away, and as he carried her higher into the trees, she gave herself over to kissing him. She loved the texture of his skin, the softness of his lips, the warmth of his body. He'd pulled his hair back and bound it into a low ponytail, and now she slid the band off, letting his hair fall loose and silky over her hands.
The stairs ended at a wooden platform overhung with palms. Lush, green fronds brushed the wooden headboard of his bed and arced over the sides of the platform's surrounding iron rail. Vines twined themselves through the spindles. Light from the bathroom drifted through the trees, revealing low stacks of wooden Japanese boxes all along one edge. The only other piece of furniture was the bed. She would have expected something simple—and she would have been wrong.
His bed was decadent, antique, with massive wooden pillars and piles of pillows. He laid her in the middle of them and followed her down, winding his legs through hers, drawing her back into his kiss. Everything on the bed was soft and cotton—the sheets, the pillows, a comforter—the colors all in pale greenish blues and grays, like his eyes.
He s
miled at her when she pushed his shirt off his shoulders, then helped her by kicking out of his jeans. He'd gone commando after the pool, so there was nothing more before he was naked and stretched out by her side, six feet of beautiful male animal, all lean strength and hard angles.
She ran her hands over his hip bone and up to his shoulder, then paused, her wandering brought to a sudden halt when her fingers slid over three thick ridges, one brutal stripe next to the other, just like in the photographs from South America.
Every one of them cut her to the quick—but she said nothing, just remembered the fierce rage on his face and kissed his mouth, remembered the ungodly pain of his suffering and slid her hand lower, all the way down his chest and into the dark hair spreading out from his groin.
She took him in her palm, stroking him, loving him, and a soft groan sighed from his lips.
“Cody,” he whispered, resting his forehead on hers, moving into her hand, his own hand slipping under the waistband of the sweatpants and down between her legs.
This was love, she knew it, as close as she'd ever been, this melting sweetness, the bone-deep longing for more, the simplicity of the seduction—he touched, she yearned. It was so easy.
CREED kissed her, letting himself sink into her, consume her. She was so sweet—so instantly wet when he touched her. So slick and hot, it made his brain buzz. He could hardly think for wanting to be inside her, but man, he wanted something else even more.
Slipping his fingers farther down and gently up into her, he moved down the front of her body and opened his mouth between her legs, putting his tongue on her before she had a chance to say no. She gasped, and he licked her—just once, so slowly, so gently. A small tremor went through her body, and desire slid down the length of his spine and settled deep in his balls. Oh, yeah, this was the place. There would be no resistance. He pushed the sweatpants completely off, while his tongue played her, teased her. With the pants gone, he moved between her legs, letting her thighs rest on his shoulders, on either side of his face, and he was surrounded by sex—her sex. Nothing tasted and smelled like a woman, nothing was as soft, and she was his.
Time drifted into another dimension, his whole world narrowing down to loving her and the hard ache between his legs. At some point between bliss and heaven, she came undone, a soft moan, the tightening of her thighs, a slow grind upward into his mouth, and then complete and utter surrender. God, he loved it.
He played her out before moving back up her body and thrusting inside. The latent ripples of her orgasm pulsed around him, winding him up, making him harder. Sealing his mouth over hers, he let her taste herself on his tongue, and he thrust again, loving all the hot softness of being inside her, and again, over and over, until he came, his hands in her hair, his mouth on hers, breathing her in as he poured himself inside her.
SKEETER crossed the street in front of Denver Police Headquarters and made a beeline for the Humvee. Once locked safely inside, she breathed her first easy breath of the last half hour.
Cripes. There was nothing like a little visit to the local precinct to get a girl's blood pumping. Lieutenant Loretta was okay, but all the other boys and girls in blue made the hackles rise on the back of her neck. She'd spent too many years outrunning and outsmarting Denver's finest to feel good offering herself up like a bit of nosh on a toothpick.
She had a reputation, and cops were like elephants. They never forgot. She'd seen a couple of them eyeballing her. They knew who she was. Hell, city crews were still scrubbing SB303 off the sides of buildings, and she hadn't tagged in over two years.
Nope, she'd been too busy tearing down engines and building computers. Way too busy organizing the SDF offices and having just a little bit too much fun learning about and building tracking devices.
She was the master.
And she had a little time on her hands.
And a foreign tracking device was languishing in a condemned building not more than a stone's throw away.
She pulled the wristwatch receiver out of the pocket on her coat. It took her all of five seconds to figure out how to turn it on, and less than a minute to decipher all its dials, turn it back off, and be on her way to South Morrison.
She was in business. All systems go.
* * *
CODY lay propped up in his bed and was letting him feed her another baby carrot. Surrounded by pillows and the latent heat of his lovemaking, she never wanted to leave. Not ever.
“How much to sublet the platform in the tree next door?” she asked, reaching for a piece of French bread. She dipped the end of it in the lobster bisque and popped it in her mouth.
He looked up from where he was taking the lid off the chocolate cake. “You need to stay here, in my treehouse,” he said, his expression completely serious.
“Don't you want to be neighbors?” she teased.
“No,” he said, still so very serious, setting aside the cake. “I want to be lovers.” From where he was sitting on the bed, he moved to all fours and knelt across her body, then cupped her face in his hands and kissed her on the forehead, both cheeks, and the tip of her nose. “Sleep-together lovers. Wake-up-together lovers. One bed.”
Oh, God, she was going to fall in love. She could feel it happening, feel it in her heartbeat, feel it echoing through her pulse.
“In real life,” she whispered, her eyes closing as he continued to kiss her face, “in real life, I really am a librarian.”
“I like librarians,” he said, brushing his lips over her cheek and sliding down toward her mouth. “I like the way they taste.”
Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God, she was drowning in him. Lost again.
IT was official. She'd now had more orgasms since she'd entered Creed Rivera's jungle apartment than she'd had the whole last year with her fiancé, and she needed to get a grip.
Mind-blowing sex did not a permanent relationship make—at least, she didn't think so. Her experience in the mind-blowing sex department was fairly recent, and she had absolutely no business hanging out in the permanent relationship department. She'd be lucky if “permanent” lasted until dawn—a fact she was finding harder to ignore with every passing minute
They couldn't have sex all night long. It had to be humanly impossible. Wasn't there something called “recovery time”? But if there was, why didn't he seem to need it?
She did. She needed to get ahold of herself.
“Pass the cake, please.”
He did, while finishing off the soup, drinking the last of the bisque out of its paper to-go bowl. They'd just made incredible love again, with all the food on the bed with them, without spilling so much as a drop of anything, because what he'd done to her . . . what he'd done to her had been so primal.
A wave of heat went through her just thinking about it.
He'd rolled her over and pinned her against the bed, hardly letting her move. It had been bondage without the bonds, with his right hand encircling both her wrists and his left hand underneath her, between her legs. His mouth had been open on the nape of her neck, his teeth grazing her skin, and holding her like that, he'd had his way with her until she'd wanted to howl.
From the very, very satisfied look on his face, she probably had howled. She'd been in such an overheated state by then, she could have done anything.
His eyes met hers over the top of the bowl, and a wicked grin curved the corners of his mouth. Warmth flooded her cheeks. He knew things about her she didn't know herself, and that had to be dangerous.
He had no rules. That was the problem. No rules and no hang-ups, and there wasn't an inch left on her that he hadn't explored.
He'd marked her. She knew it. Marked her as his own, and God forbid if they ever left the loft, the rest of the world was going to know it, too.
And where that left them, she hadn't a clue.
C HAPTER
25
S OUTH MORRISON WAS still rocking when Skeeter pulled up outside. Cars were parked everywhere, packing the streets and jumbled up in the
courtyard. By sunrise, there'd be nothing left but tread marks, candy wrappers, and beer bottles—and one less pair of earrings.
She knew South Morrison inside and out. The party had been going on even when she was on the street. It had gotten bigger this last year, the bands better, with a few “entrepreneurs” trying to improve the venue, bring in premium kegs and hustle a few thousand dollars every Saturday night dealing dope at the back door. That the entrepreneurs were Duce Nine Lords was a real testament to their strength and their enduring victory in last summer's turf wars. They'd taken Platte Street south of Fifteenth and were holding it. Still, by long-standing tradition and necessity, South Morrison itself, and especially the party, was open real estate. Excluding anyone, or making it too tough for the specialty boys to do business, only cut into the crowds and everybody's profits. Saturday nights at South Morrison were all about free trade and capitalism in action.
For herself, Skeeter had no vendetta with the Lords, and more importantly, they didn't have one with her. She'd never crossed out their work or trespassed on West Twenty-ninth. So when she walked through the front door and the first thing she felt was a warning skitter up the back of her skull instead of the music pounding up through the floor, it gave her pause.
She had a blade on her hip, her piece resting in the small of her back, and a tool belt she'd picked up in the garage before she'd left Steele Street. The HK 9mm alone was enough to keep her out of somebody else's trouble and to keep them out of hers. She hadn't felt any warning when she and Dylan had showed up to help Creed.
So what was going on? she wondered, looking around. Nothing in the lobby had changed in the last two hours, including the two kids passed out just inside the door. This week's gate, the chain-link barrier guarding the entrance into the party, was still hanging half off the wall. Strobe lights still flashed up through the stairwell. Music was still making the floor hum.