by Hart, Lena
Intense emotion overwhelmed her and suddenly she couldn’t stand for him not to know who she was—not to know her name.
“Athena,” she gasped softly against his ear.
He lifted his head from the crook of her neck and rested it on her forehead. His face was drawn tight and his eyes were hooded as he continued pumping into her.
“What?” he murmured huskily, still moving rhythmically inside her.
She brought her hand up to his strained face, gasping on another deep thrust.
“My…name’s…Athena,” she whispered unevenly.
He flashed her a strained smile that was incredibly sexy then brought his lips down for another intoxicating kiss.
Their harsh breathing broke the silence in the room as he began pounding deeper. She tightened her legs around him and held on.
The clenching in her belly grew unbearable until finally she shattered. Straining against him, she bit his shoulder as wave after wave of ecstasy rolled through her. Through her haze of pleasure, she heard his harsh grunt as he too found his release.
Lying in the silent aftermath, Athena realized she had truly lost a fundamental piece of herself. Her heart.
Chapter Four
That wasn’t sex.
Dave had been with lots of women but never had it been this… raw. Especially not with a woman who’d told him her name only moments after he was inside her.
What they’d just shared had been intense. It roused feelings in him he didn’t quite know how to put into words. He felt exposed yet complete…as if he’d found something he hadn’t even realized he’d been missing.
She trailed her fingers lightly down his back, leaving traces of heat where she touched. His heart thumped in his chest. He remained nestled between her soft thighs, stirring at her gentle caress. Man, she was good.
He pulled away from her and looked down at her, loving the way she smiled sleepily up at him. There was something familiar about that smile.
“You know,” he began, brushing his thumb along her lower lip, “you’re not the first woman who’s snuck into my bed. But you’re certainly the best.”
To his surprise, she lost the lazy smile and stared at him with wide, hurt eyes. He lost his grin, not knowing what to make of that. Hadn’t he just paid her a compliment?
She pushed at his shoulders and Dave rolled away from her. He felt he needed to say something but had no clue as to what. This was new territory for him. He couldn’t calm his own unsteady emotions much less try to soothe hers.
Before he could find the right words, she jumped off the bed and ran into the bathroom. Dave sat up on the bed and watched as she shut the door. He hadn’t been lying when he said she hadn’t been the first woman to sneak into his bed. Women often sought him out for a good time and on occasion, he was happy to oblige. But many of them he’d known in some form or fashion. Never had it been with a complete stranger.
But this woman was different. She was an alluring distraction—one he hadn’t been able to turn away from.
He just hoped things didn’t turn awkward between them. He certainly wouldn’t object if she decided to spend the night.
A few minutes later, she came out wrapped in a thick towel. She had even removed the stockings, he noticed with some disappointment. But then again, her shapely thighs looked better without them.
“Hey,” he called out. “You okay?”
She walked to where he sat on the bed, the sway of her hips stealing his attention. Even through the towel, he could make out the outline of her exquisite figure. No, one night with her would not be enough.
She greeted him with a soft smile when she reached the bed, still holding on to the towel. “Yes, of course I’m okay.”
He studied her. From the distant look in her eyes, he could tell something had changed. And he wanted to know what.
But whatever he was about to say fled his mind when she dropped the towel. She stood there before him gloriously naked.
“Ready for round two?”
Those throaty words spoken so softly got him more than ready. Her full breasts, lush hips, and narrow waist formed the perfect hourglass. The image before him caused his heart to quicken and his cock swelled.
Oh, yes. I’m ready.
But he couldn’t find the words so he simply nodded. If he hadn’t been so aroused, he’d have laughed at himself. He, David Carrone, experienced ladies’ man, was rendered speechless by a satin-skinned temptress.
He reached out to touch her but she pulled away. He glanced up at her face only to find her laughing. Frustrated, he reached for her again. He didn’t have time for games.
Again, she pulled away. He growled.
“Hold on there, stud. It’s my turn now and I want to play a game.”
“No.”
“Please,” she said, pouting. “I think you’ll like it.”
She reached out and stroked the side of his neck, trailing her fingers down his chest. His cock jerked. He didn’t have to say anything else. She had him.
She pushed him down on the center of the bed and crawled over him. He grinned up at her, his heart pounding in anticipation.
“If you wanted to ride, you should’ve just said so. I won’t object.”
Her lips quirked up. “There’s a twist,” she whispered.
“And that is…?”
She pulled out a long, black thin strip. It was one of her thigh-highs. “You can’t touch.”
He was intrigued—and more than a little excited. “Okay, I’ll play. But what do I do while you play cowgirl?”
Her laugh was husky and endearing. “You watch.” She pulled his hands above his head and began looping the delicate material around his wrists, binding them together. In her current position, her beautifully ample breasts hovered just above his face. He flicked his tongue over a nipple and watched as it puckered. She inhaled sharply but continued her task of knotting the nylon at the top of the headboard.
He lifted his head slightly and managed to pull the nipple fully into his mouth. He sucked eagerly at the swollen bud, flicking his tongue across the hard point. She moaned softly, bringing her hand to his head and holding him to her lovely breast. He grazed his teeth across her sensitive flesh then bit down gently. At her sharp gasp, he pulled away.
“Did that hurt?”
She peered down at him through heavy lids. “No,” she whispered, tucking her lower lip between her teeth. “It felt good.”
Dave was rigid with need. Everything she did was sexy. He tried to move his hand to touch her but it jerked back firmly above his head. The smooth bindings of her stockings locked his wrists together and kept him from reaching for her. Agitation rose in him when he realized he wouldn’t be able to touch her. But it was her show. He forced himself to relax and let her have her fun.
He would get his turn.
But the rest of his limited coherence fled him when she slid down his body, her soft skin gliding over him like cool satin. Her soft lips pressed down on his heated skin and he couldn’t hold back the deep groan that rumbled from his chest. She ran her tongue against his flat nipple then sucked at it, hard.
Dave growled and unconsciously tugged on the ties again, his body jerking from the intense sensation.
She looked down at him and a teasing smile flashed on her lips. “I see it works both ways.”
His balls constricted tightly as precome seeped out of his taut shaft. He was harder than he’d ever remembered being in his life and so close to release that it was driving him crazy. She continued down his body, placing light kisses down the length of him. Dave held his breath as she moved lower. For a moment, he thought she was going to take him into her soft, warm mouth. His shaft twitched in anticipation. He closed his eyes and waited.
But she was gone.
He lay there, drawn tight with unspent need. The unnatural stillness in the room was unsettling and his eyes flew open. Her shadowy figure was crouched down in the closet and she pulled out a small bag. But in that moment
, all his sex-clouded brain could register was that his cock was pointing painfully toward the ceiling and she was clear across the room.
“What the hell are you looking for?”
His sharp voice splintered the silence in the room. She visibly jerked but said nothing. Instead, she walked toward the desk with the small bag.
“Get back here and finish what you started,” he said through gritted teeth.
He jerked at the secured ties but they only seemed to tighten around his wrists. His arms were stretched high above his head, limiting his movements. Cold trepidation began to settle in his gut.
“I’m sorry,” she said, as she quickly slipped on a black dress. “I didn’t mean for this to go as far as it did. I mean, I had hoped to get you in bed but I hadn’t expected us to… Anyway, sex with you wasn’t part of the plan. Now things have gotten a little complicated,” she rushed out. Then she murmured more to herself, “But what’s done is done and we can’t take it back.”
His anger and frustration swiftly turned into white, hot fury. He jerked at the bindings violently, wishing he could wrap them around her pretty little neck.
“Don’t,” she cried out, turning to face him. “You’ll only make it tighter and then it’ll be harder for you to cut through.”
He fought to push his anger aside and think. She had him duped but good and he didn’t know what angered him the most: the fact that she’d made a fool out of him or that he still wanted her to finish what she started.
Fully dressed, she inched toward the bed but still kept a good distance. “I never meant for this to happen, Davie,” she said quietly.
Dave froze at her soft, husky words. The last time he’d heard that name was fifteen years ago. And there was only one person he had allowed to call him by that nickname. She had been a scruffy little girl with clothes too big for her. Not this curvaceous and conniving temptress. Then he recalled the name she’d whispered to him while he’d been deep inside her. Athena.
“Tena?”
Her obvious surprise confirmed his guess as solemn regret filled her dark eyes. Tena Lewis. The woman who stood before him was a far cry from the tomboy that had hung around her brother like a shadow. The last time he’d seen her was fifteen years ago, when he’d just turned twenty and had made enough money of his own to leave his old life of scheming behind.
Apparently, she hadn’t.
The reality of his situation came crashing down on him and he let his rage show. “Why the hell are you doing this?”
She let out a weary sigh. “Believe me, if I had another choice, I wouldn’t even be here.”
“That’s not what I asked,” he snapped. “Why are you here?”
“I’m just doing a job,” she said. “I don’t know why it’s important to them but apparently it is. And I’m just here to collect.”
“And who is ‘them’? How much are they paying you?”
She bit her lower lip and slowly shook her head. “I’m sorry. I can’t say. And you know that.”
“Bullshit,” he snapped. Anger boiled over in him as he was made painfully aware of his awkward situation. “Just get over here and untie me. I promise I’ll let you walk out of here.”
She shook her head again. “Even if I believed you, which I don’t, I have four bigger, meaner bastards to deal with.”
The Acerras. Of course they were behind this bullshit.
“Sweetheart,” he began in a deceptively low tone, “you should worry less about them and more about me right now.”
She flinched at his cold words but stood her ground. “I don’t doubt it,” she whispered. She quickly turned away from him, went back to her bag and pulled out something thin and flat. She walked back toward the bed, keeping her eyes intently on him as she slipped the thin utensil between his fingers.
“Here’s a plastic knife,” she said. “The ridges are sharp enough to cut through the nylon. It’ll keep you busy for a bit but it should work.”
He gripped the plastic knife. “Tena, you’re only making this worse for yourself,” he growled. Running his thumb over the ridges, he began viciously working the nylon.
She walked to where his computer bag lay and pulled out his laptop. She slipped it into her bag, donned a long, black wig then looped the bag over her shoulders. Turning back to him, she whispered, “Really, Davie. I am sorry about this.” With that, she quietly left the room.
Dave watched her leave as he continued working the sheer material. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on her again. The anticipation of that moment fueled his sawing.
Chapter Five
Athena’s stomach was a web of knots as she made her way down the hall, toward the elevators.
Stupid, stupid, stupid! Why had she allowed it to go that far? And then to compound it by telling him her name. He would never forgive her. If he didn’t kill her first.
Just thinking about the fury in his pale gray eyes made her shudder. The last thing she wanted was to be in Dave’s line of fire, especially when he had always been good to her.
But she couldn’t let anything happen to the only family she had left.
Athena reached the brightly lit elevator banks and jumped into the first one that arrived, almost knocking down an attractive Hispanic man. The man grabbed her arm to steady her.
“Excuse me,” she muttered, blaming her guilt-ridden conscious for making her jumpy.
But the man didn’t release her. Instead, he held on to her, using his other hand to hold the elevator doors open. He studied her with very dark eyes.
“Can I help you, miss?”
Athena looked him over. It didn’t take her long to recognize he was security. He didn’t dress like one but he had the look. She had been taught how to spot them.
“Uh, no. I’m just heading to my room.”
“This is a private floor.”
She offered him a brilliant smile. “I realized that when I couldn’t find my room.”
“And what room is that?”
Athena pulled the keycard Jay had slipped to her earlier and held it up for him to see. “1408.”
“That’s on the fourteenth floor,” he said curtly before releasing her.
“Thanks,” Athena muttered, jabbing the elevator button. She held on to her forced smile as the elevator doors slid closed between them. As soon as they shut, she lost her smile and slumped against the elevator handrail.
Jay had been insane to insist they meet at Royal Courts. His ridiculous rationale had been that security wouldn’t expect them to still be in the hotel. Therefore, it would be easier to hand over the package and disappear before anyone realized she was still there.
She hoped he was right.
She let herself into the room, half expecting him to be there waiting for her. He wasn’t. She slipped off the wig and pulled out the laptop.
She stared at it for a second. Handing it over to Joey Acerra just didn’t sit right with her. They knew she was good at hacking into well-protected security systems. She could have gotten them what they needed without all this. Unless whatever it was they wanted, they didn’t want her to know. An idea began to form and though it would be risky, she would at least feel less disgraceful.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, she went to work. She began copying the contents of Dave’s laptop onto a small black hard drive. This wasn’t what Joey would be expecting but it was all he was getting. And this might not stop Dave’s rage from crashing down on her, but she would be able to live with herself.
While the files copied, she sent Jay a blank text, letting him know she was there. As she waited for his response, she looked at the hard drive. It wouldn’t be as good as the real thing but this would restrict whatever damage or harm the Acerras had planned against Dave and his business.
She meant everything she’d said to him. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt him. She didn’t know what the Acerras wanted with Dave’s laptop, why it was worth so much to them, but apparently it was. She might not be able to stop them bu
t she certainly wasn’t going to make it easy for them either.
Athena shook the thoughts away and glanced down at her phone again, anxious for Jay’s call.
When it rang, she jumped. She was surprised and a little irked to see it was her brother calling.
“Tena, did you get it?” Anthony asked anxiously when she answered.
“Yeah, I got it.” She could practically hear the relief escape him. “But you don’t know what it cost me to go in there and do this. He was our friend and what we’re doing is shitty.”
“I know, Tena. But we had no choice.”
“Next time, think twice before you take anybody else’s money,” she snapped.
“Believe me, if I had it, I would give back every cent I borrowed.”
Athena was silent for a moment. Her older brother had always been selfish, and now, even as an adult, he never stopped to think about the consequences of his actions. It seemed easy for him to screw up and let his little sister cover for him. And since she often did, he had grown used to her bailing him out. But after tonight, that would have to change.
“Why’d you take their money in the first place?” She asked the burning question that had bothered her since this all began. “What the hell did you spend two-hundred grand on?”
“Two hundred? Shit,” Anthony muttered. “That’s nowhere near what they actually gave me. Those assholes are jacking up the price.”
“Why are you surprised?” Athena mocked. “You should know better than to take money from them anyway. A lot has changed since we were kids. They’ve changed and they’re not gonna just lend you that kind of money and look the other way when you don’t pay up.”
“It’s not like I blew the money on bullshit. Or gambled it away like I know you think I did. I used it on a business investment that didn’t work out.”
Athena was glad to hear her brother hadn’t fallen back into his old vice but that didn’t change the fact that his shady business venture put her in this position.
“Was it worth it?” she finally asked. He didn’t respond. Athena sighed. “Ant, I know you’re trying to do your thing but you can’t keep putting yourself, or me, in these situations. I’m not gonna always be there to help you. And if anything happened to you too…” Athena’s voice cracked and she couldn’t finish the thought. They only had each other now and she didn’t want to lose the last family she had left in this world.