Hot for Him

by Sarah Mayberry

  Idiot, she chastised herself. Why did she always have to bite off more than she could chew? She’d always fought above her weight. As a kid, she’d insisted on playing ball with her brothers, even though they were taller and faster than her. She’d practiced her pitching until her arm ached so she could give them a run for their money. At university, she’d taken double subjects to fast-track her degree. And she’d produced three student films while working a full-time job as an assistant in her first year out, she’d been so determined to move up the ladder.

  It had all paid off. She had a house in West Hollywood, a great career. She just couldn’t quite work out where insisting on handling this drop alone would get her. Maybe she needed to learn to back off every now and then. Work smarter, not harder. Choose her battles.

  She was still anxiously dissecting her need to achieve when Rat Man slid into the booth opposite her. He hadn’t come in the front door, and she figured there must be a back entrance. For a second she wondered if the police knew about it, then mentally rolled her eyes at her own stupidity. Of course they did. It was probably in the police training manual on page one—check for rear exits.

  “You got my money?” Rat Man asked.

  “You got my tape?” Claudia responded.

  Rat Man tipped his baseball cap back a little, revealing pale blue eyes and a thin, blade-like nose. His teeth were still yellow, and he was sporting a scraggly three-day growth that did nothing for his sallow skin.

  “You’re pretty mouthy for a little chick, aren’t you?”

  “Yep. Let me see the tape,” Claudia said.

  “I call the shots, remember? This is my deal. Show me the money,” he said. His gaze darted nervously over his shoulder.

  “Fine.”

  Her heart hammering against her ribs, Claudia lay the briefcase on the table. Angling it toward the wall, she cracked it to give him a glimpse of the money stacked inside.

  “Jesus,” Rat Man said, his eyes lighting up. He pulled the case toward himself, preparing to flip the lid wide open.

  “You might want to be careful who gets an eyeful of that in here,” Claudia warned him before he had a chance to flash the money to the whole bar. The guy was seriously running on minimum brain cells. She could only imagine what the bruisers at the bar would do to get their hands on five hundred grand of easy cash.

  Rat Man blinked nervously, then nodded his agreement.

  “Yeah, I knew that,” he said. Angling the case some more, he allowed himself a quick glimpse of the neat rows of notes before snapping the case shut.

  “Okay. Now I want the tape,” she said.

  Euphoria had kicked in, she could see. Rat Man was mentally spending his five hundred thousand, no doubt decking himself out in a bad suit and putting himself behind the wheel of a pimped-up sports car.

  “Sure.” He laid a videotape on the table and slid it across to her.

  She picked it up and noted the brand name on the label. Wes had told Leandro the original recording was on a Sony tape; this was also a Sony. It didn’t mean anything, of course, since they’d already digitized the footage, but it was something.

  “What about what we saw the other night—has it been erased?” she asked.

  “Done,” he assured her, sliding his way out of his seat.

  “We hear from you again, we’re going straight to the cops, understand?” she said. “Five hundred thousand buys us silence. But we’re not spending another cent. You got that?”

  Rat Man grinned widely.

  “I hear you. Chill, lady. We did a deal. We did a good deal. Let it ride,” he said.

  Then, still grinning like the fool he was, he disappeared into the darkened doorway leading to the pool tables and the washrooms.

  “He’s gone out the back,” she said as soon as he was gone.

  It was over. She could barely process the fact as she beat a retreat toward the front entrance. The smoggy night air of the Strip had never smelled so good as she emerged from the bar. Leandro was still in his car on the next block, and she repressed the need to run to him, keeping her pace measured just in case Rat Man was watching her.

  Leandro exited the car to greet her, wrapping his hands around her forearms and peering down into her face.

  “You okay? Nothing happened?” he asked.

  “All good,” she said.

  He smiled, and she could feel his relief. It was stupid, but she was touched. It didn’t mean anything, but still.

  “We should head back to the station,” she said.

  He nodded his agreement, and they climbed into his car.

  Now that the adventure was over, she felt free to register a whole host of sensations that had been crowded from her consciousness by anxiety and fear.

  The tape from the mike was pinching her skin, and the transmitter was digging into her back. The armpits of her T-shirt were damp with sweat, and her stomach rumbled with hunger.

  “God, I’m starving,” she said.

  “Me, too.”

  She caught the flash of his dark eyes as he glanced at her, and she knew he was talking about more than food. A hot bolt of need surged through her, strong and undeniable, unadulterated by anything else now that the nasty business of the exchange was done.

  Now, tonight was just about her and Leandro.

  Back at the police station, the tech removed the mike and informed them that detectives Arnold and Wilkes and the team had followed the blackmailer to a house in the valley. She and Leandro waited to hear news of the raid, sharing pizza with the other on-duty officers. Finally, an hour after they’d arrived, a call came through and the techie handed it to Claudia.

  “We got him,” Detective Arnold said. He sounded pleased with himself. “Him and his little buddy were sitting on a stash of DVDs, churning out a hundred an hour. Guess he wasn’t planning on sticking to his deal with you guys.”

  “Gee, why am I not surprised. Have they sold any online yet?” she asked, tension banding her shoulders as she waited for the answer to this all-important question. All of their careful handling would be for nothing if the footage had been passed on already.

  “There are no guarantees. We’ll bring them downtown and talk to them for a few hours. I suspect we’ll get a straight answer out of them pretty soon.”

  “Great. Thanks, Detective,” Claudia said.

  “No problems. You can pick up your money from our evidence lockup sometime tomorrow.”

  Ending the call, Claudia repeated the conversation to Leandro. He nodded his understanding, then flicked his wrist over to check the time.

  “It’s nearly eleven. Bit late for our dinner,” he said.

  He was watching her, waiting for her to make the call. But she’d been waiting for this all week, ever since he’d cornered her in the foyer at the awards ceremony and kissed her till her toes curled.

  “I know a place that’s open late,” she said. “But I need to shower first. Can we swing by my place?”

  His eyelids dropped a notch. “Sure we can,” he said.

  They were both silent as he drove to her home. She was acutely aware of the bulk of him, his height and his breadth as he followed her to her front door.

  “Make yourself comfortable,” she said, gesturing for him to take a seat on her low-line modern white leather couch. “I won’t be long.”

  She could feel him watching her as she left the room. In her en suite, she shed her clothes and stepped beneath the steamy heat of the shower. The brush of her hands, the caress of the water, the slide of the soap—every touch heightened her anticipation of his touch, his hands, his body against hers.

  Stepping out of the shower, she paused only long enough to blot the bulk of the water from her body. She’d planned on taking him to an all-night restaurant she knew, drawing it out, teasing him and herself some more. But she couldn’t stand not having him a minute longer.

  Dropping the towel behind her, she walked naked into the hallway. She was comfortable with her body—her frenetic work
ing life kept her slim, and regular gym workouts kept her firm. Tonight, desire gilded her confidence. She wanted him, and she knew he wanted her. She felt like the sexiest woman in the world.

  Her dark hair whispering against her neck with each step, she made her way to the living room.

  He was sitting on her couch, flicking through the latest issue of Variety.

  “I was thinking we could skip dinner and go straight to dessert. What do you think?” she asked, pausing in the doorway.

  His head came up and she saw his jaw tense as he registered her nakedness.

  “You are full of good ideas tonight,” he said.

  Holding his eye, she walked slowly toward him, loving the way his eyes followed the bounce of her breasts.

  “You have no idea,” she said as she pushed him farther back onto the couch and climbed on board to straddle him. She could feel the firmness of his thighs beneath hers, the rasp of his denim against her skin.

  His hands found her torso on either side, sliding up until they were resting just beneath her breasts. They both watched as her nipples pebbled into jutting peaks.

  Then, his gaze holding hers, Leandro leaned forward and sucked a nipple into the hot, wet heaven of his mouth.

  At last.

  Her head fell back as sensation rioted through her. Closing her eyes, she gave herself up to the moment.

  CHAPTER 4

  HER NIPPLES WERE a delicious dusky latte, small and tightly erect and demanding in his mouth. Her skin was silky smooth, her body firm and soft in all the right places. He couldn’t get enough of her, couldn’t decide which part of her to taste or touch first—her breasts, her smooth stomach, the heat at the juncture of her thighs, the perky curves of her butt. As his hands roamed from site to site, he switched his attention from her right breast to her left, and she clamped her knees hard around his hips and groaned inarticulately. Her head was thrown back, her hair an ebony fall down her shoulders, her eyes closed. She seemed utterly lost in desire and need, and he was so hard for her he was in serious danger of losing it before he even got his clothes off.

  “You keep that up and this isn’t going to last long,” he warned her.

  She lifted her head and he found himself gazing into slitted, glittering eyes filled with need.

  “Maybe I want it hard and fast,” she said.

  Hard and fast. Just the words were enough to nearly push him over the edge. His whole body tensed with desire. He’d been thinking about her, wanting her, dreaming about her all week. For months she’d been challenging and teasing him. And now she was naked in his lap, telling him she didn’t care about finesse and foreplay and sophistication.

  “You’re sure?” he asked through gritted teeth. He’d been told numerous times that he was a good lover. He considered it a badge of honor that his bed partners always found their climax before he even thought about sliding inside them. But she was too hot, and he was too hard, and he wanted to bury himself inside her and sprint toward completion.

  Holding his eye, she grabbed his hand from her butt and slid it around her hip and down her lower belly. He felt her stomach muscles quiver with anticipation as she guided his fingers into the neatly trimmed thatch of curls between her legs. His fingers slid into slick, steamy heat, sliding over the plump, swollen petals of her desire.

  She was more than ready for him, the hiccup in her breathing and the involuntary jerk of her hips giving away how close she was.

  It was too much for his self-control. Sliding his hands up her back, he grasped her securely beneath her arms and simultaneously leaned forward. With one explosive move he was on his feet, and she instinctively wrapped her legs around his hips and reached for his shoulders.

  Swiveling, he placed her butt on the wide, padded arm of her leather couch, even as his hand was sliding into his back pocket to find the condoms he always carried in his wallet.

  Her butt supporting her weight now, she loosened her legs and reached for his fly. She had him out of his jeans and boxer briefs in seconds, and her eyes widened flatteringly as she took in his arousal.

  “Wow. You really are a big boy,” she said.

  “A wise woman once told me size wasn’t everything,” he said as he sheathed himself.

  “She was a damned fool,” she said, her gaze glued avariciously to his erection as he spread her legs wider still.

  Her breasts jerked as she took a deep, involuntary breath as he probed the heat between her legs, and he held on to his self control long enough to ease himself into her inch by inch, allowing her time to adjust to the length of him. Three inches in, she growled with frustration, grabbed his hips, lifted her own and drove him the rest of the way home.

  “Yessss,” she hissed.

  He lost it completely then. He’d tried to be considerate. Even when she’d given him permission to go for it, he’d tried to hold back. But now he was inside her, and she was tight and hot around him, and her evident arousal and hunger pushed him into crazy land.

  Lowering his head to pull a nipple roughly into his mouth, he began to pump into her, his eyes closing as he reveled in the erotic friction between their bodies. She lifted her hips to meet him thrust for thrust, her breathing erratic and desperate, her hands clenched into his hips as she urged him on.

  Mindless, lost, he buried himself inside her again and again, his hands curled possessively into her butt, his mouth suckling urgently on first one breast and then the other.

  “Faster,” she panted as he felt himself nearing the peak. “Harder.”

  Because it was exactly what he wanted, he abandoned her breasts and obeyed her, pounding into her with a single-minded intensity, his eyes never leaving her passion-flushed face as he soared toward his climax.

  “Claudia,” he gasped, just as she dropped her head back and bucked her hips, her eyes closing as she clenched again and again around him.

  His body tensed, and he exploded at last, sensation flooding him as he came.

  It was so intense, so mind-blowing that he nearly staggered as he fell back down to earth. Still panting, Claudia eased herself away from him and tumbled off the arm onto the seat of the couch, her body flopping back onto the cushions, her very bonelessness screaming satisfaction.

  Taking care of essentials, he walked through her house until he found the bathroom and disposed of the condom. She was still lying limp and spent when he returned, and he stared down at her.

  “Move over.”

  She smiled sleepily without opening her eyes and curled her legs up into her chest. He slid onto the couch and she lowered her legs onto his lap. For a long beat he stared down at her body, still rosy with desire, the faint redness around her nipples testament to how urgent his need had been.

  She was the sexiest woman he’d ever been with. He loved her utter lack of self-awareness, the way she didn’t seem to give a fig for the fact that she was stark naked and he was still fully clothed. He loved how responsive she was, how she’d known what she wanted and hadn’t hesitated to ask for it.

  Most of all he loved the fact that just looking at her got him hot all over again, despite having lost his mind inside her mere minutes ago. Unable to resist touching her again, he smoothed a hand up her thigh and onto her stomach, reveling in the weight of her breast in his hand as he cupped her again. Her nipple hardened beneath his palm, and her eyes flickered open.

  A slow smile curled her lips as she registered the need in him again.

  “This time, we take it slow,” he said.

  “What did you have in mind?”

  * * *

  CLAUDIA REVELED IN the buzz of satisfaction vibrating through her body. As she’d instinctively known, Leandro was dynamite in the sack. And if the speculative, hungry look in his eye was anything to go by, she was in for another round of passion at his hands. Her body tightened just thinking about it, and like that she was ready to go again, the dozy satiety of a few minutes ago fading into oblivion as he slid his big hand from one breast to the other, toying with h
er nipples almost absentmindedly.

  “What do you like?” he asked as he squeezed a nipple between thumb and forefinger.

  “Everything that feels good. I’m not into pain, and I’m not into degradation,” she said honestly.

  “That makes two of us. What I’d really like to do, Claudia, is get you so hot you can’t remember your own name. I want to make you come so hard you can’t speak or think or talk. How does that sound?”

  She shivered, loving the threat/promise in his deep voice.

  “Like something I could get used to,” she said.

  “Show me what you like, what turns you on the most,” he said, eyelids at half-mast, his pupils so dilated with desire they almost swallowed his irises.

  The throb-throb of desire started up its tattoo between her legs, just from his hot words and his even hotter eyes. He wanted to watch her touch herself. He wanted to learn from her. Her heart kicked against her ribs and she was suddenly short of breath.

  “You have to take your clothes off first,” she said.

  “Deal.”

  She watched as he stripped his shirt off, exposing the broadest, sexiest chest she’d ever seen. She squirmed on the warm leather of her couch as he tugged his jeans and boxer briefs down, revealing his already-straining erection.

  “Maybe we should skip to the good bit…” she hinted, her eyes gobbling him up all over again. Looking at him brought back the memory of how hard, how long, how right he’d felt inside her.

  He smiled and batted her greedy hands away. “Patience is a virtue.”

  “No one ever called me virtuous before.” She pouted.

  He grinned, crossing to the armchair opposite the couch and sitting down in all his naked glory.

  “You asked for it,” she warned him.

  Maintaining eye contact, she rearranged herself on the couch, sitting upright more conventionally and then draping one leg over the arm so that he had a box seat on her performance, so to speak.

  She shivered at the look on his face—pure hunger and absolute focus on the slick heart of her.

  She’d touched herself in front of men before, but never like this. Never so…blatantly. As she slid a hand onto her own breast and caressed her nipple, she fought a surge of self-consciousness. He wanted to see the way she touched herself when she was alone, she understood that. But by definition, she wasn’t alone. She felt very…exposed all of a sudden. Even vulnerable.