by Nikki Duncan
As they exited the building and he turned toward his car, she stopped. “I’m not leaving my car here.”
“You didn’t care about it last night.”
“A neighbor had it. Now they don’t.”
He stared her down, studying her as if trying to determine if she was playing another game.
“You want to go back to your place for sex.” She raised her brows and silently dared him. “I’ll be right behind you.”
“It… I…” His hand flexed on hers, gripping a little too tightly for several beats until finally he released her. “Don’t make me come after you.”
He turned and walked away.
She’d promised to follow him. She had a night with him at her side to look forward to. She and Aidan were not meant to be a forever kind of couple. Still, his departure shafted through her with a blast of cold and loneliness.
Chapter Five
Lana parked beside Aidan and locked her car. Rather than getting out of his car, he leaned over and opened the passenger door. “Get in.”
“I thought we were—”
“Oh, we are.” The promise of seduction deepened his rolling tone. “First, dinner.”
“I could eat.” Hell, she could always eat and it never mattered much what it was. Settling back into the contoured seats of Aidan’s convertible—clearly not his work car—she angled her head to study him. Not fully supportive, but not all out disagreeable, his behavior was off. He was making it impossible for her to know how to act.
“You mind if we put the top down?”
Shocked that he’d asked, that he’d actually lower the top and indicate he knew how to relax, she shrugged. What was going on with him? “Sure.”
He pushed a button and with a motorized whir, the top lowered. A light breeze kicked across her, fluttered her hair. To keep it from whipping her across the face while they drove she twisted it into a quick braid and tucked the end into the collar of her shirt.
They hardly spoke on the way to the restaurant. Even when they were settled in a dimly lit corner booth of a hole-in-the-wall Italian joint they didn’t say much. The spanning silence didn’t grow awkward, but neither was it comfortable. It simply was. They simply were. Were what though?
When the server came over with two glasses of water and a basket of garlic bread, Aidan ordered a bottle of house wine. Frank Sinatra crooned quietly from the speakers. With Aidan sitting close and the table covered with red and white checked tablecloths the mood for romance was efficiently cast.
It was a rare moment of perfection that kept her on edge.
Wordlessly he offered her the basket of bread—still warm and soft from the oven. It almost felt like he was using silence to make her nervous, but he wasn’t as intense as she expected he’d be if that were true. It was his lack of intensity that made it possible for her to simply watch him as closely as he watched her. Eventually he would surrender to whatever he was thinking and let her in.
But what would she surrender when he did?
“Are you ready to order? Do you know what you want?”
You. “Yes.”
He inclined his head and their server instantly headed their way. Lana was glad she’d read the specials board by the front door because she wouldn’t have been able to focus on the menu. Maybe Aidan felt the same since he ordered the special too, or maybe he just wanted vegetarian lasagna and a house salad, or maybe he just wanted the waiter to be done with them for a while.
As soon as the waiter strode away, Aidan turned into her. He reached a hand behind her and unbound her hair. His long fingers played in the twisted locks. Rubbed her neck and scalp. Awakened tingles that penetrated to her skull.
“You’re so beautiful.”
“Thank you.” Lana fought the heaviness dragging at her eyelids and pulling at her tone. He was mesmerizing her with his stare, touch and words. He was romancing her when she’d expected simply surprising sex. If the man sitting at her side, twirling her hair and telling her she was beautiful, could be the real Aidan she’d suspect true danger.
They settled into another long silence where they stared intently at each other. Aidan would occasionally brush her hair off her shoulder if it fell, but through the rest of the meal and three glasses of wine, silence reigned. He seemed to be thinking deep thoughts. She seemed to only be able to wonder what those thoughts might be.
“I wanted to rush you to bed,” Aidan said quietly as they shared a tiramisu.
“I know.”
“To keep you there until morning.”
“What changed your mind?”
“I’m not sure I have.”
“Just your approach?”
He shrugged. “Guess I thought you might have thought I’d moved a little too quickly.”
“Aidan.” She stopped. Whatever witty remark she’d intended to say vacated her brain. He’d knocked her off balance. This whole experience was keeping her off balance.
“Lana?”
“If we hadn’t already had sex a few times I would understand that worry.”
“Women prefer being romanced.”
“Not all women.” She would prefer it from a man she thought she could spend her life with. A man who could accept her in the long term without feeling like he could order her around. A man who wouldn’t struggle between wanting her body and wanting to avoid her because of her profession. A man who could understand her as well as Nigel. Aidan wasn’t that man. “In our case, I think we’ll both be better off if we don’t muddle this with emotion.”
“Casual sex only?”
“Fun while it lasts.”
“With no hard feelings or weirdness when it ends?”
“Works for me.”
His only response was to throw some money on the table and pull her from the booth. She’d agreed to no-strings sex for as long as it lasted. Their deal didn’t give him the right to continue pulling her around as if he could control her. As if he was the only one between them who could call the shots. She’d give him this one last night to get the dominance out of his system before she kicked back.
The trip back to his place wasn’t as rushed as it had been the night before, and it was as silent as most of their meal had been. Only instead of idle thoughts flitting through her mind, Lana’s thoughts circled with the idea of truly being dominated by Aidan in the bull’s-eye.
The idea was tantalizing, but it would never happen. She wasn’t a woman who felt power in surrender. For her, meeting on equal terms was considerably more erotic. If a man dominated her it was by her choice. And she would expect the same freedom in return.
She didn’t remember Aidan parking, them getting out of the car or going inside, but she suddenly found herself pinned between him and the wall. In a beat, her blouse was untucked. His hurried fingers were tugging at the buttons.
Lana sought his mouth as she shoved his leather jacket to the floor. He removed his gun and sat it on a nearby table. They groaned as they pulled and tugged and pushed at the barriers blocking them from each other. When skin finally brushed skin groans turned to sighs. His eager touch gentled, but didn’t slow. She devoured the tiramisu flavor lingering on his tongue.
“Damn, Lana.”
He rolled his pelvis forward and his cock brushed her stomach. Arousal branded her body, coiled in her core.
“Aidan.” She braced her hands on his shoulders and lifted a leg over his hip.
Taking her cue, he grabbed her ass and lifted her so his dick rubbed her slick sex. She was ready for him. She curled her second leg around his waist. With a little leverage on his shoulders, she lifted herself. She froze, staring into his eyes for several heartbeats.
The unspoken desires from the entire evening coalesced into another moment of perfection and sang across her skin.
Aidan’s imperfections made him perfect. He countered her reluctance with determination. He met her arguments with logic. He drove her crazy with his challenges. He excited her.
With a freedom she didn’t f
ully understand flying through her, she sank deep.
I didn’t expect you to fall so quickly.
Propped on an elbow, twining a tangle of Lana’s hair around his finger as she slept with a slight smile twitching at her lips, Aidan found Tyler’s earlier words haunting.
I didn’t expect you to fall so quickly.
He’d taken a gorgeous woman to bed. A woman he’d hungered and thirsted for. A woman he’d craved as strongly as his morning coffee. A woman whose career-centric drive reminded him they could never last. She said she’d never sacrifice her morals. He needed proof.
I didn’t expect you to fall so quickly.
Lana challenged him. She was equally unpredictable in their personal and business dealings. Personally, when he expected her to be sweet and tender, she was energetic or aggressive. On cases, when he expected participation she went her own way but opened up when he expected secrets.
I didn’t expect you to fall so quickly.
She shifted. The sheet slipped to her waist. The tank top she’d borrowed from his workout drawer dipped between the swell of her breasts, sliding along her skin. Releasing her hair he traced his fingertips over her curves. Her mouth curved upward as she rolled toward him.
Rapid-fire chills peppered his skin. Arousal snapped the muscles gripping his spine tight.
He hadn’t fallen for Lana, but he was intrigued with her and he intended to enjoy her until she pushed him away. Which could be sooner than he’d like.
“Good morning, Lana,” he whispered along her ear, kissing her lobe softly between words.
“Ugh.” She arched her neck while protesting the idea of morning.
“It’s time to wake up.” Aidan nibbled her neck and inched the tank top up. “I’d hate for you to miss a headline because you were naked between my sheets.”
She rolled quickly so he was on his back with her straddling his thighs. Laughter rather than sleepiness lingered in the green depths looking down at him. “I thought you were a better liar.”
“When I try.” Unable to stop touching her, he threaded his fingers in her hair and massaged her scalp. “I thought you were asleep.”
She scraped her nails gently over his chest, twirling invisible patterns in his hair and flicking his nipples. “I’d hate for you to start a day without my touch as much as I’d hate for you to miss your morning coffee.”
“Now who’s lying?” How’d she know about his coffee addiction? She had yet to stick around in the morning long enough to witness it.
“Mine’s believable.”
Sparring with Lana was exhilarating when it wouldn’t lead down treacherous paths pitted with possible traps. Using his grip in her hair, he pulled so she lay over him. A swipe of his tongue over her nipples had her arching against him, rolling her pelvis forward so her wet sex coated him. Slowly he trailed his tongue across her chest from one nipple to the other.
Her tongue darted over her lips, shining them with temptation. She swelled against him and would be tight when he slid deep. She eased her hands along his sides with tiny flickers of her fingers. When he’d happily exist with her flush against him she raised up and flattened her palms at his hips.
The smile spreading her glossy lips sighed with decadence.
She lifted her hips, shifted angles and thrust onto him. Her head fell back with her mouth parted on a long moan. His balls tightened and retracted into his body. His legs trembled with the need to raise him up and take control of any rhythm she’d set. As if she read his mind, Lana reached back and gripped his thighs, digging her nails in deep enough to restrain him but not hard enough to leave a mark.
The image of her marks on his body wasn’t unappealing. In fact, it was a little too appealing.
With guttural groans escaping her lips she began pumping up and down, driving thoughts and reservations from his mind. The blood racing in his veins heated to volatile levels. The sensation of her slick, tight body gliding across him, up and down, up and down, built into a keg-sized ball of instability.
He dug his head into the pillow and gritted his molars. With each rise and fall of her over him, each bounce and sway of her breasts beneath his tank top, his body became a gunpowder-filled bullet. He’d shoot off with the slightest spark.
Digging her nails a little deeper, Lana increased her speed. His tension amped higher. His skin burned hotter. She arched back, still pumping, and shifted a hand from his thighs to the sensitive skin between his legs. To the spot just below his balls that drove him crazy.
She scraped her nails gently along the vein, and like a match to tinder, he sparked.
The tension gripping his body burst. He dug his heels into the bed and his head deeper into the pillow. He allowed her to maintain control while her body seduced his. Glide after glide she milked him while ramping herself higher and higher, until with a final groan low in her chest, she surrendered to pleasure.
Now that he knew what waking up with Lana could be like he could almost imagine mornings without coffee. Before he could formulate a response or verbal thought, she rolled off him with a stinging slap to his thigh.
“You make coffee. I’m getting dressed.” Then, with her perfectly toned ass waving hello and good-bye, she bounded off the bed and into the bathroom calling as she went, “I’ll be five minutes.”
Her departure shafted through him with the pang of loss and loneliness. In the next moment it reminded him of their deal. She did the no-emotion thing well. Better than he appeared to be.
Pouring a cup of the coffee that waited for him in the automatic coffee pot and adding some butterscotch creamer from the fridge, Aidan considered what he was getting into. It was probably best that Lana acted so carefree the morning after. First trying to sneak out and now heading into the bathroom where she’d put her clothes during a snack break last night. One of them had to observe the rules of their… Fling? Affair?
Taking the first pull of the cloud-clearing liquid, he ignored another pang of discomfort and realized he should be the one putting these stops into place. So far he’d allowed Lana to keep him off balance and distracted. That was going to end because thanks to her he had a new case to work. He couldn’t work it if he was constantly thinking about getting her naked.
“I love your shower.” Lana stepped into the small kitchen with her hair hanging straight and wet behind her shoulders and her face washed free of makeup. She was stunning. “That thing is huge.”
“All those extra heads were a selling point.” He nodded at the ocean beyond his window as he poured her a mug of coffee. “The view’s not bad either.”
She picked up his creamer and chuckled. “So this is why you always smell like butterscotch.”
“What?”
“How long have you been using this creamer in your coffee?” She sniffed his coffee cup.
“A few years.”
Then she sniffed him. “It’s in your pores. Butterscotch coffee, though mostly butterscotch.”
“No way.”
“Yes way.”
“Whatever.” His mom had always used butterscotch to sweeten things he and Liam hadn’t liked, and she made the best butterscotch cookies. The coffee made him think of her each morning so while it maybe wasn’t the most masculine of flavors he loved it.
“It gives you a sweet edge.”
“Sweet isn’t something I’m accused of being.”
“Because you’re more often a hard-edged ass focused on your cases and hatred of reporters.”
“If there weren’t so many cases and if reporters could learn when to back off, I could relax a little.”
“If we back off we miss the story. If we miss the story we lose our jobs.”
“So others suffer for your cause.” He’d known it was only a matter of time before they stopped getting along, but he hadn’t expected it quite this quickly.
“You know what?” Lana set her mug gently on the counter and faced him. “I’ve enjoyed the last ten hours with you so I’m going to forget the last few m
inutes.” She headed toward the door. “I’m going to go home and get ready for work and pretend you don’t see me as a soul-sucking, moral-lacking journalist.”
“Lana.”
“Good-bye, Aidan.”
Just like the morning before, she left him standing at his door, uncertain.
Uncertain as to whether or not to pursue her.
Uncertain of what to say if he did.
Uncertain of how to be with her.
Rubbing the ache in the middle of his chest, he shook his head and closed the door. The only thing he was certain of was that it was probably for the best that they’d argued and she’d left.
Now he could focus on rash-ridden corpses.
After a quick shower, he grabbed his jacket and headed for the office. If he wanted a shot at keeping stories of the allergy deaths out of the press he needed to get a jump on Lana, which meant he had to work fast since she had a head start and a web of contacts that always kept her in the loop before most of her counterparts.
Thanks to the work Kieralyn and Ava had put in the night before, the case was now theirs, though they only had a file on the woman in the alley. The other victims hadn’t been discovered in questionable circumstances, so there were no investigations to take over.
“I’m almost finished with the algorithm for running down connections between the victims.” Tyler caught Aidan up as he looked through the photos the morgue had sent over. “So far I don’t see where they could be. Different ages, professions, lifestyles.”
Gruesome didn’t begin to describe the violence of the rash these people had suffered. Regardless of how quickly they’d died they had to have been in severe pain while it lasted. And then there were the pictures of the handprint. It wasn’t like the fingers Lana had talked about. No, this one was an entire hand and the rash looked as if the blood had boiled to the surface beneath the touch, creating pustules three shades darker than the rest.
“I hate to sound like Lana,” Aidan mused, “but these rashes are too much alike for there not to be a connection.”
“It’s annoying when she knows so much,” Kieralyn said as she and Ava moved to their desks. Sometime in the last few months they’d fallen into a routine of showing up at the same time every morning. If they didn’t need different cars so often he suspected they’d be carpooling by now. “But it’s not such a bad thing to sound like her when she’s on to something.”