by Joanne Rock
“Maybe it isn’t reckless when you stick to playing with someone…special.” Rico trailed his fingers down the side of her neck and back up again, landing in the half-fallen mass of her hair that drooped just above her shoulder.
“What do you mean?” Her heartbeat sped up and she hoped she hadn’t misunderstood.
Could he want a do-over with her, too?
“I mean, maybe we don’t need sexy games to entertain us when we’ve found something better.” His fingers did wicked things to the back of her scalp, massaging lightly as he reeled her closer. “Something deeper and far more compelling.”
By now, her heart just about jumped out of her chest. There could be no mistaking those words. She wanted that—something better. Deeper. More compelling. Rico was all of those things.
Her skin humming pleasurably while her heart warmed with new hope, Lianna let herself be drawn in by the magnetism of the man and the moment. She wanted nothing more than him.
“I would like that more than you can imagine.”
At her acquiescence, he unfastened two pins and her thick hair tumbled down, releasing the fruity scent of her salon shampoo. Since she always wore her hair up at the Marquis, she already felt she had one foot in reality.
“I’m so glad, Lianna.” He traced a lock with the back of his knuckle, following it down her shoulder. “When I heard you left the resort tonight, I realized you were the only reason I wanted to be there.”
His fingers sifted through her hair to graze the skin beneath, inciting the sweetest possible shiver.
“The Marquis has been like a summer camp vacation from my real life for the past two years. I love the waltzing and the glamorous gowns.” Most of all, she loved the kisses in the hallway she’d shared with Rico.
He grinned with wicked knowing as he trailed a knuckle down her chest to the top of her cleavage.
“You have an open-ended invitation to indulge in those things with me.” He wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her hips close to his. With his other hand, he wove their fingers together, positioning them for an impromptu dance. “Waltzing is a specialty of mine.”
He whirled her around, the quick spin making her skirts billow and sending a breeze around her ankles. At the same time the cool air drifted around her legs, the heat of his body pinned against hers shot a wave of erotic longing through her. There was no mistaking his interest in her.
For a moment, she could not speak. Sensations came alive, chasing away her anxieties with the reminder that her vacation was not over yet.
“You know what they say about men who can dance.” Easily, she followed his lead around the smooth planked floor. He was a strong partner, guiding her without dominating her. Yet she knew she could give over the reins completely and he would still take them where they needed to go.
“My father is a steelworker,” Rico confided, never missing a step. “I will refrain from sharing with you what he thinks about men who can dance.”
The self-deprecating smile surprised her, along with the insight into his family life. She felt a surprising surge of protectiveness toward this man who dwarfed her in size.
“The wisdom among women is that men who can dance are good in bed.” Her cheeks heated just a little, which was strange for a woman who had flirted so shamelessly all week. It must be another byproduct of being away from the resort. She wasn’t just another anonymous guest here.
Rico wasn’t just another man.
“Ah.” His sea-blue eyes darkened as he watched her in the firelight. “This I would be happy to prove to you in no uncertain terms. But only when you’re ready.”
The unspoken half of his message burned in his eyes. Are you sure you’re ready?
He pulled her hand over his heart, folding it inside his palm. Silently, he waited for her direction.
“A few hours ago, back at the Marquis, I would have vaulted into your arms and ripped off your clothes with that kind of prompting.” She wondered if she used her vacations at the Marquis to ratchet up the heat in her romantic encounters so that she wouldn’t feel the emptiness inside her afterward. So she wouldn’t dwell on the fact that she was missing out on a whole lot more intimacy than physical joining alone could provide.
“And now?” He massaged her fingers, one by one, working them from the base to the tip until he kissed each in turn. The last one he lingered over, flicking his tongue over her knuckle in an electric stroke while she watched.
Hypnotized.
“What would you like to do instead, Lianna?” he prompted her, since her brain has shut down.
Her only thought was for his mouth and how it felt over her skin.
As he watched her, she could almost feel that languid, fiery stroke in other places on her body. Her breath caught. Held. Fire licked over her skin. Erotic images of her entwined with him rolled, slow-motion style, through her brain.
“I don’t want to make another mistake. And I think that place messes with my judgment.”
She’d nearly rendezvoused with Alec, for crying out loud. Apparently when she let down her guard to flirt and have fun, all her lawyerly instincts went out the window.
Rico took a step back, though he kept hold of her hands.
“Look at me,” he commanded, even though her eyes had been tracking him every second. “You said yourself that coming here exposes us, right? No more hiding behind costumes and parlor games.”
She nodded, reminded by his aquamarine gaze that he had made an effort to peel away the pretense. “But you went to the Marquis to have fun. To play.”
“Right. I figured a few days up here would help Raul forget about his runaway wife, and I planned on having a good time as a reward for being a stand-up brother. But maybe I found someone who interests me on a whole different level. Someone who could mean a hell of a lot more to me than a vacation distraction. Why would I say no to that?”
In that moment, with his brow furrowed and his shoulders tense, Lianna realized it was the first time he hadn’t sounded at all like her fantasy Latin lover. Another hint that she could see beyond the exterior to the person beneath.
And wow, did his words ever make her feel special. More than that, she believed them.
Mind made up, she took a deep breath.
“Did I mention how great it was of you to follow me after I left the Marquis?” She splayed a hand on his chest, eager to feel the warmth and strength there. To return to that place of hot, lingering kisses and tantalizing touches.
“If what was between us was just a game to me, I would have opted for brandy by the fireplace rather than freeze my ass off in the snow to follow you.” He twined his finger around a strand of her dark hair and used the end like a paintbrush to tickle along her bare shoulder. “So you can be sure there’s nowhere I’d rather be right now than here with you.”
Tingles skittered along her skin where he teased her. But when he trailed lower, following the line of her breastbone down into the valley of her cleavage, the humming sensation gathered and concentrated. Vibrated all the right places as thoroughly as any sex toy, when all he did was play with her hair.
“I’m right where I want to be, too,” she said, her voice breathless. Excited. When his knuckle grazed the side of her breast in his quest to unfasten the front laces of her red velvet gown, she shuddered with pleasure. “I don’t know what you’re doing to me, but—wow.”
“I’m seducing you,” he whispered in her ear, relinquishing the lock of her hair to untwine laces in earnest. “Is it working?”
“That would be affirmative.” Her knees turned liquid as he peeled away fabric, exposing the candy cane-striped corset beneath.
He whistled softly.
“You’re the gift that keeps on giving, aren’t you?”
“I like dressing up.” Especially for Rico, since he rewarded her efforts with gratifying looks.
And a new urgency in his hands as he sought clasps and hooks to free her.
“I damn well like seeing you this way, to
o. But right now, I’ve only got eyes for what’s beneath.”
Which was just fine with her. She couldn’t wait to feel his hands on her bare skin.
Arching up on her toes, she wrapped her arms around his neck, silently giving herself over to him. To whatever he wanted.
He groaned with approval as she pressed her breasts to his chest, her hips cradling his erection.
“Kiss me,” he demanded, bending close to brush his mouth over hers.
She’d known that he was a great kisser from those stolen moments in the alcove outside the Marquis’s dining hall. But the contact then had been skill and persuasion, restrained heat and tantalizing potential. Now, the bold sweep of his tongue was all about passion and possession, a seductive mirror of the mating they both wanted.
But even that wasn’t nearly enough when she was ready to crawl out of her skin to be with him. Her hands were shaking and awkward as she shoved off his jacket and freed a few buttons on his shirt.
Rico made far better progress on her corset, flicking open the fastenings that held her stockings in place. The brush of silk sliding down her legs teased a fresh wave of want along her thighs, the contact too gentle for what she wanted.
He backed her against a closet door near the fireplace, his weight pinning her there.
“Another night, I will give you the fantasy,” Rico promised, his breathing as unsteady as hers while he raked away the last restraints on her corset and sent the garment sliding to the floor. “Tonight, we strip it all away.”
Lianna remembered how easily he fell into a role from their time playing servants together at the Marquis. She had no doubt there would be sexy games in their future.
“Yes.” She reached between their bodies to palm the hard ridge she wanted inside her. “The more stripping, the better.”
He dispatched her panties on cue, dragging the imported silk down as he dropped to his knees in front of her.
Um…if this was his idea of delaying her fantasies, she couldn’t imagine what fulfilling them might look like.
Then he spread her thighs to make room for himself and kissed the pulsing center of her. She would have fallen if not for the door behind her and Rico’s hands bracing her legs where he wanted them. Liquid heat pooled inside her, gathering, swelling. Her fingers trailed helplessly along his shoulders as each stroke of his tongue propelled her higher.
When the release hit her, the pleasure swept through her so fast and so hard she twisted mindlessly against the door. Wave after wave of lush sweetness had her calling out his name, her fingers twisting in his dark, silky hair.
She’d only just barely come back to reality when he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the couch. Aftershocks still hummed through her when he sheathed himself with a condom. He loomed over her, gloriously naked. Deliciously hungry for her.
She reached out to him, trailing her fingers down the chiseled muscles of his chest. Down to the rigid length of his arousal. He sucked in a breath between his teeth as he followed her down to the couch, bracing his weight on one arm.
He came inside her slowly, allowing her to get used to him as he moved deeper. Deeper. He parted her thighs farther before he claimed her completely. His chest met her breasts. His teeth nipped her ear.
And then he started to move. The hot glide of his body inside hers sent ribbons of pleasure through her, making her shiver in delight. She ran her hands through his dark hair and over his broad shoulders, wanting to touch him everywhere. He treated her like a woman he wanted to take care of. A woman he wanted to please. And oooh, did he please her. No man had ever tried to give her just what she wanted before. Just what she needed.
Rico anticipated her every desire. The thought sent her hurtling over the edge as surely as the drive of his hips into hers. She clutched him close, holding on tight as her release rocked her whole body.
He came with her, surging impossibly deep. She wrapped her legs around his waist, holding him right where she wanted him, her ankles locked.
There were no barriers. No masks. No games. Just a gorgeous, generous lover who made her feel special. Blissed-out. Sexy.
As she lay beneath him in the firelight, trying to catch her breath, Lianna knew another woman might have been simply counting her blessings in the wake of incredible sex. But she had never been particularly lucky in life, and fairy tales didn’t happen to her.
So she squeezed Rico tight and soaked up the scent of his aftershave, hoping she’d remember this moment forever. Because her lawyer instincts were up and running again, and they told her that anything this good couldn’t last for long. A smooth-talking criminal had tried to frame her as surely as he’d tried to frame Marnie.
And she didn’t doubt for a second that Alec Mason would be back when she least expected it.
12
MARNIE COULDN’T SLEEP.
After her trip to the bathtub with Jake, he’d carried her back to bed and held her while she dozed off. But she’d become immediately alert when Jake moved away from her; it seemed he had no intention of sleeping himself while Alec was still on the loose and possibly looking for them.
He’d only gone to work on his laptop in a chair a few feet away from the bed, but just knowing that he wouldn’t relax made her restless. Worried.
Well, that coupled with the sensation that the closer she got to Jake, the further he slipped away from her. She felt herself falling for him—knew she wanted more from him. Yet he retreated each time they touched, no matter how earth-shattering the sex was or how much he shared with her in bed. The thought of returning to Miami only to get dumped scared her. But the optimist in her told her he was a man worth fighting for. So she would try to walk that line between getting closer to him and not totally losing her heart to him.
Finally, she snagged her own laptop and cracked it open, figuring she’d at least catch up with her friends or check her work email.
“Am I keeping you awake?” Jake asked, peering at her over the blue glow of the electronic screen in front of him.
“The idea that you think you shouldn’t sleep is what’s keeping me awake, if that makes sense.” After firing up the machine, she waited for it to boot up. “It makes me nervous to think there’s a possibility—well, actually, I don’t know what there’s a possibility of at this point. I thought we agreed Alec was more of a white-collar criminal.”
Or had that just been what she wanted to believe?
“As the stakes get higher, people stop thinking rationally and start getting desperate.” Jake punched a few keys with excess force before he met her gaze again. “Too many good people have been hurt by this guy for me to rest until he’s behind bars.”
Marnie was reminded of his friendship with Vincent Galway and the fact that Jake had resigned from the force when he had gotten screwed by corrupt cops and “missing” evidence.
“You’re really determined to settle this score for Vince, aren’t you?” While she admired Jake for being the kind of man who championed his friends, she was reminded of yet another reason that Jake might find it easy to walk away. He hadn’t started pursuing Alec to avenge her. When it came right down to it, he had Vince’s interests to protect, not hers.
Jake punched a few more keys, but she had the feeling he was mostly avoiding her question.
He wasn’t exactly the type of guy to spill his guts.
“Will you ever go back to being a cop?”
He dropped all pretense of working and met her gaze head-on.
“Why? Does it matter that I’m a P.I.?”
He couldn’t have broadcast raw nerve any more clearly.
“Just curious. I wondered if making things right for Vincent would allow you to go back to a job you traveled halfway across the country to take.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted, the electronic glow casting shadows on his face as he frowned. “Working alone has its benefits.”
Did he prefer to be alone in his personal life, too?
Marnie mulled over his sta
tement while she opened her email and read a worried note from her mother asking why she hadn’t been at the local community center’s pancake breakfast with Santa, an event she normally worked every year. Shoot. She clicked on Reply to explain her whereabouts.
“Doesn’t it get lonely?” she asked, wondering suddenly about more than his job. Who would take him out for pancake breakfasts with Santa?
“I’m not the most social guy.” He reached for a glass of water by the bed, his bare chest lit by the screen as he leaned.
Right now, she’d like to teach him to be a lot more social. With her. Preferably involving a scenario where she tasted her way down his pecs to his taut, defined abs…
“What about outside work?” She cleared her throat to try to banish her sudden case of hoarseness. “Do you have plans for the holidays?”
“I don’t think I’ll make it back to Illinois this year since this case isn’t closed and we’re looking at—” he flipped his wrist so he could see the face of his watch “—December twentieth.”
“I can’t imagine spending the holidays apart from the people I love.” Even if they would all show up for dinner with their happy families while she would be alone. She paused before sending her mom the email.
“Although, I do wish I could convince some of them to leave Miami and take a Christmas holiday somewhere up north. The snow is so…pretty.”
She’d been about to say romantic, but she could al most picture Jake being allergic to words like that. And she had the feeling all her talk about loved ones and the holidays was scaring him off anyhow. He stared at her from his spot in the armchair, his expression thoughtful.
Foreboding.
“What are you working on?” he asked. The question was so irrelevant to what she’d been saying that she would bet he hadn’t listened to a word.
Frowning down at the laptop, she smacked the Send button and tried to keep the hurt out of her voice.
“Just emailing my mom so she doesn’t worry about me.”
“Wait.” He half threw himself over the bed to grab her computer.