Temptation Rising

by A. C. Arthur

  And she was his.

  Not his companheiro, but his woman. He’d thought that each time he touched her last night, each time he’d stroked inside of her, each time she’d called his name as if he were the only man for her. He’d dreamed of her, longed for her for two years and she was finally here, finally a part of his life.

  But she wasn’t.

  When he’d returned to his room she’d been gone. Baxter, who normally had eyes in the back of his head, hadn’t seen her go. Rome suspected that wasn’t totally true. Ezra had bought her car back to Rome’s house sometime during the night, which proved just too damn convenient for her getaway.

  He’d made it into the office in time to find out she still wasn’t here but had called in saying she was on her way. And the minute she arrived he wanted her here, in his office. He wasn’t letting her get away from him that easily. He couldn’t.

  In the meantime, he had a phone call to make.

  “Roman, my boy. It’s good to hear from you again,” Bingham said in his gravelly voice.

  “I want to know who his contact was,” Rome said without preamble. He’d pored over his father’s notes on that disk and knew that there was a good chance Bingham knew what was there and who to contact about that information.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Bingham! I know what’s on that disk and I know you do, too. Don’t bullshit me. Tell me who my father was getting his information from.”

  Silence filled the line. Rome’s patience grew thinner. “Look, he’s gone. You gave his secrets to me. I have to handle this, and the sooner the better.”

  “He didn’t tell me everything. There was so much I didn’t know,” Bingham insisted.

  “Tell me what you did know,” he insisted. Bingham didn’t know about the shifters, that was most likely true. The notes on the disk were just cryptic enough that if a person didn’t already know about the tribes, they would simply assume Vance Reynolds was making a play for political office. The outlines for enforcement of a new government could have possibly been construed as treason or even a long-shot attempt at a terrorist uprising. Any of which was enough to plant his father’s name firmly on Homeland Security’s hit list, a thought that threw a few more suspects into the pool of killers. But Rome knew it wasn’t a human who’d taken his parents’ lives. The house had been invaded by shifters. He remembered their scent, remembered their laughter and the pure hatred that had flowed through them.

  But Vance had known someone within the government was on to him, to what he was doing. Rome needed to find that person, he needed to know what they knew before he ordered them taken care of. He wouldn’t kill needlessly, but he would protect their secret. That was a promise.

  * * *

  Kalina didn’t want to be here, she didn’t want to knock on this door or see the person on the other side. But her choices were limited. Dan had been adamant about her coming to see Rome immediately. Causing a fuss would have no doubt drawn unwanted attention to the reasons, so she’d simply clamped her lips shut and stalked all the way to the elevators. She’d staunchly ignored Ava’s snide remarks about her being late and whatever else had come out of the woman’s mouth.

  Mel, thankfully, had not been at her desk, because that was another person Kalina wasn’t up to facing. At least not before coming up with a convincing reason why she’d disappeared from the woman’s house last night without saying a word. She should have never gone there, she thought now. Her resolve to keep to herself should have remained in place. Making connections and building relationships was just not in her. She was a loner and always would be. No matter how much that thought hurt.

  So her knock on Rome’s office door was rapid as emotions rippled through her body, making her temples throb. She braced herself, waiting to hear his deep voice telling her to come in, but the sound didn’t come. Instead the door swung open and she was pulled inside and pressed against the wall as it slammed closed again. It happened so fast she lost her breath.

  “What—” She tried to speak but words were lost by the crush of his lips against hers.

  Kalina didn’t want to kiss him. No, this was not how this meeting was supposed to go. There were things she had to say to this man, words that were meant to rip him a new one for the callous way he’d treated her. But damm if she could stop it.

  His lips were like a drug and she sipped heartily, taking her fill of everything he offered at this moment. Her fists stayed clenched at her sides as she dared them to move. All he had was her lips and really, wasn’t that enough? Her body responded to his instantly, heat pooling in her center, moisture dampening her folds already. She tilted her head, hoping maybe to end the connection, but it didn’t work.

  Rome plunged deeper, his tongue touching every recess of her mouth. She couldn’t breathe, her chest heaving as her nipples tingled. She wanted to scream, to lift her hands to his handsome face and scratch until she’d given him just an inkling of the pain he’d inflicted on her. No, she wanted her gun, then she could shoot him right in the balls. But as his thick erection pressed against her she heard a moan escape and knew that was the last thing she wanted to do to that particular body part.

  Damn her, she still wanted him.

  He was the one to break the connection of their lips, but his mouth stayed hungrily on her as he scraped his teeth along the line of her jaw. She was so out of breath she let her head rest against the wall, panting, needing his touch and hating it just the same.

  “Don’t you ever leave me,” he growled, moving down to ravage her neck with his mouth.

  “What?” she asked through a mind blurred with arousal.

  “When I returned you were gone.” His hands moved to her arms, giving her a little shake as he spoke. “Don’t ever do that again!”

  Lifting her head Kalina blinked, then stared up into his eyes. “Are you serious? You’re the one who left.” A tiny remnant of her backbone reared up, and she lifted her palms to push at his chest. The action must have caught him off guard because he took a step back. And she took two steps away from him.

  “I woke up and you were gone. All that was missing was the money on the table,” she snapped. “If you wanted a cheap fuck you could have hired someone for that. Oh, I forgot”—she feigned innocence—“I do work for you, don’t I? But sleeping with you wasn’t in the job description.” And that was no lie. Nowhere in the DEA’s or the MPD’s description of this assignment did it say fuck Roman Reynolds. She could attest to that.

  “Wait a minute, you think I left you?” Rome said, moving to the door and switching the lock in place before turning to face her.

  He wore a dark suit, or at least the pants were dark; his shirt was white with a coral-colored tie that was the perfect shade to offset his mocha skin. She assumed his suit jacket was somewhere in the office because he always wore a suit to work. His shoes shone like the gold watch at his wrist. He looked impeccably perfect, and her body ached for him.

  “That’s usually the conclusion people reach when they wake up in a bed alone where someone had once lain beside them.”

  He was shaking his head. “I went to a meeting.”

  “It wasn’t even eight in the morning, Rome. You don’t have to lie to me,” she huffed, brushing her hands down the front of her clothes as if they were rumpled; she didn’t know what else to do with them. “Look, if it was just meant to be a one-night thing, that’s fine. I can deal with that. What I’d really like to know is how I ended up at your house in the first place? I went to a cookout at Melanie’s. But then I wasn’t there, I was…” Her voice trailed off as pieces began to click into place.

  “What happened when you were at Melanie’s?” Rome asked, taking a measured step toward her.

  “I saw something, or I thought I saw something.” She’d seen eyes in the bushes, eyes that weren’t human. But something told her that telling Rome that wasn’t going to end with the guy asking to spend another night with her. She cleare
d her throat. “I mean, I thought there was something in the yard. The neighbor’s dog, I think. But then I was gone. This big guy grabbed me and threw me into a truck.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Into your truck? Why were they there? Did you have someone follow me, Rome?”

  Rome didn’t know what to say. How could he even begin to answer this question without revealing too much? Elder Alamar’s accusation still rang in his mind, but as he watched Kalina, with her long legs clad only in nylons and a knee-length skirt that hugged her bottom and her hips to perfection, he didn’t see a shifter. She was exactly as he thought she was, all woman.

  “I told you I wanted to keep you safe.”

  “So you’re having me followed? You don’t even know me.”

  She might have a point there, one he badly wanted to remedy. “I asked you out for a drink, but you turned me down.”

  “Again,” she said, giving him a bland stare. “So you have me followed and then kidnap me so you can sleep with me. That’s a little over the top, even for a man like you.”

  “What do you mean ‘a man like me’? Exactly what kind of man do you think I am, Kalina?” he asked, moving closer to her but not touching her. She was standing in front of one of the guest chairs and he sat down, right there, so he’d have to look up at her for a change. He loved the view from here, her luscious legs and full breasts at perfect touching range.

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “I know you’re an arrogant-ass attorney who thinks just because he has a good track record in court, he can’t ever lose anything. I also know that you don’t give a damn about the women you get involved with. They’re all inconsequential to you, a notch on your bedpost so to speak. I cannot berate myself enough for falling into that trap.”

  Rome was standing before she could say another word, and right up in her face. “Whatever you think you know about me and other women has nothing to do with what happened between us.”

  She leaned back slightly, tilting her head so she could stare up at him. “Really? Tell me, Mr. Reynolds, how am I so different?”

  He didn’t know what to say. How was she different from any of the other women he’d slept with? She was beautiful, sexy, attractive—all traits he’d thought the other women shared. But she was so much more. Something inside made her different, and whatever that was it called to him. Even now.

  “All I know is that I can’t stop wanting you.”

  She sighed and looked away. He cupped her chin pulled her back to face him.

  “That’s not all. I think about you all the time. When I thought those men were going to hurt you I was ready to kill. The thought of you being in danger rips me apart. That’s never happened with another woman. Ever.”

  She didn’t believe him.

  Didn’t want to but … his gaze locked with hers and it was no longer a choice. In his eyes she saw his honesty and his hunger and reciprocated with a measure of need of her own. “I wanted you to be different,” she heard herself whispering. “From the very beginning I didn’t want to believe the rumors. I don’t know why. I just didn’t.”

  “Don’t believe the rumors. I’m not who they think I am.”

  “And you can’t be who I think you are.” He wasn’t the man from her dreams, the hero who saved her from the loneliness she’d engulfed herself in. He wasn’t the beast that aroused and yet scared her. He was just Roman, the man she was supposed to be investigating. “Why couldn’t you be him? It would have been so much easier,” she whispered.

  “None of that matters now, Kalina. Only this matters,” he said, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her so that her center pressed against the bulge of his arousal. “Only you and me.”

  He’d said something similar in her dream. Kalina fought to keep her thoughts in the here and now.

  “I dream of you,” he said hoarsely, his teeth nipping at the nape of her neck.

  Strong hands moved upward, grabbing her breasts, palming them like melons, squeezing as if he fully expected to milk her. Her legs shivered as desire dampened the folds of her pussy.

  He wasn’t being gentle. To the contrary, his hands moved roughly. Her nipples were hard. His teeth bit into her skin and the tingle of pleasure/pain rippled through her body. Inside felt like the beginnings of a tornado, a small funnel of desire forming in the pit of her stomach and picking up speed with every touch, every word from him. Her mind clouded and filled with nothing except this man, this moment.

  “I dreamed of you.” With that breathy admission her head fell back onto his shoulders. “It was so hot. You were so hot.”

  “Was I hot for you, baby? Like I am now?”

  He was unbuttoning her blouse, his fingers moving quickly over the small buttons. His palms spread the material to the side as he reached for her breasts again. Pushing down the cups of her bra, he freed the globes and kneaded them with hunger that sent sparks of lust directly to her pussy.

  Kalina gasped, her own hands going up to cover his. She felt her turgid nipples and began to shake. Used to touching herself and gaining immense pleasure from the exploration, she was now drowning in the double sensation of both their hands on her body.

  “Touch me, baby. I’m dying for you to touch me,” his voice rasped. She dropped her hands.

  Moving them behind her, she touched the hard bulge of his arousal. Lust ripped through her. She wanted him like she’d never wanted another before. Deep in the darkest recesses of her mind she wanted with a fierceness that almost frightened her. Instead of grasping the fear Kalina went with the lust, let the rising heat inside bombard any other feelings—even the ones that told her this would be a defining moment for them both.

  “You want it, Kalina.” His voice was raspy now, his hands tightening on her breasts until a scream scratched at the base of her throat. “It’s yours, baby. Take it.”

  With her heart hammering wildly in her chest, Kalina shifted and turned until they were facing each other. Grabbing the back of his head, she was the one who took his lips this time. In a savage duel of lips, teeth, and tongue she poured into him all the heat that was ravaging her. His hands tightened on her hips, gripping her bottom then sliding down her thighs to push her skirt up.

  Panting, she broke the kiss and let her palms drift down the muscled contours of his chest, his tight abs, to the belt buckle at his midsection. With trembling fingers she undid the belt, dislodged the snap of his pants, and heard the sleek slide of his zipper echo in her ears. It was an acute sound, one she’d never paid much attention to until this moment.

  His hands framed her face now, his thumbs sliding over her swollen lips. She licked at them, eager, anticipating as her hands pushed his pants and boxers past his hips.

  “I can’t get you out of my head,” she admitted, noting that the room seemed to fill with the same insufferable heat that inhabited her dream. “No matter how hard I try, you’re always there.”

  “I’m always going to be here” was his reply.

  His length filled her. She wrapped both hands around him, loving the heavy heated feel of his arousal and remembering the taste of his silken heat gliding along her tongue. Her mouth watered as she stroked him from the base to the bulbous tip.

  Kalina remembered that night he’d caught her and they were in this very spot, her ass against his desk and his dominating presence surrounding her. He’d held himself out to her then, stroking his magnificent length as his eyes had devoured her. He’d told her she wanted him, wanted this, and he’d been absolutely right.

  Sliding her body down along his she rested on her knees, tilting her chin so that his dick was in line with her lips. One pearl-size drop of desire eased from his tip. She extended her tongue and licked. Closing her mouth she let the taste of him once again fill her. This time was different from before. It wasn’t an unexpected rush of excitement like a roller-coaster ride. No, this was anticipated, it was welcomed as if she’d known she would taste him again. Everything about him was welcome, as if something inside her was welcom
ing him home.

  When she took him deep inside her mouth, he cradled her head, blowing out a rush of breath. Kalina worked her mouth over him, loving the slow rhythm they built—him thrusting his hips slowly, feeding her in measured strokes, and her twirling her tongue around his length, licking the underside like a treasured Popsicle. Her fingers massaged his sack, bringing ragged groans from his lips.

  Everything about him seemed right; this time, this moment was where she belonged. For once in her life, she had a place and a purpose. He could bring her pleasure but Kalina realized in this instant that she could bring him release as well. He craved her, hungered for her touch, for the next stroke of her lips along his flesh.

  To test her theory she pulled back, let his length slip past her lips until only the tip whispered near her mouth. His grip on her head tightened and he moaned, “More,” before thrusting toward her lips again.

  With a sly smile she peeked up at him. Her center pulsated as she caught his gaze. His eyes were bright and they were focused on her, emitting a sort of hazy spell that held her entranced. She opened her mouth, let him spear his erection inside as their gazes stayed connected. He fed her, she took him in, deeper, deeper until she thought she might choke. Rome pulled back at that moment, let her catch a breath, then sank deep inside her again. Her lips were wet, his length was soaked, her nipples ached. She wanted to be fucked. Right here, right this moment, by this man.

  Grabbing the base of his arousal, Rome fed her his pre-pleasure release and watched with deep-seated desire as she licked every drop. Looking down at her gorgeous mouth wrapped around his length had pushed him so that his beast strained against him. There was a heat inside him waiting impatiently to burst free. But he couldn’t move fast. He held on to his restraint as he’d been so used to doing in the past. But the more she milked his dick, the more he wanted to let go and give her everything he had inside.

  He didn’t know if she could take it, didn’t know if he’d survive it, but feared it was coming anyway. Grabbing her shoulders, he lifted her up off her feet until her lips met his in a deep arousing kiss.