“Release me,” she said with false sweetness, “so that I can kill you.”
He barked out a laugh and sat back, looking down at her. “I like having you all tied up. It’s the only way a woman like you would ever be at my mercy.”
“This isn’t funny. I’m going to scream, and you’ll get your backside shot full of holes by my teammates.”
“Go ahead.” He spread his arms wide and smiled.
Elle scissored her legs under the blankets, hoping to free them and kick the smile off his face. All he did was lean over her and use his weight to pin her down.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“Mostly I’m listening to you moan my name in your sleep. Makes a man wonder, gorgeous.” He brushed her hair from her face. “Makes him wonder what it would feel like to hear those moans in reality. Makes him wonder if hearing you scream his name would be even better.”
She felt her heart pick up speed and resisted the urge to wet her lips. No doubt he would only take it as an invite. “I’m really hoping you don’t mean scream in pain.”
“I would never cause you pain,” David said. “Unless you begged me, and even then, it’d only be the kind of pain that leads to pleasure.”
Why that made her insides melt, she didn’t know. All she knew was that this man was dangerous. Not only to the world at large, but to her personally.
“What do you want?” She hated that her sultry voice gave away more than she’d like him to know. But then, the man had witnessed her very audible dreams about him. He’d become her obsession. Months of trying to crack the mystery surrounding who he really was and whom he worked for. He’d thrown down the gauntlet when he’d given her his DNA, and she’d been like a woman possessed ever since.
“I was in the neighbourhood and thought I’d drop in.” His fingers played with her hair as he spoke. He sounded almost wistful.
“Last I heard, you were on a suicide mission in South America.”
He shrugged, bringing her attention to his broad shoulders under his dark suede bomber jacket. “I get around. It’s what you’ve been up to that’s much more interesting.”
“And what would that be?”
“You’ve been hacking into systems you really shouldn’t be in, Miss Elle.” He ran his thumb back and forth over her bottom lips. “Naughty, naughty, naughty.”
Elle couldn’t contain the shiver that went through her at his touch, and she knew he noticed.
“Is this about me trying to identify the body?”
She felt him stiffen slightly before he forced himself to relax again. “No, this isn’t about a body. This is about your hunt for my identity. You’ve been looking in places you shouldn’t be, and you’ve attracted the attention of people you really don’t want to notice you.”
“Well, you shouldn’t have given me your DNA if you didn’t want me to look for you.” Bloody men. And they called women the contrary sex.
His smile was pure enticement. “That’s true. It was a moment of weakness.” He sounded almost bewildered, which made her think he wasn’t the sort of man who ever had those moments. “I need you to stop looking.”
Yeah, right, she’d get straight on that. “Of course.”
Even in the darkness, she saw his eyes harden. “I’m serious, Elle. You need to stop.”
“I understand.” She’d stop when she knew everything there was to know about him. He’d unwittingly tapped into her greatest weakness—he was a puzzle she had to solve, a mystery she couldn’t leave hanging. There was no way she could let the issue drop without having an aneurysm. It would go against her genetic code to do so.
He let out a sigh. “You aren’t going to do what I tell you, are you?”
For a second, she thought about lying, but that didn’t sit well with her. The game they had going was only going to be won fairly if she didn’t cheat. “Yeah, I’m going to keep looking. And I’m going to find out exactly who you are.”
“It’s a mistake.” His voice was soft—gentle, even.
“Won’t be my first.” And it probably wouldn’t be her last, either. She had a gift for getting into situations she really shouldn’t get into.
“Are you sure you want to do that? I’m not the only one with secrets that are best left hidden.”
Now her heart was racing for a different reason. She told herself there was no way he could know her secrets. She’d hidden them herself, with the help of Harry. And there wasn’t a hacker in the world better than her boss Harry Boyle.
“I’m sure.” She tried to infuse the words with confidence, when really, she felt a little uncertain.
“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Before she realised what he meant to do, he leaned forward and his lips met hers.
As kisses went, it was as chaste as a Jane Austen romance scene. But it was far more than that. The sensation of his warm, firm lips against hers. His ocean scent filling her senses. The softness of his lips as he rubbed them against hers. It was a kiss that she felt straight to her toes, one she’d bring up in every dream she had from then until eternity. Because it was a kiss that cemented her obsession and her future.
He sat back far too soon, staring into her eyes. For once, the man seemed shaken. “You are so…unexpected.”
Elle felt dazed by his fleeting touch. She just watched him as he watched her back.
“I have to go.” His words broke the moment, and he stood, leaving her reeling without him. “The key to the cuffs is on the dresser. Think about what I said. You’re swimming with the sharks here, Elle, and you’re doing it without the cage.”
“I’ve always hated metaphors.”
With a grin, he turned and walked out of her room as silently as he’d come in. Elle gave him plenty of time before she called for Megan. As much as she would have liked to see him dodge their bullets, she didn’t like the idea of anyone other than her going up against the man. He was her puzzle. No one else’s.
And she was seriously going to make him pay for leaving her secured in fluffy pink cuffs.
CHAPTER 22
CALLUM RESTED HIS HAND ON the button of his jeans. This was it. There was no going back. If he stripped, he was leaving more than his body bare before her. He was baring his soul. His team hadn’t even seen him without his prosthetics until everything had gone to hell on their last mission together. He’d made an art form out of pretending that he was normal, that he was still whole. And now, here he was, standing in front of a woman who somehow managed to get through every barrier he put up, and he was about to make himself more vulnerable than he’d been in his life. More vulnerable than when he’d been in hospital relying on people to give him some semblance of his life back.
Isobel’s eyes softened. “We don’t need to do this, Callum. I’m in a weird mood. I shouldn’t have pushed you.” She turned and put her hand on the doorknob.
“No. It’s time.” He popped the button on his jeans.
Isobel turned back, leaned against the door and watched him as he unzipped his jeans. Her eyes turned molten as her gaze skimmed over his chest, lingering in the region of his tattoos, then back to his jeans. Her tiny pink tongue peeked out to wet her lips and her cheeks flushed. Callum almost groaned. She was turning something that should have been cold and awkward into something utterly erotic. He could feel himself becoming hard just from watching her watch him.
“You wear underpants,” she said huskily. “Before I found out in person, I thought you’d go commando.” Dark eyes looked up at him. “I spent a lot of time wondering about your underwear choices over these past few months.”
She was killing him. Callum slipped his thumbs into the waistband of his jeans before remembering he needed to take his shoes off first. “Shoes,” he said, and fought the embarrassment that followed. He felt like a teenager alone with a girl for the first time.
“Let me.”
Before he could protest, Isobel was kneeling at his feet and untying his sneakers. Callum gritted his teeth and
steeled himself for her reaction to his feet. His plastic feet. Isobel tapped his thigh to get him to lift his leg so she could remove his shoe. And then she stilled, with the shoe still in her hands.
Callum felt panic rise. It was fine to say something was okay, but the reality of coming face to face with it was something else.
“You wear socks?” Isobel grinned up at him. “In case your feet get cold?”
A wave of relief rushed through him, making him feel almost faint.
“Woman, you have a sick sense of humour.” He was relieved his voice didn’t shake.
“I know.” She seemed proud. “All my sisters do. Family funerals are a riot.”
She made quick work of removing the other shoe, and then his socks, putting them in a neat pile at her side. Callum focused intently on everything she did, and held his breath for her first reaction to his skin-coloured plastic feet.
She poked at them. “I’m a little disappointed. I was expecting something out of a sci-fi movie. These look like something you’d take off a mannequin.”
Callum couldn’t fight a smile. “They’re shells. They cover the sci-fi part of the foot, which is metal. You wear these so your feet look more normal and so your shoes fit.”
“Oh.” She poked them again. “So these rubbery bits come off?”
“Aye. But I’m not doing that right now.” Bloody hell, he had enough to get through without dismantling his prosthetic legs so she could satisfy her curiosity.
She sat back on her heels and looked up at him. “I’m ready. You can take everything else off now.”
Even as anxious as he was, Callum couldn’t help but be amused at the sultry way she looked at him.
“You want to move back a bit, give me some room?” He hooked his thumbs in his jeans, and she wriggled back about three inches.
“I’m good here. Get on with it.”
With a shake of his head, Callum lowered his jeans. She frowned at him, and he stopped with them at mid-thigh. The tops of the cups his stumps fitted into were visible, and he wondered if she’d had enough already.
“What about the underpants? Shouldn’t you take them off too?” the little vixen said.
“I don’t need to take off my underwear to show you my legs.”
“Oh.” She batted her eyelashes at him. “It won’t be as much fun if you don’t.”
“This isn’t about fun, woman. It’s about showing you that I’m part man, part machine.”
“I’ve always had a thing for sexy cyborgs. Take everything off, Callum. I want to see all of you. Please, pretty please?”
He shook his head. “You are dangerous.” But he tugged at his underpants, being careful to lift them over his cock, and took them down with his jeans.
She gasped at the sight of him and licked her lips. Callum groaned. This was not going at all the way he’d envisioned it would. He looked behind him, ready to sit down and pull his jeans off the rest of the way.
“I’ll do it,” Isobel said eagerly.
Before he could stop her, she shifted forward and reached for his jeans. He was only inches from her luscious mouth. This was agony. Pure agony. How was he supposed to deal with her reaction to his legs when he was that close to heaven?
“Mmm,” she said, her eyes firmly on his hard length, rather than his titanium legs. She tugged one jean leg over his foot and leaned in to get the other one. Callum put a hand on her shoulder for balance. As she yanked his other jean leg down to his foot, she licked the head of his cock.
“Isobel.” He groaned, and his hand tightened on her shoulder.
She licked him a couple more times before helping him to get his jeans off, and then she sat back on her heels to study him. Callum was breathing hard. His cock pointed out towards her. He could barely think of anything else. Right then, the most important thing in the world was getting inside her.
Her eyes scanned up his body slowly, from his fake feet, over the black carbonite and titanium legs, up his scarred thighs, over his abdomen and tattoos, to his face.
“You are breath-taking,” she whispered. “I don’t think I’ve seen anyone more masculine in my life.” She ran her hands up his legs, over the cool metal, until she reached the heat of his thigh. “You’re all power and strength. So many muscles…” Her fingers mapped each indentation on his stomach. There was awe in her face. Absolute awe and raw desire.
Although Callum didn’t move an inch, he felt the world shift beneath him. The foundations he stood on rearranged themselves and became stronger. He was suddenly standing on a very different planet. Because of Isobel. Because of how she looked at him. Because of how she made him feel. A rightness settled deep inside of him. And he knew. He knew that no matter what happened, no matter what they had to face, he was not giving up Isobel Sinclair. Not ever. She didn’t know it yet. But she was his.
Beautiful eyes blazed up at him. “I have a lot of questions about these bionic legs of yours. But first…”
She leaned into him and took the head of his cock into her mouth. Callum spread his legs wide and gave her access, delighting in the way one hand wrapped around his girth while the other gripped his backside. She sucked hard and made him moan with desperation. His whole body felt as though it was on fire. He was desperate for her, desperate to spill himself inside of her, to claim her as his own. The hot, wet heat of her mouth, along with the sight of her on her knees in front of him, giving this to him, was almost more than he could bear. He was tempted to ride this wave of pleasure to its end, but he wanted one thing more. He wanted her under him.
“Stop,” he growled, and tightened his hold on her hair.
She released him with a pop. “Don’t want to.” Her tongue swirled around him.
“Woman, you are driving me nuts.”
She actually smiled. “Good.”
Callum let go of her hair and reached down to lift her to her feet. Her eyes were heavy-lidded and her hands went straight to his chest. She moulded her fingers to his pecs and let out a tiny sigh of contentment.
“Is it wrong that I really, really like you being naked when I’m still dressed? It feels naughty.”
“Naughty?” He couldn’t stop the chuckle, even though his skin was past sensitive and he was desperate with the need to get inside of her. “Like a teenager?”
“Like a woman who is losing her mind over a man.”
He liked the sound of that a whole lot. There was only one thing he’d change. “Over her man.”
Her eyes shot to his, and for a second he thought he saw panic. He wasn’t going to let that happen. He liked having Isobel all sensual and needy. He clasped her nape and slammed his mouth down onto hers, kissing her with a desperation that bordered on obsession. She melted against him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders to keep upright. Callum tugged at his old T-shirt and tried to get it over her head.
She shook her head and stepped back, her fingers still kneading his chest.
“I don’t want to get naked.” Her husky voice was an aphrodisiac in itself, and it took a second for Callum to realise what she’d said.
He cupped her cheek. It should be illegal to have skin that smooth. “Why not, darlin’?” He kept his tone soft, letting her know that her answer mattered. That she mattered.
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, and for a second he thought she wouldn’t answer. “I know you think you’re damaged goods or something, but you aren’t. You’re a freaking Michelangelo sculpture. Seriously. There isn’t an ounce of fat on you. Everywhere I look there’s toned, carved muscle.” She looked up at him nervously. “I’m flabby. I have cellulite. And stretch marks.”
Callum blinked, trying to understand. “Isobel, I don’t have any legs.” Was she seriously self-conscious? With him?
She nodded at him, ever so serious. “You do. You have these kick-arse cyborg legs. You look like the Terminator. The Arnie one, with lots of muscle and that intense stare that scares the poop out of people.”
At the same time as her
words astonished him, humbled him, they also made him want to laugh. “Poop? Kick-arse?” He shook his head. “There are some words you just shouldn’t say. They don’t sound right coming out of that gorgeous mouth of yours.”
She slapped his chest and instantly spread her fingers to soothe the sting. “I’m being serious. You look like a master artist carved you out of marble. I look like a toddler made me out of Play-Doh.”
He had to laugh. It rumbled out of him and astonished him at the same time. He never, in a million years, thought he’d be in the position of laughing while he bared his broken body and soul to a woman who mattered to him.
“You are a nut. I already saw you when you were in the shower.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t get a close-up look, and it only lasted a few seconds.”
“I can’t believe we’re arguing about this. Get undressed and I’ll make you feel good. I promise.” He injected the words with heavy sensuality, and watched as her eyes darkened and she swayed towards him.
“How about we do one thing at a time? Tonight, I got to see your bionic legs. Tomorrow, maybe you’ll take them off and let me see you without them. Then, in a month or two, if we’re still together…” She suddenly looked uncertain. “Are we together?”
“Bloody hell, woman, aye, we’re together.” What the hell was she thinking? That he’d let a one-night stand see him like this?
Instead of looking reassured, she frowned. “I’m not sure I can handle that. I don’t exactly have a good track record with relationships.”
“Neither do I.” He swallowed hard. “My wife walked out on me when I came home injured. She said it was because we’d grown apart and not because I didn’t have legs anymore. But her timing said something else. I think she liked the prestige, and the freedom, of being married to an SAS soldier who was away a lot of the time. The reality of dealing with an injured veteran who was home permanently was too much for her. You’re not the only one with a past full of broken relationships.”
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