Chapter 10
TEN
Dammit, how did he do that? Make her think she had the upper hand, then yank the control rug right out from under her. But she had to admit, she wasn’t ready to complain just yet. Not when she was enjoying herself so much she was in danger of giggling.
Giggling was a habit she’d abandoned at about age four, when her brothers had wrestled and shoved every last giggle right out of her. She’d learned to express herself through grunts, snorts, and eye rolls, yet here she was feeling every inch a giggler and liking it.
“So you’re good with it, is that what you’re saying?” Reese stuck her foot out to increase her area of personal space, hoping he’d stay back and yet simultaneously praying he’d walk right up to her and kiss her senseless again.
“Very good with it. Do you want me to show you?”
“How? By shooting me?” They weren’t talking about firearms, but she wasn’t about to admit that. Let him say it first.
Two more steps and he was flush against her. She had to pull her foot back to avoid stumbling. Knight’s hands gripped her arms and he looked down into her eyes, his gaze dropping to her lips then back up again.
“Reese.”
“What?”
“Be quiet.”
If he had given her a second, she would have told him to go to hell.
As it was, his lips were on hers before she could even form a word, and then she didn’t care how bossy he was being, or how stupid this was, and that it was still possible he was stringing her along about giving her the drug company exclusive.
All she cared about was that for the first time in a long time her body was in tune with a man’s, and that nothing else was going to matter or get addressed until she had sweated through some hot sex with Knight.
So when his hand slipped inside her robe and stroked along her breast, she was all for it. She gave an encouraging moan, pulling back a micro-millimeter from his mouth with hers, until he pushed forward and claimed her again, nudging back her lips with his tongue.
While his tongue dipped and tasted and did amazing things to her mouth, his hand went back and forth on her breast, caressing and plucking, pinching and playing until she arched her back and let her head roll to the side in delirious pleasure.
She made a mental note to thank Ralph for sending her on this trip, though she never would have predicted anything more exciting than drinking free champagne at the wedding when she’d boarded the plane. This beat a couple of glasses of Dom Perignon any day.
His wet mouth left hers and closed over her nipple. Yep. A vat of champagne served by dancing acrobats on the top of the Eiffel Tower couldn’t be more exciting than this.
“Yes. I like that.” Just in case he got any ideas about stopping.
“Mmm,” he said, and sucked harder, the slickness of his lips raising goose bumps on her chilled flesh.
“Oh,” she said, wishing there was a way she could say if you stop I’ll hurt you without sounding like a lunatic.
But he did stop, the tease, and murmured into her neck. “Reese, what exactly are we doing here?”
“Right now we’re doing nothing. A second ago you were kissing me and if you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to that.” Frustrated and heading towards irrational, she put her hand on his chest, ready to haul him back.
He nipped her ear. “I want you. Can I fuck you?”
Yes, five minutes ago. Reese raked her hand across his chest. All muscle. She rubbed her thighs together to stop the swollen need, but it only made her more aroused.
“Is this what you always do with women you’ve chased into delis?”
“I’ve never chased a woman into a deli before. And I’ve never hooked up with a reporter before, either, but you have a strange effect on me.”
She could sympathize with that. “So what happened in that deli, by the way? Did those clerks get you on the ground, or what?” Somehow she doubted it, but she liked teasing him.
“Reese,” he said, his voice a low warning, his thumb circling her nipple again before giving it a light squeeze.
Enough talking then. “Oh, fine. Yes, I want you too. Yes, you can have me and do X-rated things to me. Right now. And if you screw me over and withhold evidence from me at least I’ll always have the Crowne Plaza.”
His shoulders vibrated as he laughed soundlessly, his breath tickling her ear. “Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Make me laugh.”
“Why not?”
“Because it distracts me from doing this.”
Before Reese even knew what he was planning, he had unknotted her robe belt. While she swallowed a softball-size lump of desire in her throat, he pushed the sleeves down her arms and let the robe drop to the burgundy carpet.
The chilled air of the temperature-controlled room danced over her naked body and her nipples puckered. Knight shook his head a little as he studied her, then whistled.
“Damn, those are some pj’s you’ve got on.”
She leaned back against the table, propping herself up with her straightened arms, enjoying the frank appreciation on his face. She bent one knee as she said, “Smart-ass.”
“I was smart enough to come to your room, wasn’t I?” His words were muffled as he dragged his T-shirt off over his head.
Then he dropped it to the floor on top of her crumpled robe and Reese’s mouth went bone dry. His muscular chest looked even better without the shirt, and his jeans had sunk a little low on his hips, revealing a faint tan line left over from summer.
“Turn around,” she told him, intent on torturing herself a little further.
He had popped the button on his jeans and stopped with his hand on the zipper. “What? Why? Don’t tell me you’ve gotten shy.”
“No, not shy.” That wasn’t the word that came to mind. She had never been shy, but she’d never been reckless before, either. She felt that now, a stimulating, flowing, powerful abandon that defied common sense and felt heady and erotic.
“Did I tell you you have a gorgeous body?” Those chocolate eyes roamed over her again, dark and greedy.
“No, but thanks. Now turn around.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to look at your ass.” He wasn’t great at taking orders. They’d have to work on that.
Then again, neither was she.
“Excuse me?”
“What part don’t you understand? I want to check out your ass. I caught a glimpse of it when you came into the room, but I want another one.”
The poor man looked…concerned. She didn’t care. “Come on, I’m standing here naked, you can show me your fine be-hind.”
A little bit of color raced up his neck, turning his cheeks into two bright spots of copper-red. Which only thrilled her further. “You’re blushing! Hasn’t some woman ever checked out your butt before?”
He scowled. “Well, sure, but we never discussed it, for fuck’s sake.”
“We wouldn’t be discussing it if you’d just do what I told you.”
They stared each other down, both willing the other to cave. Reese licked her lips and tumbled her hair out of her eyes. Knight broke eye contact and swore under his breath.
A second later he made a big production of turning around. “For the record, I’m doing this under duress.”
“Duly noted.” And disregarded. Because she was looking at perfection.
The seat of his jeans had just the right amount of droop and snug, and bronze skin rose above the waistband, making her dry mouth suddenly flood with saliva. Her inner thighs experienced a similar sensation.
His legs were long and built, but not bulky or brawny. He just looked healthy, strong and all man. Reese closed the two feet between them and slid her hands across his back pockets until she was cupping those firm cheeks in her eager fingers.
Knight started. “You said you’d be looking, not touching.”
“Do you really mind?” She moved her hands around past the seam of his soft, worn jeans and found his erection. Closing her hand around it, she squeezed, her nipples pressing against the hot flesh of his back.
A hiss came from him. “No, I don’t mind.” His normally mid-pitched voice had dropped to bass.
“Oh, good.” Closing her eyes, Reese leaned against him and concentrated on stroking up and down on the length of him through his pants.
She could feel all of him, even his balls on the underside of his zipper, and her fingers starting moving faster, wanting more, loving the reaction as he throbbed beneath her.
Spreading her thighs a little on either side of his leg, she pressed her mound against him, the soft denim of his jeans wiggling through the hair and rubbing her clitoris as she moved. They groaned in unison.
“Reese.”
Why did he insist on talking? “What?”
With her teeth, she nipped his back. He was salty-tasting, with a lingering smell of musky soap. She was practically crawling up on top of him, rocking against his leg and continuing to stroke him.
“Do you have a condom?”
Oh, God, there was a mood killer. Reality didn’t belong here where she about to have a one-night stand with an FBI agent who had clearly been issued one big gun.
She stopped trying to insert her hand into his pocket to get a better feel and said, “No. But you have one, right?”
Silence.
Every overexcited nerve in her body stood up and yelled Shit. “You have one, right?”
He groaned. “No.”
“Oh, Knight!” This was the story of her life, temptation followed by fate laughing cruelly at her. Fate usually took the form of one of her brothers in her mental imaginings.
He hadn’t moved, but was still breathing hard as she lay draped across his back like a wet tissue. Pulling her hand off him, she was startled when his own hand closed over hers, drawing it back to his erection.
“We can either stop and I’ll go to the store, or we can find...other ways to satisfy each other,” he said.
Now the man was talking. Reese groped along him and said, “I don’t want to wait for the store.”
“Me either.” He took her hand, turned around, and covered her mouth in a deep, rough, wet kiss, his fingers laced through hers.
“Of course, maybe this is fate telling me I shouldn’t have sex with a man who ran me off the road and wanted me for my envelope.”
“I’m going to refrain from making a joke about your box.”
She giggled. Again. She couldn’t help herself.
“And fuck fate.”
Okay. She wasn’t going to argue with that. It had been a futile attempt at rational anyhow. It would take more willpower than she had to walk away from him, stark naked, and go their separate ways.
Tomorrow she had to go be the dippy reporter for the Newark News, firmly entrenched in her crappy life. Tonight she was just a woman, a successful, sensual woman who had a hot Fed at her mercy, ready and willing to satisfy all her desires.
A Fed who was bending over again, closing his mouth over her nipple, scratching her with his beard on her soft skin as he flicked his tongue over her.
He said, “You could argue that fate put you in my rental car. That fate wanted you to get naked with me.”
Reese squeezed his shoulders as his mouth moved to her other breast, his finger rolling across the nipple he had left painfully hard and slick.
“That’s true.” As he moved his leg in between hers, she felt his erection pressing into her. Her eyes snapped open. “Wait. We can’t. No condoms.”
Remember that, she commanded herself. Be smart, be safe, be mature. Arguably all things she struggled with. But not when it came to sex. She’d never been stupid about sex and no matter how many times Knight touched her below the belt, she wasn’t going to give in on this one.
“I know.” He did that ear thing again, where he whispered into her, making her shiver and cling to him.
“I’m just going to suck you and finger you until you come. Is that alright?”
He wouldn’t have far to go. “That sounds fine.”
“It will make you feel better. Just a little something to take the edge off,” he coaxed, all the while his hands sliding down her sides, big hands. Man hands. Hands that held a gun and went without gloves in the winter.
Rough hands, with bumps and calluses and hard skin, that scraped her waist and made her feel about as strong as dandelion fluff. Whereas a minute ago naked had felt powerful, controlling, now she was vulnerable, exposed before him and his fast-moving fingers.
She curled against him, closing her eyes, not wanting to see, just to feel what he was doing as he cupped his hand over her mound, his mouth hovering an inch in front of hers.
His breath tickled her lips, she could taste him and his closeness, feel the hardness of his chest and the soft hair there brushing against her nipples.
He hovered, holding, breathing, still, until her inner muscles quivered with anticipation, waiting for the moment when he would touch.
She pushed forward, impatient, needy, and said, “Knight. Come on.”
Keeping her eyes closed, she heard him exhale, a pleased soft laugh before his tongue startled her by touching the center of her bottom lip.
Reese looked at his angled masculine face, so close she almost went cross-eyed.
She dropped her head back as his tongue entered her mouth, hard and demanding at the same time he kicked her thighs apart with his foot.
Then before she could groan, his finger was inside her, sliding in and out to match the rhythm of his tongue, a double assault that had her mindlessly clawing at his back and struggling to stay standing.
He didn’t mess around. He went straight for the kill, something she’d have to remember when she wasn’t praying for salvation like she was at the present.
In and out, he stroked her over and over until she had to stop him, had to regain some level of control. Otherwise she was going to beg him to never stop, to keep her and take her at his will.
To hell with that.
She jerked back her mouth from his, panting. “You don’t play around, do you? You get right down to business.”
His finger paused for a second. “You strike me as the kind of woman who wants action, not words.”
Her answer was cut off when he added a second finger to the first. “Oh, God,” she said, deciding that control was overrated.