Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
Reese wondered why the cab driver was only going sixty-five miles an hour. Surely at this time of the night, with light traffic, he could be doing at least eighty.
“We could go to your place this time if you want,” she said, then regretted it. Knight probably had one of those cop apartments, all black lacquer furniture and empty Pop-Tart boxes. A lumpy bed with no headboard and a bathroom that hadn’t seen the receiving end of Lysol in months.
She wanted an orgasm from Knight, not a toenail fungus from his dirty shower.
“We can’t go to my place.” Knight was sitting back in the cab seat, relaxed, his arm up stretched out behind her head. “My little sister Claire moved in with me yesterday because she had roommate problems.”
Since the idea of living with other women gave Reese hives, she could understand. “How old is Claire?” The ex-wife had asked her if she was one of Claire’s friends, she recalled.
“Twenty-four.”
Reese laughed. “That was a good crack, then, on Dawn’s part. She was calling you old. Geez, that’s funny.”
Knight wasn’t laughing. “Yeah. Hilarious.”
Reese leaned against his arm and dropped her hand onto his thigh. “Oh, don’t pout. If I thought you were too old I wouldn’t be in this cab taking you back to my hotel room.”
“You’re taking me? I thought I was taking you back to your hotel room.”
The contours of his face were shadowed in the dark cab, but she could still see the strong set of his jaw, the hot desire banked in his eyes.
It swirled in the cool closed air around them, mutual lust and a faint power struggle. They both yearned for control, they both deemed their careers and personal lives unsatisfactory because they were lacking in that control.
They approached each other both wanting the upper hand, and Reese enjoyed that ever-present pull between them.
She liked that Knight was a little older, experienced, had spent his life fighting for justice and truth and the American way.
She enjoyed his rather brooding moodiness and the fact that he was willing to arm-wrestle her.
“How about we take turns taking each other?” she whispered, allowing her finger to creep northward along his hard thigh.
His hand closed over hers, stopping her seductive trail. “I go first. I’m taking you.”
Oh, baby. First she’d found herself turned on by his holster, now alpha male domination was getting her hot.
But she wasn’t going down without a fight, no matter what her nipples thought about it. “Want to bet?”
“I’ll take that bet.”
Without warning, his mouth covered hers, cutting off any protests she might have made had she not been drowning in horny hormones.
It was a taking kiss. A demanding, selfish, who’s-your-daddy kind of kiss that filled her mouth with burning breath, hot tongue, and urgent need.
Pushing on the floor of the cab with her heels, she opened her mouth to him all the way, let him cover her with his lips, his hands, his leg as the wave of passion pulled her under.
She told herself it was the suit.
Any man filling a shirt and pants the way he was right now would draw this reaction from her. It didn’t have anything to do with Knight himself.
And she made her Christmas cards with rubber stamps and ribbons a la Martha Stewart.
Puh-lease.
For some unknown reason, this guy did it to her. And instead of trying to figure out why, she decided to just enjoy it.
She broke the kiss, needing oxygen that hadn’t been in his lungs first.
“I’m taking you,” he repeated.
Shivering from excitement, Reese scooped up her purse as they pulled in front of the Crowne Plaza and gave him a cocky grin. “If I don’t take you first.”
She didn’t wait for Knight, but got out of the car and stepped onto the sidewalk.
The September night was cool and balmy and the breeze from the north brought a faint fishy smell of the lake, making her wrinkle her noise.
Give her exhaust fumes any day over that briny odor.
At least in New York all the bad smells were man-made.
Knight joined her at the door as she went into the hushed lobby of the hotel, the only sound the low voices of the desk clerks speaking to guests, and the constant ding of the elevators.
Reese had always felt the urge to swat men off her like irritating insects when they latched onto her arm or elbow or the small of her back.
But when Knight did it, she didn’t mind.
It was a promise of pleasure, a reminder that he had large masculine hands that were soon going to be all over her body, stroking her mindless.
As his fingers pressed into her dress, right above her thong panty line, he told her, “You’re forgetting I’m an agent. I have a lot of experience with take-downs.”
She had a button on her body that read Get me off, and Knight seemed to know exactly where it was. And he wasted no time in pushing it frequently.
“How is that relevant here?” Reese stepped onto the elevator and hit the five.
They were the only people on the elevator, a fact she was very aware of when the doors closed, leaving them in a small enclosed space where no one could see anything they might happen to do.
Knight took a step towards her, stalking. “That’s why I get to do the taking first. Because I can.”
The sensual game of words left her breathless, clinging to the wall of the elevator with her hand, thighs rubbing together in agony.
“I’m not a perpetrator, though.”
“Yes, you are. You’re so damn sexy it should be illegal.”
He was in front of her, surrounding her, shirt rustling across her bare chest above her cleavage.
His scent filled her nostrils, a rich, deep exotic smell of aftershave, musky soap, and expensive clothes.
It was different from the way she remembered him the day before, earthy and casual. Gritty at the end of a long day.
“You can’t arrest me for being sexy.” Reese dipped her nose into the hollow of his neck and sniffed again, running her lips along the collar of his burgundy shirt.
“Yes, I can.”
The elevator shuddered to a stop, the doors opened, and Knight stepped away from her.
Reese slipped past him and said, “You can’t if you can’t catch me.”
Then with a laugh, she sprinted down the hall towards room 517, the heels slowing her down a little, her purse falling off her shoulder. When she heard him give chase, she kicked it into third gear, delighted that he was going to play with her.