29. Skills and Stories
29
SKILLS AND STORIES
Jake
She’d been under my skin all week, and every encounter had amped up my want. Every touch, every taste, every goddamn moment with Ruby. In and out of bed. Every narrow escape, every second of our stakeouts.
All of it.
I wanted her more and more. Now, that desire ran deeper, beyond the physical. I cared for her so much more than I should, more than I had room for in my life. But I was ignoring all those risks tonight.
I’d been ignoring them all along, swimming farther and farther from shore with her.
I climbed over her, spread those beautiful legs, then rubbed my aching cock against her slick heat, my breath hissing at that first delirious contact. “Even better than last night,” I said, then slid into her.
More intense than last night too. We fit perfectly.
She gasped, her mouth falling open. She looked so deliciously sexy like that, and so vulnerable. That was what undid me—how much I wanted all of her.
“It was so hard to leave you last night. I don’t know why I try to resist you. It’s the hardest thing I’ve done,” I admitted as I filled her, taking a beat to linger in the sheer pleasure of being inside her.
“Don’t resist me,” she whispered, soft and vulnerable.
“I won’t.” I pulled back then thrust into her again, her eyes going hazy with lust.
She moaned my name, the sound of that one syllable so wanton, so needy. “Deeper,” she panted.
I thrust harder, filling her all the way.
Her cry was animalistic.
“Like that?”
“Yes, god yes,” she gasped. “More.”
“Anything you want,” I said, and her need sent the lust in me on a high-speed chase through my bones.
I craved her pleasure fiercely, with an intensity that surprised me. No, it wasn’t just intensity. It was a damn obsession. I was obsessed with making her cry out in ecstasy again. I reached for her thigh and wrapped her legs around me. I drove deeper like that, electricity surging in my veins.
Her nails dug into my shoulders, a sign she was close. I was learning her signs. I wanted to be a goddamn expert in them. I maneuvered a hand between her legs, sliding a finger against her. With that touch, her pants turned fevered, her moans frenzied. “Yes, coming,” she cried.
Then she unleashed my name. Hungry, heated, and nothing had ever sounded so good.
Bliss. Fucking bliss.
And yet, how about one more?
I slowed my pace, gripped her hips, and rolled us over. I was on my back, and she straddled me. “Now ride me, sweetheart. Use my dick to come again.”
She smiled like she couldn’t believe her luck. Same here.
Then she rose up and down on my dick like she was having a field day with it. I thrust up as deep as I could, hoping to hit that magic spot inside her that would send her over the edge again.
Because hell, I was nearly there myself.
“Fuck. I can’t hold back,” I muttered, and I stopped trying. The base of my spine ignited, my muscles tensing as lust stormed through me, taking no prisoners.
As my climax crashed into me, she cried out again, fucking me fearlessly till she came hard too. She collapsed on me, murmuring incoherent sounds of bliss.
I was so damn happy.
I lay next to her, hot, sweaty, panting, and sated as we floated down.
She kissed me gently. Soft, slow, lingering.
“I’m staying the night,” I said. She’d already invited me earlier. But I needed to say it again, so she’d know how much I wanted to be here. Couldn’t imagine being elsewhere.
“You sure are,” she said.
We didn’t fall asleep right away. Talking seemed easier in the afterglow of great sex. We talked idly about work—she told me about a favorite dive trip in the Bahamas and I shared my Stradivarius story with her as well as more details about the knife fight in London. When I finished, she ran her fingers once more against the scar on my forearm and whispered sweetly, “I like this. It’s sexy. It says you’re rugged.”
“You like your men rugged, Ruby?” I asked, brushing a hand through her soft hair.
She shrugged, snuggling closer in my arms. I pressed my nose to her hair, inhaling her, relishing this moment.
“I do like rugged men,” she said. “It says you can do things. My ex did nothing. But you—you work hard, and I like that.”
I smiled. “I try. I like what I do, and I like that it lets me take care of my family.”
Her contented sigh worked under my skin, wove through me, seducing me. If I wasn’t careful, I’d start having feelings for her.
Having more feelings for her.
Because who was I fooling? The way my heart tripped just being near her said that ship had sailed.
“This is wild,” she said, gesturing from me to her. “And it’s everything we said we shouldn’t do.”
I kissed her forehead. “I know,” I said softly, letting a sliver of vulnerability slip through. I couldn’t find my resistance tonight, and I was done searching for it. “Seems pointless to fight this right now,” I said softly, running a thumb over her chin. “You have your hooks in me.”
She mimed latching onto me, and I laughed then wrapped an arm around her. She felt so damn good in my arms. So right. She wasn’t a bit like Rosalinda. She wasn’t a mercenary. She wasn’t conniving. Ruby had so much at stake, and she only wanted justice. She only wanted to do the right thing. None of this was remotely similar to the Medici job, and realizing that made what I wanted to say next easier. I took a deep, fueling breath, then laid it out. “What do you say we give in and enjoy this for the rest of the time we’re here?”
She beamed, like I’d said the perfect thing. Maybe she’d been hoping for that too.
“Are either of us still resisting?” she asked, tap-dancing her fingers across my chest. “It feels like we’d be acknowledging what we’re already doing.”
“That’s just semantics.” I held my breath for just an instant. “Is that okay?”
“I like working with you, and I like the way you work on orgasms for me.”
I chuckled deeply, more relieved than I could admit. “Excellent. Count on more. Because I am enjoying this. I’m enjoying you so much. More than I ever expected to,” I said, then kissed her once more.
Soon, darkness cloaked us, and the peaceful, easy feeling of her lying in my arms almost made me forget why I was there.
The job. The jewels. The bounty I was hunting.
I fell asleep thinking of diamonds and Ruby, Ruby and diamonds, and soon the two blurred together.