TWELVE
Rome had been running on empty for the last six hours he’d spent holed up with O in the war room, digging up everything about John Hutchins they could find, only to come to the same conclusion.
John Hutchins was clean. The facial match really was a plant.
He stopped in the hall between his room and Stina’s. His was cracked open, and he swung toward it automatically. Settling his palm against his door, he pushed it open.
As soon as his gaze fell on his bed, his stomach squeezed.
Stina was in his bed again.
Something in his chest did a thing he didn’t have language to explain. He stood in the doorway for a long heartbeat and just looked at her, curled on her side.
If all he had was a few hours a night with her in his arms, he’d take it.
He set his gear down and sat on the edge of the bed to pull off his boots. He’d shower. Let her sleep.
It wasn’t what his body craved, but it was a solid plan.
Then she stirred.
He stilled, feeling the mattress shifting under him.
He twisted to see her pushed onto one elbow, blinking at him through the dark, hair wild around her face. Her eyes were soft with sleep.
She looked completely undone and absolutely beautiful…and he was in so much trouble.
“You’re back.” Her voice was husky from sleep.
His gut clenched with desire. “Go back to sleep.”
She sat up the rest of the way, the blanket dropping to her waist. She swung her legs over the side of the bed to stand.
He watched her stand there in the dark looking at him.
She was quiet for a moment. Then she stepped forward, put her hands on either side of his face and kissed him.
It wasn’t tentative. It wasn’t a question. It was warm and certain, and tasted like something he’d been thinking about forever.
With a groan, he kissed her back. Hands finding her waist, he pulled her closer.
She sighed into him as if her waiting was over.
With a growl, he bracketed her face with his hands and kissed her the way he’d wanted to for too many days to count. Each brush of his lips—stroke of his tongue—he pulled tiny moans from her while slowly sliding his hands under the hem of her top.
She made another sound that damn near snapped his control.
He drew back enough to look at her. Her eyes were dark and her full lips swollen from his kisses. The way she was looking at him—
He didn’t finish the thought. He pressed his lips to her jaw, her throat, the spot below her ear that made her breath hitch.
She caught the edge of his shirt and tugged it upward. He shifted his arms and let her take it off him.
Then her palms were flat on his chest and her mouth on his and he stopped thinking about the dead end and the planted face in the photograph.
He thought about nothing but Stina.
He whipped off her top and cupped her full, bare breasts. When he swished his thumbs over the crests, she dropped her head back and arched into his touch.
God, this woman was going to break him if he wasn’t careful.
Cradling her head, he plunged his tongue between her lips, gathering more of those tormenting little noises. Still plundering her, he lay her down on his bed. She reached for his fly, and he caught her wrist.
“Not yet.” His chest heaved from the effort to say the words.
She searched his eyes, her brow crinkled. “Rome—”
“Let me.” He brought her wrist to his mouth and brushed his lips to the inside of it just to feel her pulse leap against his tongue. “I want to make you feel good first.”
The protest died, and he took full advantage of her silence, working his way down her body from her collarbone to the swell of her breast, taking his time with her, flicking his tongue over her stiff nipple. As he drew it into his mouth and gave a soft pull, she moaned.
But when he sucked harder, she arched and twisted her fingers in his hair.
He moved lower, one hand skimming the flat of her stomach, memorizing the way her muscles tightened under his palm. She still wore panties, and he cupped her pussy through the thin fabric.
“Rome!” she bit off.
Watching her face, he slid a finger down the seam all the way to the damp heat of her entrance. When he applied pressure with his fingertip, she dug her fingers into his shoulders.
“Please.” The word came out with a moan as he tore the last barrier away.
He threw her legs over his shoulders and went down on her.
She gasped his name as his tongue landed on her slippery folds. He gathered her juices and coaxed out more with small flicks. Trapping her clit under his mouth, he stole a look at her beautiful face in the throes of pleasure.
He worked her with soft pulls of his mouth and flips of his tongue until she was shaking and her thighs clamped around his head.
He felt her building and hit her breaking point—her full-body shudder vibrated through him too. She cried out over and over as her release consumed her. He held her through it, slowing his tongue until her body went liquid and her breath came in ragged huffs.
Only then did he kiss his way back up her body.
This time when she reached for his pants, he let her. She worked the zipper with unsteady hands and pushed the cloth down. As she drew his cock into her hand, his jaw clenched from the effort of holding still.
She pulled him closer, placing her lips at his ear. “I want you,” she whispered. “All of you.”
The way she said it—all of you—struck him in the chest like a blast. He told himself she meant this—the physical. The here and now in the dark with the taste of her on his tongue.
But part of him had another interpretation.
He’d been calling this fling with her just that—proximity, circumstance.
Or the need to make her quit arguing even if he stopped it with a kiss.
But hovering over her with her heartbeat against his ribs and her hair teasing his skin, he was running out of ways to believe it.
He was in serious trouble.
* * * * *
Stina had been patient long enough.
Rome was right here, warm and solid and finally back from his mission, and she was done waiting.
She pushed him back onto the pillow and worked her way down his body the way she’d been daydreaming about.
She skated her mouth down his stomach to the ridge of muscle above his hip.
He issued a rough noise, and she met his stare. His jaw was locked, his eyes dark and fixed on her face.
She dipped her head and took him into her mouth.
The sound he made—low, grating, involuntary and barely contained—went straight through her. She worked him slow and thorough, hollowing her cheeks and drawing on his thick length until his fists curled into her hair.
Unable to hold it back, she moaned around him and closed her eyes. The taste of him, the weight of him, the way he fisted her hair without pulling, all made her mind spin with desire.
She withdrew on him slowly, inch by slow inch, flicking her eyes up at him as she swirled her tongue over the tip and gathered his precum.
“Christ, baby—” He pulled her up his body.
“I wasn’t finished.”
“I won’t last if you keep going.” He claimed her mouth, the kiss brutal at first and all-consuming. When she tore away, gasping, she went straight for one of the condoms in his side table.
“Stina.” Her name came out as a warning and a plea at the same time.
She smiled at him as she tore it open. Rolling it down his length, she watched his expression, her blood sparking with every heartbeat.
His gaze locked on her face as she straddled him. And in one slow glide, she sank over his cock.
“Fuck!” He jerked his hips upward, filling her to the hilt.
She braced her hands on his chest and began to roll her hips, and he gripped them as if she were the only thing anchoring him to the earth.
She rocked faster, taking him in slow increments. Suddenly, his hands were everywhere, skimming over her body and cupping her breasts before dancing over her ribs and around to her back, like he was trying to touch every part of her at once.
She found her rhythm, taking him harder, faster. Her inner walls clenched around him as the pressure built low in her core.
What worried her was the way he made her feel. Inside.
She knew how she got. When it came to guys, she threw herself all in, diving headfirst and coming up with her emotions ripped to shreds in her hands and nowhere to put them.
Every relationship, every guy seemed worth the risk, right up until the point where things got too complicated.
She pushed all thoughts of those guys out of her mind and focused on the man inside her.
Rome’s jaw was tight, his eyes burning. He tensed beneath her, his grip on her hips tight, his breaths ragged.
He lifted her off him and flipped her onto her stomach. As he yanked her hips back and up, driving into her from behind, she gasped into the pillow.
In one quick shove, he settled against the throb in her core.
She bit back a cry of bliss as he drove into her hard. His cock took her right to the very brink before he felt her starting to shake and then he’d back off.
But when his lips found the back of her neck and he grazed his teeth and tongue across her skin, she couldn’t stop what was happening to her body—or her heart—anymore.
He snaked a hand beneath her and found her clit with his fingers. The pressure sent stars shooting across her vision, and her mind blanked to everything but ecstasy as he took her over the edge.
“Jack! I’m—” The release tore through her in a wave that left her shaking.
He froze at her use of his name that he’d never told her. “Fuck!”
She felt his cock jerk inside her and heard a sound deep in his chest. She pressed her hips back into his, jolting through his release with her own aftershocks.
After heavy heartbeats, his callused fingers left her clit, and she issued a throaty sigh. He ran his hands over her hips and then his palm came down on her ass—a sharp, playful sting.
She cried out in surprise before she burst out laughing into the pillow.
His weight left the bed, and she lay there, unmoving. Her face was hot and she hadn’t caught her breath yet, but she couldn’t quit smiling.
She heard Rome leave the room. She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling, trying to locate her scattered senses.
He came back and dropped onto the bed beside her. One arm hooked her around the waist and he pulled her against his side. She settled into the warmth of him, her cheek pillowed on his chiseled chest and one leg tangled with his.
He moved his hand in a slow stroke up her spine. “You surprised me.”
She blinked at him.
“You said my name.”
“Did not.”
“Did too. When you were coming on my cock.”
She shivered at the memory and ran her hand over his chest. “Jolie told me it’s Jack.”
“Like I said, you surprised me.” A beat of silence hung between them. Then he covered her hand with his larger one. “What did you do today?”
She considered the question. Was she going to tell him about being so restless that fluffing pillows became a new hobby?
No. She was not.
“Less exciting than your day, I’m sure.”
“Mm.” His chest rose and fell.
“Why didn’t you tell me you went to Chicago?” She tipped her head back to look at him. “What were you doing there?”
He studied her face for a beat, one fingertip paused at the base of her spine over her tattoo that seemed to intrigue him.
Just when she thought he wouldn’t tell her, he said, “We got a facial match off the footage in the alley behind the restaurant. Someone we thought could be responsible for your guard’s death.”
She stilled.
“We tracked the person to Chicago. Navy guy, stationed at Great Lakes.”
She jolted. “Where we flew out of. Where those guys chased us to.” Her voice wobbled.
Rome kept his voice flat, as if he was reporting to Cannon. “But his alibi is solid enough for us not to question it. Evidence proves he was on base that day.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “So it wasn’t him.”
“No.”
“Then”—she pushed onto her elbow—“what does that mean? The real murderer has a twin out there? A doppelganger running around killing federal agents?”
She picked up the edge in her own voice and felt the hollowness of what it all meant.
It meant that this was still her life. A life where she wasn’t safe and Chicago would never just be Chicago again.
“Stina.”
“Someone killed him.” Her voice came out quiet. “He was protecting me and someone killed him, and you went all the way to Chicago and—” She stopped.
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her back down to his chest, anchoring one hand in her hair.
“Baby, listen to me.”
Her heart squeezed at the tenderness in his tone and the endearment he used.
“What matters right now,” he whispered against her temple, “is that you’re safe. You’re here.” He brushed a kiss over her forehead. “And we have all night.”
His lips found hers again, warm and unhurried, the kiss different from before.
Then he slid his hand down her stomach and lower, between her thighs.
And she stopped thinking about Chicago.