CHAPTER 6
Ian
“Oh, yeah … yeah … more …”
Ian gripped Rachel’s slim hips and mindlessly thrust into her, his fingers seeking purchase. She’d lost more weight since the last time he’d seen her, and this new, super-bony version didn’t do a thing for him.
Yes, Rachel was a model, but a man had to have some curves. Hips he could hold on to. Hips like—
“Ian,” she moaned. “Where’re you at, babe?”
He blinked.
Rachel was looking at him over her shoulder, her brown eyes a little desperate.
He brought his hand to her left butt cheek, and the slap resounded in his bedroom, despite the classical music desecration that she had plugged into his sound system and cranked up way too high.
“Canon in D” remix, an abomination put together by some musician buddy of hers.
Pachelbel was surely spinning in his burial plot in Nuremberg.
That Ian was even capable of thinking these things during a fuck evidenced that he was just not into it. But lately, this had become the norm.
“Yeah … harder …”
She meant both fuck her and smack her ass harder, and Ian complied. The faster he could get to the finish line, the faster he could get her and her music out of his space. Without missing a beat, he fisted a handful of her thick brown mane and pulled, exactly as he knew she wanted it.
Rachel liked it rougher than he cared to give it, but he’d never heard her complain. He made up for it in other ways, he supposed.
Her breath was coming fast now, and with each of his thrusts, she made a catlike mewling sound, signaling that she was close. He reached around, quickly found the spot he knew would get her off, and fingered her with swift precision.
“Not yet,” she whined. “Feels so good … still want … your cock … oh, fuck me slower, Ian!”
Yeah, well, not happening.
“But I want you to come.” Covering her back with his front, he stopped moving and, ignoring her cry of protest, leaned in and proceeded to murmur in her ear the outrageously filthy things he knew she liked to hear when she was starting to shudder.
“Ahh, I’m gonna come!”
Thank God.
“Uh-huh.” He stroked her a little harder and rolled his hips. “That’s it. Back into me.”
She did, and the next second, he resumed the hard thrusts, aiming to hit the right spot every time.
“Oh my God!”
He smacked her ass again, and that finally did it. She gripped him rhythmically, spasming around him and setting him off in seconds.
With one final grunt, he went slack, lying on her sweat-slicked back for a moment. He pulled out, moved away, and set to wordlessly tying off the condom, his mind drawing a blank.
“Oh God,” she uttered, her long, glittery nails appearing as she unfisted his wrinkled sheets and flipped over, a broad smile on her red face. “So good. Always so good, Ian. You really are a stud.”
He smirked. “You think?”
She heaved a contented sigh. “Yeah, babe. There’s no one like you. I missed you.”
Ian said nothing. He finished knotting the condom and sat on the edge of the bed, trying to figure out why he felt the way he did.
Ian couldn’t even describe it. Never in his life had he felt vacant while with a woman.
She crawled over to him and shimmied close, kissing his thigh, then drew a fingertip along his half-hard shaft. “Almost ready to go again?”
Physically, yes. Mentally …
She reached to grip him, but he caught her wrist, gently but firmly removing her hand. “I have an early meeting tomorrow morning.”
She pouted, and he gave her a smile that he realized didn’t reach his eyes, but that was all the enthusiasm he could muster.
“OK.” He patted her hip.
She well knew this was his way of asking her to leave. But with an exaggerated sigh, she hopped out of bed, then turned to face him, wedging herself between his spread knees and shoving her tits right in his face.
She looked down at his cock and smirked. “You sure?”
Again, his mind went elsewhere, conjuring the image of Claire’s spectacular breasts. The way she’d stood in that exact spot, cradled his face between her palms, and looked right into him.
Ian closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. This had occurred every time he’d brought a woman to his bed since that night at the Lark.
“You sure?” Rachel repeated.
“If I weren’t sure, I’d have said so.” He patted her hip again. “I had fun.”
“When can I see you again?” She ran her nails lightly down his chest, eyes bright and full of lust.
“I don’t know. I’m going to be busy for the next several weeks.” He caught a lock of her brown hair, tugging gently.
Her cherry-red lips drew into another pout. “Call me?”
His only answer was a gentle kiss on her cheek. He wasn’t about to make promises he knew he wouldn’t keep.
Rachel was a nice girl, and he had enjoyed their few encounters in the past. He felt like an asshole for agreeing to hook up with her when she’d texted him tonight.
She didn’t deserve this. It wasn’t her fault that Claire had ruined him for anyone else.
·
“Good morning, Sunshine.” Ryan Frost tossed a large manila envelope on Ian’s desk. “As requested.”
He held a steaming mug imprinted with bold FBI initials and the intricate seal. Underneath, in tiny print, the caption, “Just because you won’t tell me doesn’t mean I won’t find out.”
Ian had given it to him as a gag gift when Ryan had abruptly quit the agency, not expecting him to actually use it. As always, his friend surprised him. He used it daily.
“There’d better be more than last time, Frost,” Ian grumbled, setting down his own mug and reaching to break the seal.
Ryan smiled, his dark brown eyes glinting with the hard, sometimes disturbing look of a former FBI man.
They’d been friends since fourth grade, when he had found Ryan in the boys’ room in the middle of the day, repeatedly punching his backpack.
He’d been sent to the principal’s office, pending suspension, and instead of heading on down there, Ryan was practicing his tae kwon do moves on some green ninja turtle’s masked face.
Fast-forward twenty years, and as soon as Ryan left the FBI and Ian left Vegas to move back to Fargo, Ian helped him set up a PI business.
Ian was only a silent partner in it, but it had aided him often in his profession: corporate attorney, which included remotely taking care of all his brother’s legal needs at LarsAir.
“Oh, there’s more, all right.” Ryan smirked. “I must admit, I thoroughly enjoyed putting this one together.”
Ian glared at him. “There’d better not be any nudes.”
That earned him a rare laugh. “Unfortunately for me, no. That has to be a spectacular rack underneath those clothes.” Ryan clapped Ian’s shoulder as he moved to return to his office down the hall. “Enjoy.”
Ian paused for a moment before extracting the contents of the full envelope. Yeah, he’d told himself he’d let Claire go, but curiosity had gotten the best of him. Nothing to do with the fact that he seemed to think of her every damned moment.
It looked as if Ryan had left no stone unturned, and Ian hoped that what was in there wouldn’t reveal anything damning.
He pulled out the sheaf.
The first thing, on top of all of it, was a photo of her getting out of a car, and everything inside him seemed to go on full alert.
His eyes roamed over her beautiful face.
Those lips that had wrapped around him so eagerly.
That silky copper hair he’d fisted; those long, shapely legs that had clamped around his waist; those big breasts he’d spent hours caressing.
The way they’d bounced in circles as he’d …
Ian swiftly hardened. He passed a hand over his face. It had been weeks now, and still, every woman he had fucked had been a disappointment.
He turned the photo face down, picked up the cover page, and began to read.
Claire Dorothy Burns, twenty-eight years old, grew up in Rockville, Maryland. Her dad was a criminal defense attorney; her mother, an accountant.
Claire attended Liberty University, then the School of Law at University of Virginia and was now a junior attorney at a well-known firm out of Northern Virginia.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Ian muttered. “Big Law.”
He picked up her photo again. At one point during the night, when they had ordered room service and fed one another in bed, he’d told Claire he was an attorney and asked what she did for a living.
Instead of answering, she’d reached down to grip him, thumb pressing on the exact spot she’d discovered he liked, whispering that she’d rather do things to him than talk about herself.
At the time, he hadn’t protested. But he hadn’t thought she’d vanish either. Now, he realized she hadn’t wanted any information exchange because she had no intention of turning their one night into anything more.
Neither had he. He’d only gone into it for one night of fantastic fucking, and that was undoubtedly what he’d gotten.
Except that he hadn’t been able to forget.
Not only the sex but her.
Her smile. Her laugh. The way she looked at him as if she wanted to learn him inside and out.
The way she could simply lay her head on his shoulder and contentedly accept the finger food he slipped into that talented mouth that had him gritting his teeth and fisting the sheets minutes before.
The way she gave herself completely to him and took everything he offered without artifice or reservation.
And how he could so easily make her come, over and over again. She’d made him feel as if he possessed some sort of sexual superpower.
Great. Now, he was sitting at his desk with a raging hard-on.
Quickly, he set down the photo and turned his attention back to the report.
Mother’s name: Nora Nilsen.
He gawked at the paper.
Nilsen, spelled the Norwegian way. And, Nora … the woman possessed as common a Norwegian name as could be found.
Claire was half Norwegian, no doubt about it. Ian found himself laughing softly. He never would have guessed. Apparently, her looks came from her obviously Irish dad, Patrick Burns.