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  His hand trailed down her ribs and slid around her hips to her butt. “This skirt is better than the other one too. This cups your ass, like I’d be doing something wrong if I didn’t put my hands on it.” The slap came out of nowhere, but the sting was instantly soothed away by his firm hand massaging it none too softly.

  “Don’t think you can—”

  Her put a finger to her lips and kept his dark eyes focused intently on hers. “I know you like to be in charge, so I’m asking nicely. Once.” He unhooked her bra and let it fall to the floor in one swift movement. “I’m going to take all your clothes off now, and lay you down on that bunk so you can grip nice and tight to the bar over your head.”

  “Didn’t sound like much of a request.”

  “You’re right. I wasn’t asking. Any problems with that?”

  “Lots,” she said through clenched teeth as one of his hands strayed to the front of her skirt and started sliding up under the hem.

  A small part of her brain stood up and yelled at her to stop him, to take back control. This was not how she liked it. Not how things in her life played out. But a bigger part of her brain, one with a team of cheerleaders, pom-poms at the ready, were cheering him on, and that part of her had never wanted to be naked so much in her life.

  His hand strayed farther up her thigh, while his lips tracked down her neck to take her left breast into his mouth. Talking was out of the question and all words of protest shuffled to the edge of her tongue and dropped to the floor unspoken.

  “Good,” he said as he came up for air, then undoing the button at her waist, dropped her skirt to the floor, leaving her only in her panties and boots. “It’s quite a good look on you,” he said, eyes sparkling, before he walked her back toward the bunk bed. When the cold metal frame pressed against her back, shots of lust, powerful as any measure of bourbon, powered through her bloodstream, making her want to melt against him, deeper, further. As his tongue dipped inside her mouth and demanded she dance her own with his, the lust-bourbon finally conquered her bones and she almost lost the ability to stand. Wrapping her arms around him for support, she willed herself to let go. To have this night of bliss before she started out on a new road of making enemies with the men just inside at the bar.

  “Lie down for me, Lucy.”

  Fingers tightening around his shoulders, she dug in, not able to quite do as he asked, yet.

  His fingers toyed with the waistband of her panties, then without warning, he yanked them off and slid a hand between her thighs. “I did ask nicely. But if you don’t want to lie down, I can just have you right here.” His hand moved between her thighs and she took a sharp intake of breath when a strong finger traced the edges of her folds before pressing inside her without further invitation. Lucy clenched, willing herself to hold back, to fight the sensation that was surging through her and wanting her to fall back on the bed and let him do his worst.

  Moving his finger in a steady rhythm, Jake dropped to his knees before her. “You know how good you taste? Hot and bright and bad for me like whiskey.”

  “No. Not like that. Fuck me. I want all of you this time.”

  He paused, and pulled away from her. “Relax. You’re going to have your cock and eat it too. I promise. But not yet. Not now.”

  “What? Why not now?”

  “Because I want you to let go completely. I want you to trust me.”

  The word thrust its head into the room like a giant bird with a sharp pointy beak. Trust him? She could count on two fingers the people she trusted completely, and neither of them were men. These past years had been a constant struggle to make a space for herself in the world. To fight off her mom’s fears. To seek out her truth, find what made her happy. And even then, when she’d finally found it, it was taken away from her time and again. Trust him? She wasn’t sure if she even trusted herself.

  Her reluctance had clearly transferred into her body and Jake stood, smoothing his hands over her stiff arms as he did.

  “You’ve had to fight. All your life, haven’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “I get it. But you don’t have to fight this. Let go. You’ve got yourself wound so tight no one’s got a chance of getting in.”

  “What if I don’t want to let anyone in?” She was aware that her voice was harsh, her words spiked, but she couldn’t afford to submit to him. To anyone. And that was what he wanted. If she did, she knew she’d be a mess, and there wasn’t time or space in her life for being a mess. She had to make it as a mechanic. Period. And that meant fighting everyone and everything that got in her way. “I have to be in control. It’s how I survive.”

  “Survive is right. But this is about living.”

  “When did we go from having sex to life lessons?” Jutting out her jaw, Lucy put her hands around his waist and pulled him toward her. “Kiss me.”

  He did, his tongue gentle and probing rather than hard and hot as it had been before. “Let me in,” he said, one hand stroking her right breast, before the other cupped her left, his thumbs rubbing her pebbled nipples, his eyes not leaving hers.

  “Not all men have to want something from you and some of them even want to take you seriously. I’m coming with you on your crazy break-in mission because I want to help. Nothing more. No agenda.”

  She blinked, his words cutting a hard slash across her self-control. “I’m not sure, I . . .” But the rest of the sentence deserted her as she felt something she hadn’t allowed herself to feel for the longest time. Tears, the hot hiss of tears threatened and she didn’t know what to do with them. Putting a hand to her face she covered her eyes, unwilling to let him see how close she was to losing it. This could not be happening. She wouldn’t let it.

  “Hey, I didn’t mean to get you upset. Shit, I can’t even do this right.”

  “No, it’s not you. You’ve been kind—crap. No one is kind around here and I sure didn’t expect you to be. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me. Give me a moment.” She turned away from him but it didn’t help, all of a sudden the tears were falling and she was shuddering, not just crying but openly weeping.

  “Hey. Hey, fuck ’em all, let it go, let it all out.” He pulled her to him and she let him, even while she kept her face away from him, not willing or able to let him see the full extent of her collapse.

  Finally, the tears finished, but her body felt hollow, lost without a magnetic north to drive it, like gravity had left her hovering. Still, she pulled herself up, broadened her shoulders, and sniffed. “I’m fine.”

  “I know,” he said, releasing her and taking a step back to allow her to reorient herself as if he knew how much this had knocked her.

  “I don’t know what that was about. I mean, shit, one minute you’ve got me hotter than ghost pepper sauce and the next I’m weeping like a little girl. Some mean voodoo skills you’ve got there, Iceman.” She flinched at her own words. She hadn’t cried like that even when she was a little girl. “I wasn’t allowed to cry as a kid. I guess it still freaks me out a little.” That and she’d had to suck it up out here in the real world for so long she’d forgotten what it was like not to. The words out in the room startled her and suddenly feeling more vulnerable than she had in a long time she remembered she was naked too, so pulled a sheet off the bunk bed, and sat down.

  “You weren’t allowed to cry? What if you skinned your knee or something?”

  “That was the worst. You weren’t allowed to show physical pain. It was a form of weakness. Mom was all about the healing properties of the mind, even when I was pretty little. If it hurt, I wasn’t trying hard enough and needed to be put away from the temptations of the world.”

  “That’s nuts. Sorry.”

  Lucy shrugged. “It is nuts.”

  “And then you came here?”

  “Yep. I stayed home longer than I wanted because of my kid sister. But she’s different than me. Gentler, kinder. She’s can talk Mom around sometimes; she’s still in school, and it’s not like I have anyw
here I can have her stay.”

  “Shit.” He sat down on the bed next to her and put an arm around her shoulder. The arm felt good. Better than good, his arm held her close but didn’t demand she give up anything, it was just a support, something to lean on. A small smile escaped and the muscles in her face almost cracked with the release of it. She put a hand to his face and pulled him down into a kiss.

  He pulled back. “You sure?”

  “Oh yes. That whole speech about living, you know, smelling the flowers?”

  “You’re putting words into my mouth there, I’ve never been much into gardens.”

  “I know. But you listened. That’s worth even more.” She dropped the sheet and he stopped talking. And kissed her back.

  His kiss this time was tender and warm and every kind of caress she’d ever dared hope for before she pushed it aside. She let him in, right in, melted against his body with a passion that was born of fear and tension and desperation and hope. Hope that she might have found a guy to have her back at least for a night. Someone she could trust to release the fear of losing control that had set up residence in her very bones. What happened next could wait. Once she started with the Reapers of Menace, if she did, she wouldn’t be able to do this. Her world was going to change.

  * * *

  The way she kissed was everything. Simply, everything. Her tears had surprised him as much as they’d shaken her, and he realized that he wanted to make love to her, not simply take her over the edge into oblivion.

  The desire had been bubbling in him for a while. Even that was an understatement; ever since he’d had her shaking under his tongue on his hotel balcony he’d wanted to have her himself. Every time he saw her, every time he watched her with another man, a pang of need had settled in the pit of his stomach, daring his blood flow to redirect its course to his heart, to not head downward. Now, like slowly warming motor oil, he let the greedy desire to have her fill him up and take his blood wherever it wanted to go. Down was the definite decision. Down, hard and fast.

  Stripping off his shirt, he put her hand to his chest and she smoothed it down over his pecs toward his abs. Delicious.

  Nudging her gently back against the pillows, he kissed her again. Let his breath deepen, tried to consciously slow his heartbeat. “Remember how I said you were beautiful,” he said as he broke contact. “It’s true.”

  “Inside and out huh?” she said and he grinned. Grins weren’t very often in his repertoire of facial expressions. “Well, I’d like to say yes to that, but I wouldn’t know yet. Perhaps we should do something about that.” Stripping off his pants in record time, he lay himself over her. Skin. Perfect skin.

  “You feel damn great, I’ll give you that, Iceman,” she said, running her hands down his back. “Whatever it is that you do to that body of yours, it makes me hungry. You’re all hard but this skin, so soft. It shouldn’t work, but it so does.” She bit him, none too gently, on the shoulder.

  “Nothing but soap and water and a good workout here. Although I guess that might be a bit different from some of the guys around this place. Not much love for soap, some of them.”

  She chuckled and dug her nails into his butt so he hissed through his teeth. “I’m the one that’s usually doing the talking. This is all kinds of weird, Iceman.”

  “Well then, how about we both stop talking?” He caught her gaze, felt it settle deep inside him, her eyes glittering, her jaw as tense as his felt. Sheathing himself with a condom in record time, he ran his hand up her side to grip her hip but she beat him to it, wrapping her legs around his waist and opening herself up to him.

  He nudged at her entrance, willing himself to take it slow, but she would have none of it. She arched her back and digging her nails in again, pulled hard against his butt, sliding him deep and firm inside her.

  For a moment he didn’t want to breathe, didn’t want to think in case he let himself loose too early, and she must have felt it too as she stilled, clenched tightly around him. Then slowly, slowly, he calmed and withdrew, inch by inch, until he was almost at her entrance again. Concentrating on his breath, he slid in, and out, over and over, until their breaths were entwined and it felt like their hearts beat at the same rhythm. Then she twisted, arching her back and allowing him even deeper access inside and he teetered at the edge.

  He shook from the effort of holding himself back, wanting nothing more than the release that was hiding just out of reach but not wanting to end this union. Because that was what this had become. Where their first time together on the balcony had been cut short, now he wanted to stroke every last ounce of pleasure from her for as long as possible.

  Her hands moved from his butt, where they had been pulling him back inside her to deepen each thrust, and she clung onto his shoulders. “I’m close,” she managed. “So close.”

  The sweet tingle clenched at his balls and he picked up speed. Their breaths stayed linked, and he caught her eye, watching for the contraction in her pupils that said everything about where her body was heading. A moan escaped from deep in her throat and he felt her climax building. Clenched by her sweet velvet glove, he held on, letting her ride him, harder, faster, deeper.

  The haze of pleasure swept over her face and she shut her eyes, her breath hitching, caught in the spiral of her orgasm. As she started to soften, her muscles releasing, he gripped her hips and started to work her over him, again and again, hoping to reignite the fire and take it even higher.

  “Oh, man. Again. Yes. Oh, yes, please.”

  He gave up all control and her scream was mingled with his shout as he filled her up. Jerking out of control, his cock took on a mind of its own, twitching in every direction to grab onto every scrap of pleasure her body would share with his. The orgasm stretched on and on, unfettered, unbound, free. And then, there was nothing. Silence. Stillness. Only the heavy thud of his heartbeat chasing to keep up with hers.

  Collapsed into a heap of naked arms and legs, Jake looked at Lucy and found her eyes on his. “That was . . .”

  “Wasn’t it?” She sighed, a happy sigh, and wrapped an arm around him. “Men are idiots. But they have their uses.”

  The laugh came out of his nose as more of a snort, which only made him laugh harder, and got Lucy going too.

  “You could cut yourself some slack. You know that, right?” Out of the warm bubble that they had created, Lucy spoke.

  “What do you mean?” he said, but knew, instantly, that she was talking about Sarah and the warmth dimmed a little.

  “You can play it like that if you want to.”

  “I want to. Can’t we just enjoy this moment. Now. Here?”

  “Sure.” But a moment later, she rolled over to him again. “We both know what I’m talking about. The girl, who died.”

  Jake raised an eyebrow. “What happened to enjoying the moment?”

  She slapped at him. “She made the decision to do the stunt. If she didn’t want to, she wouldn’t have done it.”

  “Yes. But I could have stopped her. Should have stopped her.” Despite Lucy scratching at the surface of his very real wound, Jake wasn’t angry. To have her give a shit was comforting, nice, despite the strangeness of it coming from someone so new in his life.

  “Sounds to me like no one could have stopped her.”

  You’re going to just sit there and let her tell you to suck it up? “I could have. It’s part of the job when I’m running stunts. It’s what people hire me to do.”

  “They hire you to play characters, to do stunts. To manage them. Not to look inside people’s heads to check if they’re going to flake out at the last minute, or predict the future. No one can do that. If they could, they’d be millionaires and we’d know about it.”

  Jake thought about the job offer he’d just gotten. He’d dismissed it out of hand, but a part of him had been tempted. A chance at redemption. Javier obviously didn’t think Sarah’s death was his fault. But he wasn’t there.

  Lucy rolled over and he caught a whiff of her
scent. Deep and earthy, just like her. “I think your definition of enjoying the moment is different from mine.”

  “What, you mean your definition doesn’t include this?” Her hand wound its way around his cock and stroked soft fingers down its length.

  “Okay, I take it back.”

  She laughed and pushed him back so that she could climb on top of him. “Don’t think you’re getting away with not talking about what happened because I’m going to ride your pretty cock off into the sunrise. You’ve got some sort of low-grade PTSD to deal with so I know this may not make a difference, but know that it’s true all the same. It. Was. Not. Your. Fault.”

  He opened his mouth to protest but she stole a kiss that wiped his mind clear of what he was going to say.

  7.

  Watching Jake’s chest rise and fall under sleep’s gentle embrace, Lucy let the full extent of their conversation wash over her. She’d cried in front of him. Cried!

  Pulling back the tangle of sheets, she carefully, carefully climbed over him and off the bottom bunk. He stirred but didn’t wake and Lucy looked down at his peaceful face. In sleep the hard edge of his jaw softened and the lines around his eyes disappeared. Watching someone die in front of you must have been horrific, there was no doubt about that, but he looked like he’d let it infiltrate every part of his body, stiffening his muscles to the point of brittleness.

  With a start, she realized what the tears really meant: she trusted him. Seriously? You’ve known the guy two minutes. It was true, but her whole body ached with the desire to wake him, to have the assurance of his strong form behind her when she stole into the night. Then she looked down at the tumble of his pants where a big set of keys from Wilde’s Hotel splayed from his pocket. He didn’t need more mess on his conscience, not when he was trying to build a life for himself with his newly discovered sister. And what she was about to walk into would mean more mess for him than it did for her. “Listen to your head, girl, sometimes your body is about as smart as a hippo on crack,” she whispered.