“No.” She shook her head, adamant. “No ice. I'm done with being cold tonight. I'm still cold, even in here.”
Okay. He could let her get away with that.
“I'll be finished in a minute, then you can get in the water,” he said. “That'll take the chill off.” Especially once he got in there with her—at least he hoped they were still headed in that direction.
He got her sleeve all the way off, and then just didn't stop. There was no sense, to his way of thinking, in leaving those last few shreds of fishnet on her.
“Lift up,” he said, and scooted what was left of the cat suit out from under her butt. From there it was one cheap thrill after another, rolling the rest of it off her leg. The other side had fallen apart at the door, so once he got to her ankle, it was a done deal.
He tossed the silky mess over by the cabinet and opened up a bottle of hydrogen peroxide.
“Let's see where you got hit in South Morrison. I saw you go down.” And had gone ballistic. Nobody deserved to die because they'd hit somebody on the head, but Hashemi had proven himself willing to do a whole lot more, and Creed couldn't say he was sorry. He never was. If there was one thing he knew, it was the good guys from the bad guys, and it was his job to go up against the bad guys and win. Win at any cost, any way he could. There were no rules in his game, no code of conduct. It was win or die every single time.
Yeah, he knew who the bad guys were, and she didn't feel like one of them. He didn't think it was possible for him to be so horny he couldn't see straight, or for him to want a woman so much it would throw off his moral compass. That part of him had always run true, so even though all the facts lined up against her, his gut was telling him not to let the feds have her. That something didn't add up.
“This is going to hurt, isn't it,” she said, turning her head and lifting up the back of her hair. She had a goose egg, all right, and a little bit of blood smeared behind her ear, and it pissed him off.
“No.” Taking a slug hurt. Screwing up and getting cut by some asshole's knife hurt. Watching your best friend die hurt—but not hydrogen peroxide on a wad of cotton.
“Ohh, ouch, ow.” She squirmed as he dabbed away, and he had to grin.
“Baby,” he said, teasing her, then had to refrain from saying it again, but with his mouth on her somewhere, anywhere while he did it.
“Oh, do something,” she said. “Blow.”
And there was another one of those surefire winners on his all-time fantasy hit list, a beautiful girl in black satin underwear begging him to blow. He knew how to “blow” a girl, would love to “blow” her—blow her mind.
“Hold on just a second.” Just a second while he let that image play in his mind a couple of times.
His gaze drifted to her lap while he dabbed, and suddenly he was right back at the door, on his knees, his gut in a knot, his chest tight. She was sweet. He knew it for a fact, and all he'd gotten was a promise more than an actual taste.
Taking a breath, he finished cleaning up the scrape on her head and made a three-pointer into the trash can with the wad of cotton. Then he gave her what she was really asking for, a little relief from the pain. He started blowing on the back of her neck and up behind her ear.
In seconds, she'd stopped squirming, everything about her telegraphing an unmistakable awareness.
Perfect,
he thought. This was all going to work out perfectly.
He let his breath drift south, over her shoulder, and his mouth followed, pressing a soft kiss on her skin. This was where he'd needed to go. She was so smooth, and he was more than ready to cross the line again.
He moved aside her bra strap, letting it fall down her arm, and pressed another kiss to her shoulder.
When she turned to look at him, he lifted his head. Her eyes were a dark, verdurous green, and a little wary, which he didn't mind. Under the circumstances, wariness was a smart move. He wanted a lot from her, everything he could get and then some.
Would you kiss me?
she'd asked, and there was only one answer: “All night long.”
Careful not to hurt her, he slid his hand around the back of her head and brought her mouth to his. Her lips were soft, open, her tongue warm and wet sliding along the length of his, instantly turning him inside out, turning him on. Yeah, this was the kind of kiss he'd needed, hot and deep, not desperate. Hell, they both had enough desperation in their lives. What he needed was time out from everything else on the planet. He needed a break.
So did she.
Moving his hand to his hip, he double-checked the safety on the Mossberg, then unclipped his gun belt, pulled the Velcro apart, and laid the whole holster off to the side.
He didn't particularly want her to see the Randall fighting knife, so he opened his mouth wider on hers, took her a little farther, held her to him tighter, while he undid the strap on his ankle and gave the knife and sheath a good shove off into the shadows. Next came his boots and socks, all of them tossed off to the side.
The kissing was great, sweet and slow, his teeth grazing her lips, her breath soft on his skin, and him being careful not to give in to the urge to shove his tongue halfway down her throat and just do the caveman thing on top of her.
No, he was cool, letting her take the lead while he got rid of his weapons and clothes. She'd turned more toward him, leaned in, and he had his hand up under her arm, his palm cupping the side of her breast. She wasn't very big on top, even in her push-up bra, just perfect, and he couldn't wait to kiss her there again. She'd been so responsive.
Reaching up and back between his shoulders, he grabbed a handful of sweater and T-shirt and pulled both of them off over the back of his head. With an overhanded toss, he lofted it all toward the sinks and countertop.
He was committed now, with her small hands touching his skin, sliding over his shoulders and up into his hair, her mouth coming back to his for more of his kiss. He ran his hands over her, from under her arms all the way down to her incredible ass. She was so curvy—sleek rib cage, small waist . . . hips. God, he loved a woman's hips. She pressed against him, bringing her satin bra in contact with his chest, rubbing against him ever so slightly, and heat flowed down into his groin.
“Come on,” he whispered, pulling her to her feet.
He stood with her in front of him, one hand around her waist, keeping her close, the other undoing his pants. He shucked out of them and his boxers, then took her hand and slipped into the pool. The water felt great, swirling around him as he led her back toward the waterfall.
It wasn't far. The whole lagoon wasn't much bigger than two or three good-sized hot tubs, big enough to hold quite a few, but he'd never had more than one in it with him, sometimes a woman, and lately Skeeter. He'd never been one for crowds of any kind.
He noticed Cody didn't drop her gaze below the water line, which made him grin. He'd like her to look. It was always such a turn-on to have a woman check you out, but since he was pretty turned on already, maybe her shyness was for the best.
What he really wanted was for her to relax. He wasn't sure he could get everything he wanted if she was too nervous, and for all her wonderful kisses and pressing up against him, she was nervous.
Well, he could probably help her out there. Leaning a little ways away from her, he cut his hand across the top of the water and splashed her. The small wall of water caught her all the way down the front, drenching her from the top of her head to her waist.
She sputtered, instantly indignant, and when she gave him the “you're in trouble, buster” look, he grinned and did it again.
Before she could retaliate, he dropped her hand and dove under the water—and circled her like a shark.
Even under water, he heard her squeal, could see her feet tap-dancing on the pool bottom, while she tried to decide which way to make a dash for it—it was such a primal response, absolutely predictable, but there wasn't going to be any escaping. He was a good shark, and when he zeroed in on her, she didn't have a chance. Like a shot, he went for her legs, grabbed her, caught her as she fell, and dragged her under.
When he brought her up for air, they were on the far side of the waterfall, with steam and mist rising up around them and the water sheeting into the pool behind them, creating a liquid barrier between them and the rest of the room, between them and the rest of the world.
“You're—” she gasped, laughing, water running down all over her. “You're . . .”
“Stupid,” he said, shoving his wet hair back off his face with both hands and grinning. “I know.”
“And . . . and—”
He lifted her out of the water and set her on a stone ledge in front of him, bringing them face-to-face. Foliage and palm fronds curved around them. Ferns arced down from the rocks above, dripping with water. With one, smooth twist of his fingers behind her back, he had her bra undone.
“And . . . and you're taking off my underwear.” She laughed again, incredulous, her arms coming up and crossing over her chest.
“I want to see you.”
“Well . . . yes . . . I—”
He moved in closer and dipped his head slightly to look her in the eyes. “I want to make love with you.”
And he did. As much fun as it could be, he hadn't really wanted to just do the wham-bam thing up against the door. He wanted more than to just get off on her. He needed more.
She stared at him, speechless. “I . . . I—”
“Are you warm?” he asked, so smooth, going for her panties, those Saturday panties. “Lift up.”
To his everlasting satisfaction, she did, first one side and then the other.
“Y-yes,” she said.
She wanted this, all of her actions said so, but he hadn't exactly figured out why. The attraction was there; he could feel it pulsing between them. But there was something else.
“How old were you in that school picture?” He slid the panties off her legs and tossed them behind him into the pool.
“Seventeen,” she said. “How did you
get
that school picture?”
He saw her gaze follow the short arc of her underwear into the water, before returning nervously to him.
“I lifted it off Bruno Walmann. It's the one he was showing around the library.”
“You stole a photo from Bruno? Right off him, and he didn't, like, grab it back?”
“Pickpocket,” he confessed. “Bruno never even knew. Old school skills, right out of west Denver, when I was a kid. If we got lucky, we ate. If we didn't, we'd go hang around the back door at Mama Guadalupe's restaurant. She never let us go away hungry.”
“You . . . you were homeless?” She sounded truly shocked and a little dismayed. “But . . . but all this.” She gestured at the loft.
“I had a home.” He shrugged, not too worried about the past. “There just wasn't any food there, so lots of the time it was better to just cruise the streets a little, see what I could come up with.”
“What about your parents? Didn't you have brothers and sisters?”
There had been plenty of siblings, which had only made things worse. During those years, everybody had been struggling.
“I was the last of the litter,” he said, “and my dad took one look and decided I wasn't his.” He scooped up a handful of water and ladled it over her shoulder. A slight grin curved his mouth. “I think it was the blond hair and blue eyes that gave me away. It didn't matter that Mom weighed me down with Cesar Raoul Eduardo—the old man wasn't buying it. I was the whitest boy in the 'hood.”
“So your mother is Anglo?”
He nodded.
“Do you know who your real father is?”
He shook his head. “Mom has never said.”
“But you see her.”
“Sometimes. I'm out of town a lot.” And this conversation was quickly coming to an end. He wrapped his fingers around one end of her bra and started to pull.
She tightened her hold on it, still covering her breasts with her arms.
He had to keep himself from grinning. Women were such a mystery, such lovely mysteries. He already had her out of her underwear. She was completely naked except for this one little scrap of satin that technically wasn't even on her body any more.
“It's okay, Cody,” he said, looking up at her and giving her the grin he couldn't resist. “It's just us.” He didn't want her scared, he just wanted her, and after another moment of hesitation, the bra started coming away. He watched it unthread from between her hands.
CODY
watched him watching her, watched his eyes darken in appreciation, watched the subtle deepening of his breath, and felt the heat of his gaze warm her skin.
Just us,
he'd said, and suddenly, she believed him. The whole rest of the world had fallen away, simply disappeared. It was magic. There was no one, ever, anywhere, just the two of them in this hot, tropical pool, drenched in steam and surrounded by the rich greenness of the jungle.
It was Eden, and he was so beautiful, such a fascinating mix of tenderness and ferocity, of sweetness and seduction. She knew he was dangerous. He killed without hesitation—but he'd put his life on the line for her the same way.
Pulling the last of her bra free, he dropped it into the water and moved closer, stepping between her legs, smoothing his hand down to her ankle and lifting her calf up around his waist.
She felt him come up against her, felt the head of his shaft press into her curls, and her breath caught in her throat, stolen by the fierce edge of desire that cut down her center to her core.
“Creed.”
She could barely speak his name.
“You're so beautiful,” he said, rocking against her, his voice husky, his other hand going around her back, supporting her.
He lowered his mouth to hers and simply consumed her, sucking on her tongue, gently biting her lips, turning her deep into his kiss—and all the while rubbing himself against her, enthralling her with his power, his need, with the size and heat of him. God, he was . . . everything. When his hand came into play, his fingers teasing her, his need suddenly became hers.
“You're so soft,” he whispered, running his nose down the length of hers, his mouth barely grazing her cheek, her lips. “I love touching you like this.”