Hell, couldn’t women buy vibrators for that? He wanted more than just a good time with her and he wanted her to know it, but he wasn’t dumb enough to let this opportunity pass him by. Until she understood that he was serious about getting to know her, he would seduce her into knowing
him.
Unfair?
The woman carried a gun 24-7. She’d had years of experience fending off guys. As far as Alec could figure, only a moron would give her a chance to start putting up boundaries and relegating sex to a playtime activity.
He cupped the curve of her ass in his palms, nudging her hips tighter to his chest. She felt so good. So hot. The sweet scent of her sex made him even harder when he was already taxing his zipper.
Unfastening her jeans, he breathed a damp kiss onto the front of her panties, inciting a roll of her hips to make any stripper proud. Not that he planned to share the thought. Vanessa’s kick-ass exterior housed a vulnerability he hadn’t expected, a softness he wanted to protect no matter who wore the damn badge.
The mewling sounds of pleasure she made in her throat had him forgetting all about his noble intentions for next time he got her naked. He couldn’t ignore the hip roll. Couldn’t deny her soft moans for the completion he knew how to provide best thanks to the full, uninhibited access to her body last night.
There were benefits of watching and learning.
Lifting her in his arms, he laid her out on the leather seats, allowing her knees to dangle over the edge as he dragged her jeans from her legs. Her hair had sprung loose from her braid, providing a silky dark blanket for her bare skin against the buff-colored leather. From restless thighs to rising and falling breasts, every inch of her flushed pink even though he hadn’t taken her to full-fledged orgasm yet.
Stepping out of his trousers, he withdrew a condom from his wallet before tossing his pants aside, unconcerned that his bare butt was mooning all of Long Island. He stepped away from the windows, closing in on Vanessa, determined to imprint himself on her consciousness as thoroughly as she’d already impressed him.
She didn’t stay put on the seats where he’d left her. She rose up again, impatient hands reaching for him, skimming over his naked thighs and abs until she stroked his cock.
He hadn’t expected that, hadn’t meant to let her slow him down in his quest to bring her off before they landed. But his johnson bobbed toward her of its own volition whenever she let him go, his head too overloaded with the sheer impact of Vanessa to tell her no.
“I can’t touch you enough. And I’ve been dying to try out a new trick you taught me.” She peered up at him, her soft cheek stroking, skimming the length of his straining erection until she turned to blow a stream of warm air over him.
The same way he’d done to her breasts earlier.
“You know too much.” He gritted the words between clenched teeth, knowing he didn’t dare let her try out any more new tricks tonight. A red-hot twinge of sensation knifed down his spine and squeezed him by the balls, reminding him he had no time left before he was going to lose it with her. Here. Now.
His window for finesse vanished, he lifted her, hauled her up his body until they faced each other. He wanted to kiss her, explore her mouth and neck and that incredible valley between her breasts, but he was on borrowed time after the way she’d touched him.
“Turn around.” He growled out the words, hoping she understood that he walked a sharp edge of desire now. One false move and he was done for.
She spun away from him easily, her breath coming fast and shallow as she arched her back, bending at the waist just enough to make it easy for him to grip her hips. Guide her closer.
His fingers fumbled with the condom, nearly dropping it. Hell, he’d never been this torn up and out of control, out-of-his-mind turned on by a woman before. But she was warm and willing, and so ready to spread her legs for him. It was all he could do to look at her bent over like that….
Thoughts incinerating in spontaneous combustion, he cupped her breasts, thumbs tracing her tight nipples while he slid himself inside her. Slow. Easy.
Her moan filled the cabin, drowning out any noise from the engine. She was slick and hot, dripping with readiness, and she was all his. Possessiveness speared through him, making him hold tighter, his fingers squeezing her breasts together as he drew her body back to his with each deep thrust.
Her skin glistened in the half light with a sheen of sweat, her thighs flexing in time with his. She possessed such strength, such stamina, and yet he couldn’t help but think how delicate the rope of her spine looked as she bent and arched with each aching movement. Releasing her breasts, he smoothed his hands around to her back, rubbing lightly over her shoulders. He gathered up her hair in one hand, winding the long length around his palm.
All the better to see you with, my dear.
The significance of the big bad wolf in his head right now wasn’t lost on him. He wanted a taste of Vanessa. A bite.
She arched against him with a slow sweep of her body, her hips fitting snugly to his as she steadied herself on the seat’s headrest. One arm reached back to loop about his neck, drawing him closer. Drawing them closer.
He would never hurt her, damn it. Never let any more of his personal demons touch her. This time—with her—he wouldn’t fail.
Bending to kiss the salty skin of her shoulder, he lost himself in the steady rocking of her hips, the rhythmic slide of her strong, lean body against his. The taste of her nourished him in a way nothing else ever had, the scent of her filling his nostrils until the need to make her come became his sole focus and priority.
Reaching behind him, he groped for the vial he’d set on the media cabinet along with his pants. He hadn’t mentioned that he’d brought it along, not wanting her to think he was some kind of perv for indulging his sexual fantasies while they chased carjackers around New York.
But now, he uncorked the bottle while he kissed her, carefully warding off his own throbbing need. His fingers armed with a few drops of the oil they’d used the night before, he tossed the bottle aside and touched her between her legs.
She bucked against him, gasping in surprise as the tingling heat dripped down her slick folds. His fingers sizzled, too, from the liquid, and he used them to massage the moisture into her sex.
Her fingernails clenched his neck, scratching lightly as the first wave of a shuddering orgasm wracked through her. He didn’t break his rhythm, his touch guided by the pulsing sensations he could feel both inside and outside her.
His own climax slammed through him then, the force of it spinning through him until his knees buckled. He guided them down to the seats. Cradling Vanessa in his lap as they half fell, half sprawled into the leather, their bodies sealed together by sex and sweat and so much more.
If only Vanessa would see it.
He held onto her, not ready to let her go even though the plane had started to descend. The angle of the plane accounted for part of the reason his knees had given out.
“You cheated.” Her breathless voice didn’t sound unhappy about the fact.
“Yeah?” He swiped a lock of her hair from her forehead, knowing they’d need to get dressed soon. “How do you figure?”
“You brought along a sensual aid.” She slid away from him, reaching for her shirt as the lights from the city below became more visible out the windows. “Not that I minded, of course. It was just a bit…unexpected.”
“You give me all the time I want with you naked, and I promise I’ll give you the best sex of your life with no toys in sight.” He would find a way to have that with her, to talk Miss Independent into letting all her barriers down. “Tonight I was under time constraints.”
He stepped into his pants as he watched her dress, already regretting the loss of access to her body.
“I hate to tell you this, but toys are very recreational.” She smiled as she rebraided her hair.
“Don’t get used to it.” He smiled back at her, looking forward to the challenge of having his way with her again. “Next time will be on my terms.”
Cranking up the flame on a hurricane lamp Alec had lit on a wrought-iron patio table before he took a walk down the beach to look around, Vanessa warmed her hands by the blaze. The spring weather had been warm this week, but the breeze blowing in off the ocean chilled her now the same way it had from the moment the stairs to the Cessna had been lowered, ending her time alone with Alec.
He’d arranged for a car to meet them at the airport when he’d called for the pilot. Or perhaps that had been part of the benefit he paid for with the air-management company who provided him with pilots and serviced his plane wherever it happened to land. Either way, a driver had been waiting at the tiny municipal landing strip, and they’d arrived at the beach house a few minutes later.
They hadn’t spoken much. Mostly, Vanessa thought, out of deference to their driver who shuttled them around in a Lincoln without a formal partition between the front and back. But even when they’d arrived at the house, they’d gone their own ways after Alec had pointed out the kitchen and a bathroom. They’d each made phone calls, Vanessa to Wes and Alec to heaven-only-knew who. Friends? Enemies? Donata the mistress Vanessa really didn’t want to meet? He’d mentioned putting his own resources to use for scaring up a paper trail to implicate his partner, but she couldn’t be sure what sort of resources Alec had in mind. Despite the beach mini-mansion and the jet that both proved he made a very successful living in real-estate development, she found it hard to envision him as anything but a loner. He seemed too intense and possibly a little too dangerous for polite company.
As she listened to the waves roll up the beach, she assured herself it didn’t matter where he’d gone. She needed to scavenge some semblance of personal space and distance from the man anyhow. Not an easy feat to accomplish when they jumped each other every time they were alone together.
Her whole life seemed to be spinning out of control, and getting naked on an airplane only proved how much she’d lost it. Even now she couldn’t put Alec far from her mind since the most unexpected places on her body burned from the light friction of his bristly cheek. Her neck. Her hip. Just above one breast.
Not a chance she’d forget about Alec anytime soon, but maybe once they found enough evidence to put his partner away along with the guy’s slimeball nephew, Alec could go back to flying around the East Coast to monitor his real-estate development sites and she could return to…
Feeling nothing?
A sharp wind blew in off the water, wavering the lamp flame right through the glass globe and chilling her to the bone. She debated picking up her phone and retreating inside when a dark shape took form down the beach.
Fingers moving automatically to the gun at her waist, she wondered how many of Alec’s enemies already knew he’d resurfaced in the Hamptons.
“The lights are on at Donata’s place.” Alec’s voice carried on the wind as he stalked closer, a dark shape growing bigger until at last he arrived in the ring of light around the patio table. “You ready to take a ride over there?”
What was the worst that could happen? She’d confirm her own fears that Donata possessed the glittering lifestyle Vanessa could never aspire to on a cop’s paycheck? Or was she just worried that a woman who signed herself as “Your Pussy” would embrace the kind of blatant sexuality Alec seemed to seek in bed?
“I’m game.” Shoving to her feet, she pocketed her phone, refusing to allow some bogus sexual insecurity to rule her choices when it came to her job. “You can see her house but you can’t walk to it?” She’d never even considered that he might have gone over to Donata’s alone.
“It’s down the road about a mile, but the beach curves around as you head east, so there’s a good view of the houses that way.” He extinguished the flame, throwing them back into the dark, causing her to stumble just a little.
Come to think of it, that was pretty much how she always felt about Alec and the whole sex issue. She knew her way around a gun and a police computer, but put her next to an attractive man and she might as well be stumbling around in the dark.
“You okay?” His hands somehow found her, his arm sliding around her waist to guide her forward off the patio and through the night. “My social interactions have been limited to contractors and teenagers for the past six months, and even then, most conversational attempts are crammed between the noise of hammers and circulating saws over at the rec center. Sorry if I’ve got the social aptitude of a primate.”
His arm around her made her feel better than any attempt at etiquette, but she didn’t think she needed to share that with him. Not when she was planning to maintain some distance before things got too complicated between them.
“I’m fine.” She kept pace with him as they crossed a narrow walk to the driveway, her eyes adjusting to the dark as she followed him into a garage designed like a Cape Cod–style house. “How did you ever maintain your anonymity while converting those old buildings into the center? Didn’t you run into any of the same contractors you normally work with?”
He took a set of keys off a Peg-Board on one wall and pressed the remote for a vehicle that looked like a huge SUV. A digital beeping sound bounced off the cement floor as the doors unlocked. Alec opened the passenger-side door and held out his hand for her to step up inside.
A Land Rover. The recreational vehicle of choice for guys who could afford a Cessna.
“I used all new companies this time and hired them out under the Al Perez name. Paying in cash prevents a lot of questions, so it wasn’t a problem and it gave me a chance to meet some different people. I found a few good guys I’ll be working with again, and a few that I won’t. No real surprises there.”
He started the vehicle and shifted into reverse before placing a steadying hand on her seat as he turned around to see behind him.
“Will you put any more time into the rec center now that you’re going to reclaim your stake in McPherson?” She’d wondered about that since he’d seemed so at home teaching those kids how to defend themselves.
Alec slowed the Land Rover to a stop at the end of his driveway and waited for an oncoming car.
“Definitely. Hell, I need to stay connected to those kids or I won’t be able to teach them anything. They can sense when you’re only showing up to earn a paycheck. Maybe once things get back to normal and I can edge Vercelli out of the company, I’ll be able to tighten up the real-estate business and spend some more time at the rec center. I can hire an administrator and get things fully functional.”
The rightness of the choice settled over her. Pleased her. A man like Alec could make a deeper difference than any superficial urban renewal program.
“You never told me why you think your partner turned on you.” She’d asked him earlier tonight, on the airstrip. “We got distracted before we could talk about that on the plane.”
She didn’t bring it up to sound suggestive. She’d just meant to remind this close-mouthed man that he’d already agreed to talk to her about this. She could see the heat in his eyes even in the soft illumination from the dashboard lights.
“Yes, we did.” He didn’t touch her. Didn’t move to tempt her. “And as I recall we made an agreement about the next time we’re together.”
His utter stillness made her realize he’d never
done
anything to draw her eye, to inspire this kind of heat. The ache of need she felt had been rooted in the most instinctive physical attraction from the start. Yet instead of diminishing the attraction, that revelation only validated it for her. She didn’t want him for his mini-mansion or his toys. Not the Cessna. Not the mile-high orgasms. She wanted the self-defense instructor as much as—more than?—the real-estate mogul, admiring his faith in the kids he taught even while the cynical part of her wrote off the effort as crazy. Dangerous.
“Are you trying to distract me from this question?” The thought occurred to her as she shoved aside the bout of lust. “Because this makes two times you’ve sidetracked me when the topic came up.”
“I’m not the one doing the distracting.” He eased the vehicle out onto the darkened street, his hand falling away from her seat as he drove along the county route linking tightly packed beach properties in an area where every square inch of sand was prime real estate. “And I don’t think there’s any great mystery about why Vercelli wants me out of the company. The trouble has been brewing with us for years, I just hoped if I ignored it long enough it would go away. Stupid approach, but it seemed easier than breaking up our company and potentially ticking off a lot of clients.”
“What kind of trouble did the two of you have?” Vanessa stared out the window, searching for hints of the houses that lurked behind security fences and thick shrubbery barriers.
She’d heard many of the residents out this way only lived here part of the year, making some of the communities ghost towns on weekdays or during the school year. The reputation seemed to apply tonight. Every now and then she spied a hint of lit fountains or swimming pools, but for the most part, she could discern only the sprawling rooftops of the three-story homes that made even Alec’s mini-mansion look conservative.
“Mark’s been pressuring me to bring my uncle into the business for years, and he stepped up the pressure about a year ago, though who knows why since we’re making great money without any of the guaranteed contracts that go along with Sergio’s business.”
He drove slowly, just barely crawling up the street. Probably because Donata’s house was too damn close to his.
“Maybe he was having financial problems?” Although it seemed shortsighted to draw that kind of criminal element into a successful business.
“Or maybe he just wanted a chance to carry a gun.” Alec rolled his eyes as he drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. “Vercelli was always a little too impressed with my family’s ties to crime. The first time I ever met him over a keg at a college party he was quoting
The Godfather.
Later he graduated to
Goodfellas,
but he didn’t get any more of a clue.”
“Yet you were close enough friends to start a company together.” She couldn’t imagine working with people she didn’t respect.
Not a problem at her job.
“He’s good with people.” Alec seemed content to leave it at that as he turned the wheel and pulled into a private driveway. But then, as he shut off the ignition, he smiled at her across the Land Rover’s front seat. “Me? I tend to scare people or put them off because I’m not a big talker. But Mark puts people at ease because he’s Joe Social. He doesn’t know squat about land development, but he can close a deal.”
“And he closed deals for you for years and then one day he decides to pull the rug out from underneath you with a visit to the cops?” Squinting into the darkness, she took in the lines of the house that belonged to the mobster’s mistress. “I don’t get it. Why the change?”
“Damned if I know.” He pocketed the keys and pointed to the beach cottage in front of them, a rambling one-story clapboard affair that defied architectural description thanks to a century’s worth of add-ons. Rooms sprawled out in every direction along with tacked-on screened porches. “But maybe she will.”
Vanessa didn’t understand why he thought so, but she followed his lead and opened the door to let herself out of the Land Rover. Maybe she’d just save her questions for their midnight house call.
Making her way up the stone path to the front door encrusted in seashells, Vanessa could see the house predated Alec’s place a mile up the road. In a stretch of beach where big, showy homes rubbed shoulders with older dwellings built on a much smaller scale, Donata’s residence strayed to the less grand. The simple bungalow architecture and painted siding would have seemed charming on a country lake, but in the Hamptons the house looked like part of a bygone era.
Alec ignored the doorbell outlined in a scallop-shaped plaster molding and rapped on the clapboard siding instead.
“Come here often?” Vanessa muttered under her breath, still half wishing she hadn’t made the visit with him in the first place.
Alec turned dark eyes on her under the porch light, allowing just enough heat in his gaze to remind her how much he wanted
her.
Only her.
She felt that stare of his clear down to her toes, the slow, sensual thrill of it giving her the urge to fan herself.
The door opened in the middle of their steamy exchange. Only the person on the other side wasn’t the sex-crazed woman Vanessa expected. Instead, a tall, wiry guy with glasses stood framed in the doorway, his expression quickly twisting into a mask of rage.
“Sergio?” Alec’s stance shifted. Straightened.
Vanessa didn’t have time to go for her gun. The guy on the step charged out of the house like a bull closing in on a red flag.
“You goddamn son of a—” Sergio’s curses were punctuated by a feminine scream within the house, but Vanessa kept her eyes trained on Alec and his uncle, who’d either made a jailbreak or had been released on bail since his drug bust the night before.