“And I don’t appreciate you skipping town, chasing around after dangerous criminals. You didn’t call me! You could have gotten killed!”
“That’s true, and I’ll be the first to admit it, but why can’t I make you understand that it was a one time opportunity, goddamnit!” she yelled. “It was me or it was nobody, Nick! I knew she was going someplace significant, and there was just no time to—”
“How did you know where she was going?” he cut in.
“Do you want to hear this story told properly, from start to finish?” she shot back. “Or shall I just go?”
“Oh, you aren’t going anywhere,” he said softly. “No longer an option.”
“You’re doing it again.” She waggled an admonishing finger at him. “Don’t threaten me, you big rude lout. I saw an opportunity to find out something useful, and I took it before it slipped away forever. I think you could be a little more appreciative of my efforts!”
“Oh, I do appreciate you,” he said. “I fully intend to appreciate the living hell out of you, all night long. What’s with those new stockings? I like the seam up the back. Very hot. Did you steal those off this Diana chick, too? How’d you pull that off? Hit her over the head?”
“I bought these at the mall on my lunch break,” she huffed. “To please you, though I’m starting to regret it. And I infuriated my now-ex-boss in the process.”
“Oh. So this is the formerly frigid lingerie you told me about in the messages. Take your clothes off, Becca. Let me see it.”
The blaze of sexual heat from him almost rocked her backwards. “Like hell.” She got up, and turned her back on him, searching for her blazer. “I’ve had enough of your crap. I just spent three very scary hours trying to help you out, and it took a lot out of me. Screw your stupid tantrums. If you’re not interested in what I discovered tonight, then I’ll just leave—owf!”
She hadn’t even seen his shadow shift before she found her back pinned to his chest, legs flailing six inches above the ground. His hard arm clamped around her middle, under her rib cage.
The world flipped, she flew, and landed, bouncing on the bed. He was on top of her before she could gather her wits to scramble away.
He was all over her. His hands pinned hers on either side of her head, his elbows flanked her shoulders, his eyes bored into hers, inches away. His breath smelled of coffee. He shifted without breaking eye contact and reached down to shove her skirt up, her thighs open, and rolled between them, rocking her hips back so that she cradled him.
The penetrating heat of his bulging erection pressed against her most intimate parts, protected only by the sheer film of stretch chiffon of her new panties. Which was to say, not protected at all.
“I told you, Becca,” he said. “You’re not going anywhere.”
She bucked and strained against his implacable weight. “This is juvenile,” she snapped. “Get off me. Right now.”
“No. Tell me your story. I like this position. This way, I don’t have to worry about you storming out in a huff when I piss you off. Since I know for a fact that I’m going to piss you off. It’s a given. Sad, but true.”
“Oh, yeah. Like you’re going to listen to me while you’re—mmph!”
He cut off her words with a fierce, hungry kiss that took her completely by surprise. She got lost in it, done in by the hunger of his surprisingly tender mouth, his magic skill at melting her, softening her, getting her off balance.
He lifted his head, his pupils dilated. “So? Go for it, babe. You have my full attention. Body and soul. I promise.”
“Can’t…breathe,” she said, wiggling.
He rolled smoothly onto his side, thrusting a leg through hers and yanking her very close.
That was much better. Sure, she was still being confined in the cage of his body, but this could almost be classified as a hug. He might be a mean, controlling bastard, but she needed the comfort of contact with his big, hot body. God knows she’d better take what comfort she could when she could. Since Nick did not excel in giving it.
She huddled gratefully inside the warm shelter of his body, and slowly, haltingly, told him the tale from the beginning: from seeing Mathes at the banquet, then overhearing him and Diana in the office, then following her to the hotel in Kimble. His face darkened when she got to the parking lot of the Starlight Lounge. Breaking into the car, stealing the sunglasses, the lipstick, impersonating Diana to search the room, those details made him hiss in disapproval, his body going rigid.
“Jesus! You’re out of your freaking skull!”
“Maybe, but is that relevant?” She hurried on before he could respond to that highly rhetorical question. “In any case, the only interesting thing I found was that box. It had seven vials of blood in it. And urine samples, and those big cotton swabs, like monster Q-tips in plastic bags.”
“Blood and urine?” He jerked up onto his elbows, frowning.
“Everything was labeled and numbered. I wrote down the numbers. Want to see?”
He nodded, and let go of her, sitting up on the bed. She was obscurely gratified that he was interested enough in her adventure to forget about his sexual power games. She fished through her purse for the scrap of paper, and handed it to him. “The first six digits looked like birthdates,” she said. “That would make them all little kids.”
He stared silently at the list. “Yeah,” he said faintly.
The silence got longer, heavier. It started to make her nervous. “Um, Nick? What are you thinking? What could this mean?”
He shook the dark thoughts that had gripped him away with a violent shudder, like a dog shaking off water. “Was there paperwork?”
“I didn’t find anything like that in the room. But in the seat of her car, there was a package for a digital voice recorder,” Becca said. “Probably she dictated notes into it. And then stuck it in her pocket or her purse.”
He nodded, pulled out his wallet and tucked the scrap of paper carefully inside. Then he pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number.
“I have another name,” he said into it. “The mistress. Diana Evans. Some kind of health professional. Doctor, nurse, lab tech, something like that.” He looked at Becca. “Got a plate number for her?”
“It was a black PT Cruiser, if that’s relevant,” she told him. She recited the plate number to him. He relayed it and hung up again.
Becca had to gather her nerve to ask the question, with the creeping dread she felt on her neck. “Nick? Do you have any idea why…or what? About these blood and urine samples?”
“No,” he said flatly.
“Nothing good, though, right?” she whispered.
Nick shook his head. “No. Nothing good. You can count on that.”
The unspoken possibilities hung between them in the dark. Becca’s skin prickled and crawled. She wondered, wistfully, if she could ask him for another hug. Maybe her luck would be better if she just jumped on him, and took her hug from him by force.
If she did, she would probably find herself flat on her back with him about three miles inside her body before she knew what hit her. Which was fine. She was up for it.
He got up, moved towards her, eyes gleaming. Abruptly, the energy shifted. Out of nowhere, she was on the defensive again.
“So,” he said. “We’re done with the debriefing? Anything to add?”
She shook her head. “That’s it.”
“Excellent. So we can move on to the next item on the agenda.”
Her toes tightened, then her chest, then her thighs. “Which is?”
“Which is the burning-in-hell agony you put me through this evening. And exactly what you’ll have to do to make it up to me.”
“Fuck you,” she said sharply. “Is this necessary? Do you have to put things in those terms? Do you really need the upper hand so badly?”
“Yes, I do.” His voice was matter of fact.
She was mad. Her face got hot, and her breath got short. The manipulative bastard. “You can’t have it,” she snapped. “You’ve already pissed me off. Anyway, what exactly is it that you want from me?”
Nick seized the chair, and placed it facing the one spot of blank wall in the room. Then he took her wrist and placed her before him, back to the wall. He slowly sank into the chair, slouching luxuriously.
“You’ll see,” he said lazily. “First…strip.”
It was a risk. He knew this kind of head game would piss her off, wound up as she was, but he couldn’t stop himself. He was pissed off, too. They both needed this.
Besides, he knew, in a deep part of his brain, what got her off. She liked it when he came on strong, liked being overwhelmed. She liked extreme. Almost as much as he liked dishing it out to her. God, look at her. Following that bastard’s mistress, stealing the woman’s stuff out of her car, impersonating her to get into her room—Becca had nerves of steel. She was an adrenaline freak. Just like him.
He could see it, arousal at war with pride on her flushed face. His dick ached, looking at it. Time to nudge and push some more.
“Scared?” he taunted her.
Her chin went up, her eyes sparkled. “Hah. Not of you. Jerk.”
“Then get your clothes off,” he ordered. “Before I tear them off.”
She tossed her hair with a sniff, and took off her glasses. Tossed them on the desk top, trying so hard to look nonchalant.
Her awkward, fumbling striptease was unself-consciously erotic. He could feel his own thudding heartbeat in his engorged cock, pressing painfully against the crotch of his jeans.
She peeled off the tank, revealing a retro-looking bustier made out of skin-toned satin. Rocket-launcher-pointy bra cups that propped her tits up high and offered them to the observer’s eye like the gift of God that they were. She shimmied and twisted to undo the hooks of the tight black skirt, and then wiggled out of it.
The rest of the formerly frigid lingerie made his mouth go dry. Sheer silky stockings, hooked up to a satin garter belt. French cut satin panties with ribbon ties holding the front and back panels together over the smooth curve of her hip. A transparent chiffon garter belt stretched over her belly, trimmed with satin ribbon, accentuating the alluring curves of her thighs, how they hollowed into her groin. Sheer silk stretched over her plump mound, the dark swatch of hair showing through. A web of tangled satin ribbon strips, holding the whole thing onto her perfect, sexy, lickable, fuckable body.
He was speechless. She was so beautiful, it killed him.
And she’d gone out and bought all that stuff today. For him.
She stood before him, hands moving helplessly, like she wanted to cover herself but was too proud to admit to feeling vulnerable.
He seized her wrists, tugged until she swayed forward. “Turn around,” he said. “Put your hands against the wall. Arch your back.”
“Nick, I—”
“I want to see what that outfit does for your ass,” he explained. “Don’t argue.” He hesitated. “Unless, of course…you’re scared.”
She made a derisive sound but did as he asked, looking back over her shoulder at him. “You,” she said breathlessly, “are very bossy. And crude. And I should not encourage you.”
“Probably not,” he agreed, staring at her ass. The outfit exalted it, as it deserved to be exalted. The back of the panties nestled tenderly up into the shadowy cleft of her ass, letting the bottom half of her smooth, perfect butt cheeks emerge, to be admired and worshipped.
He leaned forward, and nuzzled the undercurve with his lips. Jerked her thighs wide and tugged on her hips so she bent at a sharper angle, making it possible to press his lips right against the warm, puffy cushion of her soft, silk-covered labia. She gasped, wiggled.
He was sweating, too damn hot for her, so he ripped off the pullover and flung it away, reaching for her again with hands that were hungry for her amazing softness. Soft as goosedown, soft as dandelion fluff, soft as newly unfurled leaves, things so fine and delicate, they were almost untouchable, but he couldn’t stop, even though the rough spots on his hand snagged and caught on the fine fabric. They rasped over her fine-grained, perfect skin. Her breath was fast. Her legs shook. She liked it.
“So,” she said, her voice full of fake bravado. “Does this getup fit your pornographic formerly frigid fantasy?”
He slid his hand between her legs, nudging it right up into that cloud of silky heat. She made an almost inaudible squeak, and her hot, soft thighs closed, trembling, around his hand.
“Actually, this is in a whole different league,” he admitted. “This leaves my fantasies in the dust. You blow my mind, angel. I am humbled by your beauty.”
“Humbled, hah. I hardly think so,” she said, sighing as his hand was drawn in by the shadowy involuted glories of her cunt. “Ohh…if it works for you, it was money well spent.”
“Oh, yeah. It works.” He tugged on the ribbon ties of the panties, and pulled them off, letting them fall. He spun her around again.
Stared up at her glowing eyes, her parted red lips, the rise and fall of her chest, her naked, gorgeous muff.
Wow. He was wired to blow. His hands shook.
It scared him, how raw, how out of control he felt. He had to slow this down. Once he touched her with his tongue or his cock, that would be it. His technique would fly out the window.
He didn’t want to feel out of control. He’d felt that way all evening, staring at that fucking icon moving across the screen. He wanted to be sure of making her come, screaming. Blow her mind with orgasm after orgasm. He had to time it right. Slow it down. Way, way down.