“How?”
Don’t say it.
“Because the woman who came to my apartment the night her cousin was killed couldn’t possibly
have kissed me like she did if she’d just committed murder.”
Too late.
Heat flared in the depths of her eyes, and in the silence between them he heard her heart beating just
as fast and erratically as his. Slowly, she lifted her hand. One lone Tic Tac clattered against the inside of the plastic case as she tipped it from side to side. “I think you’re down to your last one. Do
you want it?”
No, he wanted her.
She shook the mint into her hand, placed it between her thumb and forefinger and lifted it to his
mouth. Her skin was silky smooth as it ran across his lips, then pressed inside to slide across his
tongue. He tasted mint and her. Eyes locked on his, she slipped her fingers out of his mouth,
brought them to her own succulent lips and licked first her thumb, then her forefinger before closing
her lips around the digit and sucking.
Oh, man. She was playing him. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see the games in her eyes. He
drew in a breath as he watched, felt all the blood in his head rush straight into his cock. And when
she moved closer until her scent was a roar in his head and heat encircled his entire body, he knew
his last thread of restraint had snapped.
“Do you feel like sharing?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“Good.” A ghost of a smile flitted across her face. “Because wintergreen is my favorite flavor.”
He opened at the first touch, cupped her face in his hands as he slid his tongue deep into her mouth
and reveled in the groan that came from her chest. The mint slid from his tongue to hers. Her hands
trailed up his chest, around to the nape of his neck, her fingertips sending sparks of desire through
every inch of his body. She moaned as he pulled her tighter to him and his erection pressed into her
belly. Her hands tightened in his hair as his mouth slid across her jaw to find her earlobe and the
soft skin of her neck.
“Hailey?”
“Hmm?”
“You’re my favorite flavor.”
“Oh…”
He’d been hesitant. These last few days he’d tried to keep his distance. But she’d made the first
move tonight, broken through every one of his walls until all he could see and feel was her. And
now there was absolutely no turning back.
“I want you,” he whispered, walking her backward toward the bed as he licked and nipped at her
neck.
“Mm…”
“I want you in every position I’ve imagined. On your back, on your knees, on that damn airplane of
yours.”
She shuddered when his lips found an especially sensitive spot. “On my plane? I like the sound of
that…”
He bit her earlobe gently until she moaned. “I want you calling my name.”
The back of her legs hit the mattress. “Oh, yes, Max—”
“No.” When she tried to cut off his words with her mouth, he pulled her arms from around his neck,
pinned them to her back to get her attention and said, “My first name, Hailey. Like you did in the
Bahamas when I got shot. Like you did when that damn alligator bit me in the Everglades.”
Even before she opened her mouth, he knew what was going to come out. “I thought you might be
dying both of those times. You look pretty healthy to me right now, Maxwell.”
He felt like he might just die. If she didn’t give him what he needed.
“Shane,” he corrected.
Her blue eyes sharpened, and she smiled a slow and sexy little grin full of sass and challenge that
supercharged his blood, and told him, oh, yeah, their little power struggle was alive and kicking.
“Maxwell.”
He flipped her around so fast she gasped. Her back was pressed tight to his chest and her cute little
ass was grinding into his hips. Then he locked her arms around her front with one of his so she
couldn’t move, used his other hand to tip her head to the side and ran his tongue down the column
of her neck until she quivered. “In a matter of minutes you’ll be screaming my first name.”
“Don’t be so cocky,” she said in a breathy tone he absolutely loved.
He rubbed against her backside. “I can’t help it. It’s what you do to me.”
“Oh…do that again.”
He nipped the juncture of her neck and shoulder, ran his tongue over the spot and sucked until she
groaned. Then pushed her to her stomach on the mattress.
She went down easily, no fight, no resistance. Kneeling on the bed, he wrapped one arm around her
waist and lifted, repositioning her higher into the pillow and using the opportunity to peek at the
color she wore beneath her Bon Jovi tee.
Black. Satin and lace. His mouth watered at the thought of ripping the flimsy panties off with his
teeth. He flipped her T-shirt up her back as he lifted her hips and pressed his lips along the base of
her spine.
“Maxwell—” She came up to her hands, peered back at him over her shoulder.
As he trailed kisses along her back, he pushed his hand inside her shirt, around her torso and underneath to grasp one full, luscious, bare breast in his big palm.
Whatever protest she’d been about to make died on her lips. She moaned, pushing into him and
arching her back.
His blood pounded. His cock strained to be set free. He trailed his lips up her spine until the T-shirt
was around her shoulders and he could pull it free from her body. He dropped it on the floor, leaned
over and kissed her shoulders, her neck, the mole just under her right shoulder blade. Then reached
around to caress her breasts and draw her nipples into tight, stiff peaks against his fingers.
“Maxwell…” She pushed back into his hips, her body making him harder, her words that much
more determined.
“Do you want more?”
“Yes…”
He brushed her hair over her shoulder and kissed her jaw. “Say, ‘Yes, Shane, I want more.’”
She smiled, arched into him again. “Mmm…Yes, I want more.”
God, she was stubborn. And he couldn’t help it. He smiled. Because for the life of him, he couldn’t
remember another woman who left him more frustrated, more needy, more challenged and turned
on than she did. “Officer Roarke, you are really asking for it.”
Her squeal when he threw her onto her back was half laugh, half shock, but her moan when he
pressed her into the mattress and kissed her hard was pure approval. Her hands ran to the hem of his
shirt, up under until it was yanked from his body and they were skin to skin, her mouth taking him
on a journey of a thousand senses.
He pulled back before she could seduce him into forgetting his goal, kissed his way down her neck
to her succulent breasts. They were perfect in his hands, soft and silky, the tips like little pink
erasers when he brushed his fingertips over them. And in his mouth? Heaven.
She groaned, arched up, dug her fingernails into his scalp until a lick of pain shot though his skin.
But he didn’t stop. He drew her deep into his mouth, first one breast, then the other, traced her nipples with his tongue as his hand slid south and her legs opened to make room for him.
“Oh, God, Maxwell…”
He worked his way down, over her toned abs, across the flat expanse of her belly, to the edge of her
silky black panties. His tongue traced the edge. She shuddered. He lifted his head to peer up her
body to her arousal-flushed face. “Are you ready to give in yet?”
A wan smile flitted across her features. She didn’t open her eyes, though, not even when she
reached for his hand on her belly and pulled it back to her breast. “Not even close.”
“I thought you’d say that.”
He gripped her panties with his teeth and stripped them from her luscious legs. And when her eyes
flew open and she gasped, pushing up on her elbows to look down at him, he smiled.
He had a raging hard-on. And seeing her there like that, naked and laid out for him like an offering,
all he wanted to do was strip off his jeans and bury himself inside her.
Instead he dropped to his knees, grabbed her thighs and pulled until her calves were hanging off the
bed and his mouth was brushing dangerous kisses against her inner thigh.
She drew in a breath. Swallowed—hard—while he drew closer to her sweetest spot. And watched
him with lust-glazed eyes.
He licked the juncture of her hip. Her head fell back and her eyes slid closed. He breathed hot over
her mound—careful never to make contact—until she groaned, opened wider and lifted her hips,
searching.
“Ready?”
“Please…” She thrust up again.
“Please, Shane,” he corrected, running one hand up her neglected leg, while the other found her
breast and squeezed.
“Oh…”
Her back arched. He licked the opposite hip juncture. Trailed his tongue lower. Bit just hard enough
to make her tremble.
“Dammit, stop teasing me, Shane. I need you right now.”
He didn’t hesitate, dove in with one long, lingering lick, split her thighs with his hands and circled
and swirled until she came in his mouth.
He might have been able to hold off, could have slowed things down now that he’d gotten what
he’d wanted, but when he heard her screaming his first name as her climax peaked, every rational
plan about being a slow and easy lover went sailing out the window.
His mouth found her belly, her breasts, her neck, her mouth. She didn’t hesitate, pushed her tongue
inside and kissed him crazy while her hands wrestled with his pants and finally set him free. Somehow he found the presence of mind to pull a condom from his wallet—condoms he’d bought that
morning in the Keys, just in case—eased back on his knees and nearly lost it when she sat up,
ripped the foil open and rolled it down his length.
Her hand squeezed, stroked, drove him wild. Her eyes held his until he was afraid he’d come just
from that minor touch. But it was her words that did him in. “Yes, Shane,” she whispered. “I want
more.”
He hooked one arm around her thigh and lifted, shifting his knee under her slightly so he could
thrust inside her on a long groan. The angle arched her back, pushed the tips of her breasts higher.
He leaned forward and drew one deep into his mouth and felt her whole body shudder.
“Oh, Shane…”
That did it. Feeling her tighten around him with her release as she called his name was all he could
take. He shifted, captured her mouth with his and finally let go.
Hailey came awake with a start. She’d been dozing, snuggled next to Shane in his bed, warm and
sated and…safe.
She eased up on her elbow, looked down at him. He was really something. Her sex clenched at just
the thought of what he’d done to her earlier, and a smile played across her face. Making love with
him had been so much hotter and exciting than she’d expected. She’d loved what he’d done to her.
Loved their wrangling and the fact he knew what he wanted and didn’t back down. Loved even
more that, though it was obvious he’d been fighting his attraction for her all this time, when it came
down to it, he wanted her just as much as she wanted him. The fact he’d taken her father’s dagger
proved that tenfold. Honestly, she just loved…him.
Her heartbeat quickened as the knowledge set in. She loved him. Even with his frustrating moods
and confusing angles and dark secrets she wasn’t sure she wanted to know about. She just…loved
him. The thought created a sweet ache she didn’t want to get rid of.
She ran her hand over his skin, needing to touch him. He moaned in his sleep, tilted his head her
way, and she smiled at the approval as her finger circled his belly button, then up to the edge of his
ribs. And that’s when she saw the scar. Up high on the left side. A three-inch jagged pucker of skin
she hadn’t noticed during their earlier power struggle. She gently brushed the uneven ridge.
His eyes flew open, and his hand clasped around her wrist with such force, she gasped. She didn’t
have time to get one word out before he flipped her to her back and wrapped his other hand around
her neck so tight it closed her windpipe.
She choked, gasped, kicked as her hands flew to her neck to pry his fingers loose. His eyes were
black as night and glazed over, but even through the blur of tears and darkness circling in, she saw
the malevolence.
“Shane…” she rasped.
A microsecond passed, though it felt like a year. His eyes cleared, focused on her face, ran down to
his hand, clamped around her neck. Then he instantly let go.
“Oh, God, Hailey. Oh, shit. Are you okay? Oh…fuck.”
She rolled to her side, coughed, drew ragged breaths to ease the burn. The mattress dipped. Seconds
later he was back with a glass of water and a cold, damp rag, which he laid gently across her neck.
“Jesus, Hailey. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Sit up and drink some water. The cold will help so it doesn’t
bruise. Just let me massage it—”
She pushed his hand away. “Stop.”
He let go immediately. Stepped back until his legs hit the plush chair near the wall and seemed to go
out beneath him.
She wasn’t hurt. Not really. He’d scared her more than anything, and as she lay on her side and
watched him lean forward on his knees and rest his head in his hands, she knew he was suffering
way more than she was.
What had happened to him? She remembered the way he’d reacted that night in his apartment when
he’d been kissing her. He’d pulled back then, fallen against the arm of the couch much like he had
just now. And then it had happened just after she’d touched that scar on his side, too.