The sheets were clean on his bed, and they’d pushed the blankets and covers down to the end. He had a lot of pillows, and while he worked on the tiny straps, she rested back on them.
He didn’t look up from his task, but she saw him smile, and when he got the shoes off, he lifted her leg over his shoulder and kissed the inside of her knee.
“That’s a good start,” she murmured, and he grinned wider-and then he kissed the inside of her knee again.
Inch by inch, he worked his way up her leg, stretching himself out on the bed, until his mouth was back at the hot sweet center of her desire.
She lifted her hips against him in rhythm with the forays of his tongue, and she let herself sink into the loveliness of how he made her feel.
And so it went, on and on, his mouth on her everywhere and then coming up to take her in a kiss, hot and soft and deep, claiming her as he pushed up inside her. Everywhere she held him, she could feel the sleek, powerful movements of his muscles beneath his skin.
The world disappeared, time and again, every moment in his arms drawing them closer-hot mouth, soft skin, hard body, lush breasts, the curves of her hips, the angles of his, warmth, eroticism, tenderness, falling…falling…falling into lust, into taste, and sight, and scent, and sensation.
On his next thrust, he pushed up harder into her and held himself deep, and there he stayed, his breathing slow, and even, and sure, his body like iron.
He leaned down and kissed her, a fleeting touch of his mouth.
“You’re hot, sugar,” he said, smoothing her hair back off her forehead.
They both were. There was no fan in the room, and the heat rolling up from the street was a palpable force, even at midnight. Their bodies were slick with sweat, the room like a steam bath, and he was teasing her, holding himself so still, second after endless second, until even the slightest movement nearly sent her over the edge.
“Dax… please.”
He pulled out and pushed back in so slowly, she thought she might lose her mind.
“Please…”
She strained against him, wanting him to take her there, to make her come, to give her the release he promised with every thrust.
“Please… oh, Dax.”
He leaned down and kissed her again, and his next thrust came harder, and the one after that faster, each one stoking a banked fire deep in her core, until it caught and flashed into flame.
She clung to him, riding wave after wave of pleasure, hearing him groan on top of her, a guttural sound of need and satiation that echoed in her heart.
Dax Killian had come undone, and oh, how she loved it.
Slowly, their bodies relaxed as they breathed together, still locked in each other’s arms, and dear God, he smelled good-all overheated male.
Dax Killian with the car named Charo. He was so smooth. He was so slick, such a tough piece of work on the street at sixteen, and twenty years later, that toughness had been tempered into steel. In the last six months, she’d wondered hundreds of times what might have come of them, if she hadn’t missed him that morning at Duffy’s Bar in Denver. Lord, she’d never dragged herself out of bed for a man at six o’clock in the morning-until he’d asked her to meet him for coffee.
Now she knew why she’d raced around like a maniac on less than four hours’ sleep just to see him. It wasn’t that his smile could melt bricks, or the easy confidence of his gaze. It was for this. That for whatever reason the universe worked the way it did, Dax Killian was a haven for her, a place to rest. She’d felt it instinctively then. She felt it in every cell of her body now. He was here, by her, with her, and she was safe.
She let her breath out on a soft, easy sigh, and he brought his forehead down to rest on hers.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Mmm-hmm.” She stretched beneath him, and he grinned.
“Good,” he said, resettling himself next to her and sliding his nose down the side of hers.
Oh, geez. She could get used to this. She could get used to it in a heartbeat.
Wrapping his arm around her, he slowly rolled them to their sides, and he kept her close. He stuffed a pillow under his head and one behind her back, and then he kissed her, slanting his mouth over hers and sliding his tongue in deep.
It was a hot kiss, lazy, thorough, missing nothing. Breaking off, he gently bit her lower lip, then licked her, then kissed her again, taking her mouth with his own. It wasn’t a “turn you on until I turn you inside out” kiss. It was a “hello” kiss, a “now that we’re both not so crazed maybe we can explore each other” kiss, and he was exploring her the same way she was exploring him, not just his mouth, but the taste of him, the angle of his jaw, the weight of him up against her, the hard muscles in the arm around her.
She smoothed her palm over the broad curve of his shoulder and continued upward, tunneling her fingers into his hair-and she kissed him, one long moment after another, luxuriating in the sensuality of having him naked and close, and in the comfort she felt-even the way he smelled made her feel safe.
She snuggled in closer to him and kissed his chest and breathed him in, and after a moment, she confessed.
“I’ve got a deal with Levi.”
“Yeah, I heard him mention that on his way out. You’re meeting him in the morning. Right?”
“Right.”
“Going after the Memphis Sphinx?”
“The one and only,” she admitted.
“But there’s a catch.”
She nodded, and he waited, smoothing his hand down over the curve of her hip and slowly back up again.
“He wants me to go upriver with Gervais to meet a man with some kind of force field or something. He says this guy was at Beranger’s earlier, and that he has the Sphinx.”
“Force field?”
“Yes.” That was a major tactical consideration, and she wasn’t surprised he’d latched on to it.
“Sounds a little sketchy,” he said.
“For a girl with nothing but a nine millimeter.”
He stretched out on his back, keeping his arm around her, and looked up at the ceiling. After a while, he seemed to come to a decision.
“If you like, I could go with you, watch your back. Take on the force field, that sort of thing.”
“Ya think?”
A brief grin flashed across his face. “Well, we’ve already got that fifty-fifty deal in place. If you trusted me, I could just go up there by myself, pick up the statue, bring it back here-piece of cake.”
A sweet offer, but it was a no-go. “Even if I had the name of the place, I wouldn’t let you go up there alone.”
“Levi didn’t tell you where you were going?”
She shook her head.
Another grin curved his mouth-the wolfish one.
“I can change that,” he said. “Come on, let’s get some food in you.”
He reached over the side of the bed and grabbed his shirt, and then, to her surprise, he turned to her and said, “Lift your arms, babe.”
She did, and he slipped the shirt over her head. Then he found her undies.
By the time he got her seated at the table, Dax was about half dressed himself and was feeling better than he had in months-six months to be exact.
This woman-she worked on him, and bedding her wasn’t even half of what he wanted.
Okay, it was half, maybe even more than half. It wasn’t negotiable. He knew that much. Taking her to bed had just shot to the number two slot on his hit parade, right after keeping her out of trouble-and he had a plan. It started with Levi Asher, and ended somewhere upriver, and when it was over, he’d tell her all about it.
After the fact.
She was checking her phone, probably for messages, which he really needed to do, too-check her phone for messages.
“Um, what did you say this was again?” she asked when she was finished, zipping her phone back into her fanny pack and giving the paper plate of roasted meats and white rice, with its straggly bit of overcooked green something-or-another vegetable a very dubious look.