The Private Serials Box Set(52)

My tongue darted out and pressed against the tender skin just under her  ear. The salty taste of her caused a low groan as I imagined how the  rest of her tasted. I felt her hands both come to rest on my forearms,  then slide slowly up my shoulders.

"If you weren't holding that cup of coffee, I'd ask you to carry me  upstairs right now," she whispered, her breath hot on my ear. My hand  moved up, grabbing hold of her ponytail, pulling it down and forcing her  eyes to look into mine. I dropped my cup filled with coffee to the sand  and pressed my now free hand to the swell of her backside, pulling her  in to me, letting her feel my erection.         

     



 

"Be careful what you wish for, sweetheart," I muttered, just before  bending down and capturing her with my arms, and turning to carry her up  the stairs. She immediately started squirming, laughing and mildly  complaining as I climbed the stairs with her in my grasp.

"Preston, this is ridiculous," she laughed, kicking. Lena was a strong  woman. She ran regularly and took care of her body. But compared to me,  she was slight, and she stood no chance against my arms when they wanted  her close. One hand reached out and opened the door to my apartment and  once we were inside, I used a foot to slam it shut, wasting no time  walking back to the bedroom.

"I missed you when I woke this morning to an empty bed," I said after I  laid her down and covered her with my body. She was breathing hard, but  it wasn't from her run; it was her body reacting to mine.

"I didn't want to wake you," she whispered. "You looked so peaceful."

My eyes ran over her face, trying to read her expression. I'd had a hard  time being away from her since I'd come here. At night, my body wound  itself around her, my arms and legs sought her out, making sure she was  next to me while I slept. She'd probably wanted a few minutes alone; a  few minutes where I wasn't claiming her with my hands or holding her to  me in my sleep.

My eyes roamed over her face, trying to read her expression, trying to  figure out where her head was at. Lena had always been forthcoming with  me, never shied away from telling me what I wanted to know-sometimes I  just had to ask.

"Is it difficult to be around me so much? Would you rather go back to  staying in the apartment with Piper?" Ever since we'd reconciled, she'd  been staying with me in the apartment Parker had originally taken. Sam  and Piper were staying in the two bedroom. I'd ambushed her. Shown up  when she thought she'd gotten rid of me forever, and I'd practically  held her captive since. I knew I was clinging to her, knew I was keeping  her close, trying desperately to make up for the two months I had been  away.

Her brow furrowed at my words and confusion became evident in her expression.

"Why would I want to move back into that apartment? I want to be with  you." She sounded convincing. In fact, she sounded almost a little  offended I'd asked.

"We've been together almost every spare moment since last week. I just  want to make sure you aren't feeling smothered or in need of some  space."

"I had two months of space that I didn't want to begin with." Her hands  moved around my waist and up my back, urging me closer to her. "I want  to be with you. It was just a jog."

She was right, I was being paranoid, but I would give her anything she  wanted. I pressed my lips to hers, kissing her lightly, not entirely  finished with our conversation.

"I just want you to be happy," I said, my mouth just a breath away from hers.

"I'm happiest when I'm with you," she breathed, her words making me  lighter somehow. We'd met in a very unconventional way, started a  ridiculously unconventional relationship, and then everything had gone  to shit. She'd been convinced I was the worst man on the planet and  there were times I worried her mind was still tainted with those  thoughts of me-consciously or not. But I exhaled a sigh of relief at her  words, my forehead falling gently to meet hers.

"Same goes, sweetheart."

"Preston?"

I lifted my head to look at her. "Yeah?"

"One of two things needs to happen here. You either need to take my  clothes off me and follow through with your threat, or I need to take a  shower."

A slow smile crept across my face and I leaned back so I was sitting on  my ankles, her legs spread out around me. Her body was flushed from her  run, a pink hue stretching from her chest up her neck. She bit her  bottom lip, waiting for me to decide what I would do with her. To her. I  reached behind me to grasp her ankle, bending her knee and pulling her  foot in front of me. I removed her shoe and sock, then placed her foot  back down and did the same with her other leg. She squirmed a little  each time I removed her sock and I assumed she was ticklish, storing  that information away for another day.

Once her legs were bare, I bent lower and put my mouth on the skin just  below her sports bra, my tongue darting out, eager to taste the salt on  her skin. She hummed as my mouth moved lower, stopping just above her  shorts. Goose bumps broke out over the soft skin of her stomach and I  smiled against her, my mind drifting back to the first time I saw her  body and knew she'd be mine.



***

When I'd purchased my baby, my brand-new jet-black souped-up Lotus, I'd  imagined myself in lots of scenarios. Sure, I was a private  investigator, but the job was less glamorous than one might imagine. I  spent more time tailing old married men than gangsters or criminals. The  color of the car came in handy at night, but I had to be creative to  utilize the speed and sexiness of it. I might have been guilty of  happening upon street races or driving recklessly late at night, just to  feel like I was using the car to its full potential. But sitting  outside of a bar, waiting for some poor unsuspecting woman, was only  made better by the car I was sitting in.

This wasn't my usual job. No. I had always kept my professional and  private lives separate. No need mixing the two and creating unnecessary  messes. But I'd do anything for Piper. Even if it meant seducing a  woman. Even if it meant having my picture taken while I was inside of  her-job's terms, not mine. It was a very specific job. Not just "sleep  with the target." No, it was unusually more in-depth than that. More  like, "sleep with target in her own bed, allow photographs to be taken  in which it's obvious and undeniable that sexual intercourse is  occurring, deliver images to target's husband." What kind of man wants  that type of explicit photographic evidence?

As if I couldn't get more confused about why a man would want someone to  purposefully sleep with his wife, she appeared in front of the bar and I  was speechless. Her long, black-as-night hair was tied up high, but  still hung to the middle of her back. The knee-length skirt hugged her  slim thighs as she walked toward the doors, and her sky-high heels made  what I could see of her legs look fucking fantastic.

As she reached to pull the door open, she turned toward my car, her eyes  scanning the sidewalk, and I knew-from that instant-my life had just  been hijacked by a woman I was hired to ruin. Never before had I felt  such instant ownership over anyone, but she belonged to me. The way she  put herself together, the way she tried to portray herself to the  outside world, was a juxtaposition to the softness of her face. Her  outfit, so stark and cold, hell, even her hair was tight and  unobtainable. But her face, it was searching for something, longing and  hope prevalent in her expression. She needed someone to help her and I'd  be damned if it was anyone but me. In that moment she became my  exclusive property.





Chapter Two

I woke to the sound of the front door opening and then closing, and my  body shot up from the bed, my instincts taking over. I reached for the  gun in the drawer of my bedside table, my fingers nearly on it when I  heard Piper's voice.

"Preston," she shouted, "are you here?"

I shut the drawer and sighed heavily as my hand ran over my face, my  heart pounding. I looked at Lena; she was still asleep. Usually I'd  marvel at her ability to sleep through the ruckus, but we'd spent hours  earlier wearing each other out in bed, so I understood how she was dead  to the world. I stood up, grabbing my jogging shorts from the floor  where Lena had thrown them after taking them off me, and pulled them on  before heading into the living room.

"Preston?" Piper called out again just as I entered the room.

"Shhhh," I hushed her quietly, my finger to my lips. "Lena is sleeping,"  I said, walking past her into the kitchen and flipping the switch on  the coffee maker.

"It's the middle of the afternoon," she said, her voice teasing. I could  hear the smile on her face, and could tell by the tone of her voice she  knew we'd been in bed all day and Lena was sleeping off sex.

I turned toward her. "And your point is?"

"I don't really have one," she said, laughing. "Just giving you a hard  time." She came up next to me and took the coffee from my hands,  finishing the task for me. Piper had always been louder than I was, more  expressive, more forthcoming. I was the quiet one, the one who was  thoughtfully silent. Most of the time, at least when we were younger, we  were thinking the same thing, our minds always on the same page, but  she was just more vocal about everything. There were advantages to being  a twin, but those came with disadvantages as well. Even so, I wouldn't  trade her for the world. Having a twin was like having a built-in best  friend for life.