“Who said I’ve changed my mind?” he asked, tossing her the sponge and turning around.
She scrubbed the width of his shoulders, circled her way down his back, across his hips, up his arms. The pressure was perfect, the massage soothing, the sponge soapy soft and damn arousing.
“Why are you so hardheaded?”
“I can get harder.”
“Get as hard as you like.” She shoved the sponge between his legs, and he jumped. “I think Della did see something. And you not wanting to talk about it is proof.”
He turned around before she did any permanent anatomical damage. “Proof that I don’t want to talk about it. That’s all.”
“Why won’t you tell me?” She asked the question with such petulance, he expected to see her stomp her feet.
“There’s nothing to tell.” Though he wondered what would happen if he did tell her, what she would do if he counted up the number of men he’d killed and laid it out—the truth, in stark black and white.
“Is it because you don’t trust me?”
“No,” he said, steeling himself against her pleas.
“You do or you don’t?”
“Doesn’t matter.” He shook water from his face. “That’s not the reason.”
Her chin went up. “Then just tell me the truth.”
He felt a big, fat Jack Nicholson moment coming on and had to stop himself from blurting out, “You can’t handle the truth.”
Instead, he said, “I’m not going to tell you because it’s none of your business.”
That shut her up. Or so he thought, until she said, “She did see something, didn’t she?”
“Perry, do me a favor.” He jerked the sponge from her hand, tossed it to the floor of the tub behind him. “Let it go. Just let it go.”
He didn’t want her to know any more than he’d told her about the dysfunction that had plagued his biological family. He didn’t want her to drag out details of the covert missions that had taken him to Chechnya and to the Sudan.
And he sure as hell didn’t want her to find out that the case before Eckhardt’s had nearly killed him. That the family who’d hired him to find their daughter had ended up letting him go. That nothing he’d done had brought him close to discovering the six-year-old’s fate. That even now, in his downtime, he continued to turn over the same clues again and again and again, thinking of that little girl, her blond curls bouncing, her eyes so bright and blue. Thinking, too, about the predator that might have her, about her parents imagining the worst. Thinking, most of all, about his inability to give them the closure they sought.
Moisture threatened to well in his eyes. His throat begin to ache like raw meat. He rinsed his face, doused the memories, shook away the ugliness along with the water, before looking down.
Perry considered his demand for several long seconds, weighing her nosiness against his nakedness, her voice trembling a bit when she finally said, “Make me.”
It was exactly what he needed. The light in her eyes. The breathlessness in her words. The invitation to lose himself in her body.
“My pleasure,” was his only response, before he bent to kiss her.
He laced their fingers together, held their hands against the wall shoulder high, and refused to let her move. He was done with talking, done with plotting and planning and all this digging around in his psyche, where he didn’t let anyone else dig.
She opened her mouth willingly, met his tongue as if she’d been waiting all this time for him to ask. No, not to ask. To take. To do so with her permission, for her enjoyment. Much the way she’d taken him.
It was a kiss of heavy heartbeats and labored breathing. A kiss of high expectations, rampant need and joy. His cock jutted boldly from his body, and he smelled the rising musk of her desire.
He wanted to taste her, to drink her in; he dropped to his knees and held her hips while he buried his face in her belly. Her skin was spicy and sweet and soft, and he nipped at the flesh around her navel.
She threaded her fingers into his hair and groaned, spread her legs to give him access. He took it all, brushing aside her curls and kissing her plump lips.
She was soft and she was swollen, and he parted her with his thumbs to lick through her folds, drawing the hard knot of her clit into his mouth and holding her while she shuddered.
She didn’t shudder long. Before she was even finished, he was back on his feet. But when he got there, he wasn’t sure what to make of the longing in her expression. He couldn’t tell what she wanted. He didn’t know what to do.
“Please,” she whispered. “I want—”
“What? Anything.”
“I know it’s silly.”
“It’s not.”
“I’m nervous.”
“Don’t be.”
“It’s not that I don’t like—”
“Tell me. Show me.”
“I don’t want—”
“I do. You. Now.”
He could hardly speak for how much he wanted her. And in the next moment she blew him away by turning around, bending over, and bracing one foot on the edge of the tub.
He reached for the condom he’d left on the counter and moved in, grabbed her by the hips, dipped his knees and guided his sheathed cock to her entrance. She was ready, and she pushed against him, urging him to meet her halfway.
Water beat against his spine, swirled around his feet. Steam rose to the ceiling. The smells of sex and spices followed. He noticed everything. Noticed all that he could.
He had to. If he didn’t get his mind off the reality of his throbbing cock, he was going to come and be of no use to her at all.
He played with her clit, pressing where she showed him to press, rubbing when her fingers asked. And all the while he thrust. Slow strokes. Deadly strokes. Long, even strokes meant to kill a man.
She was so tight and so wet, and he wasn’t talking about the water from the shower. He was talking about the way she wanted him, how her body told the truth, and then he couldn’t even remember why he was trying to wait.
He groaned. She cried out, shaking and shivering, reaching between her legs to where their bodies were joined and stroking him in turn. The pleasure was almost more than he could bear.
But he didn’t want to come this way. He wanted to make this personal. He wanted to leave his mark. He pulled free from her body, waited for her to stand and turned her, backing her into the slick tile wall and hooking her thighs with his hands.
He lifted her, spread her, drove up and into her again. She gasped, gripped his shoulders, held on while he thrust. He kissed her neck, sucked her skin between his lips and nipped, drinking the water that sluiced over her, finally finding her mouth.
He kissed her, his tongue sliding over hers, their breath mingling as they wheezed and huffed. Her fingers bruised his shoulders. His bruised her thighs. But still he held her, thrusting, pumping, the base of his spine burning with his need to come.
And then it happened. Perry pulled her mouth from his and cried out, “Jack! Oh, Jack. I’m coming apart.” He let go, unloading, filling her with all the frustration and pent-up need and sense of loss she demanded.
He gave her his all; he ached with it, fearing that it was too late to stop from giving her his heart.
THEY WRAPPED UP IN matching towels and returned to the bedroom, both beyond exhausted and showing it. Perry could barely walk. For that matter, she was having trouble standing up straight. And all this time she’d thought she was in such good shape.
Then again, sex seemed to be a great equalizer in the fitness department. Jack had collapsed on the bed, his legs spread, his towel parting to show a whole lot of muscled thigh and a teasing hint of the dark hair at his groin.
She couldn’t resist, smiling to herself and feeling strangely, wonderfully bold as she reached up and pulled the edges apart, dropping the towel to the bed, baring his scarred body, drinking her fill.
Having never been a voyeur, it surprised her how much she liked looking at him, just looking—at the hair in his armpits, the flat discs of his nipples, the bulge of his triceps, the ripple of his abs, his penis at rest on the thatch of thick hair that also cushioned his balls.
Surprising herself further, she whipped off her towel, liking the way he looked at her, too—even if she was too sore to do anything about it. Not to mention she had to get to work.
He stayed still for several seconds before pushing up onto his elbows and staring at her. Taking her in. Up and down. Over and over until she could no longer breathe.
“It’s not going to work, you know,” he said, “seducing me into telling you all my deep dark secrets.”
“Who said anything about secrets or seducing?” Brow arched, she dropped her gaze lower, to his penis, lying limp between his spread thighs. “Besides, it was working fine five minutes ago.”
“Very funny,” he grumbled. “You’re not taking into account that I’m out of shape.”
“Your shape is just fine.”
This time he growled. “Out of practice, then, okay? Out of practice.”
Hmm. Interesting. Especially the part where he sounded less than pleased for telling her.
She crossed the room and pulled a bra and panty set from her bureau drawer, making an admission she should have already shared. “I’m out of practice, too.”