Sweet Seduction Shield(69)

Ah, the decoy. Or maybe I wasn't supposed to come straight over here?

My eyes darted back to Pierce's, and caught him sweeping his own admiring glance down my frame. By the time he made it back up to my face I was actually blushing and couldn’t think of a thing to say.

Ryan didn't have the same difficulty forming sentences and said, "Did you read my note?"

"Not yet," I managed to reply.

He huffed out an amused sound and repeated under his breath, "Not yet."

Despite our reasons for being here, mirth glinted in his eyes, making him look relaxed and happy, completely at ease. And oh so bloody gorgeous. I flexed my fingers, denying myself the desire to reach up and touch his face.

"You look beautiful," he suddenly offered, making my heart skip a beat for entirely different reasons than it had been up until now. "I couldn't stay away," he added, and the world around us dangerously disappeared.

I realised, in a distracted way, that Ryan gave me another emotion to use as a shield. I wasn't thinking of the tattooed freak or Roan McLaren giving directions like a puppet master behind locked cell bars. I wasn't thinking of Rick's penmanship on every single sheet of paper inside that fucking book. I wasn't thinking of all the things that could possibly go wrong and what they could mean to Daisy and me. Those thoughts were still present, but not overpowering.

Between me and them I had something else. I had a shield. Not made of ice or anger. But made of excitement and exhilaration. Of promise and desire. Of heated looks and sexy smirks. Of the fervent need to reach out and touch, just to see if we sparked when that electricity ignited between us.

Detective Ryan Pierce had cracked the ice, with a little help from his friends, and replaced it with something so much warmer. So much better than anything I could have ever thought to use as a shield.

"I really wish you'd read the note, Marie," he said softly, intimately.

"Why? What did it say?" I asked, unaware I'd taken a step closer.

He reached up and brushed a strand of my hair behind my ear, his eyes scanning my face. The heat from his palm melted me further as he wrapped it around the base of my neck and pulled me an inch closer still.

He smiled, it was so damn sexy. My lips parted and a breath of air rushed out, as other parts of my body clenched tightly.

Ryan shook his head, the smile widening, but a smattering of regret seeping into his façade.

"I think I'll let you discover that all on your own," he whispered, leaning his face in towards mine.

My heart thundered in my chest like earlier, my pulse flickering so rapidly, again, that I could actually feel it at the base of my neck. But this was nothing like my panic attack. Ryan was going to kiss me, right here in the middle of a packed Police bar. Right in the middle of a dangerous retrieval operation. Right now.

His lips brushed softly against mine in an almost there movement. I leaned closer, but he held me back with the gentle but firm grasp of his palm around the back of my neck, denying me what I desired most. A tragically disappointed sound slipped out, which I couldn't have stopped.

His breath left him in a rush, drawing my eyes to the swift rise and fall of his chest. He was breathless too. My gaze lifted to the pulse on the side of his neck and was rewarded with a hummingbird flutter beneath his smooth skin. His thumb rubbed softly against my throat, in a gesture that shouldn't have been intimate, but was.

I closed my eyes, realising he wasn't going to truly kiss me, but equally aware that he was fighting the desire to as well. Our bodies thrummed with anticipation, a tight line zinging with the tension our proximity brought. Oh dear God, how much longer could we go before we both exploded with pent up desire? I wanted him so much. And when I opened my eyes and stared into the deep pools of liquid bronze of his, I knew without a doubt that he wanted me too.

It was going to be explosive, when it happened. And I knew it was going to happen. There was no way in hell Ryan and I couldn't take that next step. Fuck the rules and propriety. Fuck his partner Harvey Stone and the dangers existing in my life. I would have Ryan Pierce, and he would have me. There was no denying that fact.

"You should have read the note, Marie," he rasped.

"Fuck the note," I replied, breathlessly, receiving a stunning grin from Ryan in turn. "Kiss me."

"Tiger," he chastised as though in pain. "Do what you came here to do and then I promise, I'll kiss you until you beg me to stop."

Right. The ledger. We were here for the ledger. Not for a make-out session in the middle of a bar. I pulled back, received a growl of frustration from Ryan, and flicked my gaze over my shoulder. Only to find we were expertly blocked by Nick and his troop. Abi and Ben having now joined their boss, and his two women for tonight; Eva and Kelly.