With A Twist(49)

“Damn, that’s good,” she says. “It’s so hot out here.”

“Been out here all day?” I ask as I take a seat on the padded bench opposite her chair.

“On and off. Spent quite a bit of time down on the beach… in the water. I don’t know the last time I had a vacation where I just relaxed and did nothing.”

“Nice, right?”

“So very nice,” she agrees. “How was work today?”

“Same old, same old,” I tell her with a shrug. “Honestly… it’s been a bit hard to get back into the routine.”

“I know what you mean,” she says and then pulls her legs up to sit Indian-style. “It’s hard to go from working the pole, flashing my goods to strangers, to sitting back at a desk in a polyester suit.”

I snicker at her imagery. “You don’t wear polyester.”

“Close enough. The FBI-standard attire isn’t all that flattering.”

“You’d be beautiful in a burlap sack,” I tell her truthfully as I lean forward with my elbows on my knees, and looking deeply into her eyes.

I’m surprised when Andrea’s cheeks pinken, and she lowers her face shyly. Her fingers play at the bottle, and she has a tiny smile on her face.

“What’s this?” I ask as I reach out with a hand and lift her chin up so she looks at me.

Andrea gives me an embarrassed smile. “It’s just… I didn’t know you thought of me as beautiful. All those weeks we worked together… me dancing around naked, you being so impassive about it… I just didn’t know you thought that about me.”

Leaning over, I set my bottle of beer on the deck—which while smoothly sanded has remained unstained—and then reach over to take her beer away from her, where it finds rest next to mine. I snag her hand, pulling her up from the chair. Her long legs uncurl, and then I’m tugging her forward as I lean back on the bench.

Hands to her waist, I encourage her onto my lap and she straddles me beautifully, her arms naturally coming up to rest on my shoulders.

Leaning forward, I place a soft kiss over the sun-warmed skin of her chest.

“You are immensely beautiful, but I couldn’t show that to you while we were undercover,” I tell her softly, moving my lips upward to her collarbone. Her head falls back, and I can feel her long hair floating around my arms that are wrapped tight around her waist. “You have the body of a centerfold, the face of an angel, and the heart of a lion. Add in the fact that you are, without a doubt, the sexiest woman I’ve ever known—and I swear this has absolutely nothing to do with the way you can dance—and you can rest assured that your beauty is absolutely dazzling.”

Andrea’s eyes go soft, even as she blushes again. One of her hands slides over, fingers inching into my hair and then gliding over my scalp. She leans in and brushes her lips against mine. “That may be the nicest thing a man has ever said to me before.”

I kiss her back, softly and sweetly. When our lips part, I say with a grin, “You must not have known many nice men.”

Immediately, I know it’s the wrong thing to have said because it’s like a shutter comes down over her eyes, and she pulls back from me slightly. I don’t let her withdraw though, tightening my hold around her waist.

“What’s wrong?” I ask quietly. “Why did that bother you?”

She shakes her head, gives me a tremulous smile, and warmth is back in her eyes again. “It’s nothing. Just a bad experience with a man. Silly, really.”

Andrea leans back in to kiss me again, but I pull my head back to avoid her lips. Bringing up one hand, I encircle it around her throat and stroke her skin with my thumb. “Not silly. What happened?”

She doesn’t respond, choosing instead to dip her ear toward her shoulder before leaning in to kiss me on my neck. Her tongue flicks out, then her teeth scrape along my skin, which causes my dick to start getting hard. I try to mentally demand my erection to stand down, but then Andrea dips her pelvis and grinds herself against me.

Full. Fucking. Hard-on.

Just like that.

“Christ, woman,” I growl and move the hand around her throat to the back of her head so I can grab a fistful of hair. Tugging, her head falls back and her breasts push outward. It’s all I the invitation I need before I’m leaning down and closing my mouth over one bikini-clad globe. Her nipple pebbles hard and I latch my teeth on it, giving a slight tug.

Andrea’s arms clamp tight around my head, pinning me to her breast as she moans, “Oh.”

I surge to my feet, bringing her with me. Her legs lock around me tight and my hands come up to squeeze and hold onto her ass. Spinning toward the sliding glass door, I’m there in two strides.