A Harmless Little Ruse (Harmless #2)(7)

“I know what I’m doing,” she pants, nipping my lip, her hands like snakes, all over me, angry and feral, filled with a desperate hate that only passion can inspire.

“I would take you right here, up against the wall of your parents’ house in the middle of the goddamn night like a rutting animal if you weren’t...if I weren’t -- ” Words fail me. That happens more and more with her. I punch the wall with my free hand, my bones jarring with the impact, but at least it takes attention away from my pounding cock.

“If you weren’t a coward?” Her chin juts up in that crazy way she has and that’s it.

I go f*cking primal.

Her fingernails dig into my shoulders, one hand threaded in my hair, her mouth is hot and heavy on mine, taking as much as I am, our lips bruising, tongues tangling in a ball of fury and lust. My hips push her into the ground as if I could pin her in place and make her stay there forever, to keep her from fleeing, my hard cock seeking her warmth, her breasts pushed against my chest with a soft, yielding feeling that is paradoxical compared to the wildcat trying to maul me alive with tongue and fingers.

“I hate you,” she gasps against my mouth, but she kisses me again, sucking on my tongue, her hand wiggling between us to stroke me from the outside of my pants, my vision turning into storm clouds that billow and mushroom. My pulse sprints through my body like an Olympic runner going for gold and I can feel her getting close as I bend down and free myself, ready to lift her leg and slip inside her, give her what her dirty, naughty, rebellious little body needs.

The same body that left me in bed and stole my gun.

“Do it,” she hisses. “Take me. C’mon, Drew. What are you afraid of? I want it. I want you. Let’s just get it over with,” she says, egging me on. Lindsay is an emotional pendulum. The arc is too wide.

Too extreme.

I chill immediately.

What the f*ck is this game?

“No,” I say, my voice ragged and torn, like she’s shredded my vocal cords. “No way. I’m not going to screw you against the side of a building because you want to get it over with, Lindsay. I can’t be some weird version of a revenge f*ck.”

My cock is screaming ten thousand different versions of Yes, you can! while the rest of me wants to duct tape her mouth shut and stick her on a helicopter back to that mental hospital because maybe Lindsay isn’t done cooking yet.

She might need some more time there.

And I may be the biggest goddamned sucker on the planet.

“It’s just sex, Drew,” she says viciously, her hair a disaster, eyes practically glowing. I tuck myself back in, using every stress-control technique I can think of to regain impulse control.

I get in her face, our lips a half inch from each other, and my eyes cross until I can’t see her anymore. All I see is red. “I am not going to let you turn me into a monster like those guys four years ago, Lindsay. I don’t play that game. You can stand there and tell me you hate me after spending tender time in bed with me and letting me inside you just enough to know all of this is a big sack of shit.”

Her lips curls up in a snarl, but I can see she’s fighting on the inside. Lindsay’s a great liar, but not when it comes to how she feels about me.

“Tell me the truth about that night,” she insists.

“I already did.” Except she’s right – I didn’t. I continue. “I won’t help you in your quest to convince yourself that I am bad. I refuse. The first time we make love, it won’t be in anger, and it sure as hell won’t be up against the side of your house within earshot of a security detail you just emasculated.”

She laughs. It’s the sound of broken glass dropped on a tin roof. “Who did I emasculate, Drew?”

“You’re not like this,” I snap back, but the crazy fire in me is calming down. It has parameters now. Borders. I can manage this. I can get myself back to baseline.

“Like what?”

“Self-destructive.”

“You think this is self-destructive? Hah! It’s self-preservation!”

“The fact that you can’t tell the difference makes you dangerous, Lindsay.”

“Fuck you!”

“No. We’ve established that already. Quit begging.”

“You wish I begged!”

Tension radiates like live wires between us. She’s looking at me with such a mix of hatred, lust, and determination that I want to let her run away.

With me right on her heels.

But I can’t.

Because I have a job to do.

I look up at the open window. “I assume you can’t scale walls?” I ask her.

She huffs.

“Then we need to go back in the house the normal way. Through an actual door.” I reach for her arm to guide her. She wrenches it away. My fingertips burn with the feel of her.

That’s all I’m getting for now.

I guess it’s better than nothing.

At least she’s still here, weaving her way through the bushes alongside the house’s foundation, finding grass and a stone path that winds around to the back door.

My gun is in my waistband. Lindsay’s in sight.

Just another night at work, right?





Chapter 4





Lindsay sits on her bed, pretending to read on her phone. Her long blond hair is pulled back in a ponytail, eyes hard, mouth tight.