Extreme Danger (McClouds & Friends #5)(27)

God, she was pretty. Even with her face ravaged by tears and smeared mascara. The running black paint just accentuated how beautiful she was. How intensely bright the color of her eyes.

He levered himself away. Her soft thighs were still clasped around his. She flexed them, hung on. Didn’t want to let go of him.

Her lips formed words, but they were soundless.

“Huh?”

She licked her swollen lips, leaving a glistening film of moisture. “Who are you?” Her whispery voice was ragged from screaming.

He dragged his cock out of the tight clasp of her body. She was dripping with his come. He willed his heart to slow down from that frenzied gallop. “Nobody you should be hanging out with, beautiful.”

He broke eye contact before the tears welling into her eyes could overflow, and flopped onto his side, squished against the wall on that narrow strip of rug. He stared up at the ceiling fan.

He’d cracked. It was predictable, after all the bad shit that had come down. But his timing sure sucked.

He’d had good sex, great sex, even awesome sex, but he’d never had sex that made him think he was losing his grip on reality. He didn’t dare to look at her. He was about to start crying, for f*ck’s sake.

Breathe in, breathe out, *. Just keep it together. Breathe in, breathe out. That’s the way.

She touched his chest. He recoiled from the contact. “Don’t get mushy on me, beautiful,” he muttered. “It was a great f*ck. Leave it.”

Dead, flat silence followed his whispered words. He got that just-kicked-a-kitten feeling again. It felt bad.

She was no kitten, though. She was a bad joke, she was a knife in his back, she was the worst luck he’d ever had. Look at him. Death on every side, and he was f*cking wildly on the rug and getting all emotional about it, like a thirteen-year-old who’d just lost his virginity.

Although he did not recall being this emotional when he first did the deed. Even at thirteen, he’d been a tough little bastard. He’d just smoked a cigarette and played it real cool. Hey, babe. No biggie.

Not an option here. He was destroyed.

She was trying to sit up. He jerked her down onto her back again, struggled up onto his knees and lunged for her discarded blouse and jeans. He shoved them into her hands.

“Show’s over,” he hissed. “Put these on before you get up in front of the camera.”

She gave him a short, jerky nod. She tried to unroll the blouse, but it was snarled, rolled like a nylon stocking, and her hands shook.

Seconds ticked by. He couldn’t stand it any longer. He yanked it out of her hands, muttering various imprecations in a muddled mix of Slavic languages until the wad of fabric resembled a blouse again.

He yanked it over her head, tugged it down over her body. She rolled and wriggled until they got it over her torso, and batted his hands away with a catlike hiss when he tried to arrange her tits under the gauzy fabric. Her nipples poked through, without the barrier of a bra.

She writhed on the floor like a lap dancer as she tried to get her jeans over her hips. Her skin was damp and they stuck to it. She took them off to start over.

He didn’t even know what he was doing until he’d shoved her knees wide open. He wanted to look at her *.

She struggled, but froze when she heard the low animal sound that came out of the back of his throat. A sound that said it’s my right, and I’ll look if I damn well please.

She clutched his hands where he held her knees, vibrating like a tuning fork. But she let him look.

His exhausted cock twitched and lengthened. Her cunt was as pretty as the rest of her. A miracle of nature, on the scale of sunsets, flowers, starry skies. He imprinted her on his visual memory, the way his fingers knew her, the way his cock knew her. The way his mouth wanted to know her. He was a connoisseur of women’s bodies, but Becca’s moved him beyond belief.

They didn’t have time for this, but he couldn’t stop staring at the gleaming dark curls, slick from sex, the pale glow of her thighs. The sinuous narrow slit, the pink inner folds deepening to crimson shiny and hot. Beckoning him. He whiffed her scent, mingled with his own. She was dripping wet with his come. His heart thudded. He’d never seen that before. He kept his sex life rigorously light. He didn’t want problems, repercussions. By definition, that made him a firm believer in latex.

The sight had a strange effect on him. A tug in his chest, a fluttery emptiness in his insides. He wanted to lick and taste and suck and savor her, till she screamed. The woman was a live wire. He’d never had anything like this. He wanted more. Hours of it, but they didn’t have hours, or even minutes.

He let go of her knees. They snapped shut, like a sprung trap. He hauled her up onto her unsteady feet and yanked up his jeans. “There’s an attached bathroom,” he said. “Go wash up.”

She collected her jeans and underwear, and hurried into the adjoining room. He sank onto the bed, slack-jawed, and listened to water rushing through the pipes. A plan. He had to come up with a f*cking plan, but his brain kept slamming against bricked-up dead ends. Break it down, *. Get outside the box. Think, goddamnit.

His chance to worm his way into Zhoglo’s operation was already compromised beyond recall. He hadn’t gathered any intel, hadn’t planted gulper bugs or beacon locators into Zhoglo’s or any of his mens’ belongings. He hadn’t found out what they were doing, or where.