Heated Pursuit (Alpha Security #1)(38)

Penny had just grabbed another ice cube when the man himself strutted onto the patio. Behind her sunglasses, she let her eyes feast. He was too sexy for both his own good and hers. His shirt, half unbuttoned and hanging loose, showcased muscles that had been chiseled from years of hard work and extreme circumstances. And the dark strip of hair that bisected his tanned chest and sculpted abs trailed provocatively beneath the waist of his pants. Picturing its ending destination would’ve made her stumble in her six-inch platform sandals if she hadn’t been lying down.

Rafe’s mouth twitched with a smirk. “Undressing me with your eyes, Roja?”

“Are you here to stop me?”

“Absolutely not. You look to be enjoying yourself.”

“I’d be enjoying myself a lot more if you were here with me, baby.” Rafe’s eyes darkened, telling Penny that her words had their desired effect. “Are you sure you have time to spend with me? I wouldn’t want to take you away from your work.”

“Right now all I want to work on is you, Roja.”

It was the phrase they’d come up with to signal that things were on track, but it still spread a liquid warmth straight to her nonexistent bikini bottoms. All they needed now was to wait for sundown, and Rafe would be able to go all dark-wing commando without being seen by the many layers of Fuentes’s security.

Rafe grabbed the tube of sun block from her bag and with a gentle tap on her hip, he ordered her to flip. The butterflies in her stomach turned prehistoric in size, but she turned, pretending that waiting for his touch wasn’t the excitement equivalent of national All-You-Can-Eat Ice Cream Day.

Oh, who the hell was she kidding? It surpassed it—by miles.

Rafe worked the warm lotion into his palms, then turned his strong hands onto the knots in her shoulders. Down her spine and around her torso, with every inch he touched, goose bumps that had nothing to do with wind-induced chills peppered her skin. There was a whole lot of something to be said for a man with callus-roughened hands.

When his hands slid back up beneath the string holding her top in place, her breath quickened. Her breasts, crushed beneath her weight, grew sensitive and heavy. “Rafe,” she croaked, his name sounding more like a moan.

“Go on and turn over, Roja.”

She obeyed without question. Even if she’d been able to form a cohesive thought, the sight of his erection straining against his linen pants would’ve cleared it from her mind. Fuentes’s men watched their every move, but when Rafe sat on the edge of her lounge and took her leg in his hand, there was no way she was going to tell him to stop.

Hot tingles followed the path of his hands, from the delicate arch of her foot to the sensitive spot behind her knee.

“When it’s just the two of us, you’re going to give me a private showing,” Rafe murmured. His eyes followed the path of hands.

“A showing?”

“You. Me. And that damn cup of ice. You have no idea how much I want to take you back to our room right the hell now.” Rafe’s voice grew rougher the higher his hands went. “I want to taste every inch of you. Touch you. Make you scream so hard your throat goes raw. And all before I finally bury myself into this lush little body.” Rafe let out a long, low groan. “This bathing suit is just f*cking cruel, sweetheart.”

He skated his hands just below the swells of her breasts. Penny sucked in a sharp breath as the backs of his knuckles brushed over her tightened cloth-covered nipples. Her reaction brought a smug smile to his lips.

“So is what you’re doing to me right now,” Penny panted breathlessly.

His smile made her heart skip a beat. For Penny, the lines of reality quickly started blurring together. Add in her own swelling feelings, and her mucked-up head didn’t know which way was right or left, real or for the sake of their cover.

With Diego’s men across the patio, there was no reason to mutter such words—unless he meant them—which was dangerous in its own right. It was way too close to what she desperately hoped would happen, and would keep happening.

She pulled her legs from his grasp, needing to put some distance between them before she did something so embarrassing there was no returning from it. She stood too fast, the epic heels catching on the lip of the patio. Graceful, she wasn’t. Her arms flailed as she pitched forward…right into the cavern of Rafe’s waiting arms.

Penny didn’t have the chance to voice her complaint aloud when his hand brushed over her cheek and into her hair. Gentle yet guiding, he held her in place as he brought his lips down against hers. One nip to her lower lip and she went boneless.

“No running, Roja,” Rafe murmured his order, his voice low and rough. “Not from me. Not ever.”

He brought his mouth back to hers in a kiss that sucked the air straight from her lungs. It wasn’t a hesitant meeting. It was a full-scale invasion as his tongue slid past her lips and into her mouth. Between the hand entwined in her hair and the one settled proprietarily on her ass, she couldn’t move. She didn’t want to move. She gripped his shoulders and let herself be plundered.

The kiss rode waves of change: soft and steady, hot and needful. All devastating. This was the dangerous part of their operation, because it didn’t take long before it wasn’t Nell Hanlan kissing Rafael Manuel. It was Penny kissing Rafe.

About the time she started giving back what he demanded of her, Rafe’s body stiffened beneath her palms.