In For the Kill (McClouds & Friends #11)(101)

“This isn’t about you, Sam.” She sounded exhausted. “And it’s not about Hazlett, either. He didn’t come on to me at all, by the way.”

“How about what he said at the end?” he demanded. “Anytime you’re ready to trade up and unload the ball-and-chain boyfriend, he’ll sweep you away into bliss and perfection. Wasn’t that the subtext?”

She shook her head. “Sam,” she said gently. “We’re degenerating.”

He bit the rest back and parked. Sveti looked at the turn-of-the-century hotel, perched on a cliff over the sea, as so many buildings around here were. “Where are we?”

“At our new hotel, in a new town,” Sam said. “I don’t like having your admirers at the Villa Rosalba knowing where you are. Or having a driver turn up to carry you away when I’m not looking. Makes me wonder what the f*ck I’m doing here at all.”

She got out as he heaved the suitcases out of the trunk, and he glanced at her with a frown. “Sit back down,” he said sharply. “I’ll ask someone else to get the bags, and I’ll carry you up to the room.”

“No, I can walk,” she assured him. “Really. I’m back to normal.”

He gave her his most baleful look. She gazed limpidly back.

Now was no time for a fresh power struggle. He left the bags where they were and offered her his arm. “Compromise?”

She rolled her eyes and took his arm. “Okay.”

This hotel was smaller than San Aurelio, but just as beautiful, and check-in was swift. He hustled her up into the room. Once inside, he pushed until she sat down on the bed. They stared at each other, for an excruciating interval. He took a deep breath and went for it.

“Okay, here goes,” he said. “I was a controlling dickhead this morning. In bed and out. I apologize. I will never do that to you again.”

She blinked up at him. “Ah . . . thanks.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I’m not through,” he said.

“Well, then. Finish, by all means.”

“I accept that I behaved badly,” he said. “But I have to be able to trust you. We’ve got to work as a team. You can’t run out on me. It was stupid and lazy not to face me down. Not to be straight with me.”

“I wasn’t in any danger, Sam,” she said.

He held up a warning hand and shook his head.

Sveti sighed and went to the mirror that hung on the wall. She started undoing the gauze bandage wrapped around her head.

“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.

“Getting rid of it. It’s not necessary. It makes me look like I’m at death’s door, and I just bumped my head a little. It’s stopped bleeding.”

“How does it feel?”

“A little tender, but the headache’s gone,” she said. “I don’t need it, Sam. And it makes you act weird with me. All careful and nervous.”

He harrumphed. “Maybe you should put it back on. Maybe that’s a better vibe for us right now. Safer.”

Her chin went up. Her glance was like a honed blade. “Safer, my ass,” she said. “I’m not afraid of you, Sam Petrie. Not one little bit. So don’t be afraid of yourself. It’s silly.”

The look in her eyes made his body start to hum and rev. His heart jolted and started to pound. Oh, Jesus, this was a bad idea. This went beyond slippery slopes. This was a sheer cliff.

“I’m sorry for going off alone,” she said. “You drove me to it, but it made me miserable. I was relieved when you showed up. Even as furious as you were.”

“Are,” he said. “Present tense. I’m still furious.”

“Ah. I seem to bring that out in you,” she murmured.

“We need a reboot,” he said.

“I’m all for it,” she replied.

“Any brilliant ideas on how we might accomplish that?”

She hesitated. “I have one idea,” she said. “It’s not too original, and I don’t know how brilliant it is, but it seems to work every time.”

His heart kicked up to a mad gallop as the heat in the room went up. “Sveti,” he said carefully. “You have a head injury.”

“I told you, I feel fine.” She swept up her hair with both arms. “It was a very strange morning. Very intense. I need to feel close to you.”

“Yeah?” he said stupidly. “How close?”

She kicked off her sandals and slid both her hands under her crisp, flirty little skirt, pulling off the wispy scrap of white stretch lace panties. She tossed them aside and approached him, sliding her hands over his shirt. Fingering his buttons. She smelled so good. He wasn’t going to be able to say no. He wasn’t going to be able to control the sex, either.

So what else was new. He was almost starting to get used to that.

She opened his shirt, brushing her fingertips over the pattern of his chest hair, the jagged scars. She leaned forward, and her little hot pink tongue flicked out to swirl around his nipple. She pressed her hand to his solar plexus, feeling the frantic thud of his heart. She jerked his belt loose and wrenched open the buttons of his jeans.

He seized her wrists as she pulled his cock out. “Oh, my God.”

She sank down to her knees and took him in her mouth.