Reveal (Wicked Ways #2)(58)

Her kiss is anger and hunger and irrationality and desperation all combined into one addictive action that drags me under and grabs hold of every ounce of my testosterone.

The heat of her body. The possession of her kiss. The ownership in her touch.

I’m not a man to follow a woman’s lead, but hell, if this is where it ends, I just might follow a bit more often.

And just as thoughts of sliding my fingers up the hem of that skirt to dip inside her wetness begin to own my mind, she pushes against me and tears her mouth from mine.

“Don’t you ever walk into my work and do that to me again.”

Her lips crash back against mine.

“You don’t own me, Lockhart.”

A duel between our tongues.

“They wanted you,” I manage as I grab her ass and squeeze, prompting her to lift her face up so she’s forced to meet my gaze. Her lids are heavy with arousal, her lips swollen, her eyes filled with violent desire.

“A lot of men want me.” The dig of her fingernails. “Just like a lot of women want you.”

She sucks on my tongue, and it causes every goddamn part of me to stand at attention.

“I don’t like it.”

A nip of my lip that has me swearing at the sting.

“Tough.”

“You’re mine,” I say and pull her into me so I can grind against her.

“I’m no one’s.”

“Like hell you aren’t, and now they know it.”

And this time . . . this time, I take charge.

I’m being completely irrational. She’s at work, and I’m dying to fuck her . . . but hell if I care.

Some things can’t wait.

Some things are a necessity. Like air and water and food and Vaughn.

She wants a fight?

I’ll give her a goddamn fight.

But not with words. No. Those are weapons and something I probably can’t win with when it comes to her.

But this? I can win with this.

I push her backward so she’s against the far wall of the pod. Away from the door. More in the dark. When her back hits the wall, when my lips find hers again, when our bodies are pressed against one another’s, I push that hem up to do what I’ve wanted and dive my fingers between her thighs.

I swallow her gasp.

And then her moan.

As my fingers find her wetness and her heat and tuck inside her without any warning.

Good. God. What am I doing to myself?

“Fuck,” I groan as I force myself to stop, to voluntarily lose this fight.

“Cancel with your client tonight,” I tell her, my fingers still buried in her, my hand still wet, my cock still hard as a rock.

Only so I can win it later.

“No.” It’s part growl. Part moan. Both pure sex.

“What was that?” I ask as I chuckle against her lips and curl my fingers against the parts of her begging to be rubbed and fucked.

Her legs tense, her fingers tighten on my shoulders, her breath hitches. A simple “Ohhh” falls from her lips, its heat hitting my ear.

I still again. “Cancel your meeting.” I nip her earlobe and circle my fingers against the rough patch inside her. “And we’re going to finish what we started here.”

“Ryker.” My name breathless has never sounded better.

“Cancel.” A rub of my thumb over her clit so that she bucks her hips into my hand.

“Yes.” Another rub. “Damn it, yes.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

And without another word, I remove my fingers from her and walk toward the stairs.

Hell if that’s not the hardest thing I’ve ever done before. Leaving her wet and wanting while I’m hard and needing.

And need her I do. To abate my anger. To take a hit of the drug she’s become. To forget the bullshit.

To be mine.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Vaughn

I’ve thought about Ryker all shift.

How could I not?

Christ, he worked me up—in anger and arousal, so that the scent of sex is so strong I can smell it on my skin—and then left me high and dry and wanting.

But the thrill of anticipation trumps everything as I walk down the exit of Apropos.

The town car startles me at first. My thoughts veer to the senator, and fear has me thinking it’s him. But when Ryker opens the door and steps from it, I swear that every part of me clenches—chest, lungs, thighs, knees—at the sight of him.

He’s standing at the dimly lit curb, making it hard to read his expression. But his eyes—his eyes I can see. They glint through the darkness and are just as telling as the tension in his posture.

A small thrill reverberates through me with every step I take. This whole liking sex thing is still new to me, and yet each and every time we’re together, Ryker shows me a different side of him. Of it. And of us.

I stop when I reach him where he’s standing with his hand on the roof of the car. We share a look—one that is riddled with so much tension—before he glances toward the inside of the limo, telling me to get in without words.

And I do just that: slide into the limo with a glance back toward Ahmed—who’s watching us like a big brother on his little sister’s first date—and nod.

Ryker is beside me in an instant, the town car on the move as if the driver already knows our destination despite the privacy shield never being lowered, but he doesn’t say a word to me. He doesn’t even offer a glance my way. He just sits with his fingers tapping on his knee while his other hand runs over his jaw as the lights from the city around us glitter and glow.