Asking for Trouble (Line of Duty #4)(21)

He glanced over at Hayden where she sucked in deep breaths, her beautiful body slick with perspiration beside him, then quickly averted his eyes. The girl next to him, the girl who’d ridden him like the sexiest damn cowgirl he’d ever seen, looked nothing like the Hayden he’d come to know. Hair in a tangle, cheeks flushed with exertion, eyes clouded with wanting him…she’d been his secret fantasy come to life.

But that’s all she wanted him to be. A secret. His eyes landed on a chaise longue in the corner. He could just see her draped across it, pearls around her neck, diamonds in her ears. Laughing as she talked to some wealthy * on the phone. She belonged to a very different world. One he had no desire to be a permanent part of. One she had no desire to include him in. He needed to remember that. When he looked at her again, he needed to remember that tomorrow she would go back to being made of ice and this night would live on only in his memory. When he walked out the front door, he’d never see this girl again. He’d only see Hayden Winstead, smug, sophisticated heiress.

His first instinct was to make a joke. Put them back in that place they’d grown comfortable with. Two people who could barely tolerate each other. But he stopped himself. She would expect that of him. Tomorrow would be soon enough for things to return to normal.

Normal. He almost laughed. Now that he knew what lay underneath her carefully polished surface, he’d have one hell of a time pretending. A sexually frustrated bad girl dying to be let out. He’d managed to glimpse it, encourage it even. If he allowed himself to consider the possibilities of what she could use him to discover about herself, he would never leave, so he demanded that his brain stop thinking about it. About her sliding up and down his cock, how it felt inside her…how she’d spanked him. How he’d kind of loved it.

No. Don’t even think about it. She wanted a one-time thing. He’d be damned before he suggested anything different. No way in hell would he open himself up for her condescending ridicule when he wanted more than she did. The girl beside him was merely an illusion. Even if she came alive in bed, under his touch, he knew her true identity. Spoiled, rigid, and most importantly, from a different world. This is where they started and ended.

A memory of her face softening in Stuart’s kitchen, just before she kissed him, drifted through his consciousness, followed by an image of how she’d looked laughing at his joke earlier. Eyes bright, lips tilted in amusement. No. Not real. Not real.

Banishing the memories, Brent blew out a breath and laughed with more humor than he felt. “I guess it’s a good thing we promised never to talk about tonight. If the guys knew I let a girl spank me, I’d never hear the rear end of it. Pun intended.”

Hayden giggled. For some reason the sound made his throat feel tight. “You’d be the butt of their jokes for weeks. Pun also intended.”

“Yeah. That’s at the bottom of my list.”

She nodded on the pillow. “No, I get it. You draw the liney at your hiney.”

Their shared laughter mingled in the dark room, confusing Brent further. This Hayden, the one making dorky-sweet puns that called to his inner goofball, was beginning to feel real to him and he couldn’t allow that to happen. Tonight couldn’t lead anywhere. Even if there were more layers to her he hadn’t been aware of, he didn’t belong in her fancy town house any more than she belonged in a greasy car garage, or a dirty downtown precinct. Naked and boneless, nestled among gazillion-thread-count sheets, she looked mouthwatering. When he felt himself begin to harden again, readying for more of the best sex he’d ever experienced, Brent knew he had to get out of there.

Hayden seemed to become aware of their unusual position at the same time he did. Lying together in the moonlight, trying to make each other laugh. Most importantly, not fighting. The easy, languid smile vanished from her face and she stiffened, gaze skittering away.

When she tugged the sheet higher over her breasts, Brent sat up and threw his legs over the side of the bed. Unconcerned about his nakedness, he rounded the bed and pulled on his pants. “When do I need to return this suit? I’d leave it with you now, but I don’t think the city would let me keep my job if I rode the subway home stark naked.”

“Oh, um, right…” Hayden sat up and tucked her dark, unruly hair behind her ears. She looked so fragile in the center of the enormous bed, so uncharacteristically unsure all of a sudden, that he hated himself for getting up so abruptly. He fought the urge to toss the pants back on the ground and join her again. Coax the confident sex kitten back to the surface. “The tailor’s card is in the inside pocket. It’s a two-week rental, so there’s no rush.”

Brent acknowledged that with a nod and continued dressing, painfully aware of the awkward silence in the room. Also positive that if she gave him the slightest encouragement, he’d be back between the sheets with her in seconds.

“Brent?”

He froze in the act of buttoning his shirt. “Yes?”

“What did you say to Stuart earlier? In the kitchen, I mean.”

Disappointment settled thick his gut. “I asked him if he needed an explanation of the word ‘no.’ That’s all.”

She stared at him in silence for a moment. “Thank you.”

When their gazes locked across the bed, he didn’t think he could walk out the door. It felt like sacrilege, leaving her behind looking mussed-up and vulnerable. She wanted one night only? Hell, it wasn’t even midnight. Didn’t they at least have until morning before reverting back to their old ways?