Barefoot with a Stranger (Barefoot Bay Undercover #2)(8)

“I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

He lifted his gaze, holding hers while he reached to the collar of his T-shirt and snapped it over his head, tossing it to the floor next to her bra. She stared at his body, her jaw going slack, hunger flashing in her eyes.

“Holy shit is right.” She lifted her hands and spread them over his chest the way he wanted to spread his. “I’m so glad you thanked that guy at the airport who stole my seat.”

He stilled for a moment, remembering the guy and how one hundred percent certain he’d been that that had been a ruse. A tendril of doubt tugged at his chest. Was she really who she—


“What’s the matter?” she asked.

He lifted his head and looked at her, and the doubt disappeared. He was going to have to live that way, but not tonight. Tonight was him, her, a hotel, and hot sex.

“Nothing’s the matter,” he said. “I’m just…happy.”

“Oh. Happy.” She smiled and slowly slid her hand lower, pressing against his hard-on. “Is that what you call this?”

“Among other things.” His laugh got lost in the next kiss and a thorough inspection of her breasts, and getting her completely underneath him. He worked his way down her curves and skin, licking and sucking while she writhed with pleasure, letting him taste and touch everything.

He unsnapped her jeans and felt her toeing off her boots, the sound of them hitting the floor like little grenades in his balls. He couldn’t remember wanting to be inside a woman this bad. Just to get lost, buried, and satisfied.

He licked her belly, letting his tongue trail the contours of smooth, taut flesh. He kissed her thighs, parted her legs, and tasted the sweetest thing to touch his tongue in…shit, forever.

Her breath was nothing but raw desperation, her hands as manic as his, exploring his body with the same thoroughness he took hers, until he couldn’t stand it one more second.

In silent agreement, he sheathed himself and positioned himself on top of her, forcing himself to wait when all he wanted to do was thrust and plunge and fill her up.

Time suspended just long enough for them to have eye contact, two complete strangers doing the most intimate, personal, real act two people could do.

“Please, Mal.” She grabbed his ass and guided him all the way in, making him let out a loud groan of pleasure.

Sensations ripped through him, tearing at every cell, yanking sanity and sense from his brain. He pumped hard, and she met every stroke, her nails digging into his back, her mouth pressed against his shoulder, her body so willing and wet and warm he couldn’t stand it one more second.

He came so hard it was like he’d fired a bullet into her, an explosion of everything he’d held pent up for forty-two months. Fury and frustration, loneliness and pain, truth and lies and secrets and raw desperation.

Giving into it all with blind need for comfort and release, he finished his climax with multiple thrusts, vaguely aware that she was pulsing and coming with him.

He finally collapsed against her, listening to her agonizing effort to catch her breath as it found a rhythm that matched his own.

She loosened her death grip, relaxing enough to stroke his shoulders and thread her fingers in his hair.

“I don’t even know your last name,” she whispered into his ear.

For good reason. He wouldn’t go around telling people his last name, despite how common it was. She was a computer tech, for crying out loud. Ten seconds on Google and she’d know she just nailed an ex-con who’d served time for stealing money from the federal government when he was a prison guard at Gitmo. ’Cause that’s what his record said…what it would always say.

She inched him up a little when he didn’t answer. “Will you tell me?”

He searched her face. He shouldn’t. He really should let this be the one-night stand it had to be. “It doesn’t matter,” he said.

He saw the flicker of disappointment in her eyes, the millisecond flash of hurt. “Yeah, I know, of course. Doesn’t matter.” And, then, shame.

Damn it. He might have been wrong about her being a spy, but he wasn’t wrong about her lack of experience at casual sex. “No, no, Chessie,” he assured her. “It’s not like that.”

She gave a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “And now I’m Chessie. No more Francesca.”

He’d hurt her. Son of a bitch, he’d hurt her five seconds after she opened her body and gave herself to him. What a douche. “I’m sorry,” he murmured.

“Don’t be.” She reached up and pressed her mouth against his ear, kissing softly. “Rossi.” The word, like air on his ear, tickled and shocked him.

He jerked back. “What?”

“I don’t care about what’s right or wrong in this situation, I want you to know my last name.”

“Rossi?” He only mouthed it, because actually saying it would make it too, too real.

She smiled and lifted a brow, as if to say, I told you mine, now tell me yours.

“My name is Francesca Rossi.”

But…but… Rossi? The real, the impossibly real, truth hit, and now he knew exactly who she was.

Not a spy. Not someone trying to follow and trap him. And not a stranger, either.

No, she was Gabe Rossi’s sister, and she was on her way to see her brother. Good Lord, that was so much worse than anything he could have imagined.