Fool Me Forever (The Confidence Game 2)

d up with a rash.

“Start out slow, treat me nice. Listen to my body, give me yours. Wind me up and make me fly. Stay the night and cook me breakfast in the morning.”

It couldn’t be that easy. She’d be in his lap half-divested of that dress, if there weren’t a table between them.

She sat back. “But not tonight.”

He made a wounded sound that was too loud and too close to telling her exactly how inspired he was with her game.

He was distinctly lacking in cool around Lenny, but she stood, leaned over, and grabbed his face, smacking a kiss on his forehead. “You’re kind of cute for a con artist.”

Given the dirty thoughts he was having, she let him off lightly.

As she slipped out of the booth she added, “It might be an idea to milk that while you can.”

He watched her sashay toward the counter, loving what that dress—made to showcase her body—did to him. A need that hurt in the best way. It took a minute to collect himself and go after her. “Any advice on how I do that?”

She waited till he caught up and stood behind her before she leaned into him and said, “What? I have to do everything?”

“You won’t mind if I use a little initiative?”

She shook her head, and he used said initiative to cup her ass, groaning at the contact as he moved past to pay the check.

All the way home to her place in the back of a cab, they made a play of holding eye contact and subtle smiles, of hands that flirted and bodies that curved toward each other. Lenny’s clasped together knees were wholly erotic. The line of her neck was a siren song; the little hairs that didn’t make it into her updo and curled at her nape were a cruel tease.

Every move she made, every uptick of her lips and shift of her shoulders lit dangerous brush fires in him. He couldn’t remember ever being like this about a woman, and he didn’t trust this feeling. How much of it was Lenny, and how much was the knowledge that he’d succeeded tonight and was on his way to crushing one of the truly bad guys using skills he didn’t know he had.

He didn’t trust it and he didn’t care, because it felt like skydiving—an open chute, an impossibly breathtaking vista and knowing you were going to land safely, but that part of you might not ever come down, was permanently altered by the experience. Bonus safety points, no one was going to break a limb; they both knew the score.

He paid off the cab in front of her place. “Are you going to invite me up?”

“Are you going to misbehave?”

He stepped into her personal space. “I was planning on it.”

She plucked at a button on his shirt. “Using your initiative. I like it. Tell me more.”

“I’ll start out slow like you wanted, treat you nice, put my lips on your neck, feel your pulse beat, and take your temperature so I have a reference point.” He said that with his nose close to her jaw, breathing in deeply. “I want to kiss down the line of this dress to the heart of you, let the scent of your skin intoxicate me.” He was already drunk on her. His index finger traced that path, hooking into the lower edge of the dresses neckline and tugging, making Lenny gasp. “Once I take your mouth, I’m not giving it up. I’m keeping it hostage. And when we’re both aching, wanting, fuck near coming apart…” Exactly how he felt, like all the glue holding him together was coming apart. He stepped back but kept one of her hands, and as Lenny rocked on her heels, he steadied her. “I’ll say good night.”

She spun around and pantomimed falling into his arms, so he ended up with her nestled against his chest. “I don’t stand a chance of resisting you,” she said.

If that was true, he wouldn’t fear how little time they were going to have before Lenny resumed her law-abiding life. There were only four weeks of Cookie Jar’s stay in the city left, and once Sonny Ozols jetted off home, Halsey’s excuse for being at her side was vaporized.

They rode the elevator in a frenzy of ignoring each other, and the moment they got inside Lenny’s apartment, she said, “Mallory is on a sleepover and I need kisses, but I need to get out of my underwear before it cuts off my circulation.”

Not quite what he’d expected. Better. He raised a brow and gave her a rakish look. “You mean slip into something more comfortable?” Hell, yes.

“I do mean that.”

“By all means, lose the underwear. I’m standing by, ready, willing and able”—and damn near vibrating out of my skin—“if you should need help.”

She laughed and bopped his nose, making him blink hard.

“Wait.” He caught her hand and stopped her moving away. “Let me.” He put his lips to her neck and kissed up to the place where her jaw and her ear met and then down the line of her carotid artery till he felt her pulse thud strongly, in a duel with his. He was doing what he’d promised, slow and nice, and by the time he turned her body to kiss along the neckline of the dress, she was moaning most satisfactorily.

He kissed over her collarbone, open mouth dragging along the inside edge of her breasts, the top of her sternum, her throat, then all the way to her ear. She had one hand on his chest—she had to be able to feel his heart roaring—and the other in his hair, and it took a supreme act of will that made him groan not to help her out of the dress when he found the zipper under her arm.

“Oh God.” She sighed that out, swaying against him. “I’m almost ready to let you discover where the Hollywood tape is, and that I’m wearing a scuba suit under here.”