“Not like anyone else you’re not related to.”
Shit, he didn’t want to lose her. Not in this moment. Not ever. But he’d have to give her up. And when she left, the part of him she’d tempted out from behind his desk and ignited would gutter out and die.
It was a bitter truth he couldn’t con his way around. Everything on the other side of his time with Lenny would be duller and quieter and contained, and those things, neat and tidy and careful, weren’t what excited him anymore.
She didn’t move away when he stepped in close behind her. Close enough to smell her floral perfume, for his body to react to her nearness; a low-grade tremor buzzed through his limbs, a stimulus he’d begun to crave.
“Being super rich can wreck your soul. Something deep inside a person can be corrupted by the power of fuck-off wealth.” All he could do was try to explain why he did what he did and hope she saw enough gray in the black and white. “Super rich people don’t look at the world the same way as regular people. They don’t value the people around them. They have more than they can ever need, but all that interests them is the accumulation of more. More money, more power, and the influence that buys. There are exceptions, the rich who work to make the world a better place. People who have their own charity foundations like you. But the exceptions don’t rule.”
Too late, he realized he’d just described her father. She was still, her arms folded across her chest, her weight on the leg farthest from him as if that distance might protect her from this tangled thing they were. The pulse of their attraction strong and yet fragile. His investment in her too deep not to wager it all.
“I know you detest what I do, and I understand why. The lies, the deceit, the private wealth, the whole breaking the law and should be in jail thing, but I do it because I believe in it, and I know you understand that, too.”
She forced out a breath. “Did you ever think of walking away?”
“Going legit? No. I was born to this. It’s a part of me.” It was the part of him she would never accept. “I understand if you want to leave.” He’d hit the gym, walk the streets, keep moving till he tired out his body and no longer ached for the need to have her.
“It’s okay. I get you. You’re methodical and organized. You have great taste and beautiful manners. You do work you’re passionate about, and you’re proud of it, and I’m conflicted about that, but I admire you for it. You’re good with kids and muggers, and you’re kind and warm and smart. You have a thing for unicorns. And you kiss me like you’ve never wanted to kiss anyone more, and I love that. I really love that. I feel safe with you.”
A thing for unicorns. She had no idea.
“I want to play a game.” She uncrossed her arms and shifted her weight on to the hip closest to him. “I want to forget for the next forty-eight hours that you’re a con man and I can’t afford to know you.” She hip-checked him and didn’t shift away on contact, and when he wrapped an arm around her back, he felt her tension ease. “I want to be Lenny and Halsey who started out ducking and weaving, but grew to trust each other.” He tightened his hold on her as she turned in his arms and pressed close. “Respect each other.” He could sprout wings and fly from the way her eyes had gone dark and her body molded to his. “Like each other.”
Like was a hot thread of tension pulled tight enough to vibrate in his muscles and open a space in his chest that was filled to the brim and sloshing over with the need of her. He didn’t have to lose her yet. He stopped himself from taking her mouth only long enough for her to get the words, “Who want each other,” out.
Lenny’s lips were sweet, and the nips of her teeth were maddening and forgiving and something of a warning that she broke away to give.
“Love me now, but when the weekend is over, we go back to the real world where you’re a man on the wrong side of the law, and I’m a woman on the right side who once helped you with fieldwork. Is that okay with you? Mallory would want to know I got your enthusiastic consent.”
The wager won, he brought a hand down persuasively on her ass and felt the prickle of all the little sequins and pearls sewn into the fabric as he squeezed. “I guess you’ll want that toothbrush, then.”
He pretty much dragged her through the living room, her laugher trailing them. “You can have the tour later.” Everywhere except behind the fake wall that hid his safe, multiple passports, and his everything has gone to shit, get out of town now, go-bag. “It’s impressive. I get paid a shit load because the risk factor is beyond sensible. I have fuck-off money, and I know how to use it r
esponsibly. I’m organized and methodical, and you left out determined and dedicated. And I forgot to mention, I adore cunnilingus.”
Lenny shrieked, and it was the wildest, happiest sound on the seduction express. He’d make her do that again and again. He hit the bedroom with her hand in his and his shirt and belt unbuttoned. The lighting programmed to come on with their motion lit up the room in a warm glow. “Lights on or off?” He wanted her comfortable before he made her squirm.
Say on. I need to look at you.
“Ah.” He caught the quick flicker of nerves in the uptick of her voice. Off it was.
“Do they dim?” she asked.
“Alexis, lamp one, 25 percent.” The overhead light went off, and one bedside lamp sent a soft amber circle of light over the bed. He’d see plenty of her lovely body and enough to know how to please her. “How’s that?”
Lenny put her hand to the back of her dress, and he stopped her. “Let me.” He moved around her and kissed the back of her neck, luxuriating in her perfume and the thrill of her permission. Her hair was up, and he put a hand to it. “Tell me what to do here.”
“There are pins.”
He took them out one by one, tossing them on the dresser, sifting his fingers through the hanks of hair that fell about her shoulders. He pictured them draped over his chest when they lay together sated. “My sisters stay here sometimes. You’re welcome to use whatever you find in the guest bathroom. There’s a robe on the back of the door in a dry-clean bag. I’ll get you a T-shirt if you want something to sleep in.” Not that he intended to let her sleep much.
He ran his hands down her body and hugged her, his nose in her hair. When she turned, pearls and sequins scratched over his skin, pinpricks of pleasure.
“You’re going slow. You’re concerned about my needs.” Her voice had gone thready. “That is the hottest thing ever. I am so turned on, right now.”
He lost himself in her touch and her mouth. Wanting more of her skin, he got the zipper of her dress down and his hands to her ribs before she pulled away with a low moan, holding his shirt tail scrunched in her hand. “The guest bathroom?”
“Across the hall.”