Fool Me Forever (The Confidence Game 2)

Halsey backed her up against the door and groaned into her mouth. He tore the sweatshirt over her head to get his hands on her, but he was all wet wool and too many layers, and she didn’t have enough hands to touch his face and get his coat off his shoulders.

“Bedroom. Now,” she ordered, curling around him as he grasped under her thighs and carried her down the hallway. “We don’t have long.” Mom and Mal would be back, and she didn’t want to have to explain this. Wouldn’t have the courage to try.

It wouldn’t take long. This fever burned bright and hot. There was no slowing its rampage, just falling, falling into its thrall and the craving need it kicked off in her body. He placed her on the bed, his mouth on hers, his hands working on his clothes, growling when his buttons frustrated him and wrenching away.

His shirt made a wet slap when he tossed it over a chair. His shoes squelched when he toed them off. She couldn’t move except to watch him furiously wanting her, but she’d been cleaning. She glanced toward her bathroom. “I should—”

“Don’t you leave that bed.” He was down to underwear and out of patience, and she’d never felt more desired.

“If you hadn’t come for me, I was coming for you.” That’s a truth her body knew, even if it was a spectacular shock for her mind to recalibrate around the thought. He was sublimely, addictively, criminally wrong for her. And the only thing she wanted more than her next breath.

She’d come close to having a panic attack in the elevator when she’d left his apartment. It’d felt like she was willfully sabotaging herself. Strangling her future. She’d had to grip a handrail and talk herself into hitting the G button, trick herself into believing leaving him was the only smart thing to do.

He stripped off her pants, the sound of tearing on the existing rip made her gasp. He got rid of their underwear, took the clip from her hair, tossed it over his shoulder, and came for her mouth, pushing her down on the bed. His hands were warm, but his skin was chilled, and that was a thrill all of its own.

Braced above her, she could feel the fine tremor in his body. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and tucked her face into his neck, ready to be in the heart of the frenzy and waiting for lightning to strike.

It burned beautifully when it did. Twice. Once for each of them in quick succession. A coiling electric zap that started low inside Lenny and sizzled over her hips and along her spine to zing inside her head. It might’ve fried her brain, lit it up with white lights. The same fire and ice hit Halsey seconds later and he stilled, breath stalled and body rigid, before he rolled them, holding her tight to his chest.

“Are you okay?” His lips at her hairline, his voice so low and gravelly it hooked leftover currents inside her and made them spark again.

She wanted to sail in the complex elements of her high, and talking was too much real-world effort. She told him how she felt wordlessly with her lips and her tongue and her hands. They kissed while the storm cleared their heads and left them satisfied and sleepy.

“Don’t overthink this,” she said, when she came back to herself enough to see his furrowed brow.

He grunted an acknowledgement. “I didn’t plan it.”

She’d known that instinctively. She’d heard the urgency, the warning and devil in his voice over the intercom, and she’d had a choice. And then he’d looked wrecked when he arrived, a wild blend of certain and remorseful she’d been unable to resist. “It was a flash flood.”

“I’m not sorry.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I was a little possessed.”

“I didn’t have to let you up, and I’m not sorry I did.” Any minute now the front door would open, and she’d have to hide her lover in her room till it was safe to sneak him out.

He traced a hand down her spine. “I’m not ready to give you up, Lenny. I like myself so much more when I’m with you.”

She put her lips to his. She was a little possessed, too, by the soft awe in his voice, by the gentleness of his touch, and the absolute belief he cared for her and had been showing it right from the moment he showed up at her office and refused to leave because of Easton. What else was there that could account for the blinding sense of ease and happiness she felt with him? Hooked on the inappropriate rightness of them and unwilling to step away, she had to have more.

“I don’t want us to be over, yet. I want to go to the gala with you,” she whispered into his neck.

He pushed her back onto the pillow, searching her face. “The story about the Kandinsky being a forgery will hit the papers tomorrow. Cookie Jar will be wounded. Baiba says they will be baying for his blood at home. That makes him more dangerous.”

“To you, because he’ll think you set him up.”

“To you, if you’re with me.” He brushed his knuckles gently over her cheek. “He will have it in for me. I need to convince him I was duped, too. I know you don’t like me telling you what to do, but this is the heart of the con and it’s risky. This isn’t like standing behind one-way glass; it’s being in the spotlight. It’s safer for you to stay away. Last thing you want is to be anywhere near the breaking scandal.”

It wasn’t easy to think about anything else except the fact she had Halsey in her bed, and if she let him go to the gala alone, she’d be leaving him without the subtle protection she offered right when he might need it most. Excel Boy shouldn’t need to be without PowerPoint Girl until the job was finished. They could be sensible and break up later. Shake hands over a job well done and part as friends. It was the best outcome. She’d have plenty of time to take up knitting.

“We started this together, and I want to see it through. There’ll be hundreds of couples at the performance. And no one throws punches at a gala.”

He kissed her cheekbone, right over the little scar she’d gotten from a toy car Easton had thrown at her when they were kids. He’d kissed it a dozen times since she’d told him how she got it. “You’re changing the rules,” he said.

“I finish what I start, and I don’t want you to have to face this alone.” She could be sensible about breaking up. She would. She just wanted one more night at his side.

“Lenny, I’m not without support if I need it. I can’t let”—he stopped, rubbed his eyes—“I can’t tell you what to do, but I don’t like this.”

“Nothing bad has happened so far. How is this one event any different?”

Halsey shook his head, unconvinced, so she hit him with the last of her ammunition.