Maverick (Elite Ops 2)

Pity. But it couldn’t be helped.

She lived alone. That was a pleasant plus. He could slip into her apartment, gag her, and kill her in her own home. He didn’t get to do that very often. He’d definitely have to put her facedown, though. There was just something about that face that he couldn’t tolerate. Those eyes. She would be a particularly interesting test for him. He’d never had to kill a woman who made him as uneasy as this one did.

CHAPTER 4

HER GRANDMOTHER had always said she was stubborn, but Risa had never believed her. As she stepped into Micah’s hotel room, she wondered if perhaps her grandmother Abigail wasn’t right. Maybe she was too stubborn.

She had made herself go this far, and now that she had, her body was rioting with nerves. She didn’t know this man. She knew nothing about him.

Well, next to nothing. Morganna, Raven, and Emily had imparted some information. He was thirty-two, born to Israeli immigrants, six two, tough. Their husbands respected him. He was clean as of his latest Navy-regulated blood tests. Morganna had stated that Clint believed he was kind. He was good with animals and children.

Hell, it was more than Risa knew about the men her friends were married to.

“Would you like a drink?” She jerked, startled as his hands touched her shoulders, but only to draw her wrap from the death grip she had on it as it lay over her shoulders.

She let the material slide over her arms as she shook her head.

“No, thank you,” she finally breathed out. She didn’t drink often. It had a curiously heated effect on her. It made her want things, things she didn’t understand, touches she had only read about or seen in movies.

“Are you certain this is what you want, Risa?” he asked then, his warm breath caressing the side of her neck as he bent his head to hers. “It’s not too late to turn back. We can go to the bar and talk. I could drive you home.”

She stiffened in sudden self-consciousness. “If you’d prefer not to.” She moved to turn, to take her wrap, to let him off easy. God, had the lights of the club somehow hidden how plain she truly was?

“Prefer not to? I don’t think so.” His hand moved hers to his leg, pressed her palm against the tight muscle of his thigh.

Risa stared down at her hand, noticing how much larger his was as he held her palm against his muscular leg.

Curiosity overtook her. Curiosity and the electric slide of arousal that seemed to build inside her until she wondered that sparks weren’t ref

lecting between them.

“I don’t know how.”

A finger pressed against her lips as he halted her words. “There’s nothing either of us needs to know,” he said softly as she continued to stare down at their hands. “Whatever you wish is yours. If you don’t wish, then you have only to say so and I’ll stop. Agreed?”

She licked her lips nervously and lifted her head. Her attention was caught and held by his lips. His lower lip was a touch fuller, more sensual, than the upper lip. On him, it looked good, sexy.

Her lips parted. “Would you kiss me?”

She felt as though she was begging, but she was helpless against the temptation, against the needs rioting through her body.

“I dream of kissing you,” he whispered, his hand curving around her neck, his fingers heated against her flesh as she let herself accept the lie for now.

He couldn’t have dreamed of kissing her, but she liked the sound of it. It soothed something inside her, and heated another part of her.

She watched as his lips lowered, watched as she felt his breath against her, then the heated rough velvet touch of lips against her own.

Risa inhaled roughly at the static surge of sensation that raced across her lips. She jerked back involuntarily, her hands flying to his chest, palms flat as she blinked back at him in surprise.

His lips tilted into a gentle grin.

“Should we try it again?” he asked softly. “Perhaps next time neither of us will be caught off-guard by the pleasure.”

That was pleasure?

His hand tightened on her neck.

“Watch me, just like that,” his dark voice crooned. “Your eyes wide, your gaze dark because I please you. I want very much to please you, Risa.”