Rendezvous (Renegades 5)

“You’re fuckin’ crazy sexy.” His hand slid up her spine, collected her hair, and pulled her head back, arching her, forcing her ass higher. “Like that?”

“Yes… Oh God…”

He released one hip to smack the flesh of her ass, then dug his fingers in again and pulled her into him harder.

She cried out as the first wave of the orgasm hit, but kept pushing back into him, “Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop… Fuck…” And screamed as the next wave immobilized her.

But Keaton knew exactly what she needed. He wrapped one muscled arm at her hips and continued to thrust, igniting multiple orgasms like starbursts clustered together to explode in strings of ecstasy.

Keaton pressed his face to her neck. “Brooke, baby, so fucking good.”

She closed her fingers in his hair and kissed his temple just as a violent climax slammed through him, drawing forth the brutally serious side of a man she was just realizing she’d only begun to know. The same way she was just coming to realize there was a whole side of herself she hadn’t fully known about. One he’d only just introduced her to.

7

Keaton tried to massage conditioner into Brooke’s hair, but she was so limp, she kept moving every time his hands moved. “The sooner you hold your head still, the sooner you can get out of here and lie down.”

She groaned and let her forehead fall against his chest. He laughed. Then an unexpected rush of emotion swamped him, and he pressed his cheek to her head, wrapped his arms around her, and held her as tight as he could. Her hands circled his waist and hugged him back. And they just stood there like that in the elaborate Four Seasons shower, letting the hot water stream over them.

After a couple of minutes, she turned her head toward him and rested her cheek against his chest. “I’m sorry.”

It was a big apology. An apology for everything that had happened, everything that had gone wrong that day, all that could still go wrong.

He lifted a hand and stroked her wet head. “Me too.”

“It’s just… It’s so complicated.”

The inflection in Brooke’s words made it sound as if her inner landscape were all fire and brimstone. She’d never struck Keaton as the dramatic type, but it had been a year since he’d seen her, and she had been working for Jillian.

“I know Jillian can be self-involved,” he said, “but I’m sure she’ll understand once—”

Brooke pulled back and looked at him a little wild-eyed. “I hope your next words weren’t going to include ‘tell her.’ Because we are absolutely not telling her there is anyt

hing between us.”

Keaton let the rest of his breath release from his lungs and clenched his teeth in frustration as Brooke dropped her head back to rinse her hair. He felt like a rubber band continually being stretched to one extreme only to be snapped the other direction.

“This is ridiculous,” he told her when she pulled her head from under the spray. “It was so long ago, I don’t even remember anything about the night we were together. Like…” He fought to think back. “Hell, I don’t even know how long ago it was. Before she was married to that billionaire asshole.”

“In the limo this morning, she mentioned seeing you a few weeks ago.”

He pounded the shower control with a fist, shutting it off. “If you knew about me in the limo—”

“I didn’t know you were you. I mean…” She rubbed a hand over her face, pushing water from her eyes. “She didn’t say a name.”

He pulled a towel off the top of the door and wrapped it around her from behind, securing her in his arms. He pressed a kiss to her temple. “Unless you’re going to tell me that what we’ve got here is over and we’re never doing this again, which I’d never believe, she’s going to find out eventually. Better to just deal with it up front.”

“It’s not just about her.” She turned in his arms, and the deep apprehension darkening her pretty face worried him. “I need this job. I can’t afford to risk that. And I know her. I’ve been with her day and night for a year. I know what makes her tick. And what makes her snap. And right now, with what’s going on in her personal life, I guarantee even a hint of something between you and me would break her trust in me like a toothpick.”

She pushed the shower door open, grabbed another towel from the rod, and handed it to Keaton. Tightening her own, she waited as he dried off.

“I thought having you in town longer would be a really great chance for us to spend more time together, but…” She ran both hands through her hair and shook her head, misery plain on her face. “How did everything go so bad, so fast? She can make the very best situation so damn miserable.”

“Hey, hey…” He tightened the towel at his waist and stepped over to her, taking her in his arms again. “If she does this to you, why do you stay with her? Why haven’t you found another job?”

She curled one arm around his lower back and the other up and over the back of his shoulder, as if she couldn’t hold on tight enough. And Keaton’s rubber band snapped the other direction again.

“Because it’s not that easy,” she told him, her voice tight with distress. Her phone rang in the bedroom, and she jumped like a plucked cord. “Oh, crap. What time is it?”