Sweetest Taboo (SIN 3)

For a moment, he almost wished that she would.

Then the spell broke and she nodded once, then slid out of his embrace and over to the far side of the bench seat. For a second, he fantasized about pulling her back and kissing her so hard they'd trend all the way to the number one spot on Twitter.

But that was only a fantasy.

He'd find a way, though. Somehow, he was going to find a way to be with Jane. Truly and completely and openly.

And on that day, he'd tell the damn reporters to all go to hell.

Today, he just kept his head down as they emerged from the taxi. As he'd predicted, the second the vehicle had pulled up, the reporters and paparazzi who'd been casually leaning up against trees and parked cars rushed forward, so many of them that Dallas swore some must have emerged from the sewers like rats.

"Jane! Dallas!" Their names echoed in the crisp morning air, underscored by the honk of taxi horns, the squeal of brakes, and the general din that was Manhattan during rush hour.

"Dallas! What are you going to do now that you're no longer the CEO of Sykes Retail?"

"Jane! Are you still speaking with your parents? What about Colin West? Was your birth father aware of your relationship with your brother?"

"Are you going to stay in New York?"

"Is it true that Lyle Tarpin turned down the lead in The Price of Ransom? Is it true that the studio has pulled the plug on the movie altogether?"

Beside him, Jane winced. Dallas frowned; that was a new rumor, and one he could tell from her expression that Jane hadn't heard. He hooked an arm around her, lowered his head, and dove into the throng, resolved to get them both through the gauntlet without any more bombs landing squarely on top of them. By the time they reached Howard, the doorman who'd come out to meet them, his arms held wide in an effort to shield them, Dallas was in a foul mood.

"They've been loitering all morning," Howard said. "I'm sorry, Mr. Sykes, so long as they stayed in the street and away from the entrance there was nothing I could do."

"You were great," Dallas assured him. "And I'm sorry about it. I imagine we're the most unpopular people in the building right now."

Howard immediately assured him otherwise, but the expression on the older man's face suggested that Dallas was one-hundred-percent right. Damn celebrity chasers.

He kept his head down and Jane tight against him as Howard ushered them the rest of the way into the building, and he kept her close as he guided them onto the elevator and then punched the number for their floor.

Only when the doors closed and the car was moving did he relax his hold on her. He turned to see her face, expecting her expression to be guarded, his

own anger and frustration in her eyes.

But when she lifted her head, all he saw was need, and he had only an instant to process that reality before she flew into his arms so violently that he stumbled backward against the elevator's glass wall.

The intensity of her kiss burned through him like wildfire, and he pulled her tight against him, his mouth claiming hers, one hand cupping her rear as the fingers of his other hand wound tight in her hair so that he could have her where he wanted her. But what really got him hard was the knowledge that this was exactly where she wanted to be, too. In his arms, finishing what they'd started, erasing the whole goddamn world, if only for a little while.

"Please." The pure passion of her voice rocked him, and when her hand cupped his crotch, he thought he would explode right then. But when she started to tug down the zipper of his jeans, he caught her wrist in his hand.

She tilted her head back to look at him, her lips swollen, her face flushed.

"Cameras," he said, hating that they had to be so damned rational, because god knew he'd been sucked off in elevators before. But he couldn't risk security cam footage of him and Jane suddenly showing up on Gawker.

For a moment, he regretted his words, afraid that the reminder of the eyes that were constantly on them would push her back into herself. But then she smiled, slow and sexy, before pressing her body hard against his, her pelvis tight against his cock, as she whispered, "Then you damn well better strip me naked the second we're inside the apartment."

He was fighting the urge to do exactly that despite the damn cameras when the elevator stopped and the doors slid open--and there was Bill Martin, standing right outside the door.

"Finally," Jane said in that same moment, her back still to the door. "I need you to fu--"

He pressed a finger to her lips even as he plastered on a false smile. "Hello, Bill," he said, and watched Jane's eyes go wide as she spun around to face her ex-husband. "You want to tell me what the hell you're doing here?"

Dallas eased his arm around Jane's waist and led her into the hall. "For that matter, how did you get in here?"

Bill opened his wallet and flashed his badge. "It's not as impressive as when I worked at the US Attorneys office, but it's official."

"WORR's not the FBI," Dallas said, referring to the World Organization for Rescue and Rehabilitation. "It doesn't have investigative power in the United States." He kept his words tight. Focused. He couldn't show fear, only irritation. Bill had to be here because he wanted to investigate the Sykes kidnapping against the family's specific request that he back off. This wasn't about Deliverance. It wasn't about Colin.