Chapter 16

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

JAKE

Elaine studies me while I finish eating the cookie, making me feel like a slide under a fucking microscope. "What?"

"I'm trying to decide if you were being honest."

I laugh. "And what's the verdict?"

"Undecided, but you are surprising."

"So are you. It's not every day I get tackled and patted down by a woman half my size."

She snorts. "I'm hardly half your size. You're probably only 5'11"."

"You sure know how to stroke a man's ego."

Her smile changes, shifting to something less amused, more brittle. "I do, actually. I spent years doing that. I'm sick of it."

"Would you like to stroke something else instead?" I ask, then lift up my hands. "Joking."

"No, you're not," she says, her voice somewhere between seductive and threatening.

"What, because all men are assholes who only want one thing?"

"No," she snaps, contempt flashing in her eyes, "because you were hard when I patted you down."

I tap my fingers on the table. "Can you blame me? You rubbed your hands all over me. The TSA would have been proud. And you climbed into my lap the other day. You didn't have to. You could have fast-forwarded straight to spilling that beer all over yourself. It felt good for you too, didn't it?"

Her eyes widen. She didn't expect me to go there, and I like that I caught her off guard. It's like I just earned a point in whatever fucked-up game we're playing. Will she deny it?

She licks her lips slowly, something that's obviously for my benefit…and torment. "It's been a while for me. It would have felt good if I'd kissed a mannequin."

I ignore the obvious lie and ask, "Did it feel that good when your ex-fiancé kissed you?"

"Did it feel that good when Cleo kissed you?" she rebuts hotly.

"What do you think? I couldn't even remember her name."

The look on her face says she's unimpressed. Fair enough. I don't feel the need to tell her that I was nearly out of my mind the night I met Cleo—full of guilt, because Ryan had risked himself for me, and if I'd been a stronger man he wouldn't have felt he needed to do it.

"Charming," Elaine snaps, getting to her feet lithely.

"She tried to steal from me," I say. "I doubt she's losing sleep over me forgetting her name. You know, you didn't answer my question about your fiancé."

But she doesn't have to. She's a hellcat, a woman of fire, and even without knowing the first thing about him, I'm not surprised he couldn't keep up.

I take a half step toward her and stop, wanting to see if she'll move toward me.

She doesn't.

"I abhor what you do," she says, still holding my gaze, her chin held high. "It's despicable."

It's nothing that hasn't been said to me before. By multiple people. Which isn't to say it doesn't affect me. I meet her gaze—one stare-off champion taking on another—and say, "I agree. That's why I wanted to quit. But you have to admit…whether or not someone is despicable has nothing to do with physical attraction."

I want to ask if she thought about me in her shower—if she slid her hand between her legs under the driving water and touched herself with my name on her lips.

I'm losing what few brain cells I have left. It's just…

I've never met a woman I can be wholly honest with. A woman who knows my secrets. It's surprisingly addictive, and that adrenaline from earlier is still pounding through me, asking for release.

Then she takes a step toward me—the sight sending my blood from a simmer to a boil, because she's tipping her head up to me, revealing the long slope of her neck. Fuck me, I want to kiss it. To bite it. To lose myself in her and forget everything except for how damn good it feels.

"No," she says. "I suppose it doesn't." She leans in closer, her voice the purr of an undomesticated cat. "I have to admit I am a little curious about what better uses you can make of that mouth."

A near feral sound escapes me, and I pull her to me and then back her into the counter, my mouth already on her. Her lips open to me, and she tastes like fuck you very much cookies, and I'm already so hard it hurts.

It's the adrenaline, I tell myself again. Adrenaline has always made me feel more alive. And, God knows, this woman has driven me to distraction since Tuesday. I can tell the same is true for her. She hunted me earlier; she caught me. And now we both get to claim the prize.

Our teeth clash, and then she sucks in my bottom lip and bites. Her hands tug my shirt out of my pants. They trail up against my flesh again, to the same places they branded when she gave me her pat down earlier.

I pull back, needing to see the look in her eyes—intent on burning and destroying. "You liked feeling me up earlier, huh? You want more, hellcat?"

"Shut up," she says, then pulls me to her by the bottom of my shirt, not being at all gentle. I'm not going to complain. Right now, the only thought in my head is to take as much as she's willing to give me.

I kiss her again, pushing her into the counter as if it's that wall from earlier—because this is what I wanted then and also what I want now. I'm possessed by a pressing need I couldn't even hope to put into words, beyond this… Her, now . Her, here .

I kiss down her chin, her neck, I push down the front of her shirt to kiss the tops of her tits, captured in a sports bra that tries to hold them back, and her hand reaches down to feel my hard dick through my pants. It's straining to get closer to her.

I swear into her mouth as her hand works me. Then I push at the band of her sweatpants, desperate to get them down. I want to find her wet for me. I need it. I need to know I'm affecting her the same way she's affecting me, because I don't think I've ever felt this desperate to have a woman before. To touch her. To make her moan and lose control. Maybe it's because she's the only woman who's ever shared this part of my life with me. It figures that she thinks I'm contemptible, but I'll take her desire as the best consolation prize I've ever been given.

She reaches for the band of her pants too, and for a second I think she's going to pull them back up—party over—but she helps me get my hand inside. The feeling of her, slick and wet and so fucking ready for me, nearly makes my eyes roll back in my head.

The sound she makes as I rub her clit, my fingers exploring, is unreal. Her hand stalls on my dick, hot through the fabric of my Jake Jeffries pants, and the other one spears into my hair, gripping it until I'm looking at her—our eyes meeting and holding as I fuck her with my fingers.

"Do you like that, Elaine?" I say, my voice someone else's. Out of control. Out of control. And does it ever feel good. "Do you like being finger-fucked by the thief you caught?"

"Shut up." Her pupils are dilated, and I can feel her flexing against the fingers I have inside of her—her pussy so deliciously wet, so ready, and I know she's going to come for me. She's going to come for me, and then I'm going to lick my fingers and suck her down.

I hope to God there's no karmic justice in this world, because if there is, there's no way she's going to give me what I want and tell me to fuck her. I want to take her right here in this kitchen, even though those P.I. friends of hers could come home any minute, and should have been home an hour ago.

I want to bend her over that counter, and have her that way. I want her to sit in my lap and ride my dick. I want to fuck her against the wall of Mrs. Rosings's house.

I want—

She tugs me to her by my shirt again, not gentle at all, and her mouth works against mine while her pussy squeezes my fingers, and I know I'm going to feel her come around them. She's going to moan into my mouth. The expectation has me so hard, I'm in danger of coming in my pants. Then she makes a little sound in the back of her throat, and I know the moment is nearly here…

That's it, hellcat, that's it.

Except it isn't. Because she abruptly pushes me away, her eyes wide, a surprised exhalation escaping her.

"What just happened?" I ask, totally thrown. "Did I…did I hurt you or something?"

The thought's a poisonous one, because I wanted to show her a good time. Still want it.

"No," she says with a hoarse laugh, tucking her hair behind her ear, the action almost prim. "Not even a little…I just… That was getting a bit out of hand, don't you think?"

"No," I admit. "I liked what my hand was doing. But if you think it was too much, that's what matters."

Her hands sweep over her lips. I can see myself all over her now—her swollen lips, her mussed hair, the way her shirt dips down lower—and it only makes me harder. "You almost came," I say, my voice a low whisper, nearly a growl.

"I almost came," she says, with something like wonder. "That's what I mean. This is…I need some time to think about this."

"You don't like being out of control," I guess.

"No," she admits, although I think the opposite is true. She was, by her own admission, liking it quite a bit. It's more that she's not used to it, a thought that is frankly stunning. If she were mine, I'd try to coax her into losing control three times a day. No, three times before breakfast. Hell, I'd still like to do that. I can think of no better way to spend my captivity.

Watching her, I lift my hand up and make a show of sucking my fingers. I'm probably tormenting myself more than her. The taste of her creates an instant addiction—one that probably won't be satisfied. "Delicious. You think all you want," I say once I've gathered myself enough to speak. "But if you decide you want to stop thinking and start acting, you know exactly where I'll be." I manage a smirk. "Because I'm your prisoner, Elaine. You might as well make the most of it. I think we could have some fun being out of control together."

"You're impossible."

"And yet, here I am. Standing in front of you. So I guess it's your lucky day."

She studies me for a second, standing just a few inches from me, before swallowing and saying, "I'm not interested."

A lie, and I wouldn't need to be a man schooled in them to call it. It's there in her shaking voice and dilated pupils. In the way her hands have fisted, like she wants to touch but won't. "Sure, you're not."

" I'm not ."

"Shall I go back up to my room since you have no more need of me, boss ?"

"Yes," she says through her teeth. "I think that would be best."

"You want to lock me in?"

It hurts to think about listening to the key rasp in the lock, even though I now know that she won't keep me in there forever. She doesn't think much of me, but she's not cruel.

"No," she says. "I'll talk my friends into leaving the door unlocked, but if you try to leave—"

"I'll be drawn and quartered. Roger that."

She narrows her gaze at me, but then her eyes soften. "And I'll get your things tonight. I'll grab the keys after Damien puts them away."

Her hair is hanging loose at her chin, her eyes almost luminescent. She's like a rare wildcat of a woman.

I can't help myself, I put a hand on her arm, the softness of her skin making me instantly want to touch more of it. All of it. She lets me stroke her skin, her lips parting. "Thank you, Elaine."

Then I get up and hurry over to the stairs. Up them. When I'm in the threshold of my prison cell, I turn around, and she's still down there looking up at me—the expression on her face suggesting she's as surprised by how this day has worked out as I am.

I feel a strange lurching sensation in my chest. The feeling that everything has changed, and it will keep right on changing, and soon I won't recognize anything. Including the person I see in the mirror.