Crazy Cool (20 page)

She had to love him. He felt loved—loved in every cell of his body.

Taking her hand in his, he slipped her fingers from his mouth and ran his tongue down the center of her palm. He sucked on the inside of her wrist, laved the tender skin of her forearm, and he kept pulling her up, until she had to release him and give him her mouth. He wanted her kiss like nothing else in the world. He wanted to be covered by her.

He slid further down in the seat, licking her lips, tasting himself on her, consumed by the pure eroticism of making love.

“Condom?” he whispered.

“No, not this time . . . please,” she murmured, rubbing herself against him, running her fingers through his hair, breathing on him—absorbing him. “You’re safe with me, Christian.”

And she was safe with him, or he never would have let her take him in her mouth. As for the rest of it, he trusted her, more than trusted her. She was a part of him. They were both sheened with sweat, their bodies so hot, he felt like they were fusing, melting into each other, a sensation that only increased when she slid down on him, taking him inside.

God.
Kat on top. He pulled her mouth down to his and just lost himself in kissing her, in thrusting into her, in letting her ride him.

When she tightened above him, her cry caught in her throat, he still didn’t stop. He just kept going, pumping into her, holding her mouth to his for an endlessly deep kiss, until the wave of his release washed over him and dragged him completely under with her.

C
HAPTER

18

A
LEX ZHENG
was beside himself, completely beside himself. He didn’t know where Katya was, and she wouldn’t answer her phone, and he seemed to have lost the artist—
the
artist, Nikki McKinney, the woman everyone had come to see, the new sensation all the dealers were here to meet, and then, just to make things worse, someone was smoking,
smoking,
in the gallery.

He couldn’t see the culprit, but he could smell the smoke, and it simply wasn’t allowed.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. Not even close.

How had he let Katya get away from him last night? And with Christian Hawkins of all people. He was dead—which brought him around to “the worst.”

He brought his hand to his chest and pressed on the sudden pain near his sternum. Heartburn or heart attack, it didn’t matter. By the time Senator Dekker got done with him, there’d barely be enough left to bury.

And she was coming,
coming to Denver in the morning
. He and Katya hadn’t planned on seeing Marilyn during her brief stop.

But Marilyn wanted to see him now . . . in chains.

Oh, God, the pain got worse, and he pressed harder. He wanted nothing more than to get on a plane to L.A. and go home to Max, beautiful Max, with his long dark hair, incredible mouth, and strong shoulders.

But not even Max could save him from Marilyn Dekker.

He’d called her; he’d had to, but that didn’t make having to face her any easier. Even worse, unbelievably, the Dragon had gotten the same manila envelope full of pictures that had been waiting in the apartment for him and Katya last night.

He didn’t want to think about it. Really, he didn’t. He’d been shocked enough for both of them. Not about the sex. There’d been nothing at all unusual about what Christian Hawkins and Katya had been doing, and quite frankly, Mr. Hawkins had been one very beautiful boy thirteen years ago—very beautiful. God, the tattoo on his back and the way it curved around his hips had been nothing short of mainline erotic. No, Alex had been shocked that the pictures had ever been taken and were circulating now, especially after what had happened at the Denver Botanic Gardens.

Someone was out to either get Katya or ruin her—and he’d lost her.

Shit.

And then the whole thing with Dylan Hart, whose security clearances had not only impressed the hell out of him, but also scared the hell out of him. Mr. Hart had made connections on a cell phone Marilyn Dekker couldn’t have made from a secure line in her office.

So who the hell was Dylan Hart? Or for that matter, Christian Hawkins? He knew what they’d been thirteen years ago, but as far as he could tell, the information that had been gathered on them since was worthless. The only chop-shop boy that anyone had kept current with was Quinn Younger. Of course, his face had been plastered all over every newsmagazine in the country when he’d been shot down in his F-16 over northern Iraq a few years back. With that kind of publicity, it hadn’t exactly taken a rocket scientist to follow his career.

And he’d been here tonight, in the gallery. Apparently, he was married to Nikki McKinney’s older sister.

Alex dropped his face into his hand and shook his head. Denver was
such
a small town. Practically inbred. He couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting one of these chop-shop boys, and he couldn’t get a damn bit of information out of any of them. He
knew
Quinn Younger knew where Christian Hawkins was—but the man had been completely closemouthed, very grim for someone at a gallery opening, and his wife, Nikki McKinney’s sister, hadn’t been much better. She’d looked quite sad.

Something was going on. A lot of things were going on, and Alex was out of the loop. It was a very uncomfortable, and he feared dangerous, place for him to be. If Katya needed him, he wasn’t going to be there for her—but at least she had her red Gucci dress with the matching sandals, and her Kate Spade bag with all her little accoutrements, and her shampoo, and everything else a girl would need for two or three days out of town—as if
that
was any sort of consolation for having lost her. Dammit.

Hawkins had returned to the apartment in the middle of the night and taken it upon himself to pack the overnight bag Alex had refused to put together. It hadn’t taken any great Sherlock Holmes–type detective work to figure it all out, either, because the man had actually had the audacity to leave him a note.

Alex wasn’t given to much self-doubt, but that had thrown him. Hell, he’d been right there in the apartment all night long, and he hadn’t heard a thing.

So who were these guys?

And where was Katya?

He needed to warn her about her mother changing her plans and fitting a little mother/daughter visit in as a
top
priority. He needed to explain to her, explain a lot of things. He’d never betrayed her, not once in five years, and a fine line it had been, working for the Dragon and being a true friend to Katya. But he’d walked the line. He swore he had, and he wanted Katya to know.

And she had to be warned about her mother. He would never forgive himself if the Dragon snuck up on her. Katya didn’t deal well with her mother under the best of circumstances. Under the worst of circumstances, it might be more than she could bear.

Jesus Christ, where was she?

He’d implored Suzi Toussi to contact her, but Katya wasn’t taking anybody’s calls.

He’d gone to the police, but some Nazi lieutenant named Loretta Bradley had very coolly shut him down, basically telling him Katya Dekker was in a secure situation and the investigation was out of his hands.

Like he didn’t know that?

Well, he had until morning to get it back in his hands, or all hell was going to break loose—with him at the center of it.

Now where in the hell had Nikki McKinney gotten herself off to, and who in the hell was smoking in his gallery?

K
ID
lifted his mouth from their kiss and looked down at Nikki, still not believing what she’d done. God, she’d taken her dress off, just pulled it off over her head and blown his mind, which was perfect. His mind needed blowing.

He put his hands on her, slid them up over her breasts, cupped her.
Geezus,
she was soft, probably the softest thing he’d ever touched in his whole life.

She stretched up and opened her mouth on his neck, laying a trail of kisses along his skin. He took a breath, hoping he could do this. He wanted so badly to make love with her, but, man, his head was in a bad place.

He squeezed his eyes shut, as if that would somehow block out the awful sense of panic buzzing at the back of his brain. It didn’t.

Tough it out,
he told himself—and really, what kind of a thing was that to have to be thinking when a guy had the hottest girl in the world in his arms, and she was practically naked?

His hands started trembling, and he didn’t know what would be worse: to lift them off her body and not have her to hold on to, or to leave them on her and have her know he was shaking like a leaf.

She had to know it already, but all she did was slide her hands around to the front of his jeans and start unbuckling his belt—and that helped, that got his attention.

Honest to God, if anyone had asked, he would have said it was physically impossible to have an erection and a panic attack at the same time, not that he’d known what a panic attack was, except from talking a guy through one once during a combat mission. Now he knew, up close and personal, and it was awful; he’d known what one was ever since this evening, when he’d gone to his dad’s.

He hadn’t been able to take it, watching his old man break up.

But he could take this—having her take off his pants.
Oh, yeah,
he could take it just fine. She finished with his zipper and slid her hands around over his bare ass, pushing his jeans and briefs a little lower as she did.

Then she pushed them even lower, and they just kind of slid off him the rest of the way to pool around his boots. He’d lost a lot of weight in Colombia, gotten downright scrawny, but he hoped she wouldn’t notice that.

He hoped she would notice that he was suddenly hard as a rock—and that was great, just great. So was having her hands all over him, sliding up under his T-shirt, rubbing his chest, kneading his shoulders, smoothing back down his torso and over his ass again, holding on to him like she meant it—yeah, that felt good.

Incredibly good.

He rocked against her, sliding up against all her soft, satiny skin, and miracle of miracles, he felt the panic ease. He’d needed her so badly.

She started to push his jacket off his shoulders, and before it got too far toward the floor, he reached in his pocket and pulled out a fistful of the condoms he’d made sure he had with him before he’d left Steele Street. As the jacket came the rest of the way off, and he was toeing out of his boots, she happened to notice what was in his hand.

He followed her gaze from his fist up to meet his own, and a sudden, unexpected blush coursed over his cheeks. A fistful of condoms either looked pretty stupid or pretty damn presumptuous.

“Um . . . how many of those things do you think you’ve got there, cowboy?” she asked, the tiniest grin playing about her lips, her eyebrows arched, her head cocked to one side.

Yeah, he was a cowboy all right, kind of a desperate, horny cowboy.

He looked down at his hand and surprisingly found himself fighting his own grin.

“Eight,” he said, making a fair guess. Okay, that was stupid, but what was even stupider was that there were still more in his jacket pocket.

“Eight,” she repeated, opening his fist and carefully taking the packets out of his hand. She made a little pile of them on her dress. “I don’t think we’ll need eight to start.” The briefest smile curved her lips as she ran one delicate finger up the length of his cock.

It was hot in the closet, but it instantly got a whole lot hotter.

Probably wouldn’t need eight to finish up with, either, he silently agreed with her, feeling so friggin’ foolish and so freakin’ turned on—and oh so much better. All she was wearing was a little pair of white lace underwear and her spike-heeled, silver-splashed, purple go-go boots—and somehow, that was all really working for him, even better than if she’d been completely naked, and he got the idea that she knew it, that she’d done it on purpose—which just made it work all that much more.

“You’re the only man I’ve been with, Kid,” she said, looking up at him again from under her lashes, her finger making another lazy trail back down him.
Geezus.
It wasn’t a coy touch, or a coy glance, not at all, not from those hands, or from those eyes, so discerning, so unafraid, so beautifully gray. She simply knocked him flat out. She had from the first instant he’d ever seen her.

And she hadn’t slept with Travis. The relief he felt was absolutely humbling—but that wasn’t all she was telling him, and he knew it. She was being careful, and he liked that she was careful. He liked it a lot, mostly for her, but also for what he was beginning to think it might mean for him.

“My job,” he started. “Well, in my job, they’re always poking and prodding at us, checking us out, and—
Geezus,
Nikki.”

She’d wrapped her hand around him, run her thumb over the top of him, and while he was still absorbing that eye-crossing pleasure, she ran her whole hand down the length of him—and back up.

God.
He leaned down and kissed the top of her head, rubbed his lips over the silky, spiky mess that was her hair, and just soaked in the intense sweetness of having her stroke him. It was so perfect, exactly what he’d dreamed about all those endless nights in Colombia. He’d been so lonely for her. Hell, so lonely for anybody, but he’d wanted her, just like this, turning him on, sharing something that had more to do with life than all the death that had surrounded him.

And he’d ached for her, just ached to have her touch him like she was touching him now.

“I’ve got a clean bill of health, Nikki,” he swore to her, and she looked up. “I hadn’t been with anyone for a long time before you, and no one since.” His voice was hoarse, and he felt like he was spilling his guts, confessing things that made him look a whole lot less than cool, but he also didn’t think being sexually cool would have been a plus with Nikki. She certainly hadn’t been sleeping around.

No, she’d saved herself for someone special. She’d saved herself for him, and from the look in her eyes, he’d just told her what she’d needed to hear, needed to know.

That sweet, lazy smile graced her lips again, and the next time she brought her hand up him, her mouth was there to take over the job—hot, silky, wet . . . mind-bending.

He groaned, his head falling back, his hips thrusting forward as she plied her tongue in one of the most sensual explorations of his anatomy he had ever experienced. He’d watched her work. He knew she knew men in their most intimate details, and she brought all that knowledge to bear with infinite finesse, infinite tenderness, all but turning him inside out with pleasure—so sweet and keen. She left no part of him untouched, unloved by her lips, and her tongue, and her hand and fingers, exploring, applying pressure, rubbing him in exquisite, surprising moves he hadn’t even known he would love.