Feel the Heat (Hot In the Kitchen) (29 page)

Stop worrying about her, you moron.
Because she was clearly capable of taking care of number one.

His hazy focus trickled upward, giving way to a chest pang with a revisit to her face. No more thunder, just her heart, big and beating in her eyes. She bit down on her lip, a move he knew she didn’t intend as erotic but that registered as unbearably so.

“Lili—” The words clotted in his throat. Never tongue-tied, he always knew what to say. His hands were his tools, but words came a close second. He was British, for Chrissake.

Finally he managed, “Why are you here?”

“Because I need to fulfill my quota of Brit-accented insults.” She jabbed her helmet into his chest. Hard. “Why do you think I’m here? You got your divo on and accused me of some pretty heinous crimes. We need to sort this out.”

“There’s nothing to sort out. You used me. End of.” He clenched his teeth so hard he risked grinding them to bony fragments. Less than twenty feet away, a well-dressed couple stood by the elevator, craning their heads, looking suspiciously like opera lovers. It would be all over the hotel, or worse, in minutes.

He yanked her inside and slammed the door. For privacy, he told himself. But now she was close enough to taste, both of them trapped in the small entry about two feet apart. Since meeting her, he’d fooled himself into thinking his body was the traitor, which he now knew to be a blatant fallacy. All the treachery could be laid squarely at the door of his mind. The mind that wanted a woman who didn’t want him.

“You took Marco’s side. He put up that video and he’s guilty of God knows what else.”

“You don’t know he’s behind that.” She didn’t sound convinced. “The salting, yes, but—”

“Still defending him, I see. Still madly in love.”

“I’m not in love with him,” she said, her voice louder, clearer. “I don’t think I ever was. Not really.”

Relief bubbled through his veins but it couldn’t quite overtake the nice head of righteous anger he’d worked up. “Tell that to him. The way he looks at you—”

“I can’t help how he looks at me,” she said before adding softly, “How does he look at me?”

“Like he can think of nothing but stripping you and stroking your skin. Exploring your body. Making you his.”

Hands trembling, she folded her arms beneath her breasts. Good to know he wasn’t the only one having trouble keeping it together.

“That’s not how he looks at me. That’s how you look at me.”

His body caved with the weight of her accusation. The undeniable rightness of it. Her eyes bored into him, broadcasting her need, dragging him in.

“I wasn’t working with him,” she said. “I swear I had no idea what he or Gina were up to, and as soon as I found out, I stopped it. I was coming to tell you when your sister showed up and everything went—”

“Pear-shaped?” he finished on a sigh.

She nodded. “It might have looked like I took his side but I was worried you were going to go all ultimate fighter and drop-kick him into the middle of the next millennium.”

A conclusion that was fairly well founded. Deep down, he knew what she said was true and damn if he didn’t hate when unassailable logic butted up against his more visceral impulses.

“I know that the life you lead means you have a hard time trusting people, Jack. Half the world wants to sleep with you and the other half wants to be you. You’re richer than God, ten times as arrogant, and everyone wants a piece. But I don’t care about any of that. I’m not interested in what I can get out of you, Jack. I’m only interested in you.”

Her words humbled him. This was Lili,
his
Lili. The woman who never hesitated to put everyone else’s needs ahead of her own. Who chose him over her family when she sacked Gina. Shit, she had actually done that. Shame eddied through his gut that he could ever have doubted her.

She edged closer and, incrementally, he matched her moves. At this rate, they might be within touching distance by Christmas.

“Do you mean that? You want me…not…” He couldn’t finish for feeling foolish.
Not Jack Kilroy, not his image, not that other guy.

“Yes. Just you.” She stretched out her hand. Christmas had come early.

He grasped it for the lifesaving device it was and bound her to him. Her helmet hit the carpet with a soft thud; her arms twined around his waist.

“I know I’ve made mistakes but I’m only human.” Her cheek felt wet against his throat. “And you’re here with your blockbuster chest and your hot mouth and all that terrifying certainty. I don’t want the man I see on billboards and magazine covers and TV.
They
can have him. I want the man who makes me feel like anything is possible.”

His heart clicked into place like the final puzzle piece. Did she not realize that she already had him?

“Forgive me, Lili. The things I said…I was out of my mind.” He clasped her close, all while murmuring words of affection and apology and biting back the one thing fighting to find voice.

I love you.

He didn’t kiss her yet or scare her, or himself, with crazy declarations of love. Plenty of time for that later. Minutes passed as the tide of their breathing slowed to semi-normal.

“I can’t believe you canned Gina.”

Her eyes welled with tears, crumbling what was left of his internal organs to dust. “It had to be done. Girl was out of control.” Sniffling, she swiped at her cheek. “And I can’t believe you were jealous of Marco.”

Strangely, hearing her acknowledge it relaxed him. “I really should be more evolved than this.”

“The Neanderthal thing works. You’re pretty hot when you get all shouty.”

There she was, his beautiful smart-mouth.

He cupped her cheek and glided his thumb across her quivering bottom lip. That tremble was all the invitation he needed. Their mouths searched and queried, frantic for each other’s attention. All his problems faded away in her kiss. Urging her closer, he pressed the hollow of her back, and her heat seeped through his denim-covered thigh, shiver-shocking him until he forgot his own name.

She pulled away from his hungry mouth long enough to ask, “Jack, are we dating again?”

He parted from her long enough to chuckle at her less-than-subtle plea for sex. “Yes, yes. We’re dating again,” and then it hit him and he detached completely.

“I don’t have condoms.”

He had stopped carrying months ago so he would be more likely to think before he had heedless sex with a production assistant or anyone who fit the bill for a no-strings lay. Could he order condoms through room service? Was that even possible? Of course it wasn’t possible. And if it was, it wasn’t smart. He would have to go out. Leave her again.

Slowly, languidly, she dipped into the pocket of her dress and pulled out a square-shaped, shiny blue wrapper. He almost fell to his knees in supplication at the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. After her, of course.

“Hmm, you think one’s going to be enough?”

“A girl who carries more than one risks getting a bad reputation.” With a sensuous slide of her tongue across her bottom lip, she drew out another and held it up with its mate like a winning poker hand. Her hand foraged again and retrieved more, which fell to the floor in a cascade. She had enough condoms to suit up an orgy.

“I lost the other half when the Vespa hit a pothole on Michigan Avenue.”

It took him a full seven seconds to recover.

She covered her mouth like a naughty child, new color brightening her cheeks. She was embarrassed, but in that moment any doubts he’d had about her vanished. Love couldn’t describe what he felt right now. More like ruination.

“You’re pretty confident,” he pushed out, trying to make light, impossible when his heart felt too full for his chest.

Brushing by him into the suite, she slipped a couple of condoms into his pocket. “Just a cock-eyed optimist. I figured after turning me down twice, third time’s the charm.”

That it was. He was the luckiest man alive.

“Lili,” he said, searching for the right words. “
Grazie
.”

She greeted that with an eyebrow jump. “Show me.”

Peeling off his shirt rendered him blind for a few precious seconds, and when he found light again, she was walking away from him, pulling her dress up over her head. Strip-walking. Jesus, she was strip-walking and how she was able to get that hip sway without heels was doing strange things to his brain.

She turned to present those mouthwatering breasts falling over lacy cups and generous curves filling out underwear that looked like shorts. Speaking of
Busty Babes of B—

“What’s wrong?” she whispered, all humor drained from her face.

He tried to catch his breath. “You’re so gorgeous, Lili. Your skin, your breasts, your—”

“Are you just going to stand there talking about me all night?”

He could stand and look at her all day, but his dick wouldn’t be down with that plan. The rush of desire drowned out the thump of his heart. The suite he had thought too small ten minutes ago was suddenly too big, and before she could react, he had hoisted her up so she was curled around his hips.

“Oh,” she gasped. “Jack, you shouldn’t—oh, God, I love how strong you are.”

He pushed through to the lamp-lit bedroom while she pressed her open mouth to his neck and sucked at his pulse, making his skin sizzle. Tossing her onto the bed, he got another approving “oh” while he stood back to assess his options. So inviting, yet he had no idea where to start. He needed more hands, or better yet tentacles. He needed to be Octo-Jack.

Forward momentum met unexpected resistance when she placed her foot flat against his stomach. “Wait,” she said. Standing, she spread her hands over his chest, her touch cool on his scorching skin. “Let me look at you first.”

That was code for slow down. Slow was good. Slow was very good because he was ten miles past desperate here, and if he didn’t ease up to at least five, he was going to make a fool of himself. Avidly, he watched the leisurely but measured path her hands took.

“Do I make the grade?”

“Hmm, B plus.”

“I’m improving,” he said, remembering how she ranked his kissing technique that first night.

She slipped around to his back, the raspy caress of her bra’s lace shooting tingles through him. Her hands appraised lovingly—over his drum-tight skin, circling his shoulder blades, his knotted muscles, trailing fire down to his hips. She ran her fingers to his stomach, tracing the hair above his navel, and it took all his strength not to push them down to his cock.

Crackling-hot kisses dripped down the ladder of his spine, sending every nerve into meltdown. He felt her sigh, a warm flutter as she placed her cheek against his back.

“Jack,” she whispered, scarcely audible above his serrated breathing.

“Yes, Lili?”

“What do you like?”

His skin prickled and his erection bulged hard against his zipper. He needed to free it, but the anticipation was so downright enjoyable and exquisitely painful.

“What do I like?” What did he like? Her. This.
Her
and
this
.

She curled back around to stand before him and cleaved her body to his. “Yeah, what you like. Don’t you like certain things?”

The metallic scrape of his descending zipper almost unraveled him. His cock stretched against his boxers, pushing into her belly and willing her to provide the resistance he needed.

“We can get into specifics later. Right now, I just want to slide into you and never leave.”

Her eyes grew wide like what she was seeing wouldn’t fit in them. “I thought you’d want something—” She clamped down on her plump bottom lip.

“Kinky? Not for our first time, sweetheart.” A stray thought needled through his lust haze. “Lili, you know all that online stuff about my sex life was rubbish, right?”

“Sure, I knew that,” she said, sounding a trifle disappointed.

He laughed and kissed her deep. “We’re going to figure this out. What you like. What I like. What we both like. There’s no one else in this room but you and me.” Having to live in the shadow of his tabloid reputation was bad enough; he didn’t need its long fingers in the bedroom. He pushed his jeans and boxers down in one fluid movement and kicked them off. No slouch, she plunked down on the bed, shucking her panties as she went.

“Wow.” Her eyes widened on seeing his erection, now cocked and aimed right at her mouth. She slanted her head to a couple of different angles. He felt like her next art project or a
Playgirl
centerfold.

“That’s what I’ve been putting up with since I met you, Lili.”

“Poor Jack,” she murmured as her soft fingers wrapped around him. At the slight touch, he groaned, the satisfaction of her finally holding him saturating his senses. But there was apprehension mixed with the desire. He was nervous, something he hadn’t experienced since he was a kid. She had this surreal effect on him.

“I can’t believe I’m finally getting to touch it,” she whispered in mock awe. “Jack Kilroy’s illustrious member.”

“My what?”

“It’s just that you’ve been so stingy. Not letting me play with it, telling me I had to wait. I assumed it must be gold-plated or bejeweled—”

“You’ve got a cheek,” he spluttered while her hands did wicked, wonderful things.