KICK ASS: A Boxed Set (72 page)

“You have become quite the voyeur in my absence,” she challenged, refusing to drop instantly down into the water just to avoid his gaze. He’d seen her naked before. She’d seen him. Despite the flush simmering through her skin, she wouldn’t surrender to her discomfort, not when such a move would mean more than she wanted to admit to him about his affect on her.

“How can a man resist when the view is so compelling?”

He didn’t turn around, but continued to watch her through the cross reflection of the two mirrors. Slowly, the rush of warmth from her blush dissipated. Standing in the hot water, the air above suddenly chilled. When her nipples started to peak, she eased into the hot water.

He clucked his tongue in disappointment.

Immersed to just below her shoulders, Macy couldn’t help but feel completely exposed when Dante neared. He lingered just a foot or so away, his foot perched on the edge of the fountain, which she realized was tinkling with a soft, natural music that invited her to close her eyes and breathe deeply. In the steaming hot water, the sweet rose scents weakened her resolve. Her head swam, so she braced her hands on the sides of the tub.

“What did you do?” she asked.

“Nothing, yet.”

“I feel light-headed,” she admitted. If she’d been dealing with a T-45 operative instead of the head of the Arm, she’d suspect he’d drugged the water or perhaps even the perfume. But the Arm generally didn’t operate with such chemical slyness. They tended to barge in, take what they wanted and then clean up the mess afterward—much like the man who ran their organization.

Though he didn’t seem to be working in bulldozer mode tonight, did he? Even his voice contained a soft, lazy drawl unlike any she’d ever heard from him, even while undercover.

He picked up a large seashell from the edge of the fountain beside her. “Light-headed? That’s called relaxation, Macy. I told you last night I wouldn’t get you drunk. I also won’t drug you. When you return to me, you’ll do so of your own volition.”

She snorted, but without half the derision she’d intended. With the seashell, he scooped and poured the hot, scented water over her shoulders and across the back of her neck. The sensation was smooth and milky, as if he’d doused her in a melted emollient.

She released her hands from the side of the tub.

“I won’t return to you,” she said, her voice soft with drowsiness.

“Hmm,” he replied, pouring another shell full of water across her shoulders.

Arguing further would make no difference. She was in no position to convince him of anything. At this moment, she couldn’t convince herself that the sky was blue in the daytime. Slowly but surely, her mind grew too befuddled to form a single coherent thought. When she forced herself to think, her focus fell to the bed in the master suite—their next destination. She found herself anticipating the moment when she crawled into those cool, high-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets.

“What are you thinking about?”

She shook her head. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Very much.”

“Sorry,” she said with a sigh, leaning back against the porcelain. “My body is yours to command, not my mind.”

This time, he poured the water across her neck, so that the flow teased the tips of her breasts.

“Does that mean if I tell you to touch yourself, you’ll comply?”

Her eyes flashed open. She’d walked right into this one, hadn’t she?

“Is that what it’ll take to get you off?” she asked.

He chuckled. “I’m not interested in my own pleasure tonight, Macy. Though I’ll admit that watching anything you do excites me.” He poured another stream of warm across her collarbone. “How does the water feel? Hot enough for you?”

At least he’d gotten that part right. The temperature would likely scald anyone else, but the heat felt both familiar and new to her at the same time. “Perfect.”

“And the scent? I added an essential oil to the bath, which will account for the perfume and slick feel of the water as it sluices over your skin.”

She moved ever so slightly, so that the flow of water fulfilled his sensual promise, but she focused on the truth to keep her antagonism going. She couldn’t give in to him—not mentally. Not emotionally.

Well, she could, but would she hate herself in the morning?

“I’ve never been one for roses,” she said.

“Really? I could have sworn the scent would evoke some sweet memories for you. Perhaps I miscalculated.”

Hell. Dante never miscalculated, and the moment he mentioned sweet memories, her mind spun back to the past, long before they’d met, to a summer she’d spent with her grandmother at her home in Savannah, to the rose garden she tended with constant and loving care. Macy had been no more than ten years old, allowed for the first time to visit her father’s parents without her four raucous brothers to muck up the landscape. For two solid months, she’d helped her grandmother tend her prized flowers, listened to her stories, spent hours wandering the fields beside the creek that ran through the property her father’s family had owned for over a century.

She didn’t remember telling Dante about that summer, but she must have. And he’d evoked that innocent, faraway time with a not-so-innocent bath in a luscious arboretum.

Damn him.

She shifted in the tub, prepared to fight her Benedict Arnold muscles and get out, but he placed his hand on her shoulder and gently eased her back into the water. He leaned forward so that his words teased the tendrils that formed at the nape of her neck.

“Relax, Macy. Let the silkiness of the water awaken you. I’d forfeit my entire holdings to be in the water right now, surrounding you, penetrating you, experiencing every sweet curve and crevice of your body.”

She attempted to resist the power of his suggestion, but couldn’t. His desire was too evident, too overwhelming, too delicious to ignore. In the past, Dante had always made her feel desirable, but never to this extreme. Never to the point where he’d expose his own weakness for romantic nostalgia in order to prove the depth of his passion. Never to the point where he’d ask her to expose her own weaknesses, too many to count.

She couldn’t resist running her hands over her legs beneath the water, up her thighs to the flat plane of her belly or the round curves of her breasts. Despite her arousal, her nipples couldn’t fight the intense heat of the water to remain erect. But one brush from her fingertips and they tightened with intense, but lazy arousal.

She hummed as the sweet sensation eased through her body like slow molasses poured over hot cakes, sugary and thick with anticipation.

Dante knelt beside the tub.

“How smooth is your skin?”

“Like silk,” she replied, continuing to run her hands over her body, awakening nerve endings unaccustomed to such delightful decadence.

“What about your muscles? If I touched you now, would you jump out of your skin?”

She shook her head. “I’m not sure my muscles even work anymore. You won’t let me drown, will you?” she asked, slipping farther into the water so that only her head and chin were exposed.

“Never, love. I wish I could see you, but the ripples in the water are enough to make me hard. You’re touching your breasts now, aren’t you?”

She’d hardly realized how hypnotic the sensations could be, her thumbs drawing lazy circles around her areola, her fingers toying with the buoyant flesh of her breasts, creating a warm cocoon of sweet sensation.

She hummed her response.

“I can’t imagine your nipples hardening with all that wet heat surrounding you. They must be so pliable, so sensitive to the slightest touch.”

Willingly, she accepted his suggestion. He was right. She had to pluck hard to bring her nipples to full extension, but the sizzling sensations that shot through her blood as a result made the nips of pain entirely worthwhile. Between her legs, her labia pulsed with need.

She shifted in the water, exposing a breast long enough for a silky rose petal to adhere to her skin. Her sharp intake of breath matched Dante’s. He was watching from so close—and yet, he didn’t touch.

She should have opened her eyes, but she didn’t dare. She couldn’t bear to face his need when she was nearly drowning in the power on her own. If she looked, she might pull him into the tub with her. A girl could only take so much teasing without some release.

“Do it,” he urged.

She bit her bottom lip. She’d pleasured herself before—more times than she cared to admit—but never with an audience. Never while knowing that she could have so much more if only she surrendered. If only she begged.

“No,” she said.

“You want to,” he countered. “The pulsing is maddening, isn’t it? Especially when you know precisely how to sate the hunger. You won’t let me take care of you, Macy. But you can take care of yourself. Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to prove your whole life? How you don’t need anyone to give you what you need?”

He was goading her. Challenging her at her core and she saw no reason to deny the truth, especially when her body so desperately needed what only she—at this moment—could provide. She slipped her fingers between the folds of flesh, found her clit and stroked.

Leaning in close behind her, Dante whispered and cajoled, made suggestions and suppositions that drove her further into madness. And when she gasped for breath as her climax peaked, he kissed her.

With a splash, she wrapped her arms around him. He may have promised not to drug her or get her drunk, but he intoxicated her with a long, languid kiss that made every inch of her body ache for more. She wanted hot and heavy—and again, he denied her. He kissed her softly, toying with her tongue with only enough energy to bring her back to earth with gentle persuasion.

When he pulled away, his gaze betrayed the depth of his need.

“Make love to me,” she said, knowing his game could go no further.

“No,” he said, standing and stepping back, creating a chasm of space.

She attempted to stand. Her muscles wavered, but Dante braced her with hands on her elbows. She rewarded his quick reflexes with a hungry smile.

“You want to make love to me,” she said.

“Of course, but we’re not ready.”

“Because I didn’t come to you? Drop the game, Dante. We’re both here. We’re both incredibly aroused. Imagine how hot and slick I am right now. Imagine how easy your sex will slip into mine?”

She’d gone too far. She recognized the moment his control nearly snapped, but instead of yanking her out of the tub and flinging her on the soft mossy floor of the arboretum to finish what he’d started, he grabbed her robe and nearly ripped the fabric in his haste to cover her.

Forcing herself to remain silent, her hopes soared as he lifted her into his arms, refusing eye contact until he’d pounded up the stairs and kicked open the door of the master suite.

Finally! Once they did this, they’d expend the last of their mutual attraction and end this game of sexual teasing. He laid her on the bed, leaving her to open the robe as he circled around to the footboard, his eyes blazing, his nostrils flaring with unchecked lust.

Then, he was gone. She blinked, unsure that she’d actually seen him turn and leave. She struggled off the bed, her muscles still weak, and staggered toward the door.

Just in time to hear the click of the lock.

She sagged against the carved wood frame, unwilling to shout for him to let her out when she knew he’d never comply. She pounded on the wood once, an impotent but necessary gesture. Exhausted and angry, but mostly swimming in a wash of desires she needed to exercise out of her system, she rolled onto her back. The room glowed with candles, flickering seductive fingers of light over the golden bed sheets and intricately woven satin duvet.

He’d planned to seduce her here, just as she’d anticipated. She’d asked him—nearly begged him. Wasn’t that what he wanted?

Wasn’t she?

She staggered back to the bed, tossed aside the robe and climbed between the covers naked. Maybe he’d come to her later tonight, when he’d found some control for the wild emotions she’d caught in his eyes.

Or maybe not. Either way, by tomorrow, she’d end his game, if it was the last thing she did.

Seven

“He’s here.”

Dante snapped his attention away from the monitors to the speaker on his desk. “Show him up.”

After flipping the switch so that the image of Macy searching the billiard room instantly disappeared, he slid his chair back, retrieved his jacket from the brass peg on the wall and slipped his arms into the silk-lined garment.

An anxious tremor ratcheted through his system. Just a decade ago, a meeting such as this would have been unheard of, but Dante had decided after receiving the urgent communiqué from T-45 that the time had come for change—especially under the current circumstances.

As far as Dante knew, Abercrombie Marshall had not returned to the States since he’d left the Arm. Though Dante had never met the man, he had the highest respect for him—not only because of his impressive dossier, but because he’d not only gained Macy’s high opinion, but he’d also been the one to finally give the woman her due.

Macy was the reason Marshall had come in person. Their arrangement had been unorthodox, especially with a possible terrorist strike at stake.

Marshall entered the room without hesitation, barely waiting for the agent assigned to open the door to move out of the way. Tall and broad shouldered, Abercrombie Marshall wore his hair sheared short, without a single sprinkle of gray at the temples. His eyes, dark and assessing, crinkled at the corners and his full-lipped mouth melted easily into a friendly smile.

He held out his hand, which Dante accepted.

“Mr. Marshall,” Dante said. “I’m honored to meet you.”

“Probably more like shocked as hell, but I hear your manners wouldn’t allow you to speak so freely.”

Dante released the man’s hand after a hearty shake, and then directed his guest toward one of two comfortable leather chairs in front of his desk. “My manners have been exaggerated, sir, I assure you. Plain speaking is simply a lost art in our business.”

Marshall sat. Dante took the chair next to his. He had no reason to try and show superiority by sitting behind his desk. He wouldn’t be fooling anyone if he did.