Loose and Easy (22 page)

CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN

“Ouch.”

“Baby.”

“You’re being too rough.”

She let out a little snort and kept dabbing away at his cheek. She’d taken her shoulder holster off and left it in the bedroom, where she was planning on taking a nap before they went to Bleak’s.

Johnny understood the concept. Rangers slept when they could. It was just good standard operating procedure, but he was pretty damn sure he wouldn’t be napping.

“You should probably have a stitch put in this, maybe two,” she said.

He’d been cut on his face, fairly deep, where Mitch Hardon had hit him. The guy must have been wearing a ring.

“If you want to do it, get a suture kit out of the pack.”

She leaned back and gave him a look. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No.” Johnny wasn’t kidding, he was dying. Esme was standing in front of him at the kitchen table in the safe house, doing her Florence Nightingale impersonation, and all he could think about was her cleavage, the soft shadow between her breasts, the soft curves at the V of her jacket.

He wanted to touch her so badly, he hardly dared move.

It had been quiet on the corner of Vine and Hoover since they’d arrived. The blue neon sign for the Commerce City Garage was lit up across the street, and that’s where his apartment was, on the ground floor. One of the other SDF operators had the second-floor apartment, Red Dog, Gillian Pentycote.

The building he and Esme were in had started out thirty years ago as a restaurant with a few office suites on its upper floors. Since SDF had bought the place last year, the restaurant had been gutted and converted into a garage for storing cars, and the two upper floors had been redesigned into working and living space. Steele Street Annex, it was called, with some talk going on about building another team. General Grant wanted it. The world situation needed it, and Johnny wanted more than anything to be part of it.

Except for right now. For right now, there wasn’t anything he wanted more than Easy Alex.

He’d pulled Solange into one of the bays on the ground floor, and the whole place was locked up tighter than a drum with all the building’s security systems up and running.

Esme was safe from everything in Denver except him, and he was safe from everything except the tightness in his chest that got worse every time she bent over and dabbed at his cheek with an antiseptic-saturated cotton ball. It stung like hell, and he didn’t feel a thing. He was completely removed from the minor pain of having his face cut open in a fight, and completely, totally fascinated with the cut of her jacket—low.

He knew what was underneath it, the red lace bra, the one that matched her panties, which was all that was under her skirt, except for her black satin slip.

There had to be a way to get her out of all that stuff, but he’d been enduring her tender care for half an hour and was down to four and a half hours before they left, and he hadn’t gotten anywhere.

Four hours, if he included drive time over to Bleak’s warehouse—much less than that, if this Dax guy shook his tail and showed up.

Great. He had two hours he could count on, max, and he was sucking air.

Dax. The name had thrown him for a second there. He’d only ever heard of one guy named Dax—Dax Killian, the Gunfighter. But where he’d heard about him was over in the Sandbox, never anyplace in the States.

Esme leaned over him again, this time with a small gauze bandage and a couple of pieces of first-aid tape, and he had to remind himself to breathe. His heart was pounding deep in his chest, and he knew if she’d had any idea how much he wanted her, she’d be running in the other direction.

And he didn’t want that, so he kept himself still. If all he got was her company until five o’clock, he’d take it and be glad. Nothing in Afghanistan smelled like her. Nothing in Afghanistan looked like her. She was soft curves and golden hair, strands of it slipping loose and curling along her cheek. She was high heels and a tight skirt, and everything about her got him hot.

She laid the gauze on his cheek and oh, so carefully smoothed the tape down with the tips of her fingers.

It was crazy, and he wondered why it always had to be like this, with a woman so cool and calm and going about her business, and a guy driving himself nuts thinking about that hot, sweet place between her legs and how much he wanted to touch her there with his tongue, and his fingers, and be with her there, so deep inside her.

Geezus.
The way she smelled made his head swim. It made it hard to think, made him hard…harder than Chinese arithmetic.

The sound of a car door being slammed shut on the street below had him reaching for her. He closed his hand around her wrist, stopping her from finishing with the bandage. Another door slammed shut, and he quickly rose to his feet and headed toward the bedroom that looked out onto the Commerce City Garage.

Okay, maybe he did have a brain left in his head. That was very reassuring.

And he had an erection.

And maybe that was reassuring, too, though to date, that hadn’t been a problem for him. His problem was the exact opposite.

Standing at the window in the darkened room, he watched two men approach the garage where he normally would have been for the night, if he could have stood the place on his own.

“Dovey,” she said, stopping beside him, her gaze angled toward the street.

“And the other guy, the one from O’Shaunessy’s, do you know him?”

She shook her head.

Below them, Dovey Smollett and the guy in the Chicago Bears jacket walked back and forth in front of the garage, trying the doors, and looking in the windows. Dovey stepped back and looked up at the second floor, but like the first floor, all was dark, quiet, empty. With Solange parked inside this building, there was nothing there to make anyone think he and Esme had run for home.

Dovey pulled out a phone and made a call, and after a few more minutes of wandering around, both he and the Chicago guy got back in the Buick LeSabre and hunkered in—stakeout.

“Looks like we’re going to have company for a while,” he said, glancing down at her, and for an instant she was looking up at him, but only an instant, before she looked away, a soft casting downward of her eyes, a lowering of her lashes.

And that was it, the one missing piece in all his heated lust and yearning, the one admission of awareness that she had any clue of what he was feeling, and that maybe she was feeling it, too—a guy needed that. Just because she’d kissed him twice in the car didn’t mean she wanted to kiss him here, where the distance between a kiss and the bed was shorter than a shift worker on payday.

Geez,
she was so beautiful.

The blue glow of neon washed over her face, deepening shadows, highlighting curves, like the curves of her mouth, the soft fullness of her lower lip, the sweet dipping curve of her upper lip. Her face was more contoured as a woman than it had been as a child, even as a teenager. She was far more alluring, far more lush. He’d wanted her so desperately at eighteen, it was hard to imagine that he would have ever come to want her more—but he did. At sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, it had all been hormones and whatever ideas of love he’d managed to comprehend at the time.

Tonight the need was deeper. She’d been there with him during that firefight, only her out of all the people he’d ever known. He’d never claim to understand why, but he knew his tie to her was strong. It had happened in an instant, at first sight, a long time ago, and what he wanted from her was a chance to see where it all went.

Just a chance to lay himself up against her, to connect with her, mouth to mouth, body to body, to see if she could save him just a little bit, just enough to take the sharp edges off his dreams, to take the tension off his mind.

No. He didn’t have PTSD. He had what everybody else over there had, three tours of combat and a lot of rough living in between, and there had to be a break in there somewhere. When he’d seen her on Seventeenth, that’s exactly what he’d seen: a worn-out little hooker and a safe harbor all wrapped up in one blonde.

He’d been home for two weeks without being with a woman, and the need for her was running through him hard, cutting deep, straight to his core. There were other girls. There were always other girls, but the whole damn night had been about this girl, about winning her for himself, and the win was to have her sweet and naked beneath him, wanting him, her mouth parted, her legs spread, letting him push up into her, take her, fuck her, make her his.

It was primal. It was real. It was what he wanted. Hell, he’d been wanting it, or some version of it, since seventh grade, and there was no damn explanation for that. Or if there was, he wasn’t sure he could face it. Esme Alexandria Alden,
geezus,
she had always been the one—the only one who turned him inside out. He wanted her, and she was standing next to him in a dark, and quiet, and private place, knowing it.

Arousal didn’t wash down through him. It had already arrived between his legs, hard, and hot, and heavy. She wasn’t running anywhere. Not moving an inch—and she was blushing. He couldn’t see the color of it staining her skin, not in the blue light, but it was there, in the downward tilt of her head, as if she had something to hide. It was there in her stillness beside him, the same stillness he’d felt in himself sitting at the table.

She knew what the two of them were about, and without another worrisome thought, he slid his hand around the side of her neck, cupping her face, and he lowered his mouth to hers.

Her response was to melt against him with a soft groan, her mouth open, welcoming him, her hands going to his chest, and that felt so good, to have her touching him.

But take it slow, he told himself. Don’t devour her, and whatever you do,
pendejo,
do not…do not scare her off. So for a long, endless minute, he kissed her, his tongue sliding deep, his mouth slanted over hers, just letting the taste and softness of her seep into him.

Yeah, this was all going to go just great.

Breaking off the kiss for a moment, he unsnapped and shrugged out of his holster and set the whole rig on a nearby table. Then he kissed her, picking the whole marvelous thing up again.

Her hand came up around the back of his neck, drawing him closer, and he gave in to it, letting her run this show, until she rocked her hips against him. It was a small move, just a brush of her pelvis up against his—and it was like getting plugged into a 220-volt outlet.

He stood perfectly still, holding her, his tongue making a slow foray across the inside of her mouth—his brain on fire.

God, it had been too long since he’d done this. She had no idea what she was doing to him—because she did it again, rocked against his cock, and his hands tightened on her, going to her hips. Slowly, inexorably, he started pulling up her skirt, hauling it hell and gone up over her ass, because he had to get his hands on her, on her skin, between her legs, under those panties.

And when he did, she felt like heaven. She was so wet and soft, his fingers sliding through her silken folds and into her vagina. His kiss got harder, his body pressing against her, and when she groaned, her legs widening, he knew she wanted exactly what he wanted. With one hand, he undid his belt buckle, no sooner getting it open than she was helping unsnap his jeans, unzip them, and push them down off his hips, so she could take him in her hand.

It was sweet, he couldn’t deny it, but what he wanted wasn’t sweet. What he wanted was to ride the edge she was putting him on and take it home. With his hand in her hair, holding the back of her head, kissing her, he pushed the scrap of red lace down—down to her thighs, then farther. He lifted her leg to get one side of her panties down off her calf and over her high heel, and with her leg wrapped around him, and her body so hot and warm up against him, everything in his world started coming together.

Hauling her back up against the wall, he pushed into her, one long slick slide of heated sex with her head going back, and her arms around his shoulders holding on for dear life. Nothing had ever been sweeter than to thrust into her again, and again, and again.

She had her tongue halfway down his throat, her little groans echoing in his mouth every time he pushed into her.
Oh, geezus.
He was so into her, driving deep, hot and hard and fast, and just feeling her come apart all over him.

“John…Johnny…
Johnny
—” She strained against him, riding him, and when she tightened around him, he went straight over the edge, pumping into her one last time, and
oh, God,
it felt so good to come inside her.

So amazingly good.

He held himself still, letting it all roll over him, her sweet, sweet softness, the way she smelled, the smell of them together, the sound of her breathing in his ear. She tightened around him again, a small contraction of her inner muscles, and he let out a soft laugh, nuzzling the side of her neck.

“Keep your legs wrapped around me,” he said, carefully pulling himself free and repositioning his arms around her to keep her close.

She sighed, and he kissed her ear.

“Esme,”
he whispered her name and nuzzled her neck again. This was heaven. Easy, easy Alex in his arms, making love with him. He’d had a few girls. Once, he’d even thought he was in love—but this, with Esme, it felt different to be with her, different and better, more complete.

He kissed her again, his mouth partly open on the tender place below her ear. She responded by sliding her fingers up into his hair, and it felt so good.

“Come on, baby,” he said, carrying her over to the bed. “Let’s go do this right.”

CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT

Picked up a tail—Dax guessed that was one way to put his problem, and it was true. He did have a guy on him, no doubt one of Lieutenant Loretta’s, but then there was this other part of his problem, the bigger part, the “trying to pick up a tail” part of his problem, or at least trying to pick up a piece of it. He was going to give it another five minutes, and then he’d head out, lose the cop, and make straight for Commerce City. The corner of Vine and Hoover, where Johnny Ramos had taken Easy, was a good location, within striking distance of Bleak’s warehouse without being too close for comfort.

From up on the catwalk, he checked the whereabouts of the plainclothes cop. The guy wasn’t bad at his job. He just wasn’t good enough not to tip off Dax. By far, the more interesting person working the room was Suzi Toussi. According to his reckoning of the sale tags, she was close to selling a quarter-million dollars’ worth of naked angels here tonight.

He was impressed and even thinking of buying one of them himself. The Johnny Ramos paintings were very cool, stark, very hard-edged, and Dax liked that. He wanted a coolheaded, hard-edged guy watching over Easy. But the other model, the blond-haired guy—the paintings of him were different, somehow more profoundly involving, more emotionally complex. One on the west wall, in particular, kept drawing Dax’s attention. It was one of the most transcendent paintings he’d ever seen, the kind of piece he wouldn’t mind looking at for the next fifty years, the kind of piece that might help a guy get through the night sometime—and God knew, every now and then a guy needed a little help getting through the night. Nikki McKinney’s process for her art included photography and paint, and for this piece she’d printed a life-size, high-contrast photograph of the angel in a creamy sepia tone on canvas and painted over the top of that in incredibly luminous, sheer colors, more like glazes, in a dozen shades of yellow, gold, and blue. The angel seemed to be in the act of lifting off the canvas, and in Dax’s eyes, there was no doubt about where he was going: straight to Paradise.

And there was something about him that said he could take you there, too.

He felt Jane come up beside him, from a moment spent talking to another guest. “I used to pray to that angel,” she said.

Dax nodded. He definitely understood the impulse.

“How much is it?” he asked.

“It’s not for sale.”

He gave her a curious look.

“I think we’ve all prayed to it at some time or another over the last few years, since Nikki painted it,” she explained. “So the other angels come and go, but we keep that one.”

And Dax guessed he understood that, too.

“Thanks for showing me around,” he said, and she smiled.

“You’re welcome. If I see Johnny tonight, I’ll be on the lookout for your little sister.”

That was sweet, he thought.

“Thanks.”

The lovely, wild Jane went back to talking to the other party guests, and Dax set his sights on the real wild thing in the gallery, Ms. Suzi Toussi.

She was easy to find—dark auburn hair and jade green shantung silk. There wasn’t anyone else like her, probably not in five states.

At twenty feet and closing, she looked up and caught his eye, and he grinned. She’d been watching out for him.

Good thing. She needed to watch out for him.

“Ms. Toussi,” he said.

“Mr. Killian.” She turned from another man to greet him—and he liked that. It felt right, like the way things ought to be.

“I was hoping you might have a back way out of here,” he said, not mincing words.

A small moue of humored understanding curved her lips and lit the hazel depths of her eyes.

“You do seem the sort,” she said, lightly crossing her arms over her chest, which just did amazing things underneath her halter top.

“Sort?” He wasn’t at all sure that was a compliment.

“The sort who needs a back way out of most things,” she said, and his grin broadened.

“The more discreet, the better.”

“Of course.” She did a quick glance around the gallery. “Is it the man in the poorly fitted gray suit and the intriguingly nondescript navy blue tie?”

She was good, very good, absolutely nailing the plainclothes cop, and his grin got even broader.

“Come on, then,” she said. “Let me show you the etchings I keep on the second floor.”

She led the way up the stairs, chatting to him the whole time, pointing out paintings as she spoke, giving a darn good impression of someone doing a hard sell. At the top of the stairs, instead of taking the catwalk, she directed him to a door at the west end of the landing, and once they were through it, his estimation of her went up another twenty points. They’d passed through to the building next door, an architectural firm, and in under a minute, they were standing in the firm’s foyer, and she was keying in the security code in order to open the front door and let him out.

“You must know these guys pretty well,” he said.

“Well enough to have their security code,” she agreed, tossing him a smile over her shoulder.

Yeah, he just bet she did, which didn’t really set as well as it should have, considering how convenient it was proving to him.

“Thanks for helping me out.”

“My pleasure, I’m sure,” she said, concentrating on the keypad.

“Can I buy you a cup of coffee? To show my appreciation?”

She finished with the code and turned to face him with her hand on the doorknob, ready to let him out.

“I’m a little busy right now,” she said.

“I meant later.” Light from the streetlamps on Seventeenth was doing the loveliest things to her skin, casting it in warm ecru and soft shadows.

“How much later?”

He wanted to kiss her, but even by his rather loose standards, that was probably rushing things.

“I’m going to be in Singapore at the end of this month,” he said. “I know a great coffee shop on Licho Street.”

“I’m sure it’s charming,” she said. “But I don’t think I’ll be in Singapore at the end of the month.”

“Bangkok in September?”

She shook her head, a small smile playing about her mouth. “Not likely.”

“How about the patio at Duffy’s Bar at seven o’clock.”

“In the morning?”

He looked at his watch. “About six and a half hours from now. I won’t have long, about half an hour. I’ve got an early flight to catch out of here. But I’d like to see you.”

“That’s, um, very sweet.”

Sure it was. That was him—sweet. It seemed to be going around.

“Duffy makes great coffee.”

She let out a soft laugh. “I know.”

“It’s a date, then?”

She laughed again, and opened the door. “Good night, Mr. Killian.”

He wanted to touch her, just once, to see if her skin was as soft as it looked, and to sort of imprint her, he guessed. But he didn’t. He kept his hands to himself.

“Good night.” That’s all he did—say good night, and look at her mouth, and walk out the door, and wonder if she would show up at Duffy’s.

He’d be there. That was for damn sure.

Well, if this wasn’t the craziest, most soul-searingly sensual thing she’d ever done, getting hot and naked and tearing up the sheets with Johnny Ramos, Esme didn’t know what would be, not that Esme the Wanton gave a damn.

Oh, my, God…
she arched her back, and he pushed into her again.
Oh, my, God.

The temperature in the bedroom had risen fifteen degrees since they’d started taking each other’s clothes off. He’d turned on a bedside lamp, and she could see the flex and give of his muscles with every move he made. She could feel the matching rhythm of his body inside hers.

He did it again, thrust into her, and her eyes drifted closed on a wave of pleasure.

Oh, my, God…
they should have been doing this years ago. She’d been wrong that long-ago night in Roxanne. She should have…should have…
oh, my, God…
He was so deep inside her, pressing into her, short, hard thrusts, winding her up, taking her higher, pushing her closer, until she…until he slowed it down again, pulling out of her, kissing her, and slowly working his way down her body with his mouth.

She moaned in frustration and pleasure, and then just in pleasure as his mouth found her breasts, and his fingers slipped inside where his cock had been and he started the whole cycle again, the teasing of her until she thought she’d die of it.

Johnny…
she opened her eyes on a soft breath and threaded her fingers through his silky dark hair, watching him tease her nipples…
Johnny.

He was everywhere, skin to skin with her, his hands on her, large and strong, holding her, one on her upper arm, the other under her hips, pulling her tight against him. When his mouth slid even lower, her breath caught in her throat. She wanted his tongue on her, knew how magical that could feel, and he didn’t disappoint her.

With every languorous stroke, she sank deeper into a well of pure sensation, until she couldn’t even think. Her fingers tightened in his hair, holding him to her. She felt the crest of her release rising toward her, and she waited, breath held, loving the soft, wet heat of his tongue, the pressure he applied, and loving it oh, so very, very much when he oh, so very gently…sucked.

The crest inside her rose and crashed, flooding her with the most intense pleasure, moment after endless moment, his tongue still on her as she came, holding her in thrall to his mouth…
Johnny.

He’d been so bad, the baddest boy in school, to have turned out so very, very good.

When her hips relaxed back into the bed, he raised his head, and the look in his eyes was almost her undoing. She’d been claimed, the intensity and fierceness of his gaze said it clearly—she’d been claimed, and she was his.

Another, completely different kind of thrill went through her on a deep, visceral level. Without releasing her gaze, he moved up her body and thrust into her again, and the pleasure was so hot and sweet, she felt herself falling into a state of utter and complete acquiescence. She didn’t mistake his action for anything other than what it was—the putting of his mark on her while she was still throbbing from the pleasure he’d given her, no one else, only him.

From the day they’d met, he’d always been there, watching over her, wanting this, to be so close to her, a part of her, and he’d been right to want it, understanding better than her what was possible between them. From the day they’d met, he’d been a constant in her life, never getting too far away, her own guardian angel.

And, oh, God, her angel knew his way around a woman.

Pleasure rolled through her with his every move.

His mouth came down on her cheek, kissing her, and moved to her mouth, consuming her. His hands were in her hair, her bobby pins long gone, and she was coming undone again, her release powered by the force of his body, rock solid and honed.

He tilted her head back and slid his mouth down to the side of her neck, and holding her, his breath echoing harsh and fast in her ear, he came, stiffening above her, his pleasure triggering her own. She was sinking and floating and couldn’t seem to hold him tight enough. Her mouth was open on his shoulder, tasting him. She was filled with the scent of him, with the hard length of him, feeling the strength and heat of his body covering her, and she never wanted it to end.

He was doomed. Johnny had never felt it more surely in his life. When a woman felt this good, a guy was doomed. He’d do anything. He’d seen it before, when his friends had fallen in love, and yes, that was the
“L”
word. It made men crazy.

But what was a guy going to do? There was no walking away from this, and that meant he wasn’t in charge anymore. It meant this slip of a female with the soft voice, and the soft skin, and the divinely soft piece of heaven between her legs was in charge. It scared the hell out of him. This was more danger than he’d signed on for tonight.

Curiosity had gotten him into this. He’d been as curious as a goddamn tomcat about her, and look where it had led him—straight into Doomsville. Suddenly, he needed her.

He needed the wonder of this, of being inside her, of being so consumed by her. He needed one place where he could let down his guard, one safe place, and he’d found it with her. Carefully, he eased himself free and pulled her close into his arms. Somewhere, though, sometime, somehow, she’d needed the same thing, a safe place, and she hadn’t found it.

Facing her, both of them on their sides, he smoothed his hand gently up her back and over her shoulder. He’d felt the scars while they’d made love. He’d seen them, and he knew exactly what it was he’d seen—a kanji, of all the damn things. Someone had cut a kanji into her shoulder. It was healed, but it was there. Undeniable.

He smoothed his hand over her again and brought it to rest on the scar, then gently ran his fingers down the length of it. A tattoo he would have almost understood, but not scarification, not on Esme Alden, not by choice. No, Easy Alex hadn’t asked for this to be done to her—which begged a whole lot of questions.

“Hero?” he asked. He’d recognized the character, knew it from his friend Skeeter’s artwork. SDF’s resident kick-ass blonde wrote and illustrated the Japanese-style comic books known as manga, and heroes were always part of her stories.

In his arms, Esme sighed and moved closer, her body softening against his.

“I ran into a woman in Bangkok who had a knife.”

Well, that sent a chill down his spine.

“This is Japanese, not Thai.”

“So is she.” She said it like it was the end of the discussion, but it wasn’t, not by a long shot.

“And she did this to you because?”

The question was met with silence. She was thinking, though, thinking hard. He could almost hear the gears grinding in her head.

“Why don’t you just tell me what happened,” he suggested. “That’ll be the easiest.”

And still she kept thinking, not talking.

Okay, fine. She didn’t need to talk, not really. He was putting it together all on his own, remembering her on the roof of the Wazee Warehouse—so calm, so cool, so skilled.