Lure of the Wicked (16 page)

“Shh.” Soft as silk, he ran his palm down the center of her chest. Across her stomach. It fluttered, physical echo of her shaking breath, and he smiled crookedly as he touched one beaded nipple with his lips. His tongue. She gasped, jerked under his hand as he threaded his fingers into that soft strip of dark hair at the vee of her legs.

He brushed against her hot, already damp cleft and made her whimper.

But he wasn’t going to go too fast this time. Ignoring her urgings, her muttered curse, he split his attention between her sweet breasts and the fascinating bud of her clit. He pulled on her nipple with his lips, laved at the pink tip until she squirmed, all the while stroking her more delicate flesh with his fingers. Feeling her swell with her arousal. Grow hotter, wetter.

She writhed. Gasped. Pleaded.

Phin shifted on his knees, ran his mouth over the taut muscles of her belly. Over her abdomen, and the clench of muscle there, too. She was perfect. Fit.

Tattooed.

He ran his tongue over the faintly raised skin of the seal of St. Andrew. Tasted the sweat of her body, smelled the hot, sharp scent of her sex, and swallowed back a wild need to bury himself in her now, right now, and let it all go in the depths of her willing body.

At least for a night, they could pretend that everything was exactly what it seemed.

But that would be done too fast. Over. She deserved better. She
needed
better. Phin was determined to give it to her.

Seizing her hips in both hands, he eased a knee between her legs. Breathed softly on the trembling flesh of her inner thigh as he whispered over her skin. Over her trimmed, damp curls. He let her know in no uncertain terms what he meant to do.

What he’d been wanting to do since he’d first seen her, trouble in curve-hugging denim.

How he meant to do it.

Naomi arched. “No, Phin, I can’t— Oh,
God
.”

He plunged his tongue between the soft folds of her sex, laved at the tight knot of nerves there. Gentle turned ardent as she bucked, his hands tight on her hips, holding her still when she tried to twist away. She couldn’t shift out from underneath the exquisite torture he knew she suffered.

Knew she wanted desperately to avoid.

Phin didn’t, couldn’t stop.

Ignoring her pleading, whimpering cries, he dragged his tongue across the cleft of her body, plunged it deep inside to taste the very essence of her. Sweet and so intoxicating. He needed her to understand, to recognize that he would take his time with her tonight.

That he could press every button in her traitorous, needy body and leave her shattered and shaking at his feet. And when she was done, when
he
was done, he’d still be there to cradle her in his arms.

He
would protect
her
, this time.

More, he wanted Naomi to know that he loved this. Loved the smell of her, intoxicating and seductive as no perfume ever could be. That he wanted her,
her
, stripped of masks and pretenses.

He wanted her to climax so hard, she forgot her own name in the aftermath.

Knowing it for the reckless move it was, fighting every growling urge of his own tightly wound body, he used his fingers to separate the folds of her flesh, to reveal her to the night and his scorching approval. Slowly, so slowly, he inserted one finger into her wet heat, nearly groaned aloud as her muscles clamped down on it.

His dick jerked, as demanding as she was. As unforgiving and needy.

Gritting his teeth, he rotated his wrist, crooked his finger just so, and knew he’d found that perfect erogenous zone as her back nearly bent off the bed on a sharp, wild cry. Unable to help himself, he closed his lips over her clit, sucked that bead of flesh and nerves into his mouth and quirked his finger at the same time.

She climaxed crying his name, her body shuddering, clenching hard and wet and violently around his finger and driving him to the absolute brink of sanity. In the dark, he knew she couldn’t see the pure, fierce satisfaction on his face. Knowing how hard she came, how hard she fought it. And that he could make her do it again.

And would, over and over and over, before the night was out.

It was the work of a moment to strip off his slacks, leaving them discarded on the floor. She was still shaking, her hands covering her face through gasps of shock, of decadent liberation, as he crawled back up her body. She shuddered as he licked a path from navel to breast.

She stifled a groan as he closed his teeth over her left nipple, bit down gently, firmly, until her shoulders flattened against the bed and her back arched with the sweet ache.

He took his time. Gently, firmly, Phin coaxed her sweet, lushly responsive body back to attention. To slow, spiraling heat. Naomi’s hands caught at his shoulders, her nails dug into his biceps, but he resisted her. Even as his cock throbbed in echo of his heartbeat, loud and heady, even as he ached from the wanting of her, he resisted her.

He wanted her mindless and twisting when he took her this time. He wanted those walls down. Just tonight.

“Easy,” he breathed against her sweat-damp skin. He licked the gentle swell of her breast, braced his hands on either side of her shoulders and gave the same attentions to the other.

She twisted restlessly beneath him. “Phin,” she whispered. Her eyes were closed, her full, lush mouth shaping his name the way he intuitively knew she’d shape his cock if he let her.

Which would end it all. He was wound so tight, even the muscles of his abdomen felt stretched, sensitive to every brush of her skin, every arc of heat, that wild electricity he felt whenever she so much as breathed in his vicinity.

Now he had her.

“You drive me insane,” he murmured against her breast. Feathering his lips over her nipple, back again to her navel, that tattoo; Christ, she tasted so good. Sweet and salt. “Ever since you ran me down, I’ve watched you move, wanted you in my bed.”

Her laughter trembled, twisted on a gasp as he covered her sex with one broad hand. Pushed against her flesh. “I—” She sucked in a breath, tried again. “I drive
you
insane?”

“Oh, yeah.” Deftly he slid his hands under her hips. “I’ve dreamed about the taste of you. I’ve woken up with your scent haunting me.”

Her sound of surprise sank into the pillow as he flipped her over, pressed one hand flat against her lower back.

“I’ve wanted to do this since I first saw you,” he whispered, his own voice less than steady.

Naomi managed to get her elbows under her. Leveraged herself to look back over her shoulder. Her eyes smoky, dark with lust. With half the sharp awareness she usually had. “Phin,” she began, and dropped her face back to the pillow as he slid his fingers along the cleft of her bottom. He lowered his mouth to the curve of her hip, ran his fingers farther, over wet skin and along the folds of her sex.

She was still so hot, still swollen from his loving, her orgasm, still tight and musky and—

She jerked when he slid two fingers deep inside her, laughed shakily as he bit the tender flesh at the curve of her bottom. She groaned, long and loud, when he dragged his fingers out of the tight sheath of her slick flesh, thrust them back inside in desperate mimicry of what his body demanded.

Her hips lifted, animal grace and reckless, frantic beckoning.

He could feel every inch of her clenching muscles, feel the sweet, sticky heat of her around his fingers.

It wasn’t enough.

Her gasps, her moans; it wasn’t enough.

She cried out as he pulled his fingers free of her body, arched into him as he crawled over her, nudged her legs apart with his own. The head of his cock probed at the wet entrance of her sex, teased her. Throwing her hair back, she wrenched herself to her elbows, slammed her back into his chest and rubbed. Like a cat.

Like she needed to feel him around her.

Inside her.

Groaning, Phin lost the battle with himself. With her. Braced, ready, he slid home, slid deep with her hips cradled by his and her back slick with sweat against his chest. He had no will left to fight as she pushed herself up, forced him to sit back on his heels, to catch himself, his hands spanning her waist as she rode him.

God, the pressure. The ache. The. . .

The wholeness of it all. The rightness. Of her.

Cords gathered in his neck as he held on to her waist with every ounce of strength he possessed, guided her hips to rock back against him. Over him. He thrust in long, liquid strokes, silently demanded she follow his lead as her back arched.

He watched her skin gleam with sweat in the light. Watched the play of her muscles as her back moved, sinuous, graceful. And still she milked him, rode him like nothing he’d ever had, ever dreamed of having.

Her moans tightened, her body clenched in rhythmic echo of his own heartbeat. Twining one hand in her hair, Phin held on for dear life, rode the wild, tautly coiled spring of release as it tightened in his chest. His gut.

His heart.

“Naomi,” he breathed.

She threw back her head, reached behind her and seized his wrist in a grip that told him she was close. So close. Her hips slid back over his lap, her body enfolded his. Sweat made their skin slick, so smooth, and as she rose high on her knees, as he felt every sweet inch of her let him go, she used his wrist as leverage and arched her back hard. She slid back into the cradle of his hips, and the spring of his release unwound.

Detonated.

It shattered every part of him in an orgasm that had him thrusting up, thrusting hard, raking himself over that spot inside her and sending her wildly crying out her own release. Her body twanged, taut as a bowstring, shuddered as he wrapped his arms around her and held her close until the spots vanished from his eyes. Until he could feel more than raw, shuddering adrenaline and endorphins and . . .

And trouble.

Because he wasn’t done. Easing his fingers into her hair, Phin blew lightly across her sweat-dampened back. Smiled slowly when she gasped and shivered.

He wasn’t going to be done for a long time.

Chapter Fourteen

S
ometime in the earliest hours of the morning, when the sky was still dark and the bedclothes were tangled beyond repair, they fell to exhaustion.

The suite was cozy, the mattress soft and welcoming, and Naomi woke to find her body draped over Phin’s like silk, her legs tangled with his. Her cheek was warm, pillowed on the smooth planes of his muscled back.

For a long, still moment, she forgot to breathe.

Morning. And with it, a shattered illusion. She knew this game.

Slowly, carefully, she eased away from the vivid temptation of all that naked skin. As the mattress dipped beneath her weight, he shifted, turned his face into the gap between both pillows, and didn’t so much as let out a sound. Naomi breathed out a silent sigh of relief.

Last night had been a lot of things. Fun. An exercise in endurance. Her body ached in places Naomi loved to feel on a morning after.

But it was daytime now, and she had work to do.

Work that included betraying Phin.

Well, not so much betraying. She’d made no promises. No guarantees. The night had been one hell of an amazing dream. Like some kind of princess, she’d been dressed and bathed and painted, and he’d stripped it all away.

Now dawn kissed the windows, and the dream was over. Bullets and blood.

She didn’t have the luxury of wishing.

She surveyed the suspiciously clean floor where her clothes had been. Her bags had been emptied and folded—
folded
, for fuck’s sake—and stacked neatly away. The polished door of the armoire stared at her.

Jesus bastard Christ. Had Phin shoved her clothes over a corpse in the dead of night? And didn’t notice?

He couldn’t have.

Only
she
could be insane enough to screw a man while a body rotted in the same damn room.

The thought didn’t feel as humorous as it should have.

Although every muscle in her body
screamed
at her to get moving—and get the hell moving
right this fucking instant
—Naomi forced herself to ease from the mattress inch by nerve-bending inch. Biting her lip, she tiptoed to the closet and eased open the door. She didn’t realize that she held her breath until it whooshed out of her on a soundless curse. Phin’s shirt hung in the murky light, a masculine companion to the array of frothy, silky, expensive tops the Mission had stuck her with. A pair of his expensive shoes sat neatly beside her own. Her pants hung on specially designed hangers, as neat as if he’d pressed them himself.

There was no body.

Her mind whirling, she withdrew a pair of designer denim jeans and a red sweater, and grabbed the only heeled boots that wouldn’t dump her flat on her ass.

Despite the mind-boggling absurdity of an ambulatory corpse, she was unable to help the faint tug of a crooked smile as she spun slowly. Or the way her eyes latched on to his sprawled, sleeping form.

He slept like he forgot he shared a bed. His face buried between the pillows, his curls wild and one foot hanging off the side of the mattress, he clung to one pillow and slept like the dead. Like a man up too long in the early hours.

She could have liked waking up to him more than a few times. Maybe if they’d been in different circumstances. Maybe if he’d just been some guy in the middle levels, or some kind of working-class stiff—

What the hell?

Wake up, Naomi
, she thought grimly, and resolutely turned away. Quietly, holding her breath, she found his trousers discarded on the floor and couldn’t stop the insistent rush of pride, of heat, pooling low in her belly.

She’d made him so damn eager for her. Wild for her.

He’d torn her inside out and left her wanting so much more.

Her smile faded. Hurriedly she rifled through his pants pockets until she found his key card. Draping the charcoal gray fabric over the back of a chair, she couldn’t stop herself from fingering the hem.

He’d looked good last night.

He looked utterly delicious now. The morning sun eased over one leg, trailing bars of light across his firm ass. The sheets, long since tangled in the night, gathered at his waist and did nothing to hide his gorgeously toned body from her study.

She wanted him again. The ache between her legs wasn’t just the legacy of one hell of a night.

Shaking her head, she slipped out of the bedroom, eased the panel back into place, and deliberately blocked the view of his temptingly muscled butt. Backing away, she tucked the key card into the back pocket of the jeans she’d taken.

Yeah, so she was running. So what? They’d made great memories. That was it. It was all over now.

Her heart thudded in her ribs. Anxiety, she told herself. Now started the fun, the part where she got to be the hound to Joe Carson’s clever fox. With the witch dead—God only knew where the hell his body was, but he was dead at least—Carson was the only damn thing that mattered now.

She wanted out.

But she pressed her palm to her chest as she searched for the pretty clutch Andy had given her. She needed her comm. She needed her gun, wherever Phin had put it.

And she needed enough time to visit Phin’s office for the guest files the Mission didn’t have. Possibly even a map of the place.

She found the gold purse shoved half into the cushion. In it, she found her comm, her lip gloss, and . . . no. No gun in sight.

No fucking gun.

Naomi straightened, mouthing the invectives she didn’t dare say aloud. She raked the living room with a sharp, speculative gaze. The last she remembered, she’d had it in hand. Then she’d gotten shot. They’d run and. . .

Carefully she touched the shoulder that should have hurt like the very devil danced on it. All she felt was askew bandages and a dull, easily ignorable ache.

Phin had taken the weapon from her. But done what with it?

Damn it. She didn’t have
time
for this.

She dressed hurriedly, laced up her boots and knew she was only delaying the inevitable as she twisted her hair up into a spiky knot.

She didn’t want to go back into that room.

Where Phin Clarke slept naked. Used, muscled, gloriously naked.

Oh, God.

Silent as a ghost, she eased back into the bedroom and surveyed the too-tidy space. Resolutely avoiding the bed, she searched for his coat. It wasn’t hanging on the coat rack. Not on a chair, fuck, not even on the floor.

And along with the missing corpse, she hadn’t seen his coat, either.

Though it galled the hell out of her, Naomi gave up the search. There was no way she’d let Phin wander off with her gun, but she didn’t have time to look now. She’d get it back.

Just as soon as she ransacked Phin’s office.

She turned.

The sheets rustled. “Mmph.”

Naomi froze, her heart a rapid staccato in her ears. Throat suddenly dry, she weighed her options. Run like hell?

Too awkward. And she’d be damned if she tucked her tail between her legs and made him think he had
any
sort of upper hand.

Instead she smiled, turning back. “Morning, sunshine.”

Phin’s back rippled as he pushed up on his elbows, rubbing both hands across his face. The motion sent muscles leaping from shoulder to ass—good God, his ass—to his strong, naked thighs, and it took everything Naomi had not to crawl back into that nice, warm bed and straddle him until they both forgot what time it was.

She gritted her teeth through her smile.

His eyes were hazy as he rolled over, one hand idly pulling the sheets across his lap. “Morning,” he replied. The slow, lazy way his smile reached from his mouth to his eyes tugged on bits of her she’d thought long since too exhausted to melt now.

She was wrong.

And he was a hell of a lot sharper in the morning that she’d thought possible. Phin’s smile faded as he took in her body. Her very clothed body. “Headed somewhere?”

“Breakfast,” Naomi lied easily. She slid two fingers into her back pocket, securing Phin’s key card as she added, “I was hoping you’d sleep long enough for me to get back.” She raised a fine, dangerously eloquent eyebrow. “You know . . . bring you something sticky and sweet.”

His eyes gleamed. “And then we’d eat breakfast?”

God damn it, she
really
liked this man. Naomi laughed, even as she fought not to run the hell away.

Jump his bones.

Something.
Anything
but stand here and lie.

His smile faded, warm eyes easing to something soft and melty and kind. Velvet. “Naomi—”

“Did you put away all my clothes?” she asked. Too quickly, but it was better to tear off the Band-Aid than sit and wait for him to ask.

He sat up, one hand braced over the impressive morning erection the sheet wasn’t hiding very well.

God, his chest was worth staring at. Forever.

“Your what?” Muffling a yawn, he covered his mouth with his free hand and took a moment to glue her question together. He shook his head as if to clear it, but admitted, “They were all over, so I just put them away while you were . . .” He hesitated. “Getting bandaged,” he finished lamely.

“And there was . . .” Jesus, was there any safe way to ask this? “There was enough room in the wardrobe?”

His lips twitched. “Plenty. You’re probably the only guest in the history of Timeless to pack as light as you do.”

Relief punched a hole somewhere beside growing panic.

Where. The fuck. Was the body?

But his gaze turned serious as he swung his bare feet over the side of the mattress. “Naomi, we need to talk.”

Oh.
Shit.

Before she could say anything, do anything, he smiled again, and it was as if the fight just pooled out of her. How the hell did he do that?

“It’s not what you think.” He chuckled. “You don’t have to look so . . . braced.”

She settled for a noncommittal sound, settling her hands on her hips. This, she figured, was where he pulled the white knight bullshit. Wrong time, too busy for a steady relationship, whatever.

Naomi resisted the urge to check her watch.

Even as something black and aching opened up in her chest.

Phin didn’t stand. Instead, bracing his elbows on his very bare knees, he pressed his palms together and studied her over his fingers. “You’re a missionary.” It wasn’t a question.

The floor dipped out from under her feet.

Somehow, as Naomi stared at Phin’s now-serious appraisal, she locked her knees. Managed not to buckle, managed to remain upright and even casual as she tilted her head, that eyebrow raised again. “Am I?”

“I saw your tattoo.”

Oh, Jesus. Of course he had. The room practically reeked of sex—as if her body needed any more reminders of the mind-blowing feel of his cock deep and hard inside her—and she was stupid enough to hope he’d missed the damn tattoo in the dark.

Fuck.

Her shoulders straightened. She knew her face closed down, could feel her expression sharpening, but it was all she could do to sound nonchalant around the sudden tightness in her throat. “And?”

He took a deep breath. “Is the Church looking for witches in Timeless?”

Shitfuck.
“Let me ask you this,” she said carefully. “Is there any way that you’d tell me the truth if I asked you if Timeless was harboring witches?”

Phin looked her square in the eye, his own hard. Steady. “I would,” he said, so seriously that it took her a moment. Longer than it should have. When it finally made it through to her sex-addled, shell-shocked brain, she nearly fell over from relief.

Instead she sank to the chair behind her, laughter spilling from her chest. “Oh, God. Fuck, Phin.”

“What?” he demanded.

“You would!” It snapped out, half a curse, half a laugh. “Jesus Christ, you would, wouldn’t you? What are you going to tell me, that you’re keeping a secret coven of witches out to kill your own guests?”

His eyes narrowed. “No.”

“Then I think,” Naomi replied, ignoring the raw ache clawing at her belly, “that it’s safe to say the Church doesn’t think you’re harboring witches.”

Which, she knew even as she refused to say it, didn’t mean that witches weren’t taking advantage of the Clarkes. That wasn’t something she was going to mire Phin and his family down in.

The witch was dead. She’d seen no other signs. Now it was just her and Carson.

Totally different story.

“Then why are you here?” Phin asked. He linked his fingers, watching her with such intensity that her humor faded. Eased into relief so pronounced that she thought she’d choke on it. Pressing a hand to her chest, she tried again for tact.

She was fucking bad at tact.

“I can’t tell you everything,” she began, and threw up a warding hand as he stood, sheet draping dangerously low on his hips. She jerked her eyes to his. “No, stop. Don’t take a step, or I swear to God, I’m not going to be held responsible for what I do.”

He hesitated. But his eyes—those warm velvet eyes—crinkled. “Noted.”

“And hike up the sheet,” she added waspishly. When he did, muscles moving like liquid steel under his tanned skin, she took a deep breath and reached for just enough truth to give credence to the lies. “The Church sent me here because I needed a break. We do that sometimes,” she added dryly. “Vacations. I’m not big on . . . you know. Yoga and stuff.”

“I noticed,” he murmured.

She ignored that. “But I wanted time away. The Church thought I’d be more than safe up here—no one’s even supposed to know I’m here.” Lies, lies, and enough truth to fake the rest.

God, she hated it.

“And last night?”

Naomi touched the bandage under her hastily donned red sweater. “Someone must have recognized me. We’re never really alone, you know. Even on vacation, we have partners.”

Phin nodded once. “Miles.”

She frowned. “You have a good memory for a hell of a shock.” Then she saw his knuckles, white with strain. Naomi hesitated.

What could she do? Comfort him?

No. She’d be gone soon. And all he’d be left with would be bullets and blood.

And lies.