Under the Surface (24 page)

Following his order was good practice for that by-the-book officer/civilian thing he kept talking about, so she waited, marking time by the slow thump of her pulse in her wrists and throat as he walked around the Jeep and opened the door for her. He stayed close, protective or possessive, or both, as they walked up the ramp to the front door. She was hyperaware of his body, hot and substantial next to hers, as he guided her through the door and down the hall to the workout room. The light hung soft and heavy between late afternoon and twilight, light enough to see herself, six inches from the mirror, Matt visible behind her.

“Watch,” he said.

She blushed so hard her cheeks were darker than the soft pink blouse. “I can't possibly,” she said, even as her gaze skittered over the strangely demure woman in the mirror, feet primly together, knee-length skirt, shirt that skimmed her curves without drawing attention to them. She looked sweet, maybe even innocent.

His hands rose to the first tiny button on her soft pink blouse, unfastened it slowly, moved to the second. He gained deftness but scorned speed as he moved down, exposing her throat, then her collarbone. “What was all that about choosing mirrors over cuffs last night?”

They hadn't made it anywhere near the home gym. “You were supposed to watch,” she said. “Not me.”

He bent his head, the gesture at once both protective and authoritative, and murmured in her ear. “We're both going to watch.”

Electricity cracked through her, igniting heat in her nipples and deep in her belly, and sending another flare of color into her face. He shifted focus from his big hands at the slowly parting edges of her blouse, and smiled. “I can't believe the sexiest cocktail waitress in Lancaster is blushing at having sex in front of a mirror.”

“That's different,” she said. “That's an act. I wear a costume, say lines. You get that.”

“So you really are sweet and innocent?” he asked as he opened the last button.

“Shy,” she murmured, because his fingertips were hot through the white microfiber bra, casually brushing her nipples as he tugged the fabric down her arms and off to puddle at her feet.

He said nothing, just drew the side of his little finger between her breasts and down the middle of her abdomen to the top of her skirt. She took in details as he slowly stripped her, noting the way her nipples hardened as he slipped the hook-and-eye free, slid the zipper down, gave the skirt the merest nudge to send it to the floor.

Then he cupped her breasts through the bra and brushed his thumbs back and forth over her nipples, the slow, measured movements rasping the fabric over nerve endings on full alert. When she gave an involuntary undulation Matt unhooked her bra, pulled it down and away to drop on the floor, leaving her in nothing but the sheer white panties and dusky twilight.

Her eyelids drooped, part response, part reluctance to take in the carnal image in the mirror. Her nipples were red, hard. The urge to look away overwhelmed her. She turned her head to the side, but Matt laid fingers along her jaw and turned her to face the mirror. “Watch,” he said again, and this time the command held a hint of steel.

She met his eyes in the mirror. “Are you watching?”

“Hell, yes,” he said. His gaze held hers for another long, searing moment, the hazel gone dark and deep as his pupils expanded in the growing darkness. Then he deliberately looked at her mouth, then her breasts, then the shadow of dark curls covering her mound. She made an inarticulate sound and lifted her hands to cover something, her body, her breasts, maybe her eyes. He caught them, flattened her palms to the mirror at shoulder height.

That was easier, as if something to push against channeled the heat surging through her. She pressed her hands firmly against the glass, felt dampness slick the smooth surface. He slid his fingers over her hips and lowered her panties to the floor, leaving her naked in front of the mirror. She tipped her head forward enough for her hair to unmoor from behind her ear and slide into her face, hiding one eye.

“You've got nothing to hide,” he murmured, low and rough.

Only how she felt about him.

The thought disappeared when he stepped into her back and braced his forearm on the mirror over her head while his right hand skimmed down her belly, between her legs. He knew her body now, dipped into the folds to trail moisture up to her clit. She gave an inarticulate little cry and strained into his unyielding body. Oh, that helped, the glass under her palms, the length of him against her back.

He didn't stop. They both focused on his hand, dark against her hip and thigh, touching her so intimately, so confidently. Another slow circle around her clit and she shuddered again, the fabric of his shirt and pants chafing her skin as she watched her mirror-self spread her legs. His finger circled her clit, sending darkly erotic pleasure in waves through her abdomen. Strung tight between her hands on the mirror, her feet on the floor, and her back and ass braced against his body, the tension climbed from her sex, seared along nerves connecting her nipples and clit. Her mouth dropped open, and a gasp shuddered into the air. The long muscles in her thighs began to tremble as the pleasure coiled dark and hard under his relentless touch. Then she shattered, waves of release pulsing out in time to the soft cries she stifled in her shoulder.

She sank to her knees on the floor, pushed her hair out of her face, and tried to catch her breath as she peered up at him in the mirror. He was fully dressed, hands on his hips, the tiniest of smiles lifting the corner of his mouth. “Still thinking?”

No.
“Yes,” she said. The vulnerability of kneeling naked on the gritty floor while he stood fully dressed behind her registered in her brain as slightly embarrassing and very arousing. She lifted her chin at him. “Take something off. Please.”

With efficient movements he unbuttoned his shirt, tugged it free from his pants, shrugged it off. That was a little better, and yet wasn't
any
better. His lean, muscled torso distracted her until he dropped to his knees behind her and began to unbuckle his belt. Without a word he freed his cock from his pants and situated her with her hands against the mirror again, making her wait while he smoothed on a condom. Then he gripped her hips, positioned himself at her entrance, and pushed inside.

Climax made her sensitive, so he paused, lodged just inside her, and while he waited for her to stop trembling he leaned against the mirror and put his deft, knowing mouth to her neck. The sheer female submissiveness of the position coupled with the scrape of his teeth against her nape crashed over her in a wave of sensation. She tilted her head to give him better access, watched his hands smooth up her abdomen to cup her breasts, pinching the nipples firmly. The current running between her nape, her nipples, and the soft, aching walls of her pussy intensified.

Then he started to move, slowly but not gently, insistent demand in his rhythm and strokes. She took each thrust, balanced on the razor's edge of pleasure and pain, and arched her back for more. Her attention wavered between the interior sensations of his cock churning millions of nerve endings into screaming need and the image in the mirror, her widespread knees, the damp curls at the apex of her thighs, his tanned hands on her breasts, her parted lips. Fire licked through her, and she turned her head.

It was a mistake, because in the mirrors to their right she could see the finely honed length of his ass and back rippling as he thrust, felt the head of his cock drag against swollen inner tissues. The ache contracted tight and hard in her belly. “Oh, God,” she gasped.

When he turned his gaze, dark and fierce with desire, and met hers, the jolt of recognition sent her over the edge. A second orgasm, deeper, more intense than the first, rocked through her, and she dimly heard soft cries echo in the room in time to the contractions. A growled curse, then he wrapped his arms around her torso, buried his cock inside her, and came.

“Was this payback for teasing you about the remote?”

A laugh ruffled the hair at her temple. “You looked too sweet to go after payback,” he said, low and assured. Then he bit her earlobe, the pressure enough to sting, the sting enough to remind her that no matter how often they'd done this, the heat never entirely went away. “Next time you're wearing that leather outfit and you flip me that attitude, it's game on.”

Sparks flew under her skin. “Promise?”

“Count on it,” he said. “Still thinking?”

He'd very effectively shut down her brain. “Not anymore,” she said with a smile.

“Good.” He pulled out and walked out of the room.

Water ran in the bathroom as she looked in the mirror. Her eyes were a languid green, amused and satisfied all at once, but as the pleasure continued to ebb from her body, realization stole through her consciousness.

She could do more than like him. He'd handled dinner with her family under strained circumstances, and come out unfazed. Reality was tilted on its axis, and she could easily feel more than she should.

He appeared in the doorway, dressed in cotton shorts and nothing else, and just the sight of his torso made her want to fuel up and start all over again.

“What?” he asked when he saw her still on the floor.

“Nothing,” she said. “Still up for pizza and the game?”

“Sure,” he said as he helped her to her feet and picked up her skirt, “but it's a working dinner.”

“A working dinner?” She clutched her clothes to her belly and turned for the bathroom.

He gave her a smile that managed to be both rueful and energized at the same time. “Playtime's over. We've got twenty-four hours to get you ready for a prolonged undercover operation.”

And with that, reality began to seep into the fantasy. “Right,” she said. “Just let me get dressed.”

*   *   *

On Tuesday reality returned with a vengeance. While Eve washed the lunch dishes, Matt sat down at the dining room table and armed himself. He pulled the leg of his jeans over the knife and stood up to find Eve watching him with wide eyes.

“Were you wearing all of that every time you came to work?” she asked while she wrung out the dishcloth.

“Not the Sig,” he said, trying to gauge her reaction. Sometimes women found it sexy, which was a little on the weird side, and sometimes they thought he was paranoid, which was probably true. But the stakes were higher now. Eve was putting herself in danger to help them. They'd install a radio in her apartment, but most of the time it was just him and his wits against a deadly threat that appeared with no warning. There was no room for mistakes. Things were different now. She was his to protect, for real.

She pressed her lips together and draped the dishcloth over the faucet to dry.

“The concealed weapons law doesn't apply to law enforcement,” he pointed out. “I need a longer T-shirt too.”

“You can try a few of them on,” she said doubtfully, “but they're designed to show off your body, not hide a gun in the back of your jeans.”

When the dishes were done she packed up her few toiletries and her clothes, gathering her things from around Matt's bedroom and bathroom and zipping them into her overnight case. She was unusually silent as she worked, so he used the spare minutes for a pop quiz.

“My real cell.”

She shot him a look as the bag's zipper caught on something inside, but recited the phone number.

“When do you call that?”

“It's my ‘oh shit' phone,” she said. “I use it only if I'm in trouble and you're not with me so there's no way to trace Matt Dorchester to Chad Henderson.”

“And you'll never have to use it because from now on out, you're stuck with me. Chad's cell.”

She jerked at the stuck zipper before calming down enough to slide the zip back, shove the fabric fully into the case, and close it, all while rattling off the number.

“Call that anytime. Sorenson's numbers. Cell, work, home.”

She folded her arms across her chest, recited them, then added McCormick's, and dispatch in a flat tone. He ignored the attitude. “Good. All of them backup “oh shit” phones. McCormick will get there faster than Sorenson; she's in court the next few weeks but he's assigned to patrol. Don't call Ian. He's in meetings most days.”

He'd done his best to prepare her, drilling her on Chad Henderson's backstory, talking through what she should do when Lyle showed up, talking through a dozen other ways to respond to any kind of threat. She'd let him show her how a semiautomatic worked and, at his insistence, picked it up and showed him she could thumb off the safety and jack a round into the chamber, but she'd flatly refused to go to the firing range with him.

Everyone had boundaries they established to define who they were, and for Eve, handling a gun clearly crossed a line. They'd had a short argument about it at one in the morning. He'd lost, and he wasn't happy about it.

A car door slammed in the driveway. Matt moved through the living room to the window, one hand automatically moving to the small of his back while the other parted the slats of the blinds covering the front windows. He peered out, then let them close. “It's Luke,” he said, and opened the door.

Shoulders and arm muscles bunching with effort, his brother rolled up the ramp and into the foyer. He stopped in the act of removing fingerless leather gloves when he saw Eve standing in the hallway.

Wide-eyed, he looked at Matt, then at Eve, then at Matt again. “I'm gone for three days and this is what I come home to?” A broad smile spread across his face as Eve held out her hand and looked to Matt for an introduction.

“Luke, Eve. Eve, my brother,” he said, and went back down the hall to the bedroom.

Luke went back to removing his gloves. “Hi, Eve. Yes, I'm his brother, and you are…?”

Matt brushed past both of them, Eve's case in one hand, his own duffle in the other. “She's a friend,” he said as he walked down the ramp to his Jeep.