Atomic Beauty (2 page)

In that time, he'd already chipped away at the stone casing around her heart. And she had to decide if the cost, the pain, would be worth the benefit. Until then, she needed to maintain some sense of control.

“You're not the only one with a few surprises.” He ate up the distance to the bathroom in three quick strides. All man, muscle and virility, she admired how the denim stretched around his thighs as he moved. “I have a few of my own.”

She had no doubt. “Found an extra toothbrush under the sink in the bathroom still in its wrapper. Hope you don't mind that I used it.”

“You can have it. About time you kept something here, don't you think?”

She spun the chair around, facing his laptop, which was situated on a small desktop by a huge picture window, ignoring the sharp pain in her chest at the thought of leaving him.

His space might be small, but it was new and had everything a person living alone needed—a fold-down bed, compact appliances, a flat-screen TV, sofa, several chairs and a coffee table. For eight-fifty a month, high ceilings, a wall of windows, cable TV and internet came with the deal.

Of course, a man with Jace's income could afford a place in Shaughnessy, but that would be visible and blow his dock-worker facade—a part he played to perfection.

Three weeks of gathering intel and she wasn't any closer to figuring this guy out. He had a few secrets, all right. And he was damn good at keeping them hidden.

Having scoured his place multiple times, she was convinced whatever she was looking for had to be on his computer. She didn't dare touch his laptop without his permission. There were too many programs ready to snap her picture if she failed to get the password right.

Being alone at his place this morning had given her an idea. While his guard was down, it was time to make a move and see if he'd take the bait. “I need to check my email and I get no bars at your place on my phone.” She rolled her eyes. Her cover as a graphic designer for a small production company fit with her dark clothes and hair. “My boss has a hard-on for this new client and if I don't check in, I'm out of a job. So, you got a password for this thing?”

He turned; his blue eyes stared at her for a long moment as if he was deciding if he bought her act or not.

“Hey, I don't want to hone in on your turf if you're afraid your girlfriend will catch you, or something.” She threw her hands in the air and shrugged as if she didn't care. And yet the word
girlfriend
left a bitter taste on her tongue. “I can always go home and check.”

He picked up the breakfast bag and moved to the small couch, opened her to-go box and set it on the small coffee table. “It can't wait?”

“Some of us are on the nine-to-five grind. You know, work when the sun's still out,” she hedged, praying he'd take the bait. “If I don't at least pretend to work at home today, you'll have to get an extra job to support me when I get canned and move in with you.” Nothing scared a man faster than a woman talking about shacking up when he'd only known her a few weeks.

“Good point. Scoot up.” He slid in the chair behind her, his hard-as-granite chest pressing against her back. God help her, but her heart stirred. When his arms encircled hers and his hand covered hers on the mouse, she may as well have jumped the Grand Canyon for the rush of awareness and adrenaline that jolted through her. “Then again, I can think of a whole lot of fun things to do if I came home to you waiting in my bed every morning.”

She wasn't the only one aroused. His erection pressed against her lower back, and she had no doubt that sleeping with him would blow her mind.

But Jace wouldn't be a case of sex for sex's sake. She liked him. Too much. So much so, it'd be easy to forget she had a job to do and everything he'd told her about himself so far was a lie.

He leaned forward, his hot breath on the base of her neck. “The password is SexAndMore@69.”

Go figure. Leave it to a man to make his password about sex. “Is that how you like it?”

“With you? I'd take doggy-style, missionary…hell, baby-doll, I'd fuck you in any position you want until you the sun rose tomorrow and you begged me to stop.” His lips grazed the sensitized skin on the base of her neck, moving up. The heat between them was its own thick presence in the room.

Under ordinary circumstances, the decision to sleep with Jace would be a no-brainer. This was the definition of complicated.

“What's stopping you?” she teased. Baiting an apex predator, a shark, was probably not her best move. Make one wrong move, and she was dead. Even if she lived, nothing good could come out of her sleeping with the man she was sent to spy on. He was a high-value asset who'd disappeared with government property.

Now that she had his password, she could download his files and be done with this gig. Between the headaches and the effects he was having on her judgment, it was probably time to move on anyway. So, why did the thought of leaving make her limbs heavy and fill her with a sense of dread?

On second thought, if she were about to walk out of his life forever, maybe she needed to reconsider her policy on sleeping with him. She was pretty sure Jace would be the best damn sex of her life.

Off limits
, her brain protested, reminding her that it was bad business to sleep with a target, especially since her feelings ran deeper than one night. Could she have more than that? She almost laughed out loud. Seriously, where could it go? A high-value target and the CIA's best officer?

It had disaster stamped all over it.

Plus, getting sexually involved with a man like Jace would muddy her life. Once this mission was over, she didn't want to lay in bed every night, awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking about him, missing him. She'd already regretted losing the scent of him all over her when she'd folded up his bed this morning.

And, he had to be doing something pretty screwed up to have the US government up his butt. It wasn't like they'd sent just anyone. They'd sent her—their best officer. And this wasn't a babysitting detail. Murdock wanted to know exactly what Jace had found and what he planned to do with it. The kicker was that the information was above Erika's pay grade, meaning she wasn't allowed to know. Locate and transmit. The orders had been strict.

A quick inspection of his condo the first night had revealed military-grade weapons in a specially made compartment behind the TV. At first she'd believed he was running guns. But it didn't make sense because she never got involved in cases that didn't involve national security. So far, guns were the only things she'd found. This guy was good at hiding his activities.

In fact, she wasn't any closer to figuring this out today than she'd been three weeks ago. Her boss expected her to transmit real data. Soon. The urgency, impatience, came across clearly in every message. Now that she had Jace's password, Murdock's wait was almost over.

And so was this mission.

She reached behind her and ran her fingers through Jace's hair—thick, curly and dirty blond, her favorite color on a man.

He had a barbed-wire tattoo that climbed up his right arm, from wrist to shoulder, and swirled around the base of his neck. Down the left side of his torso the words
Strength, Respect, Loyalty
, were written vertically in small letters. All were invisible when he had a shirt on, which was almost never when he was at home.

How many times had he pulled her closer to him on the couch where she traced the lines of his tattoos? Was part of her memorizing him, wanting to remember, knowing this wouldn't last?

Either way, it wasn't like her to be melancholy. She blamed it on the time of the year, missing her parents.

If her headaches got any more intense, and they seemed to be escalating as it was, her brain might explode. Maybe they were starting to cloud her judgment, too.

When this op was over, she needed to head back to Sanctuary so they could check her into a hospital, give her a physical. Have an MRI or something.

Then again, maybe she just needed a month at the beach with nothing but sand between her toes. She'd been working nonstop for the past five years. Or was it something about those clear blue eyes of his that had her wanting more, wanting tonight, wanting to feel him move inside her. His weight on top of her, pressing her into the mattress.

Erika stood and turned around to face him. He caught her arm, and pulled her toward him until she stood a few inches in front of him. He moved his hands to either side of her hips and leaned forward until his forehead rested on her stomach. “What the hell did I ever do to deserve you?”

She lifted his chin so she could look into his eyes again. He tugged her toward him and she took his lead, straddling him, wrapping her legs around his hips. Those sexy-as-hell thighs of his were beneath her legs.

“That was some pretty bad shit last night.” He kissed her forehead.

“Yeah, but it's over now.” She tunneled her fingers into his thick hair, leaning into him until she could feel his rapid heartbeat against her body.

“Is it?” He wrapped his hands around her waist, tentative, and she could feel them shaking.

“I'm fine. Perfectly healthy. You don't have to worry.” She ground her sex against his erection.

He groaned. “You sure that's such a good idea?”

Her gaze locked onto his. “All I know right now is that you can't hurt me.”

“Too late for that.” His lips brushed against hers, his tongue slicked across her teeth. “We don't stop this right now and one of us is going to regret it. Maybe both.”

Even through his warning, her body hummed with need—a need pressing down so hard her body begged for release. “Don't tell me you've never had casual sex before.”

“That all this is to you?” His tongue glided down her neck, alternately biting and sucking as he lowered his head.

One of them would be hurt. He was right. “I want you, Jace.”

“Prove it.” He growled. He wrapped his big hands around her butt and squeezed.

Was she really going to do this?

Sleeping with Jace would be crazy, no matter how badly her thighs heated with him this close. Or how difficult it had been to hold back over the past few weeks.

And yet, not sleeping with him, not knowing how their bodies felt as he moved inside her, would somehow be worse.

Erika pulled her shirt over her head and then tossed it onto the floor.

“Christ, you're beautiful.” He ran a finger down the thin streak of blue in her jet-colored hair. When they'd first met, he'd said her hair reminded him of nights at sea, standing on a boat deck, looking at the moon as a beam streaked the water. “This is the last time I'll ask. You sure you want to do this?”

The only certainty in Erika's life had been pain. Once she got the information off his laptop and transmitted, she'd get the call to disappear. There was no part of her that could allow that to happen without feeling Jace inside her before she left.

Already in too deep, she unhooked her bra and shrugged out of it, tossing it to the floor next to her shirt as she locked gazes.

She wrapped her fingers around the back of his neck and kissed him. His hands, coarse but gentle, trailed up her sides until they found her breasts and covered them, causing her nipples to pebble.

“I know exactly what I want. Do you?” she asked, lowering her voice, using every trick in her arsenal to seduce him. Her pulse pounded faster as his eyes darkened with desire.

“That's not a serious question, angel,” he said as he closed his eyes, his breath igniting flames on her skin.

“You wouldn't call me angel if you really knew me,” Erika said, half smiling through her irritation. Although, Jace's hands all over her were heaven. There was no doubt he had the skills to rocket her there and back a thousand times. His hands might be those of a killer, but they were also those of an experienced lover. His other parts seemed to be working just fine, too. The way his lips skimmed her neck while his hands worked her breasts, torturing her with the promise of the best sex she'd ever had told her the man knew exactly what he was doing.

Did he realize he was baiting a bull?

“Don't look so offended. It's a compliment.” He captured her nipple in between his forefinger and thumb, tugging and rolling it.

“You're a smart guy. You can come up with a better excuse than that.” She tried to control the heat building between her thighs.

“Fine. You got me. There's a reason I call you that and I'm sure as hell not telling.”

“Mystery man.”

“You have no fucking idea.” He dipped his head low enough for his mouth to take in one of her breasts.

Whatever that thing he was doing with his tongue, he could keep doing it, because the slick heat it caused swirling around her nipple set off a series of seismic shifts.

He tilted his head just enough until those blues were on her. They were darkened by hunger. “Last chance. Say the word and I'll stop. But we go any further and it's out of the question.”

“I don't want you to stop until you've exploded inside me and all you can think about is me on top of you, squeezing out every last drop of juice from your balls.” She tunneled her fingers into his thick, dirty-blond hair.

“That right?” His tenor slid around her like the heat rocketing through her.

“Uh-huh.” She reached down and unzipped his jeans, freeing his thick, rigid stalk. “But here's the deal. We do this my way.”

“Okay, baby, you win. Fuck me.” He unleashed a grin so sexy heat pooled between her thighs. All she could think about was the silky skin of his cock and how it would feel as his engorged head slid inside her and she rocked her hips until he filled her and she begged for more.

Not yet…

First, she needed to bring him to the brink and force him to wobble, ecstasy within reach but just out of his grasp. There had never been a time when she'd needed a man in the way she needed Jace right now. But then, she'd never met her match before, either. He was street-smart, cunning and an absolutely lethal weapon. Something she needed to remind herself of when she closed her eyes and soared toward the skies in a little while. He could pull a knife and slice her throat before her feet settled on the floor again.