Beneath the Secrets: Part One (7 page)

The doors opened and she glanced back at him, pausing as if she knew they were headed to bedroom bliss, and there was no return once they were alone. She was right. She exited with him at her heels and into the typical upscale hotel lobby, including random seating and lots of tile and chandeliers. At the check-in desk, Blake gave his name and waited until the attendant slid a key toward him.

Blake slid it back. “Change my room.”

The fifty-something male frowned and Blake could feel Kara staring at him. “Is there something wrong with the room?” the man asked. “Or…you haven’t seen the room.”

Blake looked at the number on the envelope. “Superstitious. I hate the number 260 and the entire second floor. I need another floor and room.”

A few minutes later they headed to the final bank of elevators and the seventh floor, where a family of four joined them. They exited at the seventh floor and she motioned to the right. “Lucky 711 is this way.”

He smirked and fell into step with her down the hallway. “I prefer to ensure my privacy.”
 

“He didn’t have the room bugged,” she commented. “I made the reservation and he never asked me the details.”
 

They stopped at the door and he swiped the card. “Since I know you don’t want this conversation overheard any more than I do, I believe you.” He shoved open the door and grabbed her purse.
 

“What are you doing?” she demanded, holding onto it.
 

“This isn’t déjà vu, sweetheart. I won’t be having any toxic surprises tonight.”

She glared at him. “I don’t—”

“I’ll be finding out for myself.”

She wet those lips he was thinking about licking, His cock jerked, blood running hot. She was killing him, and not softly.
 

“I guess I would feel the same way,” she admitted finally.

“I guess you would.” He glanced down at her hand still holding the purse.
 

She hesitated a moment but let it go before entering the room. His blood ran hot. Kara, alone in a hotel room. He wasn’t complaining. It wasn’t déjà vu. It was “take two” and one hundred percent on his terms.
 

Chapter Five

Kara trembled as she walked into the room and all the way to the ceiling-to-floor windows, aware of the bed to her right like she’d never been aware of a bed in her life. Feeling like a deer being stalked by a leopard, her chest was tight with a rush of adrenaline and emotion—fear, she realized. She didn’t often feel fear. Not until recently. Not until she’d realized how close she was to losing the only thing she had left in this world. But it wasn’t Blake that scared her tonight when it should be. It was how much she wanted him, how much she wanted him to be something other than she knew him to be. And it was that kind of thinking that tangled women up with men like him and got them killed.
 

The sound of the door closing behind her set her heart racing and she turned to find Blake flipping the lock. They were alone. She was locked in here with him. In Denver, she’d thought she’d never see him again when she’d decided to sleep with him. Everything had changed now.
 

He dropped his bag, and her briefcase, on the floor by the door, but held onto her purse. He paused by the bed to his right and unzipped it. “You do know a girl’s purse is sacred.”

“So are the next few hours of my life. I don’t intend to spend them hunched over a toilet from one of your cocktails.” He dumped the contents of her bag on the bed and Kara held her breath, waiting for what he would reveal. Her Glock .22 bounced onto the bed.

He arched a brow. “Anger issues?”

“I won’t apologize for carrying protection.”

He dug through the rest of the items in her purse and stuffed it all back inside. “I won’t ask you to apologize for the gun,” he finally surprised her by saying, and stuck the Glock back in her purse. “In fact, I’d be disappointed if you were foolish enough not to protect yourself, considering who you work for. That doesn’t mean I want to make it easy for you to use it on me.” He back-stepped to his bag and squatted down, punching in a combination on a lock connected to the zipper and then opened it. He snatched up her slim briefcase and didn’t bother to look through it before placing it inside his duffle along with her purse.
 

“If you want me to go over the restaurant operation, I need that,” she commented.
 

“I don’t. Not tonight. We have other things to deal with first.”

Okay then. They had other things to deal with. She did wonder why he’d bothered looking through her purse and not her briefcase, but it didn’t matter. The bottom line was the same. Her gun, her purse, and her car keys were now out of her reach, under his control. She was under his control. Trapped. At his mercy. Heat pooled low in her belly. Why, why, why was this man being in complete control so damn thrilling? She tried to tell herself it was a survival instinct, a way to get past being his captive, but it wasn’t. It so wasn’t. It was him. It was something he ignited in her she’d never felt before.
 

He straightened, big and broad, deliciously male, and shrugged out of his leather coat, tossing it on top of his bag. “Your turn,” he said, his voice a soft command. “Take off your jacket.”

In her mind, she knew she should decline, set the stage early that she wasn’t his willing slave. She should set ground rules for what was going to be more than this one night. But it was just a jacket and she was fully clothed underneath it. To decline seemed the wrong battle to fight.
 

Kara reached for the tie at her waist and pulled it loose. Blake leaned a shoulder on the wall to his left, watching her, those dark eyes hooded, impossible to read. But she didn’t have to. The heat simmering between them prickled at her skin, teasing her senses.
 

Slowly she slid the garment off her shoulders and set it on top of the chair in the corner to her right. Blake’s gaze raked down her body and back up again. Kara crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I assume you have questions. I’ve already given you answers.”

“Get undressed.”

Kara gaped at the unexpected demand, her arms dropping. “What?”
 

“You heard me. Get undressed.”

“No,” she said, exasperated, angry. “I’m not getting undressed.”

“For all I know you have drugs you intend to use on me, or worse, stashed in your clothes. Fool me once, sweetheart, but never again. So either you get rid of your clothes or I get rid of them for you.”

“I’m not getting undressed.”

He pushed off the wall and took a step toward her. Kara’s heart jackhammered and she held up a hand. “Don’t even think about it.”

“You do it or I’ll do it.”

“Forget it, Blake,” she said firmly. “You want to talk, then talk.”

“I talk better with you naked.”

“I don’t.”

“Too bad.”

They glared at one another, the air crackling with the tension between them, the distrust, the anger, and the desire. Kara swallowed hard. They were going to end up naked. She knew it. He knew it. Her mind raced. She wasn’t going to play a victim. That wasn’t who she’d created with this identity, nor was it who she’d been with him before now. It wasn’t even who she was as a person. No matter who he was or what he was, she couldn’t escape this moment in time with him, nor did she truly want to. Living in the moment was part of what she’d been trained to do. She wasn’t going to get emotionally attached, and letting herself enjoy this man physically might even save her life. It might be bad logic she’d question as sane later, but it worked for her now.

Her chin lifted. “You want me to get undressed, then you get undressed.”

His eyes darkened, narrowed, and something unreadable, dangerously hot and edgy, flickered in their depths. He stepped forward, taking a long stride toward her. Then another. Kara stood her ground, expecting him to stop in front of her, to touch her. Please yes. Now that she’d decided to do this, she was all about him touching her. But he didn’t stop right in front of her and he didn’t touch her.
 

He stepped to her side, his shoulder parallel to hers. “You don’t make the rules this time, Kara. I do.” He moved behind her, framing her body with his, but still he didn’t touch her. Anticipation burned through her. She
wanted
him to touch her.
 

His breath rasped along her neck and ear, a warm tease that slid along every nerve ending she owned with electric results. “So when I say get undressed, I mean get undressed.”
 

“And if I don’t?”

“You will.”

Kara tried to turn. His hands went to her hips, fingers pressing deliciously, possessive into her body. “Stay facing forward,” he ordered. “This way there’s no chance you can pull any slick moves like you did in Denver. I can see…everything.”

Everything.
He made her want that and more. “And here I thought you weren’t the kind of man who was afraid of a woman. I guess I was wrong.”

“Don’t taunt the lion while you’re in his den, Kara. You might not like how he responds.”

Her sex clenched at the warning and she silently replied,
or maybe I would like how he responds
. Yes. Yes she thought she might like it quite a lot.
 

“Undress,” he ordered again.

“Make me,” she challenged, ready to hear his proverbial roar.
 

Chapter Six
 

The next thing Kara knew she was facing the wall, her palms against the hard surface, and Blake’s powerful legs were framing hers. His big hands skimmed up her waist, over her breasts, and his mouth settled near her ear. “Is this what you wanted? A reaction?” He unzipped her skirt. “Because you got one, baby.”
 

Kara swallowed against the dryness in her throat. “Yes. I wanted a reaction.” It was the truth. Knowing he wanted her, that he couldn’t resist, affected her, made her ache low in her belly.

“Why?” he demanded, sliding her skirt down her hips until it pooled at her feet, leaving her in her panties and thigh-highs. “Because you thought you’d make me let down my guard again?”
 

“Did it work?” Kara asked, swallowing hard as his finger traced the silk strand of her thong between her now bare cheeks.
 

“Like I said, fool me once, baby. Never again.” His hands went to her hips, his thick erection nuzzled to her backside.
 

“Who exactly are you trying to convince?” she challenged, sounding breathless. “Me? Or you?”

He made a low, rough sound and then his hand reached around her and caught the top of her blouse, ripping away all the buttons. “How’s that for convincing us both?”

Kara gasped and her nipples puckered into tight knots of need. “I have to wear that out of here.” Her voice was raspy, a barely there rough whisper she didn’t even recognize as her own. God. What was this man doing to her?

“You should have undressed on your own, then.” He pulled her blouse down her shoulders, and when she expected him to remove it, he used it to hold her wrists behind her back. “I told you,” he warned, his hot breath fanning her neck near her ear, “don’t taunt the lion in his own den.”
 

“It’s a hotel,” she reminded him defiantly. “It’s not your den.”

“You really do like to live dangerously, don’t you?” His voice was dark, edgy, and he twisted her shirt into some sort of knot that bound her wrists, binding her and putting her fully at his mercy. She should have objected, feeling fear or panic. Instead, heat flooded her body in a rush of adrenaline and desire. She’d never been tied up by a man, never allowed one that kind of control, and this was not the man to start giving it to. But her body defied her, her skin tingling, her sex tight and aching.
 

“Don’t you?” he prodded.

“Did you ask a question?” Was she supposed to remember what he said when she was naked with his hands all over her?
 

He laughed, low and husky and her sex clenched with the sound. Everything about this man made her crazy hot and out of control, clouding her mind and logic, and leaving nothing but desire and need. “I asked if you liked living dangerously? Do you like the adrenaline rush? The danger?”

“I guess it depends on how you define danger,” she managed hoarsely. He was danger, and pleasure, and all things sinfully tempting, and impossible to resist.

“I’m beginning to get the idea your definition needs work,” he accused roughly, shoving away the silk of her bra and working her nipples with short little pulls that sent ripples of sensation through Kara’s body.
 

She tried not to pant. She tried to act cool and in control when she was melting into a big puddle of need and desire. “Considering I came here alone with you of my own free will, I think you might be right.” The very fact that her hands were bound should set off all kinds of alarms for her, not the arousing erotic pleasure it was becoming.
 

His tugged her backwards, cradling her body against his hard, warm chest. “Or maybe,” he murmured, accusation lancing the otherwise gently spoken words, “you have a hidden weapon that’s giving confidence, like the drugs you used on me last time.” His teeth scraped her lobe. “That would make me very unhappy.”