SEAL's Deception (Take No Prisoners Book 8) (4 page)

His pulse slammed through his veins the lower he went and the more of her smooth, dark skin peeked through the opening spreading wider across her back. When his fingers reached the bottom of the zipper, his knuckles skimmed the curve of her ass, and the tattoo of a brightly-colored bird that appeared to be consumed by flames.

A moan rose up his throat, and he swallowed hard to keep it from getting out. He pulled back his hand like he’d touched a hot iron.

“Thank you.” Yasmin stepped away, clutching the front of the dress to her bosom. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to sleep on the sofa.”

A shoulder lifted and dropped. “Slept on worse.”

“Soon as I’m done in the shower, you can have it.” Yasmin nodded toward the door.

He grunted. “By the way, I like the phoenix tattoo.” He kept his tone deadpan, while he fought to keep from smiling.

She frowned. “You weren’t supposed to be looking.”

He shrugged. “It’s second nature for a SEAL to notice everything.”

“Well, just pretend you never saw it.”

“Sorry, that’s not possible. Now that I know what’s there, I can’t unsee it, nor do I want to. The artist did a great job.” He opened the door and winked. “But, he had an excellent canvas to work on.” He ducked outside before the bar of soap she grabbed hit him in the head. The door closed in time for the soap to bounce off the wood panel.

With a chuckle, he crossed through the bedroom to the living area. After wandering around casually, pretending to study the layout of the apartment while actually looking for more hidden cameras or well-placed listening devices, Ben ended up standing in front of the huge windows.

The lights of London glowed brightly. From this location, he could see the Tower of London, the Tower Bridge, and the Big Ben clock on the north tower of the palace of Westminster. The River Thames reflected the city lights and the moon in its slow, steady path toward the sea.

Ben would have loved visiting the city on vacation, hitting all of the tourist stops to learn more about the history of London and England. He struggled with looking at the serene city without thinking about what would happen if a deadly virus or disease spread across the world. All of the beautiful architecture of past centuries wouldn’t help keep the creators’ descendants alive. The only way to stop the threat was to nip it in the bud. Contain the weapons before they could be unleashed.

“It’s all yours,” a voice said from across the room.

Ben turned to find Yasmin dressed in a sheer, pale coral baby-doll nightgown and matching robe. The garment left little to the imagination. A hard swallow did nothing to move air past the constriction in his throat. No amount of breathing exercises would loosen the tightening in his groin. Damned woman.

“What?” She rubbed her hand across her face. “Do I have something on my nose?”

“No. Not at all.” He hurried past her, practically running through the bedroom to the bathroom beyond.

Yasmin’s laughter followed him.

Ben slammed the door and turned to find candles lighting the room, filling the air with the scent of flowers. Holy hell, what was she trying to do? Ben went around to each of the flickering flames and snuffed them out with a quick puff of air. Then he stripped out of his clothing, stepped into the walk-in shower and turned on the cold water, letting it run over his heated skin. One minute went by. Then two. Five passed, and he was still as hot as he’d been when he’d ducked beneath the spray. An image of Yasmin in that frilly nightgown had seared a permanent impression in his mind that refused to be washed away with cold water.

Working around Yasmin would be difficult. He found the woman simultaneously aggravating and tempting. Right now, he just wanted to wrap his hands around her neck and kiss the cussedness out of her.

He scrubbed his body and hair, giving up on chilling his desire. Besides, he couldn’t stay in the bathroom all night. What if someone tried to get into the princess’s apartment while he was in the shower? He wouldn’t hear her scream. Ben spun, shut off the water and listened. Nothing made a sound. Was that because Yasmin was already dead, or was the insulation between the walls that good?

Suddenly anxious to check on the confounded agent, Ben grabbed the towel hanging over the top of the wall and quickly rubbed his body dry. Then he wrapped the towel around his waist and stepped out of the shower stall.

Yasmin stood in the bathroom with a thick white bathrobe draped over her arm.

“Do you always enter bathrooms when men are in the shower?”

“Only when they don’t lock the door. I thought maybe it was an invitation.” She winked. “I also thought you might like something besides trousers to sleep in.” Yasmin held out the robe.

Damn, she looked entirely too sexy in the nightgown. A growl escaped from deep in his throat. Already, his cock had jerked back to attention and was tenting his towel. He held up his hand. “No, thanks. I sleep in the nude.”

Y
asmin clutched
the bathrobe to her chest to cover the way her nipples puckered, making tiny little points stick out of the filmy fabric of Princess Aliya’s nightgown. She deserved that. After putting herself on display in nothing more than the scrap of see-through fabric, she deserved to have Ben throw that little gem of personal info in her face.

I sleep in the nude.

Yasmin could barely breathe. His single comment had sucked the wind right out of her sails and left her dangling, living in anticipation of watching that towel fall off his narrow hips.

Holy hell!

Ben gathered his clothing and carried the items into the living room.

Yasmin trailed to the door of the bedroom. The question wasn’t one of
wanting
to follow him. She
had
to follow. Her body had control, like a moth drawn to its death in the bright glow of a flame.

In the living area, he dropped his clothes on an end table, stood in front of the huge glass windows and stretched both arms above his head.

A slow anger started in her chest and moved upward in a wave of heat. The SEAL had to be putting on a show just to taunt her.

The heat of anger shot into desire as the towel slipped, caught for a brief moment and then fell to the floor.

Yasmin gasped, eyes widening. Her breath caught and held in her lungs.

His buttocks were tight, his thighs thickly muscled and his back rippled as he brought his arms back to his sides. Then he turned.

For a moment, time stood still. Yasmin’s heart stopped and she couldn’t think, speak, or utter even a squeak.

The man was perfect from the top of his head to the tip of his…

Then her heart started pumping hot, molten blood through her system. Heat shot through her body, pooling low in her belly, making her sex slick with longing.

Based on how thick and straight his cock stood out from his groin, he was just as excited.

For a long moment, they stared at each other.

Finally, reality set in, and Yasmin remembered the cameras in the corners.
Holy shit!

She stepped back from the doorway into the bedroom. “You better hope my parents don’t see you like that,” she called out, though the sound was far wispier than she intended. “I won’t have to fire you. They will.” With that parting comment, she slammed the door and flung herself onto the bed.

The smooth satin comforter against her cheek and thighs wasn’t helping. All she could think about was inviting that naked SEAL into the bedroom to slip his coarse hand along her cheek, down her neck and caress lower to the puckered tips of her nipples. He’d slide that big, gorgeous body between her legs and thrust his impressive cock inside her.

“Oh, sweet Jesus!” This was going to be the hardest assignment she’d worked to date.

Yasmin wasn’t a virgin. She’d had a few partners, the last being the man who’d betrayed her trust and gotten her fired from INTERPOL. She had to remind herself she didn’t need the complications of a lusty sex life. Not when she was playing the part of an Arabian princess on her way to meet her future husband. The last thing she needed was for Khalid to find her in bed with her bodyguard. In London, she might get away with such behavior. In Riyadh, she might be stoned to death.

Think stones.

Planting those two words in her head should have done the trick, but she could only think of how rock-solid Ben appeared. His muscles could have been carved out of granite. And his cock…sweet heaven.

Her pussy creamed, and she gripped the comforter to keep herself from running into the other room and begging Ben to take her now. Hard and fast. Again and again.

She slipped her hand beneath her nightgown and cupped a breast. What would Ben’s hand feel like? Would he be tender? Would he squeeze her nipples? Maybe even bite them?

Yasmin moaned. As far as she knew, the bedroom didn’t have cameras. She hadn’t found listening devices, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. At that moment, she didn’t care. Getting out of the flimsy nightgown became her top priority. Grabbing the hem, she yanked it up over her head and flung it across the room. So much for her plan to tease the big SEAL. She’d only managed to work herself into a frothing mass of lust. If she didn’t take care of it herself, she wouldn’t sleep a wink.

I can do this myself
.
I don’t need a man to get off.
She’d pleasured herself a number of times, usually with BOB, her battery-operated boyfriend. Tracing a line from the tip of one nipple to the other, she circled the tightly beaded tips several times, warming to the task. Then she trailed a finger down her torso to the mound of curls at the apex of her thighs.

Yasmin drew in a deep breath and glanced around the room, praying a camera wasn’t recording her every move. She wouldn’t mind if Ben were on the other side of the lens, watching as she dipped a finger into her wet channel and swirled until the digit was loaded with her juices, then she drew a line from her entrance to the little strip of heated flesh tucked between her folds.

“Ah, yes.” She stroked once and drew in a sharp breath as the first tingle shot through her. Another moan rose up her throat, escaping into the cavernous room, proving to herself she didn’t need a man to make her come. She could do this.

Again, she stroked, and more tingles rippled from her center outward. Yasmin twisted in the sheets, parting her legs wider. Closing her eyes, she imagined Ben lying between her legs, his tongue where her finger was, licking her in that place packed with highly sensitive nerves, begging to be touched, nipped and sucked until she came apart into a million little pieces. Oh, God, if only Ben was there.

The door to the bedroom swung open with a bang. “Are you all right?” Ben stood in the doorway, dressed in his trousers and nothing else.

Caught in the throes of her self-induced passion, Yasmin stared, her eyes wide, her finger still pressed to her clit. “What are you doing in here?” she said, her voice shaky, her breathing ragged.

“I thought you might be hurt. I heard moaning…” His gaze swept over her naked body, zeroing in on the hand between her legs.

“So, now you know,” she whispered. “I can do this myself.”

He stood for a moment, his trousers pulling tightly over the ridge growing bigger by the second beneath his fly. Ben shot a glance around the room. His attention returned to her, and he took another step into the room. “Why do it yourself when you have me to help?”

Yasmin tried, but she couldn’t manage to take a full breath as the SEAL crossed the room and stood at the end of the bed.

As if of its own accord, her finger stroked her clit and then slipped lower to dip into the dripping juices oozing from her channel. She’d imagined Ben between her legs, and there he was, larger than life, ruggedly handsome and one-hundred-percent male.

“Do you want my…help, or not?” He dragged a finger along the inside of her calf up to her knee. “I’m sure two can accomplish the task quicker than one.”

“I like taking things slowly,” she said, sliding her finger inside, adding another and circling. “A job worth doing shouldn’t be rushed.”

“You have a good point.”

Oh, baby, and you have an even better point. Bring it closer
. She willed him to stop staring and start moving as she drew up her knees, widening the spread of her legs. In effect, inviting him in.

Ben unbuttoned his trousers. Before dropping them, he dug into his back pocket, extracted his wallet, and removed a condom from inside.

Yasmin sent a silent prayer of thanks to the heavens for sending a man who could think with his pants down.

B
en hadn’t come
into the bedroom to make love to his partner on this operation. He’d come in expecting to find trouble. Hell, he’d found it in a big way. The naked woman on the bed with her hand on her sex had him tied in so many knots he could think of only one way to unravel all of them at once.

One step led to another until he found himself standing at the end of her bed, pulling a rubber out of his wallet. What the hell was he thinking?

The scent of her musk sent his pulse speeding through his veins. Her naked, trim body, with all that beautiful light brown skin and her wet entrance glistening in the light from the lamp on the nightstand, sealed the deal.

“Just so you know,” she said. “I didn’t ask for your help. I’m not expecting any future commitment, other than what we agreed on to begin with.”

Ben frowned. What the hell was she talking about? “I didn’t offer to help with anything but the task at hand.” He grabbed her ankles and tugged her toward the edge of the bed. “Now, shut up and let me assist.” Code for
let me take over and make you come
.

He’d never been in a situation where he and his partner had to talk in riddles for fear of being bugged. The idea of someone listening in on their tryst didn’t make him balk. The challenge made it even more titillating, and he dropped to his knees, draping her legs over his shoulders.

“Oh, my. Is that how…” she sucked in a breath as he slid his finger along her inner thigh. “Is that what they taught you in bodyguard school?” Yasmin clamped her lips shut and arched her back as he touched her entrance, slipping a finger inside her well-lubricated channel.

Her reaction to his touch fanned the flames burning inside. Ben parted her folds and pushed aside her finger, replacing it with the flick of his tongue.

Her heels dug into his back, her thighs closing on his ears. An image of the man she’d strangled flashed through his mind and disappeared. If he died due to strangulation with those incredibly tight thighs, he’d take her with him with what he knew would light her rocket fuel.

Ben tapped her clit once with the tip of his tongue, and then again. Next he swept it across, swirling, laving, and twirling the little nubbin of flesh while pressing his fingers into her entrance. He continued, slowly, steadily bringing her to the very edge until she writhed beneath him.

She weaved her hands into his hair, massaging his scalp with every thrust of his tongue and fingers. When her body tensed and she pulled hard on his hair, he knew she was almost there. One last tongue thrust sent her over the top. She rocked with her release, her breathing coming in short, ragged gasps.

Yasmin settled against the mattress, but she wasn’t done. Her fingers on his hair tugged harder. “You’re needed up here. Now.”

“As you wish.” His lips curled into a smile, the taste of her on his tongue. Ben rose to his feet, grabbed the foil package, tore it open with his teeth and rolled it over himself with one hand. Then he pressed his cock to her opening. “Do you still want my assistance?”

She tipped back her head, closing her eyes. “Oh, yes. Hurry.”

He chuckled, looped his arms around her thighs and dipped the tip of his cock into her. “I thought you said all good things shouldn’t be rushed.”

“I lied.” She grabbed his ass and pulled hard, thrusting him into her.

He obliged, taking it deep until he could go no farther. He held his position long enough to give her time to adjust to his girth, then he moved in and out, slowly at first. Carefully. Testing for noisy bedsprings. The bed was of the highest quality. Not a spring squeaked. It paid to be rich. The only sounds were the rustle of the satin duvet and their heavy breathing. She was tight, cloaking him like a fitted glove. And wet. Ben closed his eyes, letting all the sensations of being inside her wash over him. Then he was pumping in and out, slamming hard until he catapulted over the edge in an orgasm so complete he was left breathless and wonderfully in awe.

Several minutes passed before he realized he still held her thighs in his arms. He slid her up on the bed, moving with her. Then he rolled to his side, maintaining their intimate connection.

“Thank you for making that so much better than doing it all on my own.”

“I aim to please. Consider me your faithful servant.” He winked and kissed the tip of her nose.

Yasmin snuggled against him. “I chose my bodyguard well.”

“Let’s hope your parents chose your husband just as well,” he said, slipping out of her.

When she reached for him, he took her hand and pressed a kiss to her open palm. “I’ll go back to my couch. Let me know if you need further assistance.” Ben entered the bathroom, peeled off the condom, dropped it down the toilet and flushed. After washing up, he left the bathroom, nearly walking into Yasmin.

She stood in front of him, her naked body flushed with lovemaking, her lips swollen and her eyes glazed. Leaning up on her toes, she touched his bare chest with her fingertips and kissed his lips. Then she handed him his trousers, ducked around him and closed the bathroom door between them.

For several minutes, Ben stood, wanting to follow her inside and make love to her all over again. But, that would be tempting the fates. Too long in the princess’s bedroom would only be construed as what had actually occurred. Her parents would be flying home to straighten out their recalcitrant daughter, only to learn the real princess had flown the coop, leaving an imposter in her place. An imposter set on marrying the prince in Aliya’s place.

Ben shoved his legs into his trousers, zipped and left the bedroom before he said to hell with the cameras and listening devices.

Yasmin, with her exotic beauty and passionate nature, was proving to be far too great a distraction than he’d first thought. Hell, she’d been a distraction as a blonde. In her natural dark coloring, she was even more beautiful and entirely too sexy for a covert operations partner.

For a long time, Ben stared out at the London skyline, willing his body to grow sleepy. After making love to Yasmin, he couldn’t begin to rest. Sleep was so far from his mind he might as well stay up and do something else.

One hundred sit-ups later, he wasn’t any closer to being tired. An equal number of pushups only made his arms ache. If he could, he’d go for a long run. But he couldn’t leave Yasmin unprotected. As the fake princess set to marry a very rich prince, she would likely be a target for someone to take hostage. Hell, he’d fucked up by making love to her. He would never look at her the same way. Not after being inside her, with her legs wrapped around his waist.