Then You Hide (10 page)

“I know. Make a plan.”

He grinned. “You’re catchin’ on, darlin’.”

“What do you have in mind?”

Against her stomach, she felt him—all of him—stir.

A tease was buried in his smoldering stare. “All you have to do,” he said, tightening his grip on her waist and sidestepping them both to the bathroom door, “is be loud and convincing. Can you do that?”

She nodded, and in an instant, he pulled her into the bathroom, turned her around, and hoisted her onto the vanity.

“For real this time?” she whispered.

He spread her legs with his hips. One hand slid her glasses off, the other turned off the faucet. “If it has to be.”

His mouth covered hers before she could say a word, and he kissed her so hard he stole her breath.

CHAPTER NINE

SHE WAS SOFT
, sweet, sexy, and way too smart to question the kiss.

But was she good enough to pull this off, or would he have to elicit genuine moans of ecstasy from her? The device looked professional, and even a cheapo from a spy-gear shop could pick up a whimper, a whisper, or a gasp of pure delight from three hundred feet away.

Which was exactly what he wanted their audience to hear.

He opened his mouth and added the tip of his tongue to the kiss. She responded with plenty of enthusiasm but still no sound.

How far would he have to take her to get some noise?

He cupped the backside he’d been admiring a few minutes ago, the curves as firm and smooth as he’d imagined. That earned him the first little moan. He delved his tongue deeper, appreciating the taste of her, the fullness of her lips, and the slick line of her teeth as he took a swipe over them.

He pulled away for some silent eye-to-eye communication, but hers were closed. And her lips parted with a shudder. He leaned back to steal a glimpse at the slope of her breasts, her skin pink with heat and the nipples peaking wickedly. Her hips rocked in an instinctive sway, and inches away from her crotch, the pressure of a hard-on strained his briefs with that same instinct.

Nobody here was acting.

He kissed her again, sliding his palms up her bare back, aware that she’d unclasped her hands from his neck and was running them over his shoulders and biceps.

Finally, he got the kind of moan he needed: low, long, rich, with a nonverbal approval of his physique, and, best of all, loud enough to reach the mike.

She stopped the mouth-to-mouth this time, but only to nibble and kiss the shoulder she kneaded, tilting her head to give him access to her neck again. He suckled and smelled the skin, kissed her collarbone and the translucent flesh below it. She tasted like paradise. Like salt and sun and palm trees, mixed with the scent of excitement and
woman
.

“That’s nice,” he murmured, turning his face toward the mike a few feet away.

She responded with a breathy “Yes,” but without enough volume. He pointed in the direction of the mike and mouthed, “Louder.”

She nodded, her eyes glinting with the shared secret, her body quivering under his hands.

“Yes,” she repeated, leaning toward the shelves, her voice still little more than air but not the least bit fake-sounding. “That’s nice.”

“How ‘bout this?” He stroked her back as if it were as alluring and sexy as her front, urging her into the moment for the benefit of their act. He kept the touch innocent enough, his thumbs at the sides of her breasts, definitely not crossing the line. “You like that, baby?”

Her skin was buttery smooth, warm and tight over defined but feminine muscles, shooting a sexual shockwave through him.

“I do,” she said, giving it a note of believable desperation with an audible catch in her voice. She leaned into his touch, inviting more. “I really like that.”

They shared a quick look, his brow angled with a question that was answered by a nod, another groan, and a little hand motion that said,
Keep it going.

He stepped closer into the space between her legs, making contact. She quivered at the pressure, rocked forward, and let out a whimper of surprise and pleasure.

A very genuine whimper.

“And that?” he asked.

“Oooh, yes. That.” She added a sexy laugh and lifted her hips to ride the length of him with the flimsy little of patch of nothing she wore as underwear. “Definitely that.”

The line between real and fake was disappearing as fast as his control, blood draining from his brain, where he needed it, and down to his cock, making him achy and stiff. She arched toward him, her hair falling over her shoulders and down to her breasts, the ends grazing her nipples the way he wanted to.

His mouth watered. His chest tightened. His entire lower half constricted into a full-blown erection.

He put his lips against her ear. “More?” If that question got picked up by a supersensitive device, it wouldn’t sound out of place, but he had to know how far he could take this cover.

She drew back, gave him a blistering gaze, and touched his lower lip with her fingertips.

“Oh, yeah. More,” she said, her voice just forced enough for him to know it had to be for effect. “I want this.” She dipped her fingertip into his mouth and curled around his tongue. “And this.” She trailed the wet tip over his chin, down his throat, and over his chest, traveling over one ab muscle after another, a sneaky smile pulling at her lips as her finger took its private joy ride over his six-pack.

She stopped less than an inch from the tip of the hard-on bursting through the waistband of his boxer briefs.

She wet her lips. “And, oh, honey, I
really
want this.”

He clenched his jaw and braced for the mind-blowing impact of one slender female finger, but she didn’t touch him. Instinctively, he tightened his hold on her ribs, squeezing enough to plaster the soft flesh of her breasts against his wrists.

It hurt so bad not to touch her he gave a loud groan of frustration.

“Good one,” she mouthed.

Did she really think he was faking? She closed her eyes and released a long, sensuous sigh, drawing him closer until her breasts were fully pressed against his chest.

She sucked in a deep, noisy breath.

Heat and arousal hammered through him, kicking his pulse into double time, stealing another bona fide rumble of desire from his chest.

She released another sex-kitten moan, totally and maddeningly in control. He’d been worried she couldn’t fake it? She was giving an Oscar-worthy performance, while he was fighting for command over his hormones.

He channeled the burn into a long, wet kiss, slamming his hands on the counter to add credence to the sound track and give him something safe to grab.

She opened her mouth and vacuumed up his lower lip, sucking with enough force to punch a sound needle to the red, along with every yearning cell in his body. Sweat stung his skin, and heat rolled over him as his balls tightened and throbbed.

“Vanessa.” He yanked her to him, shocking them both with a roll of his hips. “You’re killin’ me, honey.”

She tensed her legs around his thighs. “That’s the idea, isn’t it?”

With a sultry laugh, she flattened her hands on his stomach, stroking his skin and caressing his muscles. Her fingers dipped low again, the tips of her thumbs so close to his engorged head he could swear he felt her nails graze the moist droplet there.

He leaned back, hoping she could read his warning look.

“Don’t stop now,” she replied, far too loud for it to be anything but an act as she pulled him right back for a searing, brutal kiss.

“You go one more inch…” He growled into her mouth, only half caring if he chose the perfect words to get his point across
and
fool anybody listening. “And I’m not responsible for what happens next.”

“Oh, yeah?” Under his lips, he could feel her smile just as her fingers stroked his slickened head, punching the breath out of him. “So what happens next?”

“We move to…” He lifted her from the vanity, forcing her to wrap her legs and arms around him to hang on. “Bed.”

She mixed a moan and a laugh while he carried her out the bathroom door, kicked it closed with far more force than necessary, and threw her onto the bed.

“You are really playing with fire.” His voice was strained and gruff.

“I’m doing what you—”

He put a hand over her mouth and dropped on top of her. “They can still hear,” he whispered into her ear.

She clasped her hands around his neck, forcing his face to her mouth. “Then stop talking,” she whispered back. “Or we’re going to get busted.”

Her kiss was wet and long and uncharacteristically
slow
.

Screw the mike. They didn’t need to
try
to make noise; it was already deafening.

Insane bursts of pleasure beat deep in his belly. His chest vibrated against the moans in hers, both of them taking unsteady breaths. Her skin brushed the covers with every up-and-down movement as they rocked against each other in mock sex.

And somewhere in the distance, he heard another sound.

“God Save the Queen?”

He shot his head up to listen, recognizing it as a phone. “I hear music.”

“Mmm. A choir of angels.” She pulled his head back down to her mouth.

He stopped moving. “It’s your phone.”

“My phone never works here.”

“It’s working now.”

She froze for a second, then practically pushed him off her at the third time through the melody. “Oh, my God! That’s—”

He whipped his hand over her mouth again. “Don’t say his name,” he breathed.

“—the London office of my company,” she finished.

He gave her a look of admiration at the save, but she shook her head. “That’s Razor Europe calling.” Rolling off the bed, she seized her bag and pulled out her iPhone.

“It’s a text,” she said, touching the screen.

He looked at her magnificent breasts, all sweet and creamy and round, and so freaking perfect it made him hurt not to devour them. With only a sex-dampened triangle of pink silk between her legs, her long thighs quivering from foreplay, and her hair a wild mess from his hands and the bed, she was enough to make a grown man cry.

“Are you okay?” she asked, glancing up from her screen.

Choking a laugh instead of howling the way he wanted to, he reached to the floor and tossed her his T-shirt. “Define okay.”

She caught the shirt, slid it over her head, and popped through the neck. Then she took a handful of the torn fabric, brought it to her nose, and sniffed, revealing some smooth skin under her breast and letting out a soft sigh of appreciation.

If that wasn’t the damn sexiest move he ever saw, he didn’t know what was.

“I think I’ll sleep in this tonight.”

As if there would be sleep.

He put a finger to his mouth, and she nodded, instantly transferring attention to the screen and reading it intently, screwing up her face into a look of total disgust.

“What’s the matter?” He kept his voice to a faint whisper.

“They’re idiots,” she muttered, dropping onto the bed and reading the message again.

“Who are?”

“The lawyers.” She thumbed the device and nibbled on the lip he’d just kissed. “God, I hate them all. Do you mind if I handle this? Before we get back to…that.”

That
. As if
that
was something she could start and stop at will.

Well, apparently, it was for her. He lifted a casual shoulder, fascinated by the concentration on her face—just as fierce as it had been five minutes ago, for a very different reason.

She didn’t look up from the screen, where she was already typing and
tsk
ing.

“Throw obstacles, that’s what lawyers do.” She bit her lower lip again, thinking, then thumbed the keypad. “Structure…the…exchange…” she muttered. “As…an…unregistered…private…placement.” She stabbed hard. “Send. There, you assholes. Take that.”

He dropped back onto the bed. If her words were being picked up from that bug in the bathroom, whoever was listening was either confused as hell or laughing their asses off at his dismal failure to keep a woman in his bedroom out of the virtual boardroom.

“All right. Done.” She set the phone down and returned her gaze to him. “Where were we?”

“I don’t know where you were,” he said with a disgusted sigh, “but I was—”

The same digital ring silenced him, and she grabbed the cell phone, muttering a few more obscenities.

“I have to call Marcus,” she said, clearly irritated. “They are going to totally screw this deal. What time is it in New York?”

“Same as it is here.” He glanced at the alarm on the nightstand. “Two-thirty. Time for
bed
.”

She heard the implication and nodded, leaning toward the bathroom and raising her voice. “I’ll be right there, baby, I promise.” She had the phone to her ear. “I just have to leave this message. It’s early morning in London now, and they could have this deal derailed in hours. He gets up at four-thirty, anyway—oh, Marcus, hi. It’s Vanessa. I didn’t expect you to be up at this hour.” She waited a beat. “Then you know what those gargoyles are doing in London.”

She slid off the bed and headed toward the glass doors of the balcony, the T-shirt too short to cover the heart-shaped shadow of her bottom.

Stifling a groan, he rolled off the bed, snagged his 1911 from the dresser, and headed into the bathroom. Without making a sound, he picked up her glasses and followed her out to the balcony.

She leaned against the railing, listening. After a minute, she switched the phone from one ear to the other and launched into a speech about tender offers and bond exchange rates.

He stood right in front of her, close enough to feel the current that still electrified the air around her. She looked up, held up a finger to say she’d be another minute, and droned on.

Amazingly, his hard-on didn’t lose its intensity. He waited for her business talk to send a few hormone-drenched cells back to his brain, but they stayed south, torturing him.

He scoped the grounds behind her, zeroing in on the darkness of the Palm Grove villa property, barely able to see past the edge of the fencing. He looked anyway, certain she was following his gaze while she talked.

He took a few steps farther, peering into the night.

Still nattering on about amendments to the indentures, Vanessa looked where he did and paused midsentence. “No, I’m still here, Marcus, but I have to tell you, the cell service sucks, and I could lose you at any minute.”

Another few beats passed as they both stared at the same spot. He pointed…at nothing.

“A couple of days, no more,” she continued, obviously distracted as she stood on her toes to examine the spot he indicated, then frowned at him. “Actually, I’m in Nevis.”

She winced as if she wasn’t expecting a good response to that.

“I was really…honestly, I’m here for a couple of reasons.” She shifted from one foot to the other. “But I did really need a vacation.”