Envy

Which meant that through the little cutouts, he saw her nipples, tight and straining.

“Do you like what I bought today?” she asked hoarsely.

“Not bad.” He cleared his throat as his voice cracked. “Not bad at all. But what’s underneath is even hotter.”

With smooth grace, her hands went up and traced the bra’s thin, bright straps . . . then drifted down to the hard tips that, as she arched, begged for him.

On a growl, he shoved up her skirt and maneuvered himself between her legs, spreading them further with his hips as he went for what had caught his eye: Drawing her into his mouth through the amazing bra, there was the rasp of the lace against his tongue, but also peek-a-boos of the pink, tight flesh beneath.

Wasn’t long before that was so not enough.

With a rough, impatient hand, he tugged the cup down, revealing her nipple.

“Fucking hell . . .” he bit out. “You are—”

Uninterested in him talking: in a rush, her fingers grabbed onto the back of his head and brought him downward to her breast. As he sucked her in, she jacked up off the table, and that movement, that jerking, demanding shove snapped what last restraint he had. All at once, he took over, pushing one of his arms under her and lifting her further, using his other hand to go right between her thighs, to that heat behind her hose and her panties.

He rubbed her sex, his palm hitting the top, right where she needed—

“Veck!”

The sound of his name was all about the more, more, more. And he was going to give it to her. Switching sides, he bit the other half of the bra and pulled it down with his teeth, before he suckled on her opposite nipple.

This still wasn’t enough, though. He needed full-contact naked. Here, now—

The moan that rippled up and out of her was just the kind of agreement that he needed to hear.

Christ, this was going to happen, he thought. This was going to happen.

Veck was totally dominant.

Reilly hadn’t expected anything less, but what was a surprise was how much it turned her on. Part of it was her sense that if she got uncomfortable with how far they’d gone, he’d pull back in a second. But the other half was the way he handled her, the confidence, the power, the erotic possibility that came from his mouth and his hands and his intense, hot eyes.

No doubt he’d started out with a natural talent for sex . . . and developed it over the years.

Abruptly, as if he read her mind, his stare flashed up to hers and locked on while he flicked her nipple with his tongue . . . and as his lids lowered, she knew he wanted her to watch him.

What a sight it was. He’d pulled down the other side of her bra and was working her there, licking and sucking as his flat hand pushed into her. God, he was big—all over: His erection was a long, thick ridge rubbing against her inner thigh, his shoulders were so huge she couldn’t see anything past them, and his lower body was taking up all the room between her spread legs.

With her breasts pushed up by the bra he’d pulled down, her shirt wide-open, and her skirt up around her waist, the next logical undoing was the thin nylon covering her legs, and she popped her pelvis off the table, feeling that circling palm of his press harder into her. Dipping her thumbs into the elastic waistband, she scooped the hose down and ducked her hips, the constriction slipping onto her thighs.

“I’ll take it from there.” Veck eased back, his eyes on fire as he stared at her body. “Mmm . . . right where I want to be.”

As he smiled like a predator, she brought her knees up to help as he stripped the hose off slowly. And it wasn’t until the thin wisps were free of her feet that she had to wonder how far this was going to go. Was she really going to take what they’d started to the conclusion they were both gunning for?

If that was a “yes,” there were practicalities to deal with.

But, crap, what a buzz kill the condom discussion was—and, yeah, now she knew why people made dumb choices when it came to sex. All the things that truly mattered, the things that were going to sting after these intense minutes were over and done with, the things she’d have to live with, maybe forever . . . were nothing more than distant echoes she could barely hear, spoken in a language she didn’t want to translate.

Fifty thousand years of evolution knew what was up.

With a surge, Veck came back to her mouth, kissing her deep as his hands drifted downward—

The curse that shot up her throat was more vibration than sound: His hand was back between her legs, brushing over her inner thigh, heading for the match to the bra he’d already seen and dominated.

“Veck!” she barked again as his touch slid to that center strip of satin.

He was careful, putting just enough pressure on that sensitive place, stroking her in a tight circle that made her body go both utterly loose and unbearably tense.

Screw the panties, she wanted nothing between them . . . and yet the silk barrier was not all bad, the seam at the top adding another dimension to the rhythm he’d fallen into. And he didn’t stop kissing her mouth or her neck or her breasts, until she felt as though he was all over her, surrounding her, taking her even though they had yet to become fully joined.

With a quick shift, he lifted his torso from her, and pushed his hips into her sex, locking their bodies together. Then curling his lower spine, he ground into her, stroking her with his erection as he looked down at the connection.

God, his face was dark with hunger, that cool reserve of his gone, that impassive mask blown to hell and gone by the driving need that locked his jaw.

They were going to do this, she realized.

Which was a shock. In her life, choices were made based on data screens of should and have to and better not. This hot sex was definitely in the last category . . . and yet she wasn’t going to stop it.

They were going to do it safely, however—although not in a bed. This table was working just fine.

But there were things she wanted to get a better feel for first.

Reaching down her body, she took her palm and slid it between them—

Veck’s head dropped back. “Fuuuuuck . . .”

Perfect sentiment: His erection was even bigger than she imagined, and it kicked against her palm—

The sound of the doorbell was loud as a gunshot.

And yet for a moment, she couldn’t comprehend what the hell the noise was, or why she should care.

Veck recovered his senses first. “Pizza.”

“Wha . . .t?”

With quick, logical thinking, he reached over and canned the lights so that whoever had brought their pepperoni and sausage didn’t get a floor show. Then, with efficient hands, he pulled her shirt back together, tugged the hem of her skirt down, and reached into his pants, rearranging his arousal so his fly didn’t look like a circus tent.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said in a level voice. Like nothing had happened. At all.

As he walked off for the front door, Reilly sat up slowly, her head swimming and her body shaking. Holding her blouse together, his brisk return to normal made her feel totally out of control—and then she shifted herself off the table, and the papers on the Barten case fell to the floor.

The flurry of individual pages formed a kind of carpet at her feet, and they were just the kind of mirror she needed to see herself clearly in: Across town, there was a whole family mourning for a daughter they knew they had lost, and instead of focusing on their pain and her job . . . she was hooking up with a man she had no business getting within ten yards of.

Couldn’t get a better conflict of interest than this one. It was frickin’ textbook.

Fumbling with the buttons on her shirt, she did them up fast and then bent down to pick the copies of the report up. As her hair fell into her face, she thought, where was her scrunchie?

Who the hell knew.

Tucking the tangled mess behind her ears, she pulled the printouts together with careful hands, reordering the pages, separating everything back into two piles, hers and Veck’s.

Separate was better.