Simply Sinful

She stared at him wide-eyed.

“But I am hungry. How about you?” Reaching to his side, he felt beneath the room service cart left by the hotel staff earlier and came up with a can of whipped cream. “Special request,” he said.

“You think of everything, don’t you?” she asked.

“I try.” He shook the can with one hand.

She was already willing. He also wanted her hot…and wet…and enjoying every moment. She hadn’t done much of that in the past and he wanted her to remember him even after he was gone. He didn’t want her ever to forget.

With great show and care, he circled her nipple with a generous helping of whipped cream. Her smoldering gaze met his. “Something wrong?” he asked.

“It’s cold.” Laughter and anticipation lit her voice.

“Not for long.” He lifted her breast in his hand, savoring the weight, the feel, the warmth and then he proceeded to devour his dessert until he was tasting beyond cold and sweet, until he was tasting Kayla.

Unfortunately for him, his plan worked too well. She lost herself in sensation. She moaned aloud, her thighs clenched and unclenched around his. And Kane knew she was past conscious thought, past the point of asking him to stop.

Which meant she trusted him. He glanced at her glazed eyes, and her honest face. A protest of his own rose to his lips. Before he could speak, her hips bucked against him and his coherency vanished. He met her thrusts with unrestrained pumping of his own until he thought he’d come right then. Lifting her up, he waited only for her to wrap her legs around his hips and he took the few steps needed.

Together they toppled onto the bed. In between spurts of laughter and the mess of the whipped cream, which she attempted to lick from his lips, they managed to stand and undress. Kane grabbed for his jeans and pulled a condom out of his wallet, realizing on some subconscious level, he’d been prepared for this. He’d made sure his wallet wasn’t empty.

Shaking off the implications, he joined her on top of the mattress. She lay beneath him, naked and ready. His. He shook his head to clear that thought, but it remained. He pushed a strand of hair off her cheek, stuck there thanks to leftover whipped cream.

“I never realized making love could be fun,” she said, out of breath.

He’d never laughed while having sex, either. At least he’d given her something after all. He grinned. “Sweetheart, you haven’t seen anything yet.” He shifted his weight and slipped his hand between her thighs.

She was everything he’d wanted her to be. Warm, slick and, if the sighs greeting his ears were any indication, she was definitely enjoying. He slipped one finger inside her moist heat.

“Kane?” His name came out on a groan.

“What?” Closing his eyes against the tension threatening to burst inside him, he eased his finger out…

“I’d rather you…I mean, we…”

He knew what she meant. But he wasn’t ready. He wanted more for her than a fast tumble. More memories. He slipped his finger back in once more. “Patience is a virtue,” he told her through clenched teeth.

“Then I’m not virtuous.” As if to make her point, she wrapped her hand around his straining length and proceeded to pick up a rhythm that brought him to the brink.

“Point made.”

Taking care of protection seemed more of a nuisance than it should. Then, grabbing her wayward hands, he yanked them above her head and held her wrists with one hand. With the other, he eased himself inside her, trying like hell to keep in mind it had been a long time for her.

Considering how perfect the fit, how intense the emotion she drew from him, this was a first for him as well. Kane held onto rational thought long enough to recognize he’d never felt like this before. Seconds before he climaxed in her arms, he knew he’d never feel like this again.

HE WOKE TO THE SOUND of rustling clothing. Kane rolled onto his back to see Kayla slipping back into her clothes. Last night came back to him in a rush of memory and sensation-because his body was rock-hard. Despite that he’d slept with her twice, and that the sheets still carried their scent, he wanted her again. Wanted her more than he had the first time.

One glance and he knew she’d planned on slipping out before he awoke. Something he’d done himself and only now, being on the receiving end, did he realize how low a maneuver that actually was. The sense of loss shocked him.

She was leaving. Because she was sorry for what happened? Because she was embarrassed and couldn’t face him? Or because, God help him, he’d been nothing more to her than a one-night stand? He couldn’t stand the possibility, and in that fleeting second, he wanted more.

“Going somewhere?”

She glanced up from buttoning her jeans. Her hair fell around her face in easy waves, surrounding guilt-ridden, embarrassed eyes. “I was just…”

“Leaving?”

“Getting dressed. I would have woken you.”

“Bull.”

“You like that word.”

“Only when it fits.” He rose from the bed, ignoring that he was naked, and trying unsuccessfully to ignore her gaze following him across the room.

“I thought a clean break would be best. You’re going back to New Hampshire later today any way, so I figured, this way, no messy goodbyes.” She turned a bright, sunny smile his way.

He shoved his hand into his pants pockets and fished through his wallet. What was he to her? She hadn’t accepted his date until he’d pressured her into it with the lesson pretense. Was he a client she never wanted to see again or something more?

In his mind, the case had been closed long before he slept with her. He knew she wasn’t a prostitute, knew she had no knowledge of any ring that might exist. But she was the woman who’d slipped past his walls. No one had ever gotten that close before. If anything would kill the edge Reid was so worried about, the one that kept him alert and alive, this was it. A soft, caring woman.

Kayla Luck.

Kane drew a deep breath. It didn’t matter why he’d come into her life. The fact remained that he had, and, in the process, he’d compromised himself, his principles, his case and his job. Not bad for a night’s work, McDermott. He had to let her go. But the same part of him that wanted to kick himself for getting in too deep also needed to know. Could it all have been one-sided?

He turned toward her, wallet open. “We never agreed on a price, but I’m sure this will cover last night’s… lessons.” She might not think she’d taught him anything. But she had. A very expensive and painful lesson. He tossed the wad of bills onto the bed.

Don’t take the money. His heart seemed to hammer out the words in rapid beats. Furious with himself, he still needed to see her reaction, needed to know what he’d meant to her.

He looked over his shoulder. She’d paused in the process of pulling the baby-blue jacket onto her shoulders.

“What…is…that?”

“You said we’d see how things go.” And they had. He thrust his hand toward the bed where the money sat, glaring and rude. “That’s payment for services rendered.”

CHAPTER FOUR

KAYLA STARED AT THE MONEY on the bed in disbelief. “Payment.” She forced the words from her dry throat.

“You said we’d see how things go.”

Yes, she had…and now she knew. Things had been unbelievable, or so she’d thought. Special, sensual, incredible, fun, she couldn’t come up with enough adjectives to describe how being with Kane had