She was still thinking about it.
They left the courtyard out the back of the building, and into the parking lot.
At her car, he waited until she unlocked the door, then pulled it open for her. She stood in the V of the opened door, and he stood just behind her, his free hand on the roof of the car, the other linked to her, surrounding her. His body heat seeped into her, through her, and she closed her eyes to savor every second, because she knew that when she took him home and they were unlocked from each other, he was going to vanish again.
Maybe for good this time.
Unable to stand the thought, she turned to face him. Cupped his jaw.
“Chloe-”
In answer, she kissed him, kissed him until his hand left the top of the car and came down to her waist.
When she opened her eyes, his held surprise and that intoxicating heat that made her knees wobble. “I just wanted to do that one more time,” she whispered.
He stood there a moment, and then, when he opened his mouth to say something, it began to rain again. He nudged her aside so he could slide into the car, moving slowly across the passenger seat to allow her the time to keep up with him.
They drove in silence except for Ian’s giving her directions to his condo complex. When she’d parked and turned to him, he was already looking at her.
“Ready?” he asked.
Yes. Yes, she was. The real question was, what was she ready for?
The rain topped its earlier show, coming down in thick sheets. They ran up the path to Ian’s front door, where he quickly slapped his pockets for his keys while they got soaked. Finally, he dropped his head and swore.
“Let me guess,” she yelled over the sound of the rain hitting the roof. “You misplaced your house keys, too?”
He looked at her, the irony and a good amount of wry amusement in his eyes. She could do nothing but laugh.
He joined her, until the sky lit up with a strobing bolt of lightning, followed by a booming clap of thunder that made her squeak.
“The back!” He led, and by the time they ran around the building and through a gate, they were both a soggy mess. Chloe could barely see through her streaming hair. Shoving it back, she looked at Ian, who was also trying to see, and laughed.
His eyes laughed, too.
It was true. His eyes laughed, which brought another silly smile to her face, because suddenly she felt like a kid.
No, scratch that. Not a kid. A teenager.
A rather horny one.
“Sorry,” he said, reaching up into a potted plant, and then the next thing she knew she was standing in his kitchen. He had hardwood floors and pale green walls with gorgeous trim, and like a real guy, dishes piled in the sink, a fact that made her want to smile as she dripped all over his pretty floor.
Ian dripped, too. Water ran down his temples, in his face, making his dark eyelashes inky-black and spiky.
He was looking at her, slowly taking in her wet clothes, including her thin tank and gauzy skirt that had to be clinging to her like a second skin.
And his smile slowly faded.
So did hers.
His was replaced by a heat that singed her every erogenous zone, of which she apparently had a lot more than she remembered.
Lifting the hand that was connected to hers, he pulled, and she found herself in his arms, staring at his mouth as he slowly lowered it to hers.
“Stop me,” he whispered. “Stop me now, Chloe, because I can’t seem to do it.”
Instead she lifted her free hand to his chest, gliding it up around his neck, cupping his nape to tug his head down to hers.
6
He’d been working around the clock, neglecting pleasure for so long that it whipped through his veins, demanding more, more,
Never mind that he shouldn’t.
They shouldn’t. She was a possible suspect, a definite witness, and hell, he couldn’t take his hands off her.
With Chloe, he had no resistance, not when her curvy body had shrink-wrapped itself to his, not when she’d slid her warm, sweet tongue inside his mouth…
At this rate, he wouldn’t survive if they stopped. “Chloe…” His fingers sank into her hair, gently tugging her head back so he could look into her eyes, but instead he pressed his mouth to her bared throat and made his way along her wet skin, to her jaw, her ear.
She let out a shaky exhale and held on. “Ian…why were you really in that office?”
He’d expected the questions. What he hadn’t expected was to be so completely blindsided by needing her that his guard was down. Down, hell. It was flat-out gone.
“For a case, I’m guessing. Right?”
He sank his teeth lightly into her earlobe, then soothed the spot with his tongue.
“Ian.” Her voice was wobbly, her free hand clutching at him, as if she was having trouble standing. The handcuffs clanked, reminding him again of their presence. They were a tool of his job, not a sex toy. He’d never really been into bondage. Yet he couldn’t have begun to explain how unbearably erotic it felt to be handcuffed to her.
“Are they in trouble?” she asked. “The guys?”
It took a moment to get past the sexual haze and be able to talk. “Guys?”
“Steve and Al? I do their books.”
Against her deliciously wet, warm skin, he sighed.
And she went still. “I suppose you probably already know that.” Lifting her head, she stared at him. “Talk to me, Ian.”
He knew the regret was all over his face. “I-”
“Can’t.” Her worried smile broke his heart. “Or you’d have to kill me, right?” She lifted their handcuffed wrists. “Key?”
“Yeah.” He backed her to the countertop and opened a drawer at her hip.
“Um…” She rocked her hips to his, making his eyes cross with lust.
“Chloe,” he said on a low breath. “You’re killing me.”
“It’s like we were never apart. Do you remember?”
He looked into her eyes. “Everything.”
“Our first time…?”
Especially that. He’d driven them through the Angeles Crest forest, to an overlook where they could see the lights of sprawling Los Angeles far beneath them.
Neither of them had noticed the view. Instead they’d ravaged each other in the front seat of his truck, and then the bed of his truck, stretched on a blanket beneath a sky littered with a million stars… “I remember.”
He’d had plenty of sex since then, some really good sex, but looking into her eyes now, he knew the truth- nothing had ever quite lived up to his time with her.
No one had ever come close to touching his heart the way she had.
