“This.” He kissed her, deeply, possessively, and sank a finger between her legs. “This greedy pussy’s been leaking all over my jeans.”
She whimpered, her hands clenching on his shoulders, pulling.
“I want your surrender.” His chest pressed against hers, his teeth scraping her gaping mouth as if he were trying to crawl inside her. “Give it to me.”
She was already careening toward it before he added another finger, and another, dipping inside and plunging to the knuckles. His tongue knifed through her mouth, assaulting, owning, and twining her fear and need together.
As if he had all the time in the world, he played with her ache, teasing her soaked flesh, and mounting her lust until she clung to him, moaning and panting against his hot lips.
He seduced her with his mouth, his smoldering looks, and oh God, his touch. His fingers unfurled ribbons of heat within her, clenching her inner muscles, and dribbling past flesh that had become far too hungry for him. It was stupid and irresponsible and…
“There.” She widened her thighs to deepen the thrust of his fingers. “Please, Cole.”
“Good girl.”
“We both know I’m not, but I love the way you lie.”
He slapped his free hand against the wall above her and bowed in, twisting his fingers between her legs. Then his thumb circled her clit and broke the dam.
Her body split apart in waves of orgasmic pleasure. Shimmery stars seized her vision. Trembling bursts of electricity washed up her legs and rendered her senseless, boneless, until noises she didn’t recognize tumbled from her mouth.
He continued to stroke. His fingers. His tongue. Hot and aggressive, he pulled her under and submerged her in the sweetest delirium. Her head tipped back. Her eyes fell shut, and her flesh rippled with unadulterated, carnal bliss.
She shook, stunned and overcome, high on ecstasy and thoroughly mortified.
Mortified, because the voice that broke through her haze didn’t belong to Cole.
“Don’t move, motherfucker.” Mike stood behind Cole, aiming a knife at Cole’s stomach and a gun beneath his jaw. “How do you want to die?”
“Buried three-knuckles-deep.” Cole had the audacity to wriggle the knuckles still buried inside her.
Mike’s lips pulled back, baring his teeth, his eyes blazing with fury.
It was one thing for her to get naked with Cole in Texas when seduction had been part of the mission. Mike had been passionately against it but went along with the plan because there’d been no other way.
But this was a whole other thing. She had no explanation for why she was pressed against him in a dark hallway with her dress shoved to her hips. No explanation would assuage Mike. This had nothing to do with the job. Cole wasn’t even supposed to be here.
Mike didn’t kill unless it was the only option. But given his current signals—flushed neck, bulging veins, wild eyes, grinding teeth, and not one but two weapons drawn—he saw only one option. Cole’s lifeless body.
This wasn’t a bluff. Mike was going to kill him.
Heedless, Cole removed his hand from between her legs and held up his soaked fingers, stretching them apart to display the thick, milky strings of her come. “She’s a gusher.”
“Mike.” Pulse racing, she clasped the hand that held the blade against Cole’s stomach. “Don’t do it. He’s baiting you.”
“I’m going to fucking kill him.” He pushed against her grip.
“No, you’re not.” Cole slipped a sticky finger between his lips and groaned with satisfaction. “She won’t forgive you if you do. You don’t want to lose her.” He licked another digit, his eyes shutting briefly. “Goddamn, when a woman tastes this good, I imagine you’ll do anything to keep her.”
He curled his tongue around the next finger, and the next, slurping with relish.
“Stop antagonizing him.” Her hand started to sweat around Mike’s grip, battling over control of the knife.
The gun beneath Cole’s jaw was less concerning. Mike wouldn’t fire it and risk getting them arrested.
“I would’ve left some for you to taste.” Cole flicked a menacing glare over his shoulder at Mike. “But you’re dipping into this pussy every night, aren’t you? That’s why you’re itching to gut me. You don’t like to share. I get it. I don’t share, either.”
“Enough.” She pushed at Cole’s chest, attempting to upset his balance.
He jerked, and they all moved at once. She went for the knife at Cole’s stomach. Mike fought her grip, trying not to cut her as Cole swiped the stiletto from between her legs. In a blur of motion, he twisted between her and Mike. His torso tensed, flexing with the snap of his arm as he stabbed the blade toward Mike’s shoulder.
She opened her mouth to scream, the sound cutting off as the dagger sank. Blood spurted, not from Mike but from the neck of someone else. A man with black hair.
Her heart stopped. Mike spun away, and Cole stabbed the knife again, cutting through the throat. Blood spilled over his hand. The man dropped to the floor, and she stared down at a face with a crooked nose.
Vincent’s man.
Her hands trembled, her pulse thrashing in her ears, sounding out the muffled thump of the music.
Goddammit, she was smarter than this. She didn’t get distracted. She didn’t let assassins sneak up on her.
“Get out of here.” Cole wiped the stiletto on the dead man’s pants and handed it to her. “Go!”
The chatter of feminine voices sounded around the corner. People were close. A whole nightclub of people. Anyone could step into view and sound the alarms.
“Come on.” She concealed the knife beneath her dress and tugged on Mike’s clenching hand. “We need to go.”
Cole bent over the body and dragged it into a shadowed corner. She looked up, scanning the ceiling with surging panic.
“There are no cameras.” Cole met her eyes, his voice thundering with command. “Get the fuck out of here.”
Heart hammering, she held his gaze for a moment longer, and he stared back, forging the connection in fire.
They needed more time, more moments. If only he would agree to help her, if they could find a way to trust each other…
“Let’s go.” Mike gripped her elbow and led her away.
They walked straight out of the club without stopping or looking back. Outside, the summer night air wrapped around her. She didn’t breathe until they reached a less-congested part of the busy street. There, a few blocks from the nightclub, they lingered in the shadows without speaking.
Patrons milled along the stone walkways, flitting in and out of the nearby bars. The alleyways between belched a thousand unbearable stenches caused by calls of nature. She thought she might throw up, not from the rank air but from her unbearable nerves.
Huddled in a dark doorway with Mike’s arm around her, she had a direct view of the discotheque’s entrance. Her neck grew taut as she waited for the sound of sirens. Her molars clenched painfully as she waited for Cole to step outside.
Ten minutes passed.
Fifteen.
He never emerged, and the polizia never came.
“He hid the body and found another exit.” Mike clasped her hand and pulled her down the street, getting them out of there. “If he’s smart, we’ll never see him again.”