No cuffs necessary. One kiss and she was immobilized. Interesting.
Air gently, almost inaudibly eased from her lungs as his mouth slowly followed the line of her exposed collarbone, tasting Eve and a hint of salt. Another nip, this time not as gentle, and she inhaled quickly. He used the distraction to slip his hand under her bottom and grip the remote.
Success.
Feeling triumphant and a little ridiculous, he lifted his head to look at her. She kissed him. With her head braced on the sofa arm she didn’t even have to move much, just lean forward a little and brush her lips over his, a quick flick of her tongue, the caress just hot and slick enough to remind him how things could get so much hotter, so much slicker.
He froze, hand still wrapped around the remote under her ass. They remained absolutely immobile for a heated moment, then another before the mental cables restraining everything frayed and snapped. He yanked the remote from under her bottom, twisted to point it at the television, and pushed the power button. As the screen went black he clicked off the lamp above her head, plunging the living room into darkness broken only by what little streetlight filtered through the tall oaks and the blinds. The book dropped to the floor by the remote. The couch wasn’t large, but after a few shifts he lay half beside her, half on top of her, much of his weight on one elbow while with the other hand he groped under her head to tug at the rubber band holding back her hair.
A few strands came free with the elastic. “Ow,” she protested mildly.
“Sorry,” he murmured, then he buried his face in her hair and breathed in the scent of mint and rosemary. The strands slipped through his fingers and snagged on the three-day stubble on his jaw. He had to restrain himself from gripping the silken mass in his fingers.
She angled toward him, her face tucked in the hollow of his throat, and put her hand on his hip, bared as his shirt rode up. “It’s just sex, Matt. Responsible, protected, come-out-of-your-skin-with-pleasure sex between two consenting adults.”
The words were completely casual, as if she truly expected nothing beyond the parameters of the case, felt nothing more than an itch she wanted him to scratch. The ache inside him eased a little. This was Eve, the sexiest cocktail waitress in Lancaster, who’d been willing to go to bed with Tom to settle her nerves. He might have to protect her from Murphy, but he didn’t have to protect her from this. He leaned forward, into her body, felt a purely female little shudder roll through her. “So good everyone will know I got some, right?” he asked as he eased the Sig and the holster from its spot at the small of his back and set it on the end table.
She froze, then laughed as he echoed her words after the lap dance in the Jeep. “I don’t feel the slightest bit sorry for you,” she said.
“Cold, boss. Very cold.”
“I offered to help you get a job!”
Her retaliatory pinch to the skin of his waist made him grip her hand. Something extremely basic inside him made him pull that hand above her head and grasp it with his left. His right hand now free, he inched up the hem of her tank top, exposing flat, pale belly between the low-slung waistband of her jeans and her rib cage. Using four fingers he stroked, his touch too purposeful to tickle, back and forth just above the button of her jeans. She just looked at him, her body completely vulnerable yet radiating strength and life force and enough energy to light him up. He wanted to sink into her sheer Eve-ness and disappear.
With a little shimmy she brought his attention firmly back to the physical, then flicked a glance at the now-dark television. “Channel 1606. If you hurry we can be done by the second quarter.”
Pressing his body firmly against her, he nestled his thigh between hers and slid his hand just inside her waistband. Her breath caught as she softened, opened. Everything male in him growled with satisfaction.
“Don’t bet on it, boss,” he said as he unfastened her jeans. “I don’t really want to watch football.”
*
“You better hurry. It’s almost five,” Matt called down the hallway.
“Thirty seconds,” Eve said on her way from the bathroom to his bedroom, where her small suitcase sat on the chair. “A minute, tops. I promise.”
She’d said that five minutes ago, but at least now she was running around in a top and skirt, progress toward the eventual goal of dinner at her parents’ house. The look on his face when she wore nothing but her white microfiber underthings suggested she get dressed or miss dinner entirely. She’d gotten dressed. In an adult lifetime of shocking, disillusioning, and downright disappointing her parents, missing dinner tonight of all nights was out of the question.