Bad Deeds (Dirty Money #3)

He reaches behind him and hits the button to stall the elevator, and my already racing heart starts to thunder. “What are you doing?”

“This,” he says, maneuvering me into the corner, his mouth already back on mine, his hands sliding over my backside, where one hand cups and squeezes and the other makes its way back to my breast. And while my mind tries to reach for reason, my body, my emotions, respond to the dark hunger inside Shane. The animal quality that I’ve never felt in him consumes him now and claims me. His need feeds my own. I taste it. I crave it. I burn for it and him. He answers those sensations by creating more, his powerful legs framing mine, his tongue licking into my mouth. His hands travel my body, and somehow my blouse is open and my bra is shoved down, nipples hard as pebbles against his fingers that are tugging and pulling.

I am wet. I am hot, but when he reaches for my waistband, when I’d let him further undress me, the sound of a buzzer permeates my mind, and reality hits me. We’re in an elevator. The alarm is going off. “Shane,” I say, grabbing his wrist, only to have his fingers stroke my sex through my slacks, sensations rolling through me, my body all but demanding I forget objections. “Shane,” I say again, somehow staying focused. “There are cameras.”

“I’ll have the security feed destroyed,” he promises, and he’s already kissing me again, and with one deep stroke of his tongue against mine, which I feel everywhere, I want his tongue, and I struggle to find resistance. I even let him unbutton and unzip my pants. Still, though, that alarm is sounding, seeming to get louder, insisting that I hear it, reminding me where we are. “Shane.”

He answers by nipping my bottom lip, a deliciously rough, sexy bite that he follows with a lick. With just that easy of a distraction, I am not thinking, but feeling again, my tongue seeking his, every soft spot on my body wanting every hard part of his. But when his warm palm flattens on my naked hip, skimming my pants downward on one side, the idea of being naked in the elevator sparks one thought: we are being watched, an idea that shakes me fully back to my senses with the hard, cold reality, and I grab Shane’s shoulders. “Stop.”

“After you come.”

“Before,” I hiss, and when he leans in to kiss me again, I pull back. “Damn it, Shane. Stop. Not here.”

The fierceness of my voice fills the car, and he jerks back, looking down at me, his gray eyes glossed over with lust that quickly sharpens into understanding. His chest expands on a deep breath, his hands leaving my body to settle on the wall on either side of me. “You don’t like the elevator.”

“It’s not about the elevator,” I say, grabbing his collar and stepping into him, my voice low, for his ears only. “It’s about who might see us before you clear the tape. Like your brother or father who could be watching us right now.”

He lowers his head, tilting it low, all but burying it in my neck, and I can sense him battling to tame the beast this night has unleashed in him, softly murmuring, “What the hell is wrong with me?” He inches back to look at me, his eyes clear now, control restored. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. This isn’t me.”

“Don’t be sorry,” I murmur softly back. “You’re human too, Shane, and I don’t want you to stop being human any more than you want me to. But no one else needs to know that right now but me.” I flatten my hand over his chest. “Let’s go do this in private.”

His eyes warm, expression softening. “What did I do to even deserve you?” He doesn’t wait for or expect an answer, glancing down and then adjusting my bra to cover my exposed nipples. “I hate to tell you this, but the buttons to your blouse are missing,” he says without apology as he adjusts my pants back into place.

“It’s a short walk to the apartment,” I say, tugging my zipper up and tying the ends of my blouse at the waist.

He cups my face and kisses me. “I’ll buy—”

“Me a new one,” I supply. “I’d rather you just take this one off me.”

His eyes darken, a hint of that lust returning as he takes a step and stretches across the car to punch the button to set us in motion again. The car starts to move, and his hands come down on my arms, pulling me to him. “I’m not—”

“Oh yes, you are,” I promise him. “The minute we get inside the apartment, because I’m about to combust.” I soften my voice. “I’m supposed to be naked and next to you, remember?”

“Yes,” he agrees. “You are.” The car halts with a ding, the speed at which we’ve arrived proving we were close to home when detoured by our little encounter. “Let’s go get you properly undressed,” he says softly, draping his arm over my shoulders and pulling me into the cocoon of his body.

We exit the elevator onto our floor, and I hug myself to hide the gap in my blouse. In a few steps, we’ve rounded the corner to the hallway that leads to our apartment, and Shane leans in, kissing my temple. My lips curve with the tenderness of his action, while my gaze travels down the long hallway to our door, my brow furrowing with the sight of a man standing in front of it. “Who is that?” I ask, noting the way Shane’s fingers flex on my shoulder and the slight tensing of his body.

“Adrian Martina,” he says, “and no one I want you to meet.”

“The drug cartel,” I whisper, recognizing the name Martina, though I’m not sure how or when I found out that detail. When the Escalade showed up in our garage, I believe.

“Yes,” he confirms. “And as much as I want to send you back to the elevator, you need to stay with me. The reasons for that decision are too many and too complicated for me to explain right now.”

“Understood,” I say, quite clear on the reasons, starting with the risk that someone could be potentially waiting for me at the elevator or elsewhere. And if that isn’t a good enough reason, there is no question that me leaving would simply look like running, which will make Shane look afraid and weak.

And so we walk the hallway that is always long and yet not long enough this time, considering each step is leading us closer to a man who is a criminal, who is dangerous in ways I don’t think either of us wants to fully understand. Martina is tall, dark, and extremely good-looking, an air of power, intelligence, and money radiating off of him. His dress pants are black, expensive, while his white shirt is starched, his jacket and tie absent. He is not a man in bandanas and a white T-shirt. This is a man who operates on the same playing field as Shane. One I fear might just be capable of intellectual destruction as readily as he is capable of physical destruction. He is terrifying, and he is now only two feet away.

Shane halts us a good foot from Adrian, releasing me and stepping forward, while the drug lord does the same, meeting him toe-to-toe. “I heard you wanted to speak with me,” Martina says, his accent rich but his English perfect.

“A phone call would have suited me.”

“Phone calls can be recorded,” he says. “And I like to invest in building my new friendships.”