“How can you not be sure?” Marcy studied her for a moment. “I can’t believe he’s that bad.”
She felt herself blush further and had a feeling that if she were outside it could be seen from space.
“Just the opposite actually.” She sighed. “God, Marcy. I didn’t know it could feel so good.”
“But?”
But the man was so in control that it almost felt like making love to a machine, a very talented, very conscious machine. But he was someone too systematic to have been lost in the moment. She couldn’t bring herself to say these things. She could only shrug.
“I don’t know.” And that was the crux of the problem. She didn’t know if he would ever be as lost as he made her feel. She wanted him to fall into her body and what she made him feel. And as desperate and needy as it sounded she wanted it all to mean something to him.
“I get it,” Marcy said after a beat of silence.
“Do you? Care to let me in on this little secret because I’m not sure I even understand it.”
“You want him the way every woman wants a man.” She could only raise a brow at her friend. “Not that way. Yes, you want his hot bod. But you want him in the ways that matter. I get it. Trust me, I do.”
She didn’t want to think about what her friend was implying. How could she want a man like Falon? Really want him? The image of waking up beside him suddenly assaulted her and she knew she was in deep trouble because Marcy just may be right.
“I don’t think so, Marcy.”
Marcy looked at her for a moment before giving a negligent shrug. “Whatever you say, cupcake. If you want Mr. Control to break, it sounds like you need to deploy drastic measures.”
“Drastic how?”
“Do you own anything in black lace?”
***
Falon sat behind his borrowed desk getting nothing accomplished. Again. This idleness grated against his nerves and put him on edge and it was all her fault. After Sarah had fallen asleep last night, he had quickly pulled his clothes back on and left before he gave into the urge to curl his body around hers and sleep.
Now he felt like a coward for slipping away under the cover of darkness. Damn it. He hadn’t signed on for this. When his body reacted to Sarah, he thought it was the perfect solution while in town. He thought that they both knew the score, but it seems along the way he somewhere slipped. Somehow that tiny woman had him thinking things he hadn’t entertained in years.
He felt his teeth grind together as his jaw tensed once more. He could do this. He just had to remember his priorities. Do the job and move on. No connections, no emotions. They were dangerous, uncontrollable. It didn’t matter how sweet sinking into Sarah’s heat was or how beautiful she was colored by moonlight. Shit. When had he started waxing poetic?
“Get it together, Wolfe.” He ran a hand down his face. “She’s just a woman. Like all the others.” For some reason, his words echoed hollow in the room. Maybe he should end it now before he did something he would regret. Like fall in love.
He had to get out of there. Pushing back from the desk he left the office, his long strides carrying him toward the door. He would have made it out of the building if a brunette powerhouse hadn’t blocked his only escape.
Hand on her shapely hips, Marcy looked ready to do battle. He felt his stomach drop.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Out,” he growled, motioning for her to step aside. He had no patience to waste on being polite. The woman merely arched a condescending brow before sliding to the side allowing him access to the door once more.
As he passed, he couldn’t help thinking he saw a smug smile on her face. He was sure of it when her laughter followed him into the elevator. For the first time in nearly ten years, Falon entertained the idea of taking the afternoon off.
***
“I can’t believe I’m actually doing this,” Sarah said under her breath as she watched the young hotel employee she shamelessly flirted with to let her into Falon’s room unlock the door.
“S’unlocked.” Her unknowing partner in crime looked a little nervous. She smiled at him, hoping her nerves weren’t showing. It wouldn’t do to back out now. Not when she talked herself into going this far, made goo-goo eyes at a boy she wasn’t sure was of legal age, and stopped by that pricey lingerie shop on the way.
She thanked the young man before tentatively entering the room. She was hoping Falon hadn’t returned yet. When Marcy called and told her he had left the office, she almost scrapped her plans, afraid he would be waiting behind the door. Looking around the empty room she realized a part of her was hoping he would be.
“Now or never,” she said, looking around the sitting area before heading to the bedroom of the suite.
Talking to Marcy this afternoon had made her realize that her heart needed to know she wasn’t just another notch in Falon’s bedpost. She needed to know she wasn’t the only one feeling the connection that sizzled between them. This was the last attempt she would make to reach beyond his walls of ice. If he didn’t respond, she would know there was nothing beyond the sexual heat between them.
That she could deal with. It was not knowing and never going after what she wanted that would kill her. This thing with Falon had made her realize she had been giving up on what she wanted her entire adult life. She had altered her career when she lost her family because her grandfather had no one left but her. She felt she owed it to him to give up her dreams as she watched him deal with the crumbling loss of his only son.
She didn’t regret her choice now. She loved working for the agency, but she wasn’t going to let the possibility of heartache keep her from her dreams any longer. And if she were going to be completely honest with herself Falon had been a dream of hers for far too long.
Focusing on the task that brought her to breaking and entering, she unloaded her cache onto the bathroom counter. She had one shot to get the Iceman to open up and she prayed she was ready to accept the consequences.
***
Falon slid the slim plastic card that served as a key into the slot in the door. He couldn’t believe he had skipped out of the office. Things were moving along ahead of schedule, but that was no excuse for his irresponsibility. He was missing a meeting with one of the agency’s biggest clients to come back here and wallow in the quagmire of his thoughts and self-pity. What the hell was wrong with him?
The soft glow of candles didn’t register in his muddled brain until he had removed his suit coat and placed it over the back of a chair. That’s when he noticed hundreds of wicks dancing around the sitting area and leading into the bedroom. What was going on?
A chill shivered down his spine and setting at the small of his back, he wasn’t sure if he should leave the room and call security or investigate. The delicate smell of honeysuckle—an aroma he would forever associate with Sarah—drifted from the bedroom, making up his mind. What was the little minx up to?
He toed off his shoes and loosened his tie before slowly crossing the room. In the bedroom was a picture that would forever be seared in his memory. Sarah lay, sprawled across the bed he had been sleeping in for weeks. She wore nothing more than a few strategically placed scraps of black lace that he supposed passed as lingerie. They looked more like sensual barriers designed to drive a man beyond all reason. Just hiding her delicately tipped breasts and the heaven at the juncture of her thighs, he could commiserate with all those men driven to madness by a woman.