For the fifth time in the last hour, Ethan checked his phone, scowled at the blank screen, muttered a curse, and tried not to consider all the reasons why he couldn’t focus.
Restless and far past the ability to focus on any more spreadsheets, transactions, or bank accounts, Ethan rose from his desk and strode into the kitchen—it didn’t count as pacing if there was a destination. Pulling a bottle of water from the fridge, he screwed off the top and glanced out the window to a gloomy late-winter day in Washington, DC. Still early afternoon, it felt more like dawn or dusk, the city awash in a thin layer of gray. Gray clouds obscuring the sun. Gray concrete and buildings as far as the eye could see. Gray and barren trees that still hadn’t seen the first leaves of spring.
Bland. All of it.
And so deceptive. There was so much to see—the cars, the people, the monuments that dotted the skyline—but none of it told him anything. Everything blended and blurred together, cast in the same gloomy hue.
It matched his mood.
Chugging down half the bottle of water, he forced himself to linger in the kitchen. To leave his phone on the desk that faced the windows. To run through every possible scenario that would explain why Natalia hadn’t checked in.
They’d agreed, damn it. And he’d trusted Natalia to keep him in the loop. To not let him twist in the wind, caught between currents of worry and anticipation.
To not let him wonder if she’d been caught or hurt or killed.
Fuck.
He pushed out a ragged breath and gave in to the urge to pace.
And just what was his problem, anyway? This was his job. The life he’d chosen, the mission he’d trained for. He’d been here before. Stuck waiting as other people carried out plans and missions and operations that he’d devised but for one reason or another couldn’t lead himself.
And yeah, those situations were always stressful, always carried a kernel of worry. But this?
This was agony—he just didn’t understand why.
Was it the fear? The way her eyes had pleaded with him to find another path? The way she’d sighed and nodded, resigned to the reality that he was right? That she couldn’t stay the course, couldn’t keep living beneath her uncle’s thumb—a reality she’d understood but not yet embraced? Because it had been there—the terror, the panic, a living, breathing thing she’d kept caged in her chest.
It was the same beast that beat against his rib cage now, a frantic, buried pulse of adrenaline and dread and fear that something had gone wrong. That Natalia wasn’t coming back.
The idea bothered him—but not for the reasons it should.
Not because it would put him one step further away from Will. Not because it would mean that Natalia, who hadn’t asked for any of this, had been caught because of him.
No, it was far, far simpler than that.
And far more dangerous.
Ethan wanted to see her again. To taste her mouth and touch her skin. To breathe in the scent of her hair and lick the salt from her neck.
He wanted to make her tremble and shake, to moan and plead. He wanted to know what those strong legs would feel like wrapped around his waist. Wanted to feel the sting of her nails against his back.
And then, when he’d worn her out, wrung every last drop of pleasure from her body, he wanted to watch her sleep. To stroke her skin and touch her hair and see what she looked like when fear and responsibility and all the other trappings of her life fell away.
Would the little line between her eyes disappear? Would her mouth go slack, her lips part? Would she turn to him, press her nose to his skin, and breathe in comfort and safety and strength until whatever tension he hadn’t plied from her body slipped away?
Would a sleepy, love-worn Natalia be the calming presence Ethan thought she would? As steady and welcoming and ever changing as the waters of the Potomac in the predawn light?
He suspected she’d be all that and more. That when he took Natalia to his bed, pressed her against his sheets, drew his name from her lips, and fell asleep in her arms, he’d finally find something worth sleeping in for.
Something worth indulging in.
But she had to come back for him to find out.
And he should have heard from her by now. They’d agreed to wait—that the best time for her to access Hernan’s computer would be during Ethan’s meeting with the man. A meeting that had gone well. Hernan had been pleased with Ethan’s progress. Interested in all the ways Milner had fleeced him, of which there’d been many. The man really was the most predictable sort of scum.
Hernan had officially brought Ethan into the fold. Promised him a list of cartel accounts and full access to their financials. He hadn’t gone so far as to give Ethan total access, but if Natalia had done her job, that wouldn’t be an issue.
If . . .
Hernan had left their meeting abruptly. He’d received a text, then made a call, and in the next breath he’d been climbing into the back of a black SUV. Cartel business, Ethan had assumed. As they’d nearly concluded their almost two-hour meeting, he hadn’t thought much of it.
But that had been hours ago. And with each passing minute, more and more possibilities rose like specters from the mist.
Natalia should have checked in by now. Sent him a text, at least. How long did it take to send an “I’m fine” or one of those stupid little emotis or whatever they were called that Parker found so damn amusing?
Trapped with a sense of helplessness he didn’t like and wasn’t familiar with, Ethan gave up the urge and strode back to his phone. Halfway to his desk, someone knocked on the front door.
He paused just long enough to glance through the peephole and bite off a curse before he flung the door open and jerked Natalia inside by the lapels of her leather jacket.
“Hey!” she protested when he didn’t release her, instead pushing her back up against the wall and holding her there with a hand to her shoulder. “Ethan—”
“Are you okay?” he demanded.
“Let go,” she said, her hand coming up to pry at his wrist.
“Natalia,” he warned, his gaze running over every inch of skin he could see.
She rolled her eyes at him. “I’m fine.”
He released a ragged breath and stepped back. Anger replaced a half day’s worth of worry, frustration, and fear.
“You were supposed to text me,” he said, turning to stride back into the apartment and away from her. How he managed to step back instead of lean in and press her to the door, he’d never know.
Will would accuse him of mind-numbing restraint.
Parker would accuse him of weak willpower.
Ethan shook his head. Agreeing with the kid about anything outside the realm of tech called for day drinking.
“So sorry to have blown your carefully structured schedule,” Natalia snapped, watching him as he crossed to the kitchen counter where he’d left the Jack Daniel’s she’d helped herself to just days before. “I had other things to deal with.”
“You were too busy to send a damn text?” Ethan asked, then immediately regretted it. Jesus, he sounded like an angry housewife who’d slaved over dinner only to let it go cold on the table. He poured a measure of whiskey into a glass, then tossed it back and let the burn soothe him. “I’ve been waiting to hear from you all day.”
“Right,” she said, striding forward, her gait clipped and angry. “For a minute there I forgot it was all about you.” She dug something out of her pocket, then lobbed it across the counter. The flash drive skipped across the granite like a stone across a clear, calm lake, then bounced off the edge of the bottle of Jack. “You got your access, Ethan. You’re welcome.”
She turned and strode to the door, the full sway of her hips mocking him as she went.
“Stop,” he muttered, pushing the words through a throat that felt like a cheese grater. When she didn’t stop, didn’t even falter, he thought about just letting her walk. It would be better. Safer. Easier, for her, at least.
But not for him. She’d invaded his space, his mind, his senses. Her scent—oranges and cardamom and something foreign, something interesting and potent and intoxicating—would linger to torment him. He’d see her spread out on the couch, pressed up to the glass, bent over his desk.
“Stop,” he whispered, his voice little more than a broken plea. “For fuck’s sake, Natalia, just stop.”
To his astonishment, she did, turning to regard him with dark, liquid eyes and a neutral expression.
Ethan sighed, set his glass on the bar, and left the kitchen.
As he approached, she studied him cautiously, as if he were something new and unusual and concerning. She wasn’t afraid of him. Just wary. As if she wasn’t certain of her welcome or his desires.
That much, at least, he could clear up for her.
“I’m sorry, okay?”
Natalia shoved her fists into the pockets of her moto jacket and dipped her chin once as he slid closer. Clad in jeans, a deep-V T-shirt the color of wine, and that damn leather coat, her hair windblown and a touch of something red smeared across her lips, she looked like she’d stepped off some high-fashion magazine shoot.
“I was worried,” he admitted.
She jerked her shoulders in something he interpreted as a shrug. “It’s fine,” she said. “You got your access.” She swallowed hard. “I should go.”
She turned and went for the door, but Ethan reached out to snag her wrist, halting her momentum. She froze, her gaze traveling first to his hand on her skin, then up his arm and to his face.
The tableau was a familiar one—the first time he’d reached for her, touched her, felt her skin beneath his had been across a bar. Had it been only two days ago? It felt as if a lifetime had passed since then. And yet so much of this woman remained a mystery to him. He didn’t know her, not really. But he wanted to, which was a new experience in and of itself. With Natalia, he wanted more than a night of convenient release or simple satisfaction. He wanted to chart a course, take the scenic route, stop at every peak, valley, and canyon until, in this one intimate way, Ethan could claim a knowledge no one else could.
“Don’t go,” he said.
She studied him, but little by little, he could feel her pulling away. It was there in the way she smiled, something brittle and forced and so fucking polite it set his teeth on edge. “No. It’s fine. I shouldn’t have come by in the first place.”
She didn’t try to pull away, didn’t fight his hold—that he could have dealt with. Instead, she just went limp, as if all the fight, all the fire, all the passion, had left her. She just . . . ceased. Like someone had smothered her flame and left her little more than a wisp of smoke that the slightest breeze could carry away.
“But you did,” he countered, renewing his grip on her wrist. “Why?”
She jerked one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “To return the drive, I guess.”
“I didn’t need it,” he replied, testing his hold and pulling her forward. She extended her arm but planted her feet, unwilling to move closer, to let him touch or hold her. Fine. He could work with that, too. “But then, you knew that already.”
They’d talked it through a dozen times. Everything from the timing—they’d agree to wait for Ethan’s meeting with Hernan to go over the accounts, an appointment Hernan would be sure to keep—to the method, to disposal of the drive. He’d been clear, more than once, that she should destroy it at the earliest opportunity. He didn’t need it back, and she knew it.
“The program loaded, just like your guy said it would. But while it was running, I opened a few files. Will . . . he’s still alive,” she confessed. “There are more videos, and I just . . . I thought you’d want to know.”
“I do,” he said, stepping close, following her as she retreated but keeping hold of her wrist. “But you could have told me that in a text or over the phone. That’s not why you’re here.” When her back hit the wall, when she had nowhere left to run, he leaned in, pressed his face to the hollow of her neck, breathed against the sensitive skin he found there, then whispered against her ear, “Why are you here, Natalia?”
“To see you,” she breathed, strength returning to her limbs. “I wanted . . .”
Ethan pressed his hand against the wall above her head, let his body sway until he had her pressed to the flat surface, his hips pinning hers, her breasts pressed tight to his chest, her chin notched at his shoulder. “Tell me what you wanted, sweetheart.”
“I shouldn’t be here.” She sighed, her stomach jumping beneath the fingers he trailed across her T-shirt.
“But you are.”
“That’s why, I mean. Because I shouldn’t. Because I know better. Because it’s selfish”—she stared up at him, her eyes molten, her expression unsure—“and because I want to, Ethan. Just because I want to.”
Fuck me.
As declarations went, it wasn’t the most passionate, wasn’t the most complimentary. From any other mouth it might have sounded demanding or petulant or spoiled.
But from Natalia?
“The things you do to me,” Ethan mumbled, wrestling with the urge to strip her, take her, claim her. Then do it all again. In his bed. In the kitchen. Over the desk. “And you don’t even know.”
She turned her head to the side, granting him full access to the long column of her neck. Submission. Surrender. He wanted to taste it, drink it down, commit it to memory. He scraped his teeth along the corded tendons and muscles he found there, licked up a stripe of goose bumps, bit gently after the shiver that elicited. And damn near came in his pants when she said, “Please. Please, Ethan, just . . . just touch me.”
“Here?” he asked against her ear, stroking his tongue along one of the many curves he wanted to taste.
Her breath caught, the only response he needed.
“How about here?” he asked, putting a hand to her throat, his thumb brushing back and forth across her collarbone.
She jerked her chin up and down, her breathing harsh and ragged already.
“Yes,” she breathed.
He brought his other hand to her shoulder, let his fingers touch behind the nape of her neck, his thumbs swipe back and forth against the dip at the bottom of her throat, reveling in the way she tipped her head back and stared at him through thick lashes and heavy lids. He had her pressed against the wall, his hands around her throat, his touch gentle and his grip loose. But that could change. At any moment, that could change.
Yet she seemed untroubled. Relaxed and willing—utterly content to let him hold her in the palm of his hand. Intoxicating, the control she allowed him. Not because he wanted it or because he demanded it of her, and not because this was a typical dynamic for him.
Ethan liked to think he varied his approach, customized sex for the women he took to his bed. That he wasn’t the perfunctory asshole Natalia had accused him of being. Always, he took his cues from the woman he was with. If she liked a firm touch, he held her wrists or gripped her hair or jerked her hips. If she liked a gentle touch, he could stroke an orgasm from her with little more than the featherlight brush of fingertips. And if she liked the fantasy, the allure of the dirty deed done in darkness and privacy, well, he’d never run short of whispered promises or filthy demands.
Without exception, the women Ethan took to bed came first; their pleasure became his.
But this . . . this was a first.
Never had he so badly wanted to plunder. To possess. To control. Never had a woman elicited such a thrilling primal response from him. And now he knew why.
Natalia was different. Capable. Strong and fierce and a little bit feral. As Ethan held her still, cupped the back of her skull, felt the flutter of her pulse against his thumb, he knew it was only because she allowed it. With her, there would be no easy victories. No straightforward conquests.
Not unless she gave them to him.
It was a heady illusion, like taming a jaguar, seducing it to lick cream from the palm of his hand. An interlude. A fragile trust. And something that could only be granted, never taken.
Natalia had come to him. Wanted him. Put herself in his hands.
He spread his fingers, dipping them beneath the heavy leather of her jacket, and slid it from her shoulders, brushing his palms down the firm muscle of her arms.
“I like this,” he rumbled, letting her jacket fall heavily to the floor. “Suits you. The cut. The weight. The scent. The feel.”
She shuddered when his fingers disappeared beneath the hem of her shirt, then skated them across her stomach, teasing at the waistband of her jeans. “So very soft,” he said, watching her eyes flutter and her bottom lip disappear behind straight white teeth. “It looks hardened, battle-scarred. But get close enough to touch . . .”
She obliged him, lifting her arms when he pulled up the hem of her shirt, revealing miles and miles of caramel-colored skin stretched over Colombian curves and well-honed muscles.
“Silk,” he whispered.
He tossed aside the T-shirt, took in the simplicity of a plain bra made interesting only by what it held—and the fact that it clasped in front. He hooked his index finger beneath the clasp and pulled, watching as her chest heaved and her breasts spilled free. He brought his hands up, trailed fingertips along the underside, following the curve of lush, soft skin.
“So fucking beautiful,” he said, watching her chew that bottom lip until it was swollen and wet and he couldn’t help but take it between his and suck.
She gasped, her mouth opening, her body shifting. He put his hands on her hips to hold her steady, to press her back as he plundered that mouth that had teased him, tormented him, condemned him.
When she was gasping and clutching his shoulders, one of her long legs locked behind his knee, he pulled away just enough to study her.
“What do you want?” he asked, though he already had a thousand ideas of what he wanted to give her.
“Everything.” She gasped when he tweaked a nipple, just to see it harden in welcome.
He didn’t have to ask to know that Natalia had never done this before. Oh, he didn’t believe she was a virgin, not by a long shot. She was too practical, too driven, too practiced when it came to baiting a man. She’d shown him as much when she skewered him over cocktails like olives on a plastic bayonet. It had been easy, efficient, and, worse, it had worked.
No, Natalia knew what to do with men, how to make them serve her purpose. How to manipulate them when the situation called for it.
But she’d never taken someone to bed as an indulgence, just because she wanted to, just because she could. Given what Ethan knew of her history, it had likely never even occurred to her.
Until now.
He’d never felt more powerful, more primal, more potent. It was as if she’d wrapped her hand around him and stroked his ego to a lethal point. Was it possible to return such a favor?
He didn’t know.
But he intended to make it his mission to ensure two things where this woman was concerned. First, that Natalia would never again forget or bury or ignore her own desires. And second, that when that need built, when her thoughts turned to indulgence, to need, to desire, her mind turned to him, and only him.
“Everything?” he repeated, slipping a smile free as he popped the top button on her jeans. “Is that all?”
“To start,” she replied, a rush of color climbing up her chest and throat. Not a blush, oh no, not from this one. Just heat and want and heady expectation. He followed it with a hand up the middle of her belly, through the valley of her breasts, and along the column of her throat until every breath, every swallow, bobbed and dipped against his palm. He let his thumb linger, then settle in the little dip beneath the corner of her jaw that welcomed him as if he’d always been meant to discover it.
He pulled down the zipper of her jeans, a slow, steady scrape of teeth when what he really wanted to do was yank and tear. But when her mouth dropped open and her eyes fell shut, he knew slow and deliberate would serve him far, far better.
“Both feet on the floor,” he told her, nudging her with his hip when she didn’t immediately loosen the leg she’d wrapped around the back of his. “Time to get these off.” With one hand, he worked her jeans down, over her hips and across her thighs. They were too tight to fall the rest of the way on their own, but that was all right, he had what he wanted. For now.
He kept his hand on her throat, a gentle brace that was more reminder than restraint. When he pulled his index finger across her lips, she parted them, sucking one finger, then two. So wanton. So instinctive. And a terrible tease of just what that mouth could do. “Good girl.”
He slid his free hand down across her chest, stopping to tweak a desperate nipple, smiling when teeth scraped the back of his knuckles, but the suction of her mouth increased. Finally, he let himself look down, watch as he pulled skimpy black underwear along smooth, strong thighs.
Her hips jerked when he exposed her to him, once, then twice, and for the first time she wiggled in his grip. “Too much?” he asked, pulling his fingers from her mouth and over lips she’d stained with something far stronger than lipstick. He’d have fun wearing it off. Later.
“Not enough,” she moaned, undulating against him. “Don’t tease me—”
She went to her toes on a gasp as he took the fingers she’d so greedily suckled and slipped them between folds slick with need. He didn’t wait. Didn’t explore or linger or taunt. Just plunged two fingers deep, immediately setting up a slow, pumping rhythm, using the edge of his thumbnail to brush back and forth against her clit.
“Oh God.” She dropped her head back against the wall with a thud, shifted restlessly from foot to foot, and then, when she couldn’t open her legs or hike a thigh over his hip, she grasped his shoulders and mewled as she came, riding his fingers and cursing his name.
Natalia stared up at the ceiling, taking in the exposed beams and unfinished air ducts, and tried to remember how it had come to this. How she’d wound up pressed to the wall, her pants around her knees, her inhibitions gone and her mind a pleasant buzz of, When can we do that again?
Because, dear God, did she want to.
Ethan dropped his head against her shoulder, bit at the skin he found there, and breathed her in as if it were the last taste of air life would grant him before a tidal wave sucked him under.
Natalia went for his belt, fumbling with his shirt, then simply yanking it from the slacks he wore so she could undo his buckle and then his pants. She shimmied as her fingers scrabbled. Stepping out of one shoe, then the other, she worked her jeans down, desperate to be free of them, to have the ability to lock her legs around his waist and pull him into her body.
“Wait, wait,” he said, grabbing her wrists as she jerked down his pants and boxers. “Natalia, wait—”
She released his pants, let gravity take them to the floor, then tore at his shirt, absurdly pleased when buttons went flying, pinging across the floor and rolling to God knew where. She’d hoped it’d be weeks before he found them all, each one a torrid little reminder of what they’d done together.
“Natalia, honey, stop or I swear to Christ I’m going to fuck you against the wall.”
“Do it,” she urged him as his shirt spilled to the floor.
He cursed, then toed off his shoes and stepped out of his pants. She grasped the front of his undershirt and tore it open at the neck, letting it hang loose and open, her fists still gripping the cotton. He shrugged out of it and was on her again, grasping her wrists and pressing her back, attacking her mouth like a man possessed. His cock, hard and long, brushed across her stomach, where she was powerless to do anything about it.
“Let me touch you,” she pleaded between bruising kisses. Touch. Stroke. Taste. She wanted all of it, and she wanted it now.
“No,” he grunted, his hips flexing, his chest hair scraping over her sensitive breasts. “The second you touch me, I’m done. Do you understand? You’ll ruin me, and I can’t have that. Not before I’m inside you.”
“Then do it, Ethan.” She went to her toes to bring their bodies into alignment, then hiked one leg up over his hip, opening herself to him. His hips jerked, and his cock slipped across her core, each pass growing easier, faster, slicker. “Do it now.”
He stilled, his entire body going rigid and still, curses spilling from his lips. He moved to step back, but she tightened the leg she’d locked behind his and jerked her fists free of his hands and grasped his shoulders. “No.”
“Honey, I have to. We need a condom.”
“I don’t fucking care,” she snarled, digging her fingernails into the muscle crossing his shoulders like a yoke. “I don’t care about tomorrow. Or the day after that. I don’t care about next week or next month or next year. Right now, the only thing I care about is right here.” She reached between them and grasped his cock in her fist and brought the tip to her opening. “I want today. I want this moment.” She hovered there, one thrust away from bliss. “Everything, all of it, the whole selfish indulgence. I want to feel all of it, Ethan.”
He didn’t make her wait, just thrust into her in one fatal plunge, a curse on his lips and his arms wrapping around her thighs.
He lifted her, and she locked her legs around the small of his back, crossing her ankles and holding on as he drove into her in a blinding rhythm that had her mouth falling open and her fingers scoring his back.
Her head fell forward, her hair spilling down around them in a curtain as the pressure grew inside her, building and building and building until it pushed everything else away to where it didn’t matter anymore and all that was left was pleasure, rough and fierce and so fucking good she bit her lip until it bled and Ethan came inside her, marking her, intimately and irrevocably changing who she was.
For a moment, as they slid to the floor in a tangle, a sated heap of heavy limps, Natalia let herself imagine a life where this wasn’t special or indulgent or selfish. A world where Ethan looked at her with heat and want and desire, a world where she could have him morning, noon, or night.
She hadn’t thought of her own future in years. Leave it to this man—this wild, wonderful man—to fill it with sex and laughter and a desire so fierce she wondered if it were possible to survive it.
She hoped to God she got the chance to find out.