DEKKER

 

“YOU’RE KIDDING ME?” MY TEETH chatter and my body shivers.

Even with the heat on high, the constant blowing of my breath into my hands, and Hunter’s arm around me in the rideshare, I still can’t feel parts of my body as I stand in front of the reception desk in the lobby and stare at the after-hours clerk.

I’m sure we look like drowned rats—hair plastered from the snow, clothes wet, boots making squishy noises on the expensive floor.

“We’re so sorry, Miss Kincade,” the clerk repeats, as I stand where he stopped me to tell me the news.

“What seems to be the problem?” Hunter asks as he comes in behind me.

“It shouldn’t be more than an hour or two,” he explains as his eyes grow wide when he realizes who he’s speaking with. “I’m sorry, Mad Dog—er, Mr. Maddox. A pipe has leaked on Miss Kincade’s floor. The rooms are fine, but the hall is closed off so we can fix the problem quickly.”

“Then move her to a suite,” Hunter demands, and I should be miffed he’s speaking for me, but I’m too freaking cold to care.

“We’re completely booked. I don’t have any vacant—”

“You don’t have rooms set aside for emergencies like this? You don’t—”

“We do, but they’re all taken already. We can try to find and comp you a room at a neighboring hotel. Just give me a moment to—”

“It’s fine,” I say with a tight smile, on which I’m more than certain are blue lips.

“My room then,” he says.

“No, I can wait,” I stutter, more than cognizant of the unrequited sexual tension continuing to reverberate between us, even when we’re half frozen.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He rolls his eyes and puts his hand on my back to usher me to the elevator as the clerk stares at me, waiting for me to tell him anything more. “You can at least get out of these wet clothes so you can warm-up.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I say drolly and lift my eyebrows.

“You’re a pain in my ass,” he mutters and then turns to the clerk. “She’ll be in my room.”

“How should we inform you so we don’t wake you up in case you’re asleep?” the clerk asks.

“Text her cell,” Hunter says as he gives him my number from memory that has me quite surprised. He wraps an arm around my shoulder and runs a hand up and down my arm.

“Please,” I finish for him when he doesn’t say it.

And without waiting for a response, Hunter directs us to the elevator. We’re in his room within minutes—top floor, great view of the city, but all I can think about when he closes the door behind us is getting warm.

He turns the heat on as high as it can go. I’m stuck in that dilemma between wanting to take my jacket and my wet clothes off and not being in my own room.

“Sooooo cold,” I say as I rock back and forth under a vent with my face tilted up and eyes closed.

I hear the click of something and then the sound of ringing. “Hi. Yes. This is room eight-oh-five. I want to order two hot chocolates, two grilled cheeses, um . . . and any dessert you have that’s hot.” He murmurs something. “I don’t care if the kitchen’s closed. Figure a way to get it made and I’ll make sure to tip accordingly.”

“Hunter—”

“No. It’s the least they can do after not having access to your room.” Then he turns back to the voice on the other end of the phone. “Yes, we’re one of those rooms . . . thank you so much for your help. I appreciate it.” He hangs the phone up. “It’ll be about thirty to forty minutes.”

“What are we going to do?” I ask with a chattering laugh as the heat stings my face. “Have a frozen picnic?” It does sound perfect though.

“Why not? Get out of your jacket,” Hunter says as I hear a zipper and then a thud as his falls to the floor.

He moves into my line of sight, and of course he didn’t just remove his jacket, but his shirt too. Him standing before me shirtless in all his chiseled ab perfection doesn’t do anything to help erase the kiss on my lips and his taste on my tongue from the park.

At least he’s sobered up now. There’s that.

Refusing to give him the satisfaction of staring at him or acknowledging that he’s half-naked, I focus on undoing the buttons of my jacket. “Crap,” I mutter, my fingers so numb I keep fumbling with them as my teeth chatter and my body begs for some hot water to sink into.

“Let me.”

“I’ve got it.” I slap at his hands when he reaches out to push mine out of the way and help me, but it does nothing to deter him. Within seconds, he has the front of my coat opened and is yanking it off my shoulders and then fighting to get my hands out of the bunched ends of the sleeves as if I’m a little kid.

“There,” he says as it drops to the floor before enveloping me in his arms. I accept the warmth—even though his body is as cold as mine—and accept the rare moment of magnanimity from him after the night we’ve had. It feels like an apology without words, and I didn’t realize how much I needed this from him until now.

I close my eyes momentarily and absorb the feel of it.

This is a bad decision all around. Me. Here in his room. Our past. Our future.

Christ.

It’s a double-edged sword that reminds me just how good the good is when it’s with Hunter and how there’s no way I can let myself fall back into this trap when I have to try and win him over as a client.

“I can’t. Hunter, I can’t,” I say as I push against his chest and step back even when he tries to keep me close.

“You’d rather freeze?”

I eye him. “Last time—we weren’t—”

“Shh,” he says and holds his very cold finger to my lips. “Don’t ruin the moment. More civility is afoot.”

A sigh falls from my lips that matches the shake of my head. I stare at him. At the breadth of his shoulders and the wave to his hair. At the blue of his eyes and the lopsided smile. At our past, and what I’m trying to make our future. I take in the whole and let his words from earlier hit my ears again. Is this all there is?

“This is too complicated,” I say when I finally find the words.

“What is? You standing here in my hotel room? It’s only complicated if you make it,” he says, batting around words with double meanings that I try to ignore. “Besides, you’re the one to blame here.”

“Me?” I laugh the word out. “How am I to blame?”

“You’re the one following us from city to city on this road stretch.”

“Okay.” I draw the word out and toe my shoes off one by one, trying to buy time to figure out where he’s going with this. Is this his way of realizing what he said to me in the park and being uncomfortable that he had a moment of vulnerability?

“You’re the one who hit me with a snowball.”

That’s definitely what this is.

“I’d do it again.” I laugh and play along. “And your point is what?”

“Why exactly do you know my stats?”

“What?”

“My stats. In the park you recited them off the top of your head like you’d been studying them, so I wanted to know . . . why do you know my stats?”

Here’s my chance. To finally be honest . . . professionally. But because he just opened up to me, was real, I loathe to ruin it. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want him to share more. He’s standing there shirtless. We just shared a kiss that’s still very fresh in my mind and on my lips.

Shit.

How did we just go from a fight in a jazz club, to a snowball fight full of laughter, to a kiss loaded with things I don’t want to acknowledge . . . to this? I answer with caution. “I know your stats because it’s my job to. I told you that the other day when you asked me the exact same question.”

“But I’m not your client.”

“I know a lot of athlete’s stats who aren’t my clients.”

He takes a step closer to me. “Why?”

“Because what you’re paid is commensurate with your stats and status and draw to a crowd, and that affects all my clients. If you’re the benchmark, we know where to go from there.”

He cocks his head to the side and stares at me as he says, “Hmm. I thought maybe you were following the team because you missed and wanted me. Because you were sick of those memories keeping you satisfied on lonely nights and wanted the real thing as a refresher.” A slow, steady grin slides onto his lips as his eyes reflect thoughts I’d be better not to remember.

“I do like you. Like this,” I explain, pointing to him and then me. “But with you clothed and me clothed and—”

“Liar.” He unbuckles his belt.

“I’m not lying. How can I be lying?” My words tumble out in a frantic mess as my libido and my head argue with my visceral reaction to it.

He unbuttons his pants.

The body is definitely winning out over the head right now.

“What are you doing?” I practically shout because yes, I may have seen him in all his glory many times before . . . but I’ve also experienced what that glory feels like and holy hell, I do not need to be reminded with a high-definition visual.

“I’m freezing,” he says as nonchalantly as possible as he shoves his pants down his hips so he’s standing before me in his boxer briefs and a body gorgeous enough to want to reach out and touch and feel its realness.

“Hunter?”

“What?” He chuckles. “You can stand there in your wet clothes and freeze to death because you don’t trust me . . . but I’m getting in the shower.”

Heat. It sounds so damn good as my teeth chatter. I suddenly forget him standing before me and remember the wet clothes I’m still swathed in.

“No one said I didn’t trust you.” Liar. “But I’m not taking a shower with you.”

“Suit yourself, but oh, it’s going to feel like heaven sinking in a nice, scalding hot bath.”

“Bath?” My ears perk up. “I thought you said shower.”

“Plans change. Now it’s a bath.”

“Oh,” I moan the word out.

“Yep. I plan on filling it until it starts to cool and then refilling it again.”

My eyes virtually roll back in my head at the thought. “That’s wasteful.”

His chuckle is a seductive sound. “But it’ll feel oh-so-good,” he hums.

“And bad for the environment.”

“Currently, feeling my toes and my nuts trumps my inefficient use of water.”

I take a step toward him as my body shivers. “You’re keeping your underwear on, right?” I ask, shoulders straightening as if the thin cotton will be a deterrent from us touching each other.

Or wanting to.

“If that’s what you want. I mean”—his eyes roam up and down the length of me—“you’ll need to do the same because there’s no way I want to see you naked either,” he teases.

I stare at him—my body begging me to accept and my head knowing it’s the worst idea ever . . . but I’m so damn cold.

“Fine.” I strip my shirt over my head and do everything to ignore the hungry way his eyes scrape over the black lace of my bra beneath, the muscle twitching in his jaw. “Quit looking at me like that,” I scold.

“I’m not looking at you in any way. Not your curves or your ass or . . . God”—he mock shivers—“why would any man be turned on by you?” His words are playful, his smile even more so.

“Go turn the water on like you promised.” I flick my finger in that direction as I question whether the wet clothes or fighting my attraction to him is worse torture. “I’ll be right there.”

He gives me one quick flash of a grin before heading toward the bathroom, giving me a view of his ass, hamstrings, and back. I have no shame in staring at and appreciating it.

When the sound of the water echoes out of the bathroom, I shimmy out of my jeans in record time and thank fate that I wore some lacy boyshort panties instead of the thong I originally grabbed.

That decision just made my life a whole lot easier.

Or at least I think it did until I enter the bathroom to find him standing to the side of the massive tub, bubbles starting to form in the water, and the lights of the sleeping city twinkling outside the wall of windows the bathtub is positioned in front of.

Hunter glances up, and I’m not going to lie when I say it gives me the slightest thrill to see the hitch in his motion when he sees me standing there in my bra and panties.

“No funny stuff,” I warn as I head toward the tub.

“No worries, Kincade,” he says, but I don’t believe him. “I’m well aware you’re on the straight and narrow.”

“I have to be. It’s my business.”

“What is?” He takes a step toward me. “You being here in my bathroom is business?” He gives a frustrated shake of his head. “It’s always business with you. Every time. It used to not be that way. You used to take every ounce of that pent-up perfect professionalism you wear like a shield of armor and destroy me in bed with it until we were spent. Until we were satisfied. Every damn time. You used to like to walk on the wild side with me. You used to—”

“Not anymore.” I shift my feet, needing to stop his words, the memories I can all but taste, and the poignant ache they create. “I have too much at stake now.”

“And what exactly do you have that’s at stake?” he asks as we stand a few feet apart, eyes warring and bodies wanting.

Too many things.

Way too many things.

My company.

My heart.

My dignity.

He takes a step closer and dips so we’re eye to eye. “What is it, Dekk? What happened to change you? What is it that dimmed your fire?”

You.

The answer pops in my head without any hesitation, and I stagger because how can I say that? How can I think he’s the reason I’ve become cautious when before I would have jumped in with both feet with him without a thought?

“My fire’s still there.” I offer a smile that I don’t think he believes.

“Prove it,” he breathes, as he closes the remaining distance between us. It feels like it’s in slow motion as he reaches out to brush an errant strand of hair off my cheek, and I almost let myself sink into him.

“Whatever,” I say as an out and stride past him toward the tub, simply to avoid his touch, and the dare I can already see him trying to set me up with. Nerves dance beneath the surface as I stare at the world beyond but somehow end up meeting his eyes in our reflection in the glass.

It hits me how much I’m flirting with danger.

In my standing with my clients.

In the reality of my life.

In what the hell I’m doing here in my bra and underwear in Hunter’s room, when I know even if we did do something, he’d wake up in the morning without anything changed when everything would have for me.

He turns the water off but his chuckle at my lack of answer snaps me to the here and now. To the want and the need sparring against the reason and sanity.

I take an even breath and turn to face him and his inflammatory comment.

Walk away and make a stand, Dekk, or stay here and know what’s going to happen.

His hand is on the nape of my neck in an instant and pulls me to him so his mouth meets mine the same time our bodies slam into each other’s.

And every damn thing I felt in the park is magnified times a million.

Where the gentleness of the park confused me, the violent desire of right now is the Hunter Maddox I remember.

This is the one I can feed off.

This is the one that’s purely sex, only need, and completely animalistic.

One hand holds my neck hostage to allow his lips to take what they want, while his other fists in the back of my panties and twists tightly so the fabric cuts against my skin.

Push him away.

He tugs on my bottom lip with his teeth.

Tell him no.

The hardness of his erection grinds against me.

Oh my God.

The firmness of his chest beneath my palms.

I missed this.

The hunger in his every action.

I missed him.

His breath is ragged when he rips his lips from mine, eyes blazing into mine, as we stare at each other, hands still owning the other’s body in some way or another.

“Goddammit, Dekk,” he groans. “Don’t fucking toy with me. Tell me you want this. Tell me you need this as much as I do.”

His voice sounds like how I feel—desperate, needy, ready to detonate.

The knowledge that I can break the control of a man like him, is beyond explanation. I want him. How he sates all desires. How he devastates all reason.

Him.

More of him.

Now is the time to feel every ounce, every inch, everything, he’s willing to give me.

Chills chase up my spine as I stare at him and anticipate and debate and throw caution to the wind.

Who cares about hot chocolate and grilled cheese now?

It’s my lips that meet his this time. It’s my teeth that nip the tattoo on his shoulder. It’s my fingernails that score their way down the side of his torso. It’s my hand that slides inside the waistband of his boxer briefs and encircles his rock-hard cock. It’s his body that tenses beneath my touch.

There’s intensity to our actions, an urgency. A need to hurry up to the endgame and slow down at the same time.

I ache and burn and yearn every place Hunter’s hands touch and his stubble scrapes.

We are a mass of hands and lips and grinds as we stumble the few steps to the bed. His underwear comes off as we walk. His fingers unclasp my bra as I shove down my panties.

I lied the other night.

I don’t care about finesse when it comes to Hunter. I care about his hands gripping, his hips thrusting, his teeth nipping, his cock sliding.

My body vibrates as his hands take and claim and knead my breasts, my hips, my ass.

“Dekker,” he groans, his lips against my breast, my skin vibrating under the strain of how he says my name. His hand fists in my hair, and he pulls my head back so I’m forced to look in his eyes as he stands back to full height.

My body is raw and wanting, and the seconds we waste as he stares at me, as his eyes wander up and down every inch of my body, has me itching to reach out and take what I want.

I open my lips, swollen from his, to speak, to tell him to destroy me in the most delicious of ways, but there’s something in his look that tells me he needs this as much as I do . . . but for such very different reasons.

“Turn around,” he orders and I obey, anticipation held with bated breath.

He puts a hand on my waist as he pulls me back against him, my ass meeting his thighs, the firmness of his dick undeniable against my lower back. He moves the hair off my neck with his free hand and his teeth scrape over the skin there as his other moves between my thighs.

“Fuck, Dekk. You . . .” He kisses the juncture of my shoulder to my neck. “This.” His fingers slide between my thighs as one of his feet knock mine wider. “I’m going to fuck this sweet pussy of yours.” He parts me, and his groan when he finds me wet for him has my nipples hardening. “With my fingers.” He tucks them into me and my body convulses in reaction, anticipation for the next touch already building. “With my tongue.” He slides his tongue up to my ear and dips inside, the combination of his coarse stubble and warm tongue making me gasp. “With my cock.” He uses his hand to slide it between the cheeks of my ass and I tighten around his fingers in response.

My body is strung so tight, my need at fever pitch, my want dancing across my skin in goosebumps.

His hand grips the back of my neck again. “Tell me you’re ready for me. Tell me you want me. Tell me to fuck you,” he growls into my ear.

But I don’t speak—can’t—as his fingers continue their slow, delicious torture to the nerves and pleasure points between the apex of my thighs. My head falls back on his shoulder as I moan with another maneuver of his fingers. “Hunter.” His name is a long, drawn-out plea to give me what I need and to never stop.

“I know this body. I know what you need. So goddamn wet,” he groans. “I’ve wanted you from the moment I saw you. Now, bend over.”

My pulse races as I do as I’m told. His hands caress down my hips before one slides up and down my slit, allowing the room’s cool air to hit my most sensitive flesh.

But more arousing than his touch is his hum of approval, of desire, of greed that owns the room around us.

I rest on my elbows in eagerness and then jolt when I feel the soft swipe of his tongue over my clit, stopping to dip in my center, before moving up over the tight rim of muscles atop, before going back the way he started.

He’s deliberately slow, and his tantalizing torture has me squirming and widening my legs so he can have whatever part of me he wants.

I’m his.

Completely.

“Please,” I moan.

A chuckle is his only response as he withdraws all touch from me. Then I yelp as his hand connects firmly with the side of my ass.

But the sting is quickly forgotten, the temporary pain gone as I hear the telltale rip of foil. He takes a moment to protect us before he slides the head of his cock up and down my slit.

“Sweet hell, Dekker,” he moans as he slowly pushes his way into me.

My muscles resist with the sweetest of burns until they heat and accept and tighten from the fullness. It’s my moan in the room now. It’s my command for him to move. It’s my ass pushing back against him telling him I’m ready.

With both hands on my hips, he begins to move in and out of me in measured, controlled strokes.

Each one a slow seduction to my nerves.

Each one an assault on my senses in the best way possible.

Each one another stroke closer to his control snapping.

And I can feel it happening, just as surely as I can feel my own orgasm begin to build.

His grip becomes tighter on my shoulder. His thrusting is more powerful, the slap of his thighs against mine louder. The sounds he emits more guttural, more unhinged.

Combined, they turn me on in a way no one else has ever been able to before, but I push the thought out of my mind and fall into the moment. Under the haze of pleasure. To the sensations he evokes.

I reach my hand between my thighs and brush my finger over my clit. The drag of his cock inside. The tease of my fingers on the outside. The gruff groan of my name. The ability he gives me to feel, to be, to give in.

It’s heady and powerful and damn it to hell, he allows my body to build and soar and ache until the sensations reach a crescendo that I can only close my eyes, bow my head, and hang on to for the ride.

My body detonates—fractures into a million pieces as the orgasm slams into my every nerve, my every muscle, my everything.

My hips buck.

“Take it all.”

My hands grip the comforter beneath me.

“Come for me, Dekk.”

I cry out as my body tenses with pleasure and then sags with its release. I’m awash with warmth and bliss as my knees buckle, but Hunter’s hands hold my hips up as he continues to drive into me. As he milks every ounce of pleasure out of me before picking up his pace.

I’m still under the fog of my climax, still trying to catch my breath and gain my faculties, but I don’t have a chance to because it’s Hunter’s turn now.

His hands bruise and hips slam against me until his feral groan echoes as he empties himself into me.

“Hell,” he murmurs as he bends over and kisses my shoulder before wrapping his arms around my waist and holding me into him.

We stay like this for a few moments as our breathing evens and our hearts decelerate. Just as I’m trying to figure out what happens next, he slips out of me when he straightens up, and heads for the bathroom without a word.