birthday. And this is my wish,” she said. It was the real wish, the one beneath her desire to talk to the man. She wanted to feel her own power in her own life, she wanted passion, she wanted fire. “Please take me to bed.” The words surprised her, but rang with truth. The new Chloe was ready to fly.
SWEEPING A TREMBLING Chloe into his arms, Riley bent for another taste of her sweet mouth before starting to his room. Talk about lucky. As usual, he’d gone to Enzo’s to track the action. Two hours and a birthday wish later, he was carrying the hot hostess he’d fantasized about to his bed.
Even luckier, because of the clump of Idle fur on the pillowcase, Riley had changed his sheets yesterday. Did he still have condoms in his nightstand? Was he that lucky?
Idle whined from behind them. The warning made Riley stop. “You’re sure you’re sure?” he asked her.
“Absolutely,” she said, her eyes clear and smart. She wasn’t drunk, just high on her decision. She’d cast him as the star in her birthday play, so he couldn’t disappoint her.
Bullshit. He’d watched her for months, imagining her naked, her soft mouth on his, her husky voice saying his name.
Now that he’d kissed her, seen the need in those hot green eyes of hers, well, how could he pass that up?
It was lust and something more. She was so sweet and eager and new. She tugged at him, reminding him of a softer time in his life.
“Did you forget where your bed is?” she asked, wagging her legs to get him moving. “Or did you change your mind?”
“No way.” It had been a long time since he’d wanted anything this much. He’d forgotten this whirlpool of wet heat and need. Or maybe he was different with her, too.
Was it immoral? Unethical? Against regs? At the moment, with her clinging to him, kissing him while he stumbled down the hall, he didn’t give a damn. Blind with lust, he ripped down his spread, aimed them at the mattress and landed them on their sides.
Chloe’s lips never left his, even as she kicked off her shoes and he ditched his own. Her tongue moved restlessly inside his mouth and she caught quick breaths, as though if she stopped, she’d lose her nerve. She smelled like sugar and oranges and something else—a season…spring—and warm rain.
Her hand worked at his zipper and he went at her buttons, sliding her blouse off her shoulders to kiss the tops of her breasts above the white lace of her bra.
“That feels…so…good,” she said, reaching to unclasp her bra in the front, watching his face as she did, offering herself to him, brave and vulnerable at the same time.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, cupping her breasts, which trembled in his hands, the nipples tightly aroused. He took one into his mouth, tonguing the tight bud while Chloe squirmed and moaned, fighting her way into his pants, intent on his cock.
She shoved at his jeans, her nails scraping his skin. He smiled against her mouth. No one had gone at him this way in a long time and he liked it.
“Allow me,” he said, tearing off his clothes, then tackling her skirt. She lifted her hips to help him and soon she was down to white panties, through which he could see her soft hair. When he tugged off the thin fabric, she gasped, then smiled, wiggling against him.
What next? He wanted to kiss and lick and stroke her everywhere at once. First, he had to make sure they were protected, so he reached beyond her to the nightstand, praying what condoms remained hadn’t passed their use-by date.
Grasping a loose foil square, he checked. Score. He waved it at her.
“I’m on the Pill,” she said. “And healthy. If you are, too, maybe we don’t need that.”
“Sounds good.” He tossed the condom onto the nightstand and smiled down at her. They’d slipped into an easy familiarity that made sex seem the natural next step.
She ran her hands down his arms, and he slid his hands across her ribs, along the curve of her hip to her thigh, enjoying her warmth, the shakiness of her breath, her smooth skin. Then he reached his target. Watching her face, he gently brushed the unbelievably swollen softness of her folds.
She gasped and cried out, lunging at him, lifting her hips, asking for more. Blood pounded in his cock. “You’re so wet,” he breathed, letting his fingers slide in and out with silky ease.
“I know. I can hardly believe this is happening,” she said, her eyes shining with a trust he wanted to be worthy of. She took little gasping sips of air, swept away on sensation.
“Me, either,” he said. He prided himself on being rational, self-sufficient and in control, but all that was out the window at the moment.
She stroked his cock with diabolical fingers, arousing him nearly blind. Everything he did made her moan and writhe, as though she hadn’t been touched in a long time. As though she didn’t expect to be touched again for even longer. They were like hungry animals together.
“We’ve got all the time we need,” he breathed in her ear, thinking they should slow down before something snapped, but Chloe was having none of that.
“Did you forget who the birthday girl is?” She shot him a look full of fire and determination and gripped his cock with both hands like she expected to steer him somewhere.
Anywhere you want, babe, he thought, while she straddled him on her knees, then lowered herself, sending him deep into her tight, wet heat. Damn, that felt good.
“Oh. My.” She blinked, startled, it seemed, to find herself in this position.
“You feel good,” he said to reassure her, squeezing her butt cheeks with both hands, lifting and lowering her slowly.
“Mmm, I do. I do feel good.”
He brushed her clit with a thumb and she shivered and began to wriggle in a slow circle. “Slow is nice, too,” she said, smiling in soft surprise.
“Slow is great.” Slow gave him time to memorize how she looked above him, her breasts swaying, lips swollen and parted, eyes dazed with arousal, time to enjoy being buried to the hilt in her warmth.
She swiveled her hips, making him want to pump into her, catch the wave of release, but he resisted, forced himself to stay slow and easy, to let it build.
He stroked her clit, enjoying her cries and moans, the way she threw her head back in pleasure, the way her body responded to him. She sped up and so did he. She was close…closer.
She made a little sound and her eyes flew open as she stiffened, then shuddered into a climax. He held her hips, steadying her, then released himself, flying free of everything but her body. They shook for long seconds, moving, making sounds, shivering and bucking. When she was finished, she fell onto his chest. “That was great,” she panted. “Thank you.”
“No, thank you,” he said as he had when she first kissed him, chuckling as he wrapped his arms around her. He was Mr. Lucky, all right. Lucky he’d gone to Enzo’s for dinner. Lucky he’d left his phone. Lucky Chloe had her eye on him.
It was no doubt a bad idea to sleep with a hostess at the Chicago mobster’s restaurant. Supposedly, Enzo had retired from his vending-machine business when he moved to sunny Arizona with his second wife and kids, but wiseguys always kept their beak in, Riley knew.
He himself had been part of busts with other Sylvestris—fraud with a charitable trust, drug smuggling at a strip joint and a knitting shop, of all places.
Surely the sweet woman in his arms knew nothing of her boss’s evil deeds, despite the fact that the man had been smack-dab in the middle of her birthday dinner. Just this once, Riley would hope for the best.
2
WHEN CHLOE OPENED HER EYES, she found herself looking between Riley’s fingers like they were the bars of a cell where she’d been locked away by