He brushed a few loose strands of hair from her shoulder and placed his lips there—not moving, not kissing. In small little circles, he ran the tip of his tongue along her flesh like he was tasting her and when he pulled away, cool air chilled the lingering moistness.
Needing him to stay close, she ran her fingers along his scalp to keep his mouth there. She wasn’t done with him, but she wasn’t sure what exactly she was craving. Only that she needed more. He raised his head, his shoulders stiffened slightly, and he held her out at arm’s length.
Apart from him, she was cold. She wanted to see his expression, read what he was thinking, but his face was hidden in shadow.
Of course. It was his turn now. How could she be so completely absorbed in her own needs? She bent to unzip his pants, but he clasped her wrists and straightened her up.
“Just you tonight. I can wait.”
“Wait?” What did he mean by that? As in, not right now? As in yes, but later?
A hint of anxiety gnawed at her stomach—her conscience? She’d never gone home with someone she just met, let alone experienced an orgasm like that, or offered oral sex to a man who was a perfect stranger mere hours ago.
The muscles of his arms bulged beneath her palms and strange feelings tightened around her insides like a fist. Maybe she wasn’t reading him correctly. He was apprehensive for some reason.
Was it simply an excuse to get her to stop? God, he wasn’t married, was he?
At that moment, the door opened with a bang, and two couples stumbled onto the rooftop terrace. One of the women erupted with laughter when her companion dropped his wineglass onto the concrete floor with a crash. Sounds of music and clinking silverware wafted through the opening.
Mackenzie tore away from his embrace and grabbed her handbag. “I should go. Martin’s probably wondering where I am.”
She cast a glance over her shoulder as she reached for the door handle. Dom remained near the back wall, the orange light from an overhead infrared heater giving his features an eerie glow while the rest of his body all but faded into the shadows. It was obvious he wasn’t going to stop her, so she swallowed her disappointment and pulled open the door.
“There is no one else,” she thought she heard him say, although she could’ve sworn she didn’t see his lips move.
Under a burned-outstreetlight on the other side of Fifth Avenue, Dom leaned a hip on the hood of the Porsche parked halfway down the block and watched as Mackenzie stepped through the revolving doors of the Columbia Center building and into the taxi line. Perfect. He’d wait for her to jump into one of the yellow cabs, then get the phone to the Agency’s tech lab only an hour late. Santiago should be satisfied with that.
He took a deep breath to filter the smells and detected nothing unusual. His olfactory receptors weren’t nearly as sensitive as Lily’s—he smelled only the salty air rolling off the bay and the wet roadway—but he wouldn’t relax until he knewMackenzie was safely on her way home. His hair whipped across his face, still loose from when she pulled out the leather tie. When he brushed it away, he caught a whiff of her musky, exotic scent still on his fingers and the blood rushed to his cock yet again.
Another chilly burst of wind whistled up the city street and the skirt of her flimsy dress Marilyn Monroe’d. With a little shriek, she caught it just in time and laughed with the people standing around her.
Something tugged at his insides and for an instant he wished he were over there, sharing in that silly moment with her. She flung her wool coat around her shoulders and when a taxi pulled away, she moved to the front of the line.
Aware of a faint throbbing, like the pulse of a vein behind his eyes, he shook his head to clear away the sensation, but it didn’t change. It neither lessened nor intensified.
Of course, he thought, jamming his hands into his pockets. This was her headache, not his. Her blood levels still weren’t what they should be. Combined with the several glasses of wine she’d drunk tonight, she undoubtedly felt like hell. All because of him.
Finally, another cab pulled up, blocking everything but her face from his view. He could stretch out his senses to her, get her to look down here, her gaze meeting his one last time. But he didn’t. It was better this way.
Goodbye, Mackenzie.
And her taxi drove away.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“The thing issmashed to hell. It’s amazing it holds a charge.” Dom leaned in as Cordell Kincade, the Agency’s IT guy, extracted the data card from his phone.
“Holds a charge? Dom, I’m shocked it even powers up. Look at the damage within the internal casing. The sim card reader assembly is completely shot. Who knows about the...”
As Cordell’s voice droned on with a bunch of tech bullshit, Dom thought about a wispy dress, a fragrant hollow behind delicate ears, a flash of spunky green eyes and a pair of long legs that encircled him and refused to let go.
Should he have chased after her? Begged her to come home with him? Would he be with her now, making love to her in his bed? He yearned for the impossible. To see her naked again, but not as her nursemaid or a lascivious spy outside her kitchen window.
Cordell paused, yanking Dom from his daydream.
“Yes, yes. That’s all fine, but can you get the data?”
“I’m afraid the internal memory is corrupt, but let’s see if I can get it fired up enough to get something.” Cordell plugged the tiny card into a reader device hooked to his computer. “Crossyour fingers. I’ll get only one shot. Every time a damaged drive is accessed, it lessens the chance of being able to retrieve the data. I’d have a better chance if they made these next generation?—”
