Page 46 of Stealing Blinds

“He suspects you were involved in the Stanley Cup?”

“Yep.” I laugh because it’s all so twisted. “A wild conclusion to jump to, but it’s the view he holds nonetheless. So, I am indebted because I didn’t hold up my end of the deal to never use my skills for anyone but him. He has a big job he needs done. And after it’s completed, I think he’ll leave me alone. But you know how that one-more-job thing turns out sometimes.”

“This job is not your ending.” He clutches my chin, forcing me to look at him. “I’ll find you a way out.”

“Thanks.”

He doesn’t let go. “What about yesterday? What happened?”

“Someone was following me, tracking me down, and then …” I stall there for a beat, watching anger harden his features to stone. “Then the lunatic showed up at my mother’s house and invited himself to stay.”

His dimple appears, shouting that he appreciates my razzing, even if he adopts his stern tone to redirect me. “Cute. What really happened?”

I guess there’s no reason to hide it. “I got an anonymous note.”

“Still have it?” he asks, and when I nod, he tacks on, “I’m going to need more information, and I’d like to involve Axel. Is that okay?”

“Sure.”

His hands sail into the water, docking on my hips with a sensual perusal of the string ties a second before I’m launched into the air and thrown over his shoulder.

I haven’t been dunked since I was a kid, but I hold my breath in time and gracefully tuck and roll, rising to smooth my wet hair behind me and face him, unable to tamp down my childlike grin. “What the hell, Noire?”

He chuckles and dives beneath the surface, emerging right before me to shake out his hair like some sort of luminous deity. “Here’s the thing about gambling and negotiations, Sly.” His palm meets the small of my back, and his chest grazes mine. “You never leave something on the table unless you know exactly what you’re sacrificing.”

My heart catches on long before my mind does, pounding my sternum with a hopeful and jittery battle cry. “Meaning?”

SYLVIE

As the one-word question leaves my lips, Cash ravages them in answer, sweeping me into his arms, fisting my hair, and wrenching my head to the angle he wants it. Waves crash against us, splashing in a berating tempo and igniting the desperation inside both of us. We might be solely responsible for turning these gentle waters rocky. For setting the ocean ablaze.

Nothing about his approach requests permission. He’s commanding and confident and rough in the most alluring manner, yet somehow tender in his coaxing. His tongue skates along the seam of my lips in a taunt, sinking inside to tangle mine in a charged devouring. His hands rove my curves, his fingers branding my skin and dictating our rhythm. His chest rumbles against mine, his hunger intensifies, and his mammoth frame swallows me whole.

He nips and kisses and roams and bites.

And beneath the scorching golden rays, I melt from the heat of a Noire king.

Somehow, I end up wrapped around him, my arms pretzeled behind his neck, my thighs hugging his hips, my ankles locked behind his taut ass. Every inch—and there are many—of his aroused state spears my abdomen. And, fuck, I think there’s some sort of jewelry adorning the crown of his cock. Maybe something on the shaft too. I roll my hips, and at the feel of the piercing caressing me, an unbidden purr floats from my empty lungs.

“That’s it, Sly. You feel that?” He bends me backward, arching me so his mouth can explore my collarbone, and the slope of my shoulder, and the hollow of my neck, all while he angles his dick to grind against me in the most mind-blowing cadence.

Thank God we’re in water up to his ribs. I think we’re teetering on R-rated content at a family beach. My nipples are intent on ripping through the flimsy knit triangles, his erection could masquerade as a buoy, and the strings on my bikini are threatening to untie themselves.

Wicked rhapsodies in the seven seas.

There’s a tiny voice in the recesses of my mind, timidly suggesting that I should put an end to this, but the sun and salt and seduction have gone to my head. All coherent thoughts have left the island. My pussy rules it now. And, Jesus, she’s a parched queen.

Baptism by Cash it is. He’s everywhere. I need him everywhere.

“Fucking in me,” he growls, reiterating his puzzling claim from earlier as he moves back to my mouth, vanquishing any resistance I was reaching for.

He tastes like the brushstrokes on a Monet and the escape route to swipe it. Victory and spoils and the art of evasion.

His palm cradles my ass, his index finger tracing the seam of my bikini bottoms, and my pulse goes haywire, battering in my temples and toes, my ribs and pussy, a walloping plea for him to take the plunge. He’s right there, a whisper away from bestowing celestial awe during an inshore nooner. My hips rock of their own accord, giving him a subtle green light.

“Tell me what you need, baby,” he rasps between kisses, so lust-drunk that his voice has me intoxicated.

I’ve never been so blissfully lightheaded. But the balmy breeze and the cool waves, his rigid form pressed to mine and the way he seems to listen, even when I’m not talking—it’s so much more than I anticipated, despite knowing we’d be explosive.