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She didn’t fight him—she had no fight left. She let him hold her, her face buried against his chest in the waist-deep water.
“Your heart is pounding,” she whispered against his shoulder after a moment. “Why?”
He didn’t want to think about it. He was shaking, and the air and the water were warm. “Don’t do that again,” he said in a gruff voice.
“I’m not going to have the chance, am I?”
He put his hand under her chin, tilting her face up to his. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against hers for a long moment. And then he kissed her.
It was a far worse mistake than sex. She’d knocked his defenses sideways, and he had no protection left. He kissed her deeply, fully, holding nothing back, kissed her as if he loved her. Kissed her as he’d never kissed anyone in his life.
If he were anything but what he was, he would have wanted to weep. As it was, he simply kissed her, her mouth, her cheeks, her eyelids, her neck. And she kissed him back, clinging to him as he moved out into the deeper water, bringing her with him until they were floating in the middle of the pool. She kissed him as she felt him grow hard, threaded her hands through his long wet hair and kissed him again. Kissed him as her body floated up, her legs wrapped around him, kissed him as he brought them together.
It was slow, it was sweet, and he was as focused on her mouth as he was between her legs, until everything changed, and he could feel her need building, spiraling. He pushed her back against the side of the pool, holding her there, and then it was fast and hard, and this time when she came he let her scream, not caring who heard, drinking in the sound, as her body convulsed around his in an endless spasm. He held her there, letting her climax, waiting until she could breathe again, and then he started all over again.
It didn’t take long this time, and she was sobbing against his shoulder, clinging to him. “Please,” she was whispering. “Please.”
He knew what she wanted. He’d taken everything from her, and now she wanted an equal sacrifice. And he should have pulled away, let the water cool him.
“Please,” she said.
And he was lost. He thrust up into her, hard, again and again, and then with a hoarse cry he was lost, filling her, draining himself into her, body and soul.
They would have both gone under if she hadn’t reached out and grabbed the railing.
“Oh, hell,” he said weakly, pulling away, into the center of the pool, leaving her clinging to the side, staring at him.
No longer stricken. Her mouth was swollen from his, and if he thought about it he’d probably get hard again. So he turned away and swam to the shallow end, climbing out.
She hadn’t moved from her place at the deep end. It was almost full daylight now, and she could probably see him quite clearly as he walked over to where she waited. He reached down and pulled her out of the pool, effortlessly, and she stood in front of him, wet, dripping and naked.
He caught her chin in his hand and kissed her, a brief, ruthless kiss that should have told her how lost he was. “You need to sleep,” he said, grabbing the sheet she’d dropped and wrapping it around her body. He picked her up—he could feel the start of surprise that ran through her but he ignored it. She was lighter than he’d expected, and he had no trouble carrying her back into the house.
He didn’t want to take her back to her bedroom, and he couldn’t take her to his. There were too many other choices, so he simply set her down on one of the overstuffed sofas in the living room.
“Go to sleep,” he said.
She looked up at him. He was still unabashedly naked, and there was no way she could miss his constant, eternal reaction to her. But she closed her eyes without saying a word, and a moment later she was sound asleep.
She wasn’t good enough to fake it. She wasn’t good enough to fake anything. She was exhausted, drugged by sex and violent emotion, and he could lean over and kill her now, quickly, painlessly, in an instant.
With distant, bitter amusement he realized his erection had left. She’d be pleased to know he didn’t get off at the thought of killing her—quite the opposite.
But then, death had never been a turn-on for him. It was simply a job to be done, which made him far more valuable an operative than those who did it for the thrill. Those like Renaud.
He wasn’t going to kill her. He’d known that for a long time, almost since the beginning, whether he’d wanted to admit it or not. He was a cold, amoral bastard but there were some lines he wouldn’t cross. And that included killing innocents who got in the way.
And that’s all she was, right, he mocked himself. She could have been any anyone and his decision still would have been the same.
Sleeping with her, getting this weird attachment thing going had nothing to do with it. He could keep telling himself that, and maybe one day he’d believe it.
Still, he was one of the good guys, and his job was to kill bad guys, not people who stumbled in his way.
And he would do just that, without pleasure or remorse, in a few short hours. As soon as he made arrangements for Genevieve.
He couldn’t guarantee her safety—too much was at stake. But she was a smart woman, and he could leave her a trail of bread crumbs that would lead even a child to safety. And with any luck at all she’d never realize he’d let her go.
If she thought she’d escaped by way of her own talents it would give her back some of what he took from her. He shouldn’t care, but he did.
