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Fuck me on your desk.
Watch TV until your brain melts.
Shit. “That’s actually three choices,” he said, for lack of anything else to say.
She lifted a brow, conveying that one of them really wasn’t a choice at all. It was up to him to guess which one.
Skye had told the other women she’d handle this visit. Over the past couple of days, she’d framed it in her mind like an ambassador’s job, checking on a friend to all of the TRA women.
He worked on their vehicles—the executive team and other staff members used his place. He always gave them fair prices and good work. Skye wouldn’t trust her Mustang to anyone else. He’d also bought a modest marketing package from TRA—which had included the development of that tiger logo—when Ros showed him how they could grow his business. Though she’d been willing to do it as a barter situation, Tiger had insisted on paying like any other client.
Then there were the even more significant indicators, like how he’d helped Neil and Abby, and his protectiveness of Maryshka when he introduced her to Progeny.
All those things had only increased Skye’s overall impression of him. He was a good man with a noble character. A strong personality.
In the club, they brought their personalities together to give one another what they wanted. Even needed. The levels of need they didn’t touch were because that wasn’t their relationship.
The relationship was about to change.
His alertness when she came in, the gun, said whatever had caused his sister-in-law to be killed here wasn’t necessarily finished. That should make her take a big step back, but his tense body language, the dead look in his eyes, reached out and spoketo her. She could hear mortar being scraped against bricks, him building a wall against her, against everyone. Isolating himself.
Other things reinforced that impression. The overflowing tray of cigarette butts. A stack of singed pictures dropped haphazardly onto the seat of a second guest chair. They’d probably been salvaged from the walls of the burned-out bays. One was a business license in a wooden frame, the yellowed paper burned against the glass.
The stack of mail on the corner of his desk was topped by an obituary printout, pulled partially from an envelope. A handwritten note clipped to it saidMemorial at clubhouseplus a date and time. Those last two had been circled in red, with an insistent arrow pointing to them. Below were two sentences in a more tremulous script.
Please come. For Aubrey.
So now, her own message delivered and waiting on an answer, she leaned forward from the desk and laid her hand on his face, the unshaven jaw. The familiar gesture snapped his gaze up to hers.
Her sessions were conducted primarily with nonverbal cues, and this was one her chosen partners learned quickly. A full palm to the cheek and jaw saidbring your gaze to mine and hold. Through that lock, she commanded his total attention. If he needed a focus to slow everything down and put all that mattered into one place, she was that point. Nothing else required.
But he was hell and gone from that focus. Behind that burning gaze was a nature that belonged in a place tinged with fire, blood and lingering violence.
It was a little late to remember Maryshka’s warning.
He rose. Big man, big shoulders, raw, urgent gaze. He put his hands on her upper arms, moving them up to her throat to cup the sides, his thumbs stroking over pulsing arteries. His handssmelled faintly of oil—they always did, though he soaked them before coming to the club, so they weren’t so rough on tender female skin. She didn’t mind the calluses, though. She read his language through his touch.
He'd stopped, his restlessness pushing against her like a storm wind. He’d made his choice, but he was waiting.
She formed one word with her lips. A permission, a command. One that freed a tiger.
Take.
His hands moved back to her shoulders, his fingers curling in the fabric of her blouse. Tight, twisting, sliding her off the desk, bringing her up on her toes, her hand falling against his chest for balance. He was as rock solid as an engine block, his heart pumping.
The seams at the shoulder ripped. His gaze flicked to the exposed skin, the satin strap of her bra. There was a marked line a strong man could walk, where he kept his touch gentle, yet left no doubt in a woman’s mind what lethal things he could do with it.
She reached toward his face, testing, and he gripped her wrist, preventing the contact. Interesting, introducing a new note between them.
He leaned down, eyes intent. He usually used a mint-flavored toothpaste and strong soap to reduce the cigarette smell. Here it was sharp, abrasive. Cigarettes and motor oil, sweat and heat. They charged the erotic tension, electrifying the sexual need. He pulled her up to him by that tight hold on her sleeve, and mouths met.
They'd never kissed in session. Maybe he'd kissed her cheek at the end of an evening, a brush of lips as they took fond leave of one another. But they'd neverkissed.
Her lips parted and oh…Oh.There was a swirling sensation in her head and stomach, a sudden hyperawareness of his gripand the press of his body against hers. She was back on the desk because he’d put her there, his hands at her waist. She wrapped her legs around him, keeping him close, though he didn't seem to be planning to go anywhere.
Takegave him leave to do what he wanted. She might suspect what direction he’d go with that, but the environment introduced less predictable variables.
She was aware of his hands and mouth, the concentrated heat and resilience of his body. That awareness plunged into a wave of answering response, her hands clutching his hips, her body arched against his as she moved her lips, tasting and responding to his hunger.
