Filthy Wicked Games (8 page)

T
hey ate
a late dinner at the kitchen table, overlooking Prague’s fairy-tale view of spires reaching toward the blushing sky and the castle on the hill keeping watch over the people below. Harley made orange and rosemary goose served with glazed carrots and fresh bread from the bakery downstairs, and Jasper shocked Clay by eating every bite of the not-so-kid-friendly food and asking for seconds of the carrots.

His son was smart, sweet, funny, and ate his vegetables without threats, meltdowns, or bribes. He was sure Jasper had his faults like everyone else, but so far Clay couldn’t see them.

Even his resistance to going to bed on time was charming.

“But I need to stay up to see all the stars come out,” Jasper said, yawning as Harley helped him into his pajamas. “I’m learning the constellations. I need to show them to you, Mom. If you’re lost at sea, you’re going to need this information.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Harley said. “But the stars will still be there tomorrow.”

“Not if there’s a storm,” Jasper countered though he obediently lifted his arms so Harley could strip off his tee shirt and replace it with a soft-looking pajama top with an octopus holding eight paintbrushes on the front. “You can’t see the stars if there are clouds in the way.”

“Good thing we’re supposed to have beautiful weather for the next week then, isn’t it,” she said, patting his bottom before pointing toward the bed. “Up you go. You’re obviously beat, buddy. Get good rest tonight and you can stay up late tomorrow and show me the constellations.”

Jasper turned and climbed up on the big white bed. “Clay too? He’s not going to leave like Dom?”

“Yes, Clay too,” Harley said, shooting a quick sideways glance his way before her gaze returned to Jasper. “Lay down and I’ll tuck you in tight, just the way you like. No room for wiggles.”

Jasper sighed happily. “Good. Dom never got the covers tight enough.”

Harley stiffened, but didn’t say a word or turn to look at him again. Things had been even more awkward between the two of them since this afternoon, but he was glad he’d overheard her argument with Dom. Knowing that what they’d shared all those years ago had altered her as profoundly as it had altered him didn’t change the present, but it firmed up the moorings of the past.

For the first time in years, he felt like he could trust his emotional intuition.

Harley might have told hundreds of lies that summer, but that one thing—the love they’d felt—had been real. He hadn’t been a fool conned by a monster. He had just been a man who had fallen in love with the wrong girl, a wild, dangerous, unbalanced girl with a lust for revenge that had shattered both of their lives, but at least the girl had loved him back.

He hadn’t been wrong about that. So maybe, somewhere down the line, when all the chaos and upheaval was behind him, his heart could be trusted to start looking for love again.

“I’m going to head to bed, too,” Harley whispered as she closed the door to Jasper’s room gently behind them. “All the stress and the travel finally caught up with me. Do you want the front room, and I’ll take the one here by Jasper?”

Clay nodded. “Sounds good. Good night.”

“Good night,” she said, hesitating the barest second before she moved past him, her sweet, sad smell swirling in the air, making him wish he could pull her into his arms and just…hold her.

Just for a little while.

Instead, he kept his arms at his sides and watched her disappear into the bedroom down the hall. Wanting to fuck her was bad enough. Wanting to draw her close and lend her his strength was dangerously stupid. Not to mention cruel. It would be cruel to pretend he had anything real to offer her and he no longer had any urge to be cruel to this woman.

But that wouldn’t stop him from doing what he had to do.

Jasper had always been his top priority. Now that he’d actually met his son, he refused to allow anything to interfere with his efforts to keep him safe, not even his growing sense of obligation to the mother Jasper clearly loved to distraction.

Love was well and good, but love didn’t stop bullets or disarm bombs. Putting love first was a luxury reserved for people who weren’t on a drug lord’s hit list. Maybe in six months or a year, when Marlowe was behind bars and his thugs rotting there with him, it would be safe to rearrange his priorities, but for now he and Jasper would both be choosing safety over sentiment.

It was the right choice, the only choice.

So why did it feel so completely shitty?

His chest tight and his thoughts locked into a holding pattern that ensured sleep was nowhere in his near future, Clay showered, changed into pajama pants and a tee shirt, and went out onto the balcony to watch the city lights flicker to life beneath him.

At nearly ten o’clock, dusk still lingered on the horizon, a gentle purple-rose blush that kept him at the balcony railing, watching the light fade as the air turned cool enough to lift the hairs on his arms. He wasn’t ready to let go of the day just yet. The city was beautiful, danger was distant for now, and his stomach was resting happily after a wonderful meal with a beautiful woman and an amazing little boy he was lucky enough to call his son.

If only there was just this, just the sky and the city below it and a safe place in between where three people could figure out what they were to each other, maybe there could be something more.

Something…good. Better than good.

The balcony door opened behind him. “I’m sorry,” Harley said softly. “I didn’t know you were out here. The shades are all pulled on the windows.”

“It’s okay.” He turned to see her standing in the doorway wearing the black tee shirt and silver pajama bottoms she’d bought in Bangkok, her hair in damp curls around her shoulders. “Come out. I don’t mind.”

She closed the door behind her, crossing her arms against the chill as she padded over to join him at the railing. Her eyes scanned the horizon, but he kept his gaze on her—on the lips that looked even softer than usual, the translucent skin around her clever eyes, and the determined chin jutting out from her heart-shaped face daring the world to take its best shot.

She had been beautiful today with her makeup and jade earrings bringing out the green flecks in her eyes, but fresh from the shower she was stunning. There was only her, bare and vulnerable, with nothing to hide behind and nothing to distract from her perfection.

She was lovely. Perfect—at least to him.

He suspected that no other woman would ever be as beautiful in his eyes as she was, not even if he were lucky enough to get another chance at love. Harley had captured his imagination so completely that he would never be free of her.

But maybe that was okay, too.

Maybe some memories aren’t intended to be left behind but instead carried with us as a reminder that there are moments when love is like magic, transforming the landscape of our souls forever.

She sighed, a sad sound that echoed through the melancholy places inside of him. “It’s so beautiful.”

“It is,” he murmured, gaze fixed on her face.

He was still memorizing the delicate curves of her profile when she turned to him. Their eyes met and held and all his noble intentions evaporated in the face of the need to touch her, just one more time.

He lifted his hand, cupping her cheek, his thumb tracing the angle of her stubborn chin. “You are so beautiful.”

“Clay,” she whispered.

His name was a question he didn’t know how to answer, so he didn’t. He simply put his arms around her and they came together like they had been made to fit, all their sharp edges dulling as their lips met and they kissed as something other than enemies for the first time in six years.

And it was sweet and soul-stealing and even better than he’d remembered.

His tongue stroked into her mouth and she melted against him, her defenses crashing to the ground as she returned the kiss. Her fingernails dug into his neck as he captured her bottom in his hands and drew her up his body, pinning her hips to where he ached while they did their best to consume each other whole.

Tongues danced, breath sped, and his cock pulsed hungrily against her thigh. Her legs came around his hips and his hand fisted in her hair, pulling her closer as his lips trailed down her neck, kissing and biting. Her soft, hungry moans were enough to make him want to take her right there on the balcony, to strip her pants down her legs and impale her on his cock and let all of Prague hear her scream, but this time he wanted more than fast and furious.

This time, he wanted to memorize every inch of her skin, to make one last memory neither of them would ever forget.

He brought his lips back to hers, kissing her until he swore he could feel her heart beating in his chest and her breath in his lungs and her need dancing across his skin. Flashes of light and bursts of color sparkled and crashed in the darkness behind his closed lids, but he waited until the wanting was almost blinding before he ripped his mouth from hers.

“Can I take you to bed?” he asked, needing to hear the words, needing to know that she wanted this as much as he did.

“Yes,” she breathed, legs tightening around his hips. “Now. Please.”

A moment later he was at the balcony door, yanking it sharply open with one hand while he held tight to the woman in his arms with the other. Fourteen long steps and they were in his bedroom, ten more and he was laying Harley down on the bed and lengthening himself above her, his blood rushing as her hands smoothed up his bare stomach beneath his shirt.

“Touch me,” she whispered against his mouth. “Please, Clay, touch me everywhere. I need you so much.”

He groaned as her hips tilted, her pelvis rocking against where he was hard and hungry for her and only her—his best enemy, his wicked friend, the only one who had ever made him feel like half of something whole.

His shirt vanished and hers followed seconds later and then his mouth was hot on her neck, kissing down to her breasts. His tongue curled around her nipple, teasing her before he drew her deep into his mouth.

Damn, she was so sweet. It was like her skin was covered in sifted sugar, but better because there was the spicy sunshine taste of Harley beneath it highlighting the sweetness, making it something more complicated, more intense, more precious and irreplaceable. He pulled her pajama pants down her legs, desperate to discover the sweetness he’d neglected during the twisted games they’d played in the jungle.

With his hands firm on her thighs, he spread her legs and settled between them, finding paradise and letting himself get lost.

Just this one last time.

H
arley’s head
fell back and her spine bowed off the bed, lightning dancing across her skin. She forgot how to exhale, how to unclench her fists, how to do anything but spread her legs wider and give herself up completely to the magic of Clay’s mouth between her legs.

The man had proven that he could bring the pain, but now he reminded her that he could also deliver breathless pleasure, the kind of solid gold, drenched in sunshine bliss that made a body forget there had ever been a time when it didn’t feel this fucking good. Her breath shuddered out as his tongue flicked back and forth across her clit before he drove the thick muscle into where she was so hot and wet, so swollen and desperate with wanting she wasn’t sure she would ever be the same.

“You taste like heaven.” Clay cupped her bottom in his hands, his fingertips digging into her ass as he leveraged her closer, giving his wicked mouth unimpeded access.

He licked and sucked and fucked her with his tongue, driving deep and hard while his moans vibrated her clit. Her body coiled like a spring—tighter and tighter, sharper and sharper—until ecstasy cut through her like a knife, severing the ties holding her to the earth. She shattered, heels digging into the mattress as she reached between her legs and fisted thick handfuls of Clay’s hair, holding him close as she rocked against his amazing mouth, riding out the waves of the kind of orgasm she hadn’t thought she would ever experience again.

By the time she sagged back onto the mattress, her bones had turned to liquid. She offered no resistance as Clay rolled her onto her side and lay down behind her. His hand cupped her thigh, pulling her leg up and back until it was leveraged on top of his and her legs were spread wide enough for him to push into her from behind.

She moaned, arching back as his thick cock speared inside her, spreading her inner walls wide, wider, until she was stretched almost to the point of pain. Her nerve endings sparked electric and she knew she could come again if she let herself, simply from this one agonizingly slow thrust that demanded her complete surrender.

“So beautiful,” Clay murmured as his hands found her breasts, kneading and plucking at her nipples as he rolled over onto his back, taking her with him.

Soon she was spread on top of him, one of his hands still tormenting her nipples while the other dipped between her legs to tease her clit and his cock worked in and out, driving her swiftly out of her mind.

“I love this view,” he said, his breath hot on her neck. “I love looking down and seeing nothing but you. But us.” He pinched her nipple, summoning a gasp from her throat and more heat rushing from the swollen place between her legs.

Clay thrust in hard and deep and she rolled her hips in response, again and again, rocking the head of his cock against the ignition switch deep inside of her. Her breath hitched, but she fought the urge to catch fire, conscious of the fact that he was bare inside of her.

“Condom,” she breathed though a part of her couldn’t care less about the damned condom.

A part of her wanted him bare, spilling himself inside her, taking a chance on making another Jasper. Another child with his eyes and her stubborn curiosity and pieces of both of them living in harmony, proving they could make beautiful things together.

“It’s okay,” he said, staying buried deep. “I’ll pull out if I get close. I won’t lose control tonight, I promise. And I’m not going to go until you come on my cock at least twice.”

His hand flattened on her abdomen, pinning her in place as he rocked deeper, each thrust bringing her clit into contact with his fingers, building the tension swelling inside of her to the breaking point.

“God, Clay,” she gasped, writhing on top of him as she got closer, closer, and his cock seemed to swell even thicker inside of her. “It’s so fucking good.”

“The best,” he said, squeezing her thigh hard, the hint of pain making the pleasure crest within her. “There’s no one like you. I could fuck you forever and never get enough.”

His words sent her over. Her back arched as she came, her second orgasm swimming through her veins like electric honey, but Clay wrapped his arms around her and held tight, stroking slow and deep until he’d guided her back to earth and halfway up the next mountain.

“Please,” she said, fingernails digging into his lightly furred thighs. “I want to see you, taste you.”

With a groan, Clay pulled out and slid from beneath her. A moment later, he was on top, his muscled torso filling her vision as he reached down, gripping his engorged cock and guiding it back to her entrance.

This time, he glided inside without a hint of resistance. She was so wet, so eager, so ready for every long, thick inch of him.

“You’re the only thing I could never quit,” he said, kissing her with the words as he began to move again, those same luxuriously slow thrusts that made her already pleasure-sated body hum for more. “I tried to end it the second time we went walking on the beach when I realized there was no way I could be friends with someone I wanted the way I wanted you. But I couldn’t make myself do it. Not even to do what was right by my best friend.”

She threaded her fingers through his hair, holding his gaze as he slid a hand beneath her hips, lifting her off the bed, forcing his cock even deeper into her body. So deep there was nothing but him, nothing but the way they moved together and the things he made her feel and the wild hunger only he had ever sparked to life inside of her.

“I wish it had only been you,” she said, wrapping her legs around his hips as his thrusts came faster. “I wish I’d been smart enough to know that this was the only thing worth fighting for.”

A pained expression flashed across his features, but before she could say another word, his mouth crashed into hers.

He staked a claim, his tongue gliding deep, imprinting his taste on her soul as he took her hard and fast. He slammed to the end of her, the head of his cock ramming against her cervix, sending a sharp jolt of pleasure-pain coursing through her with every thrust, summoning grunts and groans and other sounds she’d never heard from her lips.

She was wild, unashamed, and so wet she could feel her own sticky heat dripping down her thighs, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care that she was a hot, shameless, mess. This was the way sex was meant to be, rough and raw and sharp to the touch and so hot the sheets felt like they might catch fire.

“I want to come inside you,” Clay growled against her lips as his rhythm grew feverish, wild. “I want to come so hard inside you.”

She whimpered, knowing she should tell him no.

But fuck, she wanted it, too. Wanted it even more when his fingers found her nipple and rolled it in tight circles, bringing her perilously close to the edge for a third time.

“I want to push in so hard and deep and feel you milk me dry,” he said, slamming home again and again. “God, come for me, Harley. Come on my cock. I need to feel you go one more time.”

She cried out as her walls began to convulse around him, clutching so tight it felt like her soul was turning inside out. He answered her with a masculine roar that made her pussy clutch even tighter as he rammed home one last time before he pulled out to come in thick, hot jets onto her stomach.

He gripped his cock, breath hissing out through his teeth as he worked his jerking shaft up and down, sending more creamy white spilling out onto her skin. The sight was insanely hot—and pulling out had been the sane thing to do—but Harley couldn’t help the flash of disappointment that prickled through her.

The animal in her didn’t want Clay’s release on her belly, it wanted it inside her, filling her up, marking her, making her his.

His.

As he leaned down, pressing a kiss to her lips, before whispering—“I’ll be right back with something to clean up”—she felt like his. And when he returned with a damp cloth to gently wipe the stickiness from her belly and from between her legs, she felt closer to him than she had to anyone in so long.

She reached out, capturing his wrist before he could head back into the bathroom. “Stay.”

His lips twitched, but a smile didn’t form. “I was just going to put this in the dirty clothes basket.”

“Throw it on the floor,” she said, tightening her grip on his arm. “And come back to bed.”

“All right.” He let the rag fall onto the carpet and climbed onto the bed beside her, propping up on the pillows and pulling her into his arms.

She rested her hands on his chest and propped her chin on top, looking up at his face. It was getting darker in the bedroom, but there was still enough light to see the soft set of his mouth and the easiness in his eyes. “This is the most relaxed I’ve ever seen you.”

His lips twitched again. “Sex is the best medicine.”

“Sex with you,” she said, knowing now wasn’t the time to play games. Now was the time for truth and taking one last, crazy shot at happiness, even if it was a long one. “It’s never been like this for me with anyone else. Even years after I thought you’d died, when the worst of the grieving was over, that part of me never came back to life. Never. Until now.”

“It’s so fucking good,” Clay said softly, his gaze fixed on the ceiling. “But it’s also bad, Harley. Sex and violence never existed on the same plane in my head until we were together on the island. That first day, when I let my anger get the better of me…”

He shifted haunted eyes to hers. “I scared myself. I’ve never wanted to hurt a woman and fuck her at the same time. And then suddenly, I did, and it scared the shit out of me. Worse, it made me wonder what kind of man I really am.”

She let her fingers play back and forth through the crisp blond hairs on his chest. “They always say there’s a thin line between love and hate.”

“There’s also a thin line between a cop and a criminal,” he said, his brows drawing together. “I already crossed that line once. I can’t afford a second slip, and I don’t want to revisit those fucked up places in my head. I don’t want to be that person ever again, not even for another minute.”

“You don’t have to be.” She brushed the hair from his forehead, needing to touch him, to find a way to bring him back to the here and now. “We can put everything that happened on the island behind us and start fresh. We can be good together again.”

“Were we ever good together?” Clay pulled away, sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “Six years ago we were living a lie—or at least you were—and now we’re both different people. You’re in deep with a drug lord, and I’m never going to be able to look at your throat and not think about that moment when I had my hand around it, squeezing the life out of you because I’d lost my mind to the hate you made me feel.”

“You had every reason to hate me.” Harley wrapped her arms around him from behind, her bare breasts flattening against his back. “I forgive you for that. I forgive you for everything. All you have to do is forgive me and we can make this work. I know we can.”

Clay sighed, but she pushed on before he could speak, “Because you’re right, we are different people. We’re people who have hurt and lost and grieved enough to know better than to give up on something real. And this is real.” She moved her hand to cover his heart, taking comfort in its steady beating. “Can’t you feel it?”

His hand covered hers, warm against her cool skin, pressing her fingers closer to his chest. “I do. But all the rest of the shit is real, too—Marlowe and the past and everything we put each other through. We can’t exist in a vacuum, Harley. That’s not the way the world works, no matter how much we might want it to.”

“But maybe it’s the way love works,” she said, tears rising in her eyes.

A small voice inside of her demanded to know where the hell her pride had gone, but she didn’t care about pride. Pride didn’t make her feel alive or hopeful or cared for; Clay did.

“I love you,” she whispered, her tears spilling out to dampen his skin. “Even when I started hating you, I still loved you.”

He cursed, but when he turned to her, there were tears in his eyes, too.

He didn’t say a word to give her hope, but he gave her something better to do than plead for second chances that might never come. He gave her his kiss and his hands bringing her body to life. He made love to her again, sweet and wicked and close, and by the time they were finished, she was too exhausted to do anything but curl against him and fall asleep.

She had planned to sleep with Jasper tonight—to make sure he was safe and close in case Clay got any ideas about breaking his promises—but she wasn’t feeling suspicious anymore. She was sated and sad and desperate for a reason to believe that this didn’t have to be the last time she ever felt Clay’s skin warm against hers.

She slept hard and dreamt of a world where happy endings weren’t just for dreamers and people lucky enough not to have been dealt a shitty hand in life. And then she woke up alone in Clay’s big bed in the too-quiet apartment with a dry mouth and a pounding head and immediately knew that something was wrong.

Every hair on her body stood on end and a primitive voice deep inside of her shouted to get her ass out of bed.

Now. Quick. Before precious things were lost.

But even before she threw on her pajamas and stumbled into Jasper’s room, fighting the sluggish feeling lingering in her limbs, she knew that he was gone. He was gone, along with his suitcase, his keeper toy collection, and his father, who had vanished without a trace except for a note on the kitchen island with two words written in hasty script—

I’m sorry.

With a wounded cry, Harley staggered to her bedroom, terror making her break into a sweat despite the chill lingering in the apartment. She changed into the first clothes she grabbed from the top of her suitcase, snatched her purse from the hook on the door with shaking hands, and less than a minute later, she was out of the apartment and sprinting down the stairs.

She was going to find them. She wasn’t going to be too late.

She was going to find Clay before he made it out of the country with her son and then she would make the bastard sorry he had ever been born. She would make him sorry and then she would take Jasper and they would run far away from all the liars in the world.