Hot as Hell (15 page)

“H
ow bad is this situation?” Dex threw his suitcase on the bed and flicked on the light to the bathroom.

Gray did not venture past the closed door. He had a room at the resort. He knew the layout because his was right next door. Nothing new to see.

He also knew he would rather anywhere but at this resort. “A guy is dead, so I’d say pretty damn bad.”

“There is that.”

Gray leaned back against the door. His casual pose hid the frustration he felt at being away from the office and in the middle of a situation that did not make a lick of sense.

Once they solved the mysteries behind the Scanlon theft and Henderson’s death, he planned to talk to Lexy about her decision to go off on her own and not include him in her plans. It was not her usual way of operating and Gray was determined to prevent it from happening again.

When the business was in trouble, he needed to know. He was the damn president, after all. She could put aside her personal problems and share news of something as big as a major theft at a client’s business that could result in his firm losing its stellar reputation and going under.

For now he focused on the biggest problem. “What have you found out about this Henderson guy’s connection to our company?”

Dex looked around the bathroom then shut the light off again. “Nothing new.”

“What about on the Scanlon break-in?”

Dex sat on the bed. Bounced up and down a few times, as if testing the mattress.

“Would you like to be alone? I can come back when you’re done doing whatever it is you’re doing.” Gray made the comment in a voice loaded with sarcasm.

“I was just—”

“Tell me about Scanlon.”

Dex rubbed his neck before leaning down and letting his hands hang between his legs. “Someone planted the computer trail back to Noah. It’s a pretty sophisticated setup. There are all kinds of dead ends, but eventually you find Noah at the end of all the subterfuge.”

“Didn’t we already know that?”

“We hoped that was the case. I had to make sure all that fancy computer work was a ruse.” Dex stared down at his hands. “It is and now we can prove it. At first the trail looked like Noah was trying to hide his tracks. More digging, and the discovery of a few false turns, showed that someone other than Noah pulled the strings and got the money.”

“What did you do exactly?”

“Followed every computer path I could think of. Dug into the bank account information. Checked Noah’s alibi for the day of the theft. He’s clean.”

“Of course he is.”

Dex’s fingers threaded together as he looked up. “Look, I didn’t believe Noah did anything wrong or illegal, either, but I had to check out the possibility of his involvement. There’s too much at stake not to be thorough and just blindly defend him.”

“Did you poke around for you to be satisfied or for you to collect proof to hand someone else?”

“The latter. Noah doesn’t need to earn my loyalty. He has it.”

Gray glanced at Dex’s laptop case. “So now what?”

“Depends on what we know about Henderson on this end.”

“You’re asking me? If so, that’s easy. Almost nothing.”

“There has to be something.”

This sort of thing fell well outside Gray’s area of business expertise, so he said what he knew. “He had a room here. That’s part of the employment package the resort provides.”

“Not a bad deal.”

Gray remembered lunch and scoffed. “Wait until you try the food. You’ll think otherwise.”

“That bad?”

“The worst.”

“Doesn’t sound like Noah’s thing. He likes his food. Guess we have your sister to thank for the dining and accommodations.” Dex massaged his neck again.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Bad flight.” Dex’s dark features grew more intense. Six-four, with black hair and a square jaw, Dex could intimidate even the toughest critic. Lexy once commented that Dex’s bright blue eyes softened his otherwise harsh features and drove the ladies wild.

Gray did not care about either of those things. “Want to take a break?”

“Am I wearing a dress?”

The image made them both laugh.

“So, anyone look through Henderson’s place since his murder?” Dex asked.

“You mean anyone other than the police?”

“They could have missed something and not realized it.”

“Like?”

Whatever happened on that flight became a distant memory, because the serious grimace on Dex’s face disappeared and a smile took its place. “We won’t know until we check.”

“You mean break in? We’re businessmen.”

“A break-in to solve a break-in.” Dex made a face as if he was tasting the words. “I like it. There’s some justice there, don’t you think?”

The idea sounded good. Get out of the room, do a little business, find some answers. “I’m in. We can head out at dark.”

“You’re like a bad television show.”

“What?”

“Why would we go at night and risk having someone see a light on in a room where no one should be? No.” Dex shook his head. “It makes more sense to sneak in now. Less obvious.”

“You’re the expert. I’ll call Noah and have him meet us at the room.” Gray grabbed the cell phone out of his pocket.

“You said he’s with Alexa?”

“Yeah.”

“Now?”

“Sure. I passed her going back to the room right before I came to get you.” Gray stopped in the middle of hitting speed dial and looked up. “Why”

“It’s just that Noah might not want to be disturbed, if you know what I mean.”

He did, and tried never to think about that. “You know we’re talking about my sister, right?”

“Knowing Noah, he’s not letting an opportunity for a reunion to pass.” Dex stood up. “Besides, it will be easier for two of us to come up with a plan and get in without being seen.”

“And if we get caught, someone will need to bail us out. Noah can have that job.”

“If Alexa finds out we’re doing this, she might not let him rescue us.”

“Then the good news is that I’ve met the policewoman in charge of the case and she is not bad to look at. If we’re caught, we’ll go behind bars with a nice memory.”

Dex did a double take. “You’re attracted to a woman who carries a gun?”

“Surprised me, too.”

L
exy lost the ability to breathe.

Naked, with her fingers wrapped around the bottom of the headboard and nails digging into the wood, she fought to fill her lungs with air. She had been in this position for twenty minutes. With her hips balanced on a pillow in the middle of the bed, her knees raised, her body was laid out for Noah’s pleasure.

And pleasuring her he was.

It took less than five minutes for them to go from fully dressed and seducing, to clothes on the floor and stretched across the bed. She preferred the second option to the first. Even when she wanted to strangle Noah—which was all the time lately—she wanted him. The need went beyond sex. This grew out of the rush of satisfaction followed by the sense of calm she experienced after making love with him.

Never dull.

Always satisfying.

Today was no different. His body rested between her thighs. His hands and mouth traveled over her breasts. Every touch caught her skin on fire. Each brush against her nipple, or lick against her skin, sent a clutching need up her chest to lodge in her throat.

Her fingernails scraped against the headboard. “Noah, I’m never going to make it.”

“Just a few more minutes.”

He had said that a few minutes ago when his tongue left her stomach and moved up to tease her breasts. As he drew her nipple into his mouth, his palm traveled over her hip to graze along her upper thigh. Her nerve endings jumped in reaction to his soft touch.

Despite the caress, she needed more. She wanted his hand lower, until he rubbed against her and ventured inside. Those fingers were magic. His tongue. His lips. Every part of him set her blood racing through her body until her heart leapt and shuddered from the impact.

“Noah, please.”

“Are you restless, baby?” His question rumbled against her skin.

“Yes.”

He tongued her nipple, then blew a warm breath over her dampened spot. “We need to work on your control.”

“Not now.”

“No?” The back of his hand swept over her. The heat of his skin covered her soft wetness and made her body twitch in anticipation.

“Noah.” His name left her lips as a soft plea.

“Tell me.”

“Stop playing.”

“But, I love to play with your body.” He dragged his mouth down and kissed the sensitive skin of her belly button.

“
Yes
.”

“Love the feel of how you react to my touch. How my body aches as it slides over yours.”

The images he put into her head added to her frustration. She did not want talk or chat. She wanted action.

His shoulders slipped lower until his head rested against her inner thigh. “I missed this.”

A laugh burst out of her chest. “That part of me?”

He dragged a finger through her wetness. “This and every other.”

Now they were getting somewhere. His fingers rested right where she wanted them. Hot breath blew against her. Her insides pulsed with the need to feel him inside her. Wheels of excitement spun around inside her stomach and her small internal muscles clenched under his hand. She was ready. Past ready. She was a woman on the edge.

And she wanted him to push her over.

She used her hands to make the point. Rather than hold on to the headboard, she grabbed on to him. Palms brushed across his broad sweaty shoulders. Her knees squeezed against him in a subtle signal that her lower half was more than ready to close over him.

With two fingers, he opened her. The room’s cool air blew over her sensitive insides as her hips pulsed against the sheets.

Enough foreplay. Kissing him counted as one of her favorite things. But not now.

“Noah, now or I’ll…” The threat died in her throat when his tongue flicked inside her.

This man was a genius when it came to pleasuring a woman with his mouth. He knew how much pressure to use. When to concentrate on his hands and when to switch to his mouth. How to use them together for maximum seduction. How to make her body jump up off the bed as a shot of desire ripped through her.

His tongue swirled and his mouth sucked. For a few minutes, she got lost in a haze of testing fingers and moving lips. It was not until her thighs pressed hard against his head that she knew she had lost the last ties to her sanity.

Just as her insides began to pulse and clench, he slid back up her body. His chest rested against hers and his body balanced on his elbows and over. “You ready for me, baby?”

Always
. “Yes.”

She watched his face, studied the dark ecstasy that moved into his gaze when she arched her lower half against his erection. She celebrated her feminine power. Pleasure washed through her until the feel of him against her stomach forced her eyes shut.

“Protection.” She whispered the word right before she lost all common sense.

She went off the pill as part of her plan to put Noah out of her head. Being with him again, they needed the safety of not becoming accidental parents. Enough was happening without that added surprise.

But he was a step ahead of her. He grabbed something off the nightstand. The wrapper opened with a rip and his hand disappeared between their bodies.

To speed the process along, she reached down and slipped the condom over him. Then she took an extra second to slide her palm around him and give him a squeeze.

“Lexy, hon. That sort of thing is going to make this go too fast.” The words punched out of him as if speaking were difficult.

She knew it was impossible for her. The time for words had come and gone, and would come again. But for now, action was the point. And lots and lots of moving. She needed him to do a lot of that.

His hands wrapped around her thighs, bringing her knees to rest on the small of his back. “That’s it.”

Coaxing was lost on her. No need for encouragement here.

“Now, Noah.”

Before he listened and obeyed, he kissed her. Planted a hard, possessive kiss on her mouth. One that promised a future of kisses. She did not examine or analyze it. She gave in. Let herself fall into the kiss and glory in the memory of all the kisses that came before.

While his mouth teased and tormented, his lower body went to work. Without warning, he pushed deep inside her. A long, steady plunge that lodged his body deep inside hers. No hesitation. No time to adjust. Just a rush of friction followed by a rumbling groan in her chest.

“Time to move.” He whispered his direction just before his teeth bit down on her earlobe. Not hard or rough, but with enough pressure to shoot a splash of adrenaline through her system and spark every resting cell to life.

“
Yes
. Noah, yes.”

He retreated and then rocked into her with that one long press again. Soon going slow and steady became impossible. He began to move. Over and over, each time going a little deeper and faster. The rhythm picked up until the steady beat echoed in her brain in time with each plunge inside her.

The sound of their labored breathing filled the room. The smell of their lovemaking wrapped around her head.

His hands pulled her legs in tighter and his body continued to move in and out of hers. Anticipation mixed with pleasure to form a ball of swirling need in her stomach. Her body pressed against his to try to stop all that churning.

Her insides grabbed him. When need sent her back off the mattress and her heels pressing into his back, she knew she was close. Her control hovered by a thread just waiting for one more second to let go.

When Noah continued to press and retreat, then press again, the tightness inside her broke free. With the spinning inside her growing wild and out of control, her mind went blank. A scream played on her lips. She did not think or try to form words. She just opened her mind and allowed the feelings to rush in.

Pleasure, security, love. It was all there. All wrapped up and handed to her when she wasn’t even expecting it.

Even after the pounding of her orgasm faded, her muscles continued to pulse. Her bones turned to liquid and melted into the bed.

She felt a tremor ripple across his shoulders. With a muffled shout into her shoulder, his body shook and his hips fell still against her.

Neither one of them said anything for a few minutes. Noah lay on top of her, crushing her into the mattress. His harsh breathing blew against her ear as his body grew more lax. She should have asked him to move or at least shift positions. His weight actually made it hard to breathe.

But she wanted him right there. The warmth and sweet smell of his skin gave her comfort. Being wrapped in his arms, having his body shift against hers, felt familiar. Right.

She did not know if she had fallen in love with him again, or if she never really stopped in the first place. All she knew was that lying there in that room, under him, with her legs around him made everything else seem unimportant. They fought and argued. Heaven knew she did not understand him. But she loved him.

Her doubts about him fell away. She believed in him and trusted him even though the evidence pointed to another outcome.

She had no idea how to live with him or make him understand what she needed, but she knew there was a bedrock of love that did not fade during their time apart. Building on that was the key.

Making him understand that she needed more was an absolute necessity

Noah could almost hear her thinking.

She did not say anything. Her fingers combed through his hair. She hummed a low, almost soundless tune. He doubted she knew any of that.

“What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?” he asked when he could not stand another minute of near silence.

“Nothing.”

“Something.”

She continued to run her fingers through his hair. “I just think it’s strange that we keep falling into bed after all that’s happened.”

Yeah, not the kind of thinking he wanted her to have ten seconds after being together. Hell, his body had not yet cooled. “It was inevitable.”

“Probably.”

“Damn straight.”

A few seconds of silence ticked by. Noah thought about jumping into the quiet, but he knew from experience that Lexy was just warming up to launch into a new discussion. So he waited.

And she did not disappoint.

“I mean, it’s strange we fell back into this pattern without any hesitation, don’t you think?”

“No.”

“You came here. We’re sharing a room and now we’re sleeping together.”

He lifted his head and shifted his body, so he wasn’t squashing her into the sheets. “Nothing strange about any of that.”

She pinched his shoulder. “You know what I mean.”

“Ow.”

“You’re fine.”

“I did not plot for Henderson to die as a way of luring you into my room, if that’s your concern.” He let his frustrated tone speak to what he thought of the idea.

“You’re good, but not that good.”

Not exactly what he meant, but close enough. “If you say so.”

“Think this is just a matter of the right circumstances—bad as they may be—the desert air and proximity? That we are traveling down this road because it’s convenient?” She traced his mouth with her forefinger.

“No.”

“What is it, then?”

She could not be this clueless. “You know why.”

“Humor me.”

He caught her finger and pressed it against his lips. “We love each other.”

The tension pulling across her forehead eased. “This is about love?”

How the hell had they gotten on this conversation? “Isn’t it?”

“I’m not so sure.”

If she had punched him in the stomach, it would have stung less. Her flippant comment shot right to his chest and laid there like a heavy weight.

“I do love you,” he whispered.

“I know.”

He sighed with enough force to make her hair move on her cheek. “Then what the hell is the problem?”

“You are the only guy I know who can make a declaration of love and yell while doing it.”

“The yelling came after,” he grumbled because grumbling was all he could manage.

“You loved me when I left you.”

A fact that drove him to his knees. She knew what they had and how they felt, and she walked away anyway. He just did not understand how she could do so and do it so easily.

“I need more, Noah.”

“Love along with what we do for each other in bed isn’t enough?”

He expected a tart reply or another lecture on how he blew it. Instead she smiled.

“Hmmmm.” That was all she said.

“What does that mean, Lexy?”

“It means I’m thinking.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

The mood in the room shifted. All talk of serious subjects seemed to stop. That flirty look on her lips said something else.

“That kind of talk is not going to help you win your point, big boy.”

Yep. Sassy, sexy Lexy was back. No more relationship discussion. “Seems to me you’re overthinking this.”

“This?”

“Our relationship.”

“All I’m thinking about right now is sex.”

He appreciated her thought process, but for the first time in his life, sex was not enough. He wanted this issue settled. Every second spent worrying about what she was thinking and what her future plans for him might be stole something from him in terms of internal peace and satisfaction.

He tried again. “I’m talking about something deeper.”

Shoving against his shoulder, she pushed him over until he rolled onto his back. When she climbed on top of him, letting her hair hang down and brush against his cooling skin, something inside him ignited again.

He fought off the need driving him. Refused to be controlled by impulses. “Lexy—”

“I don’t know what we have or what we are.” She leaned down and kissed him.

“I do.”

“But I know we have this.” The second kiss was not her usual coaxing start of something bigger. No. This was a knock-your-socks-off kind of kiss. One that had him gulping for air and hoping his body broke all-time speed records in getting ready for a second round of action.

Conversation could wait. A smart resolution would come one way or another, but not right now. Now she was making a move, and he was not about to deny her.