Hot Contract (28 page)

Corlis flashed Jen a quick smile. “The minute
you turn on the water, we’re out of here.”

They dumped Keegan on the toilet seat.

“Oh, God.” He dropped his face in his hands,
the back of his neck bright red.

Corlis squatted in front of him and pulled at
his hands. “Get with the program and make little Dalfries. Want
some coffee?”

“No.”

She smirked. “Need help with those
jeans?”

“Can you get any more personal? Oh, right,”
said Keegan. “Anything to make this more embarrassing—and what the
hell are you wearing?”

“I’ll get his pants.” Jen was starting to
enjoy this as much as Corlis.

“No offense. He’s big and drunk, and you’re
not. Want me to stretch him out for you?”

Fallon pulled his partner back. “Go for it,
Liss. Traumatize and annoy.”

“I want nieces!”

“All the blood relatives you want,” said
Fallon. “I want to get out of here. I have better things to
do.”

Corlis cocked her head to the side, a glint
in the depths of her cool gray eyes.

Fallon held the door for her. “Out.”

She touched Fallon’s arm, a quick glide of
her long fingers. “Follow?”

“Yeah,” he said thickly. “Follow.”

****

Jen laughed softly. “You’re blushing.”

Keegan stood, one hand braced on the wall
next to the tub. “Trust me,” he said. “It’s not a blush.”

He stuck his head under the shower, and let
water sheet down over his neck and shoulders.

“Toothpaste?” she asked.

“Thanks.”

He stopped just long enough to put some on
his finger and work it around in his mouth.

Jen leaned up against him. “You’re
sticky.”

Keegan finished rinsing his mouth, and turned
to pull her into his arms. “Yeah,” he breathed, nuzzling her
throat.

The things he could do with his mouth.
“Omigod—I mean, do that again.”

Keegan swelled against her, surely not too
traumatized to show her how much he appreciated her.

“That’s it,” he growled, reaching around her
to jerk the shower curtain to the side. “I’m not waiting a minute
longer.”

He pulled her into the shower with him. His
jeans and her pink linen suit were instantly soaked. It was
terrifying. Exhilarating. Liberating. He kissed her ferociously, as
if he were seconds from ripping her clothes off, but her shirt
wouldn’t rip—linen was funny that way—and he ended up leaning his
forehead against hers.

“I’m not very good at this,” he admitted.

She shrugged out of her jacket and pulled the
shirt over her head. “I think I’d be offended if you were.”

He trailed a finger into the cup of her bra
and pushed the wet satin aside. “If this is a dream, Jesus—don’t
wake me.”

She pinched him instead. Hard.

Keegan slammed back against the wall. “Ouch!
What did you do that for?”

Jen stepped out of her panties and advanced
on him. “Get me down off that pedestal, damn it.”

He pinched her back.

She jumped. “Hey!”

“You still have your bra on,” he said with a
crooked smile.

She matched his look. “Not anymore.” The tiny
scrap of white satin dropped into the water swirling around their
feet.

“Come home with me,” he whispered. “I have a
bed.”

“It was never just sex—”

“No,” he said softly. “It was never just
sex—and, shit!” His hand moved desperately on the wet denim. “I
can’t undo my jeans.

“What is it with you and zippers?” She pushed
his hand aside and dropped to one knee, fingers slicking up his
hard length. “Then again…” She licked her lips. “Let me...”

“God.” Keegan leaned against the wall, eyes
burning. He wanted to ooze down into a little puddle on the floor
of the shower, but the bathroom was about as private as a toilet
stall at IHOP. Not that he cared. He turned off the water behind
him, and opened his arms. Jen walked right into them, no questions
asked.

“Why did you come back, Guinevere?”

“Unfinished business?”

“Yeah,” he breathed. “We’ve got some of
that.”

“The sex was great.”

“It was never just sex.” He cleared his
throat. “This, uh, love thing is pretty hard, isn’t it?”

“I’m...not used to talking about my
feelings.”

“Ditto that. Want to go somewhere?” he tried.
“Maybe...talk?” She looked around the cramped space.

“It depends,” she said.

“On what?”

“On how fast you can get us there,
and—oh!”

Keegan picked her up, throwing her over his
shoulders in a fireman’s hold.

“Omigod,” she cried. “Your shoulder—”

Keegan grabbed a towel, tossed it across her
butt, threw the door open and started down the hall. “I’m better,”
he said. “Really, really better. And if I wasn’t, it wouldn’t
freaking matter. I’ll do anything to get you alone on a bed, a
couch—something horizontal and big enough for the two of us, and I
don’t mean the backseat of my car.”

He stopped halfway down the hall and fumbled
in his pocket for a key-ring. Jen jerked at the towel and tried to
figure out how to cover both her breasts and her butt.

The door opened on a small room and a neatly
made bed. Keegan flipped a switch and a single lamp cast a soft
golden glow over the simple green comforter. He dead-bolted the
lock, then dropped Jen on the bed before following her down.

She looped her arms around his neck. “A
bed?”

Keegan grinned back at her. “A place to
sleep. We don’t always have time to go home.”

“It works.” She nuzzled his neck. “We can
talk up close.”

“Honey, when you do that, talking is the last
thing on my mind.”

The sounds she made as he kissed her were so
sexy he couldn’t get his pants off fast enough. Aww, hell—he
couldn’t get his pants off at all. He pulled at the waistband.
“They’ve shrunk.”

“It could be that you’ve grown,” she offered,
raking her fingers down his chest.

Keegan tried to hold himself very still. He
was so damned tight he was afraid he’d explode just like that, in
his pants, like some kid who couldn’t wait to get it on. He winced
when she pushed him over and back, but it wasn’t a wince of pain.
It was complete and utter joy.

Fuck the pants. He could get new pants.

Jen wrapped her fist around the pull and gave
it an experimental tug. “Keegan?”

He reached down and pulled at his fly, the
muscles in his shoulders straining. The teeth burst apart.

He swept the pillows out of the way and
rolled her beneath him.

“Impressive,” she said, “but I didn’t bring
condoms.”

“Shit!” Keegan was back on his feet so fast
his head spun.

Jen caught his wrist. “If you marry me, we
won’t need condoms.”

His mouth dropped open. Marry? Jen wanted to
marry him? Him?

She frowned at his abrupt silence. “Don’t
look so anxious,” she said. “Surely the thought occurred to you.
I’m not such a bad deal. I can’t cook—only eggs—but we can always
get take-out. And I can learn, right? It can’t be that hard. I have
a cookbook.”

“You want to marry me?”

“Okay,” she said, sitting up and shoving past
him in her hurry to get out the door. To find her clothes and maybe
some dignity. She brushed her hand over her eyes. Damn if she
hadn’t done it again. “So you don’t want to marry me—”

“Of course I want to marry you.”

Jen paused with her hand on the doorknob,
then turned around slowly. “You do?”

Keegan pulled her into his arms and tilted
her chin. “Yes. I do. I want to marry you. I know a justice of the
peace. She can do it now.”

“No,” she said.

He frowned. “No?”

“No.” She arched an eyebrow. “You are so not
getting out of this room without making me scream.”

Keegan smiled, backing her against the door.
“God,” he breathed. “I love you.”

He swung her into his arms and dropped her on
the bed again. When he looked at her like that she felt beautiful.
It was never just sex... he joined her and held her tight, kissing
her with slow, languid kisses.

“I have a hot tub at home,” he said, brushing
the hair out of her eyes. “Want to try it out later?”

Jen slid her arms up around his neck. “You
have a thing for tubs?”

He brushed her lips with his. “I have a thing
for you.”

Four weeks later, Hilo, Hawaii

Connor stared up at the torn aluminum
overhang. Weeds hung from a hole in the gutter and there was kudzu
growing out of the downspout. He'd read somewhere that you could
eat kudzu, but he suspected that given half a chance, the kudzu
would eat him instead.

“How old is this thing?”

“Forties,” said Keegan. He pulled a key from
his pocket and wrestled the lock open.

“Not like that, man—like this.” Connor kicked
the door open and walked into the cavernous hangar. “What a fucking
dump.”

Keegan stepped inside and looked up.
“According to Art, it’s a warehouse.”

Jet noise rattled the walls and startled a
flock of birds into flying the length of the building.

“What the hell was that?” asked Connor. “A
pigeon? We have birds in here?”

Jen joined them and slipped her hand into the
crook of Keegan's arm. “You said you wanted more space.”

Connor walked the length of a gray metal
receiving desk and counted the number of holes in the ceiling.
Pigeons had crapped on everything and turned the walls white. “Not
this kind of space!”

“It’s free,” said Keegan. “And for right now,
we’re broke. Take it, say thanks, and get some contractors in
here.”

He took Jen off to look at the loading dock.
Sunlight hammered the dilapidated building, promising that as humid
as it was now, it was going to get worse.

Quiet, measured steps stopped behind Connor
and he turned to find Jen’s cousin, Tris, in the doorway.

Connor rubbed a thumb over the bandages on
his wrist. “Art send you?”

“I do not run to my uncle’s bidding.”

Tris Stalling had some kind of weird accent
that Connor couldn’t place and the flat, emotionless eyes of a
killer. Yesterday, he'd been in Beijing.

“What are you doing in Hawaii?”

“I leave for Singapore next week. I need
someone in place who will not arouse suspicion.”

“You have internal issues?” Since Connor was
leaving for Singapore first thing in the morning, he suspected his
ticket was the main reason Tris had shown up.

“I suspect internal issues,” corrected the
head of StallingCo's intelligence division.

The sky behind him was a pale, clear blue and
heat waves shimmered over the cracked asphalt. In less than five
minutes the temperature had gone from hot to explosive. The look in
his Stalling-dark eyes told Connor the man knew exactly what was
going down. God save him from ever having Tris Stalling as his
enemy.

He nodded. “Backup?”

Tris folded his arms over his chest. “A local
operative—Jacey Chang.”

Thank you for reading
Hot Contract.
If you enjoyed the world of DalCon and
StallingCo, and would like to receive a free copy of Connor’s
story—
Kill Velocity
—simply send an email
to jodihenley @ gmail.com with a link to your posted review of
Hot Contract
.

In October, I’ll send you a coupon code.

Visit me at jodihenley.blogspot.com

Other Books by Jodi Henley

The Taming of Lady Honoria
(regency erotica)

Bound Desire
(paranormal m/m)