The Masseuse (31 page)

Maybe we can finish our business back at the station,
Terry had said.
Eight a.m. sounds like a good time.

“No,” I repeated. I shoved off his lap and stood. Sure I was naked, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t ready to take on the entire FBI. “Tell them it’s not an option. You’re free now. You’re mine now.”

“Anna.” He swung his legs off the bed. “I’m yours regardless.”

From the look in his eyes, he’d already accepted his fate. And though I fought it, I knew it was a losing battle.

“Let’s run away,” I said. “Canada. Or maybe Mexico. I’ve never been to Mexico.”

He smiled. “If it’s possible, I think I love you even more for saying that.”

“I mean it.”

“I know.” He reached for my hands, drew me closer. I sat on his lap, and with his fingertips skimming down my spine, I slouched and let the gravity of the situation weigh me down.

“I know it’s not fair to ask you to wait,” he started, but I cut him off.

“Shut up,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I’d never felt such a strong urge to stay in one place as I did with his arms around me. Right then, I knew that my days of moving on were over.

He chuckled. “I don’t deserve you.”

“You’re right,” I grumbled. His hand slipped between my knees and began its slow ascent up my inner thighs. I could feel his cock stiffen against my hip, and I couldn’t help but soften.

“You could stay at my place if you wanted,” he said. My breath caught as his thumb reached my center and teased a slow line up to my clit.

“I’ve got a place,” I said, but the butterflies had already begun to come alive in my belly. My head tilted back, giving him easier access to my neck, where he licked a slow, sensual line to my jaw.

“It’s a wreck,” he said. “And your landlord blew it when he gave away your security code.” I reached between us, rubbing my thumb over the swollen head of his penis. He instantly became rock hard.

“You could put up some things,” he said, his voice more strained. “Some of your things.”

“Are you asking me to move in, Alec?” I asked.

He caught my earlobe in his teeth. “Take it easy. I just wanted to know if you’d house-sit.”

I elbowed him in the ribs and pushed him onto his back. Crawling over him, I ran my nails up his chest and grabbed his steel-hard cock with both hands.

“What are you doing to me?” he asked quietly.

“I’d think that was obvious,” I said.

I was giving him something to remember.

I
was rolling up my yoga mat in Alec’s apartment when my cell phone buzzed. It was a text from Amy, telling me to turn on the news immediately.

I did as she said, falling back on the leather couch. As I found the channel, my bare feet rubbed along the soft cushions. I was going to make love to Alec on this couch when he got out. He would be sitting, and I would straddle him. Dig my knees into his hips as I rode the hard, satin length of his cock.

It was one of the many plans I’d been concocting since he’d been shipped away to a white-collar prison in Pennsylvania two weeks ago.

Feeling the pang in my chest that came whenever I thought of him—which was constantly, now that I was staying here—I chewed my nails, but froze when a familiar face appeared in the left corner of the screen.

Maxim Stein.

I had to say, he looked like shit in orange. The prison uniform did nothing to complement his smooth, perfect hair or his dark, calculating eyes. Too bad for him.

The reporter said he was going away for about a million years once all the conspiracy and corporate espionage charges were added up. There was new information coming to the table, too; apparently his nephew Robert, also in custody, had confessed that Max had ordered the death of Ms. Charlotte MacAfee, the former president of Green Fusion.

I wished more than anything that Alec could have seen this.

But he would know soon enough. I knew the district attorney was still using him as a key witness in the case, and besides that, I was going to write him a long letter about it. Just as soon as I found some paper that didn’t have a take-out menu printed on one side.

As I rose and made my way to the balcony window, I again made a mental count of the days until he’d be out. Ten weeks seemed like a long time, but Derrick had agreed to take me back at the salon. And I was always welcome at Amy’s after work. I still had to move the bulk of my things into a little place I’d found on Westshore Boulevard; I wasn’t ready to completely invade Alec’s life, even if I was spending most of my nights here. And besides that, my dad was making another trip out to check on me next weekend. I was going to be busy.

That didn’t mean I didn’t miss Alec like crazy.

I leaned back against the window and smiled, imagining him on the other side watching me.

He’d better be ready to rock when he got home.