Zero Day Exploit (Bayou’s End #1.5) (13 page)

He let his hand fall. “Do what?”

“You know what.”

“Enlighten me.”

“You’re…you’re doing that
thing
again.”

With every word her blush stained deeper into her skin, like watching the sun set over dark earth. Her eyes flicked over him, until he felt as if she touched him with every look. His lips. His hands. His throat. Her breath came faster, ringing loud in the stillness between them. Hard peaks stood out against her shirt, thrusting against the sateen, nearly demanding that he sate his hunger by taking her flesh into his mouth until she gasped for him.

She wasn’t looking at him as if she hated him. She was looking at him as if she
craved
him, and if he didn’t find some voice of reason soon he was going to do something very, very reckless.

“All I’m doing is standing here,” he murmured. “But that seems to be having an effect on you.”

“It’s not.” She shook her head fiercely, sending her hair dancing about her shoulders. “It’s not having an effect on me.
You
don’t have an effect on me.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You’d better.”

“Perhaps.” He closed the last distance between them with a single step. She backed away until her shoulders hit the outer wall of the changing room and she froze, staring up at him. He caught a lock of her hair and twined it around his fingertip. “But I don’t think I’m the one lying this time.”

Her breath fluttered swifter, like a captured bird’s. She reached up to rest her hands to his chest, and for a moment he thought she would shove him, but she only curled her fingers against his shirt. “Evan…”

He couldn’t kiss her. He
couldn’t
. Every instinct told him that flicker in her eyes was desire, hot and needy, smoky invitation—but there was that part of him that said it was doubt. Fear. Fear of
him
. And he had to listen to that part, not the raging heat in his body, not the cracked place inside him that needed her to fill the spaces he’d left empty for so very long.

Yet his hands moved of their own volition, curling around her waist, so tiny he thought he would crush her if he gripped too tight. He pulled her against him, the plush softness of her molding against his body, the heat of her melting him. He felt drugged, possessed, unable to stop himself when that little heated sound in her throat beckoned him and his breaths came so ragged they felt like claws scraping down into his lungs.

Control.
Control
. They were in public. He swallowed, wetting his dry mouth, and looked down into those wide eyes that both made him want to be a better man and made him hunger to become the devil. He couldn’t fuck this up, couldn’t betray her trust again. “I won’t do anything without your permission, Z,” he said raggedly. “Eyes open this time. No lies. I don’t want to be the mistake you regret in the morning. Not again.” His pulse thumped so hard he thought he would explode. He forced his fingers to loosen, relaxed his grip, gave her room to slip away. “Tell me no. I’m a horrible man, and I’m only going to hurt you.
Tell me no
.”

Tell me no before I make you hate me even more. Tell me no before I fall too hard, too fast, and break when I hit rock bottom.

She should have pushed him away. He
wanted
her to push him away, silently prayed she wouldn’t—and nearly buckled at the knees when she curled her soft, slender hands against the back of his neck, pulled him down, and kissed him.

Evan groaned, leaning into her and slanting his mouth hard against hers, fitting their mouths together in a perfect lock of heated contact, drinking in her low gasps and those damnable
sounds
she kept making that made him feel like a very, very bad man for wanting to hear them again. And he did—God did he, struggling to breathe as he nipped and teased and stroked just to savor the way her sensuously full mouth gave against his, just to feel her fire as she bit him back with sweet wild taunts of stinging pain, just to know pure pleasure as she trembled against him and dug her nails in sharp little crescents against the nape of his neck.

This—this was fucking crazy. This was everything he’d told himself he wouldn’t do with her again, but she pulled on him something fierce and he couldn’t bear to be near her without wanting to touch her, kiss her,
need
her, show her with his lips and hands and body what she did to him when he failed every time he tried to show her with words.

Holding her was like trying to hold pure fire. They were too wild for this place—too wild for bored-looking mannequins and jacquard dresses and piped-in muzak over tinny department-store speakers—but he couldn’t wait. Not when she was willing and fierce in his arms, and kissed him like she needed every taste of him to survive. His lips ached, burning with her ferocity. He leaned into her, guiding her along the wall of the changing room until he found the door and nearly ripped it open. They fell inside, stumbling and slamming up against the wall, holding each other up with grasping hands and tangled bodies. He kicked the door shut, then snared up handfuls of that fucking
jacket
and dragged it down her arms to fling it away. He’d put her in the clothes, and now he goddamned well wanted her
out
of them.

The sweet slope of her throat begged to be tasted. Bitten.
Marked
, as if he could leave his claim and call her his. He closed his mouth over her pulse, and nearly lost his footing as the taste of her, the fragile flicker of her racing heartbeat against his tongue, dug bright needles of desire under his skin and tugged at the strings holding him up.

She keened softly, arching up against him, her fingers skimming over the back of his neck and leaving chills in their wake. “Evan…” She trailed off into a little moan, her eyes drifting closed. “Evan, not in here!”

With a groan, he pulled away from the sweet taste of her skin. “Why not?”

“It’s a fitting room!” she hissed, darting a furtive glance toward the door. “There are people outside! They might—”

She broke off with a gasp as he dipped to catch the firm peak of her nipple through her shirt, through her bra. Its hardness thrust against the fabric, roused against his tongue, and he traced its shape through the cloth before pulling the blouse aside hard enough to pop the buttons loose. Her breast spilled into his palm, searing to the touch, heavy. He dragged the lace cup of her bra down and sank his fingers into the soft flesh, shuddering at the delicious sensation of that fullness yielding under his touch. But when he bent his mouth to taste her, when he took her bared nipple past his lips to flick his tongue over it and roll its delectable hardness against his tongue, she gave him what he’d been aching for ever since the first time he’d touched her.

“Evan!” she gasped, breathy and rough, her body twisting against the wall, her lips parted and glistening so enticingly wet.

“I love when you say my name that way.” He grazed his thumb against the wet peak of her nipple, savoring the little catch of her breath. “Again.”

She shook her head with a desperate little whimper. “I can’t…”

“
Again
,” he growled, and dragged the hem of her skirt up, bunching it over her hips. Pale lace curved over her skin, and he gave in to that desperate, itching need to
touch
, making his hands burn for lack of contact. He slid his hand over her stomach, over the rumple of the skirt, then cupped her heat in his palm and stroked his middle finger against the warm wetness darkening the panties—sliding deeper on each stroke,
deeper
, until the fabric creased into soft folds and her warmth enveloped his finger with every slick glide. Velvet flesh gripped, burning hot and lusciously wet. She strained, gasping, lifting herself against him.

“Oh, God!” There was something painfully sexy about watching her struggle not to cry out, caging those little sounds in her throat, rolling her head back against the wall with her caramel skin flushed a lovely rose and her eyes nothing more than glittering, lost slits past the dark fringe of her lashes. “Evan…
Evan!
”

Why did he need that so much? Why did he care for the sound of his name on her lips? It poured over him until his blood pounded, throbbing so hot and so loud he could hardly hear anything else. He wanted her. He
needed
her. And he cursed having to pull so much as one finger away from her to dig out the condom he kept in his wallet, nearly fucking dropping it when he tried to rip it open with shaking fingers.

Her eyes slipped open, nearly burning underneath the shadow of her lashes, fixing on him. He’d never seen anything more beautiful than this woman leaning disheveled against the wall, her chest heaving, her hair a wild tumble, her lips swollen from his kiss and her clothing spilled every which way. He’d thought she would stop him. Thought she would come to her senses, God, how could she
not?
How could she not see how terrible he was for wanting her even now, when he had no right? He didn’t have the willpower, where she was concerned. Didn’t have the strength to do what was right. He needed her to say
no
, so he wouldn’t hate himself tomorrow.

But he needed even more that soft whisper of “Evan” that spilled past her lips as she curled her fingers in his coat, dragged him close, and kissed him once more.

The world fell away, leaving only the softness of her lips, the heat of her body. His hands moved on auto-pilot, tearing his jeans open, sliding the condom on, only half-aware he was even doing it when the taste of her drowned him. He delved deep, stealing the sounds from her lips, sharing her every breath, until all was quiet between them—this secret moment, stolen in the midst of the bustle and cry of a busy city, a crowded department store. None of that mattered. All that mattered was her arms around his neck, her lips parting for his, her fingers clutching at his back as he tugged her panties aside and fitted himself to her waiting heat.

And the way she arched her hips when he slid into her, driving slow and deep, made him feel as if he could spend his entire life never needing anything else.

Molten heat glided over him one shuddering inch at a time, drawing him deep, so deep. Her lips went slack against his; her head fell back against the wall, and he devoured that lost, blissful expression on her face as he brought them fully together. His breath burned in his chest, his body aching,
hurting
with the taut-straining pleasure of this. The firestorm of urgency that had filled him slowed and became lava in his blood, deep-burning and patient in its endless heat.

He moved to the rhythm of their breaths, flowed to the surge of her body rolling against his, lost himself in the sweet liquid inferno of her as mad hot friction poured over him with every stroke, until he could
taste
his pleasure on each rushing exhalation. Over and over he fell into her, consumed with every deep thrust that felt like diving into an endless sea of desire, plunging so far he could drown in this obsession—and yet he never wanted to come up for air. She was all he needed to breathe, and as her voice rose in soft, breathy cries he captured her lips and trapped this secret, this forbidden moment, for them and them alone.

Her soft hands printed themselves on him, leaving her mark on his flesh, on his soul. And when she tensed against him, tightened around him, trembling with the silent intensity of the shudders that had rolled through her in gripping waves…he crumbled. His foundations became dust, everything he had built his life upon eroding, leaving him falling with no way to hold himself up. No way but her—and he forgot how to breathe as he let those deep contractions pull him in and drag him down and take him over. Pleasure found him with biting teeth, with a straining surge, and as everything inside him
snapped
and unraveled, he whispered her name against her gasping lips.

Whispered her name, and despaired—for how had he fallen this hard, this fast, for a woman who despised everything he stood for?

S
HE’D DONE IT AGAIN
.

Zero leaned against the wall, fighting for breath. Fighting for
sense
. Fighting not to scream when the moment she made a sound louder than a whisper, she’d discover the Wrath of the Perky Retail Clerk.

Maybe if she kept her eyes closed, she could pretend she hadn’t been this stupid again. She could pretend it was some other man still buried hot inside her and leaving her throbbing with that wonderful melting soreness she loved to hold on to in the moments after. It spread through her body until she went limp, simmering with a lingering warmth that she didn’t want to associate with Evan. He was a
liar
. A liar, a manipulative asshole, a fucking bastard.

And he’d touched her like she was a goddess, and loved her with an angel’s reverent heat.

She’d never felt anything like it. She’d expected wildness and brutality and hard rough desperation. Not that slow, searing intensity that had caught her in its coils, squeezed her tight, made her forget where she was. Made her forget everything except the sure grip of his hands, the taste of his kiss, the feeling of something
more
in the way he touched her, as if he was trying to tell her something he didn’t have the words to say. It had left her heart aching and her body weak—and she would be a damned fool to believe any of it.

“Zoraya?” Rough fingers buried in her hair with a touch far too tender for a man so large. For a
liar
, she reminded herself. This had to all be part of his act.

Didn’t it?

“Zoraya,” he repeated, and she tried to tell herself she was imagining the concern in his voice. “Are you all right?”

She opened her eyes. Pale green filled her vision, dark with satiation, flicking over her face with sharp little worried glances.

It was a lot harder to hate him when he looked at her that way.

“Get off me.” She pushed at him—only to suck in her breath when he shifted inside her, probing at her most sensitive depths, shrill in the wake of what he’d done to her. He closed his eyes, but not before she caught a flicker of hurt.

“Hold still,” he said through grit teeth, then gripped her hips and pulled out, smooth and swift and leaving her struggling not to cry out.