Betrayed

Chapter 16

Elena had never thought about seducing a man. She wasn’t even sure of her moves. But she knew that Shane wanted her, even if he wasn’t prepared to admit it. She also knew he felt protective of her, which was probably part of the conflict he must be feeling.

Before he could come up with another objection, she cupped the back of his head with her hands and brought his face down as she raised her own head toward him.

She hadn’t been sure what would happen. Or perhaps she’d been afraid that he’d wrench himself away from her. But the danger must have affected his emotions as well as her own. When their lips met, it was as though someone had tossed a match into a pile of gasoline-soaked kindling. Invisible flames rose as heat flared between them.

She heard him growl her name and felt him gather her closer as he kissed her with purpose, running his hands up and down her back.

The heat coming off him made her dizzy. She should be afraid, but she kept kissing him, letting him feel all the passion that she’d held inside herself for so long.

Opening her lips, she invited him to explore her mouth, then did the same with him, absorbing his taste and the way the mouth-to-mouth contact sent shock waves to every part of her body.

His hands slid down her back, cupping her bottom, pulling her against him so that she could feel a hard shaft pressing against her middle. When she realized what it was, her breath caught.

He must have wanted her to understand where they were headed. When he caught her reaction to his arousal, he dropped his hands and lifted his head, looking down at her with a mixture of smoldering passion and icy control.

“You know that you’re playing with fire?” he asked.

“I know what I want.”

“You want that inside you?” he asked, and she knew he was trying to end this encounter by making her aware of reality.

Her mouth had turned so dry that she could hardly speak, but she managed to say, “Yes.”

“Then take off your clothes.”

Again, a dose of reality. Was she ready to get undressed in front of him? Or was she going to back away—the way he hoped she would.

She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of scaring her off. Not because she was trying to score any points, but because what she wanted hadn’t changed, even if he was trying to make her take a step back.

She did step back, but only a few feet. She kept her gaze on him as she reached for the hem of the T-shirt and pulled it over her head, then let it drop on the floor so that she stood before him naked to the waist, her nipples puckered and her eyes defiantly on his.

When she started to slick down the sweatpants, he made a sound low in his throat and reached for her, folding her close and rocking her in his arms, his naked chest against her breasts.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

“I understand.”

“You understand what?”

“That you want me, but you think that making love with me is wrong, so you were trying to…scare me off by acting…tough.”

He answered with a low laugh. “Yeah.”

“I’m not going to back off.”

“And you think we’re safe here?”

“You think so.”

When he started to say something else, she raised her face again and brought her lips to his once more, trying to tell him with the kiss that this was the right thing to do.

They swayed together in the center of the room, both of them unsteady on their feet, maybe from the gentle rocking of the boat.

He scooped her up in his arms, carried her to the bed, and stood looking down at her before joining her on the horizontal surface.

She pressed her face to his shoulder and opened her lips, wanting to taste him.

“Weren’t you taught that nice girls don’t end up in bed with a man unless they’re married to him?” he asked in a gruff voice.

She’d been thinking that same thing earlier. Now she said, “Nice girls don’t steal secrets from the company where they work.”

“You didn’t steal from the company.”

“That’s a technicality. And it was the wrong thing to say, anyway. I want to think about how you’re making me feel, not what I did at S&D.”

“How am I making you feel?”

She considered the answer. “Like all my nerve endings are on fire. Like I want more, but I don’t exactly know how to ask for what I want.” She swallowed. “Or maybe I do.”

Shocked by her own boldness, she reached for one of his hands and placed it over her breast.

The light pressure against her taut nipple made her breath catch. It caught again when he began to move his hand, cupping her roundness and stroking against the puckered peak.

No one had ever touched her like that, and she wasn’t prepared for how wonderful it felt or for the dart of heat that shot downward through her body and found her center.

“Oh.”

He rolled toward her, using both hands now, inscribing circles around her taut nipples, drawing closer and closer to their edges, making her tingle with anticipation. As he did it, he watched her face, and the intimacy was almost more than she could bear. She might have turned her face away, but this was Shane touching her, and she wanted to focus on the man as well as the sensations.

The effect on her was incredible, and when he took her nipples between his thumbs and fingers, tugging and twisting gently, the heat ratcheted up beyond imagining.

She kept her gaze on him as he lifted one hand, stroking the hair back from her face before lowering his head, taking one distended nipple in his mouth, and sucking on her as he continued to play with its mate.

She could barely catch her breath as the incredible arousal spread through her. Then he slipped his hand inside the waistband of her sweatpants, stroking downward through the triangle of dark hair at the juncture of her legs and into the folds of her most intimate flesh.

She had dreamed of him touching her there, but the reality almost took her breath away as his hand traveled a sure path to her vagina. He dipped inside and circled with his finger. When he brought it up again to her clit, she involuntarily rocked her hips.

Her eyes had closed, and she heard him whisper in her ear, “Look at me.”

When she did, he asked, “Are you sure this is what you want to do?”

“Can’t you tell?” she asked in a shaky voice.

“I want to hear you say it.”

“I want to make love with you.”

“Even though you’ve never done it before?”

She felt her face heat. “How do you know?”

“I can tell. Answer me.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“You’re asking too many questions.”

“I’m trying to make sure I’m not taking advantage of you.”

Long ago, she’d heard her brother talking with his friends. Using their whispered conversation as a guide, she reached out and cupped her hand over the rigid flesh at the front of Shane’s pants.

He sucked in a sharp breath as she pressed her palm against him, then grasped him through the knit fabric.

With a muttered curse, he raised over her and tugged her sweatpants down and off, before doing the same with his.

Then he reached for her, folding her close and pressing his body to hers. She thought he would plunge inside her then. Instead, he moved against her, stroking her with his penis the way he had stroked her with his hand, increasing her arousal to a point where she knew she was going to fly into a million pieces.

Orgasm grabbed her, rocked through her. And as she felt herself coming back to earth, he changed the angle of his body, thrusting inside her.

There was a moment of pain, but it was over quickly. She clung to him, feeling his strong thrusts before he went rigid above her, calling out as he joined her in ecstasy.

He was still for several long seconds, then rolled to the side, taking her with him.

She nestled against him, hardly able to believe what they had done.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Better than all right.”

“Did I hurt you?”

“Only a little,” she whispered. She was thinking that he had known exactly what he was doing. But she kept the words locked behind her lips.

He held her, stroking back her dark hair and trailing his lips against her cheek, and she loved this part, too. The part that came after making love. She drifted on her feeling of contentment for a few more minutes, until she felt him ease away. “You should sleep.”

“What about you?”

“I should keep watch.”

“I thought you set up an alarm.”

“Yeah, but I want to make sure nobody sneaks up on the boat.”

She wanted to keep him with her, but he climbed out of bed, and she felt a sudden chill as the warmth of his body left her.

“You should put your clothes on,” he said. “In case we have to make a quick getaway.”

She nodded, thinking that making love with him had been glorious. Beyond anything she could have imagined. He’d made her forget about the bad guys who were after them and about her brother. He’d made her forget about everything but the two of them making love. Now he was back to business. And maybe that was the right thing to do, from his point of view. Or was he trying to distance himself from her? Not only physical distance but emotional distance. Or maybe he really was concerned about keeping watch.

When he turned away to pull on his sweatpants, she picked her borrowed clothing up from the floor and pulled on the T-shirt before the sweatpants.

Then she walked stiffly out of the room and down the hall to the small bathroom.

Jerome Weller waited for news from the team that had gone out to take care of Gallagher and Reyes. He wanted Gallagher dead, especially after the confrontation at his apartment. But he needed Reyes alive because he had to find out what she’d done with the information from S&D. Of course, that left plenty of room for screwups.

When the phone finally rang, he looked at the caller ID, then snatched up the receiver. “Did you get them?”

There was a hesitation on the other end of the line.

“Jesus Christ. Spit it out.”

“They got away.”

“How?”

He listened to a jumbled account of how they’d taken a boat and then faked out the pursuers.

“So they could have swum to safety.”

“Or they could have drowned,” his man said.

Jerome managed to hold back a string of curses. “Are you looking for them?”

“Not a good idea,” the man said.

“And why is that?” he asked in a dangerously quiet voice.

“In the first place, that firefight and the explosive charges he set off brought the cops running. If we’re on the road tonight, we could get caught. And it’s worse along the river. We’d have to dock and check out every estate. And that makes it likely someone would see us.”

Much as he hated to admit it, Jerome had to agree. All they needed was police involvement.

“Stay in the area and lie low until it looks like things have calmed down,” he said.

“Will do.”

Feeling torn in two, Shane watched Elena walk out of the room, presumably heading for the bathroom. He wanted to jump up and pull her close. He wanted to stroke her and kiss her and tell her she was the best thing that had happened to him in eons. And at the same time, he felt as though he was doing the right thing by backing off. Or repairing a mistake. She’d deliberately seduced him, and he’d let her do it because, under the circumstances, his defenses were down. Dammit.

He’d been attracted to her since the moment he’d set eyes on her, but he’d told himself that a personal relationship with her was off limits while he was working for S&D. Then he’d practically pulled every trick he could think of to make sure he was going to do the wrong thing. Now she was probably thinking that he was sorry that they’d made love. And he was confused enough to wonder if he was.

After stepping into the bathroom, Elena looked over her shoulder to make sure Shane hadn’t followed her down the hall. She still had to leave the door open to see what she was doing, but when she was sure she was alone, she took off her pants again and used a wad of toilet tissue to wash herself off, seeing the mixture of blood and sticky liquid. Proof that the scene between them hadn’t been another dream.

She flushed the evidence, then put her pants back on. She knew he’d be watching her when she came back to the bedroom. Truly, it would be easier to walk off the boat and disappear into the night. But she knew that wasn’t a good idea. And she knew she couldn’t let her insecurities drive her.

Shane had wanted her. He’d taken good care of her when they made love. But now he was probably having second thoughts. She’d just have to prove to him that he hadn’t made a mistake.

With that in mind, she walked slowly down the hall and into the bedroom. Her gaze went to the bed. Of course Shane wasn’t there. He was sitting in the corner, cradling his gun in his lap. She wanted to go to him and hug him, but his posture kept her on the other side of the room.

A few minutes ago, he’d asked her if she was okay, and she’d said, “Better than all right.”

He’d made wonderful love to her, but as she looked at him, she was surer than ever that he was thinking he’d made a mistake by giving in to temptation.

Maybe she should silently climb into bed and pretend that she could sleep. Instead, she stayed where she was.

“Are you angry with me?” she asked, her own voice startling her in the silence of the room.

He sat up straighter. “Of course not.”

She wondered if it was an automatic response.

“Then what?”

“Like I said, I have to keep watch.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I don’t want them to get their hands on you.”

She answered with a tight nod. She stood where she was for a few more moments, then lay down and closed her eyes enough so that she could peer out from behind the screen of her lashes, watching Shane’s granite profile and wishing she knew what he was truly thinking.

He didn’t move, and finally she really did close her eyes, knowing it would be better if she got some sleep, since she had no idea what they would be facing in the morning. Somehow she managed to drift off, but her slumber was marred by dreams of her brother. Men were chasing him, catching him, doing things to him that made her gasp.

And it was all her fault.

She struggled toward consciousness and woke in the gray light that gathers before the sun comes up. Everything that had happened the day before came back to her in a rush. The good and the bad.

Making love with Shane had been more than she could have imagined. Then he had turned away from her, and she’d felt as though a piece of herself had been torn away.

She glanced over at him. He was sleeping in his chair, his gun still in his lap. She wanted to go to him. But she’d woken up feeling like she’d stabbed her brother in the back. She was praying that he was all right, but she had to know. She was sure Shane wouldn’t want her to call Alesandro. But she had to do it if she could.

Could she sneak out of the boat and get back before Shane woke up?

She had to try.