Pulling my fingers out, I grab my cock and rub the head up her seam, making her shudder and dig her nails into my back. I nudge between her folds and slowly push into her.

She gasps in my mouth, lifts herself up to accommodate me—and I grab her other leg and lift her up, sliding deep inside of her.

And like that, I turn and carry her out of the shower stall.

“Oh God. Storm…” She’s wiggling on my cock, and her pussy squeezes maddeningly around it, trying to milk it, driving me crazy.

“Keep still,” I growl, stepping out of the bathroom and crossing over to the sofa. I lower us both and the moment my knees hit the cushions, I push deeper into her. “Fuck…”

Somewhere here lies my jacket, with my wallet, with a condom inside, and I have to get it. I’m riding a damn fine edge and my control is crumbling. I won’t be able to pull out of her in time when I come, I know it. Not only that, but I want to come inside of her, and I wish I could forget about the condom. I wish there was no barrier between us.

No secrets.

Dammit.

I reach out blindly for my jacket, and it slides to the floor, heavy with all the things I stuffed in its pockets—the gun, the cell phone, and the envelope from the lawyers’ office. Cursing, I hunt after it, and the angle of penetration shifts. She moans, squeezing around me. White noise fills my ears.

Fuck. Can’t. Oh holy fucking shit…

Pleasure licks the back of my spine, spreading between my legs, burning through my balls and dick. My body shakes as I start coming with the force of a howling gale. I grab my dick and struggle to pull out of her, teeth gritting so hard it feels like the enamel is cracking.

I barely make it, grunting as I finally find my release, dick jerking in my hand, splashing her tits and belly.

Damn, this keeps happening. She’s just too sexy. Keeping my self-control around her is impossible. Fuck, I have to convince her to get on the pill, so I can stay inside her, feel her as I come.

Then I remember this won’t last—this me-and-her thing—and sit back, on my heels, suddenly exhausted.

“Hey…” She’s sitting up, too, her face creased with worry. “You okay?”

I shake my head. This is fucked up, I’m still half-hard, and shit, I still want her.

Will always want her.

Wincing at the way my thoughts are again heading, I bend and grab my damn jacket, fish my wallet out and find the condom. The gun slips out, landing on the cushions. I lower it to the floor, shove it under the sofa.

She giggles when I lift the small foil, and my mouth twitches. “That why we hiked here from the shower?”

“I hiked. You hitched a hike.” My grin widens. “On my cock.”

“What if I want to hitch one more?”

My breath catches. A memory of her riding me back at the beach house turns my dick into an iron rod. Like a randy teenager, goddammit. That’s how my body reacts around her.

I could go down on her, eat up her pussy until she comes all over my face and, yeah, my dick grows harder, heavier at the image.

But she has other plans. Still dripping with my release, she gets on her knees and pushes me down, then grabs the foil from my hand and tears it open.

We should be talking. In fact, I should be, tearing down that last barrier that’s bothering me so much, but hiding with her, in her, for a while longer feels so good.

Feels like the only way to keep from going off the deep end.

She pulls the condom on my rock-hard cock. She then gives me a faint smile—sexy, slightly uncertain, beautiful—and lowers herself on me.

My eyes roll back in my head when she ripples around me. She’s close to her own release, clenching around me, and I lock a hand around her neck and pull her face down to mine.

God, I love it when she rides me. No idea why it turns me on so much.

“Move, baby.” I suck her lower lip between my teeth, plump, swollen from our kissing, lick in her mouth. “Come for me.”

Her eyes fall closed, her hips roll in small circles, her breath comes in soft pants. I put my other hand over her breast and squeeze, flick my thumb over her nipple, then pinch it as I bite lightly on her lip. I know now what makes her tick. Like me, she likes a little pain mixed in with the pleasure.

There. Fuck, yeah. I tug on her nipple, slide my tongue over hers, jerk my hips up, and she convulses with a cry, her passage massaging my cock as she comes apart.

Sweet, but oh shit, her pussy is corkscrewing around my cock, and the sounds she’s making… I hiss, my balls tightening, hardening, the pressure behind them skyrocketing. I pull my mouth from hers to breathe and her flushed face and reddened lips push me over the edge.

Fucking hell. So soon on the heels of coming hard, the coiling behind my balls is pure torture, a razor-thin line between pleasure and pain.

Then pleasure wins out, and I shout her name as I spill inside her heat, bathing my cock inside the condom.

Ow. Fuck. Too much. Holding on to her, I lock my jaw to keep from yelling again as another spasm goes through me, sweet, sharp pleasure turning my insides to jelly. My heart is hammering fit to burst through my chest. As it starts to slow, my shaking limbs relax and my lids turn heavy. I’m sinking into the sofa cushions, sinking into sleep.

“Love you, Ray,” I mumble before I’m dragged under, into swirling darkness.

***

“Storm.” A hand on my shoulder, squeezing. “Wake up.”

I blink crusty eyes at the blindingly white hotel suite. “Wha?”

A rustle, then Raylin’s face appears over me. So achingly beautiful.

I reach for her, to draw her down into a kiss, my body stirring already, but she puts her hand over my mouth.

“Shh.”

I lick her palm. Salty with a hint of sugar. She flinches, and I grin.

“What’s up?” I rasp. Because something is definitely much up—my dick, digging into her leg where she straddles my waist.

“I thought I heard something.”

That wakes me up all the way. “Where?”

She tilts her head to the side, that shiny dark hair draping over us. “Outside.”

With a curse I sit up. “On the balcony?”

“No. I don’t know.”

A lamp is on in the corner, otherwise the suite is in darkness. “Stay here,” I order her. “And stay down.”

“But I—”

“Ray, stay down. Please.”

She snaps her mouth shut and gives a mutinous little nod as she slides off me. “What do you think it was?”

“No clue.”

But with my luck, nothing innocuous and innocent. Better safe than sorry, though, so I crawl on the floor until I reach the lamp and flick the switch off.

Yeah, this is better.

Despite the height of the building, the lights of the city center illuminate the room enough for me to see her lying on the sofa, made of pale curves and dark valleys, those deep eyes staring back at me.

Getting up, I make my way to the balcony doors, keeping my back to the wall. I glance outside.

The balcony is empty except for a table and four chairs. White, of course. A potted plant stands in one corner. No space for anyone to hide behind it.

“So what was it?” she whispers as I return to the sofa.

“Don’t know. A bird, I guess? Could be a crow digging in the plant pot.”

“A crow?” I hear laughter in her voice. “You mean it’s raining crows? Raining in Baltimore.” She hums. “You know. Raining in Baltimore, by Counting Crows.”

“You’re so funny.” I grin at her.

“I know.” She sighs. “Can we talk now? Can you tell me your secret?”

My grin fades as I sit down and pull her to my side. “Yeah.” I push a strand out of her face. “Sure.”

Keeping my voice light, neutral. As if it’s easy for me to talk about this, about a secret that moves in my nightmares like a living thing. Tell her a story only two people in the world know—one of them lying in the hospital, the other risking his neck for me, for our friendship, with the Chinese mafia.