Sebring

  Because she was Olivia, a top, and mounted over her watching her drop her head and take his cock, he wanted her cowed.

  He rolled so she was off him, her back to the bed, him pressed down her side.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  She again didn’t sound offended.

  But she did sound surprised.

  “Told you, wiped. Gettin’ some shuteye. You are too. We wake up, room service breakfast and Sunday morning fucking until checkout.”

  “Sebring—”

  “Go to sleep, Olivia.”

  “Se—”

  He found her mouth and kissed her hard.

  It shut her up.

  She also melted into him and kissed him hard back.

  He broke it, tucked her face in his throat and repeated his order. “Go to sleep.”

  “You’re leaking out of me.”

  Fuck.

  That reminded him of something.

  With no talk until now, the conversation hadn’t been had.

  It had to be had.

  “You on the Pill?” he asked quietly.

  “Obviously,” she replied matter-of-factly. “Are you clean?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. Condoms are a nuisance,” she murmured.

  Jesus.

  This woman.

  “You clean?” he asked.

  Now she sounded offended.

  “Of course.”

  That was when he smiled as he muttered, “Right.”

  Even more offended, she snapped, “I am.”

  “I believe you.”

  “You said ‘right,’ like you didn’t.”

  “I said ‘right,’ like, okay. Right. You’re clean. You’re on the Pill. Topic done. I can fuck you and come inside you and all’s good.”

  “Right.” Now she sounded like she didn’t believe him.

  His body was shaking as was the bed when he wrapped her tight in his arms and heard his humor when he noted, “Now you’re full of shit.”

  “Whatever,” she muttered.

  “You gonna go clean me from you or are we gonna argue about who’s bein’ sarcastic and who isn’t?” he asked.

  “I’m going home,” she told him.

  Shit, he had to get her past this. If he didn’t get in there, and not just in her cunt, he’d never earn her trust and get what he needed from her.

  His arms tightened further. “Are we gonna fuck tomorrow night?”

  “Yes. At the club, if we can reserve a salon. If not, it’s back here.”

  “Can you explain why we can’t pass out here and fuck in the morning and again at the club tomorrow night while we hopefully watch a bottom submit knowin’ you want to try that with me but talkin’ shit because you wanna convince me you like top?”

  “I—” she began to make some lame excuse.

  Fuck, he was wiped.

  Which meant he was done.

  “Clean up and come back to bed, Olivia,” he said on a sigh, loosening his arms.

  “Not good with orders, Sebring.”

  “Don’t give a fuck, Olivia.”

  She didn’t move.

  He did, this being a hand to her ass, giving it a smack.

  Her body jumped before she went solid in his arms.

  “You just smacked my ass,” she announced haughtily.

  Total princess.

  He liked it.

  Fuck.

  “Seein’ as it was me who did it, I already know that,” he pointed out.

  “Well, what you might not know is that I’m not fond of sarcasm or men who are smartasses or, and this one especially, men who smack women’s asses,” she informed him.

  He tightened his arms around her again, rolled to his back, taking her with him, and when they were in position, he said to the ceiling, “Fuck. If she keeps yappin’, not gonna be able to break her in easy ’cause I’m gonna have to gag her to shut her up, tie her to bed to control her, and she’s gorgeous with a great body. Seein’ her like that for me is gonna make me wanna play with her ’til she submits and I’m never gonna get any shuteye.”

  “If you let me go and stop chatting with the ceiling, I can clean up, come back and you can get some shuteye.”

  He let her go instantly but did it with a smile, a smile that came even if he was not at all happy at the same time he felt a warm hit his gut at learning she could make a joke.

  She scrambled off him.

  It had been happening.

  She was hot when they were fucking.

  Cute when she was a princess.

  He could feel the tug but he could deal with both.

  So it had been happening. Her pull. Reeling him in.

  But he was keeping his head above water. Barely, with their conversation proving she could exacerbate the princess cute that he liked, make a joke, and throw some effective attitude.

  What he couldn’t deal with was what happened next.

  And it wasn’t her warning as she slid out of bed and walked toward the bathroom, “By the way, Sebring, so you don’t waste time or effort, I’m never going to submit to you.” Something, if he’d had the ability in that moment to pay closer attention, he would take as the challenge it was.

  No, it wasn’t that.

  It was her miscalculating her position when she turned on the bathroom lights.

  She hadn’t meant for him to see.

  But when she turned on the lights, at what he saw, it hit him like a bullet.

  It was her that plunged the room into darkness that night when he’d started taking off her clothes.

  And it was always her who shifted, writhed, pulled away, repositioned them if he ever got close to getting his eyes on her back.

  Or touching her there.

  So he knew it was a miscalculation when he caught sight of her when she flipped on the light before she closed the door because she didn’t want him to see.

  Fuck, the woman was usually dressed before his dick stopped being hard.

  And right then, when he got his eyes on her back, that was when he went under, lungs filling with water, sinking like a dead weight, knowing he’d have to fight to resurface.

  Careful of this guy, Turner’s voice from memory suddenly slammed into his head. He does not fuck around when he gets hold of someone. He’s pissed and done with you, before you know it, you got a bullet in your brain. He needs somethin’ from you or he feels like playin’, he likes to burn.

  To burn.

  To fucking burn.

  Nick stared at the door not seeing it.

  He also didn’t see Turner in his memory during one of the many briefings he’d had with Nick and Hettie.

  He didn’t even see the photos in that file of Shade and Harkin’s handiwork on others.

  No.

  Nick stared at the door seeing the same thing he saw in those photos but on Olivia.

  The pink, melted mess of scars at the small of Olivia’s back and her upper hips.

  He likes to burn.

  Christ, was that some terrible accident she’d endured?

  Or had her father burned her?

  They knew nothing about her. No one did. If she didn’t exist out in the open, she’d be Deacon before he’d met his Cassidy.

  She’d be a ghost.

  But she did exist out in the open. She drove to work. She drove home. She went out shopping. She had her nails done. She took a Pilates class. She went to dinner or lunch with her mother. Also with her sister. She went to the club. She occasionally caught a film, but always by herself. She also didn’t hesitate to go to dinner by herself. Her sister visited her house. She visited her sister’s. He’d seen her with Gill Harkin. Tom Leary. Eli Cook. Other members of her crew.

  But never her father.

  Nick had been surveilling her on and off for four years and they’d kept tabs on her before, when he was working with Hettie and Turner.

  He’d never seen Olivia with her father.

  Not once.

  He’d also neve
r seen her smile.

  Not at lunch with her mother, occasions that she hid (poorly) were obligatory. There was no love between those two. There was nothing between those two.

  Not even when she was with her sister, someone it appeared she held some affection for (if not much, or if it was, she wasn’t overt about it).

  No smiles.

  Definitely no laughs.

  Nothing.

  Made of stone.

  But not made of stone.

  She didn’t like smartass men or sarcasm, hugged without her arms, snuggled, was offended he’d think she had an STD, used words like “ill-suited,” was absolutely going to submit to him and get off on it, and she was capable of making a joke about him talking to the ceiling.

  And she’d smiled into his throat.

  And against his lips.

  He’d felt it.

  He’d felt them all.

  Last, she’d been burned.

  Badly.

  Burns that were signatures of her father’s favorite method of torture, something Nick knew for certain because he’d seen it in a goddamned FBI file.

  That was no accident and it was no coincidence.

  Her father had burned her.

  Her father had scarred his youngest daughter.

  But why?

  And now she lived like a ghost but out in the open. Not like her sister who could loosen up and definitely enjoyed her life.

  No.

  Nick was the first man she’d fucked more than once in four years.

  Again, why?

  Both women were in their thirties, and as far as anyone knew, neither of them had a steady man in their life, nor did it look like that was imminent for their future.

  And again…

  Why?

  A mystery.

  She had been before, he knew it, so did everyone.

  But his game was not solving the mystery of Olivia Shade so when he went into it, he didn’t care she was a mystery.

  Now, that burn…he did.

  “Fuck,” he whispered into the dark.

  The bathroom door opened and it opened after she turned out the light.

  He watched her shadow walk to the bed.

  There was an unusual hesitancy in her soft voice when she said, “I think I should go home, Sebring.”

  His response was to push up, reach across the bed, tag her hand and yank her into it.

  She fell hard on him.

  He didn’t give a fuck.

  He tangled his limbs in hers and both of them in the covers.

  “Shut up and go to sleep, Shade.”

  She shut up but her tense body told him she was nowhere near sleep.

  He tested her, sliding his hand down her spine.

  Before he could hit scar, she rolled to her back, taking him with her so he was on top, both his hands trapped under her.

  She’d rolled him on top.

  She hadn’t done that. Not once.

  He settled in, doing it shifting one arm out from under her to put some of his weight into it at her side, the other hand he moved to her hip where he stroked.

  “See?” he joked. “Not as top as you think you are.”

  She sighed.

  He grinned and kept stroking her hip.

  He was wiped but she fell asleep before him, relaxing under his body and his touch which he used to smooth not only her hip, but her side and in, avoiding her scar, to slide up her back and hold her to him.

  As she melted into sleep, Knight’s words came to him.

  Mysterious pussy can be good. But mostly, mysterious pussy is just a trap.

  His brother was right about both.

  But he’d missed one.

  Mysterious pussy could also just be a mystery.

  And Nick was now drowning in the mystery of Olivia Shade.

  Which meant he had no choice but to solve it so he could surface.

  And maybe survive.

  Chapter Eight

  Have a Care

  Olivia

  I heard my phone ringing and my eyes opened.

  I saw mattress covered in a rumpled white sheet, sunlight and a hotel room.

  I also heard something more.

  This being Nick’s voice saying quietly, “Yeah.”

  My eyes shifted up.

  He was naked and standing by the bed, his head turned to where the noise was coming from my cell that was in my purse on the dresser across the room.

  “Large pot of coffee, orange juice, a bottle of champagne, fruit plate, granola and yogurt,” Nick said, still talking low, and I saw he was on the hotel phone. “That’s fine. Right. Thanks,” he ended and I watched him hang up.

  I heard my phone stop ringing but Nick walked that way.

  My gaze followed and I enjoyed watching him move.

  Since we’d met, I’d had no occasion simply to take him in.

  And right then I saw his casual confidence in manner also was reflected in his movement, not to mention in his nudity, all being extremely appealing.

  I tensed when he picked up my clutch.

  It would not make me happy if he dug into my purse. I hadn’t even had the occasion to watch him walk, unless that walking was dragging me, lifting me to throw me across the room to the bed, or while he was inside me, again to put me in bed.

  We were definitely not at a place where he could help himself to the inside of my purse even if it was only to help me out by bringing me my phone.

  And we’d never be at that place.

  Considering the fact he’d been talking quietly, he likely thought I was sleep.

  So if he helped himself to my purse, it would be for curiosity and not to help me out at all.

  My purse in his hand, he turned back toward the bed and I closed my eyes, suddenly more concerned about him discovering me watching him than him looking through my bag.

  I felt the bed depress.

  I felt a gentle hand at my hip over the covers.

  And I felt him give my hip a light sway and his breath on my cheek when he whispered, “Olivia, wake up. Someone’s tryin’ to get in touch with you.”

  I opened my eyes.

  His blue ones were smiling.

  God, I could open my eyes to that every day.

  I’d give my life to have that.

  “Hey,” he greeted.

  Damn.

  This had to stop. What we were doing had to stop.

  Immediately.

  Even having that thought and knowing it was an imperative one, I didn’t catapult myself from the bed, haul on my clothes and dash out of the room, leaving with iron determination never to respond to another text from Nick Sebring again.

  No.

  I said, “Hey.”

  Something amazing happened to his eyes as his hand slid up my hip.

  In the light of day, something I’d never seen him in, I found I could swim in those eyes.

  Swim in them forever.

  Yes.

  This had to stop.

  Immediately.

  I should have stopped it last night. The night before. The one before that.

  Instead, last night, I’d stayed. In the dark, powerless against the pull of a living daydream. Being normal. Having something real. Cuddling with a man after you’d had great sex with him. Speaking to him. Falling asleep with him.

  So I’d made a big mistake.

  I’d stayed.

  And right then, he was coming closer.

  I pushed back and dropped my gaze to his fingers wrapped around my clutch resting on the bed between us.

  I looked at him again. “You have my purse.”

  His head tilted to the side and he pulled back a bit.

  I completely ignored the pain even a three inch retreat from Nick caused.

  “Your phone’s been ringin’,” he informed me. “Just stopped. But it’s the third time it went this morning.”

  I felt my brows draw together and I shifted up, holding the sheet to my chest and looking to the clock on the nig
htstand.

  Just after nine o’clock. Late for me. Early for anyone to call repeatedly on a Sunday.

  Those kinds of calls were never good.

  “Damn,” I whispered, reaching for my clutch that I noted with gratification I also ignored that he hadn’t opened. “I need to see if something’s up.”

  His hand disappeared. I grabbed my purse and got out my cell while he spoke.

  “Ordered room service. They say half an hour, forty-five minutes.”

  “Right,” I murmured, seeing three missed calls and three voicemails, all from Georgia, all coming in the expanse of ten minutes.

  This made me unhappy.

  Since our altercation, I’d avoided her and she’d avoided me. I’d done this by not going to the warehouse. She’d done this by not confronting me about not going to the warehouse.

  Obviously, she was done avoiding me. The problem was, I wasn’t done avoiding her.

  This wouldn’t matter. If she was done, I might be able to say a few words to make my feelings clear, but eventually I’d have to find a way to be done too.

  I pushed up to rest my back against the headboard, taking the sheet with me, looking Nick’s way.

  He was still sitting on the edge of the bed.

  He was also looking at me.

  “I have to call my sister,” I informed him.

  “Unh-hunh,” he muttered but said nothing else and didn’t stop looking at me.

  I should probably ask for privacy. Nick Sebring had a business that involved a variety of specialties. Information was one of them. Anything I had to say to Georgia or Georgia had to say to me was none of his business. But he’d be listening because it could be somebody’s business.

  The intriguing thing about this was, he didn’t hide he intended to pay attention. He didn’t offer to leave. He didn’t pretend he had his mind on other things.

  I liked that. It was honest. I didn’t have a lot of honest in my life and getting it was refreshing.

  And the good news was, as far as I knew, he didn’t have superhuman hearing. I could have a conversation with my sister and control what he heard. She could speak as she wished. He’d not hear it and she’d have no clue I was with someone.

  I looked to my phone and made the call.

  I raised my knees and stared at them as I listened to it ring.

  “Where the fuck are you?” Georgia greeted.