Barefoot With A Stranger

  “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

  He stroked her jaw and lower lip, reveling in their smoothness, and the absolute rare moment of trusting someone. Someone beautiful and sexy and willing to take his pain away tonight.

  “I think that from the moment I met you, I wasn’t thinking straight, Francesca.”

  She leaned into him, offering her full body. “I love the way you say my name.”

  He lowered his head and almost kissed her, wanting to delay the gratification of the first taste, wanting to make every move of this dance last as long as possible. But she wanted no part of waiting, closing the space like she demanded to be kissed, molding into him, wrapping her arms around him, taking ownership like…like, well, no rookie.

  “Francesca,” he murmured against her mouth.

  “The apron-wearing pizza maker.”

  He laughed and slid his hands to the first button of a thin sweater. “Let’s get you out of that apron.”

  She answered with a soft mew from her throat, lifting her chin to give him access to the source of the sound, a sweet, soft column of skin that tasted like pure heaven.

  She spread her hands over the back of his head, guiding his kisses where she wanted them. He got stuck on the second button, distracted by the sight of more cleavage, so he spread his hands over her breasts. Budded nipples popped against the thin sweater material. He caressed and thumbed them, eliciting another moan and a slight rock of her hips into his erection. The below-the-belt contact shot fire through him, the ache squeezing need from his balls to his brain.

  It had been so long…and she was perfect. Absolutely perfect.

  “Let me help you.” She unbuttoned the flimsy sweater with slow hands, as sexy as any striptease he’d ever seen. His mouth went bone dry, and his hands itched to touch everything.

  She let the black material fall open to reveal a lacy bra in the same color, looking up at him with nothing but raw and genuine desire. How the hell could he have ever doubted her?

  He closed his eyes and shut out the question with another kiss, reckless and hungry, opening his mouth, meeting her tongue, and thoroughly palming one tender breast. He nearly cried at how good she felt, so warm and feminine and round.

  She groaned and bowed her back, all permission and agreement and compliance.

  He tossed the sweater somewhere behind him, turning her to walk her backward toward the bed. She paused long enough to grab the small plastic bag from the desk.

  She plucked out a box of Trojans and gave him a smile. “You knew I was going to buy these.”

  “I swear to God, I didn’t know anything.” And that was the whole truth.

  As he backed her to the bed, she flicked off her bra, wetting her lips while she slid the straps down her arms to reveal perfect, sweet perky tits with rosy nipples that he wanted to suck to precious points. “Holy shit,” he murmured, making her laugh softly.

  “I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

  He lifted his gaze, holding hers while he reached to the collar of his T-shirt and snapped it over his head, tossing it to the floor next to her bra. She stared at his body, her jaw going slack, hunger flashing in her eyes.

  “Holy shit is right.” She lifted her hands and spread them over his chest the way he wanted to spread his. “I’m so glad you thanked that guy at the airport who stole my seat.”

  He stilled for a moment, remembering the guy and how one hundred percent certain he’d been that that had been a ruse. A tendril of doubt tugged at his chest. Was she really who she—

  “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  He lifted his head and looked at her, and the doubt disappeared. He was going to have to live that way, but not tonight. Tonight was him, her, a hotel, and hot sex.

  “Nothing’s the matter,” he said. “I’m just…happy.”

  “Oh. Happy.” She smiled and slowly slid her hand lower, pressing against his hard-on. “Is that what you call this?”

  “Among other things.” His laugh got lost in the next kiss and a thorough inspection of her breasts, and getting her completely underneath him. He worked his way down her curves and skin, licking and sucking while she writhed with pleasure, letting him taste and touch everything.

  He unsnapped her jeans and felt her toeing off her boots, the sound of them hitting the floor like little grenades in his balls. He couldn’t remember wanting to be inside a woman this bad. Just to get lost, buried, and satisfied.

  He licked her belly, letting his tongue trail the contours of smooth, taut flesh. He kissed her thighs, parted her legs, and tasted the sweetest thing to touch his tongue in…shit, forever.

  Her breath was nothing but raw desperation, her hands as manic as his, exploring his body with the same thoroughness he took hers, until he couldn’t stand it one more second.

  In silent agreement, he sheathed himself and positioned himself on top of her, forcing himself to wait when all he wanted to do was thrust and plunge and fill her up.

  Time suspended just long enough for them to have eye contact, two complete strangers doing the most intimate, personal, real act two people could do.

  “Please, Mal.” She grabbed his ass and guided him all the way in, making him let out a loud groan of pleasure.

  Sensations ripped through him, tearing at every cell, yanking sanity and sense from his brain. He pumped hard, and she met every stroke, her nails digging into his back, her mouth pressed against his shoulder, her body so willing and wet and warm he couldn’t stand it one more second.

  He came so hard it was like he’d fired a bullet into her, an explosion of everything he’d held pent up for forty-two months. Fury and frustration, loneliness and pain, truth and lies and secrets and raw desperation.

  Giving into it all with blind need for comfort and release, he finished his climax with multiple thrusts, vaguely aware that she was pulsing and coming with him.

  He finally collapsed against her, listening to her agonizing effort to catch her breath as it found a rhythm that matched his own.

  She loosened her death grip, relaxing enough to stroke his shoulders and thread her fingers in his hair.

  “I don’t even know your last name,” she whispered into his ear.

  For good reason. He wouldn’t go around telling people his last name, despite how common it was. She was a computer tech, for crying out loud. Ten seconds on Google and she’d know she just nailed an ex-con who’d served time for stealing money from the federal government when he was a prison guard at Gitmo. ’Cause that’s what his record said…what it would always say.

  She inched him up a little when he didn’t answer. “Will you tell me?”

  He searched her face. He shouldn’t. He really should let this be the one-night stand it had to be. “It doesn’t matter,” he said.

  He saw the flicker of disappointment in her eyes, the millisecond flash of hurt. “Yeah, I know, of course. Doesn’t matter.” And, then, shame.

  Damn it. He might have been wrong about her being a spy, but he wasn’t wrong about her lack of experience at casual sex. “No, no, Chessie,” he assured her. “It’s not like that.”

  She gave a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “And now I’m Chessie. No more Francesca.”

  He’d hurt her. Son of a bitch, he’d hurt her five seconds after she opened her body and gave herself to him. What a douche. “I’m sorry,” he murmured.

  “Don’t be.” She reached up and pressed her mouth against his ear, kissing softly. “Rossi.” The word, like air on his ear, tickled and shocked him.

  He jerked back. “What?”

  “I don’t care about what’s right or wrong in this situation, I want you to know my last name.”

  “Rossi?” He only mouthed it, because actually saying it would make it too, too real.

  She smiled and lifted a brow, as if to say, I told you mine, now tell me yours.

  “My name is Francesca Rossi.”

  But…but… Rossi? The real, the impossibly real, truth hit,
and now he knew exactly who she was.

  Not a spy. Not someone trying to follow and trap him. And not a stranger, either.

  No, she was Gabe Rossi’s sister, and she was on her way to see her brother. Good Lord, that was so much worse than anything he could have imagined.

  Chapter Three

  Something pulled Chessie from a deep sleep, but everything was black when she opened her eyes. She blinked, fighting brain fog and exhaustion and disorientation. And bone-deep contentment.

  The hotel. She was in a hotel room with…the best lover she’d ever experienced in her life. The best. Yes, he’d gotten a little weird after she’d told him her last name, confirming her suspicion that he really wanted this to start and end tonight.

  That was fine, but tonight wasn’t over yet. Instantly aching for more of him, she turned, but everything was still completely dark. She pressed the empty pillow next to her and slid her leg over the sheets, bumping into no one.

  Sitting up, she peered into the utter blackness, listening for a sound and vaguely impressed by just how effective the Marriott’s light-blocking curtains were.

  “Are you there?” she whispered, tentative for some reason.

  “Uh, yeah.” His voice, as low and sexy as it had been in her ear when they’d…well, you couldn’t exactly call it making love. What they’d done was flat-out fu—

  “You can go back to sleep.”

  Her heart dropped. Weirdly, quickly, and for no good reason. It wasn’t like she ever expected to see him again after this. It was just that…she didn’t want to go back to sleep. She wanted more. More of those hands and that mouth and, holy, holy hell, that massive hard-on that’d been the best ride of her life. And more of his dry humor and blend of rough and sweet.

  She liked him, damn it. Was that against the rules?

  “Come back to bed,” she said, only a little surprised by the sultriness in her voice.

  “No, I’m leaving.”

  What? She tamped down what might have come out as the sound of begging, staying silent while she waited for an explanation or something. Something that didn’t sound so much like ugly rejection. She’d put herself on the line, damn it, and when they’d—

  The door clicked open, and finally some light spilled into the room, highlighting the man she’d just given her body to. She could see that, standing in the doorway with the hall light silhouetting him, he wore the same clothes she’d taken off him, and carried his duffel bag.

  “You really are leaving.” Like, leaving the building leaving. Wow.

  He turned to look back at her, and even though his face was in shadow, something about his demeanor had changed. The challenge was gone from his broad-shouldered stance, along with the sense that he was doing something on a dare.

  Guess that was ’cause he’d done something, and now he was out.

  Prick.

  He cut a glance into the hallway, then back to her. “I left you a T-shirt,” he said, nodding toward something white hanging on the back of a chair.

  “Oh, thanks,” she said, not hiding the dry sarcasm. “Should I consider it payment for services rendered?”

  Even in the shadows, she could see his eyes close like he’d been hit by her shot. Good. Hope it hurt as much as the punch to her gut.

  “More like an explanation for why I’m leaving.” With that, he stepped into the hall and shut the door, leaving her bathed in black again.

  And stupidly sad.

  Throwing back the covers, she stood and yanked the drapes back to let in the suddenly sordid ambience of an airport hotel in the middle of the night. It was enough light to find the chair, pick up the plain white T-shirt, and turn it over as if expecting some kind of handwritten note.

  Nothing, just a tiny imprint over the space that would cover the bastard’s cold heart. She stepped to the nightstand and found the switch, frowning at the brightness and sliding her hand under the T-shirt so she could read what it said.

  Allenwood Federal Correctional Institution

  Chessie stared at the words, a chill slipping up her spine and blossoming over her whole body.

  He was an ex-con?

  Oh hell, maybe he was an escapee? No, Chessie might not do the field investigations that her cousins and brothers did, but she’d worked in the security business long enough to know he hadn’t had the aura of a man on the run.

  How was this an explanation for why he left?

  Something about him had been strange, she thought as their brief exchanges in the last few hours flitted through her memory. Like he’d thought she knew who he was, or should have. Was she supposed to smell prison on him or something?

  She sat on the bed, sighing softly. Okay. This was why a person with a brain and self-control didn’t just veer off into spontaneity without a good reason.

  He was a good reason, a voice in her head whispered. Good and sexy and sweet and…oh, that thing he did with his tongue?

  She shook out the sex-charged memory.

  Still not the smartest choice she’d ever made, tongue notwithstanding. And something in the back of her mind told her Allenwood wasn’t exactly hard time. Minimum security? She’d have to do some digging into the prison databases.

  No. Not smart. She’d have to forget this. Forget him.

  She lifted the shirt and sniffed, hating herself only a little bit for wanting one more scent of the man. Detergent, the strong institutional variety, filled her nose. She fell back on the pillow with a moan of pure agony. She’d just pretend it never happened, her one-night stand with an inmate who tried to escape the hotel without even saying good-bye.

  “Way to pick ’em, Chess,” she whispered into the empty room.

  Although she had picked pretty well for the purposes of mind-blowing, body-quaking, orgasm-making sex.

  “Damn it.” She thwacked the bed with the T-shirt, pushing herself up again and looking around the barren hotel room. There was no way she was staying here alone tonight, smelling the memory of the two of them on the sheets, and feeling sorry for her stupid self. She had her own room, and that’s where she belonged.

  She washed up, used the new toothbrush, and slipped her panties and jeans back on in less than five minutes. She hooked her bra and looked around the floor for her favorite black cardigan that her cousin had given her last Christmas. Vivi probably hadn’t planned on the designer sweater becoming part of a sexy one-button-at-a-time striptease for a lover fresh from federal prison.

  But there was no sign of her top. Maybe he took it so she’d be forced to walk around in an Allenwood prison T-shirt. A convict with a mocking sense of humor, then.

  She yanked up the spread that had fallen to the floor.

  There it was. She reached for the sweater, but the edge of the sleeve had become wedged into the iron rail of the bedframe. She didn’t even remember him getting the sweater off her, she thought as she bent lower to free the fabric without tearing it. No, she’d been too busy stripping him down, too, and getting her hands on all those freaking muscles.

  That he built in the prison gym.

  “Ugh,” she grunted, still attempting to loosen the sweater without putting a hole in the delicate knit.

  The sucker wouldn’t budge. “Oh, come on.” She got on her knees, slipping her fingers behind the bedframe to carefully slide out the sweater sleeve. Under the material, she felt a little bump, like a screw trapping the fabric. She pulled a little more, but any harder and she’d ruin the cardigan. Of course, she had a nice, clean Allenwood federal prison T-shirt to wear. Wouldn’t Gabe and their grandfather have a field day with that when she showed up in Barefoot Bay?

  If he found out… No, Gabe would freaking kill her for this, and then he’d call in their brothers to hunt the guy down—Marc would do that. JP would threaten him with more jail time. And then, for good measure, he’d tell their cousin Zach, who’d put his fist through the guy’s–

  Something popped into the air, breaking away from the bedframe as her top snapped free.

&n
bsp; “What the—” She looked down at the spread on the floor. A black disc lay against the cream color, making her jerk back at the possibility it was a roach.

  But then a tiny red light flashed once right in the middle of it.

  “Holy shit,” she whispered, reaching her hand closer but not actually touching it.

  It flashed again. This was a bug, all right. But not the creepy-crawly kind.

  Though every bit as creepy. Very slowly, Chessie backed away, covering her mouth as the horrific reality of this settled over her.

  The room was bugged—and the light said the bug was active—and all that mind-blowing, body-quaking, orgasm-making sex she had enjoyed so boisterously?

  She sucked in a slow breath as the implications piled up one by one. This could be used against her. This could be sent to her family. This could turn up on the Internet.

  But this was his room. Someone could be after him. Holy hell, he could be an escaped convict! And she’d inadvertently aided and abetted him. Or had just unknowingly become an alibi in a murder.

  Holy God, the list of possibilities were endless, and not one of them any good.

  She stood, suddenly aware of how very vulnerable she was, uneasily looking around for the camera that might be in the room, too.

  “Son of a…” She stopped herself from saying another word, silently slipping into her cardigan and buttoning it with trembling hands. She had to get out of there. She had to get out of Atlanta. And not by way of the airport, either.

  A plan started to form, point by point. Check out. Take cab to car rental. Leave for Barefoot Bay tonight. She’d already checked the driving time in the airport after the flight was canceled. Eight and a half hours for regular people. Chessie could make it in seven. And a quarter. So she’d be there by eight thirty or nine at the latest.

  Shit, her luggage. Plan snag.

  No, no. Her bag would make it to Fort Myers because she was booked on that plane, and she could get it from the airport that afternoon.

  Okay, a plan. She loved a plan. A calming, direct plan to counteract the raw stupidity of casual sex with an escaped prisoner in a bugged room.