Risking It All: The Proposition / The Dare / The Favour / The P.I. / The Cop / The Defender

“Arrested?” The cloudy mix of desire and confusion in her eyes nearly snapped his control.

“Yeah. Mug shots, fingerprints, one phone call. It could really take all the fun out of the evening.”

“Yeah.” She gave her head one quick shake to clear it, then pushed her hair behind her ear. Though he couldn’t have said why, he found the nervous gesture endearing.

“I’ll take a raincheck on that kiss,” he said.

“Ditto.”

He managed to get her into the car without touching her again. That was the easy part. The hard part was the drive to his hotel. They’d no sooner pulled out of the parking lot when she scrambled onto her knees and began to loosen his tie.

“Rachel, getting into an accident is another way to take the fun out of an evening.”

Her laugh was quick and breathless in his ear. “I’m just trying to save us time. You did say you were into time management.”

“Yeah.” His tie was off, and her fingers were already slipping beneath the buttons of his shirt, leaving a trail of ice and heat on his skin. “Two rules. You keep your hands above my belt, and I’ll promise to keep both of mine on the wheel.”

Laughing, she closed her teeth around the lobe of his ear. “Deal. But don’t they say rules are meant to be broken?”

NATALIE HADN’T convinced him to break the rules, but it had been a close call. She could tell by the quick way he handed the car keys over to a valet and drew her with him into the hotel. The Meridian was one of D.C.’s more posh accommodations for travellers. Many of the rooms boasted a view of the Washington Monument and the Mall, though she didn’t think that she and Chance were going to spend time looking at either. She could feel heat radiating through her body from where his hand was pressed at the small of her back.

His touches, his kiss, had been tame so far, and she was beginning to crave him. When his body had brushed against hers in the parking lot, it had been hard, solid. In the three months since she’d last seen Chance, she’d spent some time imagining exactly what that body would feel like pressing into hers. Natalie, of course, had pushed those fantasies out of her mind. Rachel, on the other hand, couldn’t wait to make those fantasies and more come true. Had Rachel always been living inside of her? That was something she would consider later. Right now, she was going to focus all her attention on Chance.

She said nothing until they were in the elevator and the doors were sliding shut. Then she turned to him. “Are you ever really going to kiss me?”

“Soon.” He settled his hands at her waist, but instead of pulling her close, he turned her instead, so that she could see them both reflected in the mirrored walls of the elevator. Then meeting her eyes in the mirror, he moved one hand to her breast, the other to the hem of her dress. The sight of those long, lean fingers moving on her skin only doubled the sharp stab of pleasure moving through her. She was on fire where he touched her, and she was sure that her knees had turned to jelly.

“I’ve wanted to touch you like this ever since I first saw you on that balcony.”

His fingers slipped beneath the bodice of the dress as his other hand began to push up the hem of her skirt. He moved so slowly. She wanted him to hurry. She wanted the sensations to go on forever. When her dress was up to her hips, he ran his finger along the lacy edge of her panties, from the top of her thigh to the narrow vee that disappeared between her legs. “When we were standing in the parking lot, I was tempted to do this.”

Natalie watched his finger slip beneath the band of her panties.

“And this.”

He pinched her nipple at the same time that he slipped a finger inside of her.

The orgasm that moved through her in one long, crashing wave had her sagging against him. Later, she couldn’t recall exactly how they’d gotten out of the elevator and down the hall to the room. But by the time Chance had opened the door, she’d gotten some of her strength back. And she was thinking more clearly.

A sudden feeling of déjà vu struck her as he drew her into the narrow foyer. It grew sharper when he used his body to trap her against the wall. She recalled that he’d used the same move when they’d entered the tiny foyer of her apartment three months ago. He’d kissed her and then taken her, or they’d taken each other, on the floor.

Natalie had surrendered without a second thought, just as she’d surrendered in the elevator a few seconds ago.

“Now, I’ll kiss you,” Chance said as he pressed his body more fully against hers.

But she didn’t have to be Natalie. Tonight, she could be Rachel. Despite that her body was heating, melting against his, she avoided his mouth at the last moment. Her voice was breathless when she said, “Not yet. Turnabout’s fair play. Now it’s my turn to touch you.”

6 (#ulink_955b7957-211c-5070-9da4-38a84d3195ed)

BEMUSED, CHANCE STEPPED back and then followed Natalie into the sitting room of the suite.

“Ahhh. Mirrors. Just what I need.” There was a wicked gleam in her eyes when she turned to face him.

Chance studied her for a moment. The woman in the elevator had been the Natalie who’d haunted his dreams for three months. He would have bet his life on it. But the woman who’d driven him crazy in the car and the woman facing him now was “Rachel.” And he wanted her just as much.

He moved toward her, cupped a hand at the back of her neck. “I want you now.”

She placed a hand on his chest with just enough pressure to preserve the distance between them. “You can have me. But what’s the rush?”

His eyebrows rose. “You were in a hurry in the car.”

She smiled up at him. “What happened in the elevator sort of took the edge off for me.”

He increased the pressure on the back of her neck, and she moved closer so that her body was in contact with his.

“It only built the pressure for me.”

“Yes, I can feel that. But I do have a solution.”

He felt his heart quicken against her palm, saw her eyes darken when she felt its rapid beat, too. She slipped a finger beneath the top button of his shirt and freed it. “You’re going to enjoy what I’m going to do to you. I promise.”

Chance felt his mind begin to cloud as she continued to unbutton his shirt. Each time her fingers brushed against his skin, ribbons of heat fanned out across his skin. She pushed the shirt off of his shoulders and it slid to the floor.

“I wanted to do this right in front of everyone at Sophie Wainwright’s party.”

And she very nearly had, Chance recalled. Her hands were spread out along his waist now, and with her thumbs touching, she drew them upward over his ribs until they were resting just at the bottom of his rib cage.

“Watch what I’m doing in the mirror.”

He could do that. His arms were beginning to feel heavy, but he could still move his eyes.

She rubbed her palms over his nipples and he sucked in a breath.

“You like that,” she murmured as she did it again.

He felt his nipples harden. Her skin was so fair against the darker color of his. And the sensation—

“Let’s try this.” Leaning forward, she moistened one nipple and then the other with her tongue. “I love your taste,” she murmured then repeated the process.

His breath was backed up in his lungs or he would have told her to stop this torture now…or never.

She wrapped her arms around him, slipped her hands beneath the waistband of his trousers and dug her nails into his hips as she began to suckle, first on one nipple and then the other.

When he felt the scrape of her teeth, Chance groaned. What was she doing to him? He’d desired her before. And the strength of that desire had made him reckless and rough. But what she was doing to him now made him weak. No other woman had made him feel this way. Fear mixed with a need so deep that he felt paralyzed.

“You still have too many clothes on,” she murmured.

In the wall of mirrors, he watched her move around him. Her tongue stroked lightly on the skin at the back of his neck, then trailed a damp path down his spine. His skin felt icy and hot at the same time. He couldn’t think, could barely breathe as he watched her strip him of his belt and send his trousers to the floor. Next she removed his briefs. Then she moved around so that she was facing him again.