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  Chapter Six

  She was not his, nor was she Mia, but those were minor points right now. She wanted him inside her. Now. “Are you toying with me like a cat with a mouse, or are you going to put your money where your mouth is?”

  “Oh, I’m going to use my mouth all right.”

  “Will you be done not doing anything by the time my first UPS delivery gets here in the morning?”

  “Are you always such a chatty smart-ass in bed?”

  “Only when my mouth isn’t otherwise occup—”

  His mouth swooped down and crushed hers in a kiss that almost made her come there and then. It was wild and rough, a mating of mouths, teeth, and tongues, a mutual devouring that shocked her with its intensity.

  The shudder that went through her body made her internal organs clench unbearably. Cruz Barcelona had some powerful sexual mojo.

  One hand tangled in her hair, holding the back of her head in his palm, and the other swept in a rough, aggressive caress down her body to cup her mound. Her entire body felt like a giant sparkler lit up on the Fourth of July.

  Mia found herself clasping her fingers together, wanting to use her hands on him, or herself, but¸ because of the cuffs, not having the capability. Cruz’s tongue lashed against hers, giving no quarter as he explored her mouth. His hand closed around her breasts as he bit her lower lip, then licked the small sting before delving back to explore her teeth and tongue.

  He lifted his lips a quarter inch from hers. “Breathe.”

  She couldn’t. His kiss was sucking up all the oxygen molecules in the room. Desperate to touch him, she tugged at the cuffs. The headboard rattled. “Highly overra—”

  His mouth was hard, his tongue relentless, while he kissed her as if he’d die if he didn’t. At the same time he pinched her nipple between fingers that knew the exact amount of pleasure-pain to inflict to make her back arch. Mia’s erratic breathing was swallowed by the kiss.

  His hand followed the curve of her breast, explored the indentation of her navel, then cupped the curve of her hip as his mouth left hers. Her lips attempted to cling to his, but he took that clever mouth exploring. Along her throat. Over the upper curve of her breast. Taking her nipple in his mouth, he sucked hard through the gossamer-fine fabric. Her hips arched off the bed, and her head thrashed between her raised arms.

  “Let me go.” She twisted her wrists uselessly. “Please.”

  “Na-uh.” He blew hot breath on the wet fabric, and Mia felt the sensation deep inside her. “You may be cool and calm, Mia, but your nipples haven’t gotten that memo. They were hard just thinking of my touch, weren’t they?”

  She was far from damn well cool or calm at the moment. She had to touch him. Had to feel the flex and stretch of his muscles under her mouth. No. To hell with that. She wanted his lovely penis inside her, and she wanted it there now. “Fuck you,” she panted as he tormented her to the point of distraction.

  He laughed, then closed his teeth none too gently around her nipple. If he hadn’t been lying on top of her, Mia’s body would’ve broken in two as she arched. As it was, the pressure of his weight made her head thrash. Her fingers clenched around the wrought iron of the headboard, cutting into her skin.

  “More,” she demanded, finding it hard to drag in enough air. She didn’t give a damn. More. More. Freaking more! Tugging at her bound wrists, she tried to break free so she could hold him where she needed him with both damn hands. The handcuffs, lined in luxurious mink, weren’t simply decorative. They were damned effective at keeping her exactly where he wanted her.

  She growled low in her throat in frustration. “Missionary—anything—is just fine. . . .”

  His breath was hot and humid as he kissed her belly, filling both hands with her butt. He licked a damp circle around her navel through the diaphanous fabric so that she shuddered. His tongue skimmed the rim, then she felt his hot breath there. Her hips shifted restlessly. Eyes squeezed shut, she tried to stave off the climax hovering on the very edge of her consciousness. She was this close, and he still hadn’t done anything. “N-now would b-be good.”

  Not in any hurry, knowing exactly what he was doing, the son of a bitch took his sweet time. A habit of his. The glide of his mouth over the fine silk of her negligee felt as though he were drawing cool smoke across her heated body. Every nerve was sensitized, every muscle torqued tighter and tighter, and her head moved restlessly on the pillow as he kissed and licked his way down her body.

  His open mouth explored her mound through the delicate fabric as he moved between her legs. His tongue explored the swollen damp seam until her head thrashed and she tried frantically to wiggle the fabric up her legs to give him free access. All it would take was one touch to her clit—anything inserted—and she’d melt into a puddle there and then.

  He murmured “Uh-uh” against her heat, then bit lightly.

  The cuffs rattled against the headboard as she bucked, trying to get him to get her nightgown the hell out of the way. “Do it. Please!”

  The sharp nip of his teeth through the damp cloth at the juncture of her thighs made her cry out and arch her hips. Cruz ripped aside the thin fabric with hands and teeth.

  Way past arousal, she was panting, her breath tight in her throat as liquid heat spread through her body. “That c-cost three hundred bucks.”

  “Open your legs.”

  “Dear God,” she said, complying, “you’re killing me. Just touch me. Even a finger will do the trick.”

  He chuckled, but he didn’t touch. Fully clothed, he knelt in the V of her legs. “Knees up. Feet down. Do not come.”

  “N-not?” Holy crap! He must be joking. She was teetering on the very edge of a precipice; all she needed was for him to breathe on her, and she’d topple over the edge.

  Mia had never been shy in bed. Never been modest when naked in front of her few-and-far-between lovers. Now, though, with his eyes intensely focused on her sex, with no more than moonlight lighting the room, and a sheer bit of fabric, she felt too exposed. Worse. Vulnerable.

  She didn’t realize that she had hesitated until he roughly shoved her legs in the position that he wanted them. Her first instinct was to close her knees but he had his hands there, making it impossible.

  With her hands bound over her head and her legs immobilized, all she could do was watch him studying her damp folds. She started to come, and he wasn’t doing anything but look. She felt the tightening of the first climax twist her body, and tried to keep her eyes open to watch him as it wound through her body, making her back arch and her body pulse frantically for release.

  “Did you hear what I told you?” His voice was flat and harsh, his eyes so dark, so intense, she was sure they’d burn a hole in her skin. “Don’t come until I give you permission.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “I won’t fuck you if you come.”

  “Then use your fingers, damn you. Anything. Touch me, damn you.”

  His hot, humid breath caressed her belly as Cruz bent his head, cool strands of his long hair caressing her skin. Mia sucked in a shaking breath, body tensed, anticipating his mouth closing on her. Instead he inhaled, breathing her in.

  Body so tight she thought she’d shatter at any moment, her hips instinctively rose to get closer to his lips. “I hate you.” Her voice wobbled with tension, and she meant it, as her body drew impossibly tighter and he did nothing more than fricking breathe in her.

  The only sound in the room was their harsh breathing, and his was as ragged as hers. Her hips started moving as though he were inside her.

  Cruz’s dark eyes moved from her mound to her eyes, and he gave her a smile. Or maybe it was just a trick of the light, because she blinked and it was gone.

  “You’re gorgeous,” he muttered before he slid down the sheets. He lay on his belly between her legs, using his shoulders to prop up her hips, and draped her legs over his back. He closed his lips over her clit, tonguing it as he slid two fingers inside her.

  An orgasm
hit her body in a rush of sweet release. He made it last, drawing it out like a maestro. Mia sobbed. The headboard rattled against the wall. Her heels dug into his back. Wave after wave hit her body.

  She screamed as she came again, a never-ending succession of small and large, rolling waves that pounded into her until she arched and bucked against the pleasure-pain.

  He was just getting started. Cruz’s tongue, lips, teeth, and fingers brought new sensations to her. He pulled away when she was on the precipice, and increased pressure when she began to fade. She stopped counting her orgasms. She was melting. Dying from oral sex overload, if such a thing was possible. Drifting in and out of consciousness, and still he was eating her like a man who was starved, as though gaining sustenance from her juices, energy from her orgasms.

  “You win,” she said between breaths that didn’t seem to provide enough oxygen. “I’ve screamed. I’m passing out with pleasure. You can stop.”

  In response, he shoved two fingers into her and bit her clit until she came with her most intense orgasm yet.

  Finally, his face was over hers, his lips gleaming with her juices. He drew a deep breath, then closed his mouth over hers as he pounded his hard shaft into her. She felt his hands at her neck but couldn’t think of anything but his cock filling her, exploding into her as she came again.

  Cruz wrapped his fingers around her throat.

  Mia passed out mid-climax.

  • • •

  It was a dirty trick, but he’d known exactly how much pressure to exert on her carotid.

  More.

  More would’ve killed her.

  He’d pressed . . . less.

  Last-moment decision.

  Less.

  She hadn’t been hurt.

  With the taste of her on his lips, he’d found her computer on the floor on the other side of the bed, downloaded the hard drive, and was gone before she woke up.

  Now he was in his truck en route to a busy McDonald’s off the highway in Houma about fifteen minutes away. He’d left Oso in the house with Mia. He needed somewhere to access more intel away from prying eyes and to see what she had on her hard drive. No prying eyes and a solid, private Internet connection.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll find her,” Cruz assured the distorted synthesized phone voice of his client. Less than fifteen minutes after he pulled away from Mia’s house, the call came in on the phone he kept in a lockbox under the floorboard of the truck. There was a gun in there, too, but he used that even less than he used the phone.

  “I still have four days,” he told his client, none of his irritation evident in his voice. He didn’t like being rushed, and he sure as shit didn’t appreciate being questioned or checked up on.

  “With your reputation I expected it before then.”

  “Certainly,” Cruz said, voice Sahara dry. “Give me her exact location and I’ll take care of it immediately.”

  “She could be anywhere in the fucking world, for God’s sake! Time’s running out, asshole. Where are you now?”

  “Somewhere she’s not. I’ll contact you when the job’s done.”

  “You have until noon Friday or I’ll hire someone else!”

  Four days. Cruz disconnected. He was the best. He didn’t mind being called an asshole—it wasn’t the first time—but the client was pissed and panicky. Panicky meant not thinking clearly. The ticking clock was very real. He didn’t have to like the client, nor was it necessary for him not to have the hots for his mark, in order to get the job done efficiently.

  “What’s happening on Friday?” he asked rhetorically, cruising down Highway 90 at just below the posted speed limit. Horse farms and cane fields filled the miles along the blacktop highway, and where there wasn’t pasture or crop fields, there was bayou. “What will she do—or not do—that’ll impact you?”

  He had no idea who the client was. Couldn’t, in fact, tell male or female on the phone. Cruz could recalibrate the synthesized voice with a little effort. But it wasn’t the client who was the issue. The client wanted Amelia-Mia dead.

  She was the issue.

  Should’ve done it last night; then this would be a nonissue. He’d be on his way to the airport and a Brazilian beach.

  First time he’d ever hesitated.

  He tried to tell himself the hesitation was due to the odd feeling in his gut that the story his client had told him didn’t add up. Or maybe it was just his dick insisting on some playtime. He was in uncharted territory with not knowing why the fuck he was hesitating.

  There was no rational explanation for it at this point.

  All he knew was that his dick sure was happy about it.

  Cruz shook his head. He was getting sloppy. His gut—and most certainly his dick—had fuck-all to do with completing the job he’d accepted.

  The only reason he hadn’t finished the job was that murder opened up all sorts of drama he didn’t need. He did accidents. Autoerotic asphyxiation, no matter how much fun, would bring the heat’s spotlight on him, the strange new guy in town living outside her back door, his DNA all over her house. He could claim that was due to being her handyman, but now that he’d been all over her bedroom, in her closet, and in her bed, he doubted anyone would believe that he was just a handyman.

  Fucking a woman sure could make someone suspect motive. Mia needed to have an accident, and now that he’d been stupid enough to do her every which way but dead, it needed to be a damn good, believable household accident.

  He’d see if there was anything of interest on her computer, something that would finally convince him that she was exactly what and who he’d been told she was—a greedy, perverted, child-killing bitch—then do his job when he got back to the house.

  After switching the bright yellow truck for a ten-year-old black Honda Accord he’d parked at a busy Walmart Supercenter, he drove to the fast-food place a few miles away, debated waiting in the drive-through line. He was hungry, and needed caffeine desperately. He’d had little sleep after he left Mia.

  After finding the computer, he’d sat watching her until her breathing indicated natural sleep and not oxygen deprivation.

  He’d gone back to the camper to sleep for a few hours, wanting to be back before she noticed he was gone for too long. Oso had already commandeered the narrow bunk, and Cruz had ended up hanging off the side of the uncomfortable mattress as the damn dog snored loudly right in his ear.

  With the Honda smelling like grease and coffee, he pulled into the parking lot, already full with the breakfast crowd. Even this early, there was lots of movement: people lining up, cars coming in and out of the drive-through, people parked and talking on cell phones.

  Great Internet access for the taking, and nobody to give a shit about one more guy wearing a cap, sitting in his car enjoying a couple of Egg McMuffins.

  He inserted the thumb drive into his computer. No email, which was suspect, but not surprising. She’d done an efficient job of disappearing. The only things he found in her browser history were hundreds of how-to articles and various online purchase confirmations. There was a document with several hundred names on it, some of which had been struck through, and a to-do list with numbered items below in some sort of abbreviated shorthand.

  Cruz tried to figure out what SWS and SIP might be, but he came up blank. Still, the list was the only incriminating thing on her computer. He copied the whole thumb drive onto his own computer to analyze later. “Fuck.” Definitive proof, it was not.

  In the end, the trip wasn’t quite a waste of time. He checked his own computer. There was a reminder from his New York agent that he had another project to tie up. He hit Delete. More important than that other life were the two emails from an ex-lover whom he’d asked to put out feelers in Beijing. Lì húa Sòng worked in some secret capacity within the Chinese government. If anyone could give him answers, it would be her.

  One had a grainy image of Amelia Wellington-Wentworth attached. Her arrival in Beijing ninety days ago. So that fact still stood.


  She couldn’t deny Blush’s business dealings in China. She’d been there, several times this year alone. Since she’d been there, she must be aware of the illegality of hiring underage children as slave labor in horrific conditions. Slave labor without recourse.

  The second email from Lì húa was a small news story in a local Chinese newspaper about an accident at a Guangzhou cosmetics manufacturing plant. Three days earlier a massive fire had broken out, more than three hundred kids had died, hundreds more suffered smoke inhalation and burns and were in critical condition. All because the stairwells had been blocked off so the kids couldn’t sneak off somewhere to rest.

  Fury swamped him. Jesus H. Christ. While she was playing house in Louisiana, had she been notified about the accident? If not, she was still responsible. If so, she was pretty fucking cavalier about the deaths of hundreds of children.

  How the fuck did she live with herself?

  Cruz started the car.

  Decision made.

  • • •

  “You’re up early,” Cruz said, sounding annoyed as Mia walked into the kitchen. She’d had a moment when she’d woken at her normal 6:00 a.m. and Cruz and his truck were gone. But since he’d left the camper, and the dog’s heavy head was resting on her hip, she presumed he’d be back. He wasn’t the kind of guy—she didn’t think—who’d abandon his dog and not say goodbye.

  Of course, she didn’t know that at all. For all she knew, she’d granted access to her house, and her body, to a serial killer. She should probably be worried about that. But that horse was out of the barn. If he was a serial killer, he would’ve done what he’d come to do by now.

  The kitchen was redolent with the delicious smell of bacon and pancakes. “You made breakfast?” Anything less like a serial killer would be hard to find. Slouched on a bar stool, wearing nothing but low-slung jeans and what for him passed as a smile—in other words, he wasn’t somber. Bare-chested and barefoot, his hair wet from a recent shower, he looked delectable.

  All Mia’s girl parts contracted, and she wanted to do him right there. Right now. “You were out and about early,” she said, forking a pancake and a few strips of bacon onto the plate waiting for her beside the stove. Had he left her bed to go to another woman? She wondered if perhaps he had a local girlfriend, then was sorry she’d thought it. “I hope I’m not keeping you from a friend . . . ?”