Off the Edge (The Associates) (8 page)

She hit it with her ass, but he kept going, pressing into the V of her legs, puzzle pieces of fucking. It’s all she could think of now. She wanted him with a mad, mad fever.

“Yes,” she said, pulling him closer.

He kissed down her neck and she melted a little bit more. Warm hands slid up the backs of her thighs, up over her panties, taking the dress up and lodging it at her waist. He lifted her onto the rough stone surface and set her there. She would get imprints on her thighs, and she was very okay with it. 

“What are you going to show me, then?”

He rested his hands on either side of her thighs. “A favorite place on you.”

She swallowed. “Oh, yeah?”

“
Oh,
yeah.”

Her heart banged inside her chest. “That’s what you’re going to show me? Your favorite place on me?” She narrowed her eyes. “Is this going to be the cheesiest thing ever?”

“No,” he breathed.

“Cheesy never seems cheesy to the cheeser,” she said.

“Is that an ancient saying that you’ve learned during your stay in Thailand?” He rested his hands heavily on her thighs and slid them down to her knees. His gentle touch contrasted with the rough stone beneath her.

“Maybe,” she whispered.

He knelt down and kissed her knee, then he looked up with that pale blue gaze. “I’m going to show you now. Unless you stop me.”

Unless you stop me.
She shoved her hands into his hair. “I won’t stop you.”

He kissed her thigh.

Yes.
She tightened her fists in his hair.

He looked up, gaze dark.

“Oh, sorry.” She loosened her grip.

“No, go ahead, keep hold of my hair. You might want something to hang on to.”

Wild energy shot through her. Again he kissed the tender inside of her thigh. She imagined his tongue, warm and wicked between her legs. It was a little obvious for her pussy to be his favorite place on her. But when he kissed her again, rough lips on sensitive skin, she decided it was okay for him to be obvious. More than okay.
Go there
, she thought.
Be obvious. Be totally, stupidly obvious.

Instead, he moved in the other direction, lower on her thigh, heading toward her knee.

She loosened her grip.
Noooo!

He flicked his gaze up to hers as he slid a hand down to her sheer sock, touching it. Then he slid his hand back up to the tender inside of her thigh. “You’re so pale here.” Again he slid his hand down over the nylon part. “And then this nylon. It’s absolutely ruthless.”

“The nylon socks? Are ruthless?”

He gave her a devilish smile. “Ruthless.” He stroked his heavy hand from bare thigh to nylon. She loved the way the sensation changed when he did that. Bare skin to nylon. Nylon to bare skin. Heat built between her legs. She clenched the muscles between her thighs to stop the feeling overload.

It didn’t stop the feeling overload.

“The elastic,” he said, tracing a finger over the brown band just below her right knee. “These tight elastic bands. Hot and a little bit evil.”

She could barely breathe. “The elastic? That’s your favorite place?”

“Not exactly.” He hooked a finger over the elastic band and pulled it out. Angry pink lines furrowed her skin where the elastic had grabbed tight to her calf for hours. She got the crazy sense that he was exposing a tender secret.

Then he blew. The sudden puff of air was cool bliss on the tortured little band of skin. “Oh, my God,” she panted, clutching his hair way too hard. He’d found and invaded the tenderest part of her.

Then he kissed it, lips like silk.

It was such a forbidden place to kiss. And unexpected, too—that made it way dirtier.

“Do it again,” she begged, startled to hear her own voice say that.

He smiled up at her, just a little bit evil.

He wouldn’t do it again.

She held his hair tighter, every nerve ending taut.

He pulled the elastic out further. What was he going to do now?

She trembled when he leaned in again and dragged his lip along the band of indents. Or maybe that was his tongue. He was like a dirty and unstoppable force of nature.

“This, then,” he said. “Would be one of my favorite places on you.”

Maxwell. He’d turned her on and taken over her senses, and he hadn’t even gotten above the knee.

“I can take the socks off,” she rasped.

“God no.” He let the elastic snap back over her skin.

She jolted up from the shock of it. “Ow,” she said.

“Ow?”

What was he doing to her? “Ow,” she said, breathing fast. Maybe she wasn’t getting enough air. The moon seemed too bright. She didn’t care, because it was good. “Do it again.”

With a sly look, he hooked his fingers under the elastic of both her nylon socks now. 

Then he shoved her legs apart.

Her blood raced as he kissed up, up, up her thigh, keeping her legs apart, fingers in contact with the dirty, secret tattoo of tortured skin he was so into. Every molecule in her was begging him to hurry now, to kiss her throbbing, heated core.

She sucked in a breath when he paused at the edge of her panties. “Show me another place,” she begged.

He pushed her legs apart even further now and pressed his lips to her sex, an exciting pressure through the thin fabric panel. “Oh,” she said.

“Is this okay?” he said into her core.

The vibration of his voice nearly sent her over. “Yes. Especially if you talk again.”

“Like this?” he rumbled.

“Yes,” she hissed.

His low, sexy laugh sent a wave of pleasure up through her. She felt something hard—teeth, grazing her lightly. Then he straightened up, gaze dark, and kissed her belly, her neck.

She grabbed his head. He put her hands back. “Sit on your hands.”

“On my hands?”

“Do it,” he whispered. He gave her a stern look. He was used to women worshipping him, doing his bidding, she realized. Well, she was all in, dammit.

He drew near, kissing her, clever hands unzipping the back of her dress.

She liked sitting on her hands. It made her heart race extra fast. It made her feel things more. He made her feel things.

He nuzzled her neck as he slid her cap sleeves down over her arms, revealing her bra. The humid heat kissed her skin as he helped himself to her, sliding his hands over her, fingers trailing a whisper of sensation through the lacy fabric.

She wanted him to find more secret places, and to invade each and every one of them. He could have anything.

He drew his hand down her belly, a warm, confident slide that made her inner thighs clench with desire.

“You’re so soft,” he whispered.

He dragged his hot palm back up, then down again, as though he had to consume every inch of her with his hungry hand. She arched under his touch, shivering in the heat. He seemed on the edge of control, like untamed energy was coming out his fingertips. It was a kind of honesty.

He kissed the swell of flesh her bra didn’t quite cover. “This is a good place, too,” he said, voice ragged.

“A favorite secret place?”

“It’s in the running.” He’d pressed his clever fingers under the fabric of her bra now, finding her nipples both at once, toying with them wickedly. She sucked in a breath as he covered one nipple with his mouth, drawing hard between flicks of his tongue. Wild energy pulsed clear through her core.

He slid her dress down further, hands a smooth, unpredictable presence on her belly, then slipped his hand down under the elastic of her panties.

She exhaled as she felt his fingers slide gently over her silken folds. He grunted with a mixture of pleasure and triumph as he delved into her wetness. Her face heated, but she forgot her embarrassment when he pressed a finger clear into her slick channel. “Yes,” she breathed. Because, oh, it was heaven.

He pressed in two fingers then, drawing them slowly in and out, letting his thumb play over her sensitized nub, tauntingly, teasingly.

It was hard to stay sitting on her hands. She moved wantonly under his touch, butt cheeks clenching and releasing.

He grabbed her thigh, stilling her. “Wider,” he whispered, and then he pushed her thigh a bit to the side, getting her just how he wanted. Electric sensation shot through her when he took one of her pebble-hard nipples between his lips.

“I have you,” he whispered into her nipple, which was highly erotic. “You’re going to come for me.”

“Uh, well,” she whispered. “I don’t think I will. I never do.”

He let go of her nipple. “Never?” He looked at her now, caressing her molten cleft. It was hard to stay looking at his eyes as he touched her, as he had his way with her. She imagined that he could see her feeling what he was doing, which seemed like it should be private. But she also liked the feeling of being open to him and a little bit at his mercy. “Never?” he asked again.

“Not…with somebody,” she panted, undulating slightly with him, because it just felt so good. “Not with a guy.”

He stroked her, more lightly now. Then he leaned in, put his mouth by her ear.

“Except you’re already there.” He whispered it like it was a dirty secret. “You can’t stop yourself from coming now.”

“I can’t?” she asked stupidly as he pressed three fingers into her, furthering his delicious invasion.

“No. I’m sorry, you can’t stop it.”

He fucked her with his fingers, caressing her with his thumb, or whatever—she didn’t know, it was just a chaos of pleasure. His kiss on her ear felt hot as she began to move with him.

“Uh,” she said, losing her train of thought.

“Nothing you can do will stop it.” Like he was some Neanderthal, taking over her body. Well, he was.

But then he stilled.

“No,” she pleaded, filled with wild craving. “You have to keep going.”

He nuzzled her neck. He might even have been laughing. “I do?”

“Yes.”

Then he moved once more, curling a finger inside her, finding her tender nub, starting up again, relentlessly. She couldn’t hide from him, not in words, not in her body.

“Like this?” he whispered.

She didn’t remember the question but the answer was
yes
. She had no idea if she was saying it aloud because her world was flying apart. Because he was kissing her and manhandling her and plunging her down, down, down into a sea of pleasure until she broke into bits, there on the dragon’s table.

Macmillan kept his face pressed to Laney’s neck as she came, hoping that she wouldn’t notice how he was trembling with the effort to keep control. Not once in the ten dark years since Gwen’s death had a woman sparked such a powerful feeling in him. Sex was just another function, like sleeping, or eating, and now this.

The timing couldn’t be worse. He needed to get into her room, get the recordings, and get out without her knowing what he’d taken. He needed to be unmasking Jazzman, not having a hoedown with her stockings in a Bangkok alley.

Hoedown. That’s the way she’d put it, anyway. Or something equally colorful from her collection of words. She gave her words freely, just like the details of her life. He shifted and kissed her cheekbone.

“Maxwell.” She pulled her hands from under her, grabbed his hair, and kissed him. “God.” She rubbed her calves on his legs, up and down.

He grabbed hold and caressed her nylon-clad ankles. Those goddamn knee-highs. He was losing himself. “I want to fuck you while you’re wearing just these.” The truth.

“Here?”

Anywhere,
he thought. No, he had a job to do. He tightened his grip. “In your room.”

She searched his face, a question in her eyes. Of course she would feel the unnaturalness of the request that they go back there now. How it broke the flow. She had a way of tracking nuances.

“I’ll show you another secret place,” he said.

“And this must take place in my room?”

“Yes.” He pulled her dress back over her. “Turn around.” She jumped down and he zipped her up, then he handed over her hat.

She took it, still wary. Yes, she had a sense about things. And in the end she’d understand that he was somebody she should’ve stayed away from, but it would be too late. In the end, Laney was no match for the likes of him.

This sort of thinking usually gave him a pleasant little charge. Now it only made him queasy.

She stuffed her hat onto her head and smiled. She sometimes looked haunted, but when she smiled, she had mischief in her eyes.

He swallowed. “Let’s go.”

As they neared the hotel, she had the driver go around to the back. “Just easier this way,” she said.

“I see,” he said.

She unlocked a door that was set into a tall, vine-coverd wall, and they entered the empty pool area. The water was a dark mirror, and you could actually hear the night birds over the city traffic. She led him around, keeping to the shadows.

“Everybody’s so nosy,” she explained, gesturing at the hotel’s back face, looming above them. The construction looked late 1960s to him. All concrete, of course, but painted white, and each floor was slightly wider and longer than the one underneath it, making the hotel seem to flare out as it rose up. This type of construction tended to be difficult—but not impossible—to climb. In its most extreme version, it was considered riot-proof.

She unlocked the door and led him into a side stairwell. Who was she hiding him from? The Shinsurins? He couldn’t imagine her with one of the playboy Shinsurin brothers. Were they the ones who told her the hat with a face-covering net was a good idea for a woman on the run? Surely they weren’t that stupid.

They climbed the steps to the next floor.

She wouldn’t be bringing him home if she had a romantic partner; if there was one thing he’d
 learned from her lyrics, it was that loyalty and emotional honesty were precious coins to her.

That’s why he’d been honest about finding secret places in every new city. She required the ring of truth. It was like a toll he’d had to pay to keep the night going.

He’d left out the important information, of course. Like the fact that the story belonged to his former self, Peter Macmillan Maxwell, a man who’d boarded a train in Mexico City with his fiancée and family some ten years back. He’d never quite made it off that train.