Shatter (10 page)

“And just how do you know—” he started.

She swept past him, the robe flowing open as she walked. His mind took a U-turn and got lost.

Standing in front of the second suitcase Mitch had brought in from the car, Halina shrugged the robe from her shoulders. She met his gaze, her eyes bright with challenge as she let the white velour slide down her arms and drop to the floor.

The air whooshed from Mitch’s lungs in a soft breath. His body grew heavy and the strength in his thighs ebbed long enough to make his knees shake. And while he had to use every ounce of brain matter to keep himself from drooling, she just stood, wordlessly taunting him.

She was so . . . gorgeous. She seemed almost ethereal with all that long dark hair flowing around her, all that smooth, perfect skin, those light aqua eyes. Even the bruised forehead couldn’t detract from her beauty. Every curve of her body was honed, shaped with training and hours of strict exercise. He knew how much work it took to create each ridge he wanted to devour now.

“Halina . . .” His voice scraped from his throat, so thick with desire it hurt. “What . . . the hell . . . are you doing?”

“I was never up for an Emmy.” She started back in on those stupid statistics as she bent to pull jeans and a T-shirt from the suitcase. Mitch found it difficult to swallow, watching her skin slide over sleek muscle. “I didn’t earn a law degree from Vassar or a medical degree from Brown. I wasn’t the daughter of a Silicon Valley mogul or a congressman or a major movie producer.”

She stood with clothes in one hand and flicked her wrist in a careless gesture. “I was always just me, no matter what name I used. Too stupid to realize the American dream was a myth for a second-class Russian orphan.”

Her earlier comment came back to him. But it only blurred that already fuzzy image he’d developed of who she’d become. Halina’s emotions had always taken a backseat to the scientist inside her. Rational. Logical. Practical. Sensible. Those had always been the ruling elements of her personality.

But as a criminal attorney, Mitch knew everyone reached a breaking point. And that personalities changed when compressed in the vise of fear and stress.

She turned and strode toward the bathroom with extra sway in her hips and every thought vanished from Mitch’s mind. He had to reach for the bedpost just to stay upright.

“So you’re right, Mitch. I was never one of
them
. I’ll never be one of
them
. And since your tastes have clearly changed, I’ll never be enough for
you
.”

She stepped into the bathroom. Mitch’s head was storming with thoughts, his body a mess of tumultuous emotions and sensations when the door started to close. He moved fast and without thought. His hand caught the door before it shut and he curled his fingers around the edge. Frustration whirled inside him as he shoved the door open. The force knocked her back and she dropped her clothes.

“Mitch, stop it.” Her fast breaths blew strands of hair around her face. “You don’t want me. Fine. I get it—”

“How
dare
you judge me? Or put words in my mouth? What the
fuck
do you know about my life, Halina?” He approached slowly, knowing he should stay back and yell at her from the door, but drawn like an addict to coke. “You don’t know
shit
about who I am now. Or why I make the choices I make. You have absolutely no right to read a few articles in the paper and decide you know all about me. I can tell you right now, I am sure as hell
not
the puppy you whipped back then.”

“No, that man had morals,” she returned, not the least bit intimidated, which only angered him more. “That man didn’t go around screwing women without regard. Or need high-priced toys or notoriety to feel important. It all presents a pretty shallow image from the outside. If I were another attorney or a client, I’d question your principles, your work ethic—”

“Maybe that’s how I want it.” His voice boomed off the bathroom’s hard surfaces. He closed in on her, purposely towering over her because he knew she’d be too damn stubborn, too damn proud to step back from him. And he was right. She stood her ground, her chin tilted up so she could stare him down. “Maybe when other attorneys think I’m off screwing around, they don’t work as hard on their case. Maybe that gives me an advantage.”

He was too close. Way to close. Her body tossed off heat, daring him to touch. Her seductive scent, pure Halina, challenged him to ignore. Muscles tightened beneath her skin. Her nipples peaked hard just an inch from his chest. Her entire freaking body tested his control. And he wasn’t anywhere near strong enough to resist this woman or this situation.

She pushed a hand against his chest and he grabbed her wrist—hard. Too hard. He was too close to his breaking point. No one pushed him like Halina did. No one.

“You’ve got to be kidding.” Her sardonic half smile annoyed the hell out of him. “If you think you’re going to tell me that you didn’t sleep with those women, that they were all a ploy to get one over on the competition, you can just—”

He jerked on her arm and she fell into him, skin to skin. Lust sizzled through his body. Holding her against him, he walked her three steps backward until her ass pressed against the wall and his cock dug into the supple muscle of her lower belly.

Oh, yes.
Delicious counterpressure expanded in his groin. Knowing she could get away from him but didn’t, didn’t even
try,
kept pushing him. Pushing him to push her. And push her. And
push
her.

“Fuck no,” he growled through clenched teeth. “I’m
not
going to tell you that.” He gripped a handful of her silky hair, pulled her head back. “I
did
fuck them. I fucked every damn one because I was
fucking you out of my system
.”

He yelled the confession so loud, Halina winced. Still, she never made one move to get away. For a reason he didn’t have the brain matter to figure out, that was
such
a turn-on. While at the same time he couldn’t ever remember being this furious.

She stared up into his eyes, startled. And horrified? Or disgusted? He didn’t know. His vision had blurred at the edges. His head was so turned around with the need to hurt her like he’d been hurt while hating himself for feeling that need. And all while wanting . . .
needing
to drive inside her, feel her around him, make her moan with pleasure, hear her call his name as she came.

“Really,” she said with a strange inflection that read like indifference, but which seemed to cover something else. “Well . . . I don’t think it worked.”

Her hand pushed between them and slid along his erection. Mitch sucked air. His mind exploded with neon flashes of color. Sensation flooded his body, coiling and flexing muscles automatically.

“Because . . . what’s this?” She curved her fingers around his length and stroked him with brutal friction. Mitch’s mouth opened, but his throat closed around the sound that should have come. His head dropped back as pleasure burned through his lower body.

“You’ve been fucking the wrong people.” Her dark whisper sounded just before her teeth clipped the skin at his throat. “You should be fucking the person you want out of your system.”

By the time blood returned to his brain, she had his boxer briefs over his hips and on their way toward the floor. Mitch realized she’d just conned him not only into making a confession he’d never—ever—intended on making to anyone, let alone
her,
but she’d gotten him so worked up, fucking her until neither of them could think or breathe was all he could see anymore.

Other than his stupidity. And his gullibility. And his weakness. Those all glared.

She hooked one strong, smooth leg around his hip, a taut arm around his shoulders, and lifted herself up his body with ease. Mitch gripped her waist to balance them both. “Halina—”

Her lips brushed his as one hand returned to his cock with one long, slow stroke downward before pushing his head along her wet opening. Front to back. She bit his lower lip gently. Brushed his cock again. Back and forth, deeper and deeper, her hot lips hugging his head. Her wetness licking him like a tongue.

“Ah, Christ,” he scraped out, completely absorbed in the way she touched him, handled him.

His mind veered toward the condoms in his wallet. Toward the uncomfortable thought of leaving her to get one. Of the possibility that this would all evaporate in the five seconds that would take.

Which his big brain knew damn well would be a good thing . . .

Another brush of his cock, even deeper. Her body closed around his head, snug and hot, wetting him, the way she used to tease him with her mouth.

“Goddammit,
Halina.”

She centered him, then let go and tilted her pelvis, pressing his head fully into the lush heat between her thighs. Joined by her sweet voice going dark and dirty with, “Fuck
me
if you want
me
out of your system.”

Mitch completely lost his mind, every thought disintegrating in the explosion of heat. His arm clasped hard around her hips and he thrust. The reluctant parting of her body mingled with a gasp from her throat and the arch of her back. And God, that was so hot. He would have said so but he could barely breathe. Speaking was out of the question.

Her body immediately clamped back down. A tug of frustrated confusion pulled a growl from his throat. He needed more. He needed to be buried. He needed to explode deep inside her. Mitch backed out and thrust again. The anticipation of her surrounding him . . . went unrealized. Again.

“Fuck.” His brain resurfaced only long enough to figure out what the hell he didn’t have right: the tight squeeze of Halina’s eyes and the way her shoulders bunched and her breaths came in short, shallow pants of pain . . .

That’s when the ultra-tight feel of her hit him in a totally new way and he realized the hot velvet fist of her body was two sizes too small for him. A streak of panic burned across his brain. “Ah, Jesus, Halina . . .”

He pulled back, regret thick in his throat.

“No.” One hand dropped from his hair and rounded his back, pulling him in. “Don’t stop. God, Mitch, please. Please, don’t stop.”

Holy fuck.
Lust speared his groin, surged to his muscles and pushed his hips forward. Hard. His cock drove deeper. Her swollen, soft tissues squeezing him again. The unspeakable pleasure crashed through him like a storm wave.

The high-pitched sound Halina choked back jerked him from the edge of climax far better than the thought of his beloved Padres’ losing streak, because it wasn’t a sound of pleasure.

He dropped his forehead to her shoulder, hating himself. Hating his lack of self-control where she was concerned. Hating the wild way he wanted . . . needed . . .
had
to have her, which had only ended up hurting her.

“Hali . . . fuck. Why . . . didn’t you . . . tell me?” he asked between breaths. Confusion made him roll his forehead back and forth on her shoulder as if that would help him think clearer. “It wasn’t . . . like this . . . before . . .”

“Yes.” Her fingers loosened in his hair and her body slowly released tension. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders while Mitch helped keep them both upright by pressing her to the wall with his weight. “In the beginning.”

His mind worked in fragments—a thought, gone, nothing, another thought. The realization that she hadn’t been with another man in so long it had changed her body flooded him with thoughts he couldn’t process, emotions that overwhelmed him, realizations that both answered and created questions.

Halina lowered her head, took his lips, slipped her tongue between them and found his. Mitch sank into the kiss on a greedy moan.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered between kisses, lips, bites. “I need it, Mitch. I need you. So badly I can’t breathe. I need it the way only you give it.”

“You . . . make me . . .
insane,
Hali.”

“Come on, baby.” Her urgent rasp, edged with such wild need, boiled his blood. “Give it to me.”

Impatient, her thighs gripped his hips and pulled. His cock speared her body.

He broke their kiss with a curse and gritted his teeth around a growl. Halina pulled his head back and kissed him again, her hunger so fierce, his mind slipped into a euphoric haze. He melted into the sensations of loving her—the taste of her mouth, the sounds in her throat, the rock of her body.

He held her ass tight, thrusting carefully, each deeper than the last, urging her body to make room for him. Wished they were on a bed where his hands could touch her in ways that made her wet. Where his mouth could reach more places to taste her essence. Where he could stretch her thigh high to ease penetration.

He wanted her all, all at once. Wanted to breathe her, touch her, eat her, enter her all at the same time. Needed to be deep inside her. As deep as he could get. And, dammit, this wall was just not doing enough.

He stepped back, arched the base of her spine over his arm and found her breast with his mouth. Swirled his tongue around and around her nipple, taking cues from the bite of her nails in his skin. Her body gradually relaxed into the movement instead of tensing against it. She grew hotter with each thrust. Wetter. Looser. Wilder. Until she was moving with him, lifting her hips, then driving them forward. Oh, fuck, yeah. It was coming back to her. And, God, it was good. So damn blessedly amazingly good.