Something Sinful This Way Comes [McQueen Was My Valley 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (5 page)

“What did Cass tell you about him?”

“Is that important? Just that he sounded sort of…questionable.”

“Javier is a douche,” Xandra affirmed. “But I don’t see why he’d send anyone to break into my room. If I accidentally took something of his, he’d just ask me for it.”

“Is it possible that you possess something he doesn’t want to admit he wants?”

“You mean like a…”

“Memorabilia. Your wedding ring, perhaps?”

“We weren’t married. And I doubt he’d want any of my junk jewelry.”

“Photographs?”

“Javier is hardly the sentimental sort. He didn’t argue too much when I finally left because he had…several other women already lined up to take my place. Who had
already
taken my place.”

“May I ask his business?”

“Drugs. Illicit drugs,” Xandra answered flat-out. She had no reason to protect Javier. She had just happened to fall in love—or so she thought—with a dashing man who had some cartel connections. Of course looking back on it now, it all seemed so childish. Only an immature woman would think an epic asshat like that was dashing. Xandra now knew that her next boyfriend—whichever century that might be—would be a down-to-earth, desirable, regular guy.
Oh, that’s rich. “Down-to-earth.” And this gorgeous hunk wants to jump off the edge of a cliff.

“Is it possible you accidentally took some of his drugs with you when you moved out?”

“Oh, God, no. I never even
saw
any of his drugs. That was all done in a remote facility. I didn’t even know the location of any of his buildings.” She explained, “I was strictly a trophy wife, Mr. Horowitz.”

“Nathan.”

“Nathan. I was only with Javier for two years and I left with what I came with—the clothes on my back. As you can see.”
Yes, and my trusty vibrator and some handcuffs I was hoping to one day use.

“Is it possible he may have hidden something valuable in something you took when you left?”

Xandra shrugged. “I don’t see why he’d hide meth or whatever you’re suggesting inside, say, my bra. Drugs never entered our house, as far as I knew.”

“Is he still carrying a torch for you? He could be stalking you.”

Xandra grinned. “In which case, whoever is spying on us now is going to give him an incendiary report.”

There was silence for a few minutes while they smiled idiotically at each other.
That half-smile of his. It’s enough to slay the most cold-hearted, abused, cynical woman
. At last Xandra had to breathe, and it all came out in a whoosh, one giant lustful sigh. To cover it, she stood and headed for her kitchen, separated from the living area by a breakfast counter. “I do have a couple of kitchen items Javier really loved,” she called. “He fancied himself this fantastic Bolivian chef. He was pretty irate when I took this handmade serving dish with me.”

“I doubt that’s it. Was your kitchen ransacked? No, it wasn’t.”

Xandra heard a door slam, and surmised Nathan had gone into the bathroom. She looked at the serving platter, but it could hardly have drugs hidden in it, so she took this opportunity to use the bathroom off her master bedroom.

She found herself primping more than usual in the bathroom mirror. She even reapplied her lipstick, although it would be clearly obvious to an eagle-eyed cop like Nathan.
What an idiot I am. I swore I wouldn’t get all worked up again over another man for a year at least, maybe two. And certainly not a tourist.

But Nathan isn’t a tourist. It sounds like he wants to live here year round.

When Xandra didn’t see Nathan on the couch, she assumed he was still in the bathroom. But she tripped and nearly stumbled over something and had to brace herself against a wall.
Holy mother
. Not only was his T-shirt strewn carelessly on the carpet, he had stepped out of his running shoes and socks. His form-fitting 501s that had displayed his ass to such great advantage were now in a warm crumpled pile by a chair.

Xandra expected to see him splayed out face down on the couch, but Nathan was nowhere to be seen.
Did he leave my suite half-naked?
He wasn’t
that
drunk. And where did he put his shoulder holster?

Her heart beat faster as she returned to her bedroom. Sure enough, the holster had been slung haphazardly over the footboard of her bed frame. And the sinfully delicious physique of Officer Nathan Horowitz was sprawled facedown, utterly nude. On her bed.

Mother of God
. Xandra had never seen such an achingly luscious slope to a man’s lower back. She could feel the heat of it against her tongue, against her face from ten feet away. The two matching dimples pressed into his lower back looked like angel’s thumbprints, so divine and lovely. And his ass…Xandra’s mouth actually started watering as she wondered what it’d be like to take a bite out of that superlative ass.

Even better, he didn’t seem to care. He’d peeled as he walked, stepping last out of his boxer briefs that must have clothed him like spandex before literally collapsing on her mattress. He hadn’t even tried to cover himself up before he fell into deep slumber. His arms were splayed above his head as though he’d made one last effort to grab onto the slats of her headboard before passing out. Sleeping like this, he didn’t look half as brutal and callous as he did while awake, while figuring out a case, while questioning her, while punching a fisherman in the nose. Already he looked more renewed, the wrinkles of worry that characterized his face smoothed out. Now he looked boyish, almost innocent. He must have been beyond exhausted, driving all the way from Abilene in one day, most likely.

Because it was a harmless activity, Xandra admired his form for many long minutes. The bedroom had twenty-foot tall windows on either side of the fireplace and she hadn’t closed the curtains yet tonight. Dwindling sunlight reflecting off the incredible sandstone formations outside bathed the exquisite muscular slope of Nathan’s back. Because he’d hitched one foot up a bit, if she walked around the footboard the lovely round ball sac nestled between his thighs came into view, and her pussy twitched.

She realized she wasn’t breathing, so she tiptoed back into the living room and poured herself a monster glass of cabernet, almost the rest of the bottle. At times like this she wished she still smoked cigarettes. It was an excuse to be standing outside staring at nothing, doing nothing, while thinking.

But with nothing else to occupy her, once she gulped all the wine she found herself back in her bedroom. Although she knew it’d lead only to what some called “trouble,” she sat on the edge of the mattress, slightly bowling Officer Horowitz toward her. When she dared to touch her fingertips to his satiny shoulder, she nearly recoiled, his skin was so hot.

“Nathan,” she whispered, not loud enough to bother a fly. Louder, she said, “Nathan!”

Nothing. He was sleeping the sleep of the dead. But his silky, naked proximity to her was causing the inner walls of her pussy to clench and unclench, as though practicing for his prick. His wonderful scent of fresh sweat was arousing her. She could tell by the way her turquoise pendant shivered between the globes of her breasts. Her heart was racing as though she’d just drunk a pot of coffee.

She would just have to let him sleep. She could go back, check on the fishing banquet, and hopefully calm down by that time. It wouldn’t kill her to sleep on the couch. She was even starting to imagine a naked Nathan Horowitz padding through her living room at 3:00 a.m., stretching like a hulking, sleepy bear. Ashamed because he’d forced her to sleep on the couch, he’d shake her by the arm and—

It sounded like Nathan mumbled, “Good fishing in San Juan County.”

What? He’s dreaming a fishing report?

“Plenty of trout. Dry flies, worms, and marshmallows.”

Xandra was about to giggle when Nathan lifted one of his burly arms and dropped it over her thighs like a log. She gasped but didn’t otherwise move, and she could have sworn a sly smile played across his face.

“Tom saw twelve other anglers on the water. Best-performing fly pattern was a renegade.”

Xandra did laugh aloud this time, more out of nerves than levity. It had been years since she’d been this close to a naked man other than Javier, and it felt odd. Though she had definitively split from Javier months ago and not had contact with him since, it still felt adulterous in a weird way to have this stunningly nude man lounging just a foot away. It made her…nervous.

And when he rolled from his front onto his side and gripped her purposefully by the hips, she gasped loudly in shock. The way he pulled her onto his chest, well, surely that wasn’t the sleepwalking action of a man who was dead to the world.

Xandra fell willingly onto his wonderful chest, attractively dusted with a sprinkling of silken chest hair. He groaned with satisfaction deep in his chest, like a hibernating bear, embracing her. He even smacked his lips and wriggled sensuously against her, the leaden bulk of his enormous erection prodding against her hipbone. With her breasts smashed to his beautiful pectorals, she could only raise her head a few inches to peer at his satisfied face. His eyes were still closed, and he did seem lost in a comatose revelry that probably didn’t have much to do with fishing anymore.

In fact, now he made a great lunge with his muscular body. He flipped her onto her back, and he was on top of her. He wasn’t too sleepy to forget to lean on his elbows, to hold his heavy torso off of her. He touched the tip of his hawk’s nose to hers and just glided his smooth, dry lips across hers. Now his long, hot prick was knocking against her pubic bone, and she bitterly regretted having worn such a long, tight skirt to the fishing banquet. All she could do was grind her pubic bone against his, luxuriating in the silken feel of his triceps under her fingertips.

She had never touched a man whose skin was this…soft. It was incredible how such an athletic brute could have such velvety skin. Surely he spent a lot of time outdoors, tackling purse-snatchers while walking a beat, shirtless. His overall skin tone was a deeply tanned, almost tropical burnished shade, as though he’d just spent a month in Hawaii.

With lovely undulating ripples of his spine he dry-humped Xandra. Even in his sleep he had a beautiful dancer’s technique that soon had a dribble of juice running down her ass crack, soaking her panties. She could only spread her knees apart so far, but if she scooted her heeled shoes toward her butt, she could hump Nathan back, her pubic bone rolling juicily against his.

“Ah,” he said against her mouth, and she thought she saw his eyelids fluttering. He gave her a few more good thrusts of the hips as she ran one hand down the delicious slope of his back, taking great pleasure in feeling the dimple at the small of his back, then squeezing the mouthwatering, fleshy globe of his ass as he flexed it, rotating the bulging head of his cock against her.

“Tiger muskies in the reservoir,” he whispered against her face before he rolled off her and collapsed as though dead. The last thing he whispered was, “Roar is fast-sinking.”

“Nathan?” She turned her head. His eyes were still shut like an angel. He had just moved from one phase of sleep into another. From this angle, he resembled a noble Roman marble statue.

Xandra could have easily gotten up onto all fours, gripped that mammoth cock in her fist, and sank it down the back of her throat. Allegedly, she was a good cocksucker. That’s what she had been told.

But he was sleeping, and that would be taking advantage of a defenseless person. Wouldn’t it? Xandra had to content herself with running her palm over that ribcage, thumbing the delightful ridge of his abdomen, massaging the slight covering of fat over his pubic mound. The hot girth of his cock rubbed silkily against the back of her hand. She thought how sensuous it would be, jacking him off while he slept.

But he was a cop. What if he came to while she did that and tried some instinctive kung fu moves on her?

Regretfully, Xandra rolled over with her back to the slumbering beast. She curled into a ball, slipping her heels off and dropping them noiselessly to the carpet. She snuggled her back against his ribcage, luxuriating in the warmth that spread through her, feeling protected and safe.

Nathan jogged along the rim of Prism Canyon. There were some likely spires he could BASE jump from, but none were over five hundred feet. He had done the Perrine Bridge over the Snake River in Idaho, and that was a hair under five hundred feet. Shiprock would have been ideal, but the Navajo didn’t allow access to it. Similarly, Monument Valley and many other places were off-limits. There were some eight hundred foot sandstone towers in Moab, but Nathan had seen those thousand foot spires Xandra had talked about on the BLM map. From the map, it looked as though if he jogged around this point, he could see some of them.

Nathan wanted something more spectacular than Perrine Bridge. And it was going to take something more spectacular, the biggest rush of endorphins yet, to erase even a fraction of the memories from his most recent mission in Africa. He knew he should have brought a jump buddy to help him plot the jump. But after the recent screw-up in Western Equatoria, Nathan didn’t want a partner. He didn’t want a partner ever again. And how would his company allow him to operate solo in Africa? They wouldn’t. He would never be allowed back into Africa if he refused to be partnered up. You literally could not fly a U-28 solo. The company would start thinking he was suicidal if he told them he wanted that.