Page 46 of No Reason to Trust

He nodded at it. Watched as Livvy studied it. Finally she whispered, “It’s our best bet. If we walk between those buildings, we’ll come out on a main street. We can catch a cab back to the hotel to avoid anyone else out looking for us.” She pointed toward a tall, dark building on the skyline. “That’s our hotel. A few blocks away. If we can get onto a main street, we can hail a cab pretty quickly.”

“Let’s check it out.” Jake eased the gate open, wincing when it squeaked. But he pulled Livvy through the small opening, then eased the gate closed. They both trotted along a narrow sidewalk, ducking when they reached the windows on the side of the building. In less than two minutes, they were at the front of the shop and on the sidewalk there. A long line of women waited to go into the shop.

“A deli,” Livvy said after glancing in the door.

“Sounds about right,” Jake answered, gripping her hand tightly and pulling her away from the line of curious women.

They stayed in front of the deli, near the line of women. A cab appeared in less than a minute, and when Jake hailed it, the driver pulled to the curb. After giving him the name of their hotel, Jake drew a deep breath and relaxed into the seat.

Livvy reached for his hand, and Jake wanted to stroke the soft skin of Livvy’s hand in his. He wanted to lift her hand to his mouth and kiss her palm. Inhale the scent of her skin.

“Stress response,” he told himself. A visceral response to danger. The relief when the threat was removed.

But it didn’t feel like an easily dismissed reaction to danger. It felt like the culmination of far too many moments he and Livvy had spent together, going back to when Livvy was also an FBI agent. Too much awareness that had rippled between them, wrapped around them, drawing them closer together.

Five minutes later, they exited the cab and walked into the hotel’s front door. Jake desperately wanted to wrap his arm around Livvy and draw her against him. Leave no space between their bodies, so that he could feel every breath she took. Every stutter of her heart. Every quiver of need that he hoped matched his own.

Beside him, Livvy took a deep breath. Blew it out and took another. Realizing he was still shaky and amped up, Jake did the same. By the time they walked across the lobby to the elevators, they were both breathing heavily. Pheromones danced between them like damn butterflies, all flash and color. All Jake could think about was getting into their room and ripping Livvy’s clothes off.

He snuck a quick glance at her. Livvy breathed deeply, sucking in air as if she couldn’t get enough of it. Jake knew exactly how she felt. All he wanted was Livvy. Touching her. Holding her. Kissing her. Ripping off her clothes and burying himself inside her.

Fortunately, since it was the middle of the day, there wasn’t much elevator traffic. They were the only ones in their car, and they both gripped the back railing to keep themselves upright.

When they reached their floor, they stumbled out of the car. Jake grabbed Livvy’s hand as they walked toward their room. When they opened the door, they saw that it had already been made up by the maids.

Blowing out a relieved breath, Jake threw the double lock on the door. He collapsed onto the couch and Livvy dropped onto the cushion beside him.

Jake curled his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. When he felt her curves pressing against his body, a tidal wave of need surged through him, obliterating everything but his awareness of Livvy. If he couldn’t touch her, couldn’t taste her, he’d lose his mind. Now that they were safe, Livvy was all he could think about. All he wanted -- Livvy naked and wrapped tightly around him.

“Livvy,” he murmured, turning to swipe his mouth over hers. The sensation of her smooth, hot mouth made him shiver.Want. When his lips touched hers, she opened for him immediately.

“I want you, Liv,” he said. “I could have lost you, and I would have mourned that for the rest of my life.”

“Jake, you read my mind,” she said against his mouth. “I’ve wanted you since you rode on the back of my bike back in Montana.” Her breath feathered over his mouth and he wanted to crush her into the cushions of the couch and drive into her.

Instead, he smiled against her mouth. “I’ve wanted you longer than that,” he said. “Since before you left the FBI. I’ve kicked myself in the ass ever since the day you left for Montana. I wish I could go back and change that last day.”

“Yeah?” She walked her fingers across his face, and he shivered with need. “Even though we didn’t know each other well when we were both agents, I still wanted you. It was a visceral ‘he’s the one’. I should have paid more attention to it instead of running away, which was a dumbass move. But what I felt for you terrified me. I didn’t know how to handle my feelings, so I did what I always do,” she said. “I ran.”

Jake leaned back so he could look into her eyes. “Sounds like we’re a pair of dumbasses,” he said. He nuzzled into her neck, drew a deep breath of Livvy’s distinctive, sweet scent. “If I touch you, are you going to run again?”

“Last thing I want to do,” she said into his mouth. She closed her lips around his bottom lip and sucked it into her mouth. Ran her tongue over the soft surface of his lower lip. “I want you. Right now. On this couch.” Livvy nipped at his lip, and he groaned into her mouth. “We almost died, and all I could think about was that we hadn’t had the chance to make love with each other.”

Jake ran his hand over her body from her neck to her waist. Felt the tremble of need and desire beneath his fingers and sucked her lower lip into his mouth.

“I don’t want to have you on this couch. It’s too small. Too confining.” He slid away from her and bent to scoop her into his arms. Pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth.

“I want you on the bed. Where we have plenty of room to get to know each other better.”

Livvy wrapped her arms around his neck. “Good call. There isn’t enough room on that couch for me to do everything I want to do to you.”’

Jake’s mouth curled into a smile. “I like the sound of that.” His fingers played with the buttons on her shirt. “May I take this off of you?”

“Yeah, you can take off my blouse. But then it’s my turn to take an item of clothing offyou.”

“Anything you want. Any time you want,” Jake said as he poked the buttons of her shirt through the stupidly tiny buttonholes.

“Either these buttonholes are too small, or my hands are trembling too much,” he said as he managed to unbutton two buttons. He spread her shirt and put his mouth on the upper curve of her breasts. She sucked in a breath, then reached up to unbutton the rest of the buttons.

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