Page 26 of Over the Edge

We froze, both of us breathing hard, my hand still wrapped around him, his mouth hovering over my nipple. For one insane moment, I contemplated telling him to ignore it.

Another knock, more insistent this time. “Outlaw? You in there?”

Mr. Grim Reaper himself. Ethan.

Reality crashed back like a bucket of ice water.

Oh, shit. My boss was on the other side of that door, and I was standing here half-naked in a hotel room I had no business being in.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Flynn muttered against my skin. “What the hell is he doing here? I thought he was in Seattle.”

“He doesn’t trust me.” I unwrapped my legs from his waist, stumbling slightly as my feet hit the floor. My legs felt like gelatin, and I hadn’t even orgasmed.

God, if Flynn and I ever made it to bed, he was going to ruin me.

Ethan pounded on the door again. “Open up. I hear you in there.”

Flynn tucked in his shirt and ran a hand through his mussed hair. “Yeah,” he called back, voice surprisingly steady. “Give me a minute.”

My hands trembled as I yanked the jumpsuit back up, fumbling with the zipper. I could become anyone in seconds, slide into a persona like a second skin, but right now I couldn’t even get back into my own clothes.

“Here, let me.” Flynn took me by the shoulders, gently turned me around, and tugged the zipper up. I held my breath, aware of everything—his touch, his nearness, the weight of everything that might have been. The desire to finish what we’d started was an ache beneath my skin, and I almost couldn’t stand it.

Once zipped, he spun me back to face him. His shirt was half open, his belt undone, his hair a mess. He looked like sex incarnate, like everything I’d been denying myself for far too long.

He searched my face, eyes still dark with heat and something that looked dangerously like longing.

“Later,” he promised, voice rough. “We’ll finish this.”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. My body hummed with frustration, with desire that had nowhere to go. I smoothed my hands over my jumpsuit, trying to erase the evidence of what had just happened, but my skin still burned where his mouth had been.

“Your hair,” Flynn whispered, hands moving to fix the mess we’d made of my perfectly styled blonde locks.

I reached up to help, fingers still unsteady. “Does it look obvious?”

“Everything about you looks obvious right now.” His eyes darkened again as they swept over me. “Your lips are swollen, your cheeks are flushed, your nipples are hard.” His voice dropped to a seductive rumble. “And I bet if I dip my fingers between your legs, your sweet pussy will be soaked.”

“Ugh, stop.” I pushed him away before I climbed him like a tree right here. “You’re making it worse. Ethan can’t see me like this.”

He chuckled and jerked his chin toward a nearby closed door. “Bathroom’s there. I’ll distract him.”

I ducked into the bathroom, catching sight of myself in the mirror. He was right. I looked exactly like what I was: a woman who’d just been thoroughly kissed and interrupted right before getting thoroughly fucked.

I smoothed down my hair and splashed cold water on my face, willing my pulse to slow. I couldn’t face Ethan like this. He already looked at me like I was a poor substitute for Maya, an imposter in her clothes. If he saw me now, disheveled and desperate, he’d have even more reason to doubt my competence.

“Get it together,” I muttered to my reflection. The woman staring back at me looked wild-eyed and flushed. Not Elisa Deveraux. Not Agent Renard. Just Lyric, caught with her hand in the cookie jar—or more accurately, down Flynn Shepherd’s pants.

My lipstick was destroyed, smeared beyond salvaging. I wiped it away with a tissue, wincing as I heard Flynn opening the door, his voice impressively casual as he greeted Ethan.

“About time.” Ethan’s voice filtered through the bathroom door. “What the hell were you doing in here?”

“Sleeping. Jet lag’s a bitch.”

I could almost picture Flynn’s casual shrug, the way he’d run his hand through his already-mussed hair to sell the lie.

“Yeah?” Nolan ‘Maverick’ Riley said with a laugh, his Irish lilt turning the single word into a dare. “Who with?”

“Ah, I see you brought the whole Scooby gang,” Flynn drawled.

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