Page 32 of Wicked Sexy (Wicked Games 2)
I frown at his back as he turns and disappears, still chuckling, through the patio doors.
Back in my room, I strip and take a long, hot shower. My thoughts are too scattered to focus on any one subject for long, and the attempted distraction is useless anyway. All I can think of is her.
My sweet, vicious, passionate, distant, marvelous, maddening riddle. If she’d let me, I’d spend a lifetime trying to figure her out.
Catching my own thoughts, I groan.
Ridiculous romantic notions like that tell me exactly how much trouble I’m in. If I ever repeat anything remotely similar to Tabby out loud, I’ll have to send out a search-and-rescue team for my manhood.
It’s tempting to relieve the ache in my groin, but my heart is too heavy to bother. So I ignore my erection—the fucking thing is becoming a cliché—and just let the water pound me. After ten minutes with my head bent under the spray, some of the tension in my shoulders is gone, but none of the ache in my chest. I figure it’s about as good as it’s going to get, so I turn off the water, dry off and brush my teeth. Sleep is the only thing that’s going to help me now.
If it even comes.
Towel in hand, I push open the bathroom door—
And freeze.
“Well,” says Tabby, reclining on my bed with her arms behind her head and her booted ankles crossed, “I must say my timing is excellent.”
Her voice is tranquil, bordering on disinterested. Her expression reveals nothing. The lines of her body are completely relaxed. Only her eyes show anything other than perfect composure. They glitter in the low lamp light, edgy and steely, like the flash of knives in a cave.
After the moment it takes me to overcome my surprise, my voice comes out roughened. “You’re angry.”
She ignores that. Her gaze drifts down my chest, over my abdomen, lingers on my groin. Still with that disinterested tone, she says, “Perhaps you should seek treatment for that. It seems to be a chronic condition.”
I move to cover my erection with the towel, but Tabby says sharply, “Don’t.”
My fingers curl around the towel, bunching it in my fist. I hold still as she inspects me minutely from head to foot.
I deserve this. For her hotel room in DC, for her house in New York, for everything I saw without permission, I deserve this. So I hold still and allow it, watching her face as she looks with cool composure at my naked body. I feel equal parts unsteady, uncomfortable, and fantastically alive.
After a moment she inquires, “Aren’t you going to ask why I’m here?”
A dozen responses come to mind before I finally settle on “I suspect you’re about to tell me.”
Those glittering eyes flash to mine. Her hair falls loose around her shoulders, but no other sign of softness remains. She’s changed back into the black leather armor she wore yesterday in the car. I wonder if she’s hiding a cache of weapons beneath it.
“One night, you said.” She pauses, staring at me with something like rage. “I’ll take it.”
I feel the single, painful beat of my heart.
I say quietly, “No.”
Her brows shoot up. “No?” she repeats, drawing it out.
“Not like this. Not with this…” I struggle to find the word. “Resentment.”
The fierce look in her eyes softens. She drops her gaze again to my cock, standing at full attention. Her lips curve. “I’m not sure your opinion is the one that really matters.”
A gust of pent-up breath leaves my chest. “Tabby—”
“Come here,” she says, and holds out her hand.
My mouth goes dry. I feel like a teenager again, trembling with nerves on a first date.
“Connor,” she says, softer, still beckoning me with those eyes, that outstretched hand. When I don’t move, she adds, “Please.”
I close my eyes, swallow, take a breath to try to slow my pounding heart. What she’s offering is everything I want, yet a part of me is holding back, still listening to the old man’s warning: Keep yourself grounded.
