A sound I never heard before escapes my lips. It’s instinctive, and I can’t cover it up once it leaves my mouth.
“Hello,” he says when he reaches me. “I hope that sound you made means you like what you see.” He’s charming and relaxed.
“Yes, I do like what I see,” I admit, honestly. I like everythi
ng about him. Still, I will my eyes not to travel down to stare at his package. The site of it, sitting off to his right, thick and long, is calling me by my real name.
Yan-dyeee, come to the light.
“Thanks,” he says, eyes narrowing even as half of his face twitches with humor. He knows I want him, and his gestures only make me want him more.
“I mean, you look…nice,” I correct myself, hoping for a little more ladylikeness in this modification.
“You’re looking good yourself,” he commends with not only his words but the looks of lust as his eyes roam all over me in approval.
“Do you always dress like a pimp in a bad hustler movie?” I ask to break the sexual tension between us. I really am playing off the fact that everything about him is candy to my eyes.
“Only for you, Sweet Ari,” he says.
All my hopes of my humor dragging me out of the spell he’s bound me in, for the third night in a row, is gone.
“Big Blaze, I like you. I like you a lot,” I admit.
He freezes when I call him Big Blaze as if he’s startled by hearing his own name.
“Did I say something wrong?” I ask.
“Oh, nothing.” He looks around, checking the mostly deserted lobby and then lowering his voice. “I just like the way you say my name. It’s word porn coming from your lips.”
“It’s appropriate—because, you know, you’re looking kind of big and blazing in those sweats. I’m just saying.” If I weren’t here to do a job, he is precisely the type of man to have me falling off the deep end. Who doesn’t want a tall, sexy man that’s fine, and he’s packing?
He chuckles. “You’re too much.”
“Plus, I need a name to call you when we’re…” I run my tongue over my lips to wet them and to signify what we’re there to do. Am I really about to do it? Sure seems like it.
Blaze watches my every movement with an intense stare.
“With you looking so beautiful, it’s pretty fucking easy to remember why we’re here. Also, big and blazing is pretty damn accurate. So, sure, you can call me Big Blaze.” He runs his hand up and down the length of what I am sure is all manhood. If he were any other John, that action would have had me ready to cuff and cart him off to jail, but the ways I want to cuff Blaze are against all the rules.
I spend the next few seconds trying to regroup from that sight alone. It’s seared in my mind. How can one man be so… blessed? My mind wanders wildly. I really want to know what he’s capable of doing to me in bed. That curiosity is even more pronounced since I won’t get to find out.
Thoughts of Blaze moaning my name in bed leave me flush all over and burning with the desire to drag him upstairs to my ‘paid for by the FBI’ room and do all kinds of freaky things to him immediately. I want to kiss him more than I can remember wanting to kiss anyone. I want it all as the song goes, ‘if only for one night.’
You’re here to do a job! Do it, girl, and get out of this rinky-dink place. Then, go catch some more bad guys.
“Good,” I say, dragging my eyes back to his cropped brown hairline and dusty brown eyes. “So, Big Blaze…” I shiver because it’s even sexier hearing his name come out of my mouth that time than before. “You wanna hear what you need to do to get me upstairs to my room?” I ask, ready to trap him.
“Hell yes. Tell me what I need to do, and it’s done,” Blaze says in that honey-whiskey tone that has driven me mad since the first word he said to me.
“All I need is for you to pa—”
I’m cut off by the fire alarm blaring overhead; an annoying, screeching sound that makes me feel like my eardrums are going to explode.
“I’m going to fuckin’ shoot something,” he yells as all hope of us going upstairs is doused.
“I’ll help,” I yell back, grimly. Someone does need to get shot for causing this alarm to go off. I’m not even sure if I was just about to give in to Blaze or tease him some more, but I hate we are interrupted by this sounding alarm.
As people start to evacuate out of their rooms and out of the building, I realize this thing with Blaze and me just isn’t going down. With so many things happening each time we meet, I contemplate our meeting is just not meant to be.