The bartender placed his drink down in front of him. He nodded his thanks and left a ten-dollar bill on the bar then lifted his glass to Alex. “I can certainly think of better things to do than check up on you, can’t you?”
Instant heat flared in her eyes in the same way it had five years ago. Rowan wanted desperately to drink it in. And that had nothing to do with the reasons that brought him there tonight.
But that heat also made his job easier. He’d play on that desire, getting her to reconnect and forget that he’d left her once. She had no reason to help him. Christ, she had no reason to talk to him. He had to give her one. So he’d come up with a plan: seduce her, earn her forgiveness, find the killer.
Rowan lifted his glass. “To old times.”
She clinked his glass with a sexy smile. “To old times.”
They hadn’t stayed for a second drink.
An Uber ride later, and with heat burning in the air between them, Rowan followed Alex through the hallway of Langdon Bridge, the swankiest hotel in New York City where Alex had checked into. “Nice place,” he said, entering the room after her.
She shut the door behind him and then locked it. “I’m supposed to be pampering myself on vacation.”
He couldn’t help himself, and a grin tugged on his mouth. “I promise you’ll be pampered tonight, McCoy.”
She returned the grin, though her smile dripped with lust. “Classy, Hawke.”
“Always.” He took in the lavish modern suite, finding they stood in a small living room, while she strode by him and dropped the key card on the table by the door. The bedroom was in the next room with double doors and a large king-size bed with a white duvet. Obviously, her boss paid her well, as he should. Good—honest—hackers were hard to find. Rowan began to glance over at her, when he caught sight of her laptop sitting on the coffee table near the large row of windows by the wingback chairs. A laptop that he knew she could do things with that nearly no one else could do. There was no place that Alex could not get into. No person she could not find.
That’s why he needed her. He sought answers about the Casanova Sadist that no one had been able to give him. A killer that he’d been hunting for weeks now. A killer that had taken the lives of five women, leaving their naked bodies bound and displayed like they were a disturbing piece of art. A killer that still had three more women in his grips.
But first, he needed Alex on his side. He needed for her to want to help him, instead of flipping him off and telling him to find someone else. Which was exactly what he deserved.
Determined to reconnect and put his plan into action, he yanked her lithe body up against his and ravished her with his mouth, pleased when she kissed him back with equal fervor.
But soon that wasn’t enough. He needed…more.
With every bit of clothing he removed from her body, he knew the deeper he was getting himself in this. Touching her reminded him of the exact reasons he’d run. She felt too good…too real…too dangerous. But there was no turning back now, not with lives on the line.
He lived his life in the shadows. He’d spent so much time pretending to be other people to catch criminals, he couldn’t even remember the man he was meant to be. Until Alex. And that rich sensation of home that she pulled out of him would not wait. He wanted her. Every goddamn perfect inch of her.
With each kiss, her mouth molded to his. Her body bent to his will, reacting to every one of his touches, urging him on like a drug he couldn’t get enough of. He wanted her like he hadn’t wanted anything for a long time. She tasted sweet and yet sinful, and he ached to drink her in. Every brush of her lips, swirl of her tongue, only made him thirstier. She held his T-shirt tight, yanking him closer, until she removed his shirt and then pushed him away a moment with a gasp.
He met her lust-filled eyes, and his cock pressed painfully against the zipper of his jeans. “Still so dangerously sexy, I see,” he told her huskily.
She licked her lips. “Likewise, Hawke.”
His muscles felt rigid beneath his skin as he scanned over her creamy flesh to her black lace bra covering a perfect handful of breasts.
“Don’t get any ideas about this,” she said, drawing his focus back to her face. She kicked off her red high heels. “We’ve got tonight, then you forget me again.”
That seemed to be their thing. When someone saw the darkness that lurked beneath people’s skin, that’s all they saw. Trust came hard after that. “I’ll take tonight.” He stalked toward her. His target. “But you won’t get any agreement from me that I won’t want more or that I’ll forget you.”
When he reached her, he grasped her hip. She gasped when he yanked her against him, her face flushing beautifully. He pinned her arms behind her, dropping his head into her neck, inhaling the sweetness of her flowery perfume. He kissed at her flesh roughly, encouraged by the unleashed moan she gave. Hot and hard and ready to give them both a release, he backed her up against the wall. She draped her leg across his thigh, and he took that as an invitation. He ground his throbbing cock against the juncti
on between her thighs, moving his mouth to hers again. Then he devoured her.
Every moan, he drank in.
Each one of her shivers, he owned.
Desperate to have her, he leaned away to drag his fingers over the curve of her breasts and damn near salivated. “Exquisite,” he murmured.
“No, Hawke,” she said, and he lifted his gaze up to her smoldering eyes as she took his hand and placed it between her thighs. “In case you forgot, here is where I’m really exquisite.”
He felt her heat through the denim, and he grinned at the challenge, not minding a little power play between them. He could always give the illusion of control, knowing in the end, he’d always get it back. He flicked the button of her jeans open then yanked them down to below her ass. With his free hand, he slid his fingers into the soft strands of her hair, until he held her tight, right where he wanted her. When he fisted his fingers, her hooded eyes met his. Only then did he slide his other hand into the front of her panties. He met trimmed pubic hair and a soaking wet sex. “I’ve never forgotten, Alex. Not a single thing.” Her taste, her smell, how beautiful she looked when she fell apart, all of it had remained cemented in his mind. He stroked the silkiness of her folds, bringing her arousal to her clit where he circled the bud.