I set the gym bag I was holding down on the hall table. The plastic rustled as I pulled out the box of photographs I’d watched her take out of her hiding place beneath the floorboards, night after night, when the rest of the house was asleep and she thought no one was watching.
I knew she kept her valuables there. Her laptop was no surprise, but the revolver was. And I knew that meant she’d been planning to kill Pierce long before I came onto the scene.
Elizabeth swallowed hard, and her eyes turned glassy. “Oh.” Her hand rose to clamp over her mouth and her hands were shaking when she took the box from me. I already knew how much it meant to her. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“I shoved some clothes in the bag. Not sure they’re quite what you would have chosen, I just grabbed what I could find.”
“No. Thank you. I understand. This is- How did you know?”
Suddenly she wasn’t mad with me any longer. I could see it in the way her shoulders softened and her stance shifted, no longer primed for defense and easy attack.
“Elizabeth, I’ve seen you go over those pictures a thousand times on your knees in the dark. I wasn’t going to leave them there to burn.”
Her posture shifted and she leaned against me, eyes still wet as she looked up at me, and I smoothed the salty trails away from her cheek with my thumb.
“What now?”
“Now life carries on. No going back.”
I saw her throat ripple as she swallowed, and she nodded, short and determined.
“Okay.”
“They’ll be looking for both of you. You’ll be presumed dead.”
“Will they find him?”
I tilted my head, grimacing a little. “I hope not. I have a record to maintain. I need to move him again, which can be risky.”
Elizabeth nodded. “I can help.”
“No. You don’t know what you’re doing. It’s a skilled job. A messy job.”
She let out a breath and I could hear all of her frustration in it. “Well I have to do something.”
“You will,” I told her. “We still need to make sure Sutherland’s notes don’t make it to press.”
“Oh – his computer. There was a receipt for luggage left at St Pancras Station.”
I raised a brow. It could have been something useful, but by now it was all quite literally up in smoke.
“I found a locker key.” She pulled it out of her pocket and dangled it in front of my face.
With a pleased growl, I snatched it off her. “I knew you were bloody perfect, as soon as I laid eyes on you.”
I stepped closer and she didn’t move back. Instead she wet her lips, tilting her jaw up and her hand settled onto my chest, squeezing at my pecs through my shirt.
“Did you really think that?”
My large, strong fingers circled her pearly throat and she leaned into my grip, smile curling in, even as I flexed and tightened my hold. “On my life I did, darling. I’ve never met a woman like you.”
The sound she let out, part mewl, part purr, went right to the core of me.. She made me feel like Superman, and with one touch I was definitely the man of steel. She had my cock hard enough to cut glass just by leaning up to brush her lips against mine.
Her teeth grazed against the dry skin of my lower lip, sending a fresh charge right through me. Ten thousand volts, it had to be to make my cock twitch the way it did. The voltage channeled through me broke the fuse. She flipped the switch and there wasn’t anything I couldn’t do
“Do that again,” I growled, low and hungry, “And I won’t be held responsible for my actions.”
Her eyes glinted with mischief, and her hand fitted over mine, easing my grasp from around her neck. Slowly, she ducked her head and slipped my thumb into her mouth, circling the broad, blunt end of it with her tongue, the small wet tip teasing over the pad of it where my fingerprints were.
I nearly came right then and there, watching the attention she lavished, eyes tracking mine with every overly explicit lap of her tongue. I had another, much larger mouthful for her, and she damn well knew it.
“Jesus, woman.”
There was no way she didn’t know what she was doing to me. The bulge at my crotch was hard up against her hip, and harder every second. All I could think about was her sweet lips closing around my throbbing cock instead and her clever, clever tongue mapping all over me. I was craving entry to whichever part of her body she allowed, but if she kept this up, manners be damned, I was going to take exactly what I wanted.
She drew off my thumb with a slick, solid pop and that was it. I was done for. With a growl, I hoisted her up and her thighs tightened around my sides, arms gripping around my shoulders as I pushed her back against the wall. Her hands drew my lips hard against hers and I plundered her mouth like I was sixteen again, and moments away from coming in my pants.