Ava Gray - Skin Game

“Feeding you.”

Her new partner was particular about what he put on his sandwich, she noted. Rey took his time selecting the bread, and he went with whole grain. He chose lean turkey, and the trimmings, lettuce and pickle. It reinforced what she’d already noticed about him—he was careful and he took his time with things, great attention to detail.

“Yeah, I figured that out. But why?”

“You’re starving by the time we finish for the night. I wanted you to have something more than ramen noodles or vending-machine junk. You have a high metabolism.”

So he’d noticed. That rocked her a little. Nobody had paid that much attention to her in years. Even her dad hadn’t. Since she was sixteen and she’d told him they needed to keep moving on, he had trusted her to make her own decisions.

“I do,” she acknowledged. Kyra took an enormous bite to cover her confusion. She chewed while contemplating his acuity. “How’d you transport all this stuff?”

“Carried it.” He dismissed her concern with a loft of one broad shoulder. “It’s only a mile and a half to the market from here. Don’t worry,” he added, “I took the food out of my part of the cut. Here’s yours.” He handed her a wad of bills across the table.

Kyra stuffed those in her bag, now on the floor at her feet. She didn’t bother to count the cash. If he’d wanted to cheat her, he would have done it by disappearing, not skimming five bucks off the top.

Her sandwich went down quickly, as he’d doubtless known it would. She felt less enthusiasm about the raw vegetables he lined up on her plate, but when he poured the wine, she decided it was a worthwhile compromise. Kyra nibbled on a stalk of celery, none too enthusiastic about its healthful benefits.

He’ll have me taking multivitamins before long.

“So after you left Lefty’s, you were just overcome with the desire to feed me?” Somehow she just couldn’t wrap her head around it.

“Altruism doesn’t ring your bell, huh?”

She quirked her mouth up in a half smile. “Not so much.”

“Brutal honesty it is, then. Remember how you said if we ever had sex again, I’d have to work for it?” Rey grinned and swept his hand toward the candles. “Consider this my first day on the job.”

Now there was a motive she could understand. He wanted something from her, and he’d hit on this as a possible way to get it. Kyra smiled back.

“It’s beautiful,” she said softly. “Who’d have thought a few votive candles could be put to such good use?” She felt compelled to warn him, though. “But you should know . . . I don’t really do romance. I mean, I’m not susceptible to it.”

For a long moment, Rey studied her in the flickering light. She felt as if his onyx eyes stripped away layers of skin, flesh, and bone to see into the parts of her she didn’t even examine too long. When he finally spoke, she shivered a little, freed from a spell that stole her secrets.

“How would you know?” he asked.

Another shudder worked through her. It was as if he could see down the years, and he knew she’d never lived anywhere long enough to have someone come to the door with flowers, not when it was real. Serrano didn’t count. Rey knew she’d never been taken to a fine restaurant by a man she esteemed and respected. And she’d never regretted her life, never regretted her choices.

But here in the vanilla-scented dark, she wondered for the first time what might have been. She didn’t like him for making her speculate. Her stomach cramped tight around the sandwich she’d inhaled.

“I just do.” She dismissed the strange, otherworldly moment when she’d felt like he knew her to her bones. “But you get points for trying. I’m weirdly flattered you’d go to the trouble since you’ve had me once already.”

“Three times,” he corrected in a soft, savage voice. “And it wasn’t enough.”

Her nerves fired to life, remembering that night. She’d never been with anyone who could be as rough as she wanted without actually hurting her, but Rey had carnal brutality down to a fine art, knowing where to press, how to hold, when to restrain. He used fingers and teeth with expert precision. Kyra squirmed in her seat, squeezing her thighs together.

She tried for a dismissive tone, not wanting him to see how badly he’d shaken her. “Sex is sex.”

“No.” He shook his head. “We had something else entirely, and you know it, too.”

“Something more than sex?” Kyra went caustic in self-defense. “With a guy I picked up—unwillingly, I might add—outside a cheap beer hut filled with yokels. I don’t think so.”

Leaning in, he asked, “Then how did I know to bite your inner thigh? How did I know you like to be subdued and taken from behind?”

Those memories sparked awareness between them. If she were honest, their night together had fueled her solitary fantasies more than once. But she wasn’t going to let herself be suckered into a two-person fantasy that ended in him getting what he wanted from her so easily. She’d said he would have to work for her, and she’d meant it.

Kyra shrugged. “Sometimes people share the same kinks. It’s pure serendipity when they meet.”

“I can see you’re going to be a challenge.”

“That makes it more fun, doesn’t it? You wouldn’t want me to just strip naked and lay down for you.”

His dark gaze slid to the bed as if imagining her there, spread out for him, and he gave a little groan that turned her on. “Wouldn’t I?”

“I think you’re a man who enjoys the chase.”

“More often than not,” he admitted. “I intended to seduce you in traditional ways, candlelight and flowers. I had a feeling you hadn’t seen much of that, but now I’m not sure what’ll get me what I want.”

“I’m certainly not going to tell you. That would take all the fun out of letting you figure it out yourself.”

“Will you give me a hint?” Rey smiled.

Kyra found herself staring at his mouth. The rest of his face was sharp, reflecting some lovely, arcane union of Hispanic and Native American features, but he had a lush, gorgeous mouth. In response, near smiling, she wanted to kiss him so badly that she had to curl her fingers around the armrest of the chair.

“I’d better not. You know too much about me already.” That was, without a doubt, the truest thing either of them had said since she got back. “I’m going to bed. Thanks for dinner. And . . . see you in the morning.”

Reyes reached for her before she could scamper to her room like a frightened rabbit. His grip wouldn’t hurt her, but neither would he permit her to escape. Not yet. He ran his thumb against the delicate skin on the inside of her wrist. She trembled.

There was a little surge, like that electricity from the first time, but it was faint and thready, almost nonexistent. He didn’t feel drained, just a little dizzy. That could almost come from her softness. Reyes hadn’t known until this moment how much he loved the scent of coconut.

His hard cock surged against his zipper. Painful, but tolerable. When she’d teased him with the mental image of her naked on the bed, he’d turned to stone from the waist down, just as she intended. Well, he didn’t intend to suffer alone.

“I think a good night kiss is in order, don’t you? It seems to fit the mood . . . and it’s in keeping with dinner.”

Her eyes looked huge in the candlelight. “Just one?”

“Absolutely.” He etched a cross over his heart, which would’ve been laughable if she knew anything about him.

Kyra tilted her face up, and her trust struck him in the solar plexus. Something was screwy. She didn’t act like the hard-edged, treacherous bitch depicted in Foster’s file. Maybe he should do a little more checking.