Carrie Alexander - Sinfully Sweet

A self-conscious warmth crept over her. She was no more a pretty sight than he. Her makeup was smeared, her shorn hair was plastered to her head, her carefully chosen outfit was a total mess—

And she was wearing a stretchy pink Lycra panty girdle.

Oh, hell.

“I have my ways,” Devlin said.

She narrowed her eyes. “Criminal ways.”

His face hovered over hers in the dark. Close enough for her to see that despite his condition, his grin was as impudent as ever. “You’ve followed my career.”

“Hardly. But I got an earful at the reunion.”

“Was that tonight?” He angled his head, looking down at her cleavage, which the underwire bra had pushed into the unbuttoned vee of her blouse and halfway toward her chin. The pearl necklace was tossed to one side, following the curve of her breast. “Is that why you’re all dressed up?”

Exasperating. She rolled her eyes upward and stared at the ceiling through wet, clumpy lashes. “Are you ever going to let me up?”

The timbre of his voice dropped an octave. A helluva sexy octave. “I’m considering it.”

“Decide fast,” she said through her teeth. “Before I start screaming again.” Now that her terror was gone—most of it, anyway—the sheer bulk of him was starting to affect her. He was heavy, hard and thoroughly muscled. She still couldn’t draw an even breath. Every time she tried, her breasts swelled, the tips rubbing against the open zipper of his leather jacket. If he didn’t let go soon, any screaming she did was going to be in ecstasy.

Thunder rumbled. “You’ve done enough of that,” he said, and she hoped he wasn’t able to read her thoughts. “I’ll be lucky if you didn’t alert the entire block.”

“What did you expect? Have you never heard of walking up to a person and saying hello?”

His eyes glowed an otherworldly green in the sudden flash of lightning. “I told you—there wasn’t time.”

She turned her head aside, unable to reason under his blatant scrutiny. “I don’t understand.”

“Mackenzie…” He sounded regretful. “I wouldn’t be here if I’d had any other choice.” He lifted his head, listening. Soft, surreptitious sounds came from outside.

He released her arms and stealthily levered himself off her, pausing to stroke two fingertips over her mouth. “Shh.”

There was a metallic clatter. Sounded like a garbage can lid to Mackenzie. Cats, she thought. Or rats.

Devlin was holding himself very still above her. She compressed her tingling lips, waiting. Rain pelted the windowpane. A truck drove by on the street out front, its engine grinding. Her heartbeat hammered. Distant honking and gleeful shouts from the neighborhood’s night people brought the outside world into their tense little cocoon.

She rose to her elbows. “Don’t move,” Devlin whispered. He stood and crossed to the window, as silent and skulking as a cat. The shade was up, the drapes open. He slithered to one side and peered outside, then slowly drew the curtains shut.

“See anything?” she asked when he remained by the window, watching from the side. Finally he reached past the curtains and closed the blind with a snap.

“No.” But his face was drawn into a worried frown.

She sat up on the edge of the bed and rearranged her rumpled clothing. One of her shoes had come off in the chase. Two buttons had popped off her silk blouse and the sleeves of the short fitted jacket that matched her skirt had been torn at the seams. Her blouse hung loose, concealing her bulging waist, so she pulled off the jacket and folded it meticulously before she set it aside.

She looked up and saw Devlin watching her, his head cocked. “I’m nervous,” she said, feeling defensive. Anxiety tended to turn her into a fuss-budget. After the divorce, her teenage bedrooms had always been surgically neat.

He shrugged. “Listen, I know this seems crazy, but you have to trust me—”

A loud bzzzz silenced him. The intercom buzzer at her front door had gone off.

Devlin cursed a single epithet.

She winced at the harsh word. Not that she didn’t hear it every day out on the street a thousand times over—just never in her bedroom. And how telling was that? she wondered. Her sex life was drab and unexciting, exactly like her last relationship. But now was not the time to worry over it!

“Don’t answer that,” Devlin said when the buzzer rang again in a loud, annoying blat.

After a couple of seconds, she heard the faint buzz at her neighbor’s door. Her bedroom shared a wall with Blair Boback’s living room. “They’re trying all the apartments.”

“Damn.” Devlin grabbed Mackenzie’s arm and towed her to the front door, heedless that she’d lost a shoe and was staggering crookedly. He stepped over her upended purse and listened at the door, then looked through the peephole. Abruptly, he drew back. Though he didn’t change expression or tense up, she sensed the freeze in him.

The lobby door clanged open and shut. “One of the other tenants buzzed them through,” she guessed. A large part of her was frightened more by Devlin than the interlopers who’d just gained access to the building. They could be harmless. Devlin was…not.

He squinted at her, his left eye practically swollen shut. A blue shadow ringed it. “Them?”

“Them. Him. Her.” She tried to act defiant. “It could be the entire roster of the New York Jets, for all I know.”

Her doorbell ding-donged. She jumped. He tightened his fingers, digging them into the fleshy part of her arm as he put his mouth to her ear. “Don’t answer.”

“But…”

Bam, bam, bam. They were pounding at her door, so forcefully the hinges rattled.

She shoved her damp bangs off her face with the back of one wrist. “Let me look,” she whispered.

Devlin shook his head.

“Is someone after you?”

“Shh. I’m listening.”

The uninvited visitors had moved to the next apartment. Mackenzie pressed her ear to the door. Low rumbles interspersed with a higher-pitched, and increasingly excited, response. “My neighbor,” she said, so worried she had to resist smoothing wrinkles from Devlin’s creased leather jacket. Her fingers itched to smooth his hair. “Blair Boback.”

Devlin’s face was grim. “I hope she’s smart enough not to let them into her apartment.”

Mackenzie smiled mirthlessly. “Oh, yeah. Blair’s street savvy.”

They heard Blair’s door close. Devlin watched through the peephole. “Going upstairs,” he said. “How many apartments in this building?”

“Only eight.”

He released a breath and leaned against the wall—big, dark, wet and punk-tough against her peach-and-cream-striped damask. “When they don’t find me upstairs, they’re going to come back to your door.” Again, Devlin swore. “They must have seen which building I went into.”

“They?”

He didn’t answer.

“They might be canvassing the entire street.”

“Maybe.” He paused. “Here’s what I want you to do. Open the door, chain on, when they come back. They ask about me, you say you know nothing and shut the door. Be convincing.” He gave her the hard look again, his fingers squeezing her arm like barbecue tongs. “Very convincing.”

She spoke tentatively. “What if I don’t want to—”

He was fast. Before she could blink, he was standing directly in front of her, both hands on her now, dragging her close against his chest. He glared, their faces inches apart. His jaw was clenched, his nostrils flared. It wouldn’t be a shock if he snorted and pawed the ground like a bull. The move was supposed to be intimidating—and it was—but the greater threat was the way he made her feel.

Alive. Scared, but so incredibly alive. Her heart was pounding, her blood racing. She was sharply aware of every pleasure point on her body. The distant yearning she was so familiar with had become a strange and potent hunger….