ARROGANT BRIT (A BRITISH BAD BOY ROMANCE) (68 page)

He
grinned wolfishly. It made my heart flutter. “I’m supposed to be locked up in
this apartment with Detective Hard-ass. Don’t you think packing condoms would
have been a little presumptuous?” he answered.

“I
assumed being presumptuous was part of your core nature,” I replied, letting
out a little laugh and looking away from his impossibly sexy cock, still rock
hard and ready to please. Why couldn’t I just have it once—just this one time?

Nathan
reached down, pulling me to my feet and straight up into his arms. It was a completely
different experience when compared to the way he’d pressed against me from
behind. Here in his arms, in his embrace, I felt safe.

“You
know, Sandra, maybe we can’t fuck, but there’s more to me than my cock,” he
whispered, licking his lips. I yelped in surprise as he picked me up off the
floor, cradling me in his strong arms and carrying me swiftly to his bed.

The
billowing sheets beneath my exposed flesh were like heaven on earth, and for a
moment, I was able to forget the smell and the disrepair around us. I was able
to ignore the shoddy apartment altogether and focus solely on what this
handsome and talented man was doing to me.

Nathan’s
hands glided over my body as he lay gentle kisses up my milky thighs. His mouth
was so soft, so tender, and even his little love bites made me coo as he
lightly inflicted them upon me in a hot, scintillating trail. Just as I thought
he might drive his lips right into my sensitive heat, he passed by it entirely,
instead sweeping up my stomach toward my tits.

“Oh,
God,” I gasped as he drew a nipple between his lips and flicked his tongue
across the tip. He suckled it lightly, laving it with his hot tongue before
bestowing upon it the softest of bites, scraping his teeth with utmost care
across the delicate nubbin. Then he pulled away to guide his hands up beneath
my large mounds, lavishing my other breast with the same tender, electrifying
sensations.

“Don’t
stop,” I begged him as he pulled away, kissing up to my neck. For a moment, he
was between my legs, his cock pressing hard against my thigh. I could feel him
throb with desire, each of his spasms sending ripples of desire through me. But
we couldn’t do this—not without protection.

“Relax,
Sandra,” Nathan whispered into my ear, planting a kiss on my neck that was so
tender it made me swoon. “I’m not going to fuck you. Not this time…”

This
time
. That implied this was more than just a one-off
fling. Did he see more in me than just an opportunity? Did he regard me as more
than just a warm, female body placed conveniently in the same living space?

More importantly, was I starting to feel the same way?

The
thought of letting Nathan plunge his enormous shaft deep inside me was almost
irresistible, but I fought the urge to capture him with my legs and drive him
into my wanting core. I kept myself from throwing him off me and riding him at
a gallop until exhaustion overtook us both. He rewarded my patience, slipping
downward again, kisses trailing across my chest and back toward my spot, my
throbbing and aching spot. I was desperate to feel his touch again.

His
mouth found its way over my bare, swollen mound, planting kisses across it
before dipping between my folds and letting his tongue run a soft line up to my
nub. I cried out loudly as I rode his silken tongue, letting him write love
letters in soft strokes that sent me higher than the sky.

I
shivered in ecstatic bliss as one of his fingers found its way inside me,
followed by a second, their thickness nowhere near big enough to fill the
yearning emptiness at my core. I wanted the real thing, wanted to feel his cock
burying into my depths, his bare skin inching into my own. Even so, I groaned
and bucked against his flickering tongue, letting his mouth drive me higher and
higher as he pumped his fingers into my quivering flesh.

Nathan
was moaning now, the vibrations rolling through me from head to toe. Every part
of my body was shuddering, another long and wonderful orgasm crashing over me.
Nothing could possibly feel this good. It was criminal for this man to be so
wealthy and so talented in the sack. I wanted to arrest him. I wanted to
handcuff him to my bed and never let him stop. I could keep him as my own
personal prisoner.

But he
didn’t stop. As the waves of my orgasm rolled and began to fade, he rotated his
wrist, bringing his fingertips against the front wall beneath my taut tummy.
Without a word, he curled them, running across something that shot a jolt of
renewed pleasure through my body. With a laugh and a smile, he attacked that
spot, every thrust of his fingers bringing me further into madness. I was drawn
into oblivion, the feelings so warm and rapturous that I could only call this
place heaven. I lost all semblance of control as I gave myself to the
sensation.

In that
moment, Nathan had me… Body, heart, and soul.

CHAPTER SIX

I
hadn’t fooled
around like this since I was a teenager. The bed was a wreck, my skin singing
with joy at the caress of the wonderful cotton beneath me. No wonder Nathan
brought these sheets. They probably cost more than I spent on my entire bedroom
set at home, but I didn’t care. I wanted to spend the rest of my life wrapped
in this stuff, living in this dirty little apartment with the billionaire who
had brought me such unfathomable bliss.

I
glanced over at Nathan. He was quiet, his chest rising and falling slowly. We’d
spent most of the morning right here doing everything
except
fucking. I’d worn the man out, and truth be told, he wasn’t
the only one who was exhausted. Even now I had slipped a finger between my
thighs, just remembering all the wonderful things his tongue had done to me.

But it was no use. I couldn’t conjure the same
sensations that Nathan had inflicted upon me only a few hours ago. I sighed in
frustration, looking over at him once again. “This isn’t fair, you know,” I
murmured, knowing he couldn’t hear me.

No man deserved
to be this good in bed - especially not one born into an unholy pile of money
and such a god-awful handsome face. In the past, our sexual encounters were
fast and furious, but the last few hours had been completely different.
Nathaniel Hale hadn’t fucked me. We had made love…

Ordinarily,
I’d have felt lucky to land him, but a little voice in the back of my head kept
asking if maybe this was only happening because we were stuck together.

I shook
the voice out again, ignoring it. Nathan made me feel things no man ever had.
If he was using me, well, I was happy to use him right back. Maybe this would
last a week, maybe it would last longer, but right about now, I didn’t care.
Our futures were uncertain in more ways than one.

And that meant I was going to need to do a little
shopping.

Nathan
was going to stay put, but I could slip out for a few minutes to pick up some
supplies. Besides, I was starving. I climbed out of bed, and a few minutes
later I was presentable enough to hit the corner store. I smiled at myself in
the mirror, barely even recognizing the sparkling eyes staring back. It had
been awhile since I was this happy.

It was a strange feeling—happiness. It was something
I’d denied myself for what felt like forever, just another self-inflicted
punishment in the wake of my Jenny’s death. That was the thing about loss:
instinctively, we all wanted to hold someone or something responsible. There
had to be accountability. It was an intrinsic part of the human grieving
process. Nobody ever wanted to hear, “accidents happen,” because then it meant
there was no one to blame.

You had to direct all those feelings somewhere. All
that anger and anguish and rage—you had to let it out. Unfortunately for me, I
was the only one who could bear that burden, and at the time, I’d thought I
deserved it.

What had changed? How could a night with Nathaniel
Hale absolved me of the guilt I’d carried?

On the
way down the hall, a man inside one of the rooms watched me pass through an
open door. I recognized the rookie immediately, and gave him a little nod.

“Babysit
him for a few minutes,” I said quietly. He stepped out into the hall, shutting
the door behind him. “I’ll be back in fifteen. Going to grab some breakfast and
a few supplies.”

The
rookie nodded as I walked past him. He wasn’t about to question a detective,
and that was all the better for me, because Captain Pierce probably wouldn’t
appreciate my little store run.

It
didn’t take long to reach the ground floor, and although the shitty little
Honda wasn’t much to look at, it was comfortable enough on the drive up the
street. I flipped on the radio, letting a little music fill the cabin. Its
helped me clear my head.

“What
are you doing, Sandra?” I asked myself, gripping the steering wheel a little
harder. Sure, it was fun to mix a little business and pleasure, but I’d worked
damn hard to make detective. It had taken years before the men around me gave
even the smallest amount of respect. Was I really going to risk that for another
ride on this man’s billion dollar dick? What would they say if they found out
Detective Williams had slept with a witness?

My own
self-doubt wasn’t stopping me from grabbing the biggest box of condoms from
inside the glass case at the supermarket.

I
finished my little shopping trip with a few bags’ worth of groceries. We now had
all the fixings for a few days of properly good breakfast, a handful of quick
microwaveable dinners, and plenty of bread and lunch meat. I would have loved
to do more, but this wasn’t going on the police budget, and first year
detectives aren’t exactly rolling in the dough.

I was
on my way up the stairs to the room with the heavy bags straining my arms and
digging into my fingers when I realized something was wrong. The rookie wasn’t
in the hall where I’d left him, and he didn’t respond when I rapped quietly on
his door.

Fuck.

I lay
the bags down on the floor, pulling my gun from the ankle holster beneath my
jeans. I’d only been gone twenty minutes. Twenty-five, at most. I stepped up to
a window along the hall that was streaming light into the cramped space with
the row of apartment doors. Out on the grounds, I could still see a few of
Nathan’s security team, but that was no guarantee that someone hadn’t slipped
by.

I did
the only thing I could do. I burst into a run, barreling down the hall toward
the farthest door. There was only one job I was supposed to be doing, and I’d
went and screwed it all up for some grub and a lousy pack of condoms.

As I
came to the door, I saw it was slightly ajar. I kicked it in as I swept the gun
across the room, immediately feeling embarrassed as the rookie and Nathan both
sat quietly on the little couch with their hands in the air.

“What
are you doing in here?” I asked the rookie, about ready to strangle him for
scaring me like that.

“Sorry,
detective. I had to report to Captain Pierce that you’d stepped out. He said we
have a credible threat on Nathaniel Hale’s life and asked me to move rooms until
the threat was over.”

“There’s
no room in here!” I protested, glancing from the rookie to Nathan.

“Don’t
worry, I’ll make do with the floor. Captain says it should be safe to leave you
two alone in a few days. Three days, tops.”

I
couldn’t believe what I was hearing. As I stepped back into the hall and went
back to retrieve my grocery bags, there was a definite feeling of contempt
rolling through me. Captain Pierce had it out for me, and he’d been
orchestrating this whole thing as a way to embarrass and harass me. I should
have seen it coming. I should have seen past the heartfelt speech he’d given
me, past the mock attempt he’d made to get me to say “no.” It had all been a
lie, every last word of it. I wasn’t held in any higher esteem now than when
I’d joined the damn force as a wet-behind-the-ears rookie.

And
now, what little enjoyment I was getting out of it was going to be ruined by
some stupid kid just out of the academy sharing a few hundred square feet of
living space.

“Fuck,”
I whispered as I lifted the bags and started back toward the room. Maybe it
wasn’t so bad. The angel on my shoulder was telling me shacking up with Nathan again
was a bad idea. And the devil on my other shoulder? Well… she was telling me we
could make it a few days and still get what we wanted.

That happy thought didn’t make the time pass any
quicker.

The
next few days were impossibly dull. The three of us made do, sharing the couch
and watching what few channels the antenna on our shitty little television
could pick up. In the meantime, I took shifts with the rookie, keeping an eye on
the grounds. Nothing changed except for my discomfort. The kid was a snorer,
and his proximity to my couch made bedtime a real bitch. Thankfully, Nathan had
a spare set of expensive earplugs in his bag-of-many-tricks, and by the end of
day three, things had improved from a hellish nightmare to marginally
tolerable.

I went
to bed as usual, sprawling out on the couch and shooting one final glance over
at Nathan. He was watching me, a smile plastered across his handsome face.
“Soon,” I mouthed, smiling back as he gave me a little nod.

I
shoved the plugs in my ears, drowning out the buzz-saw laying on our floor, and
in no time at all, sleep found me.