Tempted by a Dangerous Man (15 page)

A blur exploded in my peripheral vision, and then Henry was gone.
 

Corbin was in front of me now, and Henry was still reeling. I guessed that Corbin hadn’t hit him, had only shoved him hard. Corbin angled his head back at me, the cowboy hat low over his eyes. “You all right?”

I nodded. “Go,” I said.

The look in his eyes said he’d be damned before he left me alone with Henry.
 

“What the fuck, man,” Henry said, though there was a tremor in his voice. “No one needs your help.”

“Shut up, Henry,” I hissed, worried that Corbin would lose his cool and do something regrettable.

“Sounded to me like you were threatening her,” Corbin said. While his voice was calm, I felt the undercurrent of danger. It stirred along my skin, raising goosebumps.
 

“It’s fine.” I desperately wanted to put an end to this before things took an even worse turn. Like Henry getting a good look at the man who had shoved him across the parking garage. Or Corbin deciding to demonstrate his talents.

Though at the moment, only one of those things felt like a true tragedy.

Henry was coming closer. “You don’t know who I am, buddy, but unless you want trouble, you walk away.” His voice rang out in the garage.
 

“I don’t care if you’re the pope.” Corbin spoke clearly and with authority. “She told you to move away. If you come any closer, I’m going to give you the lesson in manners that you so richly deserve.” His hands curled into fists. “Get on, now.”

But Henry took another step. I grabbed onto Corbin’s arm, realized how fucking
huge
his biceps were. “Please don’t,” I pleaded.

Corbin’s hand settled over mine, and I thought I had gotten through, that this was over. But then Henry came at him, fast, and Corbin put himself between me and Henry. He swung his fist.

Henry dodged. The jerk was fast, though not quite fast enough. Corbin’s blow glanced off his chin, and his head snapped back. Henry staggered, shook his head.

“I’m going to fucking kill you, you piece of shit!” he roared. He went for something at his ankle.
 

“Stop, both of you!” I screamed.
 

Henry came out with a gun.
 

“Get away,” Corbin said to me, never taking his eyes off Henry.

Henry eased off the safety. “I told you not to fuck with me.”

“There are four video cameras recording this,” Corbin said. “You shoot me, I die. But you go to prison. You have friends in prison?”

Henry would only have enemies in prison. Men he’d arrested who would be eager to settle the score. Henry’s eyes darted up, looking for the cameras, and Corbin flashed across the space separating them.

He should have pushed Henry’s arm to the right, but instead he brought it up and left—away from me, but endangering himself. Henry threw a left hook, but Corbin easily dodged his fist.
 

The cowboy hat got knocked off.

My heart pounded in my throat. Maybe Henry wouldn’t recognize him. The light in the garage was spotty at best, and he was surely too busy wrestling to take a moment to stare into Corbin’s face.

“Can’t be,” Henry hissed. “Lagos?” The glee in his voice made me sick.
 

There was a sharp crack, a sickening sound, then the gun dropped to the ground. Henry sagged.

Corbin gently dragged him toward the hospital doors.
 

“What did you do?”

“Broke his arm. He’s in shock, that’s all.” From the way he said it, I could tell he wasn’t very impressed with Henry’s constitution.
 

I hurried and grabbed the gun, flicked the safety back on. I collected Corbin’s hat, too. I ran after Corbin and dropped the hat on his head as he deposited Henry on a chair. I tugged up Henry’s pant leg and shoved his gun into the ankle holster.

A passing orderly came to a squeaky-sneakered stop. “This is dialysis. You gotta take your friend to the emergency room,” he said, indicating a direction with his clipboard.

Corbin turned and walked away.

“Hey!” the orderly called out.

“We found him passed out in the garage,” I said. “Think he’s got a broken arm.” I touched Henry’s neck, just to be sure he wasn’t dead, then I ran after Corbin, my mind churning.
 

Corbin was backing out of the parking space. He stopped to let me in.

“Now what?”
 

“Now you disappear.” A muscle in his jaw twitched.

“I… can’t. My dad. If he weren’t sick, that would be different. But I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if Rob needed me and I wasn’t there. Running isn’t an option.”

He looked at me as he pulled into the street. “I have to leave tonight, Audrey. I can’t put it off any longer. I really can’t, or I would. And I won’t be back for a month.”

“I know.”

Corbin’s eyes flickered with grief. “Which means I can’t protect you. I can call in favors to hide you somewhere safe, but this mess with Henry…” He swore, ran his fingers through his hair. “God, I wish I could squeeze out one more day with you.”

A chill settled over me. “As soon as my dad is fine, I’ll lie low. You do realize that I managed my life without too many problems before I met you?”

“Do you really think Henry will just give up?”

“I didn’t plan on asking his opinion. Let him look for me. I know Henry’s tricks, and I know his blind spots. I’d be a pathetic bounty hunter if I didn’t.” I crossed my arms. “Done talking about this.”

“Stubborn.”

“Guess I am.”
 

To my surprise, Corbin smiled. “I’m going to hire someone to pack and move your apartment,” he said, speaking louder to drown out my protests. “I’m not budging on that. If you won’t accept me putting you up, will you at least stay with Rob?”

“Yeah.” Though it was going to put a serious crimp in Rob’s style. “See, we compromised.”

He sighed, then straightened. “Where’s the closest hotel? I have to take a nap before I head out.”

A pang of guilt dug into me. Corbin hadn’t slept at all and might not have a chance to for some time.

~~~

Corbin stared at the motor lodge. “You have got to be joking.”

I glanced up at the flickering neon sign. Half of the letters in “vacancy” looked like they’d been smashed with a rock. “Not all of us have our defaults set to luxury,” I said.

He slanted a look my way. “But all of us should. I’ve half a mind to fuck you right here.”

That surprised me because I would have expected sleep to be foremost on his mind. “Not in the daylight, you won’t.” I got out. Screwing in a seedy motel after the unapologetic excess of the last few days actually felt fitting for me. Deep down, we were two kinky, horny perverts.
 

 
“Complete with a rusted-out soda machine and a clerk who barely looked at us,” Corbin said as he unlocked the door to the room. “I’m taking bets on a chalk outline on the floor.”

We walked inside. Corbin shut the door, locked it, made a show of putting on the rusting, pointless chain. I expected him to grab me, but instead he went to the bed and ripped the comforter away. “That’s a crime scene right there,” he said.

“Never realized you were so prissy.” The mere fact of being behind a closed door with him, knowing these would be our last moments together for a month, was more than enough foreplay for me.

And God knew I didn’t want to think about anything that had happened in the last few hours.

I shucked off my outerwear, including my boots.

“Oh, I’m very prissy,” Corbin said, head lowered as he stalked toward me. He’d thrown his coat onto a chair, and the T-shirt he wore clung to his thick muscles.
 

He grabbed me under my knees and behind my shoulders and carried me to the bed.
 

In another room, a woman’s voice rose in a lustful crescendo. Tawdry, but it made me even hotter. My hands shook as I unzipped my pants and worked them down.
 

Corbin seized the bottoms and pulled them off, flinging them to the side. He leaned down, grabbed up my panties and peeled them off me with one smooth motion.

“Goddamn,” he said. “How am I going to survive without getting to lick and fuck you every day?” He pressed my thighs apart and stared down at me. Those blue-green eyes ticked up toward mine. “Touch yourself.”

Smiling, I walked my fingers down from my stomach, then lightly pressed one on my clit. My slit and folds were so drenched that the little nub slipped under my touch.

I dipped my finger lower, drew it back up, rubbed the wetness all over me.
 

Corbin pulled up his tee, the ridges in his abdomen and chest flexing as he dragged the shirt over his head. How was it possible for anyone to be so fucking hot?
 

He tossed his shirt, and it landed on a lampshade. That made me giggle. “Can you feel the cooties crawling on your clothes?”

Not in the mood for banter, Corbin came onto the bed on one knee, his other leg still on the floor. He loomed over me, the weight of his thick upper body balanced on one locked arm.

His other hand settled over mine. “You’re not very good at masturbating,” he said. “Not only aren’t you moaning and wiggling all over the bed, you’re not even properly distracted. Let me show you how it’s done.”
 

He increased the pressure on my hand, dwarfing my fingers as he forced them harder onto my sex. “Like this,” he said in a low growl as he took up an oblique pattern that had me arching up and gasping. “You’re so beautiful.”

My eyes fluttered closed so I wouldn’t have to see his reaction to my blush. The emotion that welled up in me surely came from the intensity and length of time we had spent together combined with knowing that I would have to struggle through without him. Because it sure wasn’t the romantic setting.

“Corbin,” I gasped. I rarely said his name during sex, and I knew that it wasn’t just sex right now. Making love. Corbin and I had a conversation through the spanking and the rough play. We had become so attuned to each other that I couldn’t imagine him not being in my life.

Couldn’t even understand how I had survived so many years before him.

And I didn’t want to lose him, but my stupid brain was aching for something more than the way our bodies fit together.
 

I shoved the back of my hand into my mouth.
 

Corbin moved my hand away. “Look at me, baby.”

I did. He was so gorgeous, so perfect, that I was suddenly overwhelmed. I had long ago given up trying to pretend that I was playing with myself, but Corbin still moved my hand under his, teasing me, giving me pleasure.

“When I’m gone, I want you to touch yourself like this, ok? That’s why I want you to look. So you remember.”

His arm flexed, and he lowered toward me. When he tasted my mouth, it was slow and exploratory, like our first kiss. He grazed the curve of my lower lip, then played his tongue between my lips as they parted for him.
 

His mouth closed over mine, so protective, so territorial, and his tongue swept deeper into my mouth, stroking all the right places, sometimes thrusting, sometimes gently touching.

I was so close to orgasm, but I didn’t want to come; I was barely hanging on as it was, and I knew I would fly apart into a zillion pieces. But my hips rose. My body knew where to find what it wanted, and Corbin forced one of my fingers deep into my tight channel.

Then one of his fingers joined it but went much deeper. My pussy clamped around them as Corbin’s thumb stroked back and forth over my clit in a dancing, teasing touch that had me straining toward him.

“Come for me. Feel what I feel when you squeeze me,” he whispered into my mouth. I felt him smiling between the words, and then his tongue swept deep, claiming me with a ferocity that I couldn’t resist.

My gasping cry turned into a series of whimpers, growing in volume as my body rocked. Corbin’s hand moved faster. I had
never
masturbated like this. Hadn’t ever actually fucked myself. It was loud and wet and felt so amazingly good.

And when my pussy squeezed around our fingers, I felt it, a desperate, rhythmic tugging, a gush of silky warmth.
 

Corbin slowed and stopped, but he left his finger inside me for a moment. He ended our kiss with a gentle nip on my lips, then he pulled back to stare into my eyes.
 

He wasn’t always the most readable man, but at that moment I truly had no idea what he was thinking. And even though I still had on my shirt and he still wore jeans, it felt like we were naked, though I couldn’t explain exactly why.
 

Then his gaze dropped away. He pulled his hand free and straightened. While he disposed of his jeans and underwear, I wriggled out of my shirt and bra, then crossed my arms over my chest.

Corbin hooked his forearms under my knees, pulled me close and dipped low to lick my sopping pussy. I shivered underneath him, still sensitive from my orgasm.
 

He took just a taste, though, then positioned himself between my legs. His eyes stared into mine with that same unreadable expression as he rocked into me.

I gasped when our bodies were pressed together. The feeling of his thick cock spreading me open sent my pulse skyrocketing. I squeezed my inner muscles, and Corbin groaned, his face tightening, his brow furrowing.
 

“So damned good,” he said, the words more growled than spoken. He leveraged his hands under my buttocks, kneaded and squeezed them.

One of his arms swept under my shoulders, and he turned over, flipping me with him.

I stared down at him in surprise, then pushed against his hard chest, sliding deeper on his massive pole.

Corbin’s hands came up to cup my breasts, his touch now rough, hungry. He squeezed my nipples until I gasped, then squeezed harder, pulling me down toward him until my back was arched, my breasts thrust out, my hips and thighs spread wide.

Rocking without increasing the tug on my nipples wasn’t easy, but I gave it my best try.

Corbin groaned in pleasure, then he thrust up a little, bringing us both off the bed. I had to arch my back even more, and I leaned forward like I was sitting astride a sports motorcycle. “Hold yourself up there, baby,” he said.