Risking It All: The Proposition / The Dare / The Favour / The P.I. / The Cop / The Defender - Cara Summers

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down his body and took him into her mouth. He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. He was drowning in her. Everything he was became centered on the sensations she brought him—the movement of that soft, hot mouth, the sharp press of her fingernails as she kneaded them into his backside.

      He’d never felt a pleasure so intense. He wanted it to go on forever. But he wanted to be inside of her when he came. The struggle between those two desires was brief and vicious. But he finally found the strength to free himself. He knelt with her on the floor of the shower.

      Water sluiced over them. Her wet hair clung to her forehead in jagged wisps, making her look different once again. The thought had barely entered his head, when she drew his ear to her mouth again.

      “I’m a stranger you’ve just met. You don’t even know my name.” Her quick, wicked laugh only punched up the heat that was boiling inside of him.

      “We have no history, no future, no expectations. You just know that you want me. You do want me, don’t you, Chance?”

      Later he would wonder if it was her use of that name that pushed him to the edge. He didn’t know exactly who she was. When he looked into her eyes, all he saw was himself, trapped. All he was certain of was that he needed her with a desperation that threatened to slice him in two.

      She smiled, but it wasn’t Rachel’s smile this time. Nor was it Calli’s. “I want you. Now.”

      Chance was sure that he heard something inside of him snap as he dragged her to him.

      HIS MOUTH crushed hers. The kiss wasn’t loverlike. It was hard, demanding, and Natalie reveled in the onslaught of sensations sprinting through her. This was what she’d wanted, the mindless passion that only he could bring her. She could almost feel the barriers crumbling inside of her. He made her so aware of herself, so free.

      No other man had ever made her feel this way. It was forbidden. It was delightful.

      Even as his mouth devoured her, his fast, clever hands were everywhere, molding, pressing, possessing. Pleasure, hot spiky arrows of it, pierced her at every contact point.

      When he drew back, she was trembling. Then he dragged her close again. “You’re mine.” His voice was a harsh whisper in her ear. “Mine.”

      Mine. The word echoed in her head as his mouth returned to hers. She’d wanted this madness, craved it from the moment she’d opened the door and seen him standing there. Now, he gave her no time to think, to breathe—no time to orient herself or anticipate. He ran his hand up her thigh and slipped two fingers into her, and her hips bucked to meet his touch. When he began to move his hand, her body moved with him, her muscles bunching, straining until her release, hot and hard, rocked her system. Only then did he drag her beneath him and drive himself into her on the floor of the shower.

      “Look at me.”

      Shuddering, breathless, she opened her eyes to him. Water poured down, but even through the mists, she could see his gaze—dark and fixed on hers. Her vision and her body were filled with him. Her whole world had narrowed to him. There was nothing that she would have refused him.

      “Say my name,” he said.

      For a split second, she hesitated, trying to clear her mind enough to remember who she was supposed to be. But he’d stripped all of those women from her.

      Swearing, he withdrew and thrust into her again. “Say my name.”

      “Chance,” she said. And she knew that it was Natalie who’d said the word, Natalie who was giving herself to him.

      He nodded even as he began to move.

      Wrapping her legs and arms around him, she gave herself over to the ride.

       11

      WHEN NATALIE opened her eyes in the morning, she found herself staring at Chance’s sleeping face. Even as her mind readjusted to reality, recalling the job, the danger, the events of the night before, she kept studying him.

      In sleep, he looked different. There was a hint of vulnerability, a hint of the boy that was seldom there when he was awake. Both pulled at her, and she felt her heart take a slow tumble.

      Not good, she thought, as she pressed a fist against her chest. She was pretty sure the heart gymnastics thing had nothing to do with hot, sweaty sex or fantasies about what went on in Victorian brothels.

      Where had that one come from anyway? She’d never read a Victorian porn novel in her life. And she’d better remember that the Victorian scenario hadn’t been the only fantasy going down here. This whole thing she was playing out with Chance was a fantasy. He didn’t even know she was here. He thought he was with Rachel and Calli. He certainly had no idea that the woman who’d given herself to him in the shower and all last night had been Natalie.

      Suddenly, she frowned. No, she hadn’t given herself to Chance. The word give was too closely associated with the heart acrobatics. And Natalie Gibbs was much too smart to give her heart to anyone. Maybe Calli was that type. As for Rachel, well, Natalie hoped that any cousin of hers would be wiser than that. But at least Natalie knew the kind of heartbreak that came when you allowed yourself to take that long fast fall into love. She’d seen what could happen up close and personal. Love had left her parents pining for something they could never have. And love for her dead husband had killed her mother.

      No. She was not going to even think about the L word. L-O-V-E was not in her vocabulary. But as she lay there staring at him, she felt the little flutter near her heart begin again. Panic bubbled up. She had to get away from him to think.

      After easing herself off the bed, she tiptoed backward to the closet, grabbed shorts, sandals and a shirt, then slipped as quietly as she could from the room.

      SHE WAS GONE. Chance stood in the bathroom and struggled to keep panic at bay. When he’d woken up in an empty bed, he’d assumed she was in the bathroom. Their clothes were still lying where they’d dropped them, and her damn scent was still there. But there was no sign of Natalie. After moving out onto the balcony, he let his gaze sweep the grounds below. Relief streamed through him when he spotted her hurrying off in the direction of the beach.

      Relief was pushed out by anger as he moved back into the bedroom for his clothes. What in the hell was she doing going off by herself? He dragged on trousers and pulled a shirt off of a hanger. They had roles to play, a job to do.

      The next emotion to sweep over him was guilt. He should be lecturing himself on that score. Obviously, she was upset by what had happened between them during the night. Facing himself in the mirror, he tucked in the shirt and slipped into shoes. He could see the reflection of the bathroom door and the shower beyond. What had happened in there and later when he’d carried her into the bedroom had nothing to do with the masquerade they were involved in—or the job. He’d let his hormones take over.

      No, that wasn’t the whole truth. Placing his hands on the dresser, Chance leaned forward and met the eyes of the man staring back at him. Self-deception was not something that he’d ever let himself indulge in. It hadn’t been merely hormones that had made him leave the poker game early. It had been feelings—feelings that he couldn’t name, let alone sort out.

      And he’d been swamped by feelings again in the shower. Calli, Rachel, Natalie—all three of them had gotten to him. But in the end it had been Natalie he’d made love to. Natalie he’d dragged to the floor. Natalie he’d demanded say his name. He was certain of that.

      What he wasn’t certain of was who Natalie had been making love to. Was it all role-playing for her? That was the question that he wanted to ask her, and it was not the question that should be foremost in his mind.

      It was the job that should have his undivided attention.

      Chance straightened and headed toward the bathroom. When he’d convinced Natalie to come with him to Brancotti’s estate,

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